by Charli Carpenter | 31 Aug 2009 |
Last week's issue of the Economist included a glowing discussion of successful nation-building in the former Yugoslavia: Almost 20 years after political bonds were severed by war, day-to-day links between companies, professions and individuals are quietly being restored. This huge shift in the daily life of the western Balkans is happening without fanfare. Few people have even noticed it. Those within the sphere take it for granted. Those...
by Charli Carpenter | 30 Aug 2009 |
World leaders who recently met with him are being notified.
by Bill Petti | 29 Aug 2009 |
I am usually a fan of Charles Blow's work, but his latest op-ed seems to me a bit sloppy.Blow claims that one reason Democrats, and President Obama in particular, may be having trouble convincing the country to sign on to large-scale health care reform is due to the public's overall lack of trust in the government. This is a completely plausible hypothesis and one that I agree with, as the numbers regarding trust are incredibly low right now...
by Charli Carpenter | 29 Aug 2009 |
It is very, very significant that Lieutenant William Calley openly apologized for his behavior in the 1968 massacre of hundreds of civilians in a series of villages known as My Lai. Anyone who has read Joanna Bourke's account of the event, which included not just killings and looting but also rape and sexual mutilation of women and young girls, and the subsequent denials, excuses and justifications by the culprits will grasp the importance of...
by Bill Petti | 28 Aug 2009 |
Adam Elkus from Rethinking Security tweets about a recent critique of the current US strategy of strategic communication in the Muslim world. The critique was penned by non other than Admiral Mike Mullen, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen's contention is that efforts by the US to counter propaganda from Islamic militants is doomed to fail unless more attention is paid to the outcomes of US policies on the ground:“To put...
by Charli Carpenter | 28 Aug 2009 |
Maureen Dowd's op-ed Stung by the Perfect Sting rattled some cages in the blogosphere this week. Laura McKenna calling her a whiner, implying the post was really about her own bad blogger press. Tim Burke claiming she is dissing bloggers by failing to reference our own grand debates over anonymity. Danny being Danny Drezner accusing Dowd of comparing bloggers to muggers. The column seems widely interpreted as a slam against the new media. I was...
by Charli Carpenter | 27 Aug 2009 |
Yesterday Channel 4 in the UK aired the above video, allegedly recorded on a mobile phone and smuggled out of the country by human rights activists, apparently of Sinhalese soldiers massacring Tamil noncombatants earlier this year. The Sri Lankan government (naturally) argues it is a fabrication. Human Rights Watch's James Ross says "there is no way to tell if the footage is genuine," but argues that the release of the film underscores the need...
by Dan Nexon | 26 Aug 2009 |
I only met Ted Kennedy on a handful of occasions. The last time was at a party to mark the end of my father's twenty-two year history as one of the Senator's chief health-care policy advisers. My overwhelming impression of Kennedy's vicarious presence in my life was as a disembodied voice. Whenever I answered the phone to hear "this is Senator Kennedy, may I speak to your father?" it seemed as if everything in the house froze until my dad got...
by Bill Petti | 26 Aug 2009 |
Dan Drezner links to a recent article by Philip Tetlock on the difficult business of political forecasting. His evaluation of this troubled pastime is accomplished through the review of three recent books that all claim to provide a better way to see the future of politics. His own research (Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?, a fantastic book that you really should read) offers solid reasons to be skeptical of any...
by Charli Carpenter | 26 Aug 2009 |
I can't stand Keith Olbermann most of the time, but this bit last night - both a spoof of the health care debate and the proliferation of zombie references in political discourse lately - was too priceless to ignore:Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
by Charli Carpenter | 26 Aug 2009 |
Senator Kennedy is dead at 77.
by Charli Carpenter | 26 Aug 2009 |
Eric Randolph tells us why at Complex Terrain Lab in a post entitled "A New Kind of War Movie" : "The Hurt Locker has already garnered the epithet of ‘first great Iraq war movie’ since its US release back in June, but that might actually be an underestimation. For a start, it has an intensity that will leave your bowels twisted and your nails bleeding; and it’s made a star of a nobody in James Renner. But, more importantly, by side-stepping the...