Courtesy of Coming Anarchy's Curzon. Someday we'll get around to implementing a nice design for the Duck.

My daughter's sick and I'm pretty tired - from writing and reading - so here's what's catching my eye...In the "Crisis in the Middle East" department, things seem to be getting worse with the death of eight Israeli civilians in Haifa. The IDF is also resuming strikes in Gaza. Mubarak claims he persuaded the Israelis not to launch a ground offensive against Beirut. Mossad's chief leaves for the US this week to discuss the Iranian nuclear...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hizbollah's chief pledged open war on Israel on Friday after it bombed his home, saying "look at it burn" when an Israeli warship that had earlier rocketed Lebanon was attacked and set ablaze."You wanted open war. We are going to (wage) open war," Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a telephone message broadcast live on Hizbollah television after his house was hit as Israel ramped up the assault it launched after Hizbollah...

For an administration that likes to keep things secret they sure do pick some funny things to make public--like our military's operational weakness. This was accomplished in large part by partaking in a strategically questionable operation that begins with the letters I-R-A and ends in Q. This has long been a complaint of mine. Yours truly in January of '06:"...the Iraq War not only decreased the capability of the US to launch any kind of...

Given how the US reacted to the traumatic 9/11 attacks -- wars against Afghanistan and Iraq that are still ongoing and adoption of a dangerous public doctrine of "preemptive" action that openly embraces preventive war -- security scholars ought to be thinking seriously about India's possible reaction to this week's Mumbai commuter train bombings. Indeed, this should be a central concern to security strategists as well. Why? Though the Indian...

Foreign Affairs magazine has been running both a print and on-line forum on the future of US policy towards Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, get yourself over there and take a look.In my second experiment in videoblogging, I take issue with Chaim Kaufmann's contribution to the original forum. To be fair to Kaufmann, my response is oriented more towards his broader argument about ethnic partition as a solution to ethno-nationalist civil war...

Israel's graduated "massive retaliation" against the Lebanese government continues.Israel intensified its attacks against Lebanon on Thursday, blasting Beirut's airport in its heaviest air campaign against its neighbor in 24 years. Four dozen civilians had died in the violence following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, officials said.After warplanes punched holes in the airport's runways just south of Beirut, Israel's army...

My commentary on the unfolding Israeli-Hezbollah crisis. This is a bit rough and a bit long.One of the problems with doing this without a script is that it can be easier to make factual errors. For example, I mention Israeli military capacity in the 1970s even though the invasion of southern Lebanon dates to 1982.UPDATE: my wife is already on my case about moving around too much and about speaking more slowly. I'll correct these problems in the...

I saw two movies recently: Superman Returns and An Inconvenient TruthSuperman was good, summer super-hero action fun, though probably just a bit too long. My favorite part-- the music. They were loyal to the original John Williams score, and really, nothing beats heroic John Williams music.Al Gore's movie was surprisingly good. To borrow from the line from John Stewart, the "film combines the mainstream appeal of climate science with the...

Breaking news (via Chirol), and it isn't good:"At least 20 people have been killed in at least seven blasts on trains in the Indian financial capital, Mumbai (Bombay), police say."If confirmed, these strikes are reminiscent of the Madrid and London bombings. But, as Chirol notes, the added danger of these attacks is that if any links are established between the bombs and Pakistan would likely spark an international crisis between the two...

In the comments section to Peter’s latest post about the after-effects of North Korea’s missile test I noted that I was puzzled as to why China has not done more to compel Kim Jong-Il. Given the steps suggested in Japan recently to shift their defensive posture to one that would operationally and legally allow them to carry out preventive strikes against the North (not to mention grumblings about a Japanese nuclear program) it would seem that...

As the response to North Korea's missile launch last week heats up, its clear that Japan was really spooked by what happened.The AP reports, via ABC news: Japan said Monday it was considering whether a pre-emptive strike on the North's missile bases would violate its constitution, signaling a hardening stance ahead of a possible U.N. Security Council vote on Tokyo's proposal for sanctions against the regime.Japan was badly rattled by North...