I've been meaning to write a new post on the question of threat inflation and intelligence failures in the run-up to the Iraq War that reacts, in part, to some questionable arguments put forth by one of my favorite center-left bloggers. However, as should be clear from my sparse posting lately, I haven't had a lot of time. So, in the meantime, here's the latest not-so-variation on the theme....Agence France Press:US military intelligence warned...

Ivo Daalder an email from Stephen Cimbala attacking humanitarian interventions. Here's a representative expert:The mechanics of Bush policy are bad enough, but the discussions on policy related Websites show that, in academia as in policy studies, there is insufficient regard for geostrategy and military history - including American history. The Philippine insurrection that followed our victory over Spain was a preview of postwar Iraq from 2003...

Both Patrick Jackson and I taught in Columbia's Contemporary Civilization program (CC) during our stint in graduate school. Contemporary Civilization is the capstone (or, at least, we viewed it that way) in Columbia's core curriculum; it is a classic "Western Civilization" course in the "Plato to NATO" idiom. When we taught it, students read a lot of dead white guys, a few dead white women, a few dead non-whites, and, at our discretion, some...

I got this email from the powers-that-be at Georgetown yesterday:As part of his official visit to the U.S., His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales will be attending a seminar on Faith and Social Responsibility at Georgetown with academic and faith leaders from across the nation on [xxx].The seminar is unable to accommodate additional participants but members of the campus community interested in seeing the arrival and departure of His Royal...

A minor brouhaha over at America Abroad. David Rieff sent an email to Anne-Marie Slaughter (short version: liberal interntionalism inevitably leads to neoconservativism, so stop enabling!). Today, John Ikenberry summarizes Reiff's argument:Behind Rieff’s comments is his own intellectual journey away from the liberal interventionism of the Clinton years chronicled in his recent book, At the Point of a Gun. The Iraq war has led Rieff to question...

Chris Bertram received some flack, apparently, for describing the recent Birmingham race riot as a "pogrom." Today he gets to enjoy a qualified (and somewhat angsty) last laugh:But I see that both the conservative columnist Theodore Dalrymple and the Observer’s Nick Cohen have also noticed the echoes. Dalrymple wrote:The rumour that a 14-year-old black girl had been caught shoplifting by a Pakistani shopkeeper in the Lozells area of Birmingham,...

I recently wrote about the misuse (or, more to the point, apparent schizophrenic understanding) of reputational logic in the war on terror. Administration officials have repeatedly utilized rhetoric which rationalizes US policy against terrorists and rogue states on the basis of maintaining a reputation for resolve--i.e. we need to show our enemies that we won't back down just because the going gets tough, therefore staying the course is...

Through the magic of podcasting, I've been able to listen to a number of pre- and post-game interviews with baseball players and managers as I go for my morning run -- subscribe to the daily MLB podcasts through iTunes, plug in my iPod, and when I get up in the morning there they are, ready to go. (Of course, now that the baseball season is officially over -- congratulations, White Sox, even though I wanted the Astros to force a game 5 so that...

In my post on Stanford's iTunes store, I mentioned that Patrick has always been on the cutting edge of integrating technology into the classroom. Well, Patrick's just been featured prominently in a Chronicle for Higher Education story on the costs and benefits of podcasting (subscription only). Here are some key excerpts:Lectures on the GoAs more colleges use 'coursecasting,' professors are split on its place in teachingBy BROCK...

Couldn't resist (thanks to Brian Levy for the link):Strauss Guides Sox From GraveFiled as: Leo Strauss, White Sox

Iranian officials, not surprisingly, defended President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments at a conference Wednesday called "The World Without Zionism" where he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map". Their argument: It has been Iran's policy since the 1979 revolution. Oh, well that does it I guess. World leaders, including many in the Arab world, condemned the statement. The Washington Post has a great article which discusses the context of...