The always smart, always acerbic folks at Coming Anarchy have been getting their chortles by photoshopping Theodor Seuss Geisel's (aka Dr. Seuss) political cartoons from the 1940s. Dr. Seuss was a strong anti-fascist. Many of his cartoons are stinging criticisms of American isolationalists and German sympathizers. These cartoons, among others, are collected in Dr. Seuss Goes to War, by Richard H. Minear. The volume is fascinating; I highly...

Cross posted on my blog. On July 26, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker reported in the New York Times that the US is no longer fighting a global "war on terror" (GWOT): The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission, senior administration and military officials said Monday.In recent speeches...

Dan Darling and I have been discussing the structure of al-Qaeda. The basic question: how centralized is al-Qaeda? There's been a lot of discussion of this lately. Mark Sageman, for example, is currently plugging his own book on the subject; Sageman argues that the al-Qaeda movement is decentralized and fragmented. As Stygius notes,Marc Sageman was on Sunday's All Things Considered, discussing how al-Qaeda's fragmentation since the invasion of...

Cross-posted on my blog.Monday's Washington Post website has an interesting AP story about some Defense Department legislation proposed by Republican Senators. John McCain (previously identified as my favorite Republican member of Congress), John Warner and up to 10 other GOP Senators are supporting various amendments to a policy bill that would try to reign in the dubious treatment of various prisoners in the "war on terror.""What we're trying...

Wretched responds to the notion that there is no global Islamicist conspiracy.Or sort of. Really, it is just an excuse to attack that old nemesis: "the Left."Although the proposition that organized international terrorism does not exist may seem funny, many writers on the Left seriously believe that terrorism is a derivative phenomenon with no independent existence of its own. It is simply a reaction to Western, and particularly American...

The shortest distance between a blog post on John Lott and a mention of Michael Bellesiles in that post's comments section. Today on Crooked Timber, its value was "4". The value of BeLott may be a good proxy for measuring right-left connectivity for a particular blog.Closely related functions include ConsMoore (shortest distance between a post on Ann Coulter or the equivalent and a mention of Michael Moore) and LibsMoore (shortest distance...

From the New York Review of Books:There is, in fact, no Iraqi insurgency. There is a Sunni Arab insurgency. And it cannot win. Neither the al-Qaeda terrorists nor the former Baathists can win. Even if the US withdrew tomorrow, neither insurgents nor terrorists would be knocking down the gates to Iraq's Presidential Palace in Baghdad.Basically, the military equation in Iraq comes down to demographics. Sunni Arabs are no more than 20 percent of...

According to the BBC:Three of the devices found were the same size and weight as those used for the 7 July London bombings, while the fourth was smaller and appeared to have been contained in a plastic box. The same chemicals appear to have been used.Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman told the news conference: "At this stage it is believed the devices consisted of homemade explosives and were contained in dark coloured bags or...

Cross posted on my blog. In the past week, I've heard a number of Republican-friendly commenters on TV go on-and-on about the "fact" that neither Karl Rove nor Lewis "Scooter" Libby used Valerie Plame's name in their summer 2003 conversations with journalists. To these analysts, this means that no crime could have been committed in the case. Today, NRO Corner writer John Podhoretz explains that NBC's Tim Russert might have used the same excuse...

I've been slowly working on a series of posts on terrorism and collective violence. The London attacks are part of my motivation, but I also wanted to write out - for myself, and anyone else who is interested - my own take on the current 'web' debate over the nature of terrorism and the specific threat posed by al-Qaeda. One major component of that debate has involved Robert Pape's work on suicide terrorism. I was also struck by Marvin's...

This one reflects the ongoing debate over the Bush administration's planning for the Iraq War, not to mention some Democratic complaints about its expense:Those who try to be tightfisted while waging war always end by spending more. For nothing requires a more boundless effusion of money than war. The greater the provisions, the quicker the undertaking will be ended. Failure to make such provisions, just to save money, will make the enterprise...

Reported explosions in London. Based on preliminary reports, this smells like a copycat bombing. The most frightening scenario so far, I imagine, is that this is a planned second round - one with the aim of destroying any sense of returning normalcy in the city - but I can't help think that one would expect something a bit more powerful and deadly if that was the case. Counterterrorism blog, among others, should have good updates throughout the...