This seems like good news, especially if it’s a defection.

From Iraqpundit:

Are my aunt and her neighbors kidding themselves out of desperation? That’s possible; it’s hard to live without hope, and people can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be optimistic. (Though the truth is that Iraqis are not, as a rule, an optimistic group, and are inclined by cultural habit to see things darkly. But that’s another story.) It’s true that the murderers in Iraq are still at work. On the other hand, I’m far more inclined to take seriously a picture of Baghdad that comes from a life-long Baghdadi than one coming from a Westerner who has parachuted into town for a while, and who doesn’t speak the language.

Yet Iraqis who desperately want to lead normal lives are not the only ones with an incentive to interpret events in their own interests. If one listens to the usual suspects among certain journalists, academics, and politicians, the ongoing crackdown is futile and doomed to fail. But that’s a conclusion that many of these figures reached even before the security sweep began. In other words, some of the crackdown’s critics have created incentives, professional and personal, to perceive Iraqi and American failure. People can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be pessimistic, too.

From Iraqpundit:

Are my aunt and her neighbors kidding themselves out of desperation? That’s possible; it’s hard to live without hope, and people can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be optimistic. (Though the truth is that Iraqis are not, as a rule, an optimistic group, and are inclined by cultural habit to see things darkly. But that’s another story.) It’s true that the murderers in Iraq are still at work. On the other hand, I’m far more inclined to take seriously a picture of Baghdad that comes from a life-long Baghdadi than one coming from a Westerner who has parachuted into town for a while, and who doesn’t speak the language.

Yet Iraqis who desperately want to lead normal lives are not the only ones with an incentive to interpret events in their own interests. If one listens to the usual suspects among certain journalists, academics, and politicians, the ongoing crackdown is futile and doomed to fail. But that’s a conclusion that many of these figures reached even before the security sweep began. In other words, some of the crackdown’s critics have created incentives, professional and personal, to perceive Iraqi and American failure. People can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be pessimistic, too.

From Iraqpundit:

Are my aunt and her neighbors kidding themselves out of desperation? That’s possible; it’s hard to live without hope, and people can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be optimistic. (Though the truth is that Iraqis are not, as a rule, an optimistic group, and are inclined by cultural habit to see things darkly. But that’s another story.) It’s true that the murderers in Iraq are still at work. On the other hand, I’m far more inclined to take seriously a picture of Baghdad that comes from a life-long Baghdadi than one coming from a Westerner who has parachuted into town for a while, and who doesn’t speak the language.

Yet Iraqis who desperately want to lead normal lives are not the only ones with an incentive to interpret events in their own interests. If one listens to the usual suspects among certain journalists, academics, and politicians, the ongoing crackdown is futile and doomed to fail. But that’s a conclusion that many of these figures reached even before the security sweep began. In other words, some of the crackdown’s critics have created incentives, professional and personal, to perceive Iraqi and American failure. People can be creative at manufacturing reasons to be pessimistic, too.

Jim Bennett has a review of John O’Sullivan’s new book on Reagan, Thatcher and the Pope.

Looking at alternative outcomes of the Reagan-Thatcher-John Paul II world, it is hard to see how any other leaders in any of the three seats of power could have done better, and very easy to see how they could have done worse — all the way to outbreak of nuclear war. Therefore, while leaving any actual theodicy to more venturesome commentators, it is easy to see why some considered the advent of these three leaders (and their not-statistically-likely serial survival of assassination attempts) to be providential. Since I find theodicy to be too problematic to consider (if God does move human events directly, there’s far too much moral dark matter assumed in the problem for we poor three-dimensional observers to be able to draw any conclusions from it), I think O’Sullivan spent either too much time or too little discussing that possibility. If we assume we cannot intuit divine knowledge or intention in specific human events, then that is all one can really say about the matter; if we assume one can understand such things, then the events O’Sullivan discusses would be one of the principal theological events of our century, and could easily merit not just the bulk of O’Sullivan’s book, but a library full of books.

We need to come up with more leaders like them. Sadly, I don’t see any in office currently, or in the current race.

From Victor Davis Hanson:

How did a serious country, one that endured Antietam, sent a million doughboys to Europe in a mere year, survived Pearl Harbor, Monte Cassino, Anzio, the Bulge, Tarawa, Iwo and Okinawa, the Yalu, Choisun, Hue and Tet, come to the conclusion

Glenn Reynolds has some thoughts. There’s nothing with which I’d disagree. I, too, thought that this was part of a larger strategy. Sadly, there’s been little evidence of it on the ground.

Big government is incompetent. This seems to have played out in the war, as in all else.

If I believed in a god, I’d pray. All I can do, as it is, is hope for better leaders. And think about history, in which when all was darkest, they seemed to appear.

Jeff Goldstein has nine reasons that killing Cheney would be justified. (Hint for the clueless–it’s satire).

Here’s a point that I didn’t make in my earlier post.

Just as Mookie agrees with many(/most?) Dems on “the surge,” many of the denizens of Huffpo and Metafilter agree with the Taliban that Dick Cheney should die. Can someone remind me again, whose side they’re on?

[Update on the evening of February 27th]

Apparently the powers that be decided to put all the anti-Cheney comments down the memory hole.

Jeff Goldstein has nine reasons that killing Cheney would be justified. (Hint for the clueless–it’s satire).

Here’s a point that I didn’t make in my earlier post.

Just as Mookie agrees with many(/most?) Dems on “the surge,” many of the denizens of Huffpo and Metafilter agree with the Taliban that Dick Cheney should die. Can someone remind me again, whose side they’re on?

[Update on the evening of February 27th]

Apparently the powers that be decided to put all the anti-Cheney comments down the memory hole.

Jeff Goldstein has nine reasons that killing Cheney would be justified. (Hint for the clueless–it’s satire).

Here’s a point that I didn’t make in my earlier post.

Just as Mookie agrees with many(/most?) Dems on “the surge,” many of the denizens of Huffpo and Metafilter agree with the Taliban that Dick Cheney should die. Can someone remind me again, whose side they’re on?

[Update on the evening of February 27th]

Apparently the powers that be decided to put all the anti-Cheney comments down the memory hole.