…is a misnomer. It’s more akin to the sacking of Rome by barbarians. There is nothing civilized about Islamists.
[Update a few minutes later]
Wrong link before, but fixed now, sorry.
Category Archives: War Commentary
Hamas
Why Israel needs to finish the job now:
Iron Dome can defend successfully against a handful of rockets fired simultaneously in the general direction of Israeli cities. At some point Israel’s enemies will acquire the capability to fire large salvos of precision-guided weapons at key military or civilian targets and overwhelm the existing defenses. GPS-guided rockets are not that difficult to make. Iron Dome gives Israel a respite, not relief in the long term.
Israel has an extraordinary opportunity that may not last. It can protect its citizens from retaliation for the time being. Its right to self-defense is so obvious that Western governments usually hostile to Israeli interests must affirm its right to self-defense. Even the German Left Party (“die Linke”) is split, with some of its leaders attending pro-Israel rallies while others join the largely Muslim demonstrators chanting “Jude, Jude, feiges Schwein, Komm heraus und kaempf allein” (“Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone”). It has the tacit (and sometimes not entirely tacit) support of Egypt, not to mention the Gulf states, in its war against Hamas. But it cannot afford a repeat of 2012, after which Hamas rebuilt its weapons capability. Where Hezbollah is concerned, the Chinese proverb applies: Kill the chicken while the monkey watches. The reduction of Hamas has to serve as a deterrent for Hezbollah and Syria, not to mention Iran.
Yes.
Romney One, Obama Zero
Remember when Romney made Obama look dangerously foolish?
Unfortunately, as Glenn says, the real problem is the dangerous foolishness of the low-infos who elected and re-elected him.
The Crash Site
The news just continues to get worse: “Experts fear clues as to why Malaysia Airlines plane was brought down could be lost for ever as chaos at scene persists.”
This is being botched even more than the Vince Foster investigation.
The New Malaysian Airliner Loss
The Russian rebels have shot down other planes in the past few days, so this was probably inevitable unless the airlines had routed around that region. I assume they’ll start doing so now. What this means for the war remains to be seen, of course. But on the up side, maybe CNN will finally cover Ukraine.
[Update early afternoon]
The Pentagon is apparently claiming that the missile originated from Russian territory.
Hamas Is Losing
…and everyone knows it.
US-China Space Cooperation
A point/counterpoint between Michael Listner and Joan Johnson-Freese. I’m not a big fan of China cooperation myself (a dispute I have with Buzz), but this is probably the best argument I’ve seen for it:
Wolf’s rationale assumes the United States has nothing to gain by working with the Chinese. On the contrary, the United States could learn about how they work — their decision-making processes, institutional policies and standard operating procedures. This is valuable information in accurately deciphering the intended use of dual-use space technology, long a weakness and so a vulnerability in U.S. analysis. Working together on an actual project where people confront and solve problems together, perhaps beginning with a space science or space debris project where both parties can contribute something of value, builds trust on both sides, trust that is currently severely lacking. It also allows each side to understand the other’s cultural proclivities, reasoning and institutional constraints with minimal risk of technology sharing.
If it’s the current NASA cooperating with China, I’m not much worried about technology sharing, either, since NASA’s not allowed to spend much money on useful technology. I just think that cooperation with China (or anyone, really) is an unnecessary distraction from actually doing things in space. But the Congress isn’t really interested in that. It just wants to build big rockets. I certainly wouldn’t put any other country, whether China or even in Europe, on the critical path to anything.
The Arab Spring
Four years later, it proved everyone wrong.
It’s hard to believe it’s been four years.
The Post-War World
Has it turned into a pre-war one?
History, perhaps unfortunately, can’t give us a clear answer to the question of whether we face anything like another Great War. Looking into the rear view mirror can only tell you so much about the conditions ahead. Our situation today is different enough from that of a century ago to make renewed great power war much less than a certainty, but there are enough troubling similarities that we can’t rule the prospect out.
It’s an interesting analysis.
Owning A Gun
I don’t know if it’s an act of patriotism, but I think that trying to prevent people from owning guns is the exact opposite of that.
[Late-morning update]
What does it mean to be patriotic? A nice collection of thoughts from various people.