Amnesty International is actually accusing Hezbollah of war crimes. After all these years of bashing Israel and the US, and ignoring the other side, has it decided to finally do something to try to reestablish its credibility?

Michael Totten has a fascinating report about life on the Gaza front, where the place seems like a hellish bedlam, run by the inmates:

Michael Totten has a fascinating report about life on the Gaza front, where the place seems like a hellish bedlam, run by the inmates:

Michael Totten has a fascinating report about life on the Gaza front, where the place seems like a hellish bedlam, run by the inmates:

…that people in Iran wear seatbelts.

…that people in Iran wear seatbelts.

…that people in Iran wear seatbelts.

[Note: This post will remain at the top all day, so if you’re on a return trip, you might want to scroll down to see if there’s any new stuff below.]

Michael Ledeen is still angry. I never was. But then, I didn’t lose anyone I personally knew.

It’s always chancy to try to recollect emotions from an event five years on, but thinking back to that day in San Juan, watching the first tower burning, I don’t recall anger. When I saw the second plane strike the second tower, the only feeling that I had, I think, was resignation, along with the instant knowledge that we were now at war, in a way that we had never been in my lifetime. This, I thought, was what it was like for my grandparents (whose age I was closest to when the event occurred for them) when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I remember a sense of foreboding, and wondering what the future held. On a more practical and personal note, I remember wondering when and how I would get back to California, since all flights in the US would surely be grounded soon, including the one that I was about to depart to the airport to catch.

That earlier war, at least for my parents and grandparents, lasted less than four years (though for Asia and Europe it was much longer). Last year I wrote an essay on the fourth anniversary comparing the two wars. I still think it holds up well (or at least as well as it did the last time). Here’s a replay:

Continue reading The Long War →

Instapunk has some useful thoughts on the deranged Bush haters.

Only one of the 300 million people who live in America wake up every day to a briefing from the nation’s intelligence agencies about what threats might become reality today. That’s a fact. The man’s name is George W. Bush.

I’m NOT saying this makes him immune from criticism. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Forget all the invective about his cowardice or shirking of military duty when he was a twenty-something. Five years of such briefings would be enough to give most of us Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s probably the case that the President of the United States has been damaged by what he’s been through. It’s the most obvious explanation conceivable for why the White House seems so slow to respond to the daily firestorms the mass media engender. My guess is, not too many of us would want to be living inside George W. Bush’s head right now. It’s too much. For anyone. He needs advice and constructive criticism and thoughtful opposition. But who — and I’m including all of you in this — is served by characterizing the advice, criticism, and opposition as the obvious response to a criminal idiot?

Though I myself am slow to anger, and relatively unemotional, I’m glad that I didn’t have to make the decisions for the past five years.

Brit (and space buff) Gareth Slee has a tribute to the NY firefighters.