… give or take
// The recent Quran burning incident and rampage by an American soldier have probably irreparably harmed the United States’ image in Afghanistan, and in the larger region. Not to say that it was all that great to begin with. American policy makers should understand that the longer the US has a military presence in the [...]
// The idea of a “war on terror” was created after September 11th by political leaders seeking to rally the country, and responding to an unprecedented attack on the United States. It made sense for a little while. Then, when reason and clearheadedness came back on the scene, and emotion and passion receded back to [...]
// Eric Margolis in the Toronto Sun has written a great, concise primer for ignorant westerners on a country that most people probably didn’t even know existed until the news media became fascinated with it recently after Fort Hood and the failed Christmas bomb attack (terrorist ties in both cases). Margolis puts Yemen into perspective [...]
// The recent failed bombing attempt by an agent of Al Qaeda has predictably resurrected the old profiling debate. The thrust of the conservative position on this issue has typically been that we should not worry about people’s feelings when people’s lives are at stake. The liberals, meanwhile, typically say that profiling violates people’s civil [...]
// As if on cue, hours after Obama announced his big master plan for Afghanistan, a suicide bombing in Somalia was committed by the violent Islamist group Al Shabaab (which means “the youth” in Arabic), a group affiliated with none other than Al Qaeda. Few countries on this planet share a modicum of the backwardness [...]
