The Continuing Decline Of Western Civilization

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Iraq! Iraq! It's down on its back!

This is likely to be a post about Iraq, but I don't wanna be tied down just yet.

The military is finally making solid progress in fighting insurgency, abeit on a limited scale. What is required to spread this success? According to the authors of the strategy, fuck-loads of more troops.

I think that this post by Charles at Obsidian Wings is a good place to start (includeing the comments) in order to arrive at this post by Sifu Tweety at The Poor Man Institute:

If Faction A destroys the fourth-most holy site (built 11 centuries ago) of Faction B with a gigantic bomb in the middle of the day, inciting dozens of retaliatory attacks, is it maybe a little late to ask if this will start a civil war?

Here I will apply the duck quacking analogy, with the added caveat that simply because you are currently able to force the duck to say 'moo', does not mean that the duck isn't quacking behind your back.

Meanwhile, a Michael J. Totten has been tooling around the Kurdish autonomous region and brings us this photo-log of Dohok. Gotta say, I'm digging the houses. The whole blog is pretty informative, and I don't mean just the pretty buildings. Some of the pages appear to be missing however.

Look at that, it was about Iraq after all.

posted by tcdowc - 8:05 pm - 02.23.06

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Atrocity only begats more atrocity - It is a barbarous form of incest

I had meant to link this up, but I believe I failed. Nothing new there.

Jane Mayer has written a fabulous article on Alberto Mora's attempts (as general counsel of the Navy) to rein in prisoner abuse in the armed forces. He was, of course, sidelined for this attrocious moral behavior. Interestingly, Mora was a political appointee to the post.

posted by tcdowc - 7:51 pm - 02.23.06

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I never get tired of being lazy

From arstechnica, a short bit about a study on archer fish, and how they develop their aim.

From EPSN, mother fights polar bear, saves kids.

Anybody remember al Sadr? He's positioning himself to be the most powerful man in the new Iraq, and it's gotten almost no news coverage. John Quiggin at Crooked Timber knows what this means:

[T]he real lesson is that the US is, for good and ill, too self-absorbed to be a successful imperial power.

The Economist has an article on Sudan. Everyone wants their oil, but no one seems able to stop the massacre. Via Obsidian Wings where Charles expounds on this a bit.

Lastly, in 'honor' of the Nigerian riots which show us that all fundamentalists suck, regardless of faith, I'll highlight a bit of the violence of the Bible with The Brick Testament. I recomend the section on the Law, as well as Joshua.

posted by tcdowc - 9:12 pm - 02.22.06

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Damn that silly globalization

I don't think it's a secret that I don't particularly like the idea of big multi-national corporations. Some are probably necessities, like the shipping companies, but in general think global shop local I always say. But I also use too much punctuation and begin sentences with prepositions, so what do I know.

Beyond that issue (which isn't impacted negatively or positively) I don't really have a problem with giving managerial control of our ports to a company controled by the UAE. The port's controller isn't in charge of security, and our union boys with still be manning the cranes, so big deal. Either way, port security will still remain a major weak point and that should be the focus of the outcry. Opposition to the deal itself, while politically advantageous, is basically racism.

Regardless, the Bush Administration has once again side-stepped the law, and should allow the 45-day investigation to happen before the deal is approved.

And if you're interested, Reuters has the break-down on what the major newspaper editorial boards think of the deal.

posted by tcdowc - 8:56 pm - 02.22.06

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