Left with very little in their rhetorical quivers, war supporters seem to rely on a trump card: everything we think and believe about conditions in Iraq is wrong. The media isn’t reporting the wonderful news out of Iraq — like all of the cars that didn’t explode in Baghdad. It’s always been a fairly dumb, […]
Over the weekend, I noted that Dick Cheney seemed to express a certain disdain for American principles during his commencement address at West Point. “As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and […]
The NYT’s Michael Kamber spent a week with Delta Company, an infantry company in Baghdad, and talking to more than a dozen soldiers in the unit. They’re disillusioned, frustrated, skeptical that their mission is worthwhile, and slowly beginning to realize that the Iraqis they’re training are the same Iraqis attacking them. Staff Sgt. David Safstrom […]
For all of the talk from war supporters about lowering expectations for September — John McCain has been at it, as has Gen. Petraeus himself — it appears the train has already left the station. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who no one would reasonably describe as anything but a very conservative Bush loyalist, appears to […]
Once in a while, the ambiguous legal, political, and practical implications of Blackwater’s private security forces in Iraq create problems that are, to put it mildly, awkward. Employees of Blackwater USA, a private security firm under contract to the State Department, opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days last week, and […]
Dick Cheney, yesterday, at the United States Military Academy Commencement at West Point: “As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and living […]
Another grim Memorial Day. Americans have opened nearly 1,000 new graves to bury U.S. troops killed in Iraq since Memorial Day a year ago. The figure is telling — and expected to rise in coming months. In the period from Memorial Day 2006 through Saturday, 980 soldiers and Marines died in Iraq, compared to 807 […]
At a White House press conference this week, NBC’s David Gregory asked the president a highly relevant question: “Can you explain why you believe you’re still a credible messenger on the war?” Bush didn’t hesitate. “I’m credible because I read the intelligence, David,” he said. It’s one thing to read intelligence reports; it’s another to […]
When it comes to Middle East policy, career U.S. intelligence officer Patrick Lang is hardly a slouch. He was in charge of the Middle East, South Asia, and terrorism for the Defense Intelligence Agency in the 1990s, and was later tapped to run the Pentagon’s international spying operations. So when he sat down in 2001 […]
Way back in February 2006, Barack Obama and John McCain got into quite a dust-up over a lobbying reform measure. McCain wanted a task force, Obama preferred using standing committees, and McCain lost his cool. Long story. Yesterday, their rivalry seemed to grow considerably more intense. Here’s the timeline: * McCain accused Obama (and Hillary […]