Here’s an old-style definition from Derb. He’s writing about the emergence of actual genetic data in discussions of social policy:
The news is worse for liberals, who want to transform people, than it is for conservatives, who want to leave people alone.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if most conservatives still wanted to leave people alone?
Fareed echoes some of my readers’ testimony about the police state atmosphere that tourists and foreign visitors have to confront when entering the US. Tourism has declined markedly in the US these past five years, despite booming elsewhere. Here’s another anecdote from Lou Dobbs’ America: immigration agents stopping an ambulance for a second time across the Canadian border, even while a patient was fighting for his life inside.
He gets Amir Taheri to cite his Khomeini quote as existing in an out-of-print compilation of Khomeini quotes from 1981. It appears that Podhoretz originally used the quote without knowing of its provenance. Taheri, whose reliability has come under suspicion before, says the remark was purged or censored or removed in subsequent editions of the book. I have no independent way of confirming any of this. Taheri, it should be noted, was the source of the story that Iran had recently required that Jews wear yellow stars in public, a story that was subsequently debunked. Maybe other Iran specialists can weigh in on whether the original alleged Khomeini quote is legit or bears in any way on the current debate about attacking Iran.
Not a stone is unturned in her impressively relentless campaign.
Ambers is on the case. Pretty underwhelming even if it’s true, and there’s no solid evidence yet.
Hip-hop with fewer boobies.
A reader writes:
I’m seriously skeptical of your reader’s optimism about Iraq – despite his claimed military insider knowledge – for several reasons:
(1) There are those Washington Post articles quoting high-ranking US military officials as saying they’re still scared of the Shiite insurgencies and that the Maliki government is still stubbornly refusing to make any conciliatory moves, which don’t mesh well with his statement that the Sunnis and Shiites are starting to pal around together:
(2) There are Gen. Jones’ maps showing that the segregation of Sunnis and Shiites in Baghdad has continued to massively increase.
(3) Last but definitely not least, we have Mark Lynch’s description today of Stephen Biddle’s latest optimistic scenario for Iraq’s future (via Kevin Drum).
I think Biddle is probably right on, and it’s important to understand what this means for the debate on the war. Marc Lynch describes the best possible outcome thus:
If everything goes right and if the US continues to "hit the lottery" with the spread of local ceasefires and none of a dozen different spoilers happens, then a patchwork of local ceasefires between heavily armed, mistrustful communities could possibly hold if and only if the US keeps 80,000-100,000 troops in Iraq for the next twenty to thirty years. And that’s the best case scenario of one of the current strategy’s smartest supporters.
I think that is indeed the only scenario that currently keeps the "country" from exploding, which is why I do not see how this has turned into anything other than an up-front imperial project. The trouble is: no one is honestly presenting this as a choice to the American people, explaining the costs, the opportunity costs and the dangers.
Anti-American media bias is getting even worse in Germany. Here’s the opening paragraph of a recent piece in Stern:
"In Europe one usually receives a cookie with their coffee. In the USA it is an assault rifle: In the Texan solitude, waitresses with highly teased hair offer the things for sales in weapon shops camouflaged as cafes. Normal daily life in Bush-Country."
David Kaspar has more.
Tom Gross wants to know.
