Shake It Now, Hillary!
Plus--News and Undernews
Sunday, December 9, 2007
I was relieved to see that Juan Cole's "Why Bush's Troop Surge Won't Save Iraq" doesn't say Bush's troop surge won't save Iraq. It says what you've heard before--that "there have been some relative gains in security recently," yet on the political front "Iraq is still beset with problems." It asks, "How much longer can Iraq limp along as a failing state before it really begins to collapse?--but doesn't try to give answers. ... "Iraq ... beset with problems" sounds a whole lot better than what we were looking at a year ago. ... P.S.: The June version of Cole's catastrophism ("Surging toward disaster in Iraq")--which foillowed a brief U.S. offensive in Baquba--declared that
the operation clearly committed the United States to one side in a civil war. ...
Which side? The Shiite side. "In practical terms, the U.S. military was helping a Shiite government and a Shiite security force impose itself on a majority Sunni population." Given what we now know about the Sunni-empowering aspects of the surge--including the Sunni "tribal Awakening Councils on the U.S. payroll"--that does not seem like an eerily prescient characterization of the surge's actual effect. ... 11:47 P.M.
___________________________
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Seasonal: kf 's perennial nominee for best rock Chrismas song. Only works loud. ... Update: That link now dead. Here's a video. ...[Thanks to C.M.] 6:47 P.M.
___________________________
Friday, December 7, 2007
Reminder: Back in January, the courageously incoherent Sen. Chuck Hagel called the "surge"
"the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out."
Tornado Survivor Finds Her Missing Dog in the Rubble of Her Home During a TV Interview
Will the IRS's Tea Party Profiling Convince Conservatives That All Profiling Is Wrong?
How did Suharto steal $35 billion?
Photograph of Ann Coulter on Slate's home page by Brad Barket/Getty. Photograph of a wedding cake with two grooms on Slate's home page by Hector Mata/AFP Photo. Photograph of Princess Diana on Slate's home page by Georges De Keerle/Getty Images.