Move over, United Pastry Jihad! Fortunately, the wingnuts are all caught up with their little tea parties and pay no attention to the foreign press except for tory wingnuts in the UK bashing Obama, or it would be time for another Malkin brigade freakout: “Have it your way!” The long-time Burger King slogan usually refers …
Foreign Affairs
Our Rhetoric Versus Their Reality
A couple of weeks ago, General McChrystal spoke some plain truth, and for some reason, the 101st Chairborne did not freak out and call him a traitor, a troop hater, or a commie Frenchmen: “That doesn’t mean I’m criticizing the people who are executing. I’m just giving you perspective. We’ve shot an amazing number of …
A Failure of Tragic Imagination
James Fallows’ examines the Wikileaks footage and makes an important point: We could not know that this episode would occur. But we could be sure that something like it would. It’s not even a matter of “To will the end is to will the means.” Rather the point is: You enter these circumstances, sooner or …
The Secret War in Laos Wasn’t a Secret to Laotians
This Glenn Greenwald piece about the helicopter attack in Iraq contains something that always sort of drives me insane about Americans and our concept of ourselves in the world: The WikiLeaks video is not an indictment of the individual soldiers involved — at least not primarily. Of course those who aren’t accustomed to such sentiments …
The Secret War in Laos Wasn’t a Secret to LaotiansPost + Comments (188)
They Hate Us For Our Freedoms
Very disturbing videos from wikileaks: They engaged several Reuters photographers, claiming the cameras were weapons, giggling the whole time. Then, when a van came to pick up the wounded, they claimed they were going for weapons and got permission to shoot the people picking up victims. Fog of war, bitches. Fog of war.
I’d Like To See a Debate About This
I’m an idiot who can’t read datelines.
Someone Had To Lie
There is no other explanation that I can think of: NATO acknowledged Sunday that its troops killed five Afghans in a botched nighttime raid in February — after initially saying the civilians may have been victims of an “honor killing.” Even though civilian casualties at the hands of NATO troops have fallen off in recent …