Posted on August 18th, 2009 by JL Wall
by JL Wall Zombiepocalypse is definitely scenario in which I’m more than willing to break out the “overwhelming force”: Even so, their analysis revealed that a strategy of capturing or curing the zombies would only put off the inevitable. In their scientific paper, the authors conclude that humanity’s only hope is to “hit them [the [...]
Filed under: foreign affairs, war
Posted on August 14th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
TAC contributing editor Andrew Bacevich, whose article on Afghanistan in the latest issue of Commonweal has generated a fair amount of discussion (some of which I plan to address soon), has an appreciation of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American in the Summer 2009 issue of World Affairs Journal: “Innocence,” [Green] writes, “is a kind of [...]
Filed under: war
Posted on August 7th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
I don’t recall having come across this quote, from World War II veteran Henry Fonda in a 1972 television commercial opposing the Vietnam War, before this afternoon: When I was a kid, I used to be really proud of this country. I thought that this was a country that cared about people, no matter who [...]
Filed under: war
Posted on June 24th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
Alex Massie asks what effect the recent events in Iran will have on the Obama administration’s plans for diplomatic engagement: Obama’s preference for engagement is, I think, likely to be untenable assuming, as seems quite likely, that Ahmadinejad and Khamenei survive. At the very least, it’s going to be put into the freezer for a [...]
Filed under: foreign affairs, politics, war
Posted on June 17th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
I haven’t found the time to listen to the Riehl-Friedersdorf-Payne Skypecast on the future of conservatism, but if Dan Riehl really did say that the defining character of a conservative is favoring “an economy free of government interference”,* then Conor’s frustration is entirely appropriate. As even the most amateurish historian of the American conservative movement [...]
Filed under: conservatism, politics, war
Posted on May 18th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
So I’m really having trouble following the argument in this paragraph of Chris Bodenner’s: As Andrew noted yesterday, Obama has done a lot to defang Cheneyism; he has postponed an exit in Iraq, retained Gates, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, elevated McChrystal, kept rendition, revived military tribunals, and punted on the torture photos. So what’s [...]
Filed under: civil liberties, politics, torture, war
Posted on May 17th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
That Donald Rumsfeld was one manipulative bastard. (H/T.) Addendum: Via Hilzoy, here’s the accompanying article.
Filed under: politics, religion, war
Posted on May 1st, 2009 by John Schwenkler
How would history have judged a man who could have saved thousands of American lives but chose instead to adhere to some misplaced and misguided sense of idealism? – Michael Goldfarb I’m sure that there are others who could do a better job of this than I, but for the time being how about: likely [...]
Filed under: morality, religion, torture, war
Posted on April 30th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
Via Will, Julian Sanchez tries to explain to Michael Goldfarb that the fact that Harry Truman was a war criminal does not mean that Bush and Cheney weren’t. Here’s key graf: I realize it’s probably not a position taken often at the offices of the Weekly Standard, but the suggestion that the bombings of Hiroshima [...]
Filed under: morality, torture, war
Posted on April 16th, 2009 by JL Wall
by JL Wall E.D. Kain, on Iraq: But that should call in to question why we are so dependent on oil to begin with, and beyond that, why we as a culture have shifted so many of our priorities to a belief in unending growth that can and should be enforced by an omnipotent military. [...]
Filed under: civil liberties, economics, government/law, philosophy, war
