War on Terror
Among the many comment’s to Andrew’s post on the Ground Zero mosque, commenter mangeek made the following statement, and it’s been rattling around in my head during the intervening days: Terrorism is the weapon of choice for the marginalized; the cure is tolerance and civil discourse, tempered by strong secular laws that protect us from…
Randell Hoven (h/t) uses CBO figures and a simple chart to put the lie to the now familiar claims that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and Bush tax cuts caused a $3 Trillion budget deficit. The CBO breaks that cost down over the eight calendar years of 2003-2010. Below is a picture of federal deficits…
I’ve got to agree with David Pryce-Jones: … [President Obama] admits we are in a fight and the reason we’ll win “is not simply the strength of our arms — it is the strength of our values. The democracy we uphold.” This in the week he’s just been rejoicing about imminently in Cairo removing the…
In the context of addressing the prior activities and positions of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, Andrew McCarthy takes up the distinction between radical Islam and moderate Islam: To hear progressives tell it, we can do nice, clean, friendly sharia, just like we do nice, clean, friendly Islam. “Lapidations,” [or stonings,] they will tell you,…
In response to folks who insist on seeing Iran’s leadership as rational actors, Mark Steyn makes the somewhat obvious point that even a rational response to the pressures — the “stimulus,” if you will — that the United States is bringing to bear for Iran leads to a very dangerous place: But let’s flip Dr…
Andrew McCarthy takes the radicalization of Turkey as an opportunity to trace Islamists’ strategy for cultural hegemony (subscription required). That Turkey has been a partner to the West, he notes, was a result of efforts by Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Ataturk) to keep Islam out of government, an intention that appears now to have been circumvented.…
During President George W. Bush’s time in office, Mark Shea was perhaps the blogosphere’s leading politically conservative Roman Catholic speaking out against enhanced interrogation and other practices. Frankly, I ceased my daily visits to his site because he drew a stark line across which he saw questionable intentions and evil rhetoric, and even a desire…
While it has it’s inaccuracies, The Hurt Locker is a movie I’d heartily recommend. The most impressive parts of the film for me were those depicting the stressful situations the soldiers were in while doing their job, ie; everyday life for a U.S. combatant in Iraq circa 2004. On a completely different note, I also…
Seven paragraphs into this New York Times article about US Attorney General Eric Holder once again finding his political voice (and, as someone who very much wants a change of administration in three years, I say, let the man speak) comes this. “I have to do a better job in explaining the decisions that I…
I don’t have too much to say about the State of the Union Address, except for one question: has there ever been a military victory that has been so diminished in our nation’s history? As we take the fight to al Qaeda, we are responsibly leaving Iraq to its people. As a candidate, I promised…