October 29, 2003

It’s not nation-building, it’s war

“It's not the winner who typically decides when victory in a war has been achieved. It's the loser.” -- Richard Hart Sinnreich, in the Washington Post This is an enlighting and sobering analysis of our situation in Iraq (link via Joshua Marshall). A key point: “ … history repeatedly has demonstrated that fighting a war quickly and cheaply doesn't guarantee winning it quickly and cheaply. Indeed, the two more often than not tend to be mutually exclusive. It was for that reason above all that Prussian theorist Carl von Clausewitz was right to insist that the most vital judgment before going to war is understanding the kind of war on which one is embarking.”

Posted by tbrown at 02:03 PM

Here’s a solution to the Iraq mess

“If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens. You’re dealing with insane suicide bombers who are killing our people, and we need to be very aggressive in taking them out.” – Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. You have to love this guy. No matter how much trouble his loose lips get him in he just can’t keep them shut. Now he’s advocating what sounds like war crimes. I’m not surprised, I guess. Just appalled.

Posted by tbrown at 02:01 PM

Southern California burns

I directed the coverage of a lot of fires during 10 years as a newsie in California, but the scale of this conflagration continues to amaze me. Here are some links: -- L.A. Times front page -- L.A. Times photo galleries (if you do nothing else, take a look at these) -- L.T. Smash (Citizen Smash, now that he’s back from Iraq) continues live blogging on the fires, including contributions from others.

Posted by tbrown at 02:00 PM

Plame update: The probe has broadened to include the Republican National Committee

The FBI apparently is interviewing RNC officials, not because they outed CIA agent Valerie Plame but because they may know who did. The feebs seem to have been led in this direction by a spike in the volume of phone calls between The White House and the RNC after the Plame case caught fire, presumably to discuss damage control.

Posted by tbrown at 01:57 PM

New word watch

The English language is flexible and has always been amenable to adopting words from other tongues or to the creation of new words when required. Sometimes, though, we should follow the advice of Nancy Reagan and Just Say No. Some words should not be thought, much less uttered. Two examples from yesterday: New noun: suicider: “It is dangerous in Iraq because there are some who believe that we're soft, that the will of the United States can be shaken by suiciders -- and suiciders who are willing to drive up to a Red Cross center, a center of international help and aid and comfort, and just kill.” -- President Bush, at his news conference New verb: to component: “I mean, believe me, there is an architecture here that is extremely componentized and broken down into pieces.” -- Bill Gates, in an interview NO! Speak English, dammit.

Posted by tbrown at 01:56 PM