America Between the Wars
by Intertard
The 1990s were a damn good time. Fueled by technological advances and fiscal responsibility, the economy boomed. With the end of the Soviet Union, peace in our time was at hand. Domestically and abroad, the United States was strong and respected. Today, hated and broke, it is tempting to look back on this as a golden age. In many ways, it was. But a careful examination — particularly of foreign policy — reveals a tragic number of missed opportunities.
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Posted at 04 January 09 at 17.01 in Books
Law and the Long War
by Intertard
There are a few ways to look at the Bush Administraton’s approach to the war on terror. The two we hear the most from are on the fringes — left-leaning civil libertarians argue that we need to close Guantanamo and repeal the Patriot Act and FISA, and right-leaning Unitary Executive lunatics argue that the powers granted the President in wartime (nevermind that we are not at war) transcend the Constitution. There is not enough said from the center.
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Posted at 01 January 09 at 17.01 in Law, Books
State of Denial
by Intertard
It is easy to believe that we are in a new, post-partisan, happy time, where all that remains to be done is to look forward and grin and shape a new tomorrow. The reality is not so simple. Countless lies were told in the past eight years. Countless crimes were committed. We can count the lives lost and the dollars spent as a result. We must make a conscious effort to do so in order to make sure that the lessons we say we have learned are not forgotten.
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Posted at 29 December 08 at 17.12 in Books
The Whisperers
by Intertard
Without evidence, it is often alleged that Josef Stalin once quipped that “a single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” Regardless of the accuracy of the attribution, it is this concept that sums up the logic and the emotion of The Whisperers.
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Posted at 26 December 08 at 17.12 in Books
Back To Where It All Began
by Intertard
It is ten degrees out in Iowa, and snowy. One year ago, I was here to help Barack Obama win the caucus. This year, I’m just home. It is the first time I have been back in this bedroom since I hung an Obama doorhanger here on January 3. It is hard to believe it has been a year.
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Posted at 23 December 08 at 15.12 in Politics, Obama 08
Bush at War
by Intertard
It is distressing that this is a book that liberals criticized for being too blindly pro-war, too flattering of the president. In reality, it is a book that shows the mismanagement and idiocy that enveloped the administration from day one and worsened with time.
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Posted at 07 August 08 at 22.08 in Books
Cobra II
by Intertard
In the event that a similar war is someday necessary and legitimate, it would be good to go into it with the know-how we have gained from what we did wrong this time around. Cobra II is worth it for this reason, and because the war stories in it are, at the end of the day, pretty cool.
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Posted at 05 August 08 at 21.08 in Books
The Case for Israel
by Intertard
Is everything Israel does ideal? Of course not. Even Dershowitz does not go that far – though he can rightly be criticized for arguing that all of it is just, when in reality some of it is not. But his defense of Israel is articulate, thoughtful, and critically important reading for any Palestinian partisan.
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Posted at 03 August 08 at 21.08 in Books