It’s deppressing news. If we had a competent commander and chief we’d still be in Afghanistan today with the number of troops we now have in Iraq. It seems that Bush’s inept invasion has, at least in hindsight, cost us three things: Aghanistan (where every day the insurgency increasingly resembles that of Iraq’s), our international credibility, and our ability to contain Iran (our overstretched military has rendered any “threat” to Iran an obvious bluff).

I think a serious case can be made that Bush’s rediculously incompetent foreign policy has geopolitically helped Tehran far more than it has ever helped Washington.

Note: To anyone who reads the link, it’s interesting to see that the Taliban insurgents attacked the western Farah province, on the border of Iran (where ostensibly, coalition forces have a good grip on things) rather than in the east, where the Taliban usually crosses the Pakistani border from its safe haven in Waziristan (the lawless “tribal” region where bin-Laden is currently suspected to be).

Today we’ve oficially handed power over Iraq’s military to the Iraqis. It should be said, however, that the transfer of control is not a one time deal. I guess we’re phasing it in, starting with an almost non-existant Iraqi navy and airforce, as well as the Najaf-based 8th Army Division.

What this actually means in terms of realities on the ground isn’t exactly clear to me. Feel free to comment if anyone has any insights. I’ll have more to say about this later…

A little point/counter-point for you all (by two of my favorite columnists no less!):
The first blow is struck by Fareed Zakaria with this rather sober-headed analysis of the Iranian crisis. He suggests that Washington has a long history of portraying it’s enemies as nightmarishly powerful boogiemen when the reality is that they’re more like pissed of cats: sure, they can scratch the hell out of you, but not much else. Interestingly enough, Zakaria asserts that the only real benefactor of the hysteria over Iran is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian theocracy. After all, here is some backward country with a GDP dwarfed by our military budget alone getting first-rate attention from all over the world. The result? A serious gain in influence for the Iranians.

But Andrew Sullivan disagrees. Quote:

[Fareed Zakaria] thinks of Ahmadinejad as a populist Huey Long not an apocalyptic Adolf Hitler. Count me unpersuaded. The one huge difference between today and 1938 is technology. in 1938, you needed a massive economy to wage conventional warfare. Today, you need some loose nukes and a few religious fanatics to bring the West to a halt.

I’d say that’s a bit of hyperbole. Even if a small make-shift nuke was detonated in some major US city, it would hardly bring the West to a grinding halt. I think the worst terrorists could honestly do to the West in the long term is trigger an economic crisis that would lower living standards world-wide. More of a global “great depression” than the apocalypse.

But you read the articles and decide for yourself.

On a somewhat related note, Bush has recently compared Osama Bin Laden to Hitler. Why the link? Because I think it’s indicative of the kind of overreaction to terrorism that Zakaria is talking about in his article. Sure, Bin Laden is a mass murderer, but that doesn’t make him Hitler. Hitler had autocratic control over the most powerful nation in the world. Conversely, Bin Laden is spending his days holed up in a cave somewhere around Pakistan. A little perspective please.

Lastly, here is a link to one very serious question to Rick Santorum “and other unreconstructed hawks.” Quote:

If in fact Iran is the Maximum Enemy, wasn’t the invasion of Iraq obviously (at least in retrospect) a huge mistake? After all, it (predictably):

1. Strengthened the lunatic anti-American party in Iran and weakened what had been very substantial pro-U.S. sentiment there;

2. Eliminated Iran’s most potent regional adversary;

3. Gave Iran substantial power in Iraq through its influence over the Shi’a there;

4. Made U.S. forces in Iraq virtual hostages to the threat that Iranian-influenced Shi’a leaders could call for jihad against the foreign occupiers.

This is coming from someone who supported the war in Iraq by the way.

Just some food for thought.

A new book claims that Karl Rove’s father is gay.

*cough* hypocrite *cough*

First, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has essentially given up any faith in his power to prevent a nascent civil war from forming over there.

Second, four US soldiers could face the death penalty for their part in the alleged murder of three civilians.

I’d say that’s some depressing news all around. Sistani was largely heralded as a “moderate” who could ease tension between the Sunnis and Shiites. Now it appears that further sectarian violence is unavoidable.

As for the soldiers, I think it’s only fair for a nation that supports the death penalty to apply it equally to its men and women serving in the military. Although it seems true that the fog of war is deeply shrouded in moral ambiguity, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to lose sight of our moral bearing. This is especially true in the wake of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, “Extraordinary Rendition,” and the numerous series of well documented allegations of torture.
War is hell. Our soldiers knew this when they signed up. Whatever the stress they face, they’re still American citizens subject to American laws. A license to kill in wartime is not a license to kill indiscriminately. That’s a point that is unfortunately lost in Rumsfeld’s Pentagon.

At the end of the day, murder is murder no matter how you cut it.

A sweet sweet desire to purge the universities of secular liberals.

Anyone have a clue? Well, you should; Mexico is our neighbor after all. The least you can do is know the man’s name. American geographical ignorance is bad enough, but it is really absurd that most Americans — and I’m willing to bet that this even applies to most college-educated Americans — don’t even know who the heads of government are to either of the (two) countries that directly border us.
Care to venture a guess about the Prime Minister of Canada?

Al-Qaeda has called on the US to convert to Islam. That’s not particularly surprising, but I think it adequately illustrates the point I was trying to make here about some of the quotes I read here. Long story short: Islam has a serious problem with fascism on its hands.

Yet some clearly hesitate to call it such. Why? If fascism is defined as a form of hyper-nationalism that seeks to concentrate power in the hands of an authoritarian state, what better word could you use? Replace hyper-nationalism with a pan Islamist desire to subjugate the Middle East under a single Medieval Caliphate and there you have it: Islamic fascism.

About a 55% success ratio for a US missile defense program. Now that’s what I call purchasing power!

That’s right, the Daily Colonial’s PoliBlog (and by that I mean me, Danny K) is back and ready for action. And its a good thing too, because it’s not as if the world has stood still in my absence. Although there’s no use in trying to go over all the stuff that happened during the summer — and that works out just fine seeing how I didn’t really follow the news anyway — I would like to point out something that really struck me recently. Allow me to illustrate this through a bit of good ol’ fashion story-telling.

I was at the gym the other day flipping through a somewhat dated copy of the Economist (oh that’s right, my gym has the Economist) when I read something that really and truly shocked me: about 3,000 Iraqis, most of them civilian, are dying every month, primarily as a result of sectarian violence.

Holy hell! When did this happen?

Back when I was still following the news with some degree of regularity (circa right before finals last semester) it was a shocker to read that just 80 people had died in one month. Oh my, how things have changed.

Now it seems odd to be nostalgic for a time when anyone is dying on a daily basis, but here I am wishing it was three months ago (minus Donald Rumsfeld).

Sigh.