Fiasco: America’s Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas Ricks

Thomas Ricks is no pacifist, and there’s nothing anti-military about his chronicle of the war in Iraq. Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post, he has been to Iraq five times in four years. He tells us that each time, the situation has been worse than before. In an interview on amazon.com, he says this:
On my […]

Have we won their hearts and minds yet?

Over two years ago, the topic of U.S. soldiers’ immunity to prosecution in Iraq was hot. The May 2004 issue of the New Yorker had published Seymour Hersch’s story on Abu Graib, and people were outraged. Now the question of immunity comes up again, this time because of last March’s cold-blooded murder and brutal rape […]

What's a yellow ribbon for?

A popular song in the 70s was called Tie a Yellow Ribbon (Round the Ole Oak Tree) (YouTube, opens in a new window).
The song, in turn, was based on a traditional story about a fellow who, when he was to be released from prison, wrote a letter to his sweetie asking her to let him […]

Why we fight is on google video!

The movie I talked about earlier, Why We Fight, is now available from google video! I saw it in the theater, but I’m really excited that now people can see it easily.
If you’re interested in really getting what’s going on with this war, you should definitely watch it. It’s not some whacked-out conspiracy thing. It’s […]

Springsteen and Seeger

I hate it when I hear something on NPR, like spirituals or bluegrass or something, and I think it sounds cool, so I go buy a CD and “Ewwwwww! Why did I do that?”
But I was sitting in the bookstore yesterday, and was pulled away from my thoughts by something that sounds like “Old Dan […]