Tom Ricks, award-winning military journalist, gives the Nimitz Lecture on why the US military succeeded in WW II but had so much trouble in the Korean, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The book version is out shortly, Tom Ricks, The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today See also Ricks’s invaluable blog
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Middle East
Did Bashar al-Assad Betray Qaddafi?
The polemicists of the fringe left and the far right who depict the Baathist regime in Syria as a beleagured victim of Western plotting may have to retool their noise machines. It turns out that the authoritarian government of Bashar joined with France to destroy Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi. An intelligence official for the Libyan rebels […]
Annals of Settler Colonialism (5): German Namibia #savagesunite
The German settlers and authorities round up 13,000 of the remaining Herero. They put them in concentration camps, where 4,000 died of mistreatment. Almost all of the Herero were now in camps. Although the Israelis do have large prison camps where they hold thousands of Palestinians for engaging in resistance to Occupation, they haven’t put […]
Annals of Settler Colonialism (4) German Namiba #savagesunite
German officers arrive in Southwest Africa from Berlin to deal with the Herero, whose rebellion has died down. Ordinarily a colonial state would now move to negotiations. But Gen. von Trotter had no intention of negotiating or compromising. The Herero were now doomed. Refusing to negotiate in good faith is common among settler colonialists. Being […]
Netanyahu 2002: Iraq has Centrifuges ‘the size of Washing Machines’ to Produce A-Bomb
Israeli PM Binyamin “Chicken Little” Netanyahu tried to scaremonger about Iraq in 2002, as his contribution to the Anglo-American war of aggression on that country. “there is no question whatsoever,” Netanyahu said, “that Saddam” was seeking nuclear weapons. He said that Israeli intelligence reported to him that Russian scientists and North Korea were on site […]
It’s Psychological Warfare, Stupid: Why Netanyahu Really wants to Destroy Iran
The Israeli Likud Party’s cover story for why it wants to draw the United States into a war with Iran makes no real sense. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been predicting an Iranian nuclear bomb since 1992 (a time when Iran had no nuclear program at all), and he has been wrong for 15 years […]
The Annals of Settler Colonialism: German Namibia (1) #savagesunite
Settler colonialism has a long and unsavory history and always involves displacing people from their land, driving them into penury, making and keeping them stateless, and, often, killing large numbers of them. The settlers brand resistance to their squatting on other people’s land “terrorism” by “savages.” One of the few contemporary examples of settler colonialism […]
Libya Security crisis in Wake of Killing of US Ambassador (Links)
‘Free Libya’ Crowds in Benghazi rally against Militias, Drive al-Qaeda out of City
The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 was seen by many observers as a sign of Libyan radicalism or instability rather than the work of a small, violent and unrepresentative group. It is a little hard to understand this point of view, since Libyans had just voted in what observers […]