News Brief, Still At War With Oceania Edition
Posted by Joshua Foust on 30 May 2007 at 9:47 pm | Tagged as: Notes on the war, Military Matters, Technology, Foreign affairs
Cross-posted at The Conjecturer.
Defense
- An entire security detail was abducted in Baghdad, in a secure area, leading to questions about the extent to which local security forces are collaborating with the insurgents, whether private companies are appropriate agents, and the whole legitimacy of the operation.
- An excellent post on the continued need for civilian control of the military, and why simply deferring to “the generals” and reporters at the front is such a mistake. What was it Clemenceau said? War is too important to be left to the generals?
- Speaking of which: how will turning Baghdad into civil war-era Kabul (the 1992-1996 civil war, that is) ease sectarian strife? Creating zones of control, totally in isolation to the rest of the city—much like Israeli settlements in the West Bank—is not a sustainable, permanent, or even particularly well thought out solution to the fighting.
- Russia’s new ICBM missile should ease its fears over BMD in Eastern Europe, right? Right? Well, but don’t expect them to tone down the rhetoric.
- Sharon Weinberger takes a hard look at the $1 billion embassy in Baghdad.
Around the World
- Al-Qaeda as entrepreneur: Iraq has turned into al-Qaeda’s think tank, training fighters in strategic suicide bombing and anti-US combat from Algeria to Afghanistan.
- Iran has accused Wilson Scholar Haleh Esfandiari, among others, of being spies. And here I thought the regime was confident. It’s scared. Though spying is a capital offense in Iran, don’t expect to see the gallows anytime soon—unless Iran hopes executing innocent Americans will spark a disastrous invasion.
- Chris Hill still thinks North Korea will shut down decrepit old Yongbyon, despite being several months behind its agreed-upon date to do so.
- Is Europe going to regret tricking then forcing the resignation of Wolfowitz? Probably. They seem to regret a lot of things, in part because they’ve somehow managed to be even more myopic than Americans on a spread of issues.
- Speaking of which: look at the Swiss solution to minarets. Given how much Europe has been thrown into turmoil, I can’t blame their wariness. And, I have a lot of respect for how the Swiss handle the situation: many years ago, when one of the prominent members of the Saudi family was visiting the country, he asked a minister when he could build a mosque in Geneva. The minister replied, “when we can build a church in Riyadh.”
- Is all the hype about China… just hype? I certainly think so. Meanwhile, Rebiya Kadeer, the Uighur activist I still think should be given a Nobel Peace Prize, wrote an impassioned plea (reprinted by OEoC, with hilarious and ironic disclaimers) for her people’s freedom in the Wall Street Journal.
- I so called it! Meanwhile, Sean Roberts has pulled together a typically impressive analysis of the Kazakh First Family intrigues.
- I hate on some British chick writing about Afghanistan, and take a peek at changing tactics in Afghanistan. And don’t miss another of Miss Bonnie’s excellent big picture posts on the growing bilateral ties between Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.
- Oh look, another useless index (this one of “peace”) that uses weird indicators to say nothing about countries. For example, no where in the survey can one find North Korea. Similarly, where would you rather live—Equatorial Guinea (#71), or the United States (#96)? This ranking says nothing about quality of life, liberty, happiness, or even peacefulness. In fact, I don’t really know what it’s saying, aside from the shocking surprise that Norwegians aren’t very violent and Iraq is a bad place.
Back at Home
- Taking a page from the interface on Apple’s iPhone, Microsoft is trying to build a gesture-based (literal) desktop computer. Quibble if you must with Microsoft ripping off Apple’s user interface (I just might), or with how eerily similar it is to that from last year; this is a cool idea should it ever come to pass. Gestures are the future of computing, and it’s high time people started figuring out how to make it happen.
- I can’t say whether or not it’s a good idea to sell China nuclear technology. But I’m pretty sure the blatant attempts to block the sale will come back to bite us.
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