The latest news on Libya (all from outside-the-US sources) suggest a very dynamic situation there. See the following three stories:
Nato Strike Force in Libya Enjoys Quick Success with Apache Gunships from the Guardian [of the UK]
"The controversial move to deploy fighter helicopters brings greater versatility to Nato's patrolling of Libya from air."
Rebels 'Wrest Town from Gaddafi Forces' from Al Jazeera English
"Government said to have lost control of Yafran, in Libya's northwest, as NATO chief claims considerable progress."
Libyan Rebels Set Sights on Tripoli from Al Jazeera English
"As frontline of fighting constantly shifts, rebel brigade prepares to storm capital."
Qaddafi's forces seem to be evaporating.
Contrast these three stories above with this lame analysis from today:
What to do about Libya’s Stalemate? (Anne Applebaum) from the Washington Post"In other words, the Libyan war — or rebellion, or whatever we are calling it — is in stalemate. But is stalemate bad?"
A key point about this column: like much of the US-based media, Applebaum settled into a "Libya=stalemate" meme weeks ago and, as this column dramatically demonstrates, she (and they) stopped following the story in any detail. To follow what's really happening in Libya lately, most US media sources have been USELESS. Sad and frustrating.
U.S. Braces for Perilous Task of Pulling Last Troops in Iraq from the New York Times
"Even as the American military winds down its eight-year war in Iraq, commanders are bracing for what they fear could be the most dangerous remaining mission: getting the last troops out safely."
Yemenis Begin What Many Hope is Post-Saleh Era from Reuters via RealClearWorld
"Yemenis celebrated on Monday what many hope will be a new era without President Ali Abdullah Saleh, now recuperating in Saudi Arabia after an operation to remove shrapnel from his chest a day earlier. A tenuous truce was holding in Sanaa after two weeks of fighting between Saleh's forces and a powerful tribal federation which killed more than 200 people and forced thousands to flee."
The Battle for Pakistan: Pakistani Military's Use of Extremists to Target India has Backfired (Bruce Riedel) from YaleGlobal
"Pakistan's conflicting policy of fighting Al Qaeda while supporting Islamist militants against India has boomeranged spectacularly. ... The extremism now hits close to home as the jihadists with ambition to take control of Pakistan and its nuclear weapons turn on their handlers."
Very well-stated description of the hole the Pakistanis have dug for themselves and why!! Americans routinely complain (often with justification) about the US's foreign policy mistakes. What the Pakistanis have done here is epic failure of a whole order of magnitude greater than anything I have seen in a long time.
Are the Emerging BRICS Countries Ready to Break the Old Order? Don't Count It (Editorial) from Le Mond [of France in English]
"Brazil, China and the other so-called BRICS countries are demanding a political role proportional to their economic importance. Is a global power shift forthcoming? Not necessarily says Le Monde’s Alain Frachon, who says the BRICS bloc is still paper thin."
Bound to Fail: Interconnectedness Dooms Nations and Their Arbitrary Borders (Bo Ekman) from YaleGlobal
"With global interconnectedness in so many areas, governance at the national level has become but a quaint endeavor. Any political, economic, military or spiritual system that consolidates power and rejects feedback on changing circumstances cannot expect to adapt and survive..."
This interesting analysis draws to the next level the logic of globalization and the impact of new technologies. Instability ... and for authoritarian regimes everywhere, BIG TROUBLE!!
As part of our on-going primer on defense spending and easily grasp-able US defense policy, here's another installment:
The Secret History of Boeing’s Killer Drone (David Axe) from Wired Magazine
"The Boeing drone’s first flight opened a new chapter in the ongoing struggle to build a combat-ready, jet-powered robot warplane — and to convince the military to give the new unmanned aircraft a place on the front lines of aerial warfare."
If you haven't noticed, Wired Magazine has been really beefing up its coverage of defense issues. Their stories have been exceptional.
'Not Guilty': Inside Dominique Strauss-Kahn's Tricky Court Strategy from Time Magazine
"... both sides are gearing up for a protracted, complex and messy battle. Already the spectacle has the class conflicts of Bonfire of the Vanities, the legal star power of the O.J. Simpson trial, and the graphic details of the Starr Report."
Gender Wars, Race, Class, and International Relations - the DSK Case Gets Political from Radio France International
"The group of chambermaids who jeered at Dominique Strauss-Kahn as he arrived at Manhattan criminal court to enter his plea of not guilty, demonstrates just how political this case is becoming."
Why Can’t More Poor People Escape Poverty? A Radical New Explanation from Psychologists (Jamie Holmes) from the New Republic
"In the 1990s, social psychologists developed a theory of “depletable” self-control. The idea was that an individual’s capacity for exerting willpower was finite—that exerting willpower in one area makes us less able to exert it in other areas. ... Over the intervening 13 years, these results have been corroborated in more than 100 experiments."
An interesting, provocative theory!!
Among GOP, Anti-tax Orthodoxy Runs Deep (Lori Montgomery) from the Washington Post
"As House Speaker John A. Boehner has said: Raising taxes is “unacceptable and a non-starter.” This orthodoxy is now woven so deeply into the party’s identity that all but 13 of 288 GOP lawmakers in Congress have signed a formal pledge not to raise taxes. The strategist who invented the pledge, Grover G. Norquist, compares it to a brand, like Coca-Cola, built on “quality control” so that Republican voters know they will get “the same thing every time.” Loyalty to the brand is so strong that no Republican has voted for a major federal tax increase since 1991, Norquist says."
American Voters Aren't Keynesian, But... (Jonathan Chait) from the New Republic
"The difficult underlying fact here is that Americans don't buy Keynesian economics. I think this stems overwhelmingly from economic ignorance, but it's a reality nonetheless."
Dirty Work: The Creeping Rollback of Child-Labor Laws (Adam Cohen) from Time Magazine
"The government has not had a lot of ideas for what to do about the nation's anemic job market, but there are troubling signs that one old idea is starting to re-emerge: child labor."
'Fundamentalist Americanism': Heightening The Republican Contradictions, Ctd (Andrew Sullivan) from the Daily Beast
"... they have returned to fundamentalism, because only fundamentalism, with its absolute certainty and literal precision and binding, unquestionable authority, can assuage the anxieties of a world dislocated from tradition, up-ended by capitalism, globalized to the point of cultural panic. What we are seeing on the Republican right at the moment, it seems to me, is an extension of this response to anxiety. The new orthodoxy is fundamentalist Americanism."
Our ON-THE-MONEY pundit of the day!! Check out Sullivan's full posting!
Back to Square One: Obama's Ratings Settle Near 2008 Levels (Ronald Brownstein) from National Journal
"Among favorable and unfavorable groups alike, President Obama’s approval ratings in the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll are returning to the levels of support he attracted in his 2008 election, though the headwinds of economic slowdown will challenge his ability to hold those gains."
Dems See Chance for Payback in 2012 from Politico
"... thanks to the outcome of a May special election, resistance to the Republican-led plan to overhaul Medicare and the growing sense that new congressional maps aren’t going to produce a GOP windfall, an idea only dead-ender Democrats clung to is starting to gain currency: The House might be in play next year after all."
Herman Cain, Being There (Burns and Haberman) from Politico
"The tea party favorite won't take detailed positions on, well, pretty much anything."
Will this actually be a liability for Cain -- given that NONE of the GOP wannabes have given detailed positions on virtually anything? I suspect all of them will try and get the nomination while saying as little of substance as possible.
Six Things to Know About the Palin Movie: "The Undefeated" (Matt Latimer) from Salon
"To his credit Mr. Bannon, who spent $1 million on this film, does not hide his intentions. "I believe this is the leader we need," he said of Palin at the screening, perhaps unhelpfully adding that she recently had mispronounced his name. So without further ado, my top takeaways from the film:"
Michelle Obama: White House Rebel from Newsweek
"Michelle Obama refuses to be a political show pony or schmooze with Washington's elite. She has her own sense of where her energies should be deployed and has constructed a fruitful life inside the bubble. All that will have to change in the heat of Election 2012."
PAUL REVERE NUGGET!!
Paul Revere’s Ride: How Well Do You Know Your Revolutionary History? (Quiz) (Melissa Bell) from the Washington Post
"Take this quiz to see if you know your revolutionary history. There may be more than one right answer, but the more accurate the answer, the higher the score. Good luck!"
D-DAY PHOTOGRAPHY NUGGET!!
D-Day: Magnum's Iconic Photographs of the Invasion of Normandy from Slate
SCANDINAVIAN HAPPINESS NUGGET!!
The World's Happiest People (Robert Lavine) from the Atlantic
"Denmark regularly ranks among the world's happiest countries, and it also saved most Danish Jews during World War II. What explains the society's success?"
ELEPHANT NUGGET!!
How Elephants Flirt, Argue and Have Feelings Just Like Humans from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"They also use body language and sounds in other distinctly human ways, rubbing shoulders or entwining trunks as a greeting and folding their trunk under their tusks as an invitation to play."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1394544/Squabbles-directions-rows-discussions-
The chart with this article is quite interesting.
WAY COOL WORLD WAR II NUGGET!!
The Dunkirk Spirit Preserved: Dover Castle Opens Secret Tunnels Where Operation Dynamo Evacuation Mission was Masterminded from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"Visitors to Dover Castle will soon be able to get a dramatic insight into the Dunkirk evacuation and explore the hidden tunnels where the rescue operation was masterminded."
Check out the EXTRAORDINARY photos that accompany the article!!
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