Guerrillas differ from conventional armies in that they typically avoid direct, conventional engagements on the battlefield. They melt away before a conventional army’s advance, and then reemerge to engage in sniping, sneak attacks, and bombings from an unexpected quarter. The advantage of Fred Kagan’s troop escalation or “surge” is that it allowed a tamping down […]
Archives for December 2007
US Deploys Pakistani Insurgents against Al-Qaeda
The USG Open Source Center translates an article from an opposition Afghanistan newspaper alleging that Washington it deploying Pakistani tribal levies against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. ‘USA trying to use Pakistani insurgents against Al-Qa’idah – Afghan paperCheragh (Light)Saturday, December 8, 2007Document Type: OSC Translated Excerpt USA trying to use Pakistani insurgents against Al-Qa’idah – Afghan […]
Bombings in Diyala Kill over Two Dozen
Bombings were back on the front page in Iraq on Saturday, with significant attacks carried out on Thursday evening and Friday. At Muqdadiya in Diyala province, a female suicide bomber blew up a meeting of the local ‘Awakening Council’ or tribal levies willing to ally with the Americans against the radical Islamic State of Iraq. […]
Romney: Some Beliefs are More Equal than Others
Mitt Romney’s speech in Texas on Thursday was supposed to be an attempt to fend off religious bigotry. Instead, it betrays some prejudices of its own (against secular people), and seems to provoke others to bigotted statements. It has been likened to the speech of John F. Kennedy on his Catholicism. But we knew John […]
Huckabee as Deer in the Headlights Trusts hearsay over NIE
Gov. Mike Huckabee did not know about the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran when asked about it on Wednesday. It had caused a furor in Washington because it concluded that Iran had halted any weapons-related experiments in 2003. It is not such a big scandal that Huckabee hadn’t heard the news. When you are […]
3 US Troops Killed; 25 Slaughtered in Car Bomb Spree Iraq Refugees in Syria Face Hunger, Cold
Four major bombings around Iraq left at least 25 dead and dozens more wounded on Wednesday. Al-Hayat says that a car bomber detonated his payload near the Abd al-Rasul Shiite religious center (Husayniya) in Karrada. It is expected that the count of 15 killed will rise, given the size of the explosion and how crowded […]
Bush Grasp of Reality Tenuous
Farideh Farhi, at our group blog, Global Affairs, says she listened to Bush’s press conference on Tuesday — which was full of implausible statements — and now wants to know what George W. Bush has been smoking. Uh, I don’t think that substance is typically smoked so much as snorted. Or maybe his current favorite […]
International Reaction to the NIE: OSC
The USG Open Source Center surveys Iranian, German, French, and Israeli reactions to the US National Intelligence Estimate that holds that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. One is struck by the Israeli reactions, on both sides of the aisle. Former Labor prime minister Ehud Barak dismissed the report. ‘OSC Report: NIE on […]
Cole in Salon: Why Bush’s Troop Surge Won’t Save Iraq
My Salon column, “Why Bush’s troop surge won’t save Iraq,” is now online. Excerpt: ‘the only truly good news to come from Iraq would be good news regarding the political landscape. And there, Iraq is still beset with problems. In recent days, parts of northern Iraq have been invaded by Turkey, an ally of the […]
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