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Doublethink :: Summer 2008






Foreign Affairs

Moscow has sent a message: Russia will do what it wants, when it wants, to the unfortunate countries on its borderlands. Here are several options for avoiding mixed signals while sending them a message of our own.

After the Georgian debacle, the road forward looks to be fraught with difficulty. An intelligent and wily foreign policy, one which profoundly internalizes the limits of our reach, is the only way we’ll avoid repeating the same mistakes.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is behind bars at the Hague. But given the luxurious accommodations, can it really be said that justice is being served?

Many in the West are thrilled at the capture and extradition of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. But for Serbia to fully transcend its dark past and join the Western community, there is much work to be done.

By voting against the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the Irish have taken a stand for sovereignty and democracy.

Bribery rules in Ukraine, even as the country is in the midst of reform.

London needs a new mayor, and what better than a credential-carrying conservative?

The bombings in London have refocused Britains attention — but how will the new Prime Minister respond?

A long line of conservative Italian political thought goes ignored when we get caught up looking at Italy’s current state.

Sarkozy’s victory isn’t the dawn of a new era, it’s just a politician who has always gotten his way.

Go for the carbon conferences, stay for the aquavit.

So the Internet has changed everything about globalization, but did we mention it makes a mean gazpacho?

In the United Kingdom, with the Conservative Party forsaking principle for pragmatism under the so-called leadership of David Cameron, more and more Tories are voting with their feet and defecting to the U.K. Independence Party.

Which side will prevail in Europe’s internal struggle over free trade?

Somewhere along the way, England seems to have rushed headlong into the world of animal rights, environmental activism, political correctness, and other liberal nostrums.

The Pope’s recent comments about Islam were well stated–an atheist should know.

Our “special relationship” with England goes deeper than simply speaking the same language, the great political virtues, moral habits and social customs which made America great are rooted in Englishness.

“We are all Lebanese now.” Why is that not a phrase likely to be heard coming from any American politician or official of either party, much less from any professional pundit?

Is the new socialist government in Spain whitewashing the country’s Civil War history?

How the EU grew into a sprawling international complex of supra-national administrative institutions and bureaucratic networks, and why many Europeans seem to like it that way.

One might say that the modern history of Holland is the history of Europe, writ small.

Though liberals like George Clooney won’t want to admit their slide to a neoconservative foreign policy, they might not have a choice regarding Darfur.

China’s official debut returns us to the high-stakes game of great power politics, a lot like a game of Risk.

Will “never again” finally be a call to action in Darfur?

While often reviled for its unilateral foreign policy, when there is a difficult task to be done, it’s the United States that is relied upon to act. And there is a particularly difficult job to do right now in Sudan.

Iranians, connected to the outside world by satellite dishes and the Internet, are now pro-American, but they won’t be if the U.S. intervenes militarily.

The media’s focus on the insurgency in Iraq has allowed the angry left to argue that the insurgents speak for a majority of Iraqis. Last Sunday, the cynics were proven dead wrong.

Why it’s preferable to prosecute Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi Special Tribunal and not a UN-created court.

A review of the new play, Guantanamo: “Honor Bound to Defend Freedom” based on the spoken testimony of former and current detainees and their families, legal briefs, and speeches.

Third-world farmers don’t need less synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, and biotechnology; they need more.

Among the many brave men and women of our armed forces in combat, there are some soldiers who decide they just can’t fight.

If our current conflict in Iraq seems like World War II, it should. This nation has, once again, reluctantly chosen to wield its bloody sword for liberty’s sake.

To truly win the war in Iraq, winning “the hearts and minds” of the liberated is indispensable. We have just lost a lot of hearts and minds.

Outsourcing, like new innovations in productivity, might immediately hurt a few workers here and there, but will benefit all consumers in the long run.

Does the electoral surprise in Spain prove that the terrorists won, or that the conservative government’s interventionist policies lost?

Now that we have him, should we put Saddam Hussein on trial? And if so, how do we try him?

With U.S. foreign policy often running counter to Chinese interests, the “sleeping giant” is increasingly looking toward the EU as a potential partner.

Self-important U2 frontman Bono gets bodyslammed in this critique of the millionaire panhandler.

The perception many have that reconstruction is failing in Iraq is due to media distortion and journalists “dwelling upon the mistakes”.

A Kenyan perspective on anti-globalization protesters who purport to fight for the world’s poor.

The best hope for Iraq might be a federalist system based on principles of legal and communal autonomy of its 1925 constitution.

If Justice Ginsburg had her way, American courts would look to foreign law for precedent–but only precedent that fit her worldview, of course.

In his final dispatch, Capt. Eric Lombardini returns home from the frontlines in Iraq and recounts the shock and emotion of reintegration to society.

The old Dubliner had bought me a pint, but he had no opening to hand it to me because of the drunken Canadian waving his arms. The Torontoan spread his arms wide while shouting about Iraq, trying to express, with his wing-span, what he thought was the magnitude of President Bush’s stupidity. Finally, the old [...]

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September 11
was a shocking demonstration of the dangers of lawless countries and
ungovernable regions, which are easy targets for Islamic fundamentalism and
breeding grounds for terror. In the war on terror, President Bush has committed
the U.S.
style=’font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-font-family:”MS Mincho”‘> to draining these terror swamps.
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mso-fareast-font-family:”MS Mincho”‘>Chechnya
style=’font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-font-family:”MS Mincho”‘> ought to be on his radar [...]

Talk about the “missing WMDs” and the notion that President Bush lied about Saddam Hussein having them in order to push America into war has more to do with a discredited anti-war movement desperate for something to be right about than whether the war was justified. The more astute observers have recognized that the [...]

Date: 5/18/2003
Subject: Waning months of the war 2
I miss seeing the three-toed footprints of great blue herons hunting on my parents’ beach on the shores of the Sassafras in Fall, the copper green cupola at the end of our dock standing vigilant as a lone sentry, stationed over the water, which in July was a [...]



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name=”City”/>
name=”PlaceType”/>
name=”PlaceName”/>
name=”country-region”/>
name=”State”/>
name=”place”/>

September 11
was a shocking demonstration of the dangers of lawless countries and
ungovernable regions, which are easy targets for Islamic fundamentalism and
breeding grounds for terror. In the war on terror, President Bush has committed
the U.S.
style=’font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-font-family:”MS Mincho”‘> to draining these terror swamps.
style=’font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-font-family:”MS Mincho”‘>Chechnya
style=’font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-font-family:”MS Mincho”‘> ought to be on his radar [...]

Date: 4/20/2003
Subject: Healing in the Aftermath
Friends and Family,
Communications are terribly difficult to access, I quite feel like a British Colonial soldier in the Sudan, mail filtering in once in a blue moon, completely disconnected from the reality of the world.
Please write, and when you do, use the following address. Stop writing before June 15th, [...]


Date: 5/18/2003
Subject: Waning months of the war
After a dog almost caused a military aircraft to crash by running across the flight line during takeoff, the Army has decided on a scorched earth policy with regards to the feral dogs. It’s understood that there was a need for management, but there rarely seem to be any [...]




Around this time in 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell took it on the chin for opining, “Castro has done some good things for his people.”
Last week Powell spoke about the Castro regime much more honestly, stating that the recent crackdown, sham trials and summary executions “should be an outrage to every leader in this [...]

The grandiose argument that history was at an end appears to be at an end itself. The terror attacks of September 11th and the coming war with the Iraq settled that debate.
As such, I find myself fondly recalling the heady days of the dot-com ’90s when we Boomer kids bestrode the road of life [...]


As U.S. troops get ready to “shock and awe” Iraq, it’s important to take one last look at the Bush Administration’s motivations for a preemptive war. Oil is still high on the list.
In informed circles, saying that the coming war is about oil is taboo. That seems right because the confrontation with Iraq [...]


Last year a friend of mine got Christopher Hitchens’ book Why
Orwell Matters as a birthday gift from his mother. My friend’s mother, a
refugee from the Soviet Union, inscribed in the book: “Orwell was hated by the
conservatives because he was a socialist. He was hated by the socialists
because he told the truth.”
Almost the same thing could [...]





With leaks of battle plans showing up daily in the New York Times, Congress has become uneasy and worries that the White House may be thinking of starting a war without it. President Bush has not signaled any intention of seeking congressional approval before attacking Iraq, and the White House has declined to participate in [...]


Former President Jimmy Carter’s recent trip to Cuba prompted much talk among pundits over his role as an ex-president. From building houses for the poor to monitoring elections in the third world, today, more people associate Carter with Habitat for Humanity than with long gas lines and American hostages in Iran.
In fact, Carter has so [...]





Sometimes, it is difficult to be a conservative, because the other side can make you sound so . . . heartless.
For example, there is the matter of child soldiers.
Everyone can agree that involving children in armed combat is undesirable. To that end, the United Nations is pushing all member states to sign an optional protocol [...]

You have to be lucky all the time . . . We have to be lucky just once. -An international terrorist group
Today’s headlines are filled with reports of megaton bombs being dropped over Yugoslavia. The laser-guided capability and pinpoint accuracy of these so-called “smart bombs” are lauded as the cutting edge of modern-day warfare. [...]