April 1, 2009

Bloggingheads TV: better than watching Don Draper, not as good as watching Omar

By: David Adesnik

For those with any interest in Af-Pak, I highly recommend watching this dialog between Chris Brose and Spencer Ackerman (by the way, I find the hardass pose of that site’s theme rather annoying, however ironically it may be intended). Brose offers a much-appreciated shout-out to this blog, but it was Ackerman’s comment that precipitated it that struck me, when he claims he knows of no voices on the right who are skeptical of our policies in Central Asia (and beyond).

Perhaps I should be more understanding, since there are days when I don’t find any voices on the right that aren’t skeptical. Just off the top of my head (okay my bookmarks), I can think of (and apologies to anyone who wouldn’t include himself on this list):

Daniel Larison

Andrew Bacevich

The cast and crew of The American Conservative

John Derbyshire

Steve Sailer

Bill Lind, over at Defense and the National Interest

Justin Logan and the rest of the Cato guys (stretching the definition of “the right” here a bit)

Rod Dreher

Peter Hitchens — granted, not an American

To these I would add a couple of skeptics emeritus: the recently and sadly departed Samuel Huntington and General William Odom.

FInally, I remembered my Leo Strauss, regarding the significance of the silence of a great figure on an important topic. Might Irving Kristol be considered a skeptic, and his silence on matters of recent American foreign policy of some import?

So, who’d I leave out?