War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
“To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. “To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. “To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet…
Another anniversary this morning, and a sad day indeed for US peoples. Ten years ago today, George Jr. signed into law the infamous USA/Patriot Act, a move which revealed the end game for the great American experiment in democracy — nowadays the US is closer to George Orwell than George Washington. And although George Jr.…
Although Moammar Gadhafi was one of the great-cruel assholes of a generation, watching him all bloody, getting slapped around by Libyan freedom fighters, makes for a disconcerting scene — this world doesn’t sugar-coat violence in reality. Thus, which brings this from Cornell University government Professor David Patel: “I really want to know what Bashar Al-Assad…
Another version of an international tall tale popped up this week with the initially alarming news of an official Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador at a DC restaurant via Mexican drug cartel gunmen. A tale so convoluted it turns out that David Mamet would have a hard time trying to decipher the plot. Yesterday,…
Mr. Bush had belittled “nation building†while campaigning for president 18 months earlier. But aware that Afghans had felt abandoned before, including by his father’s administration after the Soviets left in 1989, he vowed to avoid the syndrome of “initial success, followed by long years of floundering and ultimate failure. “We’re not going to repeat…
Nearly as Pink Floyd intoned more than 30 years ago: “Is Anybody Out There?” the noted follow-up nowadays: Is anybody listening, or paying attention? A surge is rippling through US financial districts as the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon spreads across the country, apparently some people are finally opening eyes and ears to everyday people’s money…
In the last few years there’s been a momentous outburst of gall — the audacity of some people to bullshit despite incredible evidence to the contrary — which has touched just about every aspect of US life, especially in politics. Two such unrelated examples occurred this past weekend, one involved GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry…
“If this works out, we’ll have the ability to track people persistently across wide areas,†says Tim Faltemier, the lead biometrics researcher at Progeny Systems Corporation, which recently won one of the Army contracts. “A guy can go under a bridge or inside a house. But when he comes out, we’ll know it was the…
malism: The doctrine that this world is evil — (HEADWORD) pessimism. When George Jr. ordered the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 — another decade gone — according to Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, initial support by US peoples for the act was around 90 percent: In 2001 and 2002, about 40…
Even as US peoples are trying to keep their lives from being sucked down the financial toilet while trying to figure out which GOP presidential candidate is the most half-wit-crazed, attention has been slight on another 10-year anniversary coming up in a slight three weeks — the disastrous war in Afghanistan. This week, however, one…