Follow BeltwayBlips on Twitter
Saturday reading: ADN
Ben Smith's Blog —
George teases his Obama interview, which includes a -- very vague -- discussion of a "grand bargain" and shared sacrifice. He also asks a question about a torture prosecutor that was driven by activists on Change.gov, a nice example of how the intersection of officialdom, activists and the mainstream media works.
Alaska Daily News editors describe the difficulty of reporting out a weird, but not disproven, story, and says Palin is micharacterizing his paper.
Obama's first trip will not, as he'd suggested, be to a Muslim country, but rather to Canada. Bring Goolsbee!
Obama will honor McCain in ...
Getting Closer to Nowhere
Matthew Yglesias —
... to achieving its goals in Gaza. Which is nice, except nobody’s ever been able to clarify what those goals are. As hard-core anti-semite Anthony Cordesman wrote the other day: ...
Instahoglets Sunday
Newshoggers.com —
... else on the planet at any government and any nation whose political system is profoundly molded by warfare and it is clear that relentless war and sustainable democratic governance are incompatible. Any nation that perpetually focuses on threats from outside, simultaneously rots from within." (And yes, Hamas commits war crimes too. They're a semi-state actor employing terrorist tactics. Which should have the sense to eschew such crimes?)
- Cordesman, via Matt Y : "Has Israel somehow blundered into a steadily escalating war ...
Clausewitz, On War, Introductory Material: Cordesman Asks the Question
Chicago Boyz —
After that first post, I had in mind to apply “war is nothing but the continuation of policy with other means” to what Israel is doing in Gaza. But Anthony Cordesman beat me to it. Looks like he’s studied Clausewitz.
This raises a question that every Israeli and its supporters now needs to ask. What is the strategic purpose behind the present fighting? After two weeks of combat Olmert, Livni, and Barak have still not said a word that indicates that Israel will gain strategic or grand strategic benefits, or tactical benefits much larger than the gains it made from selectively striking key Hamas facilities early in the war. In fact, ...
The Poisoned Fruit Of Gaza?
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
Fallows dissects Anthony Cordesman's analysis: Gee, if only there were a popular saying that conveyed the idea that you could win many battles and still lose the war. Let us check some of the effects of the Krauthammer-style offensive: a greater association in the Arab-Muslim mind that the US is on the side of corrupt and brutal Arab autocracies; widespread global revulsion at the sight of a vastly superior army causing, even unintentionally, horrifying civilian casualties; a greater identification with Hamas among Gazans; a weakening of the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank; ...
Cordesman: Israel has no strategy in Gaza
Hot Air » Top Picks —
Cordesman: Israel has no strategy in Gaza posted at 2:17 pm on January 12, 2009 by Allahpundit Send to a Friend | Share on Facebook | printer-friendly Worthy of mention for a few reasons. One, he’s no knee-jerk dove; in fact, he used to advise McCain on national security. Two, according to a friend of mine who embedded with troops in Iraq, his assessments of the situation there were consistently on the money. Three, after endearing himself to the nutroots in 2007 by insisting he saw no major improvements from the surge, he went back to Iraq ...
Maybe the Israelis Know What They're Doing?
Weekly Standard Blog —
... This analysis from Anthony Cordesman is getting a lot of attention today for its bleak assessment of the Israeli position. Cordesman asks: ...
