ADVENTURES IN LINX 1
ALZO, got a little housekeeping done this weekend - check out the revamped bookmarks, on the right, I have pruned and enhanced ALL lists. Still a work in progress, but have amassed so many good links since Friday that I am required to dump them all over you, as follows - international/security/&c links first:
* Saturday was the 16th anniversary of the Tianenmen Square massacre, and the excellent Hong Kong/China blog Simon World (listed in the 'ABROAD' links) has a comprehensive post on the subject. China's come a long way in the past 16 years, but it's worth keeping in mind where they're coming from -
* If you're not sick/tired of trying to 'figure out' what the US was/is trying to do in Iraq, check out this review of a recent Armed Forces Journal article by the Armchair Generalist. Written by "an anonymous congressional staffer versed in national security issues" (OK, fair enough, grain of salt) the article runs through six strategic goals we hoped to achieve by ousting Saddam. All of are totally good goals, a 'perfect storm' of rationales, even, but none of them by themself could have been used to justify war - hence the WMD route. This is kind of how I saw/see it, hence the linkage. Needless to say, there's been a lot of fog and friction since, and it's an open question whether we'll ever achieve these aims.
* Also highly recommended is an earlier AG post on a recent Army monograph trying to evaluate the US grand strategy in the war on terror more generally.
* Speaking of fog and friction, ZenPundit points to a long and worthy Chicago Trib piece on the US military's struggles to deal with Fourth Generation Warfare, as currently playing out in Iraq and Afghanistan. Zen Mark also points to a recent post on Daniel Starr's blog summarizing some ongoing discussion of the dilemma of liberal hawks - "they're screwed, because neither side trusts them." I know, right?
* Winds of Change's newish major contributor Bill Roggio has a summary and a bunch of worthwhile links up on Operation Thunder/Lightning, the Iraqi/Coalition troops' current attempt to secure Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle.
* For some reason I can't get a permalink working, but check out terror finance expert Douglas Farah's account of the Swiss government's extremely disappointing failure to successfully prosecute Yusuf Nada and his Al Taqwa terror$$$ network. Doug's got a lot of good background info on his site, but if you are looking for a more, ah, colorful, conspiratorial account, I have from time to time enjoyed the stylings of radio's top "anti-fascist researcher" Dave Emory, who would have you believe that this, along with just about everything else happening in the war on terror, is essentially a continuation of World War II. !! Summaries of shows about Nada can be found here, audio archives here.
* Fascinating UK Telegraph article about US/'Western' intelligence infiltration of Al-Qaeda message boards (via Chester's newsfeed)
* AND DO check out the current Carnival of the Revolutions at Publius Pundit for many many links on struggles for democracy around the world (via A Step At A Time)