Two recent “Intelligence Briefs” from PINR caught my eye: “Iran’s Covert Operations in Iraq,” and “The Implications of Strategic Withdrawal from Iraq.” As some readers know, I’m a big fan of PINR for supplying ‘open source intelligence,’ which is to say, generalized insights into foreign policy and educated guesses based on publicly available information. In [...]
Monthly Archives: March 2007
“Embrace the Suck”
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Check out the newest slang from the Global War on Terror: Bohica, Fobbit, Echelons Above Reality, Full Battle Rattle. I loves me some jargon. The title phrase means, basically, “The situation is bad, but deal with it.” Via Metafilter.
Reading Tehran
Friday, March 30, 2007
This CSM piece gives an excellent background on the British-Iranian conflict that lead to the capture of British soldiers last week. The big mystery is why Iran would give the UK/US a clear casus belli like this, when we’re so clearly itching for a fight. It’s not like they couldn’t guess what sort of reaction [...]
Insert Words/Images Ratio Here
Thursday, March 29, 2007
A while back I posted some links to photos of life in Tehran. I just figured out how to make Microsoft OneNote grab my favorite picture from Flickr, so I thought I’d share it:
I love the summer greens mixed with the bright grays and blues of a metropolis. The child in the center says it [...]
After a long hiatus, a shocking discovery!
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
I’ve been distracted by travel… first I went to the Arendt Circle in Louisvlle, Kentucky, then to Pennsylvania where I selected a site for my wedding! I volunteered to become the Arendt Circle’s webmaster, which means my online time will be further divided between setting up a website for them, my time on metafilter, and [...]
Confessions of a Torturer
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Just pulled this off Metafilter. A St. John’s grad turned interrogator speaks about what he did to innocents in Iraq: Confessions of a Torturer. There goes Martha Nussbaum’s thesis that the study of the liberal arts will cultivate an ethical sensibility, right out the window. That said, Mr. Lagouranis has a lot more to tell [...]