Batch #1

I can't make out why TCSDaily isn't the first place I go everyday. Its articles always have a creative slant or fresh outlook I hadn't considered, they cover parts of the world and technology issues that I don't run across elsewhwere, and the writing is good.

So first, these three articles. Each is a little more discouraging than the last. Yet each has something hopeful about it, so need to take too many drinks before reading. You may want to watch "Caddyshack" or something after you've finished, though.

The first is Austin Bay's interview with Rumsfeld. It has a different slant on things, as Bay often does, in that the ex colonel is interested in the question of what are we learning in Iraq about the evolution of warfare - because war is going to be less military, and more "unified action" as we go forward. Short article

The second is an hypotheses why everyone is not, er, quite lying to us exactly, but not admitting the full story. He makes an alarming claim about what countries have to go through to achieve democracy, that it is happening in Iraq, but it is an uncomfortable enough truth that no one will acknowledge it. Could be. Short article

The third is really depressing, as Wretchard often is. It is not from TCS, but from The Belmont Club, which I should be visiting second every day.

There have been frequent complaints in Bush's version of the GWOT that we are going after state actors that are only partially responsible for our ills. This is the root of the belief that we are alienating Muslims, I think, because we are (purportedly) killing a lot of people who are only moderately at fault. Wretchard's view is that even this is a degree of connection we will not have in the future. The future of terrorism is the complete nonstate actor, able to sow chaos from inside societies without having to get support from other nations. In this theory, Iraq and the current war on terror is a halfway point between traditional war and a completely nonstate war. This makes an intuitive sense to me. It has been a decent argument that "Why Iraq? Why not the Saudis or the Iranians?" I am one who believe we needed to be aggressive and active, whether clumsily or not. The idea that not just this target, but no target in the future, is going to be that clean or clear is intriguing to me.

Medium article.

Perhaps there's just too much new to absorb, and my old brain resists flexibility. You young folks will have to pick it up. After all, it's you and your kids who will be in these dangers. As if you weren't depressed enough.