Dennis Miller says it – the way I wish I could:
Oh, ouch!
But Hapless Harry deserves every morsel of this...
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
War and Decision...
Even though the war in Iraq started just five years ago, there have already been quite a few books about it published. Unfortunately, most of these books have been written by people with a much stronger grasp on their opinions and ideology than on the facts. I've been assuming that we'd have to wait a decade or more before any first-hand material made it through the declassification and publication pipeline – but I've just finished reading one that has made it already: War and Decision, by Douglas J. Feith. Mr. Feith is not an outside observer – he was the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from 2001 to 2005, and was right in the middle of all the decision making that led up to the war and through the first two years of the war.
This book has received very little attention in the mainstream media, and after reading it, it's easy to see why: the book demolishes the mainstream media's cherished myths about how we decided to go to war against Saddaam Hussein, and about why we conducted the war and its aftermath as we did. The book has the unmistakable ring of authenticity and truth – Mr. Feith is an observer with his own biases, but he writes like a historian, with scrupulous attention to sourcing and citations. Click on the link above to read other reviews of this fine book (not all of them are positive), and to buy it from Amazon if you'd like to. I highly recommend it.
This book has received very little attention in the mainstream media, and after reading it, it's easy to see why: the book demolishes the mainstream media's cherished myths about how we decided to go to war against Saddaam Hussein, and about why we conducted the war and its aftermath as we did. The book has the unmistakable ring of authenticity and truth – Mr. Feith is an observer with his own biases, but he writes like a historian, with scrupulous attention to sourcing and citations. Click on the link above to read other reviews of this fine book (not all of them are positive), and to buy it from Amazon if you'd like to. I highly recommend it.
New Moon...
When I walked the dogs this morning, around 4:30 AM, there was a beautiful new moon hanging just above the mountains that form our northern horizon. Our skies have been quite hazy for the past week or so, mainly from dilute smoke from the fires far north of us. This haze gave the new moon a slightly yellow cast, but didn't really hide any detail. The sky surrounding the moon was just barely brighter than the black of the rest of the sky; the moon is still separated from the sun by a large enough angle to put it in the night sky. Probably tomorrow morning it will not be framed by the black of night, but rather by the brightening sky of morning...
Meanwhile, Debbie and I enjoyed several things about this new moon: its large apparent size (an illusion caused by its proximity to the horizon), the very bright “earthshine” (the dark portion of the moon being illuminated by light reflected from the Earth), the moon's appearance much further north than we usually see it (because it's summertime), and the beautiful contrast of the new moon against the almost-black night sky...
Meanwhile, Debbie and I enjoyed several things about this new moon: its large apparent size (an illusion caused by its proximity to the horizon), the very bright “earthshine” (the dark portion of the moon being illuminated by light reflected from the Earth), the moon's appearance much further north than we usually see it (because it's summertime), and the beautiful contrast of the new moon against the almost-black night sky...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)