A few days ago – on February 3 – this news item appeared: TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) – A military strike on Iran could have the unintended consequence of stirring nationalist sentiment to the benefit of Tehran’s hard-line government, U.S. General David Petraeus told Reuters…. “It’s possible (a strike) could be used to play to nationalist […]
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Spencer: “The Geert Wilders trial ought to be an international media event”
Here is my entry in a National Review symposium today, “Western Civilization on Trial”: The Geert Wilders trial ought to be an international media event; seldom has any court case anywhere had such enormous implications for the future of the free world. The case against him, which has all the legitimacy of a Stalinist-era Moscow […]
Italy’s Berlusconi compares Ahmadinejad to Hitler
Silvio! If only we had a politician in America who was this honest and forthright. “During visit, Berlusconi draws parallel between Ahmadinejad and Hitler,” by Nir Hasson for Haaretz, February 2 (thanks to Pamela): Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi drew a connecting line yesterday between his visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, […]
Fitzgerald: Arabia Petraea, or General Petraeus’ Middle East (Part IV): Twenty-Seven Articles (revised edition)
Those who have read the previous articles that have appeared here under the title “Arabia Petraea, or General Petraeus’s Middle East,” (Part I here, Part II here, and Part III here), may possibly not be quite so impressed either with T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, nor with his “Twenty-Seven Articles,” as they might once […]
Fitzgerald: Arabia Petraea, Or General Petraeus’ Middle East (Part 3)
Part 1 is here, and part 2 here. In 1918, T. E. Lawrence set down some advice for his fellow British military men (and civilians) on Understanding and Dealing with the Bedu for “beginners in the Arab armies.” Given that Lawrence had been working with the Sharifian forces for less than two years, his assumption […]
“The way he went after people was like a mental illness”
The New York Times has a surprisingly even-handed and generally (but not entirely) accurate piece about how libelblogger Charles Johnson betrayed his friends and abandoned his principles. Unlike the LA Times and Vanity Fair, the Gray Lady, oddly enough, seems less inclined to reward Johnson for his betrayal. The irrational hatred and determination to destroy […]
Fitzgerald: Arabia Petraea, Or General Petraeus’ Middle East (Part 2)
Part 1 is here. T. E. Lawrence thought of himself as a great expert on the Arabs, and he managed to convince others to share in that belief. And he met a felt need, in Great Britain in the 1920s, after the Great War, for a hero, and a hero on a horse, whose heroism […]
Islam and the Dark Age of Byzantium
ISLAM AND THE DARK AGE OF BYZANTIUM by John J. O’Neill In his 1936 book, Mohammed et Charlemagne, Belgian historian Henri Pirenne argued in great detail that the Dark Ages of Europe began rather suddenly in the middle of the seventh century; and that this sudden and catastrophic decline in civilization was due to Islam’s […]
Fitzgerald: Arabia Petraea, Or General Petraeus’ Middle East (Part I)
Ever since the “surge that worked,” I’ve been wondering about General Petraeus, and even more about those Leavenworth colonels, the ones of whom so much was made as the army’s intellectuals. These were the people who, during the “surge,” discovered and used lessons offered by previously overlooked “experts” on insurgency – David Galula, in the […]
Fitzgerald: Dubai, or Rodeo Drive on Stilts
Dubai is a place, and a symbol. As a place, it has no claim on our attention. Voltaire once described French Canada as “quelques arpents de neige.” Dubai, like the rest of the Emirates, like Saudi Arabia, could with more justice be dismissed, as “quelques arpents de sable.” It also happens to be in a […]