4 Things To Click On This Weekend

Well, here we go again... another post. Good deal. This blog has been around rather long, I mean in terms of blogs, eh? Good deal.

So let me outsource some GREAT weekend reading:

1. Thomas E. Ricks has a really cool post up on Afghanistan... especially if you like dogs and feel-good stories on Central Asia.

2. Sayyed Muqawama has a fine post up on journalistic standards... with a bit of a gonzo edge, too. The beers on the table rule. Check it.

3. As-Salibi, or Dr. George Hale, has done a King Hell Bastard of a job writing The Decision for an old Hebron Jew. Wow! Good piece man! Now this could be the feel-good story of the week. Nice going, Dr. Hale.

4. If you click this one, you will laugh.

OK Casbahites, enjoy the weekend... Shabat Shalom and all that stuff.

Rory Stewart on Afghanistan

I thought this was particularly interesting. As Rory points out, why must it be either a surge or withdral? Why can't the US and NATO have a smaller scope and focus on what they're good at (schools, central banking system, etc) ... and counter terrorism?

Did Michael Hasting make up the Rolling Stone interview with Gen. Stanley McChrystal?

I'm going to write this post not particularly because I think it's true... but because it needs to be pondered. So here we go.

When Hunter S. Thompson was covering the ‘72 American presidential campaign, he made an outrageous claim that Democratic candidate, Edmund Muskie, was taking a strange Brazilian drug, known as Ibogaine. It caused a major sensation on the wire... eventually credited as being the final blow to the Muskie's campaign, allowing George McGovern--Thompson's candidate--to win the Democratic nomination. In the end Muskie was NOT on Ibogaine (not even close) but it sure as hell looked like it from all the pressures from running for president.

Now, here could be The Link: Michael Hastings, who also writes for Rolling Stone, has just done a mega-sensation story on top American general in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. And in his story--and for some unknown reason--Gen. McChrystal gives an unusually open interview with a journalist who is fairly safe to assume isn't friendly to the war and the new COIN doctrine put in place. In short, Gen. McChrystal is now in trouble for being so critical of President Obama (his commander-in-chief) and is being summoned to the White House for a chat.

Gen. McChrystal would me a moron to have said what he did to Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hasting. Period.

So either Gen. McChrystal is a moron (which in this case would be in his own best interest) or Hasting is taking a page out of The Thompson Book... and just helping articulate what the General never said—but felt all along.

Why would Michael Hasting do this?

To end what is now officially America's longest war. A war that has lost support, strategy and is costing more and more American lives. A war that Hasting could be betting President Obama never wanted to fight in the first place.


Update: I never said any of this was true... I just thought it would add a plausible angle to The Conversation. Turns out Hasting was doing journalism.

Free, but not too free

That March 14 banyan they call NOW Lebanon has one hell of an article up right now. Basically, it ponders the possibility--and result--of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah getting assassinated by the Israelis. And geez, what a chilling quote:

Taking over Hezbollah’s top position shortly after Moussawi’s death, Nasrallah told the official Iranian news agency IRNA, "The coming days will prove that the assassination of Moussawi was the biggest mistake of the Zionist regime ever since its illegitimate creation.” It took more than days, but given the events of the nearly two decades since Nasrallah took over the reigns of Hezbollah, his prediction was not entirely hyperbole.

You gotta love that last part: "Not entirely hyperbole." That, my friends, confirms the statement... just not how it's meant. The Beirut Journalist walks a very careful divide these days; He has many things to be afraid of. And the weakness in rhetoric covers His ass in a way that confirms the quasi-free speech of Lebanon: Free, but not too free.

I got chills when I saw this picture (thanks to NOW Lebanon):

In 1994, Dick Cheney almost seemed reasonable

I almost spat out my morning coffee when I watched this video, well, this morning.

Unbelievably. Really. So what changed Sir?

I can hear the gasps from across the Internet.