How Turkey was lost

Michael Rubin:  Turkey, from Ally to Enemy

Ref: Commentary Magazine, July/August 2010

“The fact is that Turkey has changed. Gone, and gone permanently, is secular Turkey, a unique Muslim country that straddled East and West and that even maintained a cooperative relationship with Israel. [...] Turkey is now more aligned to Iran than to the democracies of Europe. Whereas Iran’s Islamic revolution shocked the world with its suddenness in 1979, Turkey’s Islamic revolution has been so slow and deliberate as to pass almost unnoticed.”

Our Reprimitivized Future

Mark Steyn: When all the world’s a “distraction,” maybe you’re not the main event after all

Ref: National Review Online, Apr 11th, 2009

“Don’t be surprised if “the civilized world” shrivels and retreats in the face of state-of-the-art reprimitivization. From piracy to nukes to the limp response of the hyperpower, this is not a “distraction” but a portent of the future. “

The Times and a history of denial

Bruce Bawer: The Times, It Ain’t a-Changin’

Ref: Pajamas Media, June 25, 2008

“The Times should have learned a valuable lesson or two from its past. But it’s making exactly the same mistakes today with Islam in the West that it did with Stalinism and Hitlerism, ignoring and discrediting the testimony of honest observers while giving legitimacy to tyranny’s sympathizers and apologists.”

The Nature of Vengeance

Jared Diamond: Vengeance Is Ours

Ref: The New Yorker, Apr 25, 2008

“Nearly all human societies today have given up the personal pursuit of justice in favor of impersonal systems operated by state governments—at least, on paper. Without state government, war between local groups is chronic; coöperation between local groups on projects bringing benefits to everyone—such as large-scale irrigation systems, free rights of travel, and long-distance trade—becomes much more difficult; and even the frequency of murder within a local group is higher.”

Nuclear first strike realism

Ian Traynor: Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told

Ref:  The Guardian, January 22, 2008

“The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.”

War command loop

Proteus: FORTY SECOND BOYD AND THE BIG PICTURE

Ref: ejectejecteject.com, January 1, 2008

“Think about that for a second! Inside his decision loop. To Red, Blue appears psychic, magical, demonic: able to read his mind, anticipate his every move. Blue owns the initiative, and he will never give it back. The more this goes on the more rattled, confused and demoralized Red becomes. This slows his ability to orient, it clouds his decisions with fear, it paralyzes his actions with second-guessing and ultimately reduces Red from being a deadly man in a deadly machine to a floating tumbleweed with no SA: out of airspeed, out of altitude and out of ideas.”

The Wages of Appeasement

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Wages of Appeasement

Ref:  Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2004

“Our failure was never due to a lack of the necessary wealth or military resources, but rather to a deeply ingrained assumption that we should not retaliate–a hesitancy al Qaeda perceives and plays upon.”

The coming anarchy

Robert D. Kaplan: THE COMING ANARCHY

Ref:  The Atlantic Monthly, February 1994

“The Middle East analyst Christine M. Helms explains, “Declaring Arab nationalism “bankrupt,” the political “disinherited” are not rationalizing the failure of Arabism . . . or reformulating it. Alternative solutions are not contemplated. They have simply opted for the political paradigm at the other end of the political spectrum with which they are familiar–Islam.””

Legal defeatism

CAROLINE GLICK: Column One: The triumph of legal defeatism

Ref:   The Jerusalem Post, Dec 20, 2007

“And as the two explained, in their decisions, these lawyers were informed not by the goal of winning the war, but by their interpretation of international law.”