On The Road

I'm traveling today to a Liberty Fund conference. Bloggy goodness should continue throughout the day, but I may wind up a bit off the news if something important happens. Meanwhile, Spencer Ackerman reports that security is re-deteriorating in Iraq according to "Iraq security statistics over the past 13 weeks, obtained exclusively by The Washington Independent."

Comments

I guess the re-deterioration is the cause of Bush's apparent slowing of the pace of American troop reductions. Meanwhile, McCain has this albatross around his neck.

Posted by bob h | January 31, 2008 8:46 AM

>Bloggy goodness

seriously?

Posted by matt | January 31, 2008 9:03 AM

"Liberty Fund books are not only beautifully produced, but are priced to ensure their availability to all readers. ...The reading experience itself is further enhanced by Liberty Fund's rigorous standards of scholarship."
---------
Gee, what a concept!

Unfortunately, the younger generation only aspires to mere "bloggy goodness".

Which sounds like a Northern California advert for a granola mix which relieves constipation.

Posted by Don Williams | January 31, 2008 9:08 AM

Ezra Klein linked to this Ackerman piece as well, and made the ludicrous (IMO) suggestion that the new increase in violence will lead to a withdrawal of our forces.

@bob h: Are you saying this will hurt McCain? The general consensus of the media is that the surge reduced violence in Iraq. This is, I'm sure we all agree, false. But--it's what the average person, and especially the average journalist, firmly believes. If Ackerman is right, it will give McCain the chance to say "the surge worked before, let's have another one to reduce this new wave of violence." I think if anything this will, alas, be good for St. McCain.

Posted by Midwest Product | January 31, 2008 11:55 AM

This is nothing. The REAL violence will come either this year or at the latest in 2009 when the Iraqi nationalist coalition either succeeds - or doesn't succeed - in dumping the US puppet government in the parliamentary elections.

Either way, the nationalists will either:

1) tell the US to get out and then start violently throwing the US out when the US refuses (as it will.)

2) Simply start throwing the US out without asking first.

Any way you look at it, the US occupation - or any significant number of US troops or presence in Iraq - is simply utterly unsustainable. The Iraqi population and the various Iraqi factions simply won't allow it. That includes the Iranian-backed factions, the al-Sadr faction, the Sunni factions, the Sistani factions, nobody except possibly the Kurds - and they only as long as the US doesn't get in the way of their bothering Turkey.

NOBODY wants the US in Iraq. So it isn't going to happen. The only fly in their ointments is the necessity to be careful how they deal with each other in the process of kicking out the US. Without that, the US would have been gone two years ago. Sistani could have thrown us out in 2004 had he not concentrated on insuring that the Shia first gained control of the government. But he still wants the US out eventually, as does the Iranian-backed parties and the al-Sadr crowd.

There's simply no way the US will be allowed to remain. It's impossible.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 1, 2008 12:17 AM

It's a bit sad to hear that you've decide to eat out of the Charles Koch/Cato Institute wingnut welfare trough.

The way these far-right "libertarians" have appropriated the word "liberty" is disgusting.

You should not associate with such people, whose policies, if enacted, would literally bring misery and death to so many of your fellow Americans.

One of the ways they operate is to offer junkets like the one you're attending to non-wingnuts as a subtle bribe and evangelizing opportunity.

The Mercatus Center, for example, throws chushy all-expenses paid conferences to underpaid congressional staffers, where they are soft-sold their crackpot supply-side economic garbage.

Posted by Bob | February 2, 2008 1:01 AM