"Free Jazz" pioneer Ornette Coleman died today at the age of 85. He was a true artistic revolutionary, and the accolades that are pouring out about him today are well-earned. If you're interested, I wrote about Coleman months ago when I covered The Shape of Jazz to Come for my Saturday jazz series, and I'll … Continue reading Ornette Coleman, 1930-2015

When groups like ISIS move into your neighborhood, the effects can last long after they leave in the form of the reprisal attack, the gift that keeps on giving: Members of the Yazidi community, one of the Iraqi minorities hardest hit by jihadist atrocities, killed 21 Sunni Arab villagers in a January revenge attack, Amnesty … Continue reading Second order crimes against humanity

One of the lesser-discussed obligations of NATO membership is that member states have agreed to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense every year. The main reason why this is hardly ever mentioned is that, of NATO's 28 members, only maybe 3-4, max, are likely to meet that target in any given year. … Continue reading NATO’s slide into dependency, now in graph form

Via Wonkette, Right Wing Watch gives you Pat Robertson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmeH0s3H68I The non-video version is that some lady named Jane wrote to Pat and asked him "what she should say to a coworker who asked her, 'Why did God allow my baby to die?'" And Pat knew just what to say to this grieving mother: "look, … Continue reading Pat Robertson making even less sense than usual

Almost as an afterthought, amidst this McClatchy piece warning of the imminent onset of the regions-wide Sunni-Shiʿa conflagration that's been imminent really since 1979 but never seems to get here, blog hero Kenneth Pollack explains the mindset of the Maximum Intervention crowd pretty succinctly: Some Iraq scholars argue that the country can be saved. Decentralization … Continue reading The Think Tank Man’s Burden

Donald Rumsfeld is questioning George W. Bush's plans for post-war Iraq, and not a moment too soon only about 12 years too late: The man who once talked about the breakdown of Iraqi society by saying "stuff happens" and "freedom is untidy" told the Times of London on Friday that he didn't agree with President … Continue reading Timing is everything, I guess?

Yesterday when I was writing about Tayyip Erdoğan's big electoral setback, I started going off on this long tangent about how he wants to transition Turkey from a mostly parliamentary system (with a weak presidency) to a mostly presidential system (albeit with a prime minister and cabinet appointed from among the parliament sharing executive responsibilities). … Continue reading Presidential vs. Parliamentary systems, and why Tayyip Erdoğan cares

Yesterday, at the G7 meeting in Germany, President Obama said this about the effort to counter ISIS in Iraq: Obama said that the 3,000 US service personnel in Iraq sometimes find themselves with "more training capacity than we've got recruits". "We want to get more Iraqi security forces trained, fresh, well-equipped and focused and Abbadi … Continue reading US strategy in Iraq and Syria depends on Iraqis and Syrians

George W. Bush, 2004: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haQzdW7hg4A Vladimir Putin, 2015: Asked about his biggest regret in life, about what mistake he would not repeat, he offered this gem of a reply. I will be quite frank with you. I cannot recollect anything of the kind. Evidently, God built my life so that I would have nothing to regret. … Continue reading Has anybody ever actually seen George Bush and Vlad Putin in the same room?

Dan Drezner argues that the US and Russia are happy to let Ukraine continue to simmer until they get what they want: So it appears that both Russia and the United States have a vested interest in continued conflict. Russia wants to weaken Ukraine, not be seen as knuckling under to sanctions, and wait for … Continue reading The world’s worst game of chicken