Spencer Ackerman

I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING, SO YOU’D BETTER LET ME KEEP DOING IT. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that part of George W. Bush‘s plan to sell escalation would be to admit failure. Yet in an interview with Jim Lehrer yesterday, that’s exactly what Bush did: Look, I had a choice […]

HISTORY REARS UP TO SPIT IN YOUR FACE. The enormity of what happened in Irbil yesterday is just starting to become clear. To recap, U.S. forces raided the Iranian liaison office in Irbil — apparently it’s not an actual consulate — seized a number of computers and other documents, and took six Iranian nationals into […]

EVEN BETTER THAN A SURGE! Why didn’t we think of this, liberals? In order to complete the liberation of the Iraqis, we have to put them in concentration camps! So says conservative blogger Josh Trevino: One might look to Algeria, where the Morice Line offers an instructive example of just how a hostile border can […]

WHEN GENOCIDAIRES TALK, THE RIGHT LISTENS. Understandably, everyone’s attention is going to the Call to Escalation — hey, we’re inching toward a whole ‘nother war with Iran! — but it would be a shame to ignore Stephen Rademaker‘s Washington Post op-ed on Darfur. Rademaker, until recently an assistant secretary of state for destroying international institutions, […]

DIE FOR THE VANITY OF GEORGE BUSH. This Jim Miklaszewski report needs to be exhibit A in the case against escalation: Interestingly enough, one administration official admitted to us today that this surge option is more of a political decision than a military one because the American people have run out of patience and President […]

LIBERALS DON’T TAKE THEIR OWN SIDES IN AN ARGUMENT. About our preemptive who-lost-Iraq back and forth, I have to say Scott makes an excellent point. Of course the right will blame liberals, the press, the public, etc., for losing the war — especially if it’s a war the right prosecuted exclusively. My concern is that, […]

SISTANI GETS HIS HANDS DIRTY. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has evolved politically, and he has a plan. In short, he seeks to form an anti-Sadr government of “national unity” between his SCIRI party and their Shiite bandwagoners; the largest Sunni party; and the Kurds. Left out in the cold are all the rejectionists — the hardcore […]

MOVEON HAS INFILTRATED THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF. Bush wants to “surge” up to 30,000 combat forces into Iraq for six to eight months. The Joint Chiefs of Staff say no. And take a look at their argument: The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more […]

IRAQ: GROTESQUER AND GROTESQUER. Sam sounds a powerful call in his last post: While Reid’s line on this, taken word for word, is quite logical and in keeping with his call for withdrawal, I too must admit to yearning for a cessation of all deliberate ambiguities and bank-shot calculations in Democrats’ stated reactions to the […]

SCHOOMAKER: I AM NOT A SHILL! I caused a bit of a kerfuffle on my blog today when I suspected General Peter Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, of shifting his views on whether or not the Army is breaking under the strain of current deployment to suit the tenure — and now departure — […]