Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->


Intelliseek's BlogPulse Newswire

FROM THE COMMENTS: "Samurai warriors had a philosophy, 'ken tai i-chi' or attack and defend are the same thing. It is the highest form of defense to cut down your enemy before he launches his attack. Many schools of swordsmanship, particularly Jigen Ryu, had no defensive techniques in their curriculum."

Table test no line breaks

NPR's Transcript	My comments
Steve Inskeep: As always, the news in Iraq may affect the campaign. In the last day, that news has included a U.S. offfensive in Falluja and a bombing in Baghdad. The bombers killed six people inside the Green Zone. That's a fortified area surrounded by concrete barriers and razor wire. It is where the Americans have run their operations since coming to Baghdad. Journalist William Langewiesche has spent time in the Green Zone as a reporter for the Atlantic Monthly. he says that from the start of the occupation, security concerns have isolated American decision makers from the country around them.	Yup, Mr. Inskeep, tell how you want your conclusion to affect the campaign right upfront, even if the logic of the piece isn't well thought out, of broad scope and with deep insight, or particularly useful to voters.
WL: It is a highly fortified area that is mostly park and monumental buildings. Saddam's various palaces are in there, too -- one of which now is the center of American operations. This is not a military base, it is a civilian base protected by the military, but it has many of those cultural oddities that being somewhere far away yet eating all American food and Americans talking primarily to Americans.	In other words, let me convey at the outset that I believe people who live here must be out of touch. Otherwise they'd be eating local fare. I also want to convey that Americans here who are trying to help don't come into contact with the Iraqis who, you will remember, are actually running Iraq now.
SI: How did concerns about security affect the attitudes of people inside the Green Zone?	As if you expected them to want something other than to be secure while they were here. Couldn't you have started off with a more focused question like, who do you suppose has put coalition members at risk? Why do ou suppose Zarqawi wants coalition members at risk?
WL: Well, the Green Zone has always been all about security. As the insurgency has grown in Iraq, those concerns have magnified, for good reason. And the Green Zone has become the fortress.	Damn right it's a good reason. But keep things in perspective. Baghdad may be the biggest city, but Iraq is a big country. You have to be careful not to let focus on the center of Iraq to draw attention from all the positive that is at work in Iraq.
SI: When you go back a year or so, did the Americans overreact to the security problems?	Where did you get these questions?
WL: No. I don't think they overreacted to it. I think that it was institutionally inevitable the United States will retreat into fortified compounds. I think the mistake that was made was not to realize that about our ourselves. We need to think about where we want those fortified compounds to be. And what they look like to the locals. To the Iraqis it has always looked like fear of them. Disdain of them. The other effect is that it simply isolated the Americans from Iraq.	Of course they didn't overreact. They did what was required to protect he lives of people that did not deserve to be blown up by suicide bombers or beheaded by those who don't want Iraq to become a free, democratic society.
SI: Did they then make up unrealistic plans for Iraq?	Are you implying that mistakes were made because people are obliged to protect themselves while trying to rescusitate Iraq?
WL: Yes. Of course. Totally. It's hard to know where even to begin. You can pretty much look at the entire product of the CPA -- the Coalition Provisional Authority -- and say that it was unrealistic. I can think of attempts to regulate the traffic. There was an attempt basically to impose a Maryland State Traffic Code on Baghdad.	Some of the plans undoubtedly were unrealistic, but remember that Iraq had been systematically throttled for decades. It had no infrastructure or resilient educated middle class to draw on.
SI: Would you say that these are mostly well-intentioned people? People who thought they could impose American systems on Iraq and it would just work? That was the idea?	I repeat, where did you get these questions?
WL: Of course. I think we have been blinded by success and power into thinking that we are rich and powerful because of our own attributes. Well, to some extent that may be true. But there is also an element of luck. Chance. History.	Of course they were well-intentioned. Remember, they were also temporary. The idea has always been to turn the government of the Iraqis over Iraqis.
SI: Could there have been a different last year and a half? If the Americans had simply said we're not going to hide in fortified compounds. We're going to move about the country to make sure we understand the country and accept that some American civilians as well as soldiers are going to geet killed?	Is chronic compression of timeline a disease amongst such hosts? They seem incapable of conceiving that you can't go back and relive the past. You have to do now what can be done now.
WL: I think at this stage it is much too late for that. If you say a year and a half, yes. I mean, don't forget, when the United States first came in, though we were not greated with flowers, as people apparently in the White House expected, we were not greeted with aggressive hostility. We were greeted with a question mark. There were other things going wrong. If we could have addressed those, sure, we would not be in the situation we are in now. Look, this is not just terrorism -- foreign terrorism -- sure, that is an element... something that we could not have controlled. Far more important, this is a wide-spread and very popular insurgency against the American presence. And it's the insurgency that matters now.	That is what is known as a stupid-ass question that brings to mind the British in the Revolutionary War lined up column by column to be mowed down by the colonists. What sensible government is going to put its citizens into harms way unless it is absolutely necessary.
SI: We've been talking to William Langewiesche...	Or, "I've been leading William Langewiesche on to say what I want him to say in a most useless and non-productive direction...

Online locations of Periodicals
Continue reading ->

A few links to keep in mind.
Continue reading ->

A lecture by Michael Crichton -- January 17, 2003
Continue reading ->

SIDELINES

He professes ignorance about his taxes and refuses to discuss his finances.

“This had nothing to do with taxes,” he insisted. “I was born in Brazil, I was an American citizen for about 10 years. I thought of myself as a global citizen.” -- A Facebook Cofounder Reflects on the Path Forward

Paul: "The only way Biden could become president would be to kill Barry. and he better do it before November." -- Breitbart TV [HT: Rodger]

A: "€œrandom"€. -- Y.O.B. « Gucci

Prince Of Petworth -- €“ Another Disturbing Assault in Logan Circle, DC

It's hard not to notice that the vast majority of entertainment for today's generation consists of depicting misanthropes

accorded the luxury of acting like total A-holes by dint of their superior intellect. Since all children are above average nowadays, and are raised by entertainment, the world is full of people full of themselves for no particular reason. --Sippican Cottage: Underwater Mortgages

Here is what we know:

1. Their users don't trust them.

2. Advertisers like GM don't believe their advertising platform works.

3. They don't understand mobile.

4. Their crack design/engineering team is too feeble to design a simple photo APP like Instagram.

5. Their shareholders are dying to sell out in the IPO.

6. The valuation is hyperfrothy.

Via ZeroHedge

The "I'm an injun' " lie just keeps getting better: Fordham piece called Elizabeth Warren Harvard Law's 'first woman of color'"In my three years at Stanford Law School, there were no professors who were women of color. Harvard Law School hired its first woman of color, Elizabeth Warren, in 1995."

UPDATE:Some parts worked harder than others: "Yeah, I've got a fancy job at Harvard and I've gotta tell you, I'm proud of that job. I worked lied hard to get there." -- Elizabeth Warren

Obama’s administration In one photo, posted by the Obama 2012 campaign on its official Facebook page as part of the “I’m In!” campaign, designed to get unwilling citizens to admit and own their voting preferences as though they were a communicable illness. It is everything you need to know about America’s future.

"Moments later, Deen, still massaging her breasts, tells us that she was “the only mother that taught my 14-year-old boys to rub their meat.” Sheraton pauses. “I don’t know how I feel about that.” -- Grub Street New York

"Making healthy choices. Taking care of me. Feeling good. Living good. Healthy and clean. I like that. For me. Because I matter. Loving myself because someone has to, right? Who? Oh right, me. Loving me for living good and eating good. Loving myself. Must. Or at least should. Possibly could if I eat salad. But only salad." -- | The Hairpin [HT: Morgan]

"That is just one of the many ways we are helping everyday homeowner in neighborhoods all across America. Take for example the Keelers here, Pearl and Van. Yes, I mean Paul and Vel. Val.

When they decided to reduce household clutter and free up extra cash to help create jobs in the community, we stood at the ready to invest through our innovative American Garage Sale Recovery Act. Through AGRA, the Kelmers were able to secure federal grants-in-aid to buy the yard signs, Craigslist ads, card tables and price tags they needed, along with expert advice from the Federal Bureau of Garage, Rummage & Yard Commerce." -- iowahawk: One Afternoon In a Garage in Reno, Nevada

From 3 Commencement Speakers, a Familiar Script

Wouldn’t things have been more interesting if Mr. Bloomberg or Mr. Obama had gone to Liberty to say his piece, and if Mr. Romney had expressed disapproval of same-sex marriage in a place like Chapel Hill or Barnard? But that would have required acts of daring that you will probably see the same day that restaurants in Saudi Arabia start serving beer and wine.

The cow shoe is a strip of metal to which is tacked a wooden block carved to resemble the hoof of a cow, which may be strapped to the human foot. A man shod with a pair of them would leave a trail resembling that of a cow. -- Kottke

Steve Sailer: How to help the Third World "The problem with advocating IQ-boosting environmental interventions in the Third World (such as Kiwanis International has been nobly doing for decades), of course, is that just mentioning the topic of IQ deficits in the Third World is a big no-no."

Photographic Proof: Mitt Romney Killed The Dinosaurs By Strapping Them To The Roof Of His Car | The Rumford Meteor

"Hollande is a 'Gauche Caviar', or 'Left-Wing Caviar' - the Gallic equivalent of a Champagne Socialist. -- | Mail Online

"The initial Pepsi logo is the best. They were obviously trying to rip off the Coke logo, but failed miserably. It's as if Sam the drunk tried scrawling the first Pepsi logo in between doing shots of bourbon out of butt-filled bottles, and injecting meth straight into his eye socket. 'We need more shaking, Sam, double up on the shaking!' " -- Mitchieville Tradition

"Can an errand, even an errand into the wilderness, be run indefinitely?...

Can a culture, which changes to embody itself in a nation, push itself into such remorseless exertion without ever learning whether it has been sent on its business at some incomprehensible behest, or is obligated to discover a meaning for its dynamism in the very act of running....What will America do--what can American do--with an implacable prophecy that there is a point in time beyond which the very concept of a future becomes meaningless? Protestant America, as well as Catholic, has an implicit commitment to this event. What then happens to the errand?" -- Perry Miller

I guess I get a semi-win from May 9th's Coming Out Spinning: Obama's Evolution Towards Gay Gutsycalls @ AMERICAN DIGEST

When has money not trumped spirituality in Obama's career? Short answer, never. Now it would seem that tomorrow we may at last see the latest "evolution" of this strange anti-American life form currently getting his free food-stamp card refilled daily at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Gee whiz. I wonder if Obama will come out or not. He could of course avoid taking a "position" simply giving Andrew Sullivan one hot evening in the Lincoln Bedroom and leaking the photographs to Blueboy.com, but some things are just too revolting to evolve into.

Poor Prez. Barry. First Biden cannot keep it in his pants and has to whip that "big stick" out, and now Sullivan cannot get it into his pants quickly enough. "This week I am predicting the biggest sales for Newsweek in years. Almost every gay bar in the country will buy a copy just to put that cover on their walls."-- FREEP

How many uncommitted votes does this get for Barry? Somewhere between "zip" and "it up." Not that's there's anything schlong with that.

Perhaps a "new look makeover" to go with the "new" image and policy.

Illo from Classical Values ｻ All work and no play makes Coco a dull bitch

CBS Cancels 'C.S.I. Miami'

“Actually, there is a short answer. All drugs should be legal,

high quality, priced to market conditions, and readily available. What happens when you give a junkie all the dope they want? Problem Solved. Damn, you think too much, Bruce.” -- Define “Drug” BRUCE HANIFY

For those of us who decipher codes, hatred of rich bankers feels like a sanitized version

of a much more ancient and visceral hatred. Consider that 93% of France’s Muslims voted for Hollande. I guess that they hate the rich too. -- Had Enough Therapy?: An Exodus From France

There is, I am ashamed to say, a certain eternal truth hidden within this paen to brotherly love. HT: Sippican the Sociopath

Next up for a Democrat bail-out? Everybody who's been to school on borrowed money:

“As an 18-year-old, it sounded like a good fit to me, and the school really sold it,” said Ms. Griffith, a marketing major. “I knew a private school would cost a lot of money. But when I graduate, I’m going to owe like $900 a month. No one told me that.” -- Student Loans Weighing Down a Generation With Heavy Debt - NYTimes.com

“I readily admit it,” said E. Gordon Gee, the president of Ohio State University,

who has also served as president of Vanderbilt and Brown, among others. “I didn’t think a lot about costs. I do not think we have given significant thought to the impact of college costs on families.” -- Update on the Higher Education Bubble | Power Line

Obama campaign video claiming 'it's on' in second term taken down.

[We're seeing more and more of this sort of agressive bravado sort of thing. In the final analysis, I don't think it would be very smart or safe to go around proclaiming "It's on!" That sort of thing could be misunderstood with very evil consequences from the bottom to the top of the slide.]

To call a group of people who worship themselves and their capacity for self-reverential “entertainment” “Christian”

is becoming increasingly difficult when the objective evidence points to these suburban blights as being neo-paganism in every regard. Where is the altar? There isn’t one. Where is there a Cross? There are no crosses. When is any reference made to Christ’s sacrifice in propitiation and perfect atonement for the sins of the world, including the sins of the latte-sipping dolts sitting in their reclining, triple-cushioned theater-style seats? Where are there any references to personal sin? Where are there any references to objective Truth? There are none – there is only “your truth and my truth”, “How I FEEEEL”, and then BRING ON THE ROCK BAND! -- Ann Barnhardt

All the people who have given up HOPE,

together with all the people whose unemployment gifts welfare benefits have expired (times 10cubed), are promptly and permanently removed from the labor force. This makes the denominator (that's the bottom number in a fraction for Rush's friends in Rio Linda) smaller relative to the numerator. And that results in a lower unemployment rate! Just like that. Shazam! -- Michelle Obama's Mirror

He's making more money, living in a bigger house and playing more golf.

And when his wife goes on a shopping spree with her girlfriends, it's to Spain on the taxpayer's dime. If you asked President Obama if he's better off today, he'd say, "Hell, yeah! And we don't want it to stop!" -- Only Obama is Better Off - Michael Reagan

- Maggie's Farm

President Obama's decision to support gay marriage this week is paying off

in a big way with the LGBT community in Hollywood. Obama is expected to attend an LGBT gala in Los Angeles on June 6, where ticket prices range from $1,250 to $25,000 apiece. As part of the same trip, Obama is also expected to attend a fundraiser hosted by Ryan Murphy, the co-creator of the show "Glee," and his fiance David Miller. -- The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Earth to Obama:

That's not a hospital, its a high school in China, where students are cramming for the National College Entrance Exam. Those IV lines? They are administering an amino acid drip to help the students focus and stay awake (who knows what else is in the mix in at least some classrooms). There's a point you take dedication, discipline, and hard work to an extreme and Asians seem to find leave that point behind too often -- Word Around the Net

That describes the process which has overtaken peacekeeping, environmentalism and even the campaign for racial equality.

These causes, which are otherwise noble, will take decades to recover from the grifters who have made a fortune in their name. How on earth did peacekeeping get put in the care of Kofi Annan? Why was a guy like Al Sharpton allowed to assume the role of the racial conscience of America? How come Al Gore gets to pronounce on science? The Narrative, probably. Always the Narrative. -- Belmont Club How Many Blocks Away?

Valeria Lukyanova has big, glassy eyes, long blonde hair, an ample bosom and a tiny carved waist. Her Facebook page features tens of photos of her astonishing Barbie-like body and face. In her YouTube videos, she reveals that she uses opaque lenses to achieve that wide-eyed look of a doll.

Venus Angelic, whose real name is Venus Palermo, is a 15-year-old girl who is gaining enormous popularity on the Internet for her YouTube tutorials on how to look like a living doll. Venus Angelic has 78 videos, over 28,000 subscribers and over eight million video views on her official YouTube channel- ranging from makeup tutorials and nail art to dancing and cosplay. -- - International Business Times

but we are certainly living under its media apparatus." -- Daniel Greenfield

"Mitt Romney was not at Chappaquiddick. Mitt Romney has not been accused of rape.

Mitt Romney did not have an affair with a mob babe. He didn't have an affair with an actress who committed suicide later on. Mitt Romney did not father a child out of wedlock. Mitt Romney did not support the tapping of Martin Luther King's phone. Mitt Romney was never a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Mitt Romney did not lie about his law school grades." -- Curmudgeonly & Skeptical

The great monopoly in the West has been government for quite some time.

This obvious fact is hidden from all small minds. Until 1933, America evolved on the anvil of business--ambition against ambition. When government becomes the great power the ambition is to become part of it. Business monopolies are then formed within sectors such as Big Pharma, who conduct a symbiotic relationship with the State. --James Wilson commenting on Side-Lines: "It is democracy that is causally responsible for the fatal conditions afflicting us now. "

My theory is that it dates from the 18th century and the silver mines in Mexico,

because in those mines the word “taco” referred to the little charges they would use to excavate the ore. These were pieces of paper that they would wrap around gunpowder and insert into the holes they carved in the rock face. When you think about it, a chicken taquito with a good hot sauce is really a lot like a stick of dynamite. -- Where Did the Taco Come From? Smithsonian Magazine

"Idaho society at that time at least seemed to lack the sense of social class which elsewhere makes culture a system of signs and passwords,

more or less entirely without meaning except as it identifies groups and subgroups.... I must say too how beautiful human society seems to me, especially in those attenuated forms so characteristic of the West—isolated towns and single houses which sometimes offer only the merest, barest amenities: light, warmth, supper, familiarity. We have colonized a hostile planet, and we must staunch every opening where cold and dark might pour through and destroy the false climates we make, the tiny simulations of forgotten seasons beside the Euphrates, or in Eden." -- Marilynne Robinson, "My Western Roots"

Here's what you get if you play the Kobayashi Maru test as programmed:

a $200,000 education and a $700/month job I've Got A $200,000 Education, A Great Resume And An Empty Inbox, or a PhD and a $700/month job The Ph.D. Now Comes With Food Stamps. Will an unconventional approach succeed? There are no guarantees that any approach will work; security is always contingent, and all we really have is opportunity. -- Guest Post: | ZeroHedge

This election is not just about jobs. It's about character, values, judgment, and integrity, too.

It's about the wholesale fraud that the Oba-messiah has perpetrated against the American people. Surrendering the likability issue is not only politically dumb, but also just plain lazy. Ignoring false memes is bad enough. Perpetuating them for civility's sake is a recipe for another defeat. -- Michelle Malkin

Even after decades of in-depth Holocaust research, excruciating details

are only now emerging about more than 1,100 German-run ghettos in Eastern Europe where the Nazis murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews.... For town after town, village after village, and even just spots in the countryside, Dean and his team assembled pieces of a grisly puzzle, which he said "shows that the Nazis made a concerted effort to find every last Jew in every last place" and eliminate each one. -- - Yahoo! News

18 Headless Bodies in Mexico Tourist Area - ABC News

Because the jaw, the haircut, the suit and the general look was not an effective enough disguise?Gawker

and then acted more authoritarian than Bush. He talked about an end to the abuses of the Bush years and an open and transparent government,

yet extended the Fourth-Amendment-shredding Patriot Act, empowered the TSA to produce naked body scans and engage in humiliatingly sexual pat-downs, signed indefinite detention of American citizens into law, claimed and exercised the power to assassinate American citizens without trial, and aggressively prosecuted whistleblowers. Under his watch the U.S. army even produced a document planning for the reeducation of political activists in internment camps. Reeducation camps? In America? And some on the left are still crowing that talking about being in favour of gay marriage makes him "pro civil liberties"€? Is this a joke? --ZeroHedge

No its one of dozens of gigantic crushed concrete pads

being laid down in the Lowell Mountains of Vermont to set up bird mincing wind mills. Add in the power lines and that's a lot of damage to the environment in the name of "green" power that will generate barely enough juice to recharge your Leaf. -- Word Around the Net: PICTURE OF THE DAY

When Barack Obama shakes the Etch-a-Sketch, its not called flip-flopping; its called “evolving.”

And he must be a young Earth creationist because his actual definition of “evolution” seems pretty nuanced. As in, it basically means, I totally evolved back to the position I held in 2006 but didn’t tell anyone about in 2008 except people totally knew I hearted gay marriage.” -- David Brock gets $1M for new media ground war, does nothing for his dating profile :: Naked DC

"In the Middle Ages, mistakes/spelling errors made while writing were blamed on a “typo” demon named Titivillus." According to Facts and Chicks [Sigh. I take careful notes and I study and study but I just can't seem to retain the lessons.]

The number of productive people is constantly decreasing, and the number of parasitic people consuming

the income and wealth of this dwindling number of productive people is increasing steadily.... That the whole democratic house of cards has not yet completely collapsed speaks volumes about the still tremendous creative power of capitalism, even in the face of ever-increasing governmental strangulation. And this fact also can make us think about what economic wonders would have been possible, if we had left capitalism unimpeded and exempted it from such parasitism. -- Interview with Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe – Producers against parasites

Really? Most Americans thought they were fighting for the country, not on Barack Obama's behalf.

Slip of the tongue, to be sure, but can one think of another president who'€™d have made it? -- "On My Behalf"€™ | The Weekly Standard

And then there are those, such as this young lass,

whose foolishness has no label, other than perhaps €œshameless avarice.€ How did we reach a point in history when people could proudly hold up signs saying, essentially, "Give Me Your Money"€? -- Zombie » May Day

☛ Thinking Right Archives ☚

• Across the Great [Partisan] Divide: Governor Christie and Mayor Booker -- Don't Worry, We've Got This
• Dieting: Just When You Think You're Beyond All Temptation.....
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• Books That Should Be: New Additions to the Invisible Library
• Energy Crisis Solved
• My Mother at 97
• Something Wonderful: Christina Perri -- A Thousand years
• Gay Marriage: Just Do It! (And Welcome to It)
• Coming Out Spinning: Obama's Evolution Towards Gay Gutsycalls
• The American Argument
• Bigger Tents: On Rebranding "CONSERVATIVE" and "REPUBLICAN" with "AMERICAN"
• UPDATED: Elizabeth Warren Campaign Announces New Song for Princess "Shits With Bull"
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• Obama's Courage? The Coward Hasn't Got a Gram of It
• The 80s: Big Babes with Big Hair, Big Shoulders, and Big Sounds. Guys in The Big Suit
• Under the Shadow of This Red Rock: Along the Colorado from Moab to Castle Valley | April 2011
• Welcome to My New Cardio Rehab Routine
• Pictures of the Gone World: McDonald's Original Prices