The Forgotten War - Iraq

Dexter Filkins writing in the New Republic:

Perhaps no other event in modern American history has gone from being contentious to being forgotten as quickly as the war in Iraq. Remember the war? It consumed a trillion American dollars, devoured a hundred thousand Iraqi lives, squandered a country's reputation, and destroyed an American presidency. Given the retreat of the American press -- the first American withdrawal from Iraq, you might say -- one could almost be excused, in the spring of 2009, for forgetting that 140,000 American troops are still fighting and dying there.

That an undertaking as momentous and as costly as America's war in Iraq could vanish so quickly from the forefront of the national consciousness does not speak well of the United States in the early twenty-first century: not for its seriousness and not for its sense of responsibility. . . .

The irony of America's big tune-out lies in its timing. It has taken place during what has been the most dramatic phase of the six-year-long conflict -- more precisely, during the reversal of the war's fortunes. It is this reversal, this unexpected turnaround to the possibility of something less than a disastrous outcome, that has allowed so many Americans guiltlessly to forget about it. In the summer of 2006, remember, the war in Iraq was spiraling toward defeat, and the Middle East seemed to be headed toward a regional war. Two summers later, however, conditions on the ground were so normal, relatively speaking, that the citizens of the invading nation could feel secure enough to avert their gaze.

Read the whole thing HERE.

Paglia on Obama and the Media

"Obama's ability to stay on his feet and outrun the most menacing waves that threaten to engulf him seems to embody the breezy, sunny spirit of the American surfer. In the closing weeks of the election, however, I became increasingly disturbed by the mainstream media's avoidance of forthright dealing with several controversies that had been dogging Obama -- even as every flimsy rumor about Sarah Palin was being trumpeted as if it were engraved in stone on Mount Sinai. . . . Given that Obama had served on a Chicago board with Ayers and approved funding of a leftist educational project sponsored by Ayers, one might think that the unrepentant Ayers-Dohrn couple might be of some interest to the national media. But no, reporters have been too busy playing mini-badminton with every random spitball about Sarah Palin, who has been subjected to an atrocious and at times delusional level of defamation merely because she has the temerity to hold pro-life views."

She right. Read the rest at Salon.com.

The Wine and Cheese Revolt

La Stampa daily of Turin reports that the Russian billionaires who invaded the French and Italian Rivieras in the '90s have become so unpopular that local restaurants are refusing to serve them.

"From north to south, a rebellion is growing against those who show off their money and power."

Roman Abramovich, the friend of Vladimir Putin said to be worth $23.5 billion, was refused a table the other night at Bistrot in Forte dei Marmi on the Tuscan coast, The Times of London reports.

When restaurateur David Vaiani told Abramovich his eatery was fully booked and said, "You can try again tomorrow," the oil tycoon was so furious that he took off immediately for Sardinia on his yacht.

A Poetic Lesson

The Wall Street Journal brings us an essay on the verse of former Guantanamo detainee Abdullah Saleh Al-Ajmi and his poetic romancing of various rights guaranteed detainees by a recent ruling of the US Supreme Court.

Al-Ajmi's poetry was recited at a 2006 Seton Hall Law School 'teach-in' that was Webcast live to four hundred colleges and law schools in the US and abroad.

Al-Ajmi himself was released from Guantanamo in 2005.

On April 26th of this year, Al-Ajmi, a 29-year-old Kuwaiti, blew himself up in Mosul as part of a coordinated suicide attack on security forces of the democratically-elected government of Iraq. Thirteen died and forty-two were seriously injured.