Eye on the Watcher’s Council

As you may know the members of the Watcher’s Council each nominate one of his or her own posts and one non-Council post for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week’s Council nominations is here.

The Glittering Eye, “Iyad Allawi’s Stump Speech”

In my submission for this week I puzzle over former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s recent op-ed in the Washington Post.

The Colossus of Rhodey, “A Misguided College Senior”

Hube dissects an op-ed written by a college student on racial issues among his peers and, presumably, in the country today. I will only add that if you think that racial prejudice and racial segregation are as bad or worse than they were 50 years ago you don’t know enough to write a blog post on the subject let alone an op-ed in a legitimate newspaper.

Done With Mirrors, “St. Nietzsche”

Callimachus’s attention-grabbing title is a post on two unlikely-sounding heroes of 19th century religion: Nietzsche and Richard Wagner.

Soccer Dad, “The Economic War On Terror”

Soccer Dad considers the recent idea floated about declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization and how it fits into the economic war on terror.

‘Okie’ on the Lam, “On Science, Fashion & Being PC”

‘Okie’ tackles scientific orthodoxies and political correctness in his recent post on the case of NU professor Michael Bailey. This was rather big news hereabouts and I don’t much care to dig it up again. Suffice it to say that Dr. Bailey’s book ruffled feathers, there’s a lot at stake, and some activists behaved rather unconscionably.

Big Lizards, “Horrific Nineveh Bombing Shows Counterinsurgency Working”

Dafydd ab Hugh makes the case that the horrific attacks of a week or so ago in northwest Iraq on the vulnerable Yezidis (a small exclusive religious sect) demonstrates progress in the efforts to pacify Iraq. I understand his point but I think the attacks demonstrate most of all that the future of a divided Iraq will be no more pacific than it is today. The peshmerga really aren’t willing to able to provide security in every corner of Iraqi Kurdistan and Yezidis, generally a despised minority, will be left defenseless. At this point I’ve about had it with metrics, progress reports, and attempts to prove that there’s any discernible development in any direction in Iraq. The only questions for me are 1) does your proposed course of action make things better or worse there?; 2) is it better or worse for the U. S.?; and 3) what evidence do you have that will be the case?

Bookworm Room, “Papa Giuliani”

Bookworm’s excellent submission for this week can be summarized a) the Republican presidential aspirants have troubled marital histories; b) the Democratic presidential aspirants marital histories are demonstrably less so; c) what significance does that have? It’s going to be a charming presidential campaign.

Rhymes With Right, “Noriega Rips Cornyn For Representing Texans The Way They Vote”

Apparently, Democrats in Texas are upset that Senator John Cornyn is a Republican and is voting like a Republican. Ya think?

Joshuapundit, “Christians and Democrats: An Open letter To Anne Rice”

Freedom Fighter addresses a letter to author Anne Rice, who recently endorsed Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy on religious grounds. I’d like to remind FF of an old saying: even the devil can quote Scriptures (a reference to Matthew 4:6).

The Education Wonks, “The Spellings Report: Margaret Heads South!”

EdWonk is not amused at recent remarks from Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.

Cheat Seeking Missiles, “God’s Warriors?”

Laer is right on this one: you really need to torture the facts to find the same degree of sanction for the use of violence in the name of religion among modern day Christianits and Jews as there is among modern day Muslims. But Christiane Amanpour is just the person to do the torturing! However, we really are called to spare the city for the sake of the fifty.

Right Wing Nut House, “Is the United States an Imperialist Power and Does It Matter?”

Rick Moran’s post is about torturing words and the particular word in question is “imperialism”. You really need to twist that word into a pretzel to make the case that the U. S. is imperialist but the line of people willing to do it is pretty long.

Well, I’ve decided which posts I’ll vote for this week. Which posts would get your votes?