1,689 words
You’ll often hear that the masses have no ideology, but I’m here to disabuse you of that notion. As observed by the great Arab political scientist Osama bin Laden, when people see a weak horse and a strong horse, they back the strong one. An appeal to the masses can only succeed when coming from the strong horse. In other words, the masses back a winner. (more…)
6,544 words
This is an excerpt from my memoir The Xena Years, about life in the nineties. It seems relevant today.
I had just climbed out of the pool when the woman bowed towards Mecca. (more…)
1,678 words
Philip H. Gordon
Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020
Philip H. Gordon is a Deputy National Security Advisor to the Dementia Regime’s Vice President. Previously, he’d served on the staff of President Obama. (more…)
3,518 words
Barack Obama
A Promised Land
New York: Random House, 2020
There were stacks and stacks of Barack Obama’s new memoir at the brick-and-mortar bookstore I went to on Black Friday, 2020. I hadn’t been to a brick-and-mortar store for some time. If possible, I go to the library.
3,501 words
Ali Soufan
Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State
New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017
Ali Soufan is famous, to put it mildly. A fictionalized version of him was played by Tahar Rahim in Hulu’s miniseries, The Looming Tower. He is also a bestselling author. The foundation of Soufan’s fame is the fact that he was an FBI[1] agent investigating Al Qaeda prior to, during, and after 9/11. (more…)
4,016 words
Zero Dark Thirty, once this year’s favorite to harvest a whole crop of Oscars, was instead dropped down the memory hole at Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony. (more…)
71 words
Black Ops
No, there are no black helicopters
hovering over every breath.
And yet: are there forensic doctors
who can confirm Osama’s death? (more…)
1,007 words
According to the US government, on Sunday, May 1, Osama Bin Laden was killed by a team of US commandos near Islamabad, Pakistan.
Three other men were killed in the raid, one of them a son of Bin Laden. A woman was also killed, but we are assured that she was killed only when used as a human shield by the bad guys. Our gallant American soldiers are better than other soldiers. Americans only kill women who get in the way. (more…)
