Josh Foust can tut-tut me all he likes on his GoogleReader and I’ll never get offended — shit, I’ll even take it to heart — because he writes posts like these. Read every word of this. Foust extrapolates some U.N. refugee data about civilians fleeing their homes in Marja, all in a rigorous and thoughtful [...]

Refused live at some bar in Ireland in May 1998. Their performance in the basement of a UNC-Greensboro student center in October 1998 (or was it September? Sam, help me out) was the single greatest performance of music I’ve ever seen and ever will see. Strangely, I’ve never actually owned The Shape Of Punk To [...]

That lyric is like Marc Thiessen’s unofficial motto. Andrew Sullivan delivers an Ash Wednesday lesson in Catholic antipathy to torture that’s truly eloquent. Shame on anyone who says Andrew emotes rather than thinks. Not being Catholic, I can hardly participate in the spiritual or doctrinal element of his post, but the lessons of Catholicism on [...]

It’s not right that the Pentagon’s page of Iraq fatalities/injuries considers the “combat phase” of operations to end on May 1, 2003. The Mission was not Accomplished, etc. You don’t want to send the message that there was not seven years of combat despite peoples’ real, bitter experiences .

Next month it’ll be three years since I visited Hurriyeh, a very Shiite portion of western Baghdad where (roughly, back then) 500,000 people lived. According to the commander of a company of U.S. military policemen that “mentored” Iraqi police in the area back then, Hurriyeh was the second-worst police outpost he had to deal with. [...]

A foreign ministerial between the two old adversaries is scheduled for next week, and Neeta Lal has a good scene-setter in World Politics Review. Her big point is that India replaced its national security adviser with a veteran diplomat who has deep Pakistan experience — and, for that matter, agreed to the talks after a [...]

Adam Serwer got at all this yesterday, but Kori Schake manages to ignore all the real questions one could raise about Baradar’s capture in favor of the ones most likely to appear in a memo to Mitch McConnell: Americans were involved in the capture; does permitting Pakistan’s ISI to have possession constitute a rendition? I [...]

Eli: The Iraqi official in charge of a commission that blocked more than 300 politicians from running in next month’s elections is working closely with Iran’s Quds Force, prompting the top U.S. general in Iraq to voice concerns about Tehran’s meddling in Iraq’s fragile democracy. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, in a speech, accused Ali Faisal [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 112-10 February 16, 2010 DOD Identifies Marine Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Pfc. Jason H. Estopinal, 21, of Dallas, Ga., died Feb. 15 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine [...]

First: Thanks so much to Jamelle and Scott for giving me a break yesterday. I think you’ll agree they did a great job and demonstrated why they’re the blogosphere’s next-up. So about the Baradar arrest. I went on al-Jazeera yesterday (the video here is the well-reported lead-in to my segment, which I couldn’t find) and [...]