Many of my blogger pals who were out of town or otherwise occupied have returned so this roundup is a bit longer than the past two.
If you haven’t checked out this month’s Commentary, have a look. There is a symposium on “Why are Jews Liberals” which makes me want to read Norman Podhoretz’ new book of the same name and a review of Michael Burleigh’s Blood & Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism which sounds very interesting as well.
Airforce Amazons: Anti-Semitism on Shop Street
Bob from Brockley on Class Politics Versus Identity Politics
But, I am a Liberal! Realism Still A Bad Idea Pt. I
Contentious Centrist: The Essence of Evil II: Rape as
Elder of Ziyon: UNRWA defends not teaching Holocaust to PalArabs
Flesh is Grass provides a roundup on Iran
Long War Journal’s Bill Roggio on the Taliban’s killing of Afghanistan’s intelligence chief and two hijacked fuel trucks hit by a NATO airstrike
The Middle (Jewlicious): Uri Avnery Gets Lernered
Mod on Hamas
Poumista posts some Poumist Ephemera
Small Wars Journal: Major Jeremy Kotkin asks “Is the War in Afghanistan in the Interests of the U.S. and its Allies?”
Sultan Knish: The Real Root Cause of Terrorism and Is Islamic Terrorism Reactive or Proactive?
Michael Totten: Qadaffi Can Celebrate his Filthy Regime Without Us
The New Centrist 
Thanks for link
Thanks for the link. What do you think of Major Jeremy Kotkin’s piece you linked to?
You are both welcome.
Roland,
Kotkin does a good job articulating a straight-forward realist analysis of the situation in this piece. As you probably gather from my posts here and comments at your blog my sympathies are more with the neoconservative and muscular liberal approach than realism.
However, he asks some important questions, first and foremost, what ends do we seek in Afghanistan? Killing terrorists? Nation building? Some combination of the two?
If it is the former, our military is well trained and equipped to accomplish that goal. But the latter goal, helping to create a stable state, is much more elusive and cannot be accomplished by raw military power alone. USAID, the State Department and other government agencies need to get more involved. It will also take a significant amount of money and a much more active role by our NATO partners.
I also disagree with Kotkin re: the potential for terrorist plots to be hatched in and executed from failed states. He claims the Taliban were “in power minding their own business since 1996” but this ignores the role the role the Taliban played in developing terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and the threat that those camps represented not only to the U.S. but the entire free world.
–TNC