Favorite Rejects 2021-08-15
Israel isn’t debating whether to give kids vaccines or not. They’re just debating whether vaccine distribution should eat into educational hours. timesofisrael.com/health-ministe…
Obviously, I am not opposed to journalists doing policy takes but it's interesting to see when outlets that normally *don't* do that kind of thing decide it's time to start editorializing.
Axios @axios
On Afghanistan, both Trump & Biden have been swimming against the main currents of opinion among military leaders (who want to avoid the conclusion that this is an embarrassing failure *on their part*) and a lot of reporters are very comfortable openly siding with the generals.
They are also willfully not contextualizing questions like "how could the endgame have gotten this slipshod?" with the reality that the people charged with carrying out the Trump/Biden policy consistently opposed it and wanted the implementation to go badly.
As recently as yesterday, they were still hoping that turning the Trump/Biden withdrawal policy into an embarrassing shitshow would successfully bully the White House into reversing course the way they squeezed Obama in 2009 and Trump in 2017.
If the new president hadn’t been Obama’s VP it probably would’ve worked.
They’d have told him “oh Trump messed this up, we just need a temporary surge of forces to push the Taliban back for a few years and get us a better bargaining position for a negotiated peace.”
A small detachment of 3,000 Sardaukar could have held Arrakis indefinitely if the Emperor hadn’t lost his nerve.
Subject matter knowledge is great, but it’s also the case that communities of expertise develop biases and distinct interests.
This is a very notable feature of US national security circles and it’s why the handful of nonconforming spots like Cato & Quincy are so valuable.
Matt Ford @fordm
Living in Japan made me realize how little of modern Japan - its culture, its politics, its institutions, its economy -- was built by America or our occupation.
I will write a post about this today, because I guess I have to.
My understanding is that this is false but if it were true it would be a stunning indictment of US policy in Korea.
Marc Thiessen @marcthiessen