Word: afar
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...talking up the successes of the "surge." After all, the area around Qahataniya was the scene of a major anti-insurgent operation barely two years ago. In the fall of 2005, some 8,000 American and Iraqi troops flushed a terrorist group out of the nearby town of Tal Afar in an operation that was a precursor to the "clear, hold and build" strategy that underpins the current "surge." A few months later, President Bush cited Tal Afar as a success story for the U.S. enterprise in Iraq...
There have been several attacks in and around Tal Afar since then; last March, two truck bombs killed more than 100 people in a Shi'ite neighborhood in the town. The bombings in Qahataniya were a deadly reminder that the terrorists have not gone very far away...
...Until now, major U.S. military offensives against Sunni militants have tended to be big set-pieces - Fallujah, Tal-Afar, Al-Qaim. Each of these operations had a long buildup, giving groups like al-Qaeda plenty of time to move their key commanders and fighters out of harm's way, leaving behind a small corps of jihadis to engage the Americans. And when the operation began, the military concentrated its energies on a single location, allowing the militants to pop up in other, relatively unprotected places...
...government leaders, from President Jalal Talabani on down, have described al-Dari as an inciter of ethnic and sectarian violence. Last November, the Interior Ministry issued a warrant for his arrest. Ever since, he has divided his time between several Arab states, monitoring al-Maliki's actions from afar. Not even the Prime Minister's recent decision to allow many former Baath Party officials back into government has impressed the Sunni cleric. "They are inviting the former Baathists to register their names, but you know what will happen after that," he says, alluding to the murder of many former officials...
...process by which Jones became dean of admissions at M.I.T. looks from afar, at least, like American meritocracy working the way it is supposed to work. Once she was in the door and proving her competence, nobody gave a hoot about her résumé, which is why her fabrication was not caught for 28 years. What ultimately did Jones in was a different kind of meritocracy, the kind that trades in what might be called paper merit. Degrees, test scores, recommendation letters: these are all artificial substitutes for real merit. Sometimes the artificial substitute is unavoidable. When many thousands...