Word: davids
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...just finished a remarkable book called The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel. It is the best grunt's-eye view of the war in Iraq that I've read; certainly, it's the best written. But it also raises, implicitly, the mystery of our qualified success there. Finkel follows an Army battalion through the 2007 surge, as it attempts to secure a particularly nasty and neglected area of Baghdad. This was the first attempt to implement the Army's new counterinsurgency doctrine, and the troops have their doubts about the new tactics. Major Brent Cummings, the second-in-command, reads...
...After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, I decided to make an intense effort to get to know the U.S. military. My education was turbocharged by General David Petraeus, who invited me to spend some time learning counterinsurgency at Fort Leavenworth, Kans., while he was leading the team that wrote the new doctrine. The intellectual rigor of Petraeus' team, their willingness - no, their joy - when it came to chewing over even the most unlikely questions were flat-out exciting. It was certainly at odds with the hidebound image of the military I'd grown up with. I became an auxiliary member...
...only begun to settle. Lellouche was quoted criticizing promises by Conservative leaders not only to oppose continuing E.U. integration if their party wins next year's general elections in Britain, but also to wrest back political and economic powers previously ceded to Brussels. The pledges by Conservative leader David Cameron came at the very moment E.U. integration took a huge step forward with the final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty earlier this month. (See pictures of French President Nicolas Sarkozy in London...
...that Lellouche's comments - although bombastic - hardly misinterpreted the ferocious hostility that the Tories have toward Europe, which most of the E.U. views with revulsion and disdain. Still, as French centrist European parliamentarian Mireille de Sarnez points out, insulting the Conservative position is counterproductive. (Read "Q&A with David Cameron: Why Britain Needs a 'Compassionate Conservative...
...traditional French habit of speaking down to people as you give them lessons," de Sarnez says. "We must avoid creating long-term antagonism by airing short-term frustration, because history shows leaders of all kinds tend to be more pragmatic once elected to office, which we hope will be David Cameron's case if elected...