The Bin-Laden Library

For John, BLUF:  "If you think of Osama bin Laden as a thrifty, frustrated, nth-year graduate student, this all makes sense."  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Here is a piece on the Osama bin-Laden books found when we went to take him prisoner (or as some would have it, assassinate him).  An excerpt:

[I]f there is a common theme to his English-language library, it’s great power war and imperial decline.  That fits both his conspiracy books and his more conventional selections.  Such a theme would be unsurprising for bin Laden, as he’d naturally be very interested in any insights into how to bring down what he viewed as the American empire.

What’s interesting, however, is the scattershot nature of these texts.  There were other quality books on empire that bin Laden should have had in his possession given that he was so invested in this topic.  Why this odd mix?

See the Bottom Line, Up Front.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Dark Deeds, in Our Name

For John, BLUF:  Torturing people is not the best way.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

Over at the Huffington Post we have a column on the use of torture.  The two authors, retired Air Force Colonel Morris (Mo) Davis and Presbyterian Minister Richard L Killmer, are against it.  For what it is worth, Colonel Davis was, for two years, the Chief Prosecutor for the Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The two authors are referencing the recently released movie Zero Dark Thirty.  Actually, the real question is why we tortured the perfectly acceptable "oh dark thirty" to come up with a pseudo-accurate term that has an additional syllable.

One way to remember this is "Torture achieves compliance; proper interrogation gains cooperation."  Jack Bauer notwithstanding.

To be clear, torture, to include enhanced interrogation methods, was wrong when it was the Bush Administration—to their shame—and it is still wrong today.

UPDATE:  What did he mean by the Title, "Card Deeds, in Our Name".  Trying to walk back the auto-correct, I am thinking I meant "Cruel" and made a typo, or "Dark".  I am going with "Dark".

Regards  —  Cliff