From Radar, sure, Britain's still in. But what about Mongolia? Checking in on the "Coalition of the Willing". The US's new plan for Iraq is to withdraw all but a post-occupation troop force in 2009. But can you spot the oxymoron? Post-traumatic Iraq syndrome: The war is lost. Americans should begin to deal with what that means. Do past empires hold lessons for U.S. foreign policy today? Alex Cooley has thoughts on a debate. A review of The Pentagon: A History by Steve Vogel.
The Case of the Iraq War: An excerpt from When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina by W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingston. An interview with Greg Palast, author of Armed Madhouse: Who’s Afraid of Osama Wolf? China Floats, Bush Sinks, The Scheme to Steal '08, No Child’s Behind Left, and Other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War (and another interview).
From Business Week, is Europe's health care better? U.S. health care has been declared a disaster. Britain's subsidized NHS is little better. France's hybrid system works, but faces rising costs; The Sorry States of Health Care: A state-by-state study shows who has the best and worst grades on 32 health indicators, and even the best are none too good. From Democracy, a review of Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis - And the People Who Pay the Price by Jonathan Cohn; and Unsafe at Any Rate: If it's good enough for microwaves, it's good enough for mortgages. Why we need a Financial Product Safety Commission.
From In These Times, at what price victory? In order to pass their budget, House Democrats have proposed increasing the funding of a harmful abstinence-only program. What medication can't achieve: Paedophilia is a continuum that covers a range of behaviours - and chemical castration isn't the solution. A review of American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment by Sasha Abramsky. The Fame and Misfortune of Celebrity: Why Paris Hilton does not belong behind bars. Siege of Paris: Christopher Hitchens on the creepy populism surrounding high-profile defendants.
From Butterflies & Wheels, a review of God is Not Great. A review of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — and Doesn’t by Stephen Prothero. Research shows that the more secularists there are living near evangelicals, the more politically conservative those evangelicals will be. Might the secular start developing this same kind of tribalism? From The Village Voice, a neo-Nazi field trip to the Met: White supremacists from across the country gather in New Jersey and New York for barbecue and culture. Michael Kazin reviews Comrades! by Robert Service . The Party Never Stopped: An exhibition profiles the leaders of the Communist Party U.S.A. as they pose for portraits and chat about politics with a Russian emigre painter.
