Roundup: Media's Take

Will Heaven: The history of British India will serve David Cameron well – as long as he doesn't go on about it

[Will Heaven is the Telegraph's Deputy Blogs Editor, specialising in politics and the internet.] The Prime Minister has been swotting up on his Eastern history. In Turkey yesterday, he spoke of William Harborne’s journey there on behalf of Elizabeth I. “As a nation we sought the opportunity for our merchants to trade. More than 400 years on, I follow him… at least in part for the same reason.” Lovely. But I hope Mr Cameron knows that if he tries that rhetoric in India,

Achy Obejas: Yes, Virginia, There Is Racism in Cuba

[Achy Obejas is an author whose most recent book is Ruins, a novel about Cuba in the Special Period. She was born in Cuba and came to the United States by boat in 1963. Since then she has returned to Cuba innumerable times. She writes about Cuba for The Root and other U.S.-based publications.] In 1998, when President Bill Clinton was allowing Cuban artists to travel relatively easily in and out of the United States, I invited a well-known Cuban visual artist to visit my graduate cla

Simon Jenkins: A history of folly, from the Trojan horse to Afghanistan

[Simon Jenkins is a journalist and author.] Is it the death of war? In Vietnam the horror of fighting was brought to TV screens in real time. Such was the reaction that American citizens withdrew their consent. In the 1980s computers were said to have restored the aloofness of battle by enabling armies to fight and defeat an enemy by remote control. They could locate the foe, direct fire and drop bombs with pinpoint accuracy. That thesis is now threadbare. There is no s

William Voegeli: Why Liberalism Is Dangerous

[William Voegeli is a contributing editor of The Claremont Review of Books and a visiting scholar at Claremont McKenna College’s Salvatori Center.] In early June, George Will devoted one of his syndicated columns to a favorable discussion of my book, Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State. Three weeks later, Michael Lind of the New America Foundation devoted his weekly column in Salon to attacking Will for endorsing Never Enough and thereby supporting “the Orwellian project

Michael Lind: Are the American People Obsolete?

[Michael Lind is policy director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation.] Have the American people outlived their usefulness to the rich minority in the United States? A number of trends suggest that the answer may be yes. In every industrial democracy since the end of World War II, there has been a social contract between the few and the many. In return for receiving a disproportionate amount of the gains from economic growth in a capitalist econo

Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Conversation on Race

[Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle.] ...Expecting an American conversation on race in this country, is like expecting financial advice from someone who prefers to not check their bank balance. It's not that the answers, themselves, are pre-ordained, its that we are more interested in questions than answers, in ver

Jonah Goldberg: The New Journalism

[Jonah Goldberg writes a column for the LA Times.] "The high standards and wise judgments of people like Walter Cronkite once acted as a national immune system, zapping scandal mongers and quashing wild rumors," wrote former "green jobs czar" Van Jones in the Sunday New York Times.... I must say, I find such nonsense exhilarating and exasperating. Jones' nostalgia for Cronkite — truly one of the most overrated national icons of the 20th

Bret Stephens: From WikiLeaks to the Killing Fields

[Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's "Global View" column on foreign affairs.] Innocent civilians become the tragic casualties of war. Insurgents plant thousands of IEDs. Special-ops teams hunt down insurgents. The Taliban may have a few Stinger missiles. Pakistan plays a double game with the Taliban. The U.S. government can't keep its secrets. The New York Times has about as much regard for those secrets as a British tabloid has for a starlet's privacy. The Obama administra

Christian Caryl: Afghanistan Isn't the Graveyard of Empires

[Christian Caryl is a contributing editor to Foreign Policy. His column, "Reality Check," appears weekly on ForeignPolicy.com.] It's the mother of all clichés. Almost no one can resist it. It's wielded by everyone from thoughtful ex-generals to vitriolic bloggers. It crops up everywhere from Russia's English-language TV channel to scruffy Pakistani newspapers to America's stately National Public Radio. The Huffington Post can't seem to live without it, and one recent book

Doug Kendall: Strange Brew: The Tea Party Mocks the Founders' Stance on Armed Rebellion

[Doug is the founder and President of Constitutional Accountability Center (fomerly Community Rights Counsel), a think tank, law firm and action center based in Washington, DC. CAC promotes the progressive promise of the Constitution's text and history.] Perhaps the single most disturbing thing about the rise of the Tea Party as a growing force in American politics is the frequency with which the movement’s most notable figures have rallied the faithful with talk of armed rebellion

Donald J. Kochan: Benjamin Franklin on Wealth

[Donald J. Kochan is an associate professor of law at Chapman University School of Law in Orange.] On this day 226 years ago — July 26, 1784 — Benjamin Franklin considered whether society was in need of a "remedy for luxury" in a letter to his trusted advisor, Benjamin Vaughn. In it, Franklin methodically argued against such a need. The current growing clamor for the regulation of wealth makes Franklin's thoughts on the matter relevant today. Consider Presiden

Eamonn Fingleton: How to Lose an Empire ... America goes Ottoman shopping

[Eamonn Fingleton is the author of In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Dominance.] Here's an economic history test: 1. Which Great Power pioneered the secular trend towards freer international trade? 2. Which Great Power first resorted to spiraling foreign indebtedness to pay for its wars? 3. Which Great Power first permitted large-scale foreign direct investment in its domestic industries and infrastructure?

Gideon Rachman: Somali lessons for Afghanistan

[Gideon Rachman is chief foreign affairs commentator at the Financial Times.] Whenever western leaders ask themselves the question, why are we in Afghanistan, they come up with essentially the same reply – “To prevent Afghanistan becoming a failed state and a haven for terrorists.” Until Afghanistan is stable, so the argument goes, we cannot risk withdrawal. Yet there is very little evidence that Afghanistan is becoming more stable. On the contrary, the fighting is inte

Michael Levy: Truman and Lessons for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

[Michael Levy is Britannica's Executive Editor. He received a bachelor’s degree (1991) in political science from the University of North Carolina and a doctorate (1996) in international relations and comparative politics from the University of Kentucky.] Leadership is doing the right thing, even when it’s not popular. Indeed, especially when it’s not popular. And, 62 years ago today, on July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman showed true leadership, doing something tha

Jay Rosen: A Brief History of News Leaks

[Jay Rosen is a professor of journalism at NYU.] ...Few people realize how important leaking has been to the rise of the political press since the mid-18th century. Leaks were actually “present at the creation” of political reporting. I’m moving quickly this morning, so I only have time for a capsule version. Those with a richer knowledge of the British Parliament’s history can confirm or correct this outline. Once upon a time, Parliament’s debates were off limits to newspapers. But

Michael Singh: Iranian Re-Revolution

[Michael Singh is the Ira Weiner fellow of The Washington Institute and former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council (NSC).] On June 10, when the Iranian opposition movement cancelled its planned commemoration of the anniversary of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection, commentators assumed that the Green Movement was finally finished. For months, it had been criticized as lacking strong leadership and for being unable to seriously challenge Ir

James Fallows: Does WikiLeaks Prove the War Can't Be Won?

[James Fallows is a National Correspondent for The Atlantic.] I have just started to look at some of these documents; more on the substance later. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder and Alexis Madrigal have immediate reactions on the military and the media-ecology implications of this development. The interaction between "traditional" and "new" media is the most immediately arresting "process" aspect of this event. It's structurally similar in o

Joshua Kurlantzick: When Lobbyists Work for Authoritarian Nations

[With R. M. Schneiderman in New York. Kurlantzick is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.] Once the province of a few fringe players operating on the margins of Washington, lobbying for foreign countries has become big business for the most prestigious firms in D.C. According to data from the Department of Justice, the number of registrants—forms submitted by people registered to represent foreign countries—grew from about 1,800 in the first half of 2005 to 1,900 in the fir

Rashmee Roshan Lall: Lawrence Of Eurabia?

[Rashmee Roshan Lall, editor of the Sunday Times of India.] Spain voted against banning the burqa just five days ago in poignant illustration of the appalled fascination, dilemma and doubt traditionally suffered by Europeans faced with the Muslim. Back in the early 1900s, Lawrence of Arabia would depict Muslim Arabs as stereotypical "Semites...they had a universal clearness or hardness of belief, almost mathematical in its limitation...(they had) no half-tones in their register

Thor Halvorssen: Bolivar Would've Hated Chavez

[Thor Halvorssen is a film producer and president of the Human Rights Foundation.] ...If you can imagine Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Lincoln rolled into one, you can appreciate Bolívar's historical power in much of Latin America, and why a "Bolivarian " revolution is infinitely more legitimizing than a "Chávez" revolution. Chávez's aggressive appropriation of Bolívar -- first politically and now physically -- is especially meaningful because it is an attem