the Bush administration shows no clue that we face a theological struggle as much as a military one, that what we mean by "Islam" will be as decisive as what we meant by Communism. (Just this yesterday, in fact, Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a speech: "We're not fighting a religious war. We're fighting a freedom war.") Defense Department think tanks are actually prohibited from studying the national-security implications of religion, which "takes off the table just the topic that militant Islam finds most compelling," says Jack Miles, who won the Pulitzer Prize for God: A Biography. "One can no more discuss (Islam and terrorism) without discussing theology than one can discuss communism without discussing ideology."
Egyptian economics: Stanley Kurtz observes a near-riot as Egyptians fight over scare consumer goods - and much of it just ends up on the black market. The affair "puts one in mind of the old Soviet Union. And despite its ongoing efforts at economic liberalization, the Egyptian government's commodity distribution and central-planning apparatus is all too reminiscent of the bad old days of Communism. The International Monetary Fund has been trying to get Third World governments like Egypt to drop their food subsidies for decades, but the riots that follow cuts in government price supports threaten to topple these weak regimes. So market mechanisms are suppressed, and the shortages continue."
Top Ten Good Things About Being Stationed in Kandahar: (From the February 21st Late Show with David Letterman, as read by Army soldiers in Kandahar, Afghanistan
10. "When I go for a ride in my armored Humvee, everyone is really friendly to me"
(Sergeant Anthony Croft)
9. "All the fabulous new goat recipes"
(Sergeant Andrew Carpenter)
8. "I've gotten the autographs of over a dozen Mullahs"
(Staff Sergeant Roger Bell)
7. "You don't really have time to dwell on that figure skating controversy"
(Specialist Ricky Covert)
6. "All-you-can-eat sand"
(Sergeant Tyson Daniel)
5. "Did you say 'Kandahar'? They told me this was Canada"
(Corporal Duane Charlton)
4. "Aren't many better ways of getting out of jury duty"
(Specialist Maurice Smith)
3. "There's a great duty-free shop in what's left of the Kandahar
airport"
(Specialist Lakeisha Blanks)
2. "I haven't seen The Late Show in six months"
(Specialist Marlon Harris)
1. "Of all the 'stan' countries, this is the place to be"
(Command Sergeant Major Iuniasolua Savusa)
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