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November 29, 2009
November 29, 2009
October 16, 2014
The President's summary of his policy on the Islamic State or on "the group known as ISIL" was not elegantly enunciated: "To degrade and ultimately destroy" is a compound infinitive phrase that is pitched to the demotic or colloquial in ways that contribute to misinterpretation and distortion.
The infinitive "to degrade," a somewhat esoteric military term of art roughly inserted into public discourse some years ago, is meant to refer us immediately to an enemy's capabilities, which are to be brought to a lower level, but the second and more common connotation of "degrade" is quietly also conveyed, perhaps somewhat intentionally if not entirely consciously: to humiliate, to render an object of spite. ((To complete the linguistic circuit from the high to the low, we can observe that in the language of the street, or perhaps the language of the President's "anger translator," to degrade IS is to fuck IS up, to chingar IS, or perhaps to smash IS, like a bug.)) Regarding the phrase in its entirety, the absence of pauses (which could be indicated by commas) and the omission of the second particle "to" run the two parts of the President's program together, and encourage his critics to indulge their impatience or polemical convenience, to drop the qualifying adverb "ultimately" altogether or to treat it as an intensifier, and, as events unfold, to expound on each day's, week's, or month's necessarily mixed results as somehow contradicting a solemn promise or revealing a strategy already "in ruins" or "in full-scale... meltdown," or suffering from a fatal mismatch of minimal means and maximal ends, or, also premature if less dramatic, simply "not working."
"To degrade and, ultimately, to destroy" might have been more difficult to misinterpret, since a more careful phrasing would clearly designate and distinguish two phases of a long-term strategy. As offered and initially implemented, if not as articulated or heard or unconscientiously translated, the strategy seems to mean "at first primarily to contain, but actively to contain in such a way, specifically by reduction of capacities and potentials, as to expose the targeted entity to destruction." Indeed, the two-part program does not exclude - or perhaps can be taken to imply - a policy shaped to the nature of a presumed ultimately self-destructive phenomenon.
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February 17, 2013
February 17, 2013
The overall dysfunctionality of a political discussion can be the product of countless such lesser dysfunctionalities, though the overall dysfunctionality of that discourse may in turn be what makes it manageable, or manageable enough. We dislike things the way they dysfunctionally are, and that is how we like things.
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Interesting. So you're saying that taken to its logical extreme (which could be either nihilistic or fantastical by the way) liberalism ends up having [...]
This is a good and thought-provoking post. I can't quite congeal my thoughts into anything coherent, but I wanted to say that. And to touch [...]
I think Child of Mog is now my favorite of the various options now.
I agree that experimenting with the live production site is generally bad [...]
On “Dying Declarations (disbelief in disbelief 2)”
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2012/04/radical-stupidity-and-second-world-of.html
On “Open Thread”
An intriguing notion, about the Mu'tazila, don't know how much growth potential it has, in this environment
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Ah, you've been found out, Colin, a closet Xtianist, what kind of category error, does that involve, also the notion of a Sufi really denying what life is like under a Hanbali or Hanifa regime, is some what amusing,
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Hamas, will take over both, as the group from which they splintered will take over Jordan after a decent interval,
On “Civil War Revisionism, Slavery, Eternal Union”
Yes, we had something resembling the Crittenden compromise, it was called Jim Crow,
On “Open Thread”
There's a line from Serenity, that focuses on that point, Mal tells Shepherd, he doesn't believe in God, and the latter tells him, 'why do you believe I'm talking about religion'
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For the UK it was about Commercial interests, re 'World on Fire' but clearly it was slavery that drove the whole shindig.
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An interesting argument, the counter is they invited jihadists, into their camp, in their mistaken notion that the Coalition forces were the greater foe, of course, the ratline runs backwards from Anbar province noe,
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This looks mildly interesting, then again so did Revolution;
http://continuumtheseries.com/about
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An exceedingly cynical exercise, of denial, on your part, you think any real civil society, from that assembly,
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Because the assembly is anathema to what they believe, and what the revolution was defined as, now I'm not naive enough not to realize that was the actual goal, of the exercise, just as the Hashemites were forced out, from the Arabian peninsula how the Tadjiks and Uzbeks
were driven out of power, et al
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Well they do, until they get into office, I think the word you're looking for Thermidor, or NEP
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We already had school resource officers, they were not in the DOJ budget,
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No I think you have that confused with the Castro like dictator played by Peter Falk, who suspects an assasination plot, also there was an episode with someone who went back in time, and failed to stop, the Titanic, Hiroshima, tried to shoot Hitler
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Well there was an episode of Enterprise, along those lines, the parallel universe with the multi formed species of the Expanse,
On “A compact example of liberal illogic re Egypt cc @arabist @ibishblog”
Yes, just like Charles Colson;
No scholar of Islam or even average Muslim would ever say such words. If you believe that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, then you must obey him—for he does not command except that which is good. So, even if he tells you to kill, you must— … The story about our prophet Musa [Moses], when al-Khidr killed the boy and Musa said “you killed and you did!” But then he [Khidr] revealed why he killed the boy, and why he punctured the boat. So we cannot distort the facts in order to please the people. Let the people be satisfied with the Truth [Sharia teachings], not the false.
On “Open Thread”
Btw, they discovered a planet around Tau Ceti, where Asimov's
'Cave of Steel' occur, and several star trek episode.
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Right, deluding yourself that Hamas is about something other than the annihilation of Israel, and treating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard which was been part of every terrorist outrage from Beirut to Buenos Aires, that is sophisticated thinking
On “Society of the First-Person Shooter”
I'm sure you'll find a way to explain this;
http://collegeinsurrection.com/2012/12/rhode-island-prof-demands-nra-chiefs-head-on-a-stick/
there is no rational response to this evil, but there are much more stupid response then McArdle's think piece
On “Open Thread”
He used to look compact, 'like an attack chipmunk' but it hasn't improved his skills,
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That still doesn't explain why he would target children, that puts him up with McVeigh, Basayev, and the Salafi in Iraq,
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No, but I do recall the Matrix, with the trademark trenchcoats,
premiered either immediately before or after that film, in '99.
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Well that's what they want us to think, the worst bit of derivative lunacy, btw, it was Colin Ferguson, who prompted the '1994'
attack, not Columbine, unless the flux capacitor was available in '99
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Well not really do I need to bring up Tipper Gore,
It seems he is more Khan, then Gary Mitchell;
http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=780663&affid=100055
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What was the intricate argument you agreed with,