NPR just started a new mini series on the mix of Muslim identity and Europe by Sylvia Poggioli. The first entry is “Europe, Islam’s New Front Line: The Netherlands“. One section of the city is known as satellite city because of the number of satellite dishes receiving Arabic content.

There are also a couple interesting pieces on Powell now that he’s resigning. The first is Robert Siegel talking with Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Daniel Schorr comments on it in “Powell Served Country, Not Party“. Regarding Rice, “Rice Known for Loyalty to Bush” and “What to Expect from Rice at State Department“. The take from the pieces is that when countries talk to Rice they know they are getting the president’s official position, however they will lose a person who is the backdoor to the president who can talk negotiate and play advocate with other people’s positions. The more ideological position of Rice will cause a lot of friction in the service and will lose a number of senior people. The lack of Powell in the administration also increases the chances of groupthink.

Andrei Codrescu also a commentary on the death of intellectuals.

Kerry lost, the democrats lost. I had a significant emotional reaction to it, which I wasn’t expecting. 😦 At this point I can just be hopeful that Bush has learned from his past mistakes and will do a better job this time around. I share many of the same high level goals, I just wish we matched more on technique and my expectation of skill level.

Slate has a nice piece about the complexity of the Government mixing with the Ten Commandments as the Supreme Court decides to take up the issue again.

But in the art museum example the context of the display is everything. The depiction is “art,” and we know it reflects the sensibilities of the artist, not the government. We understand that the public museum is a collection of views that none of us is forced to view. But what about public schools? The Supreme Court in Stone v. Graham (1980) held that a display of the Ten Commandments in a classroom violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.
…
Displays of the Ten Commandments like those presented by the Eagles are often described in lower-court opinions (including the Texas case now before the Supreme Court) as “monuments.” These monuments are often placed in parks or public buildings. In such instances, our vocabulary and sense of landscape may change our interpretation of the display. The very word choice is a clue. Perhaps the term “monument” is chosen only loosely, as a convenient shorthand to help us conjure the image of the granite block on which the Decalogue is placed. But the word “monument” has multiple connotations, including “memorial,” “record,” “testament,” “reminder,” or “tribute.” A monument placed on public property is usually not thought of as a work of art to which the government is indifferent, but rather, as a display in some sense approved or endorsed by the government. We erect “monuments” to leaders, soldiers, heroes, and great events.

The Boston Globe has a three part series on how the GOP is governing the country.

Back-room dealing a Capitol trend
Energy bill a special-interests triumph
Medicare bill a study in D.C. spoils system

Bush’s approach to North Korea has caused some regression from the previous state. Are the multilateral talks now going on worth the cost we have paid?

Iran appears hell bent on getting nuclear weapon capabilities and have an expressed desire to attack Israel with them. They are also aligned to Hezbollah, a believed to be terrorist group. It’s frustrating that the president doesn’t seem to have a strategy with Iran other then to let the IAEA do their work. It seems like Bush can only operate in one of two modes, completely hands off or getting ready to invade. The other possibility is that Bush can’t actually handle more then one thing at once, and Iraq is sucking all of their attention.

Things to continue investigating: There has got to be more data on the whitehouse’s Iran policy out there.

War:

While there was some concern that we were going into Afghanistan without proof of the ties between Al Queda and 9/11, it appears that the right thing happened. What’s not good is that Osama managed to escape or elude capture.

Post War:

Afghanistan has taken a number of baby steps to being better, an election that includes women’s suffrage is a good step, but there are a lot of concerns. The country still has heavily controlled by war lords and the Taleban continues to fight for control of the country. Opium production has become a serious problem again. Women have taken a number of minor steps but there is still a lot of social issues like women needing their husband’s permission to vote. We do not appear to be effective in making sure that development money promised for the country has been delivered.

The end result is that we could do better, but we are not doing horrible. The situation seems stable.

Slate’s William Saletan examines the pivotal questions about Iraq left from the debate.

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

So, [Bush] offers himself—and you—a way out. Ignore the bad news, he says. Ignore the evidence that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs had deteriorated. Ignore the evidence that Saddam had no operational relationship with al-Qaida. Ignore the rising casualties. Ignore the hollowness and disintegration of the American-led “coalition.” If these reports are true, as Kerry suggests, then it was all a mistake. How can we ask our troops to die for a mistake? We can’t. Therefore, these reports must be rejected. They must be judged not by evidence, but by their offensiveness to the assumptions we embraced when we went to war.

The logical upshot of these beliefs—and the evidence—is that Americans are dying in Iraq for a mistake.

Why won’t Kerry say so? For the same reason Bush accuses him of saying so: Because we don’t want to believe it. On this ultimate question, Kerry clings to Bush’s wishful thinking.

But the greater shame belongs to the candidate who launched this war, refuses to admit his errors, and now holds the moral pride of his countrymen hostage, blackmailing them into shunning the truth. Tonight he scoffed, “If I were to ever say, ‘This is the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place,’ the troops would wonder, ‘How can I follow this guy?’ “

Exactly, Mr. President. If you were ever to give them the correct assessment, they would ask the correct question.

What is missing from this critique is the realization that now that the claimed mistake has been made, there are some unacceptable repercussions to just pulling out. Both Bush and Kerry acknowledge this point. The real question was who has a more realistic plan for what comes next. My concern is that it may be too late for the moves that Kerry wants to make to change the situation.