Malkasian carter 2021 the american war in afghanistan a history new york oxford university press

In June 1984, at New York’s Quadrasonic Sound studios, Leonard Cohen laid down a song he’d spent years writing. “Hallelujah” would eventually join the pantheon of contemporary popular music; at the time, though, the Canadian singer-songwriter may as well have dropped it off the end of a pier. That’s because it was included on Various Positions , Cohen’s seventh studio album for Columbia, which the head of the music division, Walter Yetnikoff, chose not to release in the U.S. “Leonard, we know you’re great,” he said. “But we don’t know if you’re any good.” Or as cartoonish execs say in the movies: I don’t hear a single . The album, which Columbia didn’t put out in the U.S. until 1990, features a handful of Cohen’s greatest songs. It opens with the sardonically gorgeous “Dance Me to the End of Love” and fades out on “If It Be Your Will,” which Cohen described as “an old prayer” that he was moved to rewrite. And sitting in the middle of that albatross of an album—side two, track … [Read more...] about Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ Belongs to Everyone

Fifteen years ago, U2 brought music and a message to post-war Sarajevo. Reuters Fifteen years ago this weekend, on Sept. 23, 1997, pop music changed the world. Well, briefly at least. On a Tuesday night in a bomb-scarred Olympic stadium, Irish rock band U2 played the first major pop concert to take place in the recuperating city of Sarajevo since the end of the Bosnian war, in hopes of erasing the ethnic tensions that had overwhelmed Yugoslavia, if only for the duration of a two-act set. "If there's any message, it's a simple one, a banal one," frontman Bono explained to CNN. "It's that music is beyond politics." Famously, Bono's ballooning humanitarian efforts would later earn him a reputation—not a good one—as a "messianic do-gooder" and an overambitious, globe-trotting collector of vanity projects. In 2002, the cover of Time would ask cheekily, "Can Bono Save the World?," and in 2009, the Daily Mail complained that while Bono was certainly passionate about relieving … [Read more...] about ‘Music Is Beyond Politics’: When U2 Went to Bosnia in 1997

Last July, President Joe Biden made a series of public remarks that have come back to haunt him as things have turned out to be the opposite of what he predicted. Those statements marked the beginning of a tumbling approval rating, which, a year later, has yet to bounce back. Biden's time in the White House started off promising after the Democrat received more than 81 million votes—the most ever cast for a presidential candidate—and he entered office with a relatively high approval rating. Biden's approval rating has since sunk below that of former President Donald Trump 's at the same point in his term, and members of his own party are losing confidence in his ability to lead on key issues. Biden's rating remained steady at about the 52 percent mark until mid-June 2021. What followed were three crises facing America and what seemed to be less-than-accurate predictions from the Biden administration on the Omicron COVID surge, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and soaring … [Read more...] about Biden faces 3 awkward anniversaries of things he shouldn’t have said

This past April in Quetta, the bleached-gray, drought-stricken capital of the Pakistani border province of Baluchistan, I awoke to explosions and gunfire. In search of the violence, my translator, Jamil, and I jumped into a four-wheel-drive Toyota and raced through the section of town inhabited by Pashtoon tribesmen. Suddenly we were surrounded by Pakistani soldiers, who forced us out of the car and pointed assault rifles in our faces. While they searched us, I saw two other soldiers with automatic weapons run along a high wall a few feet from where we stood. Shots rang out from inside the adjacent compound. By 11:00 a.m. five people had been killed and twenty wounded, and a large cache of weapons had been confiscated in a raid on the Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami (Pashtoon National People's Party), a group supporting an independent "Pashtoonistan" created out of Pakistani territory. The party stood accused of murders and kidnapping. Security forces claimed victory, but reports later … [Read more...] about The Lawless Frontier

IF one is to believe the bulk of news stories, the typical American voters these days are affluent white mothers ("soccer moms") and fathers, living in the suburbs and probably involved in the information economy ("wired workers"), whose interest in government reflects their relatively privileged position: "No big programs, please, because we don't really need them, but little, cheap ones are okay, provided they target one of our few remaining problems." • "Soccer moms.... were America's most wanted voters, and their every wish turned up on some politician's list of promises: child tax credits, education tax breaks, scholarships, V-chips, school uniforms, longer childbirth stays, time off for teacher conferences, even a breast cancer web site. Some called it pandering, others family friendliness" ( USA Today, November 6, 1996). • "Wired workers are the wave of the future, political analysts say. Political parties will learn to surf the new demographics, or go under. Wired … [Read more...] about America’s Forgotten Majority

IN 1988, during the Palestinian intifada, the Israeli Defense Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, referring to Palestinian protesters, reportedly told Israeli soldiers to "go in and break their bones." Rabin's standing with the public began to rise thereafter. In 1992 hard-line Israeli voters switched to the Labor Party, only because Rabin headed the ticket. As Prime Minister, Rabin used his new power to start peace talks with the Palestinians and the Jordanians. Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995, is now judged a hero by enlightened public opinion the world over. In 1970 and again in the 1980s King Hussein of Jordan cracked down brutally on the Palestinians. Had Hussein been subject to Western judicial procedures, he might have been implicated in mistreating considerable numbers of people through his security services. Yet Hussein's crackdown saved his kingdom from those who would have been less just in office than he was. Western admirers of Rabin and Hussein prefer to forget their … [Read more...] about The Return of Ancient Times

President Joe Biden released a list on Friday, naming seventeen people he planned to present with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a ceremony scheduled to take place following the July 4th holiday weekend. Biden himself is a recipient of the Medal of Freedom , the nation’s highest civilian honor, which was awarded in 2017 by former President Barack Obama to honor his service both in the Senate and in the Vice Presidency. “The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the Nation’s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors,” the White House statement read. “President Biden has long said that America can be defined by one word: possibilities. These seventeen Americans demonstrate the power of possibilities and embody the soul of the nation – hard work, perseverance, and faith. They have overcome significant … [Read more...] about Biden’s Medal Of Freedom Honorees Include Gold Star Dad Who Feuded With Trump | The Daily Wire

The Biden presidency is a disappointment to Americans. That goes for people who voted for him—who thought he'd do a better job—and people who, even as they voted against him, did not believe he could make as much of a hash of things as he has. The list of problems is long and growing longer. More COVID-19 cases than there were under Donald Trump . Inflation like we haven't seen since the Carter years. Rapidly rising interest rates. Shortages. The debacle in Afghanistan. War in Ukraine. It's no wonder a growing majority of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction. According to a new Associated Press-NORC survey , 85 percent of American adults—including more than 7 in 10 Democrats—say the country is not on the right track. Almost two-thirds—60 percent—blame the president for that, with just 39 percent of those participating in the survey saying they approve of his overall presidential leadership. As if that were not bad enough, 69 percent of those surveyed, … [Read more...] about What kind of president do Republicans want? | Opinion