Wed. bits

I am still reading Ghost Wars so I've been a little over-focused the last few days. Hey, it's a long book. But highly recommended. It is changing my views on Afghan policy. Here are a couple tidbits off the top of my head. When Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1991, bin Laden went to the Saudi king and requestd a jihad against Saddam using his soldiers. The king decided to allow American troops to do the job. Bin Laden was pissed. Or another: we were hunting and trying to kill bin Laden for years before 9/11. There was even a separate division of the CIA devoted to bin Laden. In 1999, George Tenet, head of the CIA announced publicly that Al Qaeda was the second biggest security problem we faced.

Here is a review of Steve Landsman's new book, which I thumbed through in the bookstore. I loved his argument about religious belief.

Here is Malcolm Gladwell's response to Steven Pinker's review of What the Dog Saw.

And here are Tyler Cowen's suggestions for health care reform.