Sometimes Tom Friedman says something that sounds like the start of a good column. Well, almost the start — there were a couple of paragraphs of crappy writing to skim through before we get to it, but it’s the cabby stenographer, that’s expected. Anyway, here is the germ of an idea: Our slow decline is [...]

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“I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, [...]

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So The Guardian reports that Libyan villagers attempting to help downed U.S. airmen were rewarded for their efforts by U.S. forces firing on them: Libyans who went to investigate the US warplane’s crash site said that a US helicopter had come in with guns firing, creating panic and wounding onlookers, some of whom had to [...]

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Gary Younge, writing on the Innocence of the Liberal Hawk, on why any sane person should be troubled by the context of Western intervention in Libya: Far from being a knee-jerk response to Western military action, opposition to the bombing marks a considered reflection on the West’s knee-jerk impulse to mistake war for foreign policy. [...]

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From James Fallows: I didn’t like the “shut up and leave it to us” mode of foreign policy when carried out by people I generally disagreed with, in the Bush-Cheney era. I don’t like it when it’s carried out by people I generally agree with, in this Administration. Imagine how you might feel when you [...]

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