The results of NY Times‘ op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof’s bid that readers Name That War:

“The five winners, each of whom gets a 250-dinar note left over from my last Iraq trip, are: Brad Corsello of New York for ‘Dubya Dubya III’; Richard Sanders for ‘Rolling Blunder’; John Fell of California for ‘Desert Slog,’ Will Hutchinson of Vermont for ‘Mess in Potamia’; and Willard Oriol of New York for ‘Blood, Baath and Beyond.’

More seriously, during this holiday weekend, I hope we’ll think often and appreciatively of those Americans who are in Iraq right now. Humor cannot erase their fear and loneliness in the face of Washington’s policy failures, or the heartbreak here in so many homes where bereaved parents, spouses and orphans are struggling in this season to remember why they should be giving thanks. ” [thanks, Jerry]

Pointed by a reader to this 11/30 post at the null device:

“Some believe that al-Qaeda doesn’t exist, and that the highly organised global terror network is a myth made up by Western officials…

In fact, I have been wondering whether or not, within a decade, ‘al-Qaeda’ will morph into an umbrella term for any resistance to neo-liberalism/globalisation/capitalism/The Man, with Latin American (non-Islamic) qaedistas waging guerilla war against US-installed authoritarian governments and right-wing death squads, whilst their French comrades torch McDonalds restaurants, and dreadlocked Nu Marxists all over McWorld replace their Che T-shirts with Osama ones.” [via walker]

dev.null takes off in part from this 11/28 sp!ked piece (“…it’s time we ‘defused the widespread image of al-Qaeda as a ubiquitous, super-organised terror network and call it as it is: a loose collection of groups and individuals that doesn’t even refer to itself as al-Qaeda…”) by Brendan O’Neill. FmH readers will know that I have, perhaps less succinctly, pointed to and espoused similar views in the past, e.g. here and especially here.

The results of NY Times‘ op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof’s bid that readers Name That War:

“The five winners, each of whom gets a 250-dinar note left over from my last Iraq trip, are: Brad Corsello of New York for ‘Dubya Dubya III’; Richard Sanders for ‘Rolling Blunder’; John Fell of California for ‘Desert Slog,’ Will Hutchinson of Vermont for ‘Mess in Potamia’; and Willard Oriol of New York for ‘Blood, Baath and Beyond.’

More seriously, during this holiday weekend, I hope we’ll think often and appreciatively of those Americans who are in Iraq right now. Humor cannot erase their fear and loneliness in the face of Washington’s policy failures, or the heartbreak here in so many homes where bereaved parents, spouses and orphans are struggling in this season to remember why they should be giving thanks. ” [thanks, Jerry]