«Taki's TD Archive»
A selection of some 2007 and 2008 articles. These were originally posted on Taki’s Top Drawer, in a slightly edited version...
[Copyright Patrick Foy]
The Missing Links
My last article “The Sack of Annapolis” generated a minor firestorm from respondents. In some instances, the comments--by now over 70--were more interesting and informative than the article itself. Certain comments I agreed...
Lies, Ignorance and Useful Idiots
We all let old newspapers pile up, don’t we? For my peace of mind, I hope so. At what point does this activity become compulsive behavior? A few days ago, on the last day of 2007, I found myself rearranging stacks of unread...
The Fraud of Annapolis
If you want to appreciate just how hopelessly entangled America has become in the fate of modern day Israel and Zionism, you may want to take a look at an eye-opening article of December 5th in the Jerusalem Post. It is...
Endstation Moscow
The terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 mark a very significant turning point in American history. The attacks took place near the beginning of a new American presidency, and the repercussions have defined that presidency,...
The National Intelligence Estimate Revisited
Taki’s Magazine
For the Cheney-Bush White House, the recent NIE concerning Iran’s nuclear capability was a bombshell. Its significance was recognized immediately by all interested parties. No doubt...
World War III on Hold
"Nothing can come of nothing” Shakespeare’s King Lear said, and it would appear that this truism has finally been recognized by the individuals who put together the current “National Intelligence Estimate” for the White...
Annapolis Afterthought
Everybody is going through the motions again as part of the ongoing charade known as the Middle East “peace process”, now in its latest incarnation at the Annapolis conference. At this stage, what it all boils down to is...
Was it the Oil, all along?
Take note of a compelling article in the London Review of Books late last month by Jim Holt entitled “It’s the Oil, Stupid”. I did plan to comment upon it and bring it to the attention of the readership of Taki’s TD, but...
The Impossibility of George W. Bush
Rest assured that the subject matter of Pearl Harbor and 9/11 will be revisited here in the near future, with some further comparisons, parallels and speculation. For the moment, allow me to return to the immediate tragedy...
The Billionaires
Unlike Taki, I understand the fascination with the very rich. For the first time in 2007, all of the Forbes 400 richest persons in America are not just rich, but are billionaires to boot. In the world at large, Forbes calculates...
Professor Francis Fukuyama, Then and Now
Another one of those important books which I have failed to read is Professor Francis Fukuyama’s End of History, and the Last Man, published in 1992, on the heels of the full-scale implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991....
Two Reviews, One Conclusion
There have been two intriguing book reviews over last weekend in the establishment press. Both concern the overriding topics of war and peace and the future of America. The first article was in Friday’s New York Times,...
Regime Change Redux
It is time to contemplate, in the aftermath of “Operation Iraqi Freedom”, the reality and the implications of “regime change” with respect to the next target, Iran. One fact has been made perfectly clear by the American...
The Two Wise Men
Since it was being put to work as such wonderful agitprop for the Ziocons, aka the “neocons”, I had assumed that “the clash of civilizations” mania springing from Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington’s 1996 book of the same...
Back to Basics
Aside from its bizarre beers, its tennis star Justine Henin, the writer Georges Simenon, and the flamboyant Rexist leader Leon Degrelle, I know very little about Belgium. No matter. I am puzzled by a passing remark by Professor...
End Times Fandango
Bill Moyers has done it again. To observe some of my fellow countrymen acting like imbeciles is disturbing. I suppose one should be inured to it by now. Still, it is deplorable. If you saw the program, you know what I am...
Fool Me Twice
Hillary Clinton’s unsatisfactory explanation why she voted for Wolfowitz’s War is worth revisiting. “Operation Iraqi Freedom” must be an embarrassment to her and to all the other establishment politicos who “authorized”...
Wake Me At Armageddon
To a certain extent, all of us are what we think. And what we read determines our thoughts. Ergo, we are the product of what we read. No wonder I am confused most of the time. What I have been reading lately is terribly...
Iraq in Extremis
Great. That’s all we need. There is a cholera epidemic in Iraq caused by the “decrepit water supply system”. The outbreak started in northern Iraq, aka Kurdistan, the peaceful portion of the former nation-state of Iraq,...
No Exit
The Baker-Hamilton Report on the war in Iraq has come and gone. The Petraeus Report has come and gone. Nothing has changed. There is no exit. More to the point, there is no plan for an exit. Give credit to Cheney and Bush....
Buyer's Remorse?
There was the latest issue of Avenue magazine on the desk in my Palm Beach hotel room last November. I have a soft spot for Avenue, ever since it published a short story of mine, back in 1983, entitled “Night of the Mariachis”,...
The Smoking Gun
For all of you out there who think G.W. Bush deserves to be impeached--I’m with you, of course--we may now have the “smoking gun” which would force the Democrats in Congress to act, even if they do not want to. This is...
The Next War
The biggest scandal at the moment in Washington is a subset of the biggest scandal in Washington ongoing for decades. For the latter, read about it in the most important book on U.S. foreign policy in a long time, entitled...
The Reemergence of Professors Mearsheimer and Walt
The venerable, highbrow publisher--Farrar, Straus and Giroux--is publishing the bombshell book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy this week. In a recent blog entry, “The Lobby Strikes”, Justin Raimondo gave us a heads-up...
Childish Unreason, Then and Now
It is rather late in the day, granted, but perhaps we can learn something from the track record of the British, especially from their mistakes. The British went everywhere, it seems, for various reasons, some good some...
Immediate Need of Inspector Maigret
It is a good thing to be out of the loop; that’s what a vacation is for. Recently I attended an invitational croquet tournament in the New York area. Between playing and running off to various social activities, there was...
The Avatar
In case anyone out there is wondering what the Avatar--that scary sculpture headlining this website--is suppose to signify, I can tell you. It is a photo which I took of a plaque affixed to a wall on the second floor of...
Return of the Neocon Con Men
When it comes to right and wrong, let’s throw out the labels “conservative” and “liberal”. These terms have been denuded of meaning. Thanks to those pushy “neoconservatives” and their prominence in recent years, the average...
Uncle Cheney Liberates Fifty Million People
I was visiting someone in the hospital last night, so I was forced to sit there and watch the Larry King interview with Richard Cheney. Normally, I don’t watch a speech or interview given by either Cheney or his marionette,...
The Kissinger Pardon
The administration of POTUS 43 is imploding, rudderless, out of control, and beyond reach. Anything can happen now, and most of it will be bad. And yet, the overall situation is not primarily Bush’s fault. You cannot hold...
Country Club Republican
A very good friend of mine, an older woman but not old, is what you might call a Country Club Republican. She is not an "intellectual" or a rigorously logical person. On the other hand, she is not a stupid or an uncultured...
3-Ball Dead
There is a nasty situation in croquet, the six-wicket American version, in which you can find yourself 3-ball dead. When this happens, your opponent has a big advantage. He is the beneficiary of your mistakes. He did not...
The Scooter Libby, Jay Pollard, Marc Rich Connection
Does the “Scooter” Libby commutation story have legs? Will it make any real difference in terms of bringing back a modicum of integrity and honesty to the capital of the world’s last standing “Superpower”? Or is it just...
Scooter's Can of Worms
Since we last addressed the topic, Irving “Scooter” Libby was assigned a federal prison number. It certainly looked like he was headed for a Federal correctional facility, all because he refused to tell the truth about...
Bush and Cheney: It's Time to Resign
It is crunch time in the bunker at the White House. Can Dick Cheney and his sidekick, G.W. Bush, allow their most loyal teammate, “Scooter” Libby, to head off to a federal penitentiary simply because he was acting at their...
Hillary's Peace Offensive
Hillary Clinton has finally joined forces with Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia! Hillary wants to do it over...take another vote about invading Iraq. Can you believe it? Yes, indeed. After almost 5 years and after...
Ultimate Blowback
The attempt by Congressman Ron Paul of Texas to discuss what happened and why--to account for the 9/11 terrorist attacks--is an enormous breakthrough on the American political landscape. The incident occurred during last...
The Web of Lies
Who knows what to believe about the bloody catastrophe that is Iraq? Faced with the serial deceptions of Richard Cheney and George W. Bush, layer upon layer, we tend to become inured. We do know now that what we were told...
George Tenet: Master Enabler
Another Bush Administration castoff has resurfaced. Who will be next? Don Rumsfeld? First it was Paul D. Wolfowitz, ex-Deputy Director of the Pentagon, now it’s George J. Tenet, ex-CIA Director. Both were intimately involved...
Pulling the Trigger on Iran
The casus belli for “Operation Iraqi Freedom”, the invasion of Iraq, was a fraud. We know that now. Even though there was no threat whatever to the United States from Iraq, the decision was made by Richard B. Cheney in...