Mendes’ Memoir-Pic Jarhead: What Happened ‘Over There’?

Sam Mendes’ Jarhead, from a screenplay by William Broyles Jr., based on the book by Anthony Swofford, begins with a U.S. Marine Corps basic-training sequence reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987), though without a character as profanely hilarious as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (played by former real-life drill instructor R. Lee Ermey), with his Read More

Mendes’ Memoir-Pic Jarhead: What Happened ‘Over There’?

Sam Mendes’ Jarhead, from a screenplay by William Broyles Jr., based on the book by Anthony Swofford, begins with a U.S. Marine Corps basic-training sequence reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987), though without a character as profanely hilarious as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (played by former real-life drill instructor R. Lee Ermey), with his Read More

Bush’s 10 Mistakes At Home and Abroad

There is no reason why all lists today should have 10 items, numbered in reverse order. But as sonnets have 14 lines, so the modern list marches from 10 to 1.

What have been the failures of George W. Bush? In this election, that must mean: What have been his failures with respect to the Read More

A Sinister Bush-Saud Cabal-Or Just Business As Usual?

House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties , by Craig Unger. Scribner, 368 pages, $26.

‘Tis the season for Bush-bashing, by means fair or foul. Richard Clarke’s Against All Enemies was merely the crescendo-oris itBob Woodward’s Plan ofAttack?Recent months have brought us Kevin Phillip’s American Read More

Schumer Target: Assaults Saudis As U.S. Adversary

At a time when the United States could use friends in the Arab world, Senator Charles Schumer has been doing everything in his power to arrange a divorce between Washington and one of its most important partners in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia.

With an intensitynormally reservedfor constituent-pleasing local issues, Mr. Schumerhas been demanding Read More

When You Assume, You Get Bad News

I recently returned from the wilds of western Virginia, where I swore off “media” for a blessed week. So I missed reading about the great celebrations thrown by Islam’s defenders upon the sudden but regrettably not premature deaths of the awful Hussein boys. I can only assume that clerics and sheiks from Saudi Arabia to Read More

Forget the Peace Process And Prepare for War

As spring comes to the Hindu Kush, so anxieties come to our commentators and threats come from potential enemies. Last month’s Operation Anaconda in the Shah-i-Kot Valley showed that not all Al Qaeda terrorists had vanished with the fall of their Afghan puppet state. Nor can we say with certainty that we killed all the Read More

Getting Ready for War, Locations Unknown

I don’t see him often enough to be his friend, though we are certainly friendly acquaintances. When I first met him, he was a vehement college freshman who backed up every one of his opinions 200 percent . As the years passed, he put his vehemence to good use, for now he is a captain Read More