Friday’s Reading List
By Taylor Marvin
Ainu bear sacrifice, 1870. Via Wikimedia.
What I read this week:
Fred Kaplan on US-aided corruption in Afghanistan.
Jeffrey Lewis warns we don’t have enough evidence to definitively say that Assad used chemical weapons, and reminds that many have an incentive to make it seem like he has.
In Turkey, blame America for Syria — another aspect of the international myth of US invincibility?
Mariya Petkova on FEMEN: “I am angry about how some women consider themselves ‘superior’ and more ‘enlightened’ than others, having no ability to understand values other than their own.”
Could body armor have saved millions in WWI? Parallels to the contemporary belief that giving aviators parachutes would kill the “fighting spirit.”
Joshua Foust deconstruct a DC op-ed: “Its purpose is not to seriously analyze the problem, contextualize that problem in history, and from there eliminate unsound options and pick from a menu of whatever’s left. Its purpose is to flatter those in charge…”
Earlier this week I rounded up political violence links for PV Glance.
Smoke & Stir 
