Talking about America and it's war on Iraq, one of the most fascinating perspectives I've read has come from Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek. For anyone with even a remote interest in what our world will look like and the shape of things to come, The Arrogant Empire is a must read.

Having said that, keep a close track of all that Zakaria has to say. He has the perfect intellectual pedigree (Indian-born, educated at Harvard, conservative) for a fast-changing world, and the kinds of friends in high places who can push a career into overdrive. That's pretty much what Marion Manekar talks about in The New York Metro. And if that isn't enough, you have the influential Tina Brown arguing why Zakaria is the next golden boy.

As the U.S. prepares to declare "victory" in Iraq, retired West Point instructor, Special Forces Master Sergeant Stan Goff analyzes the entirety of the war. From brutal massacres, to the U.S. instigation of the looting of Iraqi antiquities, to the sleazy pandering of U.S. mainstream media, to the dust of depleted uranium which will be killing for a thousand years, Goff gives us an inside analysis of a war that most of us don't know about. He also documents the abject failure American progressives to make even the slightest bit of difference in anything about this war, or the next one. Read on....

Been reading this piece on Saddam Hussein. Authored by Mark Bowden, it was first published in The Atlantic Monthly. Makes for incredibly compelling reading. But then, what else do you expect from Bowden?