Who Hates Whom

It's an interesting primer on current ethnic/sectarian conflicts, AND it contains a grammar lesson in its title! What's not to like?

And he's putting up bonus chapters for conflicts that couldn't make the book due to space considerations. Here's the first one, on Senegal. Funny/sad quote to end it:

Finally, Dakar residents also harbor a much more recent resentment -- toward George W. Bush, who made a televised speech from Gorée Island in 2003.

Other high-profile figures ranging from the Pope to President Clinton to Nelson Mandela have made similar stops with minimal incident. However, according to Reuters (in a widely-published article no longer on their own site), before Bush’s arrival, Senegal’s national capital was shut down, over 1000 residents were taken off the streets, and the roads in and out of the capital were closed. (More from a local witness here.) Then, on the morning of Bush’s speech, the residents of Gorée Island itself were rounded up and herded onto a soccer field, out of sight of the cameras, where they were forcibly held for six hours until the event was finished.

The US president then spoke of his deep belief in liberty and equality, with no hint of irony.

The Senegalese president was instructed not to speak.

maps of Baghdad's sectarian violence

Really good tool to understand what's going on; very similar to a map you could make of German cities in 1929-1933.

From the Petraeus/Cocker pony show this week on the Hill. Shows "ethno-sectarian violence" in neighborhoods - but also the ethnic composition of neighborhoods. And so as Matthew Yglesias writes, this actually means that violence is going down because the neighborhoods are becoming less mixed. Put that together with the fact that violence dropped *before* the surge and you have your explanation - not American troops, but the success of ethnic intimidation in getting people to re-locate into clan neighborhoods.