Joseph Conrad Was an Optimist

One of the ways I spent my blogging vacation time last month was catching up on my reading.

Problem was, I hardly did any catching up. Instead, I re-read every word that Robert Kaplan ever wrote, and that I could get my hands on. I mention him now because it’s looking likely that President Bush will be sending US troops to Liberia.

Bear with me now, please, while I explain why it’s difficult to decide if a Liberian adventure is a noble cause or equally-noble stupidity.

Kaplan, to describe him in the very-shortest hand, is perhaps the first neo-conservative foreign affairs correspondent