The Guardian has a must-read long essay by Jonathan Powell, one of the negotiators of the 1997 Northern Ireland peace deal, on "how to talk to terrorists." It will make you reconsider everything you know about "us" and "them." And it likely foretells how the latest us-them conflict will turn out.

It's no Desert Storm. It's not even Desert Fox. It wishes it was Desert Crossing. It can't be Operation Iraqi Freedom, since we've used that, although it could be Operation Freedom Is Messy. The point is: U.S. war planners now say they need a name for this thing that's totally not a war, but a "targeted operation."

In his introduction to the international scene Thursday, Iraq's new prime minister told a gaggle of journalists at the U.N. that his country had discovered an "imminent" attack plot by Islamic State fighters against "subway systems in United States and Paris."

Bill O'Reilly has the spittle of a young soldier and the wattle of an elder statesman, but does he have the intellectual or moral mettle of a war strategist? No. No, he does not.

Seems a fair estimation by "Fox Nation." Not that you could expect much else out of weak latte-saluting eurosocialist Obummer. When will America get the entirely reactionary War with Islam it deserves?

As U.S. bombs fell in Syria for the first time last night, the "official spokesman of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham" reportedly released a far-ranging 11-page message to its fighters, American opponents, and Muslims worldwide. It makes a tough read, unless you've got a glossary handy.

The Daily Mail just mistook a charity worker for the notorious religious head of a jihad-happy Middle East terrorist network. It was a simple mistake anyone could have made, except that nobody else did.

Ted Cruz, Princeton '92 and creepy bathrobe enthusiast, is really tired of all these nancyboys who run the military, insisting that there must be political reconciliation and trustbuilding to forge stability in Iraq. Is he gonna have to go over there and bloody up some jihadi ass himself?

Mark Finkelstein, a NewsBusters editor dedicated to "COMBATING LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS" who "spent ten days in Iraq" once, has a scoop: MSNBC host Chris Hayes was really sexist on the air last night. Which is true, if you don't know who Girl Talk is. Mark Finkelstein does not know who Girl Talk is.

Reporters and pundits have noted how the new U.S. Iraq operation lacks much legal pretext, both internationally and domestically, for several weeks now. Which means it was time for crack reporter Eli Lake to write something up, too. With an extra heaping of hypocrisy.

Did you hear Barack Obama say last week that the U.S. would "not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq"? You may think that precludes U.S. foot troops from potentially leading Kurds and Iraqis in direct combat with Islamic State fighters. Don't think that.

Ha ha ha, these guys.

Life ain't easy for a young woman named Isis. Which is why she's launched a campaign to get people to stop calling the Iraq/Syria terror group "ISIS." She could use her given name, Teresa, but "People don't know me as Teresa, they know me as Isis," she said. "If I do that, then the terrorists win."

Three architects of the failed Iraq War strategy have written up a strategy to defeat ISIS that "will require as many as 25,000 ground troops in Iraq and Syria." Sadly, the document doesn't say "PEW-PEW PEW-PEW BOOOOM" when you open it, and it evinces no familiarity with Clone Wars.

Now that America's long war is getting longer, it's worth getting some outside perspective on what that war's all about, with all its twists and pitfalls. In short, it's worth asking George Lucas.

Operation OK Let's Go Back There And Maybe Clean Up Some Spots We Missed, But You Know We're Just Gonna End Up Making A Mess Again is a go. Too bad; we could probably have used that name next week, when the Libyan Republic of Jihad makes ISIS look like JROTC.

President Obama will address the nation in prime time Wednesday evening to lay out his strategy to fight the Islamic State. Combating the group has become a high priority since its brutal staged executions of two Americans. Coincidentally, Missouri and Texas have prisoner executions scheduled for Wednesday night.

Demonstrating all the alacrity of a scorned online fedora-enthusiast and all the civility of—well, of a murderous jihadi—a social media account connected to allies of the Islamic State has issued calls to kill Twitter employees for trying to stamp out radicals' accounts on the popular social service.

Want to get out of debt fast? Burnish your resumé? Have I got just the job for you. Did I say "I"? I mean "we," as in the Department of the Army and "Office of Security Assistance-Iraq."

Is the Islamic State evil, or really evil? We've heard from the Duck Dynasty patriarch. Now Slavoj Zizek, the Coldplay of critical Marxist psychoanalytical theory, has a New York Times post titled "ISIS Is a Disgrace to True Fundamentalism." It's... not bad, actually. And it raises a few good questions.