A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Annan orders probe of U.N. office “U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, reacting to an article in The Washington Times, asked U.N. investigators yesterday to look into claims of fraud, favoritism and intimidation inside the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs.” (READ MORE)
Leahy vows to repair Bush 'damage' “Incoming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy said yesterday that he plans to rein in President Bush's program of wiretapping without warrants, rewrite the policy for handling terrorism detainees and more closely scrutinize nominees...” (READ MORE)
Bidders unready for jobs in Iraq “Nearly two-thirds of the 276 Foreign Service members who volunteered to serve in Iraq next year were found unqualified for the jobs, aggravating a shortage that has left the State Department scrambling to fully staff its embassy and other operations...” (READ MORE)
Joint Chiefs Advise Change In War Strategy “The nation's top uniformed leaders are recommending that the United States change its main military mission in Iraq from combating insurgents to supporting Iraqi troops and hunting terrorists, said sources familiar with the White House's ongoing Iraq policy review.” (READ MORE)
Lebanese Government Issues Own Warning “BEIRUT, Dec. 13 -- For years, Fouad Siniora was a man of numbers more than rhetoric, as a banker, finance minister and friend to Rafiq al-Hariri, the billionaire former prime minister assassinated last year.” (READ MORE)
Judge Rejects Detention Challenge of Bin Laden's Driver “A federal judge dismissed yesterday a challenge from Osama bin Laden's driver over his more than four years of detention at the Guantanamo Bay military prison, saying a new anti-terrorism law approved by Congress this fall removes the lower court's jurisdiction in the matter.” (READ MORE)
News From the Front:
Thinking Right writes The All Important Opinion Of The Boots On The Ground “I have been looking for a chance to interview a soldier that’s serving in Iraq. I believe that it’s important to get their opinion on not only how things are going in Iraq, but also their ideas on how to move forward in Iraq. Sgt. Kane has a blog that he posts on often, it’s linked further down in the post, and yes, I forgive him for being a Nebraska fan. So, without further delay I offer you an interview with the boots on the ground unedited.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Hugh Hewitt writing at Townhall.com writes The elections of 2028: What did you do when America was attacked? “My guess, I told them, was that in the not so distant future senior elected offices --in the Congress, statehouses, and certainly the presidency-- would be very difficult to obtain for the young men of today who did not volunteered to come to the defense of their country after it had been attacked on 9/11.” (READ MORE)
Victor Davis Hanson writing at Townhall.com writes Talking to Iran a mistake for strategic, moral reasons “One of the many bizarre recommendations in the recently released report from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group is the call to talk with Iran. A formal dialogue with the present Iranian leadership is, for a number of reasons, as misguided as it is amoral.” (READ MORE)
Matt Towery writing at Townhall.com writes Gingrich on Iraq: Forget the ‘Establishment’ “Newt Gingrich this week spoke boldly on Iraq, which is the same way he spoke on just about everything when he was U.S. speaker of the House in the 1990s.” (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell writing at Townhall.com writes Supreme Farce: Part II “To people who want to see judges impose their own views instead of applying the laws as written, ‘not clear’ is a magic phrase like ‘open sesame,’ opening the floodgates to unbridled judicial power.” (READ MORE)
Terence Jeffrey writing at Townhall.com writes The House Un-intelligence committee “How can Pelosi put someone this out of touch with the facts about al-Qaida in charge of congressional oversight of the U.S. intelligence community in the midst of a war with al-Qaida?” (READ MORE)
Dean Barnett writing at Hugh Hewitt writes Agenda Journalism Defined “The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that I should get some sort of medal for reading all the left-wing blogs. At the very least, the Hoover Institute or the Heritage Foundation should reward me with an honorary fellowship. Today, Glenn Greenwald offers this doozy of a whopper of an opinion:” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea writes Unconventional Warriors “While it seems everyone and their cousin is trying to make historical comparisons between the War On Terror and previous conflicts (myself included), there are many ways that it is unique in human history. For example, two stories struck me this week. First up, we have a little news on just how the military's raising of the maximum age of new enlistees is working out.” (READ MORE)
GayPatriot writes Wise Words On Iraq - Sen. Gordon Smith “US Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) delivered a powerful speech on the floor of the Senate last week. Here are some excerpts. It is really great stuff and probably summarizes a lot about how I'm feeling these days, too.” (READ MORE)
Ray Robinson writes Violence in Iraq: Chaos or something less? “It has become standard fare over the last few months for American media to report on Iraq using terms such as chaos and escalating violence. But is that the whole story? A remarkable example can be found in a CBS news story that quotes the Editor & Publisher, a media industry trade website: ‘Apparently the utter chaos and carnage of the past week has finally convinced some to use 'civil war' without apology,’ Editor & Publisher reported.” (READ MORE)
Captain Ed writes Guess Who's Back In Business? “After the meltdown of Eason Jordan in 2005, we expected him to disappear into academia. After almost two years, though, Jordan has returned with his own small news organization. Iraqslogger, named after one of Donald Rumsfeld's remarks, promises to aggregate all of the news stories that others miss, as well as providing original reporting from Iraq:” (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin writes Looking for Jamil Hussein: Accepting Eason Jordan's invitation “Eason Jordan reports on his new website, Iraqslogger, that his team is in Baghdad looking for Jamil Hussein. They have not found him yet--which is newsworthy in itself--and get this: He has offered to pay for me to join the search in Iraq and accompany me:” (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex writes War Weary “I’ve been hearing a lot of talk lately about how people are tired of the war, tired of looking at the scenes of destruction on TV, tired of the flag-draped caskets and what they represent in human costs, tired of the expense and frankly, tired of talking about it. We want to move on, we want it over, we want to change the channel, talk about something else.” (READ MORE)
Chickenhawk Express writes First a Visit with Hamas and Now Syria? “The utter and complete stupidity of some members of Congress is absolutely unbelievable. It's one thing to consistently trash our President and undermine the war on terror while standing on US soil. It's a whole different ballgame to deliberately seek to undermine our efforts and national security by sitting down for tea with our enemies. There was a story earlier in the week about some Dems having a face to face with members of Hamas. Now we know who one of the ignorant fools was - Sen. Bill Nelson. Now he's finishing up a trip to Syria.” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped writes On Cultures and Judgments “Yesterday, Jimmy J addressed some questions about the role of culture in our current difficulties in the Middle East. This is the underlying IED at the core of the ISG report. The anti-war left has taken the position that the Iraqis effectively are incapable, and in fact don't want, democracy. This is a derivative of Political Correctness. (If we cannot make judgments about other cultures, we certainly have no right to impose change upon them.)” (READ MORE)
Stop the ACLU has U.S. Subpoenas ACLU Over Possession Of Secret Document “Via the ACLU we find out the U.S. government is finally being proactive against the ACLU in protecting classified information from being leaked for our enemies to know. The American Civil Liberties Union today announced that it has asked a federal judge to quash a grand jury subpoena demanding that it turn over to the FBI ‘any and all copies’ of a December 2005 government document in its possession.” (READ MORE)
Blonde Sagacity writes CAIR Blames Bush & Co. For Islamaphobia, Not the Terrorists. “This letter on the CAIR website elucidates everything I (and many others) have been saying since 9/11. It starts out okay and then descends into blame shifting (which, my mom always said, is "a sign of immaturity")... Here's an excerpt: ‘...As much as terrorists hijacked our religion, extreme right-wing neoconservatives hijacked our administration...’” (READ MORE)
T.F.Boggs writes Where do we go now? “Since I have expressed my disdain for the “findings” of the ISG I suppose I should offer my opinion on what course I believe our military should take to win the war in Iraq and against the greater war on terrorism in general.” (READ MORE)
Rightwing Guy writes Bush Ignores The Democrats Call To Retreat "Since the release of the Iraq Study Groups report the Democrats have been jumping up and down and yelling that the Bush administration to cut and change course and “redeploy” from Iraq, but the President has ignored their calls and forged ahead."(READ MORE)
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