A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq “The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials.” (READ MORE)
Hagel Ponders White House Run As War Criticism Raises His Profile “His Republican colleagues regard him warily. The White House barely speaks to him. He is reviled by his party's conservative base.” (READ MORE)
Tehran's Influence Grows As Iraqis See Advantages “When Fadhil Abbas determined that his mother's astigmatism required surgery, they did not consider treatment in his home town of Najaf, in southern Iraq. Instead they joined a four-taxi convoy of ailing Iraqis headed to Iran.” (READ MORE)
Dismissal of Lawsuit Against Warrantless Wiretaps Sought “A lawsuit challenging the legality of the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program should be thrown out because the government is now conducting the wiretaps under the authority of a secret intelligence court, according to court papers filed by the Justice Department yesterday.” (READ MORE)
Kosovo Wins Support For Split From Serbia “U.S., European Allies Agree to Secession With Ongoing International Supervision” (READ MORE)
News From the Front:
The Online Chaplin writes Even the Chaplain Gets Ticked Off “All of us have adjusted our calendars to the reality of our extension. There are only a few stragglers who refuse to embrace the pain and are yet in the arms of Lady Denial. Most, however, picked up the straw the Army handed us and have sucked it up.” (READ MORE)
GWOTdotUS writes Field of Dreams “It is no secret that Afghanistan’s chief export is opium. I convoy past fields and fields of poppy on a regular basis. A lot of talk has been happening lately within Washington’s think tanks on this subject which has led to senior U.S. officials putting pressure on President Karzai to eliminate these fields. Karzai has decided to act on this pressure and enlist the help of NATO and ANA troops to do the dirty work.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Lorie Byrd writes Many Democrats Won't Stand For Victory In Iraq “Several months ago I asked what the Iraq war effort might look like today if those on the left and in the media had conducted themselves differently.” (READ MORE)
Oliver North writes Who cares? “The Marines and their families here at this sprawling base on the Carolina coast didn't have much to say about the president's State of the Union address. For many of them, his address the week before had been more important.” (READ MORE)
Jonah Goldberg writes Fight Today or Occupy Forever “"As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be-President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. ‘When comes the end?... And as soon as he became president, he brought the Korean War to an end.’” (READ MORE)
David Strom writes Are You Afraid Yet? “Are you afraid? Very afraid? Well, if you aren’t, you should be. And if you are, you aren’t scared enough.” (READ MORE)
Rich Tucker writes Let's Leave Iraq Victorious “It’s a story that could be ripped from today’s headlines. An unpopular president commits American forces to a dangerous mission. If things go well, millions will probably see him as a hero. But if they go poorly, his political career is over. Oh, and he may well trigger a new war.” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden writes Al Qaeda-Cowed Nation Persecutes U.S. Soldiers “A Spanish court last week issued a ‘search and capture’ warrant against three soldiers involved in the Hotel Palestine incident, in which Spanish cameraman Jose Cuoso and Reuters’s Taras Protsyuk were killed. Not clear how this advances the matter from a warrant issued two years ago. But considering that the Spanish are fixated on persecuting Americans over an incident that has been clearly established as an accident of war, I don’t suppose the niceties of their legal process make much difference.” (READ MORE)
Ian writes Video: OMG! Libs furious with Glenn Beck for repeating gay slur in non-derogatory way “Some liberal bloggers have been up in arms this week over Glenn Beck’s use of the word ‘faggot’ during the Monday broadcast of his CNN show.” (READ MORE)
Hugh Hewitt writes Memo To: The Hill “It's not ‘nearly 10,000’ signatures. Its 16,000+ signatures. And while your reporter couldn't get a comment from the NRSC, the NRSC's Chairman John Ensign was interviewed at length, by me, on yesterday's program and the transcript posted on the web. In fact, over the past 40 hours, I have conducted five interviews with Republican senators on the absurd dance of the resolutions underway in the Senate:” (READ MORE)
DJ Drummond writes Up To The Job “This week I have been writing about President Bush and his management of our country in difficult times. The response has been mixed, from people who agree with me that Bush is one of our best Presidents, to vitriol-laced screeds that he is somehow our worst President. While the latter sort are clearly unbalanced by their hatred - their refusal to recognize the greatness of President Reagan does their credibility quite a bit of damage - it seems to me that it is worthwhile to explore the way we look at Presidents.” (READ MORE)
Daniel Holt writes Iraq, Jamil Hussein and the Media “From the time the US and coalition forces deposed Saddam and his Ba’athists, over 25 million newly free Iraqis have had the opportunity to develop a society along a new path; the nature of that path has faced challenges from Iraqi sects, international terrorist groups, and foreign states, and its direction has been hotly debated.” (READ MORE)
Baron Bodissey writes The Demonic Convergence “I’ve written previously about the organization called Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, also known as the Muslim Brotherhood. Established in 1928 in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna, its goal is to return Islam to its roots in the Koran and the Hadith, purify Muslim practices, and re-establish Islamic governance under the Caliphate.” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped writes Further Digressions “Last week I looked at some poll data that showed that there is a substantial portion of the American public who overtly desire our failure in Iraq (An American Scandal). I found it puzzling that so many Americans would wish us to fail and questioned their patriotism. Perhaps that was unfair; it might be more accurate to say that there is a substantial portion of the body politic who believe that what they value in America is more endangered by our presence and our missteps in Iraq than it would be by our failure.” (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson writes The case for (and against) McCain “In his syndicated column Rich Lowry makes the serious case for John McCain as a profile in political courage: ‘The tragic courage of John McCain.’ (Hugh Hewitt has an important footnote to Lowry's column here.) Coincidentally, Ryan Sager's New York Post column reminds us of the Frankenstein monster attacking the core of our First Amendment speech rights that Senator McCain has created: ‘Un-squelching free speech.’” (READ MORE)
Confederate Yankee writes WaPo Appalled at Concept of Killing the Enemy “You've just got to love how Allahpundit nailed the right level of near-hysteria in his headline about this Washington Post article: WaPo: U.S. declares war on Iran in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine. The actual lede seems to me as a ‘about damn time’ directive but WaPo somehow figures this is front page news:” (READ MORE)
Captain Ed writes Remember When Democrats Insisted On Employer Enforcement? “When conservatives finally moved to bolster border security and debated how to address the millions of illegal immigrants that took advantage of decades of open borders. Critics of tough measures complained that the government should focus its efforts against employers who took advantage of illegal aliens and helped drive down wages for Americans. However, when a Republican offered an amendment to the Senate minimum-wage bill that would address both concerns, the Democrats suddenly couldn't tolerate the thought of employer enforcement:” (READ MORE)
Wretchard writes Fighting the Borg “Richard Landes at the Augean Stables describes the psychological death spiral of those who have been convinced that Resistance is Futile. It works like this. Since fighting only makes things worse one submits. And the more one submits the more Resistance is Futile.”(READ MORE)
Blonde Sagacity writes Who Is Behind the Smear Machine? “That was the question asked by ABC News last night in reference to the story that Barack Obama attended a Madrassa in Indonesia. The newswoman (Cynthia McFadden I believe) said a "smear campaign" had already begun against presidential hopeful Barack Obama. She went on to say this story was an out and out lie.” (READ MORE)
Justin Levine writes Jessica Lange: “If you support the war against Islamic radicalism, you are not a nice person…” “Ok, actress Jessica Lange didn’t quite say that exactly. But she sure came close in my eyes. Like many, I now consider myself one who agrees that Bush has handled Iraq poorly (among many other issues). However, this exchange between Lange and writer Michael Coveney had me cracking up by exposing the loony litmus tests that the Left often puts on people:” (READ MORE)
Buck Sargent writes Humming the Haifa Street Blues “What does it really mean to ‘win in Iraq?’ Am I the only one who's lost all patience for this jaded question? Especially when posed time and time again by people who've never even set boot there yet seem almost perturbed their views were snubbed by the Blue Ribbon panoply of the Iraq For Dummies study guide?” (READ MORE)
Andrew Olmstead writes Treason? Why Not? “There are times when I think we may be too reluctant to apply the word 'treason' to people's activities. John Walker Lindh comes to mind as a man who, in serving the Taliban, certainly ended up taking up arms against the United States, the very definition of treason.” (READ MORE)
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