A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Iraqis thwart plot to kill Shi'ite clergy “Iraq's army announced yesterday that it had foiled a plot to kill leading Shi'ite clerics and killed the leader of a heavily armed band of messianic Shi'ites called ‘Soldiers of Heaven’ during a fierce gunbattle near the southern city of Najaf.” (READ MORE)
How the 'axis' seeks the killer missile “North Korea and Iran are cooperating in developing long-range missiles, the deputy director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said yesterday.” (READ MORE)
Civilian Reserve just words in a speech “President Bush's call last week for a Civilian Reserve Corps to help troubled countries is either a solid idea whose time has come or yet another throwaway applause line in a State of the Union speech -- and it's up to Mr. Bush to decide how it turns out.” (READ MORE)
Dutch man face terror trial in U.S. “An Iraqi-born Dutch citizen pleaded not guilty yesterday in federal court in Washington to charges of conspiring with insurgents to attack U.S. military personnel in Iraq -- the first U.S. criminal prosecution arising from terrorist activities in Iraq.” (READ MORE)
With Iran Ascendant, U.S. Is Seen at Fault “Kuwait rarely rebuffs its ally, the United States, partly out of gratitude for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. But in October it reneged on a pledge to send three military observers to an American-led naval exercise in the Gulf, according to U.S. officials and Kuwaiti...” (READ MORE)
Soldier's Death Strengthens Senators' Antiwar Resolve “Just before Christmas, an Army captain named Brian Freeman cornered Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) at a Baghdad helicopter landing zone. The war was going badly, he told them.” (READ MORE)
Uighurs' Detention Conditions Condemned “Chinese Uighurs who have been imprisoned for the past month at a new state-of-the-art detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are being held around the clock in near-total isolation, a circumstance their lawyers say is rapidly degrading their mental health…” (READ MORE)
Europe Resists U.S. Push to Curb Iran Ties “The resistance threatens to open a new rift between Europe and the United States over Iran.” (READ MORE)
Senators at Louisiana Hearing Criticize Federal Recovery Aid “Three United States senators sounded off on Monday about the slow pace of recovery from Hurricane Katrina at a hearing in the French Quarter, criticizing federal officials for perceived inequities in aid to Louisiana and for imposing rules that are halting government assistance.” (READ MORE)
News From the Front:
Sgt ELF writes Spaces of Opportunity “At the interstices of Bin Laden's falsehoods and distortions and the unbridled criminality of his foot soldiers-their petty sadism, inane brutality and murder-are the crossroads of our many little victories if we exploit them.” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio writes Pakistan's Insurgency, Continued “The fourth suicide bomber in less than a week kills a policeman in Dera Ismail Khan: Pakistan has suffered its fourth suicide bombing since January 22nd. Today, a 17 year old suicide bomber detonated his vest after being searched by police outside of a Shia celebration in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in the Northwest Frontier Province.” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio writes Jaish al-Janna and Najaf “An intelligence source provides preliminary information on the players behind the Najaf battle; al-Qaeda's Omar Brigade appears to have player a role: The motivation and prime actors behind the fighting in Najaf remains uncertain one day after the battle ended. As U.S. and Iraq intelligence attempts to sort out the details, media reports indicate a mix of Shi'ite and Sunni fighters were involved in the battle against Iraqi forces, which resulted in upwards of 300 enemy killed in 24 hours of combat.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Cal Thomas writes Aquarius Senset “The ideologically decrepit anti-war crowd returned to Washington last weekend for a reunion. The older among them abandoned hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Vietnamese to imprisonment, torture, death and re-education camps.” (READ MORE)
Patrick J. Buchanan writes Hysteria at Herzliya “When Congress finally decides on just the right language for its ‘non-binding resolution’ deploring Bush's leadership in this war, it might consider a resolution to keep us out of the next one.” (READ MORE)
David Limbaugh writes Hillary's Understandable Contradictions “Hillary Clinton's many contradictions aren't hard to understand once you realize her need to suppress her natural instincts and policy preferences because they conflict with her lifelong presidential aspirations.” (READ MORE)
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. writes Driving While Defeatist “Members of the 110th Congress are behaving like drunken drivers with respect to the conflict in Iraq, veering wildly all over the road, seemingly oblivious to the risk they pose to others.” (READ MORE)
Burt Prelutsky writes In Praise of Oil “My question is this: Where in the Bill of Rights is it written that filling up your SUV should cost you the same as it cost your grandpa to gas up his Model-T?” (READ MORE)
Victor Davis Hanson writes How Will Illegal Immigration End? “We hear all sorts of solutions for ending illegal immigration. Build a wall! Beef up border security! Fine employers, and create a massive guest-worker program. Or America could insist on tamper-proof identification cards, or detention, deportation or even amnesty for some illegal aliens — or all of these measures somehow combined. But ultimately the solution lies in the hope that a Tijuana might become as prosperous as a San Diego — now a few miles away but a world apart.” (READ MORE)
Kobayashi Maru writes "Deep Felt" Psychoses “[I]f sexual identity is so important as to require radical surgery in some cases (a position more associated with the left than the right), then how can feminists also insist that there are no intrinsic differences on average between the capabilities, preferences and outlooks of men and women?” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea writes "Peace at any price" “Well, it happened again. Another suicide bombing in Israel. But by some amazing coincidence, the reports tend to gloss over the truly important points: The bombing was a joint venture of Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. AAMB is attached to Fatah, the political party that many argue is the ‘moderate’ side we should be backing.” (READ MORE)
Sachi writes 200, 250, 350, 400, 470, and Counting... “Before the ‘surge’ has even begun, Iraqi and the US troops are taking it up a notch, engaging in fierce battles near Baghdad. The battles reveal Iranian influences on both Sunni insurgents and Shiia militia -- and show that under the right circumstances, the two groups can work hand in hand to oppose peace and democracy.” (READ MORE)
Major Z writes Words. (Almost). Fail. Me. “This shit-filled pimple on the ass of America wrote a pretty lengthy post on why he doesn't support the troops. I don't care about his support, honestly. I am pissed because his ‘logic’ for not supporting us is so faulty, it pisses me off that one person could be *THAT* delusional.” (READ MORE)
Captain Ed writes Bush Orders Political Oversight Of Agency Rulemaking “The Gray Lady gets hysterical this morning over the executive order signed by President Bush requiring oversight of agency rulemaking. Bush's order requires federal agencies to submit impact reports that justifies additional regulation not authorized by Congress as well as an annual report of the cumulative effect of their entire regulatory position, and it creates a White House appointee to conduct the oversight. One might consider this common sense, unless one has a bad case of Bush Derangement Syndrome:” (READ MORE)
John Hawkins writes How The Mainstream Media Rewards Republicans Like Chuck Hagel For Betraying Conservatives “A lot of conservatives out there are continually scratching their heads and trying to figure out why Republicans like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Chuck Hagel love to slam a shiv into the back of other conservatives as often as possible. Well, it's because they get fawning press coverage when they do it. Just look at this mash note from Newsweek to Chuck Hagel over his opposition to the surge. There are two different things that can inspire the mainstream press to speak this fondly about a Republican: their death and/or their betrayal of other conservatives.” (READ MORE)
Cassandra writes Cultural Revanchists, Unite! “Long 'ere rosy-fingered dawn painted the sky over our little house in the woods here in western Maryland the half vast editorial staff leapt with alacrity from betwixt the Marital Sheets. Eagerly we searched the Internets, hoping to snatch from the daily smorgasbooard of miserable failure, defeat, and despair some positive message of hope and inspiration. Fortunately for us, Hope was once again On The Way:” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden writes The Large Pistachio Nuts of Iranian Foreign Policy “The UK Guardian keeps trying to convince us to leave Iran alone. In this op-ed, which gets bogged down pretty quick, the point laboriously arrived at is that international pressure (Great Satan) will rescue Ahmadinejad from his public’s annoyance with his failure to come through domestically:” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped writes Culture and Democracy in the Middle East “A great deal of the criticism of our current approach to the War in Iraq and the greater war on global Islamic fascism, hinges on the uncomfortable fact that no one seems to have any very good strategic ideas for how we might proceed in ways that would be likely to enhance our future security and make the world a safer place. It seems to me that all the current suggestions have extremely problematic flaws and ultimately resolve down to unanswerable questions.” (READ MORE)
Right Wing Nut House writes 9/11: Just A Real Bad Day “I pity David Bell. And, in a way, I envy him. To be so oblivious to the threat posed by organizations like al-Qaeda and the ever burgeoning list of imitators and wannabes involved in international terrorism takes a special sort of myopia, a blissful blindness that lays a blanket of serenity over those who are arrogant enough or delusional enough to indulge in such fantasies.” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club writes Life in the Left “Nothing so low as a Fallen Angel. When the Guardian reprinted excerpts of Nick Cohen's book about the Left it faced a storm of commentary from its readers. I have an extract, provided courtesy of a reader, which suggests why the Leftist readers would find Cohen's book infuriating. All I can say is that Cohen barely fails to scratch the surface; in terms of absurdity and tragedy, of the Leftist Deep.” (READ MORE)
American Soldier writes If I die in Iraq “I stumbled across this video this morning and it really brought me back. While holding my baby daughter in my arms I clicked on this video. I’ve never really spoken or written of the day I got hurt. The exact details and what happened to me when it actually happened still embedded in my brain. I’m talking about the spiritual event that occurred at the very moment of the explosion.” (READ MORE)
Have an interesting post or know of a "must read?" Then send a trackback here and let us all know about it. Or you can send me an email with a link to the post and I'll update the Recon.
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