A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort “Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small band of warrior-intellectuals -- including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War...” (READ MORE)
Obama Confronts 'Outsider' Dilemma “In the nearly three weeks since Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made his unofficial debut as a presidential candidate, his senior advisers have been holed up in a temporary office on Connecticut Avenue NW, feverishly working to translate the huge excitement about his candidacy into a political strategy.” (READ MORE)
U.S. Copters Were Shot Down “Four American helicopters that crashed in Iraq in the past two weeks were shot down, a U.S. military spokesman said Sunday, prompting officials to reevaluate how troops move around in an increasingly hostile war zone.” (READ MORE)
Army Special Forces: Stealthy, Deadly and Now Handy With a Llama “After the Korean War, the Army gave up pack animals for trucks, planes and choppers to transport troops and equipment. But recently -- remember those folks on horseback routing the Taliban in Afghanistan? -- it's become clear that Special Forces might find themselves needing horses, mules and donkeys, and perhaps the occasional camel or llama, to move around.” (READ MORE)
Colts outrun, outgun Bears “Peyton Manning no longer has to face critics who don't think he could win a big-time football game.” (READ MORE)
U.S. threatens crushing offensive to calm Baghdad “A U.S.-Iraqi offensive against militants in Baghdad will begin within days and take place on a scale never seen during four years of war, American officers said yesterday.” (READ MORE)
Ban rankles U.N. with early moves “Ban Ki-moon is off to a rocky start after one month as U.N. secretary-general, with diplomats complaining that his transition is progressing far too slowly and member states resisting his early proposals for restructuring.” (READ MORE)
Gore resists push for '08 run “Former Vice President Al Gore is basking in the global spotlight for nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar, but a growing number of Democrats want him to make another bid for the presidency.” (READ MORE)
French blacks: J'accuse racism “France's comfortable image of itself as a colorblind society -- already weakened by race riots in 2005 -- received a further blow last week when a new survey found that a majority of French blacks believe they face discrimination in daily life.” (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Bill Roggio writes Somalia's Islamist Courts regroup “The insurgency is taking shape, Sharif Ahmed is released, a new Islamic Courts video, and financing in Saudi Arabia established: The Ethiopian and Somalia government's rout of the Islamic Courts last December has been quickly countered by the Islamists with a deadly insurgency. In the latest violence in Mogadishu, an Islamist mortar attack killed 7 and wounded 20.” (READ MORE)
Michael J. Totten writes The Beirut Branch of the Mossad “Hezbollah has killed more Americans than any terrorist organization in the world after Al Qaeda. In 1983 a suicide-bomber drove a truck into a U.S. Marine barracks south of Beirut and killed 241 Americans with a single gigantic blast.” (READ MORE)
Mohammed writes More violence in Baghdad as the city braces for the security plan. “I was with a friend on our way home yesterday when we were shocked by the sound of a powerful explosion. We looked in all directions trying to figure out where it was but there was nothing to indicate where the bomb, or whatever it was, went off.” (READ MORE)
GWOTdotUS writes The drug front “Just got back from a 3-day mission down south. While I can’t go into operational specifics I will list the keywords: Taliban, weapons, poppy. From that, I’ll let your mind come up with the rest.” (READ MORE)
Andrew Olmstead writes Twain Was Right “I said that we were going to see soldiers start to get demonized more as opposition to the war gets more heated, and I stand by that. Today's example: Mona, who has been posting a Unqualified Offerings of late. She has decided to jump into the Arkin fray by explaining to all us poor dumb soldiers that we really are mercenaries after all.” (READ MORE)
Bill Ardonlino writes Insh'allah: A Nighttime Raid with the Iraqi Army “It was after midnight when our convoy of Jundi (Iraqi Army soldiers) and trailing Marine advisors rolled out into Fallujah's neighborhoods, their darkened Humvees barreling down pitch black streets and muddy back alleys. Additional marines from Charlie Company added a security element along with several Abrams tanks, ghostly juggernauts which would periodically materialize out of the darkness, their poised turrets and night optics scanning jumbled city streets.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Robert Stokely writes Moon over Yusufiyah “For those of you who don't know where Yusufiyah is, it is a small town about 15 miles or so south of Baghdad and is one of the corners of the Triangle of Death. As I look at the moon tonight, full and radiant, I am reminded once again just how connective the moon can be in our lives.” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden writes Battlefield Shifts Westward “In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, I was puzzled by the lack of follow-on. I asked the terrorism and security experts I was talking to at that time why al-Qaeda didn’t do the logical thing. Activate the domestic cells for a series of synchronized low-intensity suicidal attacks with guns or bombs.” (READ MORE)
Donald Lambro writes 'The Bush rally' thrills Wall Street “Despite the gloom and doom we heard in last year's elections, a torrent of upbeat economic reports show the Bush economy is alive and well, and it is likely headed for a healthier performance in 2007.” (READ MORE)
Michael Barone writes Turning Toward Iran “It's often hard to identify a turning point in a military conflict. The news of mayhem comes in every day, and it's hard to figure out which changes the course of things.” (READ MORE)
Dinesh D'Souza writes 9/11 and the Clinton Abdication “More than five years after 9/11, the crucial question of why the Islamic radicals decided to strike America remains unanswered.” (READ MORE)
Harry R. Jackson, Jr. writes Change or Die: Fighting Radical Islam “It's time for America to learn from the problems we see exhibited in the UK.” (READ MORE)
Jeff Jacoby writes The message in the Boston bomb scare “Suppose for a moment that the harmless Lite-Brites that threw Boston into such pandemonium last week hadn't been so harmless after all.” (READ MORE)
Carol Platt Liebau writes Dems lack resolve necessary to lead “In recent days, it’s become clear that Democrats in the U.S. Senate are determined to pass some version of a non-binding resolution that will - as General David Petraeus explained in congressional testimony - have the effect of emboldening America’s enemies.” (READ MORE)
Fjordman writes On Tariq Ramadan and Eurabia “Tariq Ramadan is perhaps our most dangerous enemy right now. I consider a person such as Mullah Krekar to be an ally. He wants to crush and subdue the West, supports Osama bin Laden and says so openly. It’s the Tariq Ramadans we have to watch out for.” (READ MORE)
Blue Crab Boulevard writes Keep An Eye On The Science “The Opinion Journal today looks behind the media reporting of global warming bullet points at the actual scientific report that will be produced by the IPCC. It turns out that the dramatic hysteria may not be supported by the scientific report. That's important.” (READ MORE)
Don Surber writes The left’s Iran-is-Iraq meme “The left’s rush to make Iran the next Iraq is predictable, humorous and deadly. The left wishes to play upon American war fatigue and ignorance about the Middle East in order to stop the United States from stopping the nuclear ambitions of a terrorist state.” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped writes The Danger of Fantasy in International Affairs: Palestine “On occasion I have written about the danger that arises when international affairs are governed more by fantasy than reality. My first post on the subject looked at the way in which the National fantasies (myths) in the West and within the Islamic world dovetailed in such a way as to guarantee misunderstanding and make the feared Clash of Civilizations more likely.” (READ MORE)
Texas Rainmaker writes The New York Times Blames Bush “…for the crappy Superbowl Commercials this year. I made a comment to some friends after the game that this year’s crop of Superbowl ads just didn’t seem to be as good as those in year’s past. Now I know why… it was due to President Bush and the Iraq war.” (READ MORE)
Curt writes The Short Memory Of Our MSM “Our media, always biased...all the time. These guys just never get anything right. Take a look at the WaPo and their Sunday version of Plame/Libby reporting: ‘Plame's employment at the CIA was classified, making it illegal for any official to knowingly and intentionally disclose it. Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's 22-month investigation did not produce charges of that offense.’” (READ MORE)
Dan Riehl writes Olbermann Left Limp After On Air Smack Down “Keith Olbermann's alleged history of impotence seems to have caught up with him after he named popular conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin the worst person of the world on Thursday. In response, Levin's listeners were in for a treat as he exposed Olbermann's ham-fisted, albeit limp-wrist-ed past with women while naming Olbermann Pervert of the World on Thursday night's broadcast.” (READ MORE)
TigerHawk writes Iran's nuclear program: Bluff and call “The New York Times has an interesting front page article this morning about the technical challenges facing Iran's nuclear program, whatever its intentions. The heart of the story is whether Iran has the capacity to initiate and maintain a cascade of 3,000 centrifuges, notwithstanding its longstanding claims that it is on the brink of doing so.” (READ MORE)
Lightning writes A "Mercenary" Perspective “I've finally decided that William Arkin's piece "Early Warning" deserved some commentary. So, Arkin called me a mercenary? *yawn* What's his point? If you haven't figured it out yet, Arkin used the word simply to generate more of a reaction. He claims it was done, "to incite and call into question their presumption that the public had a duty to support them". Hogwash. As Tanker Brothers so astutely mentions, folks like Arkin are in the business of generating readership. The kind of outcry that he generated by calling us mercenaries simply reassures the editorial staff that they are being read.” (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex writes Busy in Britain “There’s a lot moving and shaking over in the UK. Hard on the heels of news that an Islamist cell intending to kidnap a British Muslim soldier and behead him on video had been broken up, the UK papers are trumpeting that this was no home-grown plan, but rather an AQ-inspired plot:” (READ MORE)
Confederate Yankee writes Surge “It has apparently begun, and the rash of terrorist attacks over the past week, including the suicide truck bombing Saturday of a Baghdad marketplace frequented by both Sunni and Shia makes it appear, at least on the surface, that the terrorists were either attempting to get their last licks in before the expected crackdown before melting away, or the were planning to stay and fight.” (READ MORE)
Victor Davis Hanson writes The Ugly American “Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic candidate for president, is at it again with another rude gaffe, this one providing an unintended glimpse of the way many contemporary cosmopolitan elites characterize their homeland when abroad.” (READ MORE)
Kobayashi Maru writes Oil is to Water as Science Should be to Politics “It should rise above it. Not so with climate change, apparently. Since when did it become standard scientific practice to distribute summary conclusions and hold press conferences declaring that the sky is falling while sidestepping the fact that the underlying (taxpayer-funded) report on climate change is going to be withheld for several months of further ‘editing’?” (READ MORE)
Lorie Byrd writes Another Misstep for Edwards “Recently I wrote about why I see John Edwards' new monster mansion as a political liability and questioned Edwards' political instincts if he does not recognize it as such. Now I am questioning whether or not his political liability radar is working at all. I should not be surprised to see Amanda Marcotte associated with the Edwards campaign considering the fact that Elizabeth Edwards confessed to being a reader of the Democratic Underground during the 2004 election, but I was anyway.” (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.
No comments:
Post a Comment