A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Cheney slams Reid's 'the Iraq war is lost' - Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday criticized Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for making "uninformed and misleading" statements about the war in Iraq. (READ MORE)
Syrian agrees to Rice meeting - Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said yesterday he would "gladly" meet Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at an upcoming Iraq conference, one of several steps Syria indicated it would take to soothe tensions in the Middle East. (READ MORE)
HPV vaccine concerns give legislatures pause - The initial rush to require the inoculation of preteen girls with the new HPV vaccine Gardasil -- fueled by Merck & Co.'s lobbying -- is meeting resistance as state lawmakers nationwide begin to question its safety, long-term effectiveness and cost. (READ MORE)
A Grisly Problem, Grateful Iraqis and a Grim Outlook - The soldiers called him Bob, and for the past several weeks, until Tuesday morning, he was the biggest obstacle to the success of an important mission in a small but crucial corner of the Iraq war. (READ MORE)
Revival of Oversight Role Sought - Over the course of only 15 minutes today, three congressional committees will consider subpoenas for half a dozen officials from the White House and the departments of Justice and State. On the list is former presidential chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr., Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Justice Department liaison to the White House Monica M. Goodling, a key figure in the controversial firing of eight U.S. attorneys. (READ MORE)
Bush Orders VA, Military to Cooperate on Care - President Bush last night ordered the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs to come up with a joint process for establishing the level of disability of injured service members, and to implement other recommendations from a presidential task force. (READ MORE)
Pentagon to End Talon Data-Gathering Program - Less than two weeks after being sworn in as undersecretary of defense for intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr. is moving to end the controversial Talon electronic data program, which collected and circulated unverified reports about people and organizations that allegedly threaten Defense Department facilities. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Outlaw 13: Corrections and Clarifications “I've had several remarks on the blog trying their best to enlighten me and the other unwashed exactly how it is that all is lost in Iraq and the war machine just grinds on oblivious to that fact. Can you tell me how many actions coalition forces have been involved in during the past 24 hours in the Baghdad AO? How many AIF have been detained or killed in the same period of time? You read about a car bomb or suicide bomber in the paper, but exactly how many AIF actions took place today versus a week ago, two weeks, a month or last year?” (READ MORE)
Tully Mars: More Media Lies Exposed! “It's sad that in today's world the majority of the news you read/hear/watch is a mere shred of the actual truth. I am sure that many of the stories from Iraq & Afghanistan are only what the MSM wants us to believe and are a figment of a liberal dominated media who want nothing more than to show how bad everything is in the war. Has anyone heard of US Military members giving school supplies to the children of Afghanistan's soldiers?” (READ MORE)
Afghanistan JAG: ANA CONDUCT THEIR OWN HUMANITARIAN MISSION "A few weeks ago I wrote about our recon of a village in downtown Kabul that we deemed too dangerous to stop and assist. The more I thought about those people, the more I realized that we couldn't abandon them just because it wasn't safe for U.S. personnel. Those people were in desperate need of assistance. Something had to be done.I considered the fact that the village was discovered by my Afghan National Army (ANA) counterpart in the first place. He had visited it many times and had compiled a detailed list of their needs." (READ MORE)
Patrick S Lasswell: Community Policing in Kirkuk "When we got outside the truck was just pulling up and smack was about to be laid down. After a brief conversation with his officers to ascertain specifics, Iraqi Police Chief Sherzad directed that the suspect be brought out. The brief interview that followed with the young man was distinctly unsatisfactory, and Chief Sherzad slapped the young man. Michael Totten and I were stunned but not threatened. Of course we had not been running around on a motorcycle shooting up Kirkuk." (READ MORE)
Michael J. Totten: Meet the Iraqi Police in Kirkuk "Kirkuk, like Baghdad, is one of the most dangerous places in the world. Car bombs, suicide attacks, shootings, and massacres erupt somewhere in the city every day. It is ethnically divided between Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmens, and is a lightning rod for foreign powers (namely Turkey at this time) that interfere in the city’s politics in the hopes of staving off an ethnic unraveling of their own. The city’s terrorists are mostly Baathists, not Islamists, and their racist ideology casts Kurds and Turkmens as enemies." (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Nicole Gelinas: Mass Murder, Martyrdom, and the Media “Why did NBC News - as well as its competitors and print-media counterparts - show that video? Through the spectacular posthumous attention that the media have awarded him, Cho Seung-Hui has shown just how easy it is for an intelligent killer to manipulate sophisticated news organizations into serving as barely filtered propaganda pipelines.” (READ MORE)
Austin Bay: "Give 'em Hooey" Surrenders “On Harry Reid's planet, America's enemies need only have one objective: to murder, in a sensational, media-magnifying manner, enough of their own citizens to discomfit and distress Harry Reid Democrats.” (READ MORE)
Walter E. Williams: Murder at VPI “The 32 murders at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI) shocked the nation, but what are some of the steps that can be taken to reduce the probability that such a massacre will happen again? A large portion of the blame can be laid at the feet of the VPI administration and its campus security personnel, who failed to warn students, faculty and staff.” (READ MORE)
Ben Shapiro: Virginia Tech Was An Act Of Evil, Not A "Tragedy" “Many Americans have instinctively treated this massive act of evil as a ‘tragedy,’ the kind of inevitable calamity destined to befall us from time to time.” (READ MORE)
Jonah Goldberg: The will of the uninformed “Huge numbers of Americans don't know jack about their government or politics. According to a Pew Research Center survey released last week, 31 percent of Americans don't know who the vice president is, fewer than half are aware that Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House, a mere 29 percent can identify ‘Scooter’ Libby as the convicted former chief of staff of the vice president, and only 15 percent can name Harry Reid when asked who is the Senate majority leader.” (READ MORE)
Jack Kemp: ';Making War to Keep Peace' is a fine tribute to Jeane Kirkpatrick “Former Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, one of the most admired women in the world, passed away in December at the age of 80, leaving a huge vacuum in our hearts and minds. Her posthumously published book, ‘Making War to Keep Peace’ (Harper Collins, $26.95), released April 24, brings her ideas to life. “ (READ MORE)
Ashley Herzog: Gun Free Zones “I’m sick of liberals using shooting massacres to advance their baseless theories on gun control. If Monday’s massacre at Virginia Tech University proved anything, it was that current gun laws do nothing to stop deranged killers, while leaving law-abiding citizens defenseless.” (READ MORE)
Salena Zito: DeLay says top Dems close to treason “Democratic leaders are acting like traitors by opposing the Iraq war, and President Bush must answer with a toughened stance, former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Monday.” (READ MORE)
WSJ: Review & Outlook: Harry's War “Gen. David Petraeus is in Washington this week, where on Monday he briefed President Bush on the progress of the new military strategy in Iraq. Today he will give similar briefings on Capitol Hill, but maybe he should save his breath. As fellow four-star Harry Reid recently informed America, the war Gen. Petraeus is fighting and trying to win is already ‘lost.’ (READ MORE)
A Soldier's Mind: Cav Rear Division Mission: Supporting The Wounded “Military members who are wouned in Iraq and Afghanistan are not only dealing with the fact that they have to recuperate from their injuries, but they have to deal with the constant worry about the Soldiers they served with, many who are like brothers and sisters to them. When they are brought back to the US to recover from their injuries, they many times feel cut-off and isolated from their fellow troops.” (READ MORE)
Atlas Shrugs: Busted UK Islamic Terror Group in USA “Apparently the extremist Islamic group nabbed today in the UK is operating right here in America. The British police Arrested 6 Terror Suspects here. Apparently, one of the terrorists, Izzadeen, 31, is the spokesman for the al-Ghurabaa group, which the government banned in July (al-Ghurabaa group is al-Muhajiroun) These are the same barabarians that disrupted a meeting between Reid and Muslim leaders in London, where Reid had called to ask Muslim parents to look out for signs in their children of brainwashing by extremists.” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: The Organizing Function of Paranoia “In a post from last year, Paranoia and Reason, I discussed some of the compensatory functions of paranoia in severely disturbed individuals. I drew some analogies to dysfunctional cultures, which often use similar paranoid projection to create enemies who can be blamed for all failings and become a focus of the people's passions. I expanded the concept in The Reparative Function of Paranoid Delusions, with specific interest in the plight of the Islamists and their elevation of the West, especially Israel, the Jews, and America into iconic status. The existence of a Great Satan and a Little Satan protects the fragile self-esteem of the Islamists, and the Ummah, from recognizing and facing their manifest failure as a culture: (READ MORE)
ROFASix: Did President Bush Kill Pat Tillman? “I kept expecting to hear the question posed in the title during Tuesday's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. While it wasn't asked directly, a number of questions were close enough that one could easily tell how the speaker would have answered that question, if asked. Officially, according to committee website, the hearing was on ‘Misleading Information from the Battlefield.’ It was to determine whether ‘inaccuracies’ from the Tillman and Lynch stories were because of the fog of war or an intentional attempt to mislead the American people.” (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: We're Becoming A Fascist Society? How Ridiculous. “Remember Naomi Wolf, the feminist who taught Al Gore how to act like a man or in femspeak, an ‘alpha male?’ Well, she's back and it looks like she's so eaten up with Bush Dementia syndrome that she's having a public mental meltdown and claiming George Bush is turning America into a fascist society. Now, this is particularly noteworthy, because even a lot of the nutty netroots crowd stop beating the ‘fascism & rigged elections’ drums quite so hard after the 2006 elections, but apparently, that didn't even phase Wolf's rock hard noggin'.” (READ MORE)
Right Wing Nut House: Changing Times Demand Telling the Truth in Wartime “‘If it was good enough for your daddy/granddaddy’s war it’s good enough for yours,’ seems to be what the Pentagon is saying with regards to trying to hype the accomplishments of Pat Tillman – whose character assassination by the left continues to this day – and Jessica Lynch, the young woman whose convoy was ambushed resulting in severe injuries and her capture by the Iraqis.” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: The alumnus of folly “On April 22, 2007 -- the day after the British National Union of Journalists voted to boycott Israeli goods – ‘a result that met with gasps and a small amount of applause from the union delegates present’, the New Zimbabwe ran a story about one British and two American universities agonizing over whether or not to rescind honorary degrees they had bestowed upon Robert Mugabe. Edinburgh University in Scotland and the United States’ University of Massachusetts and Michigan State University are considering recalling the honorary doctorate of laws degrees they conferred on Robert Mugabe.” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Ruminations On the State of Things In Iraq “Just as the title indicates, I'm simply looking at the current state of things in Iraq -- which is not only not ‘deteriorating,’ as the elites would have us believe; it's pretty good and is getting better; at the end, I'll mention a few things we can all do to help keep things moving in the right direction... So what is this ‘new strategy’ anyway? We have already discussed, in How to Win/Lose In Iraq (based upon the Herman article), that the new counterinsurgency strategy envisions a very different way of fighting a war.” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Why No One Wants An American Withdrawal “The Guardian (UK) has relentlessly opposed the war in Iraq for the past four years and more, giving its readers on the Left a steady diet of bad news and angry opinion based on its editorial policy. British newspapers have an open editorial bias, and readers expect news from a point of view. Guardian readers may find themselves surprised today, however, to find a detailed explanation of all the reasons why the nations in the Middle East do not want an American withdrawal from Iraq -- and the catastrophes that would follow one:” (READ MORE)
Confederate Yankee: White Flag Harry Reid: We're Losing This War, and the Troops are Liars “‘Senator Lost’ Harry Reid, has unilaterally declared that the Iraq War is lost. Uh, Senator... how would you know and other top Democrats know, when you continue to skip briefings? What's curious is that congressional Democrats don't seem much interested in what's actually happening in Iraq. The commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus returns to Washington this week, but last week Pelosi's office said ‘scheduling conflicts’ prevented him from briefing House members. Two days later, the members-only meeting was scheduled, but the episode brings to mind the fact that Pelosi and other top House Democrats skipped a Pentagon videoconference with Petraeus on March 8.” (READ MORE)
Dadmanly: Why I Stay Right “ Leftists are the new ideological Puritans. Yet in one of life’s ironies, progressives are highly successful in characterizing conservatives as those who are ignorant, intolerant, closed-minded, and repressive. Klavan laments that public opprobrium weighs so heavily against those who would speak against liberal orthodoxy and political correctness, even to the point of silence. As a conservative living in Southern California, Klavan feels the intolerance and hostility of the Left first hand. He too-often violates the ‘Left’s increasingly elaborate sensitivities.’” (READ MORE)
Fjordman: A Christian Background for Political Correctness? “As a non-Christian, I have been complimenting Christianity for contributing immensely to many of the positive aspects of our culture. But precisely because Christianity has so profoundly shaped our culture, isn’t it plausible that it may also, at least indirectly, have contributed to some of the flaws that currently ail us as well? According to the blogger Conservative Swede, whom I have debated this issue with at some length, Christian ethics is more unfettered in modern liberalism than it is in Christianity itself. The West, and Europe in particular, is sometimes labeled as ‘post-Christian,’ but this is only partly true.” (READ MORE)
Baron Bodissey: Your Jizyah Dollars at Work “If any issue deserves an appearance by the Ranting Man, this one does. Most readers have heard about the suppression of the PBS documentary ‘Islam vs. the Islamists.’ PBS funded the documentary, but balked when they saw the final product: ‘This isn’t the truth about Islam! Islam is a religion of peace — this must be right-wing neocon hater propaganda!’ So they cancelled any airing of the film on public television. Also, since PBS controls the distribution rights, they can prevent it from being shown anywhere else.” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Iraq Report: Halting the Wall, a Sunni Political Party is Born “The Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has ordered a halt to the building of a security barrier around the Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiya. There are obvious political implications to building such a barrier in the Arab world. ‘I’ve ordered it to stop and to find other means of protection for the neighborhoods,’ al-Maliki said, after stating the barrier served to remind the Iraqi people of ‘other walls that we reject,’ a direct reference to the Israeli fence separating it from Gaza and the West Bank.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: (Audio) Ayaan Hirsi Ali defends the imam who says she must be killed “From John Gibson’s radio show yesterday. Thanks to reader Emma for sending it along. Gibby wants to know what she thinks of Imam Fouad ElBayly telling an interviewer that she deserves to die for defaming Islam. Exactly right, retorts AHA; that’s what the Koran says. The man’s just following his religion. The takeaway: ‘This imam has been strikingly honest.’” (READ MORE)
IraqPundit: Mookie, Miles & Dodo “Can there possibly have been a weirder line written about the entire Iraq war than a sentence contributed by Edward Wong to last Sunday's NYT? Wong was writing about Moktada Al Sadr, and the chaotic ‘strategy’ he's been pursuing of late. Sadr – who has been hiding from the U.S. for weeks -- recently withdrew the ministers affiliated with his movement from the Maliki cabinet, purportedly over the issue of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. But a Sadr aide told Wong that the movement doesn't exactly want the U.S. to leave just yet.” (READ MORE)
Quid Nimis: The Movie PBS Doesn't Want You To See “About three weeks ago, I had the great privilege of screening Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center, a film about the efforts of five moderate Muslim activists* to take back their religion and to fight the fundamentalist Islamists. This is an excellent film and addresses a pressing question: where are the moderate Muslims? The answer is that there are a few, a very few, who are willing to openly fight for moderation and liberality because the radicals use harsh, relentless and well-funded methods to counter them. The moderate ‘activist’ faces intimidation, threats of bodily harm including death, and the life of a social outcast from his own community.” (READ MORE)
The Marching Camp: Iraq. Again. “I'm baffled by events lately. Senator Harry Reid is, not to put too fine a point on it, a liar. He lies for personal political gain, and he lies in the face of established reality. Castle Argghhh! has an excellent discussion of Reid's drivel: In other words, Reid votes to cut funding, and then criticizes Bush for not spending more money in the areas that Reid cut funding for. No wonder he thinks we're losing. He's so confused that he can't think in a logical manner. He says that car bombs are evidence that we are losing! What a stupid bastard. Car bombs are the weapon of terminal losers.” (READ MORE)
Amy Proctor: What Sen Reid Doesn't Say When Bashing Iraq “Bottom Line Up Front: Sen. Harry Reid is bitterly hunkering down demanding defeat in Iraq whether victory is inevitable or not. Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, yesterday, co-hosted by Third Way and Lee Hamilton of the Iraq Study Group and 9/11 Commission introduced Harry Reid after a brief opening. (transcript of speech) Below are some experts of the negative, depressing speech:” (READ MORE)
Kobayashi Maru: The Difficult Side of Diplomacy “Many on the left are fond of calling for 'dialogue' with foreign powers whenever it looks like interests may collide more forcefully. I was almost willing to concede a tentative kind of success for this kind of dialogue earlier this Spring when it was reported that six-party talks with North Korea had achieved new breakthroughs. The Wall Street Journal's stealthily liberal news pages ran a page one story obviously placed by State, detailing how terribly clever the U.S. had been in putting the squeeze on banks in Macau and China that had been doing business with NoKo.” (READ MORE)
Greyhawk: On Point “This clip from CNN International (yes, it has been on CNN in the U.S., too) could hardly be called a ‘morale booster’ ‘We've talked at length, my soldiers and myself, and a term that comes up often is, 'this is our generation's Vietnam.' I don't think this can be won.’ That's a tough assessment to hear - but it's also not an isolated opinion, and it should be heard. To respond I would need to know what ‘Vietnam’ means to SSG Pierre. I'm not taking the easy way out here - I'm being fair and not assigning my meaning to him. Military members have almost as many opinions on Vietnam as the general public. A couple simplified points most would agree on are ‘a lot of people killed’ and ‘a war lost in Washington’.” (READ MORE)
McQ: Asleep at the switch, or killing flies with a hammer? “Those, essentially, are the questions about radical Islam which divide the West according to Tony Blankley: I don’t think there is any question that there are portions of the Western population which are quite content to call any threat from radical Islam grossly overblown. In fact, we, as a country, pretty much treated it as a nuisance for over a decade. Then we were rudely slapped awake on the morning of 9/11/01. I find it difficult, given that occurrence, to believe anyone could argue that radical Islam isn’t an existential threat to our form of civilization given its stated and oft verbalized goals.” (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex: Heart breaking “In my heart of hearts, I want to believe that all of the politicians that the American people have in their wisdom elected to offices of great national prominence have the best interests of the Republic at heart. That, while they may disagree from one side of the aisle to the other on the ‘how’ of the national enterprise, the ‘what’ is consistent. That we might disagree upon means but not ends. That the country comes first, especially in a time of war, especially beyond our borders. This is a dream I have. Sometimes it’s hard to sustain.” (READ MORE)
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