A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
September Could Be Key Deadline in War - Congressional leaders from both political parties are giving President Bush a matter of months to prove that the Iraq war effort has turned a corner, with September looking increasingly like a decisive deadline. (READ MORE)
Obama Makes Push For Fuel Efficiency - Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) yesterday proposed federal assistance to help U.S. automakers cover the cost of their retired workers' health benefits if the companies invest in technology to improve their vehicles' fuel efficiency. (READ MORE)
Troops at Baghdad Outposts Seek Safety in Fortifications - BAGHDAD -- Nearly three months after the U.S. military launched a new strategy to safeguard Baghdad's population by pushing American and Iraqi forces deeper into the city's neighborhoods, defending their small outposts is increasingly requiring heavy bulwarks reminiscent of the fortresslike bases... (READ MORE)
In Cambodia, a Clash Over History of the Khmer Rouge - PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, May 7 -- In a country where half the students who enter grammar school never finish, Cheak Socheata, 18, is among the most privileged of her generation: She made it to college. (READ MORE)
Elizabeth II welcomed in style - Queen Elizabeth II arrived at the White House yesterday for a state visit overflowing with pomp and pageantry, complete with a 21-gun salute and the Bush administration's first white-tie-and-tails dinner last night. (READ MORE)
NATO paces Afghan offensive - NATO officers and diplomats say they are selectively securing some areas of southern Afghanistan ahead of others, hoping the contrast between Taliban and government rule will gradually undermine support for the Islamist insurgents. (READ MORE)
Gore backers hold on to cash - Prominent political fundraisers who backed Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign are reserving support for the current slate of 2008 Democrats in hopes the former vice president will swoop in for another White House bid. (READ MORE)
Iraqi refugees bring home to their Damascus enclave - Former residents of Baghdad, Fallujah or Tikrit can get a taste of home on what has come to be known as "Iraqi Street," stopping by the Baghdady Bakery for a sticky-sweet piece of carrot-pistachio marzipan. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Michael Yon: Rattlesnake “A young British soldier named Simon expected to be driving logistics trucks into Iraq, and so adopted the dusty old hit ‘Convoy’ as his fight-song and personal anthem. A man doesn’t have to wait long to hear Simon play it again, yet instead of barreling up Iraqi highways, Simon finds himself at Basra Air Station, shuttling occasional journalists, and performing base duties, including escorting Iraqis hired for manual labor.” (READ MORE)
Mrs. Badger 6: A Sign of Changes to Come “I was not expecting the books to contain the sand. The books are covered in a soft layer of the finest powder. At first I thought the books were just dusty from storage. I was thinking that this was just your run-of-the-mill, ordinary American house dust. It did not take but a second to realize how wrong I was. This is the sand. THE SAND. The sand that Badger 6 talks about getting into every crevice and covers every thing in al Anbar Province. The sand that connects our Soldiers to the land. The sand that binds our Soldiers to one another. The sand on which they eat and sleep and play and die.” (READ MORE)
Desert Flier: It's gotta be controlled detonations “Heading towards the chow hall for lunch, and we feel the tell-tale concussion of a detonation. ‘Sure hope that's a controlled det’ quips D squared. If an engineering team or EOD team finds a roadside IED or weapons cache, they destroy it on the spot if possible. So hearing random detonations is a somewhat common occurence. Fifteen minutes later, we are just about to sit down, and another faint shock wave is felt from inside the chow hall.” (READ MORE)
Mohammed: Don't bury your heads in the sand. “I had said it over and over again that some of us in Iraq and America are sending wrong messages to the terrorists and the dictators behind them; in fact I wasn't surprised when I saw Zawahiri appear on al-Jazeera to announce America's defeat, not long after Reid did. Zawahiri claims al-Qaeda has won and Reid claims America has lost but I see only a war that's still ongoing and I see no victory for al-Qaeda or any other entity. On the contrary I see that al-Qaeda has the shortest stick.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Dennis Prager: A Letter to Our Soldiers in Iraq “Dear American Soldier in Iraq: There are a few things you should know about how tens of millions of us back home feel about you and the fight you are waging.” (READ MORE)
Bill Murchison: Anti-Americans, Here And Abroad “While the president of the United States and H.M. Queen Elizabeth II were affirming in Washington, D.C., their countries' common traditions and history, another pro-American leader was swelling the chorus of affection.” (READ MORE)
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: No 'Does' “On the Amtrak train to New York a few minutes ago, the conductor announced, ‘If you see anything suspicious, please report it to the authorities immediately.’ If Islamist-front organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its friends in Congress have their way, however, this sensible, prudential announcement will have to be amended: ‘Be advised: If you do make such a report, you may be sued.’” (READ MORE)
Debra J. Saunders: To the Gates of Hell “Standing firmly on the land that Ronald Reagan loved, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., did not shrink from his own principles at the first GOP presidential candidates' debate held at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley Thursday night.” (READ MORE)
Bruce Bartlett: Democrats and Conservatives “I hadn’t planned on writing another column about Hillary Clinton, but the one I wrote last week has been so widely misunderstood that I feel compelled to do so.” (READ MORE)
Cal Thomas: The French election connection “C'etait genial! When applied to the French presidential election in which Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy beat the Socialist candidate Segolene Royal by a comfortable margin, it means: that is fantastic!” (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: The Scandal of "Scandals" “Now that ABC News has the list of phone numbers given to them by the ‘Washington Madam,’ the question is: Whose names will they publicize if they find out that there are public figures whose phone numbers are among those they have?” (READ MORE)
David Limbaugh: Hillary's War “Poor Hillary. Those of us with a speck of discernment always knew she was just pretending to be hawkish to make herself appear more presidential back before the war's popularity went in the gutter along with our proverbial rat.” (READ MORE)
Jason Mattera: Al Gore's willing accomplices in the classroom “Music icon Sheryl Crow just wrapped up her ‘Stop Global Warming College Tour.’ And while no Rhode Island school hosted her biodiesel bus, the pop singer's persistence on propagandizing young and malleable minds with greenhouse hype sure did resonate with the leftist faculty at Roger Williams University (RWU).” (READ MORE)
Michael Barone: The Realignment of America “In 1950, when I was in kindergarten in Detroit, the city had a population of (rounded off) 1,850,000. Today the latest census estimate for Detroit is 886,000, less than half as many. In 1950, the population of the U.S. was 150 million. Today the latest census estimate for the nation is 301 million, more than twice as many. People in America move around. But not just randomly.” (READ MORE)
Bret Stephens: The Whistleblowers' Tale “In the summer of 1997, two senior World Bank officials published an academic article under the cheerful title, ‘Africa on the Move: Attracting Private Capital to a Changing Continent.’ The authors, Jean-Louis Sarbib of France and Callisto Madavo of Zimbabwe, were responsible for the bank's work in Africa, and they took an optimistic view. ‘A new spirit of social and economic progress has energized much of the region,’ they wrote, ‘and gradually the rest of the world is beginning to take notice.’” (READ MORE)
Andrew C. McCarthy: Bush Plummets … As He Wins the Argument “Polls taken through Iraq’s thick prism reflect increasing public disenchantment with the Bush presidency. The economy hums and the stock market climbs daily to heights previously unknown, but still the president has fallen to the sub-30-percent approval terrain charted only by Jimmy Carter in modern times. Here, though, is the real anomaly: If one listens, truly listens, to the gloomiest war critics — Democrat congressional leaders and presidential candidates — the president has already won the debate about what is to be done in Iraq.” (READ MORE)
A Soldier's Mind: “Drive On (Tribute To The Troops)” by 1223 “I talked to Adrian today and he asked that I post another song off of their CD for our readers to listen to, so at the end of the story, you now have 2 songs by 1223 to enjoy! The latest in our Tunes For The Troops series is a band out of San Antonio, Texas, who have dedicated their entire CD to all of the Soldiers serving in the US Military. This is a very special pair of young men and they have a message to share with the world, a message that sets them apart and above any other Hip Hop artists out there. But that’s not the only reason that they’re special…” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: The Secret Chord “Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post describes the radical Islamic challenge to the humanity of women: where girls may be killed rather than educated and wonders if there's a man among us who will stand with Hirsi Ali, who has been sounding the warning for years. Glick writes:” (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Daily KOS Should Demand Action from Liberals in Congress “A writer named mcjoan at the Daily POS had this to say with regard to the White House while writing about a showdown on emails (they are with Hillary Rodham’s billing records): This writer is under some false impression that the election of Democrats to the majority is a mandate to end the war. The election was about a lot of things, including the war, but the victory in no way implies a mandate.” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Does America Elect Defeatists? “I just received a very pessimistic e-mail from a close friend of mine (not Friend Lee) who is utterly convinced that the Democrats will win the presidency in 2008, even if the Iraq war is going much better. My correspondent is a libertarian-conservative who is obsessed with the ‘neo-cons,’ whom he hates with a passion and blames for ‘hijacking’ the Reagan legacy and the Bush presidency (he even wrote a book about it, Post-Nationalism).” (READ MORE)
Grim: Fighting the War of Ideas Like a Real War “That is the title of a new book by Dr. J. Michael Waller of the Institute of World Politics in Washington D.C. (Dr. Waller has a fairly interesting background that space won't allow me to cover -- you're welcome to Google the gentleman.) His Institute describes the book's intent as being a set of "right now" solutions for America's serious problems in the information war, ‘an immediate-term strategy that requires no bureaucratic reorganization or major budgetary changes.’ The idea is that you can enact these changes right now, without the impossible turf-fights and interagency fights and fights between Congress and the Executive and... right.” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Not Even The Sunnis Want Partition “We have heard plenty of people talk about the idea of splitting Iraq into three autonomous cantons in order to allow each of the three main demographics groups to run a portion of the country. Senator Joe Biden has pushed this idea for months, claiming it to be the only way out of Iraq. Recently, Sam Brownback endorsed that plan and wants to team up with Biden to present it to the Senate. According to the plan's advocates, a partition will provide the only framework for enabling the Sunnis, which has a lower level of population than the majority Shi'a or the already-transitioned Kurds.” (READ MORE)
Flopping Aces: More Lunacy From The Democrats - Reparations For Guam “So the Democrats take control of both houses and accomplish NOTHING. Now to put the exclamation point on the nothing part they have decided to put a bill up that will require the United States to pay reparations to residents of Guam who suffered at the hands of the Japanese. (h/t Redstate) ‘That's a question for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and his eight compatriots, all of whom have co-sponsored a bill that would require that America pay reparations to the people of Guam for - get this - the actions of the Japanese in World War II.’” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio et al: The Baghdad Security Operation Order of Battle: May 7, 2007 “The month of April was particularly hard on both U.S. and Iraqi security forces. As both forces push outward from larger, more secure bases, the casualties have increased. Iraqi security forces--both police and army--had over 300 KIA, while over 100 U.S. servicemen were killed in Iraq this past month. The numbers are likely to increase as the surge continues and Iraqi and Coalition guns train on al Qaeda's havens in Diyala province sometime this summer.” (READ MORE)
GayPatriotWest: Sarkozy Election Helps Debunk Myths About Bush’s Foreign Policy “For the past 4 years (at least), many on the left (& in the MSM) have accused the President of ‘cowboy’ diplomacy, of going it alone without the participation of our allies. In making that claim, the President’s critics have made much of France’s opposition to his policies. But, with the victory yesterday of Nicolas Sarkozy, we can once again see that the problem was not so much Bush’s decision to ‘go it alone,’ but the duplicity of the French.” (READ MORE)
Homefront Six: I thought I was done “…but it looks like there is more. During Panel 2 Sarah spoke of ‘anticipatory grief’. I pointed out to my husband something that every servicemember needs to remember when he thinks of his family back home. We’ve never been to Iraq or Afghanistan. We don’t know what it’s like. We imagine the worst, and our mental war zone would probably seem cartoonish to you. But we simply can’t fully grasp what war is like.” (READ MORE)
Wonder Woman: Artifice or Folly? “It has become a common refrain to chip away at the hypocrisy of the anti-war movement to the point it has become a kind of sad cliche. It tends to be one of my favorite subjects, if only because they provide such a wealth of fodder, displaying their selective concern, hypocritical sympathies and outright stupidity. Take for example, the attendance of Canadian "peace" activists at a conference of terrorists in Cairo.” (READ MORE)
Amy Proctor: A Case for War: U.S. Cannot Abandon Iraq Again “Bottom Line Up Front: America has failed Iraqis for over a decade and cannot give in to the Democrats’ scheme to double cross them by withdrawing military troops. The United States has been letting Iraqis down for well over a decade. Only a year after Saddam Hussein forced his way into leadership of Iraq in July 1979, he started a war with Iran in 1980. The war ended in 1988 and cost millions of lives.” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: The Only Good Cowboy is a French Cowboy “New York Times, impressed when Sarkozy cowboys up. Hey, what about this cowboy? Sarkozy’s a literate, sensitive cowboy. He does say some of that distasteful cowboy stuff sometimes. But Schumer likes the way he looks in a cowboy suit. He wouldn’t do anything crazy like go charging off half-cocked after that Sioux war party up on the hill. He’s one erudite cowboy. What in tarnation!?! … He’s a rootin’-tootin’ America-bashin’ cowboy!” (READ MORE)
Dr. Rusty Shackleford: Kos Kidz: Supporting Terrorists = "Courageous Writing" “Somehow, I missed the fact that the Kos Kidz were supporting a website which openly embraces terrorists. Mike sends this link: ‘The free-speech afforded by Dr. El-Najjar - to those around the world of all races and political viewpoints - was incredibly valuable. If you have never heard of http://www.aljazeerah.info/ then you missed some of the more courageous writing on the internet.’” (READ MORE)
Paul Mirengoff : All profile, no courage “The Washington Post has a good piece about John Edwards' plans to combat poverty. Edwards has made his program to "end poverty in 30 years" in this country his signature domestic issue. The Post story, by Alec MacGillis, provides insight into both Edwards and the issue. The centerpiece of the Edwards plan is to do away with public housing projects and replace them with one million rental vouchers through which to disperse the poor into better neighborhoods, closer to good schools and jobs.” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: The Assault on Reason “In 2008, even the poorest Americans have indoor plumbing, color TVs, video game systems, iPods, more than enough to eat, and vast quantities of leisure time. We have come to this state of material wealth by the judicious application of science, technology, and capitalism, all of which rest on a foundation of reason. Human thinking is not naturally rational. Rationality is a fragile, painstakingly constructed edifice that allows us to understand the world and manipulate bits of reality in ways that pre-technological, even the most civilized of pre-technological, beings could not begin to approximate. Yet to presume that what we have is immutable and invulnerable to the ravages of irrationality is dangerous.” (READ MORE)
TigerHawk: Andy McCarthy on Iraq: Questions for your discussion “I am jammed today, but not so jammed that I can't recommend Andy McCarthy's morning note on President Bush's substantive victory in the Iraq policy debate. As a diagnosis of the politics it is interesting, but it also touches on the fulcrum of the debate about the future of America's policy in Iraq. In the middle of the essay Andy frames the case for continuing the offensive war in Iraq:” (READ MORE)
Right Wing Nut House: Iraqi Political Crisis Threatens All “Forget the surge. Forget the Democrats and their idiotic timetables and benchmarks. Forget that the President is once again mishandling the delicate political situation in Iraq. This news from the Iraqi Vice President about the Sunnis simply up and leaving the government is the crisis of the war: Iraq’s top Sunni official has set a deadline of next week for pulling his entire bloc out of the government—a potentially devastating blow to reconciliation efforts within Iraq. He also said he turned down an offer by President Bush to visit Washington until he can count more fully on U.S. help.” (READ MORE)
Rhymes with Right: Olmert Survives -- But For How Long? “He came into office under the worst of circumstances, and failed to crush those who attacked his country when he had the chance. Now his nation's people reject him. So while Ehud Olmert survived a no confidence vote yesterday, how much longer can he continue to hold onto the office of prime minister?” (READ MORE)
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