A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Commanders in Iraq See 'Surge' Into '08 - The Pentagon announced yesterday that 35,000 soldiers in 10 Army combat brigades will begin deploying to Iraq in August as replacements, making it possible to sustain the increase of U.S. troops there until at least the end of this year. (READ MORE)
A New Pitchman -- and a New Pitch - One day back when Republicans controlled Congress, Reps. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) found themselves talking politics, something both men tend to do when they happen to be awake. (READ MORE)
House Bill Ties War Funding to Iraq Benchmarks - Measure Would Free Half the Money Now, Require a Second Vote for Approval in July (READ MORE)
6 held in plot to hit Fort Dix - Federal authorities have arrested six men identified as "radical Islamists" and accused them of plotting to "kill as many American soldiers as possible" in an attack on the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey. (READ MORE)
Kazakhstan plans nuke fuel bank - Russia and Kazakhstan are poised to sign an agreement creating a joint uranium-enrichment center, a possible first step toward an international nuclear fuel "bank," Kazakh Foreign Minister Marat Tazhin said yesterday. (READ MORE)
Court denies D.C.'s gun appeal - A federal appeals court yesterday denied a petition by D.C. officials to reconsider a March ruling that overturned the District's 30-year-old gun ban. (READ MORE)
Zoellick on the short list of Wolfowitz successors - Robert B. Zoellick, former U.S. trade representative and deputy secretary of state, is among a small group of names that the international development community is suggesting to replace Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Badger 6: Hand & Arm Signals “A Soldier learns early in his or her career about hand and arm signals. Hand and arm signals are used effectively at team, squad and even platoon level to transmit basic information to all members of that group simultaneously. Think of one of these small units advancing on foot through the desert or the woods on foot. Those of you who have served in the Army or Marine Corps likely know what I am writing about. For those of you who have not, think about a presentation such as Band of Brothers.” (READ MORE)
Michael J. Totten: “Better a Thousand Israeli Invasions…” “The Winograd report is a damning indictment of Israeli failure and incompetence during last year’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. I criticized the war myself from the very beginning when it became clear the Israeli Defense Forces still had no idea how to successfully deal with the Iranian-sponsored guerilla militia in the north. Now is a good time to return to this subject.” (READ MORE)
Patricl Lasswell: Analysis of Truck Bomb in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan "All of this is based on early reports and some details may be in error on the reports. 1. This was an attack on the Interior Ministry, not a random terror strike. This was intended to do damage to the KRG, not just Kurds in general. If they had wanted to create a body count, they could have driven a kilometer and demolished the Souk. If they had wanted to hurt investment, they would have blown up one of the new malls within a kilometer of Interior Ministry." (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Austin Bay: How Many Ground Troops Does the United States Need? “How many ground troops does the United States need? Answering that question depends on your vision of the future...” (READ MORE)
Debra J. Saunders: The CIA director speaks “Sorry to take a week before writing on former CIA director George Tenet's book, ‘At the Center of the Storm, My Years at the CIA.’ My bad: I actually took the time to read the book.” (READ MORE)
Ben Shapiro: The Left's Global Warming Solution: No More Children! “Proving once again that foolish ideas don't die or fade away -- they walk the earth eternally, preying on the brains of the living -- scientists at a UK think tank have determined that the greatest threat to the planet is more human beings.” (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: Jihadists Exploit Our Hospitality and Open Borders . . . Again “Well, here is the thanks we get. Eight years ago, America opened its arms to tens of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo. The first planeload landed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Military leaders worked day and night to turn the base into a child-friendly village. They coordinated medical and security checkups, mental health and trauma counseling and ethnic food preparations.” (READ MORE)
Terence Jeffrey: Sarko the American “‘My values are yours, those of the republican right,’ the young, energetic candidate said accepting his party's presidential nomination.” (READ MORE)
Jonah Goldberg: Netroots on shaky ground “It's ironic. At precisely the moment so many people think that the Republican Party and the conservative movement have gone off the rails, the people who hate the right the most want to copy it.” (READ MORE)
Tony Blankley: September May Be the Cruelest Month “The political and policy planets are beginning to come into ominous alignment over Iraq and Washington.” (READ MORE)
David Strom: The World is Coming to an End “The dominant theme of contemporary liberalism is one of impending doom. Time and again you hear from liberal activists and politicians about the disastrous or soon to be disastrous state of the world, and in particular the Western world. (If only America looked more like Sub-Saharan Africa, with no power plants, the world would be a better place?)” (READ MORE)
Paul Weyrich: A Dilemma: Free Speech and Internet/Radio/TV Immorality “Rosie O'Donnell is off the air, supposedly her own doing, and Don Imus is reported to be suing CBS. The outcome of any such litigation may tell if we have achieved a new era in broadcasting or if we will revert to the pervious era.” (READ MORE)
John McCaslin: War or 9/11 “‘Look, the president certainly understands that Americans don't like war. He doesn't like war, either, but he also does not like the alternative.’” (READ MORE)
WSJ Review & Outlook: Axis of Soros “Mark Malloch Brown spoke Monday to a crowded auditorium at the World Bank's headquarters, warning that the bank's mission was ‘hugely at risk’ as long as Paul Wolfowitz remained its president. Only hours earlier, news leaked that a special committee investigating Mr. Wolfowitz had accused him of violating conflict-of-interest rules. A coincidence? We doubt it.” (READ MORE)
Michel Gurfinkel: Can Sarkozy Save France? “French elections can be as entertaining as Russian roulette. Twelve years ago, in early 1995, it was taken for granted that Edouard Balladur, a conservative prime minister, would succeed the outgoing Socialist president François Mitterrand without further ado. The left was then a spent force. So, evidently, was Jacques Chirac, another conservative Gaullist and a former prime minister (and unsuccessful contender for the presidency). But then a satiric TV show, ‘Les Guignols de l'Info’ (The News Puppets), started featuring Chirac as a French-style Forrest Gump who would answer questions on any topic, political or economic, with the phrase ‘Eat apples.’ In April 1995, Jacques ‘Apple’ Chirac won out over both Mr. Balladur and the socialist candidate Lionel Jospin.” (READ MORE)
Amir Taheri: Iran's Economic Crisis “For the past five weeks, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Islamic Moral Brigades have been clashing with groups of young Iranians on the streets of Tehran and other major cities over the government's crackdown on ‘immodest dress.’ The crackdown is seen by many Iranians as another step toward an even more suffocating social atmosphere in the crisis-stricken country. Both Mr. Ahmadinejad and his mentor, the ‘Supreme Leader’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claim that the way young Iranians dress is the most immediate threat to their Islamist dystopia.” (READ MORE)
Cassandra: NY TimesWatch: The Culture of Contempt “ ‘How does George W. Bush, a towel-snapping Texan who puts his feet on the coffee table, drinks water straight from the bottle and was once caught on tape talking with food in his mouth prepare for a state dinner with the queen?’ ‘I suppose... by not doing any of these things’, muses Ed Driscoll, obviously drinking the Red State kool-aid again. Or perhaps, like so many knuckle dragging, snake handling conservathugs who blindly support what we're trying to accomplish in Iraq and Afghanistan, he's merely showing the signs of early-onset Alzheimer's disease if not outright mental illness:” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: The Worst of Times “The New York Times has been caught bragging about ‘data mining’ -- the same process that they railed against the government doing, to the point where they bagged a Pulitzer for exposing the government doing the very same practice. But where the government was doing it for nefarious, underhanded reasons -- protecting Americans from terrorist attacks -- the Times was doing it for the most selfless, patriotic, and noble intentions: making money.” (READ MORE)
DJ Drummond: Questions For The Day “I understand that one thing which has united extremists on both the Left and Right sides of the aisle, is their contempt for President Bush's attempts to reform Immigration and establish a semblance of Border Security. But as I have mentioned before, Bush's plan is in many ways similar to one proposed by President Reagan. Something which many Bush-haters refuse to acknowledge, even though it is patently obvious to anyone who bothers to check the facts.” (READ MORE)
The Anchoress: I’m fuzzy on this ‘namecalling’ thing “Fellow bloggers, help me out, will you? In the post here, I linked to this piece by Tom Elliott, wherein he puts together a few questions he wishes the press would ask the Democrat leadership about Iraq policy. One question was this: ‘Is a timetable for withdrawal intended to hasten victory — or defeat?’”(READ MORE)
Army Wife: Building bridges and getting your hands dirty.... “The 2007 Mil-Blogging Conference was fantastic. I walked away very inspired by each person I met. It served as a great reminder to me. We each bring something unique to the table. I think it is a great time to re-evaluate oursleves, and our own talents, and abilities. I have been reading several posts about how the weekend was so inspiring to each of us. I think one of the best things I personally took away from this years conference was that of building bridges, to the general public. After all we can scream all day in our own blogs about our frustration, but after a while, we really are preaching to the choir. Particularly, those of us whose readership does not span far. *cough*” (READ MORE)
Atlas Shrugs: The Islamist/Leftist Malevolent Alliance “It is interesting to hear people voice surprise that the left would join forces with misogynistic, oppressive Islam. But it makes perfect sense. Both are a dogma, both require group think, both are collectivist, and both are entirely anti-individual. Both are totalitarian in nature. Perfect marriage. And to those shocked that feminists would go along, that too is Lenin/Marxist in origin. Steve Stalinsky in today's New York Sun, reports on the growing Leftist Islamic alliance.” (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Democrats Still Supporting the Troops, Not! “The Democrats are so focused on hurting President Bush that they are neglecting the men and women in the military who are on the front line of the war on terror. There are those, like the dolts at the Daily POS, who say that Bush is not supporting the troops because he vetoed the funding bill. He did not veto the bill because of the funding, he vetoed the bill because it took away the powers vested in him under the Constitution. The Democrats took weeks to pass legislation that they knew would be vetoed. These are the same people who said they would make sure the troops were taken care of.” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: Black Turban Hat Versus White Turban Hat “In a prophetic article, Stephen Schwartz describes Wahabi efforts to dominate Islam and the Balkans and their struggle against the Bektashis and Rumi Sufi Muslim traditions. Samizdata says: ‘these are forms of Islam antithetical to the Wahhabis, and they are in the majority in places like Bosnia-Herzegovina ... Supporting them ... is surely a strategic move.’” (READ MORE)
Bear Creek Ledger: Walter Reed Hospital “Friday late afternoon/evening we visited at WR, Ann and Ted of the HOTH (Help on the homefront) MD PGR were gracious enough to meet up with us and take us with them on their rounds. I just can’t say enough about these two amazing people. They not only go to WR a couple times each week but they might pick up a family and bring them back to their farm for an afternoon of relaxing and good food. They might bring a wounded soldier their favorite home cooked food. Or, they might take the soldier and family out to their favorite restaurant. Ann and Ted are truly Angels to our wounded warriors.” (READ MORE)
Blackfive: How to Lose a War “Below is a message (2 days old) from a Marine in Iraq training Iraqi forces in Baghdad. Just keep in mind two things (1) more violence - increased violence - is sure to come as we increase our presence and squeeze the enemy out of his safe havens, and (2) when we create a safer area like western al Anbar, Al Qaeda will want to strike there to prove that it is not safe. So, when George Soros sends/pays people to come here and marginalize what the troops are saying about the war, remember what this good Marine has said:” (READ MORE)
Blonde Sagacity: "John Doe" Saves Fort Dix “CAIR believes the airline Imams were unfairly treated -they want passengers that reported the dodgy behavior punished. They think praying loudly and yelling Allah Akbar in an airport post-9/11 is A-okay. If the country buys into the fact that this was discrimination (as opposed to due diligence) we may not hear about plots of Jihad until the bombs go off...” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Desperation Of The Left “Yesterday I linked to an EJ Dionne column which analyzed the loss of Segolene Royal in France as an indicator of an overall problem with the Left among Western nations. Dionne correctly linked the rightward move in France with similar shifts in eastern Europe, Sweden, Germany, and even Britain, where the Tories won in local elections. He advised the international Left that the movement needed to recast its vision rather than just rely on tactical changes in the future.” (READ MORE)
Confederate Yankee: A Little Competence Would Be Nice “It should probably come as no small wonder that the majority of the American people are against the War in Iraq; getting faulty misleading or inaccurate or even purposefully biased information does that. Time and again and again, our soldiers and Marines tell us that the war they are fighting in Iraq is not the one being reported in the professional media. Karin Brulliard's article in today's Washington Post is a prime example…” (READ MORE)
Flopping Aces: Pelosi Will Sue To Get Her Way “So much for three equal branches of Government: ‘House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is threatening to take President Bush to court if he issues a signing statement as a way of sidestepping a carefully crafted compromise Iraq war spending bill.’” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Iraq Report: Kufa bombed, Iraqi/Coalition operations “There have been no major suicide or car bombings inside Baghdad over the past two days. Mortar, roadside bombings and small arms attacks persist, but sectarian killings are still below the levels prior to the implementation of the Baghdad Security Plan. Much of the significant violence has occurred in Baghdad's "Belts," the regions about 20 miles outside Baghdad. This is where the latest two significant attacks occurred.” (READ MORE)
GayPatriotWest: Pundits Notwithstanding, 2008 Could Still be GOP Year “In the immediate aftermath of the 2004 elections, the prospects looked bleak for the Democratic Party. Bloggers on the right as well as conservative pundits (and even a few on the left) forecast that the Democrats would remain in the minority for the near future. Some even projecte GOP gains in the 2006 election. But, a combination of the president’s lack of media strategy and excessive loyalty to his appointees* as well as Republican overconfidence and the arrogance of a seemingly entrenched minority allowed the Democrats to make gains, not so much because of their agenda, but because they weren’t the party in power.” (READ MORE)
Ian: (Video) Professor suspended for passing around conservative link “Glendale Community College professor Walter Kehowski is suspended pending a hearing because an email he sent quoting President George Washington’s Thanksgiving proclamation contained a link to — Pat Buchanan. Professor Kehowski explained his side of the story on Tuesday night’s edition of Hannity and Colmes.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Somalis burn Muslim women’s veils “A defiant, cathartic act of feminist liberation a la bra-burnings in the 1970s? Nah. It’s a security measure. ‘The crackdown on veils is a highly symbolic turnaround for Mogadishu after Islamist leaders, who controlled the city in the second half of 2006, had instructed women to wear them.’” (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex: The banality of evil men “It sometimes seems that civilization is not so much at war against toxic ideologies as it is the stupidity of those who believe in them. To view the video of VT mass-murderer Cho Seung-hui is to look into the eye of a maundering, self-referential, perpetually frustrated narcissist. To read the plays he wrote for a college-level English course is to recognize how appallingly stupid he was. It is not just that his writing is dark, or ominous: It is, quite simply, awful.” (READ MORE)
Kat in MO: Information War: Strategic Corporal “I found this over at Small Wars Journal: The Strategic Corporal. I have been thinking very hard on another post that had been up several days ago: religion in counterinsurgency. I have some ideas on how this can be treated. I deliberately did not read any of the forum comments in order to insure my thoughts are exactly that: my thoughts. I'll have something on that soon.” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Terror Yuks “Forget fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. Apparently we don’t need to fight them over here, either. At least I think that’s what this ridiculous bit of dog vomit of a post is trying to say. Wonkette thinks these six guys wanted to take over an Army base. Wonkette needs new specs. The plot was to kill as many U.S. soldiers as possible.” (READ MORE)
McQ: Jim Crow by any other name is still Jim Crow “J.R. Labbe gets it right: ‘A life is a life is a life —- one is not worth any more or any less than another.’ What is being proposed in this legislation is to punish alleged thoughts against, as Labbe points out, a ‘protected class’ of citizens. The same sort of ‘crimes’ with which minorities such as blacks were punished in the days of Jim Crow, if, for instance, they were to look at a white woman. They also received more severe punishment for common crimes committed by both races simply because they were black.” (READ MORE)
Kim Zigfeld: Russia Foments Genocide in Darfor “That's a photograph of Russian Mi-24 attack helicopter on the tarmac in Darfur, Sudan. What's it doing there, you ask? Didn't the United Nations enact an arms embargo on the Khartoum regime as a way of trying to stop the horrendous genocide occurring in the country? Sure they did! It was July 2004, almost three years ago. And now Amnesty International says that Russia and its partner in slime China have both run the embargo to supply millions of dollars in weaponry now being used to slaughter innocent people and eradicate democracy in this troubled nation. Read Amnesty's full report here. According to Amnesty:” (READ MORE)
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