Web Reconnaissance for 06/25/2007

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.


In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
The Unseen Path to Cruelty - Shortly after the first accused terrorists reached the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Jan. 11, 2002, a delegation from the CIA arrived in the Situation Room. The agency presented a delicate problem to White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, a man with next to no experience on the... (READ MORE)

Israelis, Arabs Meeting to Shore Up Abbas - Israel and its Arab neighbors readied for a summit Monday to explore restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in an attempt to shore up the emergency government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. (READ MORE)

'Chemical Ali' Sentenced to Hang for Genocide of Kurds - Three senior aides to Saddam Hussein were found guilty on Sunday of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Iraqi High Tribunal and sentenced to death by hanging for their roles in the slaughter of as many as 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq in the late 1980s. (READ MORE)

Illegal Immigrants Targeted By States - Frustrated with Congress's inability to pass an immigration overhaul bill, state legislatures are considering or enacting a record number of strongly worded proposals targeting illegal immigrants. (READ MORE)

Iraq Assault Kills 90 Linked to Al Qaeda - U.S. and Iraqi forces have killed 90 al Qaeda fighters across Baghdad in the past five days during one of the biggest combined offensives against the Sunni Islamist group since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, U.S. officials said yesterday. (READ MORE)

'Chemical Ali' To Hang for Killing Kurds - Saddam Hussein's cousin, known as "Chemical Ali," and two other regime officials were sentenced yesterday to hang for slaughtering up to 180,000 Kurdish men, women and children with chemical weapons, artillery barrages and mass executions two decades ago. (READ MORE)

Full Access for Mexican Trucks Hits Rough Road - A Bush administration plan to proceed with a pilot program to give Mexican truckers full access of U.S. roads has caused a bipartisan uproar on Capitol Hill. (READ MORE)

Construction of Mosque Ignites German Hostility - The construction of one of Europe's biggest mosques near a globally famous Christian landmark has sparked a furious dispute in Germany. (READ MORE)


From the Front:
The Iceblog: The Villagers Visit Us “I had a bit of a surprise today. Some bears came by and asked to see me! Fortunately we were able to get them onto the base for a meeting with relatively little trouble. The gate guards searched them, of course, but since bears don’t wear clothes it was easy for the guards to see that our visitors were not concealing any weapons. I met them in the Animal Squad area. It turned out that the visitors were the sheikh and two of his brothers. I invited them in. Unfortunately I didn’t have any pillows that were the right size for them to lean on, so they had to make do with what was available:” (READ MORE)

Calvey in Iraq: Back again “Greetings from Baghdad! Getting back to some sense of normalcy here after changing jobs. I had an extremely steep learning curve, and still have a ways to go, but I am getting back to working only 12 hours a day. That leaves me time to sleep, attend Mass, work out, eat, shower, call my wife, answer my emails, and (I hope)occasionally blog. While I was gone....” (READ MORE)

Badger 6: Ten Feet Tall “Time magazine published this article last week. If you choose to read it you will be very depressed by the end of it. I don't want to quote it a length, because I don't want to give it any more traction than it already has, not that a link from a small blog like this will be big deal, nonetheless I don't like the idea. At the beginning of the article the author interviews a person who builds the items my Soldiers hunt and which kills most service members that die from combat action in Iraq. The interviewee makes a number of claims that are unsubstantiated, yet the writer takes them at face value.” (READ MORE)

Jack Army: Call Me “Thanks to all who linked, tracked-back, commented and read my previous post about the VBIED. It'll be something I remember forever. Even three days later it still dominates my thoughts, is compared to just about everything, and makes me wonder about the possibilities, coincidences, circumstances and just sheer luck. We had a patrol go through that area today and when they came back they were amazed that none of us where hurt. The damage and devastation to the mayor's compound was just awesome and defies logic as to why more people weren't killed and injured.” (READ MORE)

Richard's Deployment to Afghanistan: Week 22--Progress Continues “Progress contines here at FOB Salerno. A long, hot summer continues, but so does progress. We got some good press last week. BBC news was here in Afghanistan reporting on the progress of the war. They did a story on the mother and baby we treated recently after she was shot in the abdomen. It's a very good story and it was also picked up by ABC News (and maybe some others I'm not aware of yet).” (READ MORE)

Northern Disclosure: Remember those old Legionnaire Films? “After months of training and anticipation, Bad Voo Doo and I have made it to our destination. Yesterday after a quick range shoot we finished our trip to our home away from home. Some of us have been here on this camp before and kind of new what to expect but for the most part we are all curious about the place we are going to hang our hats.” (READ MORE)

Matt Sanchez: The Surge Progresses “I caught this editorial from the NY Post. Unfortunately no one signed their name to it, but the summary of the current situation in Al Anbar is similar to what I saw in the area the press no longer calls the ‘Sunni Triangle’. Not to be confused with the ‘Triangle of Death’, a neighborhood in Baghdad.” (READ MORE)

Lt Col P @ OPFOR: Mike Sears Reports from Anbar “CWO4 Mike Sears has written to me with some selected comments on a recent trip he took to visit some units in and around Ramadi. Much of the news lately has centered, and rightfully so, on Bakubah and Diyala, but Iron Mike has some continuing good news from Anbar. ‘Last week I spent time with the Marines of 2nd Bn 5th Marines and 5th ANGLICO in the city of Ramadi. It was a great week of getting out to the tip of the spear... I was given the opportunity to head out into downtown Ramadi which only months ago was still the wild west with heavy insurgent action and Marines in contact virtually everyday. Today under the command of 2/5 and with added Marines from the “surge” effort, Ramadi is a different place.’” (READ MORE)

Michael Yon: Drilling for Justice "On 19 June American forces sealed off Baqubah and began attacking targets within the city. The immediate goal of Arrowhead Ripper was to free Baqubah of al Qaeda, by trapping and killing its members, but according to American officers here, public remarks by senior military officials may have flushed many AQI leaders before the attack. Despite this frustrating and significant setback, progress toward the end-state goal of Arrowhead Ripper—turning over Baqubah to Iraqi government control—appears to be working, at least in terms of the removal of the current AQI leadership and its quasi-government." (READ MORE)


On the Web:
Suzanne Fields: "V" Is Not for Victory “Scratch a liberal and you may find a Hillary hater. A lot of men and women on the left can't stand her. The attitude of these women is both visceral and intellectual. They despise her pretense of being a ‘feminist’ because she so compromised herself in her relationship with Bill. More important, they can't bear her tortuous explanations of why she voted to go to war in Iraq.” (READ MORE)

Donald Lambro: A worsening economy? No way “Seventy percent of Americans now say the economy is getting worse, a belief contradicted by a growing workforce, increased wages and household wealth, and a stock-market rally that has boosted worker-retirement investments.” (READ MORE)

Star Parker: Michael Moore's latest scam “What's the difference between art and propaganda? The artist wants to communicate and share and the propagandist wants to manipulate.” (READ MORE)

La Shawn Barber: State-Sponsored School Prayer and the Constitution “Forty-five years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the reciting of state-sponsored prayers in government schools - a matter that should have been left in the hands of the states - was unconstitutional.” (READ MORE)

Dinesh D'Souza: Deport them, But not Mrs. Jimenez “Let the deportations begin! I've never understood all the nonsense about how we should be sympathetic toward illegals who came here to work and find a better life.” (READ MORE)

Harry R. Jackson, Jr.: Up With Veto Power “Even though President Bush is a lame duck, he still has a huge opportunity to leave a final contribution that will be remembered.” (READ MORE)

Doug Wilson: Mitt Romney's Strength “Recent polls in two crucial primary states--Iowa and New Hampshire--show that Mitt Romney has leapfrogged John McCain and Rudy Giuliani to claim momentum in the race for the Republican nomination for president.” (READ MORE)

Mike S. Adams: Why Johnny’s Sociology Professor Will Die in Obscurity “If one wants to identify steps that can be taken to increase the standing of sociologists - relative to academics that are taken more seriously - one first has to identify what they are doing wrong.” (READ MORE)

Joshua Muravchik: Winds of War “Several conflicts of various intensities are raging in the Middle East. But a bigger war, involving more states--Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, the Palestinian Authority and perhaps the United States and others--is growing more likely every day, beckoned by the sense that America and Israel are in retreat and that radical Islam is ascending.” (READ MORE)

John Fund: Questions of Faith “Does it matter that Mitt Romney is a Mormon? To some extent--but it shouldn't. Since 1960, when John F. Kennedy settled the issue of whether a Catholic could be president, there's been general public agreement a candidate's religion shouldn't matter. But now that proposition is being tested. Republican candidate Mitt Romney is a Mormon, just as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and 14 other members of Congress are. But to some people a Mormon running for president is an issue. Al Sharpton made a rare apology after suggesting Mormons don't believe in God.” (READ MORE)

Charles Grant: The Good Deal “The deal in Brussels on a new treaty this weekend is good news for those who hope the EU can become a more confident and effective contributor to global security. If German Chancellor Angela Merkel had failed to forge a consensus on this ‘reform treaty,’ the EU would have been stuck with acrimonious and introspective arguments over institutions for a prolonged period. Its leaders would have lacked the energy and time to tackle the many pressing external challenges -- such as Russia, the wider European neighborhood, climate change and energy security -- that the Union faces.” (READ MORE) *Reg Req*

Don Surber: CNN to Congress: Disclose, disclose, disclose “Republican Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and 44 other congressmen received praise from Anderson Cooper of CNN for disclosing what earmarks they want for their districts. CNN is pushing for full disclosure. I have the video. And why not disclose? It is our money. And many of the requests are worthy.” (READ MORE)

Bill Roggio: Iraq Report: Arrowhead Ripper and Wider Operations “The Iraq report is back after a week off. Today's report includes: Arrowhead Ripper the hottest operation, next few days crucial; shaping operations in Taji, Mosul; raids against al Qaeda networks focus on operation areas; targeting the Mahdi Army and the Iranian secret cells.” (READ MORE)

Jules Crittenden: “Genocidal Bloodbath” Is Where? “NYT on multiple administration Iraq assessments underway, in competition with the Sept. 15 Petraeus-Crocker assessment…If this article is anything to go by, the assessments are taking place in a vacuum. The words ‘Iran,’ ‘long-term U.S. strategic interests’ and ‘genocidal bloodbath’ do not appear in this article. Hopefully that just is just an oversight by the reporter, and does not reflect the myopia of the people actually conducting the assessments. We already know it reflects the myopia and wishful thinking of our Congressional leadership.” (READ MORE)

DJ Drummond: The Recency Effect, part 2 “On to 1980, and the world changed. Ronald Reagan was why. But first he had to get to the White House. Jimmy Carter certainly did his part to help Reagan get elected, with double-digit inflation, high unemployment at the same time, and a foreign policy that amounted to 'whine and run away'. But even so, Reagan's clear and idealistic vision which put America first, no excuses, found strong resonance with voters. The lesson is obvious; despair never matches up well against Confidence and a plan. For 1984, the Democrats ran the most dismal and depressing candidate they could find for the nomination. The lesson was pretty much the same as in 1980, with the same results.” (READ MORE)

Kim Priestap: Bush Derangement Syndrome Hits a Fevered Pitch “Peter Mehlman, writing at the Huffington Post, is so paranoid about President Bush, the Bush Administration, and the entire Republican Party that he insists that dictators like Hitler and Stalin were actually better because, according to Mehlman, at least they meant well: ‘As much as Republicans loathed Clinton, they had to know he cared about people. Amazing how his "I feel your pain" quality became such a disdainful joke. That sounds like a good quality in a president.’” (READ MORE)

Patterico: The Friendly and Familiar Skeletons in Hillary’s Closet “Hillary Clinton is likely to win the presidency in part because she is largely immune from attack for her past scandals. Put simply, people are tired of hearing about all the terrible and sleazy things she’s done in her life. The topic even bores Hillary:” (READ MORE)

Baron Bodissey: Good-Bye to All That “When King John’s rebellious barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, it wasn’t an act of noble altruism on their part. They were responding shrewdly and decisively to an encroachment on their interests, and strove to hobble the king in order to secure their own privileged positions. The barons had no idea that by acting in their self-interest they were laying the basis for the rule of law and the modern constitutional republic. The English parliament, jury trials, and the Common Law gradually evolved out of the various forms of the Magna Carta hammered out in the 13th century.” (READ MORE)

The Tygrrrr Express: The Collapse of the Jayson Blair Times, Palestinian Style “The Jayson Blair (aka New York) Times is on the verge of collapse. It is in free fall. It did not have to be this way. It seems that they followed the Palestinian business model for success. For those wondering what the conflagration in the Gaza Strip has to do with a newspaper being printed in New York, the simplistic answer is…bad decisions. What makes it worse is that these were bad avoidable decisions.” (READ MORE)

TigerHawk: Does Iran understand the game it is playing? “The dovish case for emphasizing negotiation in the West's confrontation with Iran relies on the idea that the mullahs have a history of acting rationally, in the sense that they play the game of brinksmanship fairly well. The reason for that reliance is obvious, because if the other side does not ultimately act rationally you cannot negotiate with it with any assurance that it will respond predictably (this was the basis for the principle case for war against Saddam -- he had a long track record of behaving irrationally). Although I am not exactly a dove with regard to Iran, I generally believe that Iran acts rationally with regard to its self-interest, even if that self-interest is founded on divine revelation.” (READ MORE)

A Soldier's Mind: Humanitarian Missions Continue In Midst Of Operation Arrowhead Ripper “When our Troops conduct major clearing operations, many in the media focus on the deaths and injuries to our Troops and the civilian population. It’s rare that we see mention of the fact that our troops continue on with humanitarian missions in the midst of these major combat opertions. It’s rare that we see photos of our Troops interacting with the local populace, providing them with sorely needed supplies, such as food or water. But despite the medias lack of coverage of these type of events, our Troops continue to provide this aid. Another example of that, occurred in Baqubah on Saturday.” (READ MORE)

Atlas Shrugs: Iran: "Ferocious" Crackdown “Kucinich and Paul vote with this terror regime. The American left sides with the terror regime. The EU backs this terror regime. Russia and China arm this terror regime. America is alone (so was Columbus). Our biggest problem is the enemy within. Supporters of terror regimes and Bush haters ought to live in the countries they support. ‘Young men wearing T-shirts deemed too tight or haircuts seen as too Western have been paraded bleeding through Tehran’s streets by uniformed police officers who force them to suck on plastic jerrycans, a toilet item Iranians use to wash their bottoms (ass crack). In case anyone misses the point, it is the official news agency Fars distributing the pictures of what it calls “riffraff.” Far bloodier photographs are circulating on blogs and on the Internet.’” (READ MORE)

Augean Stables: Demonizing Arabs in the Movies? Exploring Islamophobia “Interesting account of a documentary on the demonization of Arabs in American films. It’s in fact the actions of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination League against True Lies in 1994 that first tipped me off to the problem of demopathy. They could get people to demonstrate against portraying the Arabs as terrorists, but when Arabs behaved as terrorists — for example the Buenos Aires bombing of the Jewish Community Center three days after these demonstrations — brought not a peep. My sense is, that when you insist that we shouldn’t show Arabs as terrorists because it stereotypes them, but you don’t object loudly to Arab terrorists, then you are just throwing sand in our eyes.” (READ MORE)

Ed Morrissey: Chavez Wants A Guerilla War Against The US “Under normal circumstances, Hugo Chavez would get diagnosed as a run-of-the-mill paranoid and treated with proper medication. Unfortunately, as dictator of Venezuela, the paranoia gets combined with oil revenues to produce real problems for the US, neighboring countries, and the Venezuelans themselves. Chavez has begun a spending spree on arms and now threatens to conduct a guerilla war against the US:” (READ MORE)

Big Dog: Feinstein Believes Only Liberals Provide Correct Reporting “Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), war profiteer, was on Fox News Sunday discussing the fairness doctrine. In case you are unfamiliar, the Fairness Doctrine is a bit of legislation that required equal points of view in broadcast. So for every hour Rush Limbaugh discusses Conservative ideas the Liberals get time to present opposing views. Basically, this is legislation that forces Liberal views on people who do not want to hear them. It is only logical to conclude that if people who listened to talk radio wanted to listen to Liberal points of view, the market for Liberal talk radio would be big. Instead, Liberal talk radio performs miserably in nearly every market ala Err Amerika.” (READ MORE)

Confederate Yankee: Damn the Reality, Full Meme Ahead! “Undaunted by the facts, Glenn Greenwald attempts to shore up his demonstrably false claim that, ‘...the enemy is referred to, almost exclusively now, as 'Al Qaeda.' with an update to his already debunked post: ‘Posts from other bloggers who previously noticed this same trend demonstrate how calculated it is and pinpoint its obvious genesis. At Kos, BarbInMD noted back in May that Bush's rhetoric on Iraq had palpably shifted, as he began declaring that "Al-Qaida is public enemy No. 1 in Iraq." The same day, she noted that Bush "mentioned Al-Qaida no less than 27 times" in his Iraq speech. As always, a theme travels unmolested from Bush's mouth into the unexamined premises of our newspapers' front pages.’” (READ MORE)

Crazy Politico: Whiffing On Energy “The Senate passed their ‘energy bill’ this week, which does little to ween us off of foreign oil and gas, should increase inflation significantly, and will limit consumer choice. Of course it also has them all slapping each other on the back for a job well done. The bill passed in the Senate raises fuel efficiency standards for all cars, light trucks, and SUV's to a ‘fleetwide average’ of 35 mpg by 2020. The (formerly Big) three domestic automakers fought this one, and rightfully so on one count, putting trucks in the same category as cars. The idea of actually raising the standards isn't a bad one. The US producers have lagged the rest of the world for 3 decades on fuel economy.” (READ MORE)

MountainRunner: When It Comes to The Battle of Ideas, The U.S. Has No General “A smart title for an intelligent article by Stew Magnuson in the July 2007 issue of National Defense. Adding to MountainRunner's ongoing series of ‘What the Hell is Karen Hughes Doing?’, yet another defense source criticizing American public diplomacy over the last several years. It seems the really serious commentary now comes from the defense sector. I don't know if that's because the ‘softer’ side has given up or because America's at the mall when the Marines are at war.” (READ MORE)

Kobayashi Maru: A Righteous Democratic Mandate “Earlier this week, buried deep in an article which itself was buried deep in the NYT--and over a week after the poll from which it emmanated--it was mumbled quietly that confidence in the current Congress had slipped to 23%. That's the lowest since the mid-70's oil embargo when such things began to be measured systematically. Hang on. It gets better.” (READ MORE)

Neptunus Lex: It’s come to this “Michelle Malkin did that MM thing today, posting a series of photos and YouTube videos demonstrating the depth of the depravity sponsored by the government of Iran against its own people. Horrible stuff, completely indefensible but not really surprising to anyone who’s been paying attention at home. But then she went a bit further - she challenged the press to show some outrage, asked the ‘left’ to make denunciations and - this was the truly despicable part - waved the bloody bed sheet of Abu Ghraib.” (READ MORE)

Pros and Cons: On the cost of pulling out, citing the predictions of that pomous, posing ponce from Massachusetts at the time “Let us ignore, for a moment, what will ahppen regionally and among the Muslim diaspora and among Muslim minorities if we cede the field in Iraq, and focus just on what will happen there, using the relatively rational revolutionaries in Vietnam and how they behaved once we left as a template. ‘In March, Le Quoc Quan returned to his native Vietnam after finishing a fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington. He was promptly arrested and charged with planning to overthrow the government. The charges make sense in the communist country: His fellowship focused on how to peacefully spread democracy. Under pressure from the U.S. he was released on Saturday.’” (READ MORE)

Kim Zigfeld: Sicko Indeed! You Just Can't Trust the New YorkTimes “The New York Times becomes more disturbingly unhinged with every passing day. You would think that the recent change of power in the U.S. Congress, a wet dream for the Times for ages now, would at least help them pause and take a breath, but no such luck. Take, for instance, A. O. Scott's recent review of Michael Moore's latest opus documentary, Sicko. The review begins like this: ‘It has become a journalistic cliche and therefore an inevitable part of the prerelease discussion of "Sicko" to refer to Michael Moore as a controversial, polarizing figure.’” (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.