November 8, 2007

Web Reconnaissance for 11/08/2007

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)
How Blackwater Sniper Fire Felled 3 Iraqi Guards - BAGHDAD -- Last Feb. 7, a sniper employed by Blackwater USA, the private security company, opened fire from the roof of the Iraqi Justice Ministry. The bullet tore through the head of a 23-year-old guard for the state-funded Iraqi Media Network... (READ MORE)

For Candidates, Web Is Power And Poison - Candidates use the Internet to generate buzz, draw grass-roots support and raise record amounts of money. But in the intense, round-the-clock world of online presidential campaigning, the good comes with the bad. (READ MORE)

Bhutto Urges Protest Against Musharraf - ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 7 -- Following four days of relatively tepid statements, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Wednesday issued a rousing call to action against President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule, setting up a possible direct confrontation between two titans... (READ MORE)

Bill Calls for Contractors To Exit Iraq - An Illinois congresswoman yesterday proposed the rapid withdrawal of hundreds of armed security contractors who provide protective services for the State Department in Iraq. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D) introduced legislation that she said would call for the phasing out of some 800 armed contractors... (READ MORE)

Schip Wreck - Oregon voters passed judgment Tuesday on a plan that would have made their state children's health insurance program "universal." Sound familiar? It should, because Oregon reproduced the current Schip fracas in D.C. on the state level--and the referendum took a major shellacking, with voters siding three to two against. Oregon's expansion was almost identical to the one backed by Congressional Democrats, so let's conduct a post-mortem, which may also be a portent. (READ MORE)

Bush Admonishes Musharraf - President Bush yesterday spoke with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for the first time since Saturday's declaration of emergency rule, telling the army general to hold free elections by January and resign his military post. (READ MORE)

Pakistan's Moves May Aid Militants - President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule has so alienated Pakistan's moderate middle class that many analysts fear he has created a power vacuum that will allow militant Islamists to flourish. (READ MORE)

Christian Right Scatters Support in GOP - Christian conservative leaders, unable to coalesce around a single candidate, instead are spreading their blessings among several Republican presidential hopefuls — and drying up talk of a third-party "Christian values" ticket. (READ MORE)

Edwards, Obama Unite Against Hillary - "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" may be the new campaign motto for the two Democratic presidential hopefuls simultaneously working to topple Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. (READ MORE)

Interfaith Peace Plan Touted - The most senior religious leaders from Israel and the Palestinian territories announced details yesterday of a Middle East peace initiative that emphasizes the importance of religion in resolving the conflict. (READ MORE)


From the Front:
A Battlefield Tourist: Video Assessement of Iraq - There’s a lot of talk about Iraq in regards to “a new strategy” and “changing course”. After spending much of September trudging across the southern fringe of Baghdad, and into Baghdad itself, I am filing a report that shows there is change underway. (READ MORE)

Fightin' 6th Marine's: The old new way of conducting counterinsurgency - We recently spent a few days with Marines with third platoon, Lima Company, 3rd Bn., 5th Marine Regiment, in the heart of Fallujah. It's one of the cruel tricks of history that those who are making it don't know they are at the time. The same holds true for these guys. To say that what they're doing is amazing would be to criminally understate the facts. (READ MORE)

IraqPundit: Bad as the Media Want It to Be - Fareed Zakaria says today that "the surge is working -- just not the way it was meant to work." Yes, I know. Petraeus should have used a magic wand. Why must the tiresome media react to news of Iraqi civilians returning home in negative terms? First, we stick news of displaced Iraqis returning home on page A20 of WaPo. A story that says: (READ MORE)

Northern Disclosure: Book Available at Cost - An early Release of my Book, Northern Disclosure, the writing that started it all is now available for a short period of time at cost. Please follow the link before the retail price takes effect! Look to my links on the right and follow the Northern Disclosure. I will also be signing copies by request only but that will have to wait for a couple of weeks till I get back to my tent in the desert. (READ MORE)

Yellowhammering Afghanistan: Losing everything - What if you lost everything? Your home? Your possessions? Everything except the clothes on your back? Afghan refugee women.Now, what if you lost everything in a country as poor as Afghanistan without the resources and wealth of organizations capable of lending a helping hand? This question smacked us in the face this week when we were lead to a Refugee camp near downtown Ghazni. (READ MORE)



On the Web:
Daniel Henninger: A Medal for Miss Lee - The Presidential Medal of Freedom was awarded on Monday to Harper Lee, the author of "To Kill a Mockingbird." "To Kill a Mockingbird"--in part the story of lawyer Atticus Finch's doomed defense of a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in 1930s Alabama--is arguably the most famous book on American civil rights ever written. Publishers Weekly estimates it has sold some 30 million copies. Look it up on Amazon.com and you will find it has about 1,688 "customer reviews." (READ MORE)

Arthur Herman: Saving Civilization From Itself - "Why should we Anglo-Saxons apologize for being superior?" Winston Churchill once growled in exasperation. "We are superior." Certainly Churchill's views of what he and other late Victorians called the "lesser races," such as blacks and East Indians, are very different from ours today. One might easily assume that a self-described reactionary like Churchill, holding such views, shared the anti-Semitism prevalent among Europe's ruling elites before the Holocaust. (READ MORE)

Ken Blackwell: Hillary Is No Maggie - Margaret Thatcher was an unflinching and principled world leader. During an uncertain and dangerous time in history, she stood strong with Ronald Reagan and together they defeated Communism. Hillary Clinton is a two-term New York senator and a former first lady who survived the scandals of her husband’s tumultuous presidency. Whenever challenged or out maneuvered, she typically plays the victim. They are two very different women, indeed. (READ MORE)

Victor Davis Hanson: The Oil Hydra - Oil is nearly $100 a barrel. Gas may soon reach $4 a gallon. And Americans are being bitten in almost every way imaginable by this insidious oil hydra. Two billion people in China and India are now eager consumers. They want the cars, gadgets and lifestyle that Westerners have claimed as a birthright for a half-century. Their growing energy appetites mean that the international petroleum market may remain tight, even if Americans — who use almost twice as much oil per day as China and India put together — cut back on imported energy. (READ MORE)

Emmett Tyrrell: Clarence Thomas' Triumph - A few weeks back, when Clarence Thomas' "My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir" first came out, there was a flurry of commentary on him and the book. From conservatives, there was praise. From liberals, there was a vaguely concealed sense of shock. To them, he seemed so-o-o angry. Wait a minute; I thought they admired anger. Think of their approbation of the "Angry Left." Now the hubbub surrounding Thomas' book has quieted down. In fact, the book is hardly mentioned. This is typical of the circumstances today surrounding the publication of books. (READ MORE)

Suzanne Fields: The Cut-Rate Pursuit of Power - The drip, drip, drip of robotic, monotonous answers is finally revealing acute insights, exposing the real beneath the veneer. We're finally getting below the paint to see the real people hidden under the polished political surfaces. Hillary's convoluted answers to simple questions suddenly betrayed her carefully applied cosmetic answers in the early debates, making it harder to keep her (face) powder dry. She's not just a front-runner and a woman, but half of a power couple who may finally be required to pay for the excess baggage, both his and hers. (READ MORE)

William Rusher: The Republican Scramble - Recently, it has seemed that Hillary Clinton has the Democratic presidential nomination all sewed up. But now a few observers are beginning to question that, pointing to her recent evasive answers on various policy questions (e.g. keeping combat troops in Iraq, driver's licenses for illegal immigrants). But the polls haven't (at least not yet) reflected much concern among likely Democratic primary voters, who continue to support Clinton over Barack Obama and John Edwards by impressive margins... (READ MORE)

Ann Coulter: McCarthyism: The Rosetta Stone of Liberal Lies - When I wrote a ferocious defense of Sen. Joe McCarthy in Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, liberals chose not to argue with me. Instead they posted a scrolling series of reasons not to read my book, such as that I wear short skirts, date boys, and that Treason was not a scholarly tome. After printing rabidly venomous accounts of McCarthy for half a century based on zero research, liberals would only accept research presenting an alternative view of McCarthy that included, as the Los Angeles Times put it, at least the "pretense of scholarly throat-clearing and objectivity." (READ MORE)

George Will: Making American Gangsters More American - "American Gangster" opened last weekend and many of those who bought tickets -- $43.6 million worth from Friday through Sunday -- surely came away feeling as Mark Twain did when he said his memory was so powerful he could remember things that never even happened. Many moviegoers must have thought: I remember seeing this brand new movie before. They did. Its emulations of "The Godfather" are obviously intended to be obvious. But these genuflections to the archetype make "American Gangster" more, not less, interesting as a symptom of something permanent in the American mind... (READ MORE)

Larry Elder: Government: If It Ain't Broke, They'll Break It - The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the bureaucrats. A few months ago, I met a contractor in a bar. He told me about his business, and I asked him how many people he employed. He said, "Forty-nine. If I have one more, then the federal Family Medical Leave Act and the California Family Rights Act kick in. Then if somebody goes out, I have to hold his job open for months, whether I can afford to keep him or not. That's bull----." So here we are. A man that wants to hire more people refuses to do so, because an additional hiree takes a hammer to his profit margins. (READ MORE)

John McCaslin: Legion of Honor - French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid a brief sentimental stop yesterday afternoon at the French ambassador's residence in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington to pin the Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur, his nation's highest decoration, on the chests of seven American soldiers from World War II, to whom he delivered "the gratitude of a grateful nation." "If there is peace today in Europe," he said, "it is because of you." (READ MORE)

Meryl Yourish: The Gaza operation: Hamas is waiting - Hamas has been training with Iranians, and the battle of Gaza is going to be difficult, dangerous, and bloody. “Reserve-duty paratroopers who completed a month of duty in the Gaza Strip last week say that facing militant groups such as Hamas was like taking part in a ‘mini-war.’ During the patrol company’s operations deep in Palestinian territory, four Hamas militants and one Israel Defense Forces soldier, Sergeant-Major (Res.) Ehud Efrati, were killed. ‘The people we killed weren’t terrorists, they were soldiers,’ an officer in the company told Haaretz.” (READ MORE)

Jonathan Adler: Classification Pathologies - Majid Khan is a CIA detainee. In meetings with his attorneys, Khan has apparently made allegations concerning his treatment during his detention. Yet such information, even as detailed by Khan himself, is presumptively classified, and his attorneys are apparently barred from relating Khan's claims to Congress. Marty Lederman finds this "absurd," and I am inclined to agree. As Lederman asks, "Even if the classification [of the techniques] were itself valid, can it really be the case that the persons against whom the CIA employed its methods may be prevented from disclosing such historical facts to the public?" I can see an argument for barring Khan's attorneys from disclosing information that might reveal classified operational details (e.g. how Khan was identified and captured) or sensitive intelligence information (e.g. what Khan told the CIA or learned the CIA knows). (READ MORE)

Wolf Pangloss: On Fabius Maximus’ warning concerning the Long War - Fabius Maximus asked me to respond to his Long War series. I’m responding in a hit-and-run fashion, picking out what I see as key themes in the article(s) as I read them and trying to respond in the most unaffected way in which I am capable. Why choose war? I sympathize with Fabius Maximus when he introduces America takes another step towards the “Long War”: Part I. “The flood of information and commentary available today can obscure events of the greatest significance. We see that today, as America takes another step towards the long war. Without thought or reflection, without debate by our elected officials, without our consent. In many ways just like the Cold War.” I would counter with the observation that a country can find itself in a war without choosing it if another country (or non-governmental organization, for this is the age of 4GW) thrusts war upon it. (READ MORE)

The Tygrrrr Express: Defending the Dog - After watching Sean Hannity interview Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman, I can only say that I personally am willing to forgive the Dog. The controversy surrounding the Dog’s use of the n-word is not as ebony and ivory as it is made out to be. Before delving into complex racial issues because it’s my blog and I can, we all need to lighten up. No, I did not advocate black people going the Michael Jackson route. It’s an expression. Is Dog just the fall guy? No, that would be a different bounty hunter played by Lee Majors in the 1980s. I bet you all now have the theme to that show stuck in your head. (READ MORE)

GBear: Someone FINALLY popped the question - It finally happened! I was just sitting at a table at a very military supportive event and someone popped the question! Now, you may think that, having been married for 15 years - the question should have been popped long before now - but sometimes it takes a while for the question to come up! "I feel so sorry for you, being married into that lifestyle (THAT, I presumed was the military)! Don't you just hate it?" Don't I just hate it? It took me a few minutes to get my jaw off the floor and regain my equilibrium. Hate it? Don't I just hate being military? So, I gave the answer I've been practicing in my head for the past 15 years... Hate it? How could I hate it? Both my husband and I are proud to be doing something so tangible for the country's security. (READ MORE)

Sister Toldjah: Weather Channel founder says myth about ‘man-made’ global warming is the “greatest scam” of all time - I just read this very interesting piece about Weather Channel founder John Coleman (who is now the meteorologist for KUSI in San Diego), and his belief that global warming is the “greatest scam in history.” Here’s a preview: "It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus." (READ MORE)

Right Truth: Pick an I.D. that most resembles you, and wear it. - At O’Hare International Airport 24 workers were arrested for country illegally and using phony security badges for jobs on the tarmac, cargo areas and other restricted zones. Ideal Staffing Solutions Inc. is the company responsible for hiring the illegals, pointing them to a box of identification badges and saying, "pick one that looks most like you and wear it." Workers were never fingerprinted. They were sent to work in sensitive security areas of the airport. Thankfully this has been discovered and shut down, but what were these people thinking? (Thanks to National Terror Alert) (READ MORE)

John Hawkins: Illegal Aliens Should Not Be Allowed To Attend School In The United States - In a rather bizarre turn of events, the Tucson Police Department will no longer send the border patrol to pick up illegal aliens at local schools because of a small protest by 100 students: The Tucson Police Department will no longer call the Border Patrol to schools or churches when officers determine that suspects in their investigations are illegal immigrants. (READ MORE)

Kim Zigfeld: Georgia, Burning - In March, we reported on how Russia was seeking to destabilize Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia. In fact, Georgia accused Russia of going even further, seeking to directly foment a coup d'etat against its elected government. After Georgia arrested and expelled the alleged conspirators, Russia launched a massive set of economic sanctions and racist pogroms against Georgians living in Russia. When Georgia shrugged off the sanctions, Russians became desperate. In August, we told you how Russia had been caught red handed escalating the conflict by making incursions into the territory of Georgia proper. These military incursions clearly have the purpose of disqualifying Georgia for NATO membership (as an unstable state). (READ MORE)

Paul Mirengoff: Faint echoes - David Ignatius finds echoes of Iran in Pakistan. The analogy casts president Musharraf as the Shah, and wonders in hindsight whether we should have pressed the Shah to reform and switched horses if he wouldn't agree, or whether we should have encouraged him to crack down harder against protesters? The answer depends, I think, on the time frame. In 1967, the first option might have made sense. But in 1977, it seems clear that we should have supported the crackdown option because by that time the movement for change had already been captured by extremists, and there was no viable middle option. (READ MORE)

Dan Collins: Dept. of State Writes More US Foreign Policy - Well, maybe it will free up a few of them to go to Iraq: “The former director of President Bush’s flagship democracy program for the Middle East is saying that the State Department has ‘effectively killed’ a program to disburse millions of dollars to Iran’s liberal opposition. In an interview yesterday, Scott Carpenter said a recent decision to move the $75 million annual aid program for Iranian democrats to the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs would effectively neuter an initiative the president had intended to spur democracy inside the Islamic Republic.’” (READ MORE)

WLS: The Matter of Dolpermann and the Infamous Levin Footnote - Ok — after watching the full video video of Jan Crawford Greenberg’s report from ABC News last Friday, I think I know now what the issue is concerning the footnote Levin placed in the new Torture Memo, and Greenberg’s comments abpout Levin telling the WH that waterboarding would not be torture if done according to certain limitations and guidelines — comments that Dolpermann blatantly mischaracterized. As Jack Goldsmith makes clear in his book, The Terror Presidency, there are actually three Office of Legal Counsel memos on torture and coercive interrogation techniques which were the subject of his review during the 8 months he was Assistant AG for OLC. The first is the famous Aug. 2002 “Torture Memo” drafted by John Yoo (but signed by Jay Bybee, the Assistant AG for OLC at the time). (READ MORE)

Political Vindication: Popular Saudi Religious Scholar Slams Osama Bin Laden - Many of us on the right have lamented the lack of moderate Muslims standing up against the extremism that has “hijacked” their religion. It is a constant frustration that the streets can fill with those outraged by cartoons of Muhammed or rumors about toilet dipped Qurans, but when Muslims are murdered en masse by their own; silence. Is it fear? Is it a passive collusion? Unless America wants to be donating the blood of our young and the treasure of our people to the Middle East doe decades as the world tries to wrestle to the ground the snake of extremist Islam, we need to support those in the Islamic faith who suffer the stain of Al Qaeda on their religion. (READ MORE)

Physics Geek: Some common sense on a touchy subject - Despite the caterwauling from the usual suspects (you don't seriously expect me to link to those douchebags, do you?), I've never favored torture. And though Abu Ghraib provided those yammering nincompoops proof that "the US is just as bad as Saddam, mayb even worse!"™, it remains an isolated incident. Since the military resembles our country in a microcosm, it's no surprise that the occasional evil person manages to slime their way into the armed forces. The fact that no such event has occurred since would lead you to believe that this was, in fact, the reprehensible actions of some people who would probably be pulling the wings off of flies if they hadn't joined the military first. Hopefully, being in the service will give that minority what they sorely lack: a moral center. (READ MORE)

MountainRunner: The Fraying of State - The freak out by some FSOs at State is impressive and less than an indictment of the corps than most make it out to be. True, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is trying to fill only 48 posts, but releasing the announcement Friday night like a bit of bad news is no way to treat trusted and valued employees and patriots and a good way to rile the entire Department. But this bad form is not entirely surprising given her leadership over the last several years at Foggy Bottom, or in the years before as National Security Advisor. Her Cold War thinking is out of touch with the requirements of the post-Cold War world. (READ MORE)

Bill Roggio: Taliban continue march under Musharraf's state of emergency - President Pervez Musharraf's state of emergency five days ago has done little to curb the Taliban's march in the Northwest Frontier Province. As the security forces continue to arrest opposition leader and work to curb protests in the major cities, The Taliban have taken control of two more major towns in the settled district of Swat, while attacks continue elsewhere in the Northwest Frontier Province. On November 6, the Taliban overran police stations in and around the town of Matta in Swat. "About two dozen police officers and several troops offered no resistance to militants who seized three police stations and a military post," the Associated Press reported. (READ MORE)

Quid Nimis: God is Great: A New Metric - I was very cheered to find this editorial in the Wall Street Journal. Mary O'Grady won me over a couple of years ago when she first wrote about Oscar Biscet. In one of the few cases of Quid censorship, a commenter on that post said that high abortion rates (and Cuba has the highest rate in the world) are a sign of civilizational advancement. He cited feminist "thought" for that opinion. I had to delete the entry, adding a superfluous warning to those who wish to use my blog to advance such ideas. In short succession, I then read this piece by Dinesh D'Souza and this one by Theodore Dalrymple. There are many other articles and books now being churned out on the subject of God, or the absence of Him, as Dalrymple notes. What strikes me is the derivative and deeply hypocritical nature of the atheistic argument that a measure of a belief's good is in how few people are inspired to kill for it. (READ MORE)

Amy Proctor: Ron Paul: "The Surge Was An Absolute Failure" - Presidential candidate Ron Paul told Kiran Chetry on CNN this morning the at the surge is "an absolute failure". “CHETRY: You've gotten a lot of support because of your anti-war stance, your belief that we should pull out of Iraq. But how would you do that in practicality and make that work at the point we're in now? PAUL: Well, one thing we know is what we're doing now isn't working. You know, this is our worst year for Americans killed in Iraq. So the surge was an absolute failure, and now, we're no closer to a peaceful country.” (READ MORE)

Heading Right: Rumblings On Ronulus - Our patron Ed noted yesterday that Ron Paul (aka the love child of Howard Dean and Robert Taft) vaccumed up over four million smackers in campaign contributions on Monday alone. This, inevitably, draws comparisons with the money machines on the Donk side of the aisle, and also to Mitt Romney, and is supposed, by the ubiquitous conventional wisdom, to indicate that the crazy little troll from the Lone Star State is a force to be reckoned with, and, according to Ed, a voice to be heeded by the GOP if the latter knows what’s good for it. Which goes to show how grievously a political analyst can be misled if he or she gets over-focused on fundraising numbers instead of credible polling and, you know, the beguiling tentacles of mental instability. (READ MORE)

Ian Schwartz: Olbermann Lies About Ex-Justice Official’s Opinion of Waterboarding - Keith Olbermann, a liar? Say what? No way! Yes, way. Here’s Keith’s very special comment from Monday where he called President Bush a criminal. Radar Online spots the lie and fisks Olby: "According to the ABC News report Olbermann cited, Levin did not decide that waterboarding by the U.S. is torture; he just thought we were doing it wrong. “Levin, who refused to comment for this story, concluded waterboarding could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way and with close supervision,” wrote ABC News’s Jan Crawford Greenburg and Ariane de Vogue (emphasis added)." (READ MORE)

Bryan Preston: Democrats yank border security from defense spending bill - They can find millions here and there for all kinds of non-defense related pork, but not for actual border security? “Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said Tuesday that Democrats had stripped from a defense spending bill a $3 billion border-security amendment that the Senate passed overwhelmingly last month. Graham said Democrats also attached conditions to the Iraq war funding, leading all Republican senators on a conference committee to refuse to sign the panel’s report.” (READ MORE)

GayPatriotWest - House Passes ENDA, Favors Increase in Scope of Federal Government - I have spent the better part of this afternoon, hesitating to write a post I know I should write. The skies are already dark here in Los Angeles and I’m only beginning to put pen to paper, er fingers to keyboard, to tap out on a post on a issue I really should have addressed long ago. I guess it’s because I know this piece will stir up some controversy. Despite my predilection for speaking my mind, there are times when I would just rather not stir the pot. It’s days like these when I understand why Log Cabin leaders oftentimes seem to emulate a Hollywood star who delights in being liked. (READ MORE)

Gunslinger's Journal: The Evil Elf Hits the Trip-Wire - Sure you're aware of the latest bruhaha over impeachment. Dennis Kucinich has been trying to get a resolution to impeach Vice President Cheney passed in Congress. Nancy and Harry know this is a big time-waster, and embarrassment, very bad craziness for an election period, and have tried to shut it down. In a vote yesterday ( I think), to table the resolution...which means to kill it, more or less...was expected to pass without a problem. With Republicans voting for it...and the Nancy/Harry Dem loyals voting for it, it should have been a slam dunk. But at the last minute, the Republicans changed their votes, and the resolution was NOT tabled, which opens the door to a full debate in the House, and an official Congressional vote on whether to impeach Cheney. (READ MORE)

Don Surber: Homeless vets scare - 99.4% of us have homes AP had good news for Americans, bad news for the bureaucracy, when the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported homelessness fell 12% in 2006 from 2005. The number of those homeless on any given night is less than a million. Reported AP: “The number of people in the United States who are chronically homeless dropped by nearly 12 percent from 2005 to 2006, according to government estimates being released Wednesday.” (READ MORE)

Sharon Weinberger: Anthropology Ass'n Blasts Army's "Human Terrain" - The executive board of the American Anthropology Association (AAA) has officially expressed "its disapproval of the [Human Terrain System] HTS program," a military effort that embeds social scientists in the military. The decision to condemn HTS cannot stop academics from signing on, but it will undoubtedly make it harder for the military to recruit qualified anthropologists to the program, and likely will escalate an already heated war of words between supporters and critics of the work. Here are some of the issues raised by the AAA: (READ MORE)

Andrew Cochran: FBI's New Friends Were Kicked Out of UAE For "Talibanization" - As a follow-up to Steve Emerson's post about the FBI's meeting with Tanzeem-e-Islami, I want to suggest to the FBI that they use a website named "Google" to comprehensively search the groups and individuals with which they are planning to meet. If they had done that search well, they would have found that the UAE government kicked Ahmad's supporters out of the country back in May, fearing "the spread of Talibanization." Excerpts from a story: “ISLAMABAD: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deported dozens of the disciples of noted scholar Dr Israr Ahmad for holding Dars-e-Qur’aan sessions in Dubai, fearing the spread of Talibanisation in the country.” (READ MORE)

Ed Morrissey: AQI Just A Baghdad Memory - The New York Times reports that US forces have "routed" al-Qaeda in Iraq from the Baghdad region. General David Petraeus' new strategies have pushed them out of "every neighborhood", and that only an eighth of the city remains to purge the other militias from control. The new, aggressive tactics of the Americans and the rise of the Iraqi Army have solidified the victory over the terrorists (via Memeorandum): “American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the ‘surge’ to depart as planned. Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of United States forces in Baghdad, also said that American troops had yet to clear some 13 percent of the city, including Sadr City and several other areas controlled by Shiite militias. But, he said, ‘there’s just no question’ that violence had declined since a spike in June.” (READ MORE)

The Captain's Journal: Western Anbar Versus the Shi’a South: Pictures of Contrast - Much discussion has ensued on Eastern Anbar in and around Fallujah, but RCT-2 is seeing steady improvement in Western Anbar Province. “Marines have seen a 75 percent plunge in ‘enemy incidents’ since the beginning of the year, Regimental Combat Team 2 commander Col. Stacy Clardy said Monday. RCT-2’s area of operations in western Iraq, which encompasses 30,000 square miles of Anbar province, was once considered some of the toughest ground in the battle-torn country. But since January, Marines have tracked the return of urban activities, such as open markets, banks and municipal governments, the commander told reporters via teleconference from Iraq.” (READ MORE)

Blonde Sagacity: CAIR Can Not Be Allowed to Control American Speech - CAIR's (Council of American Islamic Relations)last three "action alerts" all concern radio talk show host Michael Savage and a push to get him taken off the air. Whether you love Savage or hate him, this can not go unnoticed. This group with blatant and documented terror ties can not cloak the blatant goal to squash free speech. There main problem with Savage? This rant: "'I'm not gonna put my wife in a hijab. And I'm not gonna put my daughter in a burqa. And I'm not gettin on my all-fours and braying to Mecca. And you could drop dead if you don't like it. You can shove it up your pipe. I don't wanna hear anymore about Islam. I don't wanna hear one more word about Islam. Take your religion and shove it up your behind. I'm sick of you.'" (READ MORE)

Grim @ Blackfive: Sharp Drop in Airstrikes in Iraq - Some months ago, before the Surge brigades were in place, I had a lengthy discussion by email with a left-leaning thinker on this question: how could we measure the success of the Surge? We had several ideas about things we would like to see in order to say that the Surge was (or was not) working. The discussion isn't free for me to reproduce here, but we thought of many of the same measures under debate in the media now: death rates for Iraqi civilians, number of attacks, and so forth. (READ MORE)

Dafydd: David Samuels Speaks Out - David Samuels has done us the kindness of responding with a comment to our most recent post on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and what she did or did not say to someone who raced to pass it along to Aluf Benn for condemnation. Our two recent posts on this topic were: "Time to Fisk - er - Power Line?" and "Some Respect for the Lady" Given Mr. Samuels' respected position in the journalistic community -- and the relatively obscure state of things here at Big Lizards -- we are of course rather flattered. Despite my rather colossal ego and preening narcissism, I attribute his response to a desire to set the record straight, as he sees it, about what he said, rather than concluding that he is a regular Big Lizards reader. But surely his dogged defense of his column deserves an equally thoughtful response; and it's a good excuse for another post, anyway. As Samuels offered his response as a public comment (under the handle "DS"), I feel free to quote big chunks of it in this post, for ready reference. (READ MORE)

Augean Stables: The PCP Myths of the West at War - The following article appeared in The American Legion Magazine. The author, Ralph Peters, gets at the heart of the issue — myths circulated by our media and politicians weaken our ability to wage war on Jihadi terrorists. This is done by a number of methods. There is defeatism (”Victory is impossible”, “Insurgencies can never be defeated”), belief that war is always to be avoided (”Only negotiations can solve our problems”, “When we fight back, we only provoke our enemies”), and that classic PCP characteristic, Western self-criticism (”Our invasion of Iraq caused our terrorist problems”, “It’s all Israel’s fault”). An understanding of the history of America’s involvement in the world, especially in the last century, does a great deal to dispel these harmful myths that are all too common in our society. (READ MORE)

The Belmont Club: Georgia on My Mind - The Daily Telegraph reports that Georgia, which lies between the Black Sea and Russia, has declared a state of emergency on the grounds that Russia is trying to take over the country. The immediate question is whether the state of emergency -- the second in as many weeks in a key allied country in the War on Terror -- is a power play by Mikhail Saakashvili or a genuine response to Russian subversion. So far official American sources have been noncomittal on which of the two cases obtains. The Washington Post reports that the State Department has not taken a definite stand on whether Russia is in fact threatening Georgia. (READ MORE)

A Soldier's Mind: A Salute To Our Veterans - As we get closer and closer to November 11th … Veteran’s Day, I’ve been thinking a lot about the things in my life that are made possible by the Veterans of our nations armed forces. The sacrifices made by the men and women who have go gallantly served our nation in the past and those who continue to do so today. Our nation’s entire history is rich with stories of things that our veterans and troops have done to win and maintain the freedoms that so very many of us in the United States seem to take for granted. Freedom, the word has a special ring to it, doesn’t it? How many times, do you really think about that word and what it means in this country, heck in this world? How many times do you stop and think about how it is, that we are able to be free? (READ MORE)

Legalbgl: Pakistan to Hold Elections - Musharraf has a problem in his own backyard. As Lawhawk has been detailing for sometime, Musharraf faces opposition from the terrorists his country harbors, the military who want his power, the people who don't want a military dictatorship, and the international community that he is trying to appease. Pakistani elections have a significant impact on the United States and the War on Terror. Pakistan is an alleged ally in the region. Pakistan also has the bomb, and the knowledge to make more. (READ MORE)

McQ: The future and the welfare state - A week or so ago, I stated: “We read that polls are telling the Democrats that the mood of the people has swung toward being receptive to more and bigger government. Some argue it’s a cyclic phenomenon in which the country accepts and then rejects big government. Yet the rejection phase never seems to lead to smaller or less intrusive government. At best it seems it is simply a moratorium on expansion until the next growth cycle comes along.” Billy Hollis expanded on that thought here. And today, in the WSJ, William Voegeli points out that while conservatism has talked the talk about smaller government, in reality, it has never walked the walk despite the fact that Republicans occupied the White House for 18 of 26 years after 1980 not to mention the "Republican Revolution" of 1994 in the House. Result? Not much: (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.

Trackbacked / Linked by:
Economy booming … so why are the markets so conflicted? from Pros and Cons

No comments: