Leaving this morning to meet Number 1 son at Scout camp, and won't be back until Saturday afternoon, where I'm going there is no cell phone service and especially no internet connections so there will be no posting until July. Ah, solitude...with 20 Boy Scouts....somehow I don't think there will be much quiet time, there never is.
In the meantime, please visit those wonderful blogs on the sidebar to the right, without them The Thunder Run wouldn't exist.
'Til I return....
June 28, 2007
June 27, 2007
Iraqi Army Units Apply "Relentless" Pressure on Insurgents
Here is another example of Iraqi forces that are doing the jobs that many on the left say they won't do, mainly defending their country from terrorist interlopers:
MOSUL, Iraq – Iraqi Army and Coalition Forces detained 25 suspected insurgents in a series of raids in Mosul and Tal Afar on June 26.Quick someone call Harry Reid and let him know that Iraq is not lost especially since these kinds of stories, which occur and are reported upon daily, are routinely ignored by the mainstream media.
Two detainees captured in one raid possessed electronic media of attacks on CF.
Another raid, west of Mosul, uncovered the body of a murdered local civilian. A cache of weapons containing a PKC machine gun, several AK-47s and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition were found and 17 suspected AIF were detained.
In a third raid, northeast of Mosul, six more arrests were made. One of the suspects is on the “most wanted list” for making improvised explosive devices and vehicle attacks. Multiple fake IDs, switches, relays, spools of wire and disassembled cell phones were also seized from the residence.
“We will continue to be relentless in our pursuit of these insurgents whose aim is to injure and kill innocent Iraqis,” said Lt. Col. Michael Boden, deputy commander, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division.
Neighborhood Watch Leads Coalition Forces to Cache
Iraqi residents are informing Coalition Forces more and more of the actions and hiding places of terrorists operating in their neighborhoods leading us to believe that the Iraqi's have finally discovered that to align with the insurgents does them no good. Neighborhood watches are springing up around the al in an effort to keep the terrorists out of their neighborhoods and villages:
I suppose this is the "stepping up" that so many on the left are saying that the Iraqi's aren't willing to do. If only the neighborhood watches here in the States were as effective.
Linked with:
What an incredible load of horse-puckey loaded down with steaming helpings of chutzpah - UPDATED, Tw from Pros and Cons
CAMP TAJI, Iraq — For a second time this week, a large cache consisting of improvised explosive device-making material and mortar rounds was turned over to Coalition Forces by the “Neighborhood Watch” in Taji, Iraq.
The Taji neighborhood watch contacted Coalition Forces June 25, after the driver of a truck fled the scene when the volunteers stopped a suspicious vehicle moving through the rural village of Abd Allah al Jasim. The vehicle contained 24 mortar rounds, two rockets, spare machine gun barrels, small arms ammunition and other IED-making material.
“This grassroots movement of reconciliation by the volunteers is taking off all around us. The tribes that had once actively or passively supported al-Qaeda in Iraq now want them out,” said Lt. Col. Peter Andrysiak, the deputy commander of the 1st “Ironhorse” Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division.
The neighborhood watch is made up of a group of 500 volunteers, from a number of tribes in the area, who want reconciliation with the Coalition Forces and the Iraqi government. The volunteers are currently being vetted for possible future selection for training as Iraqi Police or some other organization within the Iraqi Security Forces.
I suppose this is the "stepping up" that so many on the left are saying that the Iraqi's aren't willing to do. If only the neighborhood watches here in the States were as effective.
Linked with:
What an incredible load of horse-puckey loaded down with steaming helpings of chutzpah - UPDATED, Tw from Pros and Cons
Car Bombs Found; Two Iraqis Rescued From Torture House
US Soldiers saved two Iraqi civilians while discovering two insurgent safe-houses, one of which contained two car bombs, in the West Rashid District of the Iraqi capital on June 25:
Soldiers from Company A, 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment “Black Lions” entered a building the evening of June 25, rescuing a man who was handcuffed to a pipe in a bathroom.
Two suspects were detained for questioning as a result of this raid. The troops had received information from residents that an extremist group was using the house as a base from which to launch a campaign of intimidation in northwest Rashid.
The victim, was treated for his injuries by Coalition Forces and released.
Troops from Company C, 1st Bn., 18th Inf. “Vanguards” also discovered a torture house in southwest Rashid after a patrol spotted a blindfolded man running toward them from an abandoned building. Soldiers searched the area and discovered the car bombs, which were believed to be assembled elsewhere and then moved to that location for future employment.
The area was secured and cordoned off, and a Coalition explosive ordnance disposal team destroyed the car bombs at the site.
After questioning the individual, it was determined that he had been kidnapped and taken to the building where he had been beaten by extremists before they departed the scene, allowing his escape and assistance from the patrol.
1-15 Infantry Takes it to the Enemy
2 Insurgents are killed and seven are detained as troopers disrupt insurgent operations with Operation Bull Run and Operation Blore Heath II:
I suppose that the dirty 2 dozen Republicans in Congress haven't been listening to the briefings otherwise they wouldn't be so ready to abandon Iraq to the enemy. An enemy that is being elliminated everyday by operatins like these.
FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER, Iraq — The 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team completed two simultaneous operations in a 48-hour period in Al Dura’iya June 24. Two insurgents were killed and seven were detained during these operations.
Operation Bull Run and Operation Blore Heath II were conducted with the Iraqi National Police and the Iraqi army. Both operations are a part of Multi-National Division-Center’s Operation Marne Torch, the latest Coalition Force initiative to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries southeast of Baghdad.
Soldiers from 1-15 Inf. neutralized suspected enemy cache sites and denied insurgents safe haven in Al Dura’iaya. The operation resulted in two insurgents being killed and four individuals being detained.
I suppose that the dirty 2 dozen Republicans in Congress haven't been listening to the briefings otherwise they wouldn't be so ready to abandon Iraq to the enemy. An enemy that is being elliminated everyday by operatins like these.
Web Reconnaissance for 06/27/2007
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)
CIA Releases Files On Past Misdeeds - Hundreds of pages of decades-old documents declassified and released by the CIA yesterday revealed a 1970s-era agency in the throes of unaccustomed self-examination, caught between its traditional secrecy and demands that it come clean on a history of unsavory activities. (READ MORE)
GOP Skepticism On Iraq Growing - Key Republican senators, signaling increasing GOP skepticism about President Bush's strategy in Iraq, have called for a reduction in U.S. forces and launched preemptive efforts to counter a much-awaited administration progress report due in September. (READ MORE)
Desperate Villagers Flee Central African Republic - Widespread banditry, kidnapping and political violence in the volatile and virtually lawless northeastern corner of the Central African Republic are forcing thousands of villagers to flee to Chad, where the security situation is possibly more desperate, according to an Amnesty... (READ MORE)
Senate Votes to Revive Illegal-Alien Bill - The Senate voted yesterday to resurrect its immigration bill, overcoming opposition from conservative Republicans and setting up a week of showdown votes on amendments and passage. (READ MORE)
Busch Warns of Local Aid Cuts - House Speaker Michael E. Busch yesterday warned local officials from across Maryland to prepare for less financial support and not to criticize state lawmakers as they struggle with a $1.5 billion budget deficit. (READ MORE)
Border Agent Backers to Protest Prosecutor - More than 1,000 people are expected to rally Saturday outside the offices of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton in San Antonio to demand his termination and protest his "malicious prosecution" of law-enforcement officers who sought to arrest illegal aliens. (READ MORE)
GOP Doubts on War Widen - Ohio Sen. George V. Voinovich yesterday called for a "military disengagement" from Iraq, the second Republican this week to voice doubts about President Bush's troop-surge strategy while simultaneously discrediting Democrats' plans for an abrupt pullout. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Calvey in Iraq: Muslim redneck “Greetings from Baghdad! A quick funny note is all I have time for. Some of the unsung heroes of this war are our Arabic linguists, also called interpreters or terps for short. A few of them were born in America and learned Arabic at an Army language school or in college. But most of them are native Arabic speakers from a multitude of countries. Many, of course, are from Iraq originally. Many have lived in America for years and became American citizens long ago, but never forgot how to speak in their native language. There is one guy that I work with sometimes that jokingly calls himself ‘the Muslim redneck.’” (READ MORE)
Badger 6: Deciphering the Code “Soldiers all over the world mark the places they have been. Go to any US Army post and you will see various signs of unit pride and espirt d'corps. At the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, a mound of rocks is covered in paint, done by different units to remind future visitors of the victories those Soldiers had there. At Camp Buehring, Kuwait, units making the trip north paint their symbols as a show of pride on T-barriers around the post. this is the barrier we painted.” (READ MORE)
MasterGunner: Et Tu, Brute? “It's no secret that, generally speaking, Republicans are more supportive of the military, and of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Very rarely do you read or hear of a Republican "flip flopping" and deciding he or she no longer supports the efforts of US and Coalition Forces to fight and defeat our enemies abroad. Notice I said "rarely". It happens. And sometimes, the staunchest of allies will commit rhetorical fratricide on our efforts.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Dymphna: An Open Letter to President George W. Bush “Dear Mr. President: I write to you with great sadness, the kind of despair that descends on one after hopes have been dashed many times, after repeated betrayals by a leader who said what I wanted to hear, but whose actions have not lived up to his words. You have a chance to redeem yourself with the many millions who voted for you. At 11:30 a.m., when you speak tomorrow at the Washington Islamic Center, you could put all of our hearts at ease if you change the direction and tenor of your communications to Muslims in this country. Sir, you must stand up for our pluralist values.” (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: Clear the Damn Backlogs First “Harry Reid boasts of his compassion for ‘undocumented Americans.’ President Bush wants understanding for ‘newcomers’ without papers. The so-called Grand Bargainers on both sides of the aisle in the Senate are pushing forward this week with their massive plan to ‘regularize’ the unregularized and bring in hundreds of thousands of extra foreign guest workers on top of the ones who are already here or have been waiting for approval for years.” (READ MORE)
Patrick Ruffini: Taking On Chuck Hagel “A few days ago, I had a chance to catch up with Nebraska attorney general Jon Bruning, who recently announced he was challenging Senator Chuck Hagel in the Republican primary. Hagel's positions against the war in Iraq and for the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill have placed him at odds with most conservatives. Read on to see Bruning explain why ‘conservatives need a voice,’ share some of his campaign's internal polling, and talk about his own record, one he says consists of ‘zero maverick moments.’” (READ MORE)
Ken Blackwell: Sicko Guides Liberals’ Health care Agenda “Michael Moore got slammed by Larry King tonight. The outlandish documentarian was bumped from the ‘The Larry King Show’ by none other than an ex-con, Paris Hilton.” (READ MORE)
Bruce Bartlett: Climate History “Many people are worried about global warming today. They fear that the polar ice caps will melt, raising sea levels and creating environmental chaos. Such concerns are not new. The historical record tells us of many warming episodes - and subsequent cooling periods - that have bedeviled humans for thousands of years.” (READ MORE)
Walter E. Williams: Straight Thinking 101 “Just about the most difficult lesson for first-year economics students, and sometimes graduate students, is that economic theory, and for that matter any scientific theory, is positive or non-normative.” (READ MORE)
Paul Weyrich: Unions, Senator Reid - the Right to a Secret Ballot or an Election Issue “Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV) is about to bring a so-called Card Check Bill to the Senate Floor. In short this bill would deprive workers of the right to a secret ballot when determining whether to have union representation at a person's work place.” (READ MORE)
Austin Bay: Palestine's Crooks And Kooks “Pity the Palestinians. Their crooks -- the corrupt Fatah -- and their kooks --Islamist Hamas -- both rule by the gun, not law. They had an election in 1996 where the crooks prevailed. In 2006, the kooks took control of the state-let.” (READ MORE)
Ben Shapiro: The Big Lie About The Great Depression “Ignorance of basic economics -- and the concurrent attempt to obfuscate that ignorance by employing class-conscious demagoguery -- remains the staple of the Democratic Party.” (READ MORE)
Terence Jeffrey: A Congress of Fools “Americans may have a low opinion of their own Congress, but one wonders what they would think about the congress in Baghdad if they ever paid close attention to it.” (READ MORE)
Tony Blankley: Iraq's September Diagnosis “Come September, not only Gen. David Petraeus, but also many other designated experts will deliver their report cards on Iraqi progress -- or lack of it.” (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: Attention-Getters “People can get attention either from their accomplishments or from their deliberate attempts to get attention. Today, almost everywhere you look, people seem to be putting their efforts into getting attention.” (READ MORE)
Fred Thompson: Duplicating Disaster “We're hearing those phrases again; national health care, universal health care, socialized medicine.” (READ MORE)
Dick Morris and Eileen McGann: Starving the Mullahs “The conventional wisdom says that we have two choices in confronting and containing Iranian nuclear ambitions - United Nations sanctions and diplomacy, or a military strike to knock out key nuclear sites.” (READ MORE)
Scott Garrett: Earmark Reform: A Victory for Taxpayers “House Republicans have been working hard to fight for the American taxpayer. As you may know, we recently stood firm and forced the new House leadership to stick by their promises of transparency and accountability in federal spending; specifically, to stand by their promises of earmark reform.” (READ MORE)
Cal Thomas: Remote control “It amazes me that some conservatives who preach against ‘big government’ control of our lives think nothing of rushing in to ask big government to control our entertainment choices.” (READ MORE)
WSJ Review & Outlook: Immigration and the GOP “Immigration reform stayed alive in the Senate yesterday, albeit not without continuing rancor among Republicans. Restrictionists seem to believe the issue will harm the GOP if it succeeds, but we think the political reality is closer to the opposite: The greater danger for Republicans is if it fails.” (READ MORE)
Joshua Spivak: Two's Company “With the news that he has dropped his Republican affiliation, New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg continues to play a public game of flirting with an independent presidential run. This meshes with the years-long speculation that a noted political figure, be it the self-financing Mr. Bloomberg or someone else, like the antiwar Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, will jump into the 2008 presidential race with either an independent or third-party bid. Pundits argue that for a host of different reasons, such as the growth of Internet fund raising or the mood of the country or because of the impending death of the campaign finance system, now is the time that a third-party candidate has a chance of winning.” (READ MORE)
Michael Young: Taking Refuge in Dangerous Passions “Bernard Rougier is the kind of scholar of political Islam that 9/11 should have created. A Frenchman who teaches political science at the Université d'Auvergne in Clermont-Ferrand, he is fluent in Arabic and is willing to supplement his theoretical knowledge with analytical creativity and intrepid reporting. His "Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam Among Palestinians in Lebanon" looks at a fascinating, under-investigated microcosm of the Islamist landscape.” (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Gas riots “The president’s energy policy is a complete mess. There has not been a new refinery built since the 1970s. The nation still imports 40% of its gasoline. And overnight, gasoline has been rationed to 26 gallons per month. The riots have already begun. In Iran.” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Operation Fahrad Al Amin: the Anbar Offensive “As operations north of Baghdad in Baqubah and south in Babil province have taken center stage, the third theater in eastern Anbar province has received little attention in the reporting from Iraq. The reporting has been so sparse that the name of Multinational Forces West's operation has yet to be released. In an interview with Brigadier General Charles M. Gurganus, commanding general of Ground Combat Element, Multi-National Force-West, The Fourth Rail has learned the name of the operation is Fahrad Al Amin, or Operation Safety and Security.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Iranians torch gas stations after surprise rationing announcement; Update: Iran blames U.S. for torchings “Hope springs eternal for the revolution that never comes but without which peace in the Middle East is impossible. Especially among righty bloggers: I’ve been reading and writing blogs for five years and every time there’s a convulsion of violence in Iran there’s an equal and opposite, and understandable, convulsion of is-this-it optimism within the ’sphere.” (READ MORE)
Bryan Preston: Cloture succeeds: Where do we go from here? “The “comprehensive immigration” shamnesty is closer to passing through the Senate thanks to 16 Republicans who switched their votes from nay to yea since the last cloture vote. That doesn’t mean it’s the law of the land, or even that it’s out of the Senate yet, but it’s a good indicator that the Senate is listening not to the 75% of Americans who oppose the bill, but to the 25% who support it. And it’s a good indicator that those 16 senators who switched sides got some promise or incentive to do so.” (READ MORE)
Blacksmiths of Lebanon: Haret Hreik Rehabilitiation Hindered by Hizballah “At the height of the July War this blog came into being with a series of posts that attempted to outline the corrosive nature of Hizballah's monopoly over the Shiite sect, and the need for the government and civil society as a whole to take strong, decisive action to put an end to the extra-institutional state the group has been operating in Lebanon for approximately two decades now.” (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: The MSM’s war on gun owners “I’ve reported before on the newspaper campaign against gun owners with concealed carry licenses. The war continues. The Buckeye Firearms Association sends word of another news outlet, the Sandusky Register, which has published a list of concealed handgun permit owners in Erie, Huron, Ottawa, Sandusky and Seneca counties in Ohio. BFA reports a citizen revolt and backlash against the paper’s actions:” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: Underpants, lies, and statistics “I don't regularly watch ‘South Park,’ but I do recognize that the creators are brilliant -- and have presented some remarkable insights into human nature. I think my current favorite example of this is the ‘underpants gnomes,’ a group of gnomes who stole underpants from sleeping children. This was part of their grand plan for making their fortune, as summed up in their business plan: 1. Collect Underpants 2. ? 3. Profit!” (READ MORE)
Kim Priestap: The Senate Votes for Cloture on the Immigration Bill “The Senate managed to get cloture for the immigration bill that the vast majority of Americans don't want. What happened to the ‘will of the people’ that Harry Reid repeated ad infinitum when he wanted to retreat from Iraq. Suddenly, when it comes to the immigration bill, the will of the people doesn't seem to matter anymore. The Republicans who didn't sell out but, instead, maintained their principled positions against the bill managed to temporarily stall its movement forward. From the AP:” (READ MORE)
DJ Drummond: This War is Right “America is at war. There are millions of people in the United States who are upset about that, some to the point that they are demanding we simply give up and leave Iraq, and hoping we just cut out and leave everywhere else we have troops. Others have grown tired of the war and quit the cause because it is not fun for them anymore, an option not available to the men sent to do the actual fighting. The President is unpopular, in part for doing the right thing and sticking to the commitment, knowing that many millions of lives depend on his decisions. The troops are largely well-motivated and determined to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan until those countries can defend themselves, and not succumb to the raging tide of Islamists who would kill or enslave all who stand in their way.” (READ MORE)
Crazy Politico: Sicko Needs Prozac? “I've been reading reviews of Michael Moore's new film, ‘Sicko’, which extols the virtues of a universal health care system, funded and run by the government. The best of the reviews comes from Helen Evans, director of Nurses for Reform, a pan-European network of nurses dedicated to consumer-oriented reform of European health-care systems, and can be found in the Chicago Tribune. Another good, though not online review was in the News Sun, a local affiliate of the Chicago Sun Times.” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Working With The Mob: Your Government Dollars At Work “The CIA has started its release of hundreds of documents revealing illegal activities during the Cold War, the so-called ‘family jewels’ that cast the agency in its poorest light yet. Not only does this release demonstrate violations of the laws forbidding domestic spying by Langley, it also shows how inept the agency was at times. The multiple attempts at assassinating Fidel Castro are a case in point:” (READ MORE)
Blonde Sagacity: Marching for the Terrorists “I realize that I have posted about this tons of times in the past, but I STILL don't get it. I don't get the people that believe the terrorists housed at Club Gitmo should have all the protections of a US citizen (they're NOT). but I really don't get the people that would take off work and take time from their lives and families (assuming they have any of the aforementioned things) and march for these men that are detained for treachery against America and American troops. The same terrorists who have in the past been released from Gitmo only to be captured AGAIN trying to kill American troops. Please tell me what logic these people are using...” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Avoid Labor-Day Rush; Panic Today “A number of Republican senators and representatives seem to be in a powerful hurry to declare the ‘surge’ a failure -- nearly three months before the military assessment of its success. It truly makes one wonder what they fear most: defeat or victory? The newest to join the parade of victory deniers (who predict doom and defeat but refuse to vote for timetables for withdrawal) are Sens. Richard Lugar (R-IN, 64%) and George Voinovich (R-OH, 56%). Previous timorous lawmakers include Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME, 36%), Susan Collins (R-ME, 48%), Chuck Hagel (R-NE, 75%), Gordon Smith (R-OR, 72%), Norm Coleman (R-MN, 68%), and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee John Warner (R-VA, 64%).” (READ MORE)
Grim @ Blackfive: A Continuing Education in Military Science “Colonel (and Ph.D.) David Kilcullen has a piece up explaining the current operations in Iraq from a COIN perspective. Dr. Kilcullen is, as BlackFive readers know but Pandagon readers probably do not, an Australian officer who has rewritten much of current COIN theory. He is currently serving as General Petraeus' senior advisor on COIN in Iraq. He is posting to the web in order to talk to you, the citizens of Coalition nations, to tell you what we are doing in Iraq -- what the plan is, and why that is the plan.” (READ MORE)
War Historian: Strategic Reset “The Center for American Progress, a progressive/liberal think tank, has released a new assessment of Iraq prepared by Brian Katulis, Lawrence J. Korb, and Peter Juul. Entitled Strategic Reset: Reclaiming Control of U.S. Security in the Middle East, it predictably excoriates the Bush administration’s program and offers its own prescription for what amounts to damage control. Here’s the gist of the summary: ‘The current Iraq strategy is exactly what Al Qaeda wants:’” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: Bearings “Although Richard Lugar may believes the war in Iraq is lost, reality, like the waves of the sea, is usually a little more complex. Pajamas Media has been following the troubles in Iran, the latest of which is apparently the rationing of gasoline, a matter that may be related to reports of gas stations being set alight. The incidents may not constitute an existential threat to the regime, but its a reminder that the enemy is also under stress. Bill Roggio follows the offensive, one of several simultaneous and ongoing ones, in Anbar. It is codenamed "Fahrad Al Amin" or Operation Safety and Security. It is a Marine show.” (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Anyone Who Follows Islam is an Idiot (and wrong) “I am sorry to have to say it but someone had to. The religion of pieces is full of idiot leaders and by extension, those who follow the leaders are idiots as well. This video comes courtesy of Plank’s Constant and it clearly demonstrates why Islam is full of idiots. It also clearly shows that we will be screwed if we do not get a handle on this “religion” and the followers of the child molester Mohammad.” (READ MORE)
Flopping Aces: Place The Blame Where It Belongs “What! You mean the terrorists are responsible for bringing those towers down and creating all that dust to be breathed in by rescue workers? Get outta here: ‘Facing an onslaught from House Democrats over air quality around Ground Zero, former EPA boss Christie Todd Whitman fired back yesterday that "the terrorists that attacked the United States" were to blame - not the government. In a politically charged and sometimes circus-like congressional hearing into contaminants in downtown Manhattan in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Whitman blasted lawmakers who accused her of misleading the public that the air was safe - while she was hit with hisses, boos and catcalls from the crowd.’” (READ MORE)
Orlando: The Impotent Buriers of Digg “Conservatives on Digg.com know them well. You submit a conservative-based article and it is buried.** These liberals are “The Impotent Buriers.” Why impotent? Impotent refers to sterility, weakness, inability, gutless, and ineffectual. The Impotent Buriers, you see, lack the ability to effectively communicate their ideas on an equal level with Conservatives. Because of this impotence, this inability to defend their position based on facts, they must resort to a function authorized by Digg.com that allows them to censor others. It is pure weakness!” (READ MORE)
Baron Bodissey: Sir, Have You No Shame? “President Bush has been seduced by the dark side of the Force. That’s the only explanation I can think of. He will speak tomorrow at the Washington Islamic Center, the most prominent Saudi-funded mosque in Washington DC. Not to mince words, it’s a Wahhabist mosque. The speech is at 11:30 AM, so time is short.” (READ MORE)
GayPatriot: Senate’s Drive To Amnesty Creates Wedge With America “Nothing has troubled me more since the Illegal Amnesty debate (or lack thereof) began in the Senate, than the “we know best” attitude taken by Sens. Reid, Lott, Graham, McCain, et. al. Why for example, Senator Reid, do you claim the high ground on Iraq because public opinion polls show frustration with the war…. yet you tell us meaningless peons outside the Empire walls to hush-up when public opinion is dramatically opposed to the Senate Amnesty bill? Are public opinion polls only useful when they are on your side of an issue?” (READ MORE)
Donald Sensing: Israel bracing for summer war “OHC contributor Daniel Jackson blogged earlier today from Israel that talk among his friends (and one presumes most all Israelis) is whether the unfinished business in southern Lebanon fvrom last summer’s Israel-Lebanon war will reignite this summer. 'Whatever is coming this summer will not have the same misdirected response of last summer. For Iran, Hizbullah, and Syrian to assume that the next round will be like last summer is simply not realistic.'” (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson: Is the fix in on the immigration bill? “Virtually everything important that is happening with respect to the immigration bill seems to be happening under the surface, away from the eyes of prying journalists and concerned citizens. The procedural maneuvering is incomprehensible. The substance of the amendments before the Senate is extraordinarily difficult if not overwhelming given the limited time allowed for their consideration. I have only my intuition to go on. My intuition tells me that it is impossible to be cynical enough about what is transpiring here, that the second cloture vote is the last chance to kill the bill in the Senate if the fix is not already in, and that the bill's passage is assured in the House if it makes it out of the Senate.” (READ MORE)
The Redhunter: "Understanding Current Operations in Iraq" “This is one of the best summaries of what's going on now in Iraq that I've seen recently (h/t NRO). The following is an excerpt from a post on Small Wars Journal by David Kilcullen called ‘Understanding Current Operations in Iraq’. Kilcullen, one of the contributors to SMJ, is identified on the site as a ‘Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser, Multi-National Force—Iraq.’ and that the it represents ‘his personal views only.’ ‘I’ve spent much of the last six weeks out on the ground, working with Iraqi and U.S. combat units, civilian reconstruction teams, Iraqi administrators and tribal and community leaders. I’ve been away from e-mail a lot, so unable to post here at SWJ: but I’d like to make up for that now by providing colleagues with a basic understanding of what’s happening, right now, in Iraq.’” (READ MORE)
Right Truth: Hello Americans, you are now officially obstacles “The Senate takes up revised immigration bill, but obstacles remain. Those obstacles are American citizens. I didn't read that in the New York Times article. Opponents of the bill were graciously given ‘overnight to study the package of amendments.’ Nothing like putting a lot of time and thought into something we will be stuck with for ... another 20 years or more. It seems several of the Senators took the $4.4 billion bribe they were offered to switch sides. President George W. Bush kept up the pressure, hoping the bill would be passed by Friday. As my hubby said:” (READ MORE)
Stop the ACLU: Having opinions about race is not the same as racism “The article below is a typical rant about racism from a Left-leaning Australian newspaper. Typically, it makes no distinction between opinions about race and racism. To do so would deprive the author of much of the warm inner glow of righteousness she got from writing it. But, as any psychologist can tell you, attitudes are not the same as behaviour and it has been known since the 1930s that, in this field particularly, attitudes and behaviour are often very different. My favourite example of the disjunction is a neo-Nazi I once knew who was great friends with a very dark-skinned Bengali. I also once knew a very kind man who spoke very ill of Asians but who was in fact happily married to one.” (READ MORE)
The Tygrrrr Express: Chief Justice Roberts and General Petraeus–The Best and Brightest Do Matter “Leaders do exist. Some are born, others are made, but successful leaders truly are the best and brightest. It can be book smarts, street smarts, or a combination of both, but there is no substitute for those that apply their skills in an intelligent fashion. Twenty two liberals in that bastion of mediocrity known as the United States Senate voted against confirming John Roberts. I can honestly understand why. He is an intellectual heavyweight, one of the finest legal minds of our time. He is respected, brilliant…and conservative. The left needed to defeat him because he would have moved the Supreme Court towards a strict constructionist path, which coincidentally is what the Supreme Court is supposed to do.” (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.
Linked with:
Iran, the emperor has no clothes from Right Truth
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
CIA Releases Files On Past Misdeeds - Hundreds of pages of decades-old documents declassified and released by the CIA yesterday revealed a 1970s-era agency in the throes of unaccustomed self-examination, caught between its traditional secrecy and demands that it come clean on a history of unsavory activities. (READ MORE)
GOP Skepticism On Iraq Growing - Key Republican senators, signaling increasing GOP skepticism about President Bush's strategy in Iraq, have called for a reduction in U.S. forces and launched preemptive efforts to counter a much-awaited administration progress report due in September. (READ MORE)
Desperate Villagers Flee Central African Republic - Widespread banditry, kidnapping and political violence in the volatile and virtually lawless northeastern corner of the Central African Republic are forcing thousands of villagers to flee to Chad, where the security situation is possibly more desperate, according to an Amnesty... (READ MORE)
Senate Votes to Revive Illegal-Alien Bill - The Senate voted yesterday to resurrect its immigration bill, overcoming opposition from conservative Republicans and setting up a week of showdown votes on amendments and passage. (READ MORE)
Busch Warns of Local Aid Cuts - House Speaker Michael E. Busch yesterday warned local officials from across Maryland to prepare for less financial support and not to criticize state lawmakers as they struggle with a $1.5 billion budget deficit. (READ MORE)
Border Agent Backers to Protest Prosecutor - More than 1,000 people are expected to rally Saturday outside the offices of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton in San Antonio to demand his termination and protest his "malicious prosecution" of law-enforcement officers who sought to arrest illegal aliens. (READ MORE)
GOP Doubts on War Widen - Ohio Sen. George V. Voinovich yesterday called for a "military disengagement" from Iraq, the second Republican this week to voice doubts about President Bush's troop-surge strategy while simultaneously discrediting Democrats' plans for an abrupt pullout. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Calvey in Iraq: Muslim redneck “Greetings from Baghdad! A quick funny note is all I have time for. Some of the unsung heroes of this war are our Arabic linguists, also called interpreters or terps for short. A few of them were born in America and learned Arabic at an Army language school or in college. But most of them are native Arabic speakers from a multitude of countries. Many, of course, are from Iraq originally. Many have lived in America for years and became American citizens long ago, but never forgot how to speak in their native language. There is one guy that I work with sometimes that jokingly calls himself ‘the Muslim redneck.’” (READ MORE)
Badger 6: Deciphering the Code “Soldiers all over the world mark the places they have been. Go to any US Army post and you will see various signs of unit pride and espirt d'corps. At the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, a mound of rocks is covered in paint, done by different units to remind future visitors of the victories those Soldiers had there. At Camp Buehring, Kuwait, units making the trip north paint their symbols as a show of pride on T-barriers around the post. this is the barrier we painted.” (READ MORE)
MasterGunner: Et Tu, Brute? “It's no secret that, generally speaking, Republicans are more supportive of the military, and of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Very rarely do you read or hear of a Republican "flip flopping" and deciding he or she no longer supports the efforts of US and Coalition Forces to fight and defeat our enemies abroad. Notice I said "rarely". It happens. And sometimes, the staunchest of allies will commit rhetorical fratricide on our efforts.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Dymphna: An Open Letter to President George W. Bush “Dear Mr. President: I write to you with great sadness, the kind of despair that descends on one after hopes have been dashed many times, after repeated betrayals by a leader who said what I wanted to hear, but whose actions have not lived up to his words. You have a chance to redeem yourself with the many millions who voted for you. At 11:30 a.m., when you speak tomorrow at the Washington Islamic Center, you could put all of our hearts at ease if you change the direction and tenor of your communications to Muslims in this country. Sir, you must stand up for our pluralist values.” (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: Clear the Damn Backlogs First “Harry Reid boasts of his compassion for ‘undocumented Americans.’ President Bush wants understanding for ‘newcomers’ without papers. The so-called Grand Bargainers on both sides of the aisle in the Senate are pushing forward this week with their massive plan to ‘regularize’ the unregularized and bring in hundreds of thousands of extra foreign guest workers on top of the ones who are already here or have been waiting for approval for years.” (READ MORE)
Patrick Ruffini: Taking On Chuck Hagel “A few days ago, I had a chance to catch up with Nebraska attorney general Jon Bruning, who recently announced he was challenging Senator Chuck Hagel in the Republican primary. Hagel's positions against the war in Iraq and for the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill have placed him at odds with most conservatives. Read on to see Bruning explain why ‘conservatives need a voice,’ share some of his campaign's internal polling, and talk about his own record, one he says consists of ‘zero maverick moments.’” (READ MORE)
Ken Blackwell: Sicko Guides Liberals’ Health care Agenda “Michael Moore got slammed by Larry King tonight. The outlandish documentarian was bumped from the ‘The Larry King Show’ by none other than an ex-con, Paris Hilton.” (READ MORE)
Bruce Bartlett: Climate History “Many people are worried about global warming today. They fear that the polar ice caps will melt, raising sea levels and creating environmental chaos. Such concerns are not new. The historical record tells us of many warming episodes - and subsequent cooling periods - that have bedeviled humans for thousands of years.” (READ MORE)
Walter E. Williams: Straight Thinking 101 “Just about the most difficult lesson for first-year economics students, and sometimes graduate students, is that economic theory, and for that matter any scientific theory, is positive or non-normative.” (READ MORE)
Paul Weyrich: Unions, Senator Reid - the Right to a Secret Ballot or an Election Issue “Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV) is about to bring a so-called Card Check Bill to the Senate Floor. In short this bill would deprive workers of the right to a secret ballot when determining whether to have union representation at a person's work place.” (READ MORE)
Austin Bay: Palestine's Crooks And Kooks “Pity the Palestinians. Their crooks -- the corrupt Fatah -- and their kooks --Islamist Hamas -- both rule by the gun, not law. They had an election in 1996 where the crooks prevailed. In 2006, the kooks took control of the state-let.” (READ MORE)
Ben Shapiro: The Big Lie About The Great Depression “Ignorance of basic economics -- and the concurrent attempt to obfuscate that ignorance by employing class-conscious demagoguery -- remains the staple of the Democratic Party.” (READ MORE)
Terence Jeffrey: A Congress of Fools “Americans may have a low opinion of their own Congress, but one wonders what they would think about the congress in Baghdad if they ever paid close attention to it.” (READ MORE)
Tony Blankley: Iraq's September Diagnosis “Come September, not only Gen. David Petraeus, but also many other designated experts will deliver their report cards on Iraqi progress -- or lack of it.” (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: Attention-Getters “People can get attention either from their accomplishments or from their deliberate attempts to get attention. Today, almost everywhere you look, people seem to be putting their efforts into getting attention.” (READ MORE)
Fred Thompson: Duplicating Disaster “We're hearing those phrases again; national health care, universal health care, socialized medicine.” (READ MORE)
Dick Morris and Eileen McGann: Starving the Mullahs “The conventional wisdom says that we have two choices in confronting and containing Iranian nuclear ambitions - United Nations sanctions and diplomacy, or a military strike to knock out key nuclear sites.” (READ MORE)
Scott Garrett: Earmark Reform: A Victory for Taxpayers “House Republicans have been working hard to fight for the American taxpayer. As you may know, we recently stood firm and forced the new House leadership to stick by their promises of transparency and accountability in federal spending; specifically, to stand by their promises of earmark reform.” (READ MORE)
Cal Thomas: Remote control “It amazes me that some conservatives who preach against ‘big government’ control of our lives think nothing of rushing in to ask big government to control our entertainment choices.” (READ MORE)
WSJ Review & Outlook: Immigration and the GOP “Immigration reform stayed alive in the Senate yesterday, albeit not without continuing rancor among Republicans. Restrictionists seem to believe the issue will harm the GOP if it succeeds, but we think the political reality is closer to the opposite: The greater danger for Republicans is if it fails.” (READ MORE)
Joshua Spivak: Two's Company “With the news that he has dropped his Republican affiliation, New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg continues to play a public game of flirting with an independent presidential run. This meshes with the years-long speculation that a noted political figure, be it the self-financing Mr. Bloomberg or someone else, like the antiwar Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, will jump into the 2008 presidential race with either an independent or third-party bid. Pundits argue that for a host of different reasons, such as the growth of Internet fund raising or the mood of the country or because of the impending death of the campaign finance system, now is the time that a third-party candidate has a chance of winning.” (READ MORE)
Michael Young: Taking Refuge in Dangerous Passions “Bernard Rougier is the kind of scholar of political Islam that 9/11 should have created. A Frenchman who teaches political science at the Université d'Auvergne in Clermont-Ferrand, he is fluent in Arabic and is willing to supplement his theoretical knowledge with analytical creativity and intrepid reporting. His "Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam Among Palestinians in Lebanon" looks at a fascinating, under-investigated microcosm of the Islamist landscape.” (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Gas riots “The president’s energy policy is a complete mess. There has not been a new refinery built since the 1970s. The nation still imports 40% of its gasoline. And overnight, gasoline has been rationed to 26 gallons per month. The riots have already begun. In Iran.” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Operation Fahrad Al Amin: the Anbar Offensive “As operations north of Baghdad in Baqubah and south in Babil province have taken center stage, the third theater in eastern Anbar province has received little attention in the reporting from Iraq. The reporting has been so sparse that the name of Multinational Forces West's operation has yet to be released. In an interview with Brigadier General Charles M. Gurganus, commanding general of Ground Combat Element, Multi-National Force-West, The Fourth Rail has learned the name of the operation is Fahrad Al Amin, or Operation Safety and Security.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Iranians torch gas stations after surprise rationing announcement; Update: Iran blames U.S. for torchings “Hope springs eternal for the revolution that never comes but without which peace in the Middle East is impossible. Especially among righty bloggers: I’ve been reading and writing blogs for five years and every time there’s a convulsion of violence in Iran there’s an equal and opposite, and understandable, convulsion of is-this-it optimism within the ’sphere.” (READ MORE)
Bryan Preston: Cloture succeeds: Where do we go from here? “The “comprehensive immigration” shamnesty is closer to passing through the Senate thanks to 16 Republicans who switched their votes from nay to yea since the last cloture vote. That doesn’t mean it’s the law of the land, or even that it’s out of the Senate yet, but it’s a good indicator that the Senate is listening not to the 75% of Americans who oppose the bill, but to the 25% who support it. And it’s a good indicator that those 16 senators who switched sides got some promise or incentive to do so.” (READ MORE)
Blacksmiths of Lebanon: Haret Hreik Rehabilitiation Hindered by Hizballah “At the height of the July War this blog came into being with a series of posts that attempted to outline the corrosive nature of Hizballah's monopoly over the Shiite sect, and the need for the government and civil society as a whole to take strong, decisive action to put an end to the extra-institutional state the group has been operating in Lebanon for approximately two decades now.” (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: The MSM’s war on gun owners “I’ve reported before on the newspaper campaign against gun owners with concealed carry licenses. The war continues. The Buckeye Firearms Association sends word of another news outlet, the Sandusky Register, which has published a list of concealed handgun permit owners in Erie, Huron, Ottawa, Sandusky and Seneca counties in Ohio. BFA reports a citizen revolt and backlash against the paper’s actions:” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: Underpants, lies, and statistics “I don't regularly watch ‘South Park,’ but I do recognize that the creators are brilliant -- and have presented some remarkable insights into human nature. I think my current favorite example of this is the ‘underpants gnomes,’ a group of gnomes who stole underpants from sleeping children. This was part of their grand plan for making their fortune, as summed up in their business plan: 1. Collect Underpants 2. ? 3. Profit!” (READ MORE)
Kim Priestap: The Senate Votes for Cloture on the Immigration Bill “The Senate managed to get cloture for the immigration bill that the vast majority of Americans don't want. What happened to the ‘will of the people’ that Harry Reid repeated ad infinitum when he wanted to retreat from Iraq. Suddenly, when it comes to the immigration bill, the will of the people doesn't seem to matter anymore. The Republicans who didn't sell out but, instead, maintained their principled positions against the bill managed to temporarily stall its movement forward. From the AP:” (READ MORE)
DJ Drummond: This War is Right “America is at war. There are millions of people in the United States who are upset about that, some to the point that they are demanding we simply give up and leave Iraq, and hoping we just cut out and leave everywhere else we have troops. Others have grown tired of the war and quit the cause because it is not fun for them anymore, an option not available to the men sent to do the actual fighting. The President is unpopular, in part for doing the right thing and sticking to the commitment, knowing that many millions of lives depend on his decisions. The troops are largely well-motivated and determined to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan until those countries can defend themselves, and not succumb to the raging tide of Islamists who would kill or enslave all who stand in their way.” (READ MORE)
Crazy Politico: Sicko Needs Prozac? “I've been reading reviews of Michael Moore's new film, ‘Sicko’, which extols the virtues of a universal health care system, funded and run by the government. The best of the reviews comes from Helen Evans, director of Nurses for Reform, a pan-European network of nurses dedicated to consumer-oriented reform of European health-care systems, and can be found in the Chicago Tribune. Another good, though not online review was in the News Sun, a local affiliate of the Chicago Sun Times.” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Working With The Mob: Your Government Dollars At Work “The CIA has started its release of hundreds of documents revealing illegal activities during the Cold War, the so-called ‘family jewels’ that cast the agency in its poorest light yet. Not only does this release demonstrate violations of the laws forbidding domestic spying by Langley, it also shows how inept the agency was at times. The multiple attempts at assassinating Fidel Castro are a case in point:” (READ MORE)
Blonde Sagacity: Marching for the Terrorists “I realize that I have posted about this tons of times in the past, but I STILL don't get it. I don't get the people that believe the terrorists housed at Club Gitmo should have all the protections of a US citizen (they're NOT). but I really don't get the people that would take off work and take time from their lives and families (assuming they have any of the aforementioned things) and march for these men that are detained for treachery against America and American troops. The same terrorists who have in the past been released from Gitmo only to be captured AGAIN trying to kill American troops. Please tell me what logic these people are using...” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Avoid Labor-Day Rush; Panic Today “A number of Republican senators and representatives seem to be in a powerful hurry to declare the ‘surge’ a failure -- nearly three months before the military assessment of its success. It truly makes one wonder what they fear most: defeat or victory? The newest to join the parade of victory deniers (who predict doom and defeat but refuse to vote for timetables for withdrawal) are Sens. Richard Lugar (R-IN, 64%) and George Voinovich (R-OH, 56%). Previous timorous lawmakers include Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME, 36%), Susan Collins (R-ME, 48%), Chuck Hagel (R-NE, 75%), Gordon Smith (R-OR, 72%), Norm Coleman (R-MN, 68%), and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee John Warner (R-VA, 64%).” (READ MORE)
Grim @ Blackfive: A Continuing Education in Military Science “Colonel (and Ph.D.) David Kilcullen has a piece up explaining the current operations in Iraq from a COIN perspective. Dr. Kilcullen is, as BlackFive readers know but Pandagon readers probably do not, an Australian officer who has rewritten much of current COIN theory. He is currently serving as General Petraeus' senior advisor on COIN in Iraq. He is posting to the web in order to talk to you, the citizens of Coalition nations, to tell you what we are doing in Iraq -- what the plan is, and why that is the plan.” (READ MORE)
War Historian: Strategic Reset “The Center for American Progress, a progressive/liberal think tank, has released a new assessment of Iraq prepared by Brian Katulis, Lawrence J. Korb, and Peter Juul. Entitled Strategic Reset: Reclaiming Control of U.S. Security in the Middle East, it predictably excoriates the Bush administration’s program and offers its own prescription for what amounts to damage control. Here’s the gist of the summary: ‘The current Iraq strategy is exactly what Al Qaeda wants:’” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: Bearings “Although Richard Lugar may believes the war in Iraq is lost, reality, like the waves of the sea, is usually a little more complex. Pajamas Media has been following the troubles in Iran, the latest of which is apparently the rationing of gasoline, a matter that may be related to reports of gas stations being set alight. The incidents may not constitute an existential threat to the regime, but its a reminder that the enemy is also under stress. Bill Roggio follows the offensive, one of several simultaneous and ongoing ones, in Anbar. It is codenamed "Fahrad Al Amin" or Operation Safety and Security. It is a Marine show.” (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Anyone Who Follows Islam is an Idiot (and wrong) “I am sorry to have to say it but someone had to. The religion of pieces is full of idiot leaders and by extension, those who follow the leaders are idiots as well. This video comes courtesy of Plank’s Constant and it clearly demonstrates why Islam is full of idiots. It also clearly shows that we will be screwed if we do not get a handle on this “religion” and the followers of the child molester Mohammad.” (READ MORE)
Flopping Aces: Place The Blame Where It Belongs “What! You mean the terrorists are responsible for bringing those towers down and creating all that dust to be breathed in by rescue workers? Get outta here: ‘Facing an onslaught from House Democrats over air quality around Ground Zero, former EPA boss Christie Todd Whitman fired back yesterday that "the terrorists that attacked the United States" were to blame - not the government. In a politically charged and sometimes circus-like congressional hearing into contaminants in downtown Manhattan in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Whitman blasted lawmakers who accused her of misleading the public that the air was safe - while she was hit with hisses, boos and catcalls from the crowd.’” (READ MORE)
Orlando: The Impotent Buriers of Digg “Conservatives on Digg.com know them well. You submit a conservative-based article and it is buried.** These liberals are “The Impotent Buriers.” Why impotent? Impotent refers to sterility, weakness, inability, gutless, and ineffectual. The Impotent Buriers, you see, lack the ability to effectively communicate their ideas on an equal level with Conservatives. Because of this impotence, this inability to defend their position based on facts, they must resort to a function authorized by Digg.com that allows them to censor others. It is pure weakness!” (READ MORE)
Baron Bodissey: Sir, Have You No Shame? “President Bush has been seduced by the dark side of the Force. That’s the only explanation I can think of. He will speak tomorrow at the Washington Islamic Center, the most prominent Saudi-funded mosque in Washington DC. Not to mince words, it’s a Wahhabist mosque. The speech is at 11:30 AM, so time is short.” (READ MORE)
GayPatriot: Senate’s Drive To Amnesty Creates Wedge With America “Nothing has troubled me more since the Illegal Amnesty debate (or lack thereof) began in the Senate, than the “we know best” attitude taken by Sens. Reid, Lott, Graham, McCain, et. al. Why for example, Senator Reid, do you claim the high ground on Iraq because public opinion polls show frustration with the war…. yet you tell us meaningless peons outside the Empire walls to hush-up when public opinion is dramatically opposed to the Senate Amnesty bill? Are public opinion polls only useful when they are on your side of an issue?” (READ MORE)
Donald Sensing: Israel bracing for summer war “OHC contributor Daniel Jackson blogged earlier today from Israel that talk among his friends (and one presumes most all Israelis) is whether the unfinished business in southern Lebanon fvrom last summer’s Israel-Lebanon war will reignite this summer. 'Whatever is coming this summer will not have the same misdirected response of last summer. For Iran, Hizbullah, and Syrian to assume that the next round will be like last summer is simply not realistic.'” (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson: Is the fix in on the immigration bill? “Virtually everything important that is happening with respect to the immigration bill seems to be happening under the surface, away from the eyes of prying journalists and concerned citizens. The procedural maneuvering is incomprehensible. The substance of the amendments before the Senate is extraordinarily difficult if not overwhelming given the limited time allowed for their consideration. I have only my intuition to go on. My intuition tells me that it is impossible to be cynical enough about what is transpiring here, that the second cloture vote is the last chance to kill the bill in the Senate if the fix is not already in, and that the bill's passage is assured in the House if it makes it out of the Senate.” (READ MORE)
The Redhunter: "Understanding Current Operations in Iraq" “This is one of the best summaries of what's going on now in Iraq that I've seen recently (h/t NRO). The following is an excerpt from a post on Small Wars Journal by David Kilcullen called ‘Understanding Current Operations in Iraq’. Kilcullen, one of the contributors to SMJ, is identified on the site as a ‘Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser, Multi-National Force—Iraq.’ and that the it represents ‘his personal views only.’ ‘I’ve spent much of the last six weeks out on the ground, working with Iraqi and U.S. combat units, civilian reconstruction teams, Iraqi administrators and tribal and community leaders. I’ve been away from e-mail a lot, so unable to post here at SWJ: but I’d like to make up for that now by providing colleagues with a basic understanding of what’s happening, right now, in Iraq.’” (READ MORE)
Right Truth: Hello Americans, you are now officially obstacles “The Senate takes up revised immigration bill, but obstacles remain. Those obstacles are American citizens. I didn't read that in the New York Times article. Opponents of the bill were graciously given ‘overnight to study the package of amendments.’ Nothing like putting a lot of time and thought into something we will be stuck with for ... another 20 years or more. It seems several of the Senators took the $4.4 billion bribe they were offered to switch sides. President George W. Bush kept up the pressure, hoping the bill would be passed by Friday. As my hubby said:” (READ MORE)
Stop the ACLU: Having opinions about race is not the same as racism “The article below is a typical rant about racism from a Left-leaning Australian newspaper. Typically, it makes no distinction between opinions about race and racism. To do so would deprive the author of much of the warm inner glow of righteousness she got from writing it. But, as any psychologist can tell you, attitudes are not the same as behaviour and it has been known since the 1930s that, in this field particularly, attitudes and behaviour are often very different. My favourite example of the disjunction is a neo-Nazi I once knew who was great friends with a very dark-skinned Bengali. I also once knew a very kind man who spoke very ill of Asians but who was in fact happily married to one.” (READ MORE)
The Tygrrrr Express: Chief Justice Roberts and General Petraeus–The Best and Brightest Do Matter “Leaders do exist. Some are born, others are made, but successful leaders truly are the best and brightest. It can be book smarts, street smarts, or a combination of both, but there is no substitute for those that apply their skills in an intelligent fashion. Twenty two liberals in that bastion of mediocrity known as the United States Senate voted against confirming John Roberts. I can honestly understand why. He is an intellectual heavyweight, one of the finest legal minds of our time. He is respected, brilliant…and conservative. The left needed to defeat him because he would have moved the Supreme Court towards a strict constructionist path, which coincidentally is what the Supreme Court is supposed to do.” (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.
Linked with:
Iran, the emperor has no clothes from Right Truth
Wednesday Hero - SSgt. Darrell R. Griffin, Jr.
This Weeks Soldier Was Suggested By Jenn
Staff Sgt. Darrell R. Griffin Jr.
36 years old from Alhambra, California
2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division
March 21, 2007
"He was a really patriotic young man", said Darrell Griffin Sr. "He said that the people there really needed us and he felt it was the right place to be. He wished we didn’t have to have wars, but since that’s the way mankind is, he felt he was contributing an important part to his country".
SSgt. Griffin lost his life in Balad, Iraq when his unit came under fire as it was returning to base after conducting security operations in the Iraqi capital.
The eldest son of six children, SSgt. Griffin worked as an EMT before joining the California Army National Guard in 1999. He enlisted in the Army two years later, and in July 2001, was assigned to the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, in Ft. Lewis, Washington. He served with that unit in Iraq from October 2004 to September 2005.
On his second tour of duty, SSgt. Griffin had been awarded the Bronze Star for valor in 2005 when he was credited with saving the lives of three U.S. and two Iraqi Army soldiers injured during battle in Tal Afar. He had also received the Army Achievement Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Non-Commissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon, Combat Infantry Badge, Expert Infantry Badge, Parachute Badge, and the Meritorious Unit Citation.
"Griff was the type of man you want to have by your side in a fight," Maj. Brent Clemmer, his former company commander, wrote from Iraq. "He was the type of squad leader every young soldier wants to have".
"Darrell was my husband, my Soldier, my gift from God who was also the love of my life and always will be." Said his wife, Diana. "He was also 'a Soldier's Soldier of Strength and Honor' whose commitment to duty, honor and loyalty will be forever remembered by all who know and love him. The news of his death saddens us deeply and we ask for your prayers in our time of grief. Please also continue to keep our Soldiers in your prayers
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. To find out more about Wednesday Hero, you can go here.
36 years old from Alhambra, California
2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division
March 21, 2007
"He was a really patriotic young man", said Darrell Griffin Sr. "He said that the people there really needed us and he felt it was the right place to be. He wished we didn’t have to have wars, but since that’s the way mankind is, he felt he was contributing an important part to his country".
SSgt. Griffin lost his life in Balad, Iraq when his unit came under fire as it was returning to base after conducting security operations in the Iraqi capital.
The eldest son of six children, SSgt. Griffin worked as an EMT before joining the California Army National Guard in 1999. He enlisted in the Army two years later, and in July 2001, was assigned to the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, in Ft. Lewis, Washington. He served with that unit in Iraq from October 2004 to September 2005.
On his second tour of duty, SSgt. Griffin had been awarded the Bronze Star for valor in 2005 when he was credited with saving the lives of three U.S. and two Iraqi Army soldiers injured during battle in Tal Afar. He had also received the Army Achievement Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Non-Commissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon, Combat Infantry Badge, Expert Infantry Badge, Parachute Badge, and the Meritorious Unit Citation.
"Griff was the type of man you want to have by your side in a fight," Maj. Brent Clemmer, his former company commander, wrote from Iraq. "He was the type of squad leader every young soldier wants to have".
"Darrell was my husband, my Soldier, my gift from God who was also the love of my life and always will be." Said his wife, Diana. "He was also 'a Soldier's Soldier of Strength and Honor' whose commitment to duty, honor and loyalty will be forever remembered by all who know and love him. The news of his death saddens us deeply and we ask for your prayers in our time of grief. Please also continue to keep our Soldiers in your prayers
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. To find out more about Wednesday Hero, you can go here.
June 26, 2007
Humanitarian Aid Continues Despite Increase of Combat Operations
The surge in combat operations isn't all fighting, humanitarian missions are also on the rise such as this report from Baqouba where Iraqi and US Troops are not only fighting against al-Qaeda but are also delivering food and water to the residents:
BAQOUBA, Iraq – Iraqi Security Forces and Task Force Lightning Soldiers continued delivering food and water to the people of Baqouba Monday as major operations to remove al-Qaida from the city entered their seventh day.In other neighborhoods, Task Force Lightning Soldiers discovered an improvised explosive device factory containing pipe bomb making materials including over 100 metal cylinders, metal plates in the process of being cut into end caps and various metal cutting tools. Furthermore, local citizens continue to be a valuable source of information for ISF and CF operating in Baqouba. Tips from concerned citizens have led to the discovery of many caches and buried IEDs during the sweep of the city, making Iraq safer for Iraqis and not so safe for insurgents and terrorists who only seek to cause chaos.
Since the beginning of the humanitarian effort, ISF and Coalition Forces have distributed more than 56,000 pounds of rice and more than 58,000 pounds of flour throughout the city and its surrounding area. They have also distributed thousands of bottles of fresh water along with the food.
“Now that we have begun to clear al-Qaida out of Baqouba, we can begin to place more effort into helping the people of the city,” said Col. Steve Townsend, commander, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. “The government is working to distribute these supplies as fast as they can, and the improved security in the area will help to make that possible.”
As combat operations continued throughout the city, CF detained two men after discovering several grenades, rifles and handguns in their vehicle. The grenades were destroyed and the weapons confiscated as the men were held for further questioning.
Iraqi Army Detains Two al-Qaeda Cell Leaders near Baghdad
Iraqi units are stepping up and have captured two al-Qaeda cell leaders.
Another terror leader is off the streets and his replacement won't be out there much longer either. Good job boys!
BAGHDAD – Iraqi Army Forces detained two suspected Al Qaeda cell leaders during an operation June 24 south of Baghdad.
The two detainees are involved in improvised explosive device attacks on Iraqi and Coalition Forces, death squad activities against local civilians, housing foreign fighters, transporting weapons and running a medical clinic for wounded terrorists. Iraqi Forces detained six other individuals found at the targeted residence. They also confiscated weapons and a large amount of currency at the scene.
With coalition advisers present for support, Iraqi Forces detained their primary suspects without incident. This operation is aimed at disrupting terrorist networks in Jihad-Shurta areas and attacks against Iraqi and Coalition Forces.
Another terror leader is off the streets and his replacement won't be out there much longer either. Good job boys!
Locals Turn in More Insurgents
Cavalry units of the 10th Mountain Division utilizing intelligence obtained from area residents launched Operation Crazyhorse Thunder and detained 7 suspects stopping them from emplacing IEDs along a main route.
ABU SHIEKAN, Iraq — Seven suspects were detained for allegedly planting improvised explosive devices along Route Tampa, the highway leading into Baghdad, June 23.
Troop C, 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division targeted an IED cell, based in the Abu Shiekan and Abu Hillan villages, believed to be responsible for setting IEDs several times a week along the highway.
The nighttime raid was based on information provided by area residents and from local tips. The cell was operating in an area 12 kilometers southwest of the Iraqi capital.
Each day brings more and more involvement by area residents and each tip takes one more terrorist off the streets making Iraq safer for all Iraqis. Saddam's dream of turnning an empty and barren Iraq over to his conquerer is slowly coing to an end.
UGH!
Apologies to those following trackbacks today in the Web Reconnaissance. Somehow I goofed and sent a good portion of the trackbacks for yesterday's post instead of today's. The correct link should have been:
If you find yourself at the Web Reconnaissance for Monday June 25, 2007 instead of today Tuesday, June 26, 2007, just click on the link above and you will be taken to the correct post.
http://thunderrun.blogspot.com/2007/06/web-reconnaissance-for-06262007.html
If you find yourself at the Web Reconnaissance for Monday June 25, 2007 instead of today Tuesday, June 26, 2007, just click on the link above and you will be taken to the correct post.
Web Reconnaissance for 06/26/2007
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)
A Strong Push From Backstage - Air Force Two touched down at the Greenbrier Valley Airport in West Virginia on Feb. 6, 2003, carrying Vice President Cheney to the annual retreat of Republican House and Senate leaders. He had come to sell them on the economic centerpiece of President Bush's first term: a $674 billion tax cut. (READ MORE)
Judge Discusses Details of Work On Secret Court - At 3 a.m. on Aug. 8, 1998, the day after the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the chief judge of a special court that supervises applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was awakened at home in order to approve five wiretaps, including one of Osama bin... (READ MORE)
5-4 Supreme Court Weakens Curbs on Pre-Election TV Ads - The Supreme Court yesterday substantially weakened restrictions on the kinds of television ads that corporations and unions can finance in the days before an election, providing special interest groups with the opportunity for a far more expansive role in the 2008 elections. (READ MORE)'Rainmaker' Leaves PAC After Calls for Resignation - The custodian of the Democratic Freshmen political action committee has stepped down after calls for his resignation from a House Democrat concerned about his history as a registered lobbyist. (READ MORE)
Rough Road Ahead for Immigration Bill - The White House says it has the votes to resurrect the immigration bill on the Senate floor today, though enough senators said they may change their minds in other votes later this week to leave the bill's ultimate fate in doubt. (READ MORE)
Court Rules For Funding of Issue Ads - The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the First Amendment protects the rights of businesses and unions to fund advocacy ads in the closing months of an election, striking a blow to campaign-finance law and drawing praise from free-speech activists. (READ MORE)
Afghan Boy Outsmarts the Taliban - The story of a 6-year-old Afghan boy who says he thwarted an effort by Taliban militants to trick him into being a suicide bomber provoked tears and anger at a meeting of tribal leaders. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Acute Politics: Tokens of Home “There's a small charm that hangs around my neck. Many soldiers carry some small token or good luck charm- Saint Christopher medallions, coins, crosses, sometimes even hand blown glass hearts. Mine is a stylized fishhook carved and polished out of bone. The Maori call it Hei-Matau; they believe it will bring strength, peace and good health. My sister bought mine for me while in New Zealand this winter, and I've worn it ever since.” (READ MORE)
Desert Flier: Slave to the System “‘Dude, you're not on the nine-line!’ ‘What, your kidding me! I'm going to have to go on this one! Either that, or the patient stays on the deck, and we re-submit another request.’ ‘I already have a monitor.’ The flight medic yells above the roar of the rotors 20 yards away. I shrug my shoulders, as if to say ‘What now?’” (READ MORE)
The Mesopotamian: Hi “It may be that we have left the land of Iraq and moved to the opposite side of the Earth, but Iraq does not seem to be able to quit our hearts and minds. It follows us like some phantom and refuses to leave us in peace to find our way in this new life. Where I am staying at the moment there is a satellite TV that receives Al-Iraqia and many of the other Arabic channels, and most of the time we watch these with sinking hearts as news of new disasters and painful tragedies reach us almost everyday.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Fred Thompson: The Queen and Free Speech “Last week, I was fortunate enough to spend some time in London. Being there, I couldn't help but think how much America owes to British culture and traditions.” (READ MORE)
Dennis Prager: The Rape of a Name Is Also Rape “Upon first hearing a comparison of name-rape to body-rape, most people are likely to recoil. But upon reflection, it becomes clear that the two are morally comparable.” (READ MORE)
Sandy Froman: Dismantling Campaign Finance Reform: Restoring Your Free Speech “On the last day of its term, the Supreme Court began dismantling the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). Anyone who cares about the First Amendment should be cheering.” (READ MORE)
Bill Murchison: Free Speech And The Politicians “Free speech -- which means, to entirely too many self-styled liberals, ‘speech I agree with’ -- won a modest victory this week in the U.S. Supreme Court.” (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: Cultural Heritages “Among the interesting people encountered by my wife and me, during some recent vacation travel, were a small group of adolescent boys from a Navajo reservation.” (READ MORE)
Patrick J. Buchanan: Will Bloomberg Swift-Boat Hillary? “The presidential candidacy of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is already a smashing success.” (READ MORE)
Jack Kemp: Keep the Internet Tax-Free “Ronald Reagan said famously, ‘The trouble with those on 'the left': if they see something move, they'll tax it, if it keeps moving, they'll regulate it, and if it stops moving, they'll subsidize it.’ We would add, as longtime ‘tax cutters,’ that unfortunately, all too often, that phenomenon is also occurring on ‘the right.’” (READ MORE)
Rich Lowry: Imbalanced on Talk Radio “Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-radio pioneer, has been called many nasty things before, but never a ‘structural imbalance.’ That's the fancy term a liberal think tank uses to characterize his success -- and to dress up its proposal for counteracting that success through new government regulation.” (READ MORE)
Amanda Carpenter: Obama Tries to Strip Illegal Worker Checks “Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.) is sponsoring an amendment to the Senate’s immigration bill to strip language that would require employers to verify the social security numbers of their workers unless there is ‘suspicion of unlawful employment.’” (READ MORE)
Horace Cooper: Whither Personal Responsibility “More and more it seems that celebrities and their families or close associates are unwilling to embrace basic notions of personal responsibility. Whether it’s the hangers on around the tragic life of Anna Nicole Smith or the family of train wreck Paris Hilton, more and more it appears that the families and friends of celebrities are nothing more than serial enablers.” (READ MORE)
John McCaslin: NeW Women “Carrie Lukas, Washington-based author of ‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism,’ was keynote speaker when the college-based Network of Enlightened Women (NeW) held its second annual national conference on Saturday.” (READ MORE)
Debra J. Saunders: Hooey Denier Deniers “If you want to convince the world that an overwhelming majority of scientists believes in global warming, then start by ignoring scientists who are not true believers. First, establish lists of scientists with your approved position, then smear dissidents. Soon, up-and-coming scientists will be afraid to cross the rigid green line.” (READ MORE)
Amanda Carpenter: Pelosi’s Green House Costs Cash, Carries Risk “If you hear Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) ask how many staffers it would take to change all the light bulbs in the House of Representatives, be warned it’s not a joke. Replacing all desk lamps within her Capitol jurisdiction with energy efficient bulbs is a part of the slogan-happy Speaker’s agenda to ‘Green the Capitol’ as well as make the country ‘energy independent’ by Independence Day.” (READ MORE)
Rich Galen: A New Yorker in the White House? “Mayor Mike Bloomberg has loudly, continuously, seriously (but not terribly believably) announced that he is not, under any circumstances, can't even understand where this might have come from, running for President of the United States.” (READ MORE)
James Taranto: The Truth About Guantanamo “Was it wishful thinking? On Thursday the Associated Press reported that, according to sources it did not name, ‘the Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility and move the terror suspects there to military prisons elsewhere.’ The White House quickly denied the rumor, and, for good measure, on Friday the Pentagon announced that Guantanamo had admitted its first new detainee in months: Haroon al-Afghani, a commander from the al Qaeda-affiliated terror group Hezb-i-Islami.” (READ MORE)
Pete Du Pont: Security First “The immigration bill may be back on the Senate floor this week, and the policies that are adopted will have a significant impact on the sovereignty, security, economic growth and opportunity of America in the coming decades. America's modern immigration trend began in 1986 when President Reagan's bill granted amnesty to some three million illegal immigrants yet failed to improve border security. That amnesty sent a message to people across the border:” (READ MORE)
Bret Stephens: Who Killed Palestine? “Bill Clinton did it. Yasser Arafat did it. So did George W. Bush, Yitzhak Rabin, Hosni Mubarak, Ariel Sharon, Al-Jazeera and the BBC. The list of culprits in the whodunit called ‘Who Killed Palestine?’ is neither short nor mutually exclusive. But since future historians are bound to ask the question, let's get a head start by suggesting some answers. And make no mistake: No matter how much diplomatic, military and financial oxygen is pumped into Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, it's oxygen flowing to a corpse.” (READ MORE)
Michael J. Totten: The Nut Job Media Circus “If there is any more absurd a group of ‘activists’ in the world than Rage Boy and his Islamist pals throwing tantrums over Salman Rushdie’s novels and knighthood, Korans allegedly flushed down the can, and pencil drawings in Danish and other newspapers, I don’t know about them. I have deliberately avoided writing or even posting about such people because they really ought to be starved of media oxygen. Christopher Hitchens is absolutely correct when he writes the following:” (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: Iran's War Against West Gets Active? “How does Iran spell border with Iraq? Apparently, it's spelled mine. Iranian invasions, catch the wave. ‘Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces have been spotted by British troops crossing the border into southern Iraq, The Sun tabloid reported on Tuesday.’” (READ MORE)
A Soldier's Mind: SFC Adin Salkanovic “The Decision Was Not Up For Debate…” “When I hear stories like this, I am always amazed at the determination and resiliency of the men and women who serve in our Country’s Armed Forces. What amazes me even more, is the men and women who are not born in the United States, yet they come to this country, volunteer for Military service, where they fight, sacrifice and die for this country, as if this was their homeland. Something that some American citizens by birth many times refuse to do. These young men and women are truly inspirational and should serve as an shining example for our children.” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Free Speech for Me AND for Thee “The realignment continues on the ship of state (that sounds weird somehow, but I'm too lazy to fix it). Today, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS -- which also sounds weird and vaguely salacious) cast out the most offensive provision of the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002... the signing of which, and continued defense of, is the worst decision ever made by President Bush, a president I otherwise mostly admire.” (READ MORE)
Blue Crab Boulevard: Down The Slippery Slope “Even though the Democratic leadership has declared all-out war on the war in Iraq, they always have insisted that the war in Afghanistan was a ‘good’ war. Even though they have played games with a funding bill that was not just for the Iraq war but for the ‘good’ war as well, they have demanded we refocus on the ‘good’ war. Yeah, right. ‘When they won control of Congress in November, Democrats pressed their case to withdraw troops from Iraq and refocus on Afghanistan, but some are growing impatient with U.S. operations in Afghanistan as well.’” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Afghanistan's Turn “The defeat-and-retreat chorus that won control of Congress in last year's midterms told America that we needed to withdraw from Iraq in order to fight ‘real terrorists’ in Afghanistan.. They derided the Bush administration's policy to fight terrorists in Iraq, claiming that the fighting there served as a distraction from the true war on terror being fought against the Taliban. They pledged to focus on the latter and destroy the terrorists that attacked America. Well, that was then. This is now:” (READ MORE)
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: No Significant Spike in Violence Following Latest Askariya Attack “The day after the al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra, Iraq was bombed for the second time in a year and a half, I wrote that the second bombing was ‘potentially disastrous.’ Analysts feared that, similar to the first attack on the al-Askariya Mosque on February 22, 2006, this provocation could spark sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias. Fortunately, about two weeks after the event, Iraq has not witnessed a major spike in violence.” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Iraq Report: al Qaeda Strikes at the Seams “As Iraqi and Coalition forces press forward with Operation Phantom Thunder in the Baghdad Belts, al Qaeda conducted its first coordinated counter attack. Five separate suicide strikes Baghdad, Babil and in the north resulted in up to 45 deaths. The most effective strike targeted members of the Anbar Salvation Council who were meeting in Baghdad.” (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Prince Charles fights global cooling “Last year, the Prince of Wales produced 3 million pounds of carbon dioxide, the Times of London reported. That is great news in the battle against global cooling. The news comes less than a week after Professor Timothy Patterson of Carleton University announced that global warming has ended and that a period of global cooling lies ahead. Wrote Patterson:” (READ MORE)
Fortress of Solitude: The Fairness Doctrine “I have mentioned the Fairness Doctrine on several occasions. But, I wanted to take the time to elaborate on the topic. The Fairness Doctrine was a Government regulation enacted in 1949 and repealed in 1987. Basically, it gave the FCC the power to ‘balance’ the political viewpoints that are broadcast on the radio. For instance, if a right-wing talk show host such as Rush Limbaugh (the main target of the Fairness Doctrine) has three hours of air time, an opposing left-wing radio host must be given three hours of air time. However, there are two major problems with this. The Fairness Doctrine flies directly in the face of the free market and the First Amendment.” (READ MORE)
Baron Bodissey: “For a Mohammedan-Free Denmark” “I mentioned on Saturday that a group in Denmark was planning to burn an effigy of Mohammed (instead of a witch) at the traditional midsummer festival. Since then the group that burned the Prophet has contacted SIAD, who kindly uploaded the video for us. The Danes made quite a production of the bonfire — the soundtrack has ‘Light My Fire’ on it. The intro is in Danish, and it goes by too fast for me to translate easily. Maybe some of our Danish readers can give us the gist of it. But the last thing you see before the action rolls is this:
‘For a Mohammedan-free Denmark!’” (READ MORE)
GayPatriotWest: Carter Silent on Schalit Kidnapping “After reading the Jerusalem Post article on the recorded message from the kidnapped IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldier Gilad Schalit, I wondered what former President Jimmy Carter had to say about this violation of international law. Given Mr. Carter’s professed interest in human rights and his book on the Middle East, he must have said something. Mr. Carter recently chastised the Bush Administration for failing to recognize the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas whose military wing al-Kassam crossed into sovereign Israeli territory to abduct the young man.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Olby: If Hugh Hewitt is for it, who can not be against it? “Here’s the most shameless left-wing water carrier on television, a man who once donated to Bill Clinton’s charity on camera, knocking amnesty shill Jon Kyl for taking advice from the dark precincts of right-wing talk radio. Would the Democratic Senate leadership ever stoop so low as to solicit legislative input from its own grassroots movement? Why … yes, they would. But that’s ‘people-powered politics’ at work, quite distinct from the Republican ‘noise machine.’” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Equality of Women in Islam “… is very important. You may have thought they were supposed to shut up and stay under the burkha. These things are true. Also, it is important for them to blow themselves up amidst Americans, when not cooking, fetching water and stabbing Jews with poles. In this they are the equal of men. Well, not the cooking and fetching water parts, presumeably, but here’s Hamas MP Yunis al-Astal to explain it, via MEMRI:” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: Gas Pains “Well, Congress is working on raising the federal gas-mileage standards, and I have to say I'm not surprised. It's a short-sighted, feel-good solution to a problem that doesn't really need fixing -- in other words, it's precisely the sort of thing that we should expect from Congress. The idea is simple -- seductively so. We can decrease our dependency on foreign oil and save people money if cars simply use less gasoline to move about. And the easiest way for the government to influence that is by fiat: to simply order the auto makers to make more fuel efficient cars.” (READ MORE)
Technicalities: I Hope She Wins Big Time! “In August of 2005 Tanya Andersen's life was turned upside down by the RIAA. Just like Nifong (the hanging DA of the Duke rape case) - it didn't matter that she had proof of innocence. They had decided she was ‘guilty’ and they wanted her to pony up their shakedown money. Can you hear it?... ‘Proof? We don't need no stinkin' proof!’ Now she has turned around and is suing them!” (READ MORE)
RedState: Enough is Enough! A Quick Take on Federal Election Commission v Wisconsin Right to Life “Monday's Supreme Court decision in Federal Election Commission v Wisconsin Right to Life is cause for a little celebration. It's not a great day for Free Speech, but it's a pretty darn good one. First some background. Back in 2004, one of the hot political issues was the Democratic filibuster of President Bush's judicial nominees. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (WRTL) which had an interest in seeing conservative judges appointed to the federal bench, ran radio ads exhorting Wisconsin citizens to contact their Senators, Feingold and Kohl, and urge them to oppose the filibuster. The ads did not mention the senators' positions on the filibuster, nor did it mention that Senator Feingold was running for reelection.” (READ MORE)
Reformed Chicks Blabbing: Just when you think it can't get any worse... “It does! Bush has sunk to a new low in my estimation. I know that the liberal reader will be thinking that he past that point years ago but since I'm a supporter of the war on terror I don't agree. When you agree with his policy his drive and determination can be viewed in a good light but when you disagree with it he can appear to be stubborn, pig-headed and arrogant. And you just want to yell at him and tell him to wake up and listen.” (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: Can You Believe That Even The WAPO Would Run This Nonsense? “I'm not sure I've ever heard of Sally Quinn before, which is all well and good, because she may be the most clueless person writing for a mainstream media outlet in the whole of the United States -- and that's saying something. I say that based on nothing more than her ludicrous column in the Washington Post that explains how Republicans are obsessed with...immigration? No. The War in Iraq? No. The 2008 elections? Not really. With....aw, you have to read it for yourself,” (READ MORE)
McQ: Operation Phantom Thunder: The spin begins “Remember what I told you to keep foremost in your mind when reading news reports about Operation Phantom Thunder?
If not, let me reiterate it for you: ‘The center of gravity for this operation is Baghdad’ Or said another way, this is all about Baghdad. Today in the NYT, Michael Gordon, who Michael Yon has generally praised for his coverage of Babuqua, talks about ‘failure’ there. When I first saw this mentioned a few days ago, I knew as sure are there are stars in the sky that this would become the dominant MSM meme for the operation there.” (READ MORE)
Richard S. Lowry @ OPFOR: Ramblings From Richard “I just got a telephone call from a reporter at a local talk radio station. He asked me if I wanted to comment on the AP story that there has been a dramatic increase in American casualties in the last few days in Iraq. I said that maybe it had something to do with the fact that General Petraeus had recently launched the largest military operation since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. His response was that he knew that there were some ‘raids’ in progress. I corrected him immediately. Then I went into a twenty-minute dissertation about all the good news that the MSM is ignoring.” (READ MORE)
MountainRunner: Public Diplomacy's Reality Check “One of the most severe problems with ‘public diplomacy’ is the failure by even its proponents to agree on a definition. Sadly, this past week we saw more of the same. Last week I wrote on the release of a new public diplomacy strategy that reflects nearly two years of leadership by Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. Released without fanfare, it was gently slipped into the wild with nary a comment by the Administration, Karen Hughes, any supporter of either.” (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.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
A Strong Push From Backstage - Air Force Two touched down at the Greenbrier Valley Airport in West Virginia on Feb. 6, 2003, carrying Vice President Cheney to the annual retreat of Republican House and Senate leaders. He had come to sell them on the economic centerpiece of President Bush's first term: a $674 billion tax cut. (READ MORE)
Judge Discusses Details of Work On Secret Court - At 3 a.m. on Aug. 8, 1998, the day after the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the chief judge of a special court that supervises applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was awakened at home in order to approve five wiretaps, including one of Osama bin... (READ MORE)
5-4 Supreme Court Weakens Curbs on Pre-Election TV Ads - The Supreme Court yesterday substantially weakened restrictions on the kinds of television ads that corporations and unions can finance in the days before an election, providing special interest groups with the opportunity for a far more expansive role in the 2008 elections. (READ MORE)'Rainmaker' Leaves PAC After Calls for Resignation - The custodian of the Democratic Freshmen political action committee has stepped down after calls for his resignation from a House Democrat concerned about his history as a registered lobbyist. (READ MORE)
Rough Road Ahead for Immigration Bill - The White House says it has the votes to resurrect the immigration bill on the Senate floor today, though enough senators said they may change their minds in other votes later this week to leave the bill's ultimate fate in doubt. (READ MORE)
Court Rules For Funding of Issue Ads - The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the First Amendment protects the rights of businesses and unions to fund advocacy ads in the closing months of an election, striking a blow to campaign-finance law and drawing praise from free-speech activists. (READ MORE)
Afghan Boy Outsmarts the Taliban - The story of a 6-year-old Afghan boy who says he thwarted an effort by Taliban militants to trick him into being a suicide bomber provoked tears and anger at a meeting of tribal leaders. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Acute Politics: Tokens of Home “There's a small charm that hangs around my neck. Many soldiers carry some small token or good luck charm- Saint Christopher medallions, coins, crosses, sometimes even hand blown glass hearts. Mine is a stylized fishhook carved and polished out of bone. The Maori call it Hei-Matau; they believe it will bring strength, peace and good health. My sister bought mine for me while in New Zealand this winter, and I've worn it ever since.” (READ MORE)
Desert Flier: Slave to the System “‘Dude, you're not on the nine-line!’ ‘What, your kidding me! I'm going to have to go on this one! Either that, or the patient stays on the deck, and we re-submit another request.’ ‘I already have a monitor.’ The flight medic yells above the roar of the rotors 20 yards away. I shrug my shoulders, as if to say ‘What now?’” (READ MORE)
The Mesopotamian: Hi “It may be that we have left the land of Iraq and moved to the opposite side of the Earth, but Iraq does not seem to be able to quit our hearts and minds. It follows us like some phantom and refuses to leave us in peace to find our way in this new life. Where I am staying at the moment there is a satellite TV that receives Al-Iraqia and many of the other Arabic channels, and most of the time we watch these with sinking hearts as news of new disasters and painful tragedies reach us almost everyday.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Fred Thompson: The Queen and Free Speech “Last week, I was fortunate enough to spend some time in London. Being there, I couldn't help but think how much America owes to British culture and traditions.” (READ MORE)
Dennis Prager: The Rape of a Name Is Also Rape “Upon first hearing a comparison of name-rape to body-rape, most people are likely to recoil. But upon reflection, it becomes clear that the two are morally comparable.” (READ MORE)
Sandy Froman: Dismantling Campaign Finance Reform: Restoring Your Free Speech “On the last day of its term, the Supreme Court began dismantling the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). Anyone who cares about the First Amendment should be cheering.” (READ MORE)
Bill Murchison: Free Speech And The Politicians “Free speech -- which means, to entirely too many self-styled liberals, ‘speech I agree with’ -- won a modest victory this week in the U.S. Supreme Court.” (READ MORE)
Thomas Sowell: Cultural Heritages “Among the interesting people encountered by my wife and me, during some recent vacation travel, were a small group of adolescent boys from a Navajo reservation.” (READ MORE)
Patrick J. Buchanan: Will Bloomberg Swift-Boat Hillary? “The presidential candidacy of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is already a smashing success.” (READ MORE)
Jack Kemp: Keep the Internet Tax-Free “Ronald Reagan said famously, ‘The trouble with those on 'the left': if they see something move, they'll tax it, if it keeps moving, they'll regulate it, and if it stops moving, they'll subsidize it.’ We would add, as longtime ‘tax cutters,’ that unfortunately, all too often, that phenomenon is also occurring on ‘the right.’” (READ MORE)
Rich Lowry: Imbalanced on Talk Radio “Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-radio pioneer, has been called many nasty things before, but never a ‘structural imbalance.’ That's the fancy term a liberal think tank uses to characterize his success -- and to dress up its proposal for counteracting that success through new government regulation.” (READ MORE)
Amanda Carpenter: Obama Tries to Strip Illegal Worker Checks “Sen. Barack Obama (D.-Ill.) is sponsoring an amendment to the Senate’s immigration bill to strip language that would require employers to verify the social security numbers of their workers unless there is ‘suspicion of unlawful employment.’” (READ MORE)
Horace Cooper: Whither Personal Responsibility “More and more it seems that celebrities and their families or close associates are unwilling to embrace basic notions of personal responsibility. Whether it’s the hangers on around the tragic life of Anna Nicole Smith or the family of train wreck Paris Hilton, more and more it appears that the families and friends of celebrities are nothing more than serial enablers.” (READ MORE)
John McCaslin: NeW Women “Carrie Lukas, Washington-based author of ‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism,’ was keynote speaker when the college-based Network of Enlightened Women (NeW) held its second annual national conference on Saturday.” (READ MORE)
Debra J. Saunders: Hooey Denier Deniers “If you want to convince the world that an overwhelming majority of scientists believes in global warming, then start by ignoring scientists who are not true believers. First, establish lists of scientists with your approved position, then smear dissidents. Soon, up-and-coming scientists will be afraid to cross the rigid green line.” (READ MORE)
Amanda Carpenter: Pelosi’s Green House Costs Cash, Carries Risk “If you hear Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) ask how many staffers it would take to change all the light bulbs in the House of Representatives, be warned it’s not a joke. Replacing all desk lamps within her Capitol jurisdiction with energy efficient bulbs is a part of the slogan-happy Speaker’s agenda to ‘Green the Capitol’ as well as make the country ‘energy independent’ by Independence Day.” (READ MORE)
Rich Galen: A New Yorker in the White House? “Mayor Mike Bloomberg has loudly, continuously, seriously (but not terribly believably) announced that he is not, under any circumstances, can't even understand where this might have come from, running for President of the United States.” (READ MORE)
James Taranto: The Truth About Guantanamo “Was it wishful thinking? On Thursday the Associated Press reported that, according to sources it did not name, ‘the Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility and move the terror suspects there to military prisons elsewhere.’ The White House quickly denied the rumor, and, for good measure, on Friday the Pentagon announced that Guantanamo had admitted its first new detainee in months: Haroon al-Afghani, a commander from the al Qaeda-affiliated terror group Hezb-i-Islami.” (READ MORE)
Pete Du Pont: Security First “The immigration bill may be back on the Senate floor this week, and the policies that are adopted will have a significant impact on the sovereignty, security, economic growth and opportunity of America in the coming decades. America's modern immigration trend began in 1986 when President Reagan's bill granted amnesty to some three million illegal immigrants yet failed to improve border security. That amnesty sent a message to people across the border:” (READ MORE)
Bret Stephens: Who Killed Palestine? “Bill Clinton did it. Yasser Arafat did it. So did George W. Bush, Yitzhak Rabin, Hosni Mubarak, Ariel Sharon, Al-Jazeera and the BBC. The list of culprits in the whodunit called ‘Who Killed Palestine?’ is neither short nor mutually exclusive. But since future historians are bound to ask the question, let's get a head start by suggesting some answers. And make no mistake: No matter how much diplomatic, military and financial oxygen is pumped into Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, it's oxygen flowing to a corpse.” (READ MORE)
Michael J. Totten: The Nut Job Media Circus “If there is any more absurd a group of ‘activists’ in the world than Rage Boy and his Islamist pals throwing tantrums over Salman Rushdie’s novels and knighthood, Korans allegedly flushed down the can, and pencil drawings in Danish and other newspapers, I don’t know about them. I have deliberately avoided writing or even posting about such people because they really ought to be starved of media oxygen. Christopher Hitchens is absolutely correct when he writes the following:” (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: Iran's War Against West Gets Active? “How does Iran spell border with Iraq? Apparently, it's spelled mine. Iranian invasions, catch the wave. ‘Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces have been spotted by British troops crossing the border into southern Iraq, The Sun tabloid reported on Tuesday.’” (READ MORE)
A Soldier's Mind: SFC Adin Salkanovic “The Decision Was Not Up For Debate…” “When I hear stories like this, I am always amazed at the determination and resiliency of the men and women who serve in our Country’s Armed Forces. What amazes me even more, is the men and women who are not born in the United States, yet they come to this country, volunteer for Military service, where they fight, sacrifice and die for this country, as if this was their homeland. Something that some American citizens by birth many times refuse to do. These young men and women are truly inspirational and should serve as an shining example for our children.” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Free Speech for Me AND for Thee “The realignment continues on the ship of state (that sounds weird somehow, but I'm too lazy to fix it). Today, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS -- which also sounds weird and vaguely salacious) cast out the most offensive provision of the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002... the signing of which, and continued defense of, is the worst decision ever made by President Bush, a president I otherwise mostly admire.” (READ MORE)
Blue Crab Boulevard: Down The Slippery Slope “Even though the Democratic leadership has declared all-out war on the war in Iraq, they always have insisted that the war in Afghanistan was a ‘good’ war. Even though they have played games with a funding bill that was not just for the Iraq war but for the ‘good’ war as well, they have demanded we refocus on the ‘good’ war. Yeah, right. ‘When they won control of Congress in November, Democrats pressed their case to withdraw troops from Iraq and refocus on Afghanistan, but some are growing impatient with U.S. operations in Afghanistan as well.’” (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Afghanistan's Turn “The defeat-and-retreat chorus that won control of Congress in last year's midterms told America that we needed to withdraw from Iraq in order to fight ‘real terrorists’ in Afghanistan.. They derided the Bush administration's policy to fight terrorists in Iraq, claiming that the fighting there served as a distraction from the true war on terror being fought against the Taliban. They pledged to focus on the latter and destroy the terrorists that attacked America. Well, that was then. This is now:” (READ MORE)
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: No Significant Spike in Violence Following Latest Askariya Attack “The day after the al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra, Iraq was bombed for the second time in a year and a half, I wrote that the second bombing was ‘potentially disastrous.’ Analysts feared that, similar to the first attack on the al-Askariya Mosque on February 22, 2006, this provocation could spark sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias. Fortunately, about two weeks after the event, Iraq has not witnessed a major spike in violence.” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: Iraq Report: al Qaeda Strikes at the Seams “As Iraqi and Coalition forces press forward with Operation Phantom Thunder in the Baghdad Belts, al Qaeda conducted its first coordinated counter attack. Five separate suicide strikes Baghdad, Babil and in the north resulted in up to 45 deaths. The most effective strike targeted members of the Anbar Salvation Council who were meeting in Baghdad.” (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Prince Charles fights global cooling “Last year, the Prince of Wales produced 3 million pounds of carbon dioxide, the Times of London reported. That is great news in the battle against global cooling. The news comes less than a week after Professor Timothy Patterson of Carleton University announced that global warming has ended and that a period of global cooling lies ahead. Wrote Patterson:” (READ MORE)
Fortress of Solitude: The Fairness Doctrine “I have mentioned the Fairness Doctrine on several occasions. But, I wanted to take the time to elaborate on the topic. The Fairness Doctrine was a Government regulation enacted in 1949 and repealed in 1987. Basically, it gave the FCC the power to ‘balance’ the political viewpoints that are broadcast on the radio. For instance, if a right-wing talk show host such as Rush Limbaugh (the main target of the Fairness Doctrine) has three hours of air time, an opposing left-wing radio host must be given three hours of air time. However, there are two major problems with this. The Fairness Doctrine flies directly in the face of the free market and the First Amendment.” (READ MORE)
Baron Bodissey: “For a Mohammedan-Free Denmark” “I mentioned on Saturday that a group in Denmark was planning to burn an effigy of Mohammed (instead of a witch) at the traditional midsummer festival. Since then the group that burned the Prophet has contacted SIAD, who kindly uploaded the video for us. The Danes made quite a production of the bonfire — the soundtrack has ‘Light My Fire’ on it. The intro is in Danish, and it goes by too fast for me to translate easily. Maybe some of our Danish readers can give us the gist of it. But the last thing you see before the action rolls is this:
‘For a Mohammedan-free Denmark!’” (READ MORE)
GayPatriotWest: Carter Silent on Schalit Kidnapping “After reading the Jerusalem Post article on the recorded message from the kidnapped IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldier Gilad Schalit, I wondered what former President Jimmy Carter had to say about this violation of international law. Given Mr. Carter’s professed interest in human rights and his book on the Middle East, he must have said something. Mr. Carter recently chastised the Bush Administration for failing to recognize the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas whose military wing al-Kassam crossed into sovereign Israeli territory to abduct the young man.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Olby: If Hugh Hewitt is for it, who can not be against it? “Here’s the most shameless left-wing water carrier on television, a man who once donated to Bill Clinton’s charity on camera, knocking amnesty shill Jon Kyl for taking advice from the dark precincts of right-wing talk radio. Would the Democratic Senate leadership ever stoop so low as to solicit legislative input from its own grassroots movement? Why … yes, they would. But that’s ‘people-powered politics’ at work, quite distinct from the Republican ‘noise machine.’” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Equality of Women in Islam “… is very important. You may have thought they were supposed to shut up and stay under the burkha. These things are true. Also, it is important for them to blow themselves up amidst Americans, when not cooking, fetching water and stabbing Jews with poles. In this they are the equal of men. Well, not the cooking and fetching water parts, presumeably, but here’s Hamas MP Yunis al-Astal to explain it, via MEMRI:” (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: Gas Pains “Well, Congress is working on raising the federal gas-mileage standards, and I have to say I'm not surprised. It's a short-sighted, feel-good solution to a problem that doesn't really need fixing -- in other words, it's precisely the sort of thing that we should expect from Congress. The idea is simple -- seductively so. We can decrease our dependency on foreign oil and save people money if cars simply use less gasoline to move about. And the easiest way for the government to influence that is by fiat: to simply order the auto makers to make more fuel efficient cars.” (READ MORE)
Technicalities: I Hope She Wins Big Time! “In August of 2005 Tanya Andersen's life was turned upside down by the RIAA. Just like Nifong (the hanging DA of the Duke rape case) - it didn't matter that she had proof of innocence. They had decided she was ‘guilty’ and they wanted her to pony up their shakedown money. Can you hear it?... ‘Proof? We don't need no stinkin' proof!’ Now she has turned around and is suing them!” (READ MORE)
RedState: Enough is Enough! A Quick Take on Federal Election Commission v Wisconsin Right to Life “Monday's Supreme Court decision in Federal Election Commission v Wisconsin Right to Life is cause for a little celebration. It's not a great day for Free Speech, but it's a pretty darn good one. First some background. Back in 2004, one of the hot political issues was the Democratic filibuster of President Bush's judicial nominees. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (WRTL) which had an interest in seeing conservative judges appointed to the federal bench, ran radio ads exhorting Wisconsin citizens to contact their Senators, Feingold and Kohl, and urge them to oppose the filibuster. The ads did not mention the senators' positions on the filibuster, nor did it mention that Senator Feingold was running for reelection.” (READ MORE)
Reformed Chicks Blabbing: Just when you think it can't get any worse... “It does! Bush has sunk to a new low in my estimation. I know that the liberal reader will be thinking that he past that point years ago but since I'm a supporter of the war on terror I don't agree. When you agree with his policy his drive and determination can be viewed in a good light but when you disagree with it he can appear to be stubborn, pig-headed and arrogant. And you just want to yell at him and tell him to wake up and listen.” (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: Can You Believe That Even The WAPO Would Run This Nonsense? “I'm not sure I've ever heard of Sally Quinn before, which is all well and good, because she may be the most clueless person writing for a mainstream media outlet in the whole of the United States -- and that's saying something. I say that based on nothing more than her ludicrous column in the Washington Post that explains how Republicans are obsessed with...immigration? No. The War in Iraq? No. The 2008 elections? Not really. With....aw, you have to read it for yourself,” (READ MORE)
McQ: Operation Phantom Thunder: The spin begins “Remember what I told you to keep foremost in your mind when reading news reports about Operation Phantom Thunder?
If not, let me reiterate it for you: ‘The center of gravity for this operation is Baghdad’ Or said another way, this is all about Baghdad. Today in the NYT, Michael Gordon, who Michael Yon has generally praised for his coverage of Babuqua, talks about ‘failure’ there. When I first saw this mentioned a few days ago, I knew as sure are there are stars in the sky that this would become the dominant MSM meme for the operation there.” (READ MORE)
Richard S. Lowry @ OPFOR: Ramblings From Richard “I just got a telephone call from a reporter at a local talk radio station. He asked me if I wanted to comment on the AP story that there has been a dramatic increase in American casualties in the last few days in Iraq. I said that maybe it had something to do with the fact that General Petraeus had recently launched the largest military operation since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. His response was that he knew that there were some ‘raids’ in progress. I corrected him immediately. Then I went into a twenty-minute dissertation about all the good news that the MSM is ignoring.” (READ MORE)
MountainRunner: Public Diplomacy's Reality Check “One of the most severe problems with ‘public diplomacy’ is the failure by even its proponents to agree on a definition. Sadly, this past week we saw more of the same. Last week I wrote on the release of a new public diplomacy strategy that reflects nearly two years of leadership by Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. Released without fanfare, it was gently slipped into the wild with nary a comment by the Administration, Karen Hughes, any supporter of either.” (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.
June 25, 2007
Sen. Levin Gets Fisked
If you haven't read it yet, go now and read 1LT Hegseth's response to Sen Carl Levin in today's Washington Post. As Uncle Jimbo calls it at Blackfive, the Senator was KO'd by the 1LT.
A couple of excerpts:
Read the whole thing you won't be disappointed. As JD Johannes notes on his blog, "its unfortunate that our 'elder statesmen' have been annointed as experts on a war they have barely witnessed in person."
A couple of excerpts:
As an Iraq war veteran who participated in combat operations and political reconciliation efforts, I take issue with some of the arguments repeatedly being made on Capitol Hill. Most recently I was bothered by statements from Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who cited three common antiwar arguments in his June 21 op-ed, " Lincoln's Example for Iraq," all of which run counter to realities on the ground in Iraq.
Veterans know firsthand that numerous mistakes have been made in the war. But that does not change the unfortunate reality: Iraq today is the front line of a global jihad being waged against America and its allies. Both Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have said so.
We face an important choice in the coming months: provide Gen. David Petraeus the time and troops he needs to execute his counterinsurgency campaign, or declare defeat and withdraw from Iraq. It seems that Democrats in Congress have already made their decision.
President Lincoln chose to fight a bloody and unpopular war because he believed the enemy had to be defeated. He was right. And to me, that sounds more than a bit like the situation our country faces today. What path will we choose?
Read the whole thing you won't be disappointed. As JD Johannes notes on his blog, "its unfortunate that our 'elder statesmen' have been annointed as experts on a war they have barely witnessed in person."
No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy
Marines operating in Haditha are eptomizing that motto, by befriending the locals and embracing COIN and all that it entails.
Winning the hearts and minds, a recurring theme for US Forces in Iraq and one that seems to be paying off. As more and more Iraqis discover that US Forces are there to help them achieve and better life and understand the sacrifices that US Forces endure, many times for a people they've never met before now, the Iraqis are coming to trust the US more and they are developing a sense of national pride because of it. As Iraqi units more into the area that pride will only blossom and hopefully it will blossom into a country that the world can be proud of.
Marines make presence known, win hearts and minds
BAGHDAD — U.S. Marines continued counterinsurgency operations in Haditha Sunday in an effort to win the hearts and minds of Iraqi citizens.
“Showing a presence in the area does a lot more than people would think,” said U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Joseph A. Cervantes, squad leader, 1st Squad, 3rd Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 2. “We mainly do two types of patrols, one being security patrols, which are designed to have a deterrent effect on anything that happens in the area.”
Marines assigned to 1st Sqd., 3rd Plt., conduct up to three patrols a day. Patrols allow Marines to find the enemy and learn about the populace.
“We also do ‘meet and greet’ patrols. We go out and meet the families, and we start a relationship with them,” said Cervantes. “We speak to them and get their feelings on current situations and take their suggestions on what could be done differently in the city.”
The locals warmed up to the Marines, and now talk to them regularly.
U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Edward G. Martin, an automatic rifleman in the unit, said the people didn’t act this way upon their arrival late March 2007.
“They seemed a little distant and cold at first,” said Martin. “They’ve always been friendly, but you can tell we’re now winning them over. They’re beginning to trust us and (they’re) glad we’re here.”
Read the Rest...
Winning the hearts and minds, a recurring theme for US Forces in Iraq and one that seems to be paying off. As more and more Iraqis discover that US Forces are there to help them achieve and better life and understand the sacrifices that US Forces endure, many times for a people they've never met before now, the Iraqis are coming to trust the US more and they are developing a sense of national pride because of it. As Iraqi units more into the area that pride will only blossom and hopefully it will blossom into a country that the world can be proud of.
Execution House and Illegal Prison Discovered in Baqouba
Do you remember the story from a few weeks ago of the executution house that was discovered along with the torture manual produced by al-Qaeda? Of course you do: it was all the Media could talk about for weeks, it even topped the Paris Hilton story! Well here is a report of another such house being discovered by our troops in Iraq:
More proof that al-Qaeda is not concerned with the fundamental safety of the people it seeks to lord over, only the power that they think they can wield with their form of "leadership." How long will it take for the Media to run this story, and expose the depravities of their "freedom fighters"?
I'm not holding my breathe.
BAQOUBA, Iraq – Iraqi Security Forces and Task Force Lightning Soldiers discovered an execution house and an illegal prison in the Baqouba neighborhood of Khatoon Sunday during the sixth day of Operation Arrowhead Ripper.
The two buildings were in the same area as a torture chamber and illegal courthouse
linked to al-Qaida, which were found on the fourth and fifth day of the operation.
Soldiers from 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment discovered the execution house using information from local citizens, who said it had been used by al-Qaida. Soldiers searching the house found five bodies buried in the yard behind the building and bloody clothes in several rooms inside it.
Located nearby, a house had been converted into an illegal prison with several numbered rooms and bars covering the building’s windows. Several blind folds were found inside.
More proof that al-Qaeda is not concerned with the fundamental safety of the people it seeks to lord over, only the power that they think they can wield with their form of "leadership." How long will it take for the Media to run this story, and expose the depravities of their "freedom fighters"?
I'm not holding my breathe.
Air Assault Mission Captures IED Cell
Us Forces conducting an Air Assault mission in Mahmudiyah, in response to the attack on a bridge which took the lives of 3 of their members, captured insurgent members of an IED cell:
KALSU, Iraq — As the Paratroopers packed inside the helicopter, engines roared to life and lifted them into the black of night, June 23.Another job well done and as usualy no plan survivces first contact. With recent intel that the target was moving the troopers were able to change their plan on the fly, literally, and achieve the desired outcome. Somehow I don't think Mr. Kerry had these soldiers in mind when he called our troopers, stupid and uneducated.
The destination of the Paratroopers was Hawaii, but it was no island paradise, it was the target name for an insurgent stronghold in a village just outside Mahmudiyah.
The Paratroopers from Company C, 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division conducted Operation Peregrine II and captured five members of an insurgent cell in north Babil.
“The operation was a night time air assault to capture several (individuals) that we believe are directly responsible for attacks in our area, including the bombing of a bridge that took the lives of three of our fellow Soldiers,” said 1st Sgt. Karl Zaglauer, first sergeant for Company C. “This was actually the third raid we have conducted in response to the bridge attack.”
Rounding Up the Bad Guys
Striking a blow against al-Qaeda in Iraq Coalition forces rounded up 43 leaders of the terror group in central Iraq:
These operations are crucial to reducing the levels of violence in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq and each successful operation reduces the level of violence able to be wrought against the populace all in the name of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Coalition Forces detained 43 suspected terrorists during operations Monday targeting al-Qaeda leaders and operatives in central Iraq.
Coalition Forces detained 15 suspected terrorists during two coordinated operations just north of Baghdad targeting associates of an al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leader. The suspects are allegedly members of the Baghdad vehicle-borne improvised explosive device network, and two of the detainees are believed to be bodyguards for the senior leader.
Northwest of the capital city, Coalition Forces raided three buildings associated with another al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leader tied to the Baghdad VBIED network. The ground force detained 13 suspected terrorists for their alleged association with the
network.
Based on information gained from successful operations June 13 and 16, Coalition Forces targeted the al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leadership east of Fallujah. During raids on several buildings in the area, the ground force detained 13 suspected terrorists for their alleged ties to the senior leaders.
These operations are crucial to reducing the levels of violence in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq and each successful operation reduces the level of violence able to be wrought against the populace all in the name of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Rebuilding Iraq, One Bridge, One Road at a Time.
The Surge isn't all combat operations...a lot of it also involves rebuilding projects just like this one where a bridge bypass was recently completed allowing traffic to flow again:
Kerry's Terrorists strike again...
Projects like this highlight the fact that the insurgents goals are to simply wear down the populace, they destroy those things that the locals rely upon for their livelyhoods and depend upon to make life better. Thankfully we aren't allowing them to do so without consequences, and when they do succeed in destroying the infrastructure, we are there to re-build it. Winning the Hearts and Minds one bridge at a time.
TUZ KHURMATU, Iraq –Iraqi government officials, Coalition and Iraqi Security
Forces completed a critical bypass road to reestablish traffic around the Sarihah Bridge near Tuz Khurmatu, Iraq, June 24.
The Sarihah Bridge provided a critical link between Baghdad and the northern Kirkuk Province. The bridge was destroyed by an insurgent bomb June 2. Soldiers of the Iraqi Army’s 4th Iraqi Army Division in conjunction with the 25th Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade Special Troops Battalion constructed the bypass, which serves as a temporary solution until the bridge can be repaired.
“This [bypass road] is essential to the economic health of Iraq,” said Gov. Abdul-Rahman Mustafa, governor of Kirkuk Province. “But it is temporary. We are here today to reassure the public that we will continue to cooperateto rebuild the bridge.”
Kerry's Terrorists strike again...
Projects like this highlight the fact that the insurgents goals are to simply wear down the populace, they destroy those things that the locals rely upon for their livelyhoods and depend upon to make life better. Thankfully we aren't allowing them to do so without consequences, and when they do succeed in destroying the infrastructure, we are there to re-build it. Winning the Hearts and Minds one bridge at a time.
Iraqis Tired of the Violence - Turn Against Al Qaeda
In another report of Iraqi's getting sick of the violence Iraqi Army and Coalition Forces discover an IED factory after receiving tips from the locals:
As Matt Sanchez said in a conversation earlier today: "I have a feeling most people here want some normalcy and I have seen Iraqis risk their lives to fight against terrorists. " We can see that his first-hand reporting is supported by secondary reports, Iraq is not lost, it is simply awakening.
TIKRIT, Iraq – Iraqi Army and Coalition Forces conducted a joint raid, discovering a large factory used to make home-made explosives, improvised explosive devices and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices Saturday, in Mosul, Iraq.
Soldiers assigned to 2nd Battalion, 4th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army, and Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry conducted the raid after receiving a tip on the location of the factory. The factory consisted of three main sites where each of the HME, IED and VBIEDs were manufactured.
“The successful raid and subsequent discovery was due in large part to the cooperation of the Iraqi people,” said Col. Stephen Twitty, commander, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. “They are providing us information because they are obviously tired of the violence and desire a safer environment for their families.”
As Matt Sanchez said in a conversation earlier today: "I have a feeling most people here want some normalcy and I have seen Iraqis risk their lives to fight against terrorists. " We can see that his first-hand reporting is supported by secondary reports, Iraq is not lost, it is simply awakening.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)