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)
Campaign Jousting Returns to Iraq War - After a strong push from Sen. John McCain's allies, the war in Iraq has moved back to center stage in the presidential election, with McCain attacking Sen. Barack Obama for making up his mind about the war without visiting the war zone and Obama charging that McCain has yet to learn the lessons of... (READ MORE)
U.S. Cites Big Gains Against Al-Qaeda - Less than a year after his agency warned of new threats from a resurgent al-Qaeda, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden now portrays the terrorist movement as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world, including in its presumed haven along... (READ MORE)
Food Prices Predicted to Ease Before Entering Steady Climb - PARIS, May 29 -- The recent steep jump in global food prices should ease in the near term, according to a new report, but prices over the next decade are likely to remain high, spurred by the rising cost of oil, the declining dollar and increasing demand for biofuels. (READ MORE)
Texans say McClellan's turn started at home with mom - Scott McClellan's critics in Washington have speculated about his motives for writing a book bashing President Bush, but back in the former White House spokesman's home state of Texas, some chalk it up to something very simple: his gene pool. (READ MORE)
Top Democrats ask delegates to commit - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday said top Democratic leaders will push undeclared superdelegates to pick sides next week and end the long fight for the party's presidential nomination. (READ MORE)
Mounting Costs Slow the Push for Clean Coal - For years, scientists have had a straightforward idea for taming global warming. They want to take the carbon dioxide that spews from coal-burning power plants and pump it back into the ground. President Bush is for it, and indeed has spent years talking up the virtues of “clean coal.” All three candidates to succeed him favor the approach. (READ MORE)
U.S. Withdraws Fulbright Grants to Gaza - The American State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted them permission to leave. Israel has isolated this coastal strip, which is run by the militant group Hamas. Given that policy, the United States Consulate in Jerusalem said the grant money had been “redirected” to students elsewhere out of concern that it would go to waste if the Palestinian students were forced to remain in Gaza. (READ MORE)
Location Gives Tiny State Prime Access to Big Riches - For centuries, nomads have dropped down from the rocky hills around here to carve bricks of salt from an ancient lake and haul them away on the backs of camels. But a new salt miner is giving it a try, and he may be a harbinger of what's happening here. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Patrick J. Buchanan: Is Bush Becoming Irrelevant? - After losing both houses of Congress in the 1994 election, Bill Clinton expostulated: The president of the United States is not irrelevant! On learning his trusted aide from Texas Scott McClellan has denounced as an "unnecessary war" the same Iraq war McClellan defended from the White House podium, George Bush must feel as Clinton did. The synchronized savagery of the attacks on McClellan as turncoat suggests he drew blood. For what he has done is offer confirmation to the president's war critics, from within the White House inner circle, that Bush's motive in going to war was not a clear and present danger of attack by Iraq with weapons of mass destruction, but to advance a Bush crusade to impose democracy on the Middle East. (READ MORE)
Kathleen Parker: Revenge of the Nerd - Sometimes the answers to our most perplexing questions can be found on the playground. Take Scott McClellan. Is he dishonest? Dishonorable? Disloyal? Is he telling the truth that the Bush administration conducted an organized propaganda campaign in order to lead the country to war? Did McClellan know it all along and, if so, why did he hang so long with those guys? Curious Americans want to know. At the White House, former colleagues wonder what happened to the Scott they thought they knew? What caused that sweet guy to betray his former boss and friends with a tell-all memoir -- "What Happened" -- already No. 1 on Amazon? Who is that unmasked man? (READ MORE)
Mike Gallagher: John McCain Finds His Voice - It was a pretty eventful week in the world of all things political. And as expected, the mainstream news media honed in on the wrong story. Instead of amplifying an astounding example of one of the key differences between John McCain and Barack Obama, the press, ever hungry for anything that can be used to smear President Bush, went bonkers over a dullard named Scott McClellan who happens to be a former White House press secretary. It seems that Mr. McClellan, bitter over being pushed out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., decided to write a "Mommie Dearest" - type tell-all that suggests that George W. Bush deceived everyone over the reasons for going to war in Iraq. (READ MORE)
David Limbaugh: McCain and National Security - I'm aware of the widely held assumption that John McCain's path to victory in November requires him to capture a healthy percentage of independents and even Democrats. But his strategy could backfire if he doesn't restrain his urge to betray conservatives. Because of his military record, his POW experiences and his pro-defense Senate record, McCain has a decided advantage over Barack Obama on national security, the most important issue for many voters and plenty important for the rest, as well. Even McCain's outspoken support of the "unpopular" Iraq war, ironically, adds to his favorable national security image. This despite the Democrats' propagandizing against the war, their attempt to sever it conceptually from the overall war on terror, and their phony yet persistent argument that we've diverted resources away from fighting al-Qaida. The Democratic Party goes into any election with the burden of proving it can be trusted with power during times of war.(READ MORE)
Hugh Hewitt: Barack Obama, Meet Michael Yon. Now, Read His Book - Barack Obama’s long absence from Iraq after his one and only visit to the country –a two day visit in January, 2006—is shocking. Until John McCain’s blistering attack on Obama’s apparent indifference to observing conditions there, I had simply assumed that, like Senators McCain, Clinton, Biden and Governor Romney, Obama had been to Iraq after the surge had been initiated and its initial successes achieved. After all, Senator Obama wants to be the Commander-in-Chief in wartime. Given the centrality of the Iraq theater to that war and the conditions in Iraq crucial relevance to the campaign ahead, I am astonished to learn that he hasn’t bothered to make one trip to the country since declaring his candidacy for the presidency. (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: Top Seven Reasons Why Barack Obama is a Weaker Candidate Than People Think - John McCain is having a very tough time uniting conservatives and the political winds seem to be at the Democrats' backs; so many people seem to think that Barack Obama will win in a walk in November. However, that's probably not going to be the case. In a normal year, where the public was more closely divided between the Dems and the GOP, McCain would be capable of wiping out a candidate as weak as Obama in a landslide of Dukakis-esque proportions. With that in mind, even in a year like this, where Obama has a huge advantage, chances are that if he wins, he'll have to pull it off by coming in on the right side of a 2000/2004 style squeaker of an election. Here's a short but sweet primer that will help explain why that's the case: (READ MORE)
Mona Charen: Oil Woes Left and Right - So much for the idea that Bush went to war for cheap oil. Yes, I know, they're now imagining that high gas prices are actually lining the pockets of the president's cronies at Exxon and Sunoco. But this is not an argument advanced by grownups. I cannot pretend to plumb the intricacies of oil prices. I gather that the current high prices are attributable to a number of factors including, in no particular order: the decline of the dollar, high demand, and OPEC. But it does appear to me that wherever you look along the political spectrum, a lack of sobriety on this subject reigns. Rising oil prices delight the left. They serve to make the current occupant of the White House even less popular than he already was. (READ MORE)
Lorie Byrd: Lying About Iraq - Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s new book brings the question of who lied about Iraq to the front pages once again. Those on the left have claimed for years that the Bush administration lied about the threat from Iraq in the lead up to the war – often defining “lying” as omitting information that did not support the decision to invade from the case they made to the American people. If those on the left describe emphasizing the threat posed by Iraq before the war as a lie, then what do they call their current depiction of the situation in Iraq, as well as their characterization of how the war began? One of the most constant criticisms of the Bush administration regarding the war in Iraq has been that President Bush “lied us into war.” (READ MORE)
Burt Prelutsky: Bullies and Appeasers - Recently, President Bush made a few derogatory remarks about appeasers while addressing Israel’s governing body, the Knesset. Over there, his comments earned him a nice round of applause, while over here, Barack Obama took umbrage. A spokesperson for the administration was quick to point out that, although no names were mentioned, Bush had been referring to -- and the Israelis understood him to be referring to -- America’s foremost ambassador of bad will, Jimmy Carter. After all, just a few weeks earlier, Carter had been given the cold shoulder by the Israelis when he was in the Middle East for a meet-and-greet with his chums in Hamas. Well, I hate like the dickens to question the word of an official spokesperson, but if Bush didn’t have Obama in mind, he should have. (READ MORE)
David Strom: When You Fill Up the Tank Thank Congress for High Gas Prices - Americans have been treated to a lot of whining by our elected officials about the high cost of oil and gas these days, but as usual the fingers are being pointed by rather than at the guilty parties. Left-wingers want to have their cake and eat it too, of course: they simultaneously insist that oil is running out, its use is ruining our environment and should stop as soon as possible, and that oil gas should still be cheap at the pump. It is the evil oil companies, who keep us addicted to oil while reaping their profits off our helpless selves, who are to blame for all our current ills. Americans, however, are blessed to have plaintiff’s attorneys ready to sue the oil companies for causing global warming, Congressmen ready to rake oil executives over the coals for making money, and yet other Congressmen dedicated to keeping pristine the remaining American wilderness that has oil buried underneath. (READ MORE)
Oliver North: UN-Believable - WASHINGTON -- When the so-called mainstream media don't want you to know something, they simply spike the story -- meaning they just don't cover it. That's what's happened to the good news from Iraq. American heroes are in flak jackets and helmets, and their Iraqi counterparts are asserting rule of law for millions of grateful Iraqi civilians once tyrannized by al-Qaida terrorists and Shiite militias. In short, we are winning. That's the good news that isn't news. Then there is the bad news that isn't news. That includes stories about the United Nations interfering in U.S. domestic politics. It also includes stories about Iranian nuclear ambitions and what the U.N. isn't doing about it. These accounts aren't as titillating as Scott "Brutus" McClellan's back-stabbing book on the Bush administration, which throws salt in the wounds of every family member of a fallen soldier, sailor, airman or Marine. (READ MORE)
Amanda Carpenter: Obama Never Tried to Meet Petraeus - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama admitted he has never made an attempt to meet with Army General David H. Petraeus and said his opponents are making it a “sarcastic” and “flippant” political issue. Over the week Obama has been sharply criticized by right-wing bloggers and his likely general election rival John McCain for openly saying he would meet with enemies of the United States without “preconditions” and not reaching out to the general who oversees war operations in Iraq. A reporter asked Obama to “respond to McCain saying you’re more willing to meet with Ahmadinejad than with General Petraeus” in an impromptu press conference on Obama’s campaign plane Wednesday evening. Obama initially said it was a “sarcastic” criticism and that he “saw” Petraeus earlier this year. (READ MORE)
Michael Yon: Investigation Launched - The House Committee on Armed Services is investigating claims made by the New York Times. The New York Times claimed that retired Generals were co-opted by the Department of Defense to spread what amounted to propaganda throughout U.S. media to sell the Iraq war. The following letter from General (ret.) Barry R. McCaffrey is in response to a direct inquiry about his actions during this time. I've seen much of General (ret.) McCaffrey's work and it would be difficult to imagine he was part of any propaganda; McCaffrey has been extremely critical about much of the war. I consider him a very reliable source. (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: Credit Where It's Due - Rep. Nancy Pelosi has decreed that the surge in Iraq worked. Not because of the hard work of Iraqis and Americans who defeated the insurgency and al Qaeda fanatics who slaughtered countless people. Not because of General Petraeus' surge strategy. But because of the goodwill of Iran. “Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal.” (READ MORE)
A Newt One: War Against Islam? - In a previous post, Islam & Terrorism: Another False Denial, I showed you the true relationship between Islam and terrorism: terrorism is sanctified as an islamic battle tactic. Muhammad bragged about being made victorious by it. CAIR's Dr. Parvez Ahmed also said to Final Call News: “The association of a faith practiced by 1.2 billion people worldwide to terrorism creates the perception that the GWOT is a war against Islam.” That statement is a clever reverse projection, accusing the defender of aggression. It exploits a convenient handle provided by President Bush: "Global War On Terrorism". Terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy. President Bush made a terrible blunder when he attached that false descriptor to the war. The enemy is using that blunder to falsely accuse us of being the aggressor. (READ MORE)
Richard Landes: MOS meets Al Durah Forgery: Larry Derfner Weighs In - Larry Derfner has an op-ed at the Jerusalem Post on the Al Durah Affair which lays out in a quite striking fashion the aggressive aspect of the mentality of the Masochistic Omnipotence crowd (MOS) crowd. In the Dreyfus Affair the term “intellectual” was coined to describe someone who was capable of looking at the empirical evidence and changing his or her mind. Derfner’s rant suggests that the term could not, by the remotest stretch of the imagination, be applied to him. On the contrary, one has to wonder what could drive him to such heights of irrationality as to assault people who call into question so base a story as that of al Durah. I have already discussed some of Larry Derfner’s writings, whose liberal cognitive egocentrism stands out even in a crowd of his friends, so I guess this piece didn’t come as a complete surprise to me. (READ MORE)
Ryan @ Castle Argghhh!: Talking of the dead: a rebuttal - It seems silly to pretend this isn't a shot across my bow, so to speak, so I won't. No, sorry, but I’m not buying this fallacy by emotional plea to the audience argument. And here are the reasons why. A) Misunderstanding The Cold War - The Cold War, despite the loss of thousands (which is better than 100k increments if you ask me) in the places where proxy wars occurred, did cause one side to be unable to reach its goal. It (oh gawd I hate cribbing from Dan) off-loaded the conflict from one of direct violent confrontation to one of economic, political, and military confrontation, with a resulting lower body count over the same period of time. Fewer broken bodies along the way to victory (sort of like how we study Network Centric and Effects Based Ops to limit the number of bodies necessary to win) how is that a bad deal? Oh, well, I guess it's just manlier to take one's grief in mega-loads all at once, to chug it all beer-like. (READ MORE)
Donald Douglas: Where's the McClellan Betrayal Headed? - Normally I don't pay attention to the he-said, she-said memoirist scandals, but I'm seeing something very significant about Scott McClellan's Janus-faced book-tour out this week. I noted previously that McClellan wouldn't likely get a hearing from the implacable Bush-demonizers on the left, but sometimes you have to think again. USA Today reports that McClellan, in an interview, suggests he's "intrigued" by Senator Obama, so it looks like his volte-face reflects not just remunerative interests, but full-blown political opportunism. Apparently McClellan's claim that the media's to blame has hit a nerve, for example, in this YouTube featuring NBC's David Gregory, who firmly rejects the media-culpability hypothesis: Perhaps there's personal shame and recrimination involved, but McClellan's turn against a sitting president strikes me as childishly craven. (READ MORE)
Adventures of a Former Detailed Recruiter: Answers, or lack thereof - Well, I've written Mr. Boucai a couple of times seeking a follow-up on the whole "enlisting felons" thing he did a couple years back which was then reported on by the AP. BLUF: The original data represented a combination of approved waivers and suitability reviews, however the academic paper didn't make the distinction and drew conclusions based on data which was factually incorrect. Compounding this, a think tank which supports abolishing Don't Ask, Don't Tell used the cover of this inaccurate paper to issue a call for allowing openly gay people to serve in the military. And this whole shebang was reported in many major outlets due to the reporting of the Associated Press. However, it seems no one bothered to ask the researcher what his numbers represented until I came along, a year later, and asked. (READ MORE)
Dafydd: McClellan's Losing Campaign - Part II - Scott McClellan's pathetic campaign against George W. Bush -- hence for the election of Barack Obama -- continues apace; he keeps talking about more snippets from the book in interviews. Today, McClellan bores deep into the Plame name blame game, which he sees as a "turning point" in his relationship with the president. But here is an oddity: It was clear to everyone from at least October 28th, 2005 -- the day that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald indicted "Scooter" Libby -- that it was not true that Libby was uninvolved in the inadvertent leak of Valerie Plame's CIA affiliation; and it was also well known by then that Karl Rove had testified five times to Fitzgerald's grand jury, correcting some of his testimony. As I recall, we already knew at that time that the correction involved a conversation Rove had with Matt Cooper of Time Magazine... which clearly implied that Rove, too, had inadvertently revealed Plame's employment. (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Pelosi Credits Iran for Surge Success - Not long ago Nancy Pelosi admitted that the surge in Iraq was working. This goes against the words of the Obamessiah who said that the surge was not working and neither was anything else and that we have lost the war. Pelosi had to do something so as to keep the message clear so what did she do? She creditied Iran, of all entities, for the success of the surge. “Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.” (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: Cracks in the ground - Spengler at the Asia Times asked a year ago: what do you give someone who has everthing -- "cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, diabetes, kidney failure, and so forth. Iran's economy is so damaged that it is impossible to tell how bad things are. Except perhaps for the oilfields of southern Iraq, and perhaps also northern Saudi Arabia, there is nothing the West can give Iran to forestall an internal breakdown." That degree of dysfunction was underscored by a recent Pajamas Media article describing the biggest case of corruption in Iran. Or possibly the Middle East. The chief auditor of the Iranian parliament has reported that $35 B of the country's oil revenues has just gone missing. (READ MORE)
Baldilocks: Which Uncle Was at Buchenwald? - Many people have stayed on the case with regard to Barack Obama's claim of having one of the uncles on his American side present during the liberation of one of the infamous camps set up by Nazi Germany. When it was recalled that the senator's mother was an only child, reasonable observers figured out that he had to be talking about a brother of either of his maternal grandparents. As it turns out he has only two great-uncles old enough to have served in WWII,* one on each side--Ralph E. Dunham Jr. and Charles Payne, brothers of his grandfather and grandmother, respectively. As for which camp was liberated, it turned out that the uncle in question, Mr. Payne, had been a part of the 89th Infantry Division which took down Ohrdruf--a part of Buchenwald--rather than Auschwitz, the death camp which had been originally cited by Obama. So after the details were straightened out, everyone was happy. Except for the fact that the details are not straightened out. (READ MORE)
COB6 @ Blackfive: Pelosi Said What?! - I realize that Uncle Jimbo already commented on the recent commentary by our Speaker of the House but I think it needs a bit more, less diplomatic, opinion. Commentary Magazine first broke the story. Regarding her recent trip to Iraq, she was asked if she had seen any evidence that the "Surge" was working. Of course on a moron can't see the significant improvements. Did she give the credit to Prime Minister Maliki? General Patraeus? The US military? The US trained Iraqi Army? Nope, nope, nope and nope. Again, here is what this total POS said: “Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn't accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians - they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities - the Iranians.” (READ MORE)
The Captain's Journal: Des Browne Continues the British Surrender - We covered the surrender plea from David Miliband, and while pusillanimous and pitiful, at least Miliband was either duplicitous or didn’t know what he was talking about. Specifically, he advocated “negotiations between Pakistan’s new civilian government and Pashtun leaders in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).” If he was referring to tribal elders in FATA, then he was merely confused, as there are no negotiations with “Pashtun leaders.” Further, they would be irrelevant if these talks existed, as the tribal elders do not control FATA. They have no security from the Taliban, and thus hard core Taliban fighters control FATA and NWFP. If he is referring to the Taliban as “Pashtun leaders,” then he is intentionally avoiding naming the enemy and stating that we should negotiate with them. (READ MORE)
Crazy Politico: Climate Security Act - Next week our Senate will be debating the "Climate Security Act", which in some circles is becoming known as the Economic Insecurity Act. What the Act does is mandate reduced carbon emissions, by allocating every dwindling numbers of carbon credits to industry, then setting up a "cap and trade" scheme, in which your industry, if it's good, will have extra credits, and can sell them to those that don't. Exceed what you are given and you either buy excess credits from someone else, or pay hefty fines to the new government bureaucracy set up to administer the system. Here's the Chamber of Commerce's depiction of the bill's regulatory set up. Go ahead, try and figure it out without getting a migraine. (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Only 10 - Even after her assassination gaffe, it is Democratic Sen. Barack Obama 52, Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton 42. The Gallup numbers should sober Democrats. The lead shows Obama cannot close the deal on the presidential nomination. Oh, he is great at all that insider crap. He’s got great political connections and behind-the-scenes backers. He did great in the caucuses where the votes can be horse-traded. But popularity? Overstated. True, he leads her by 458,427 votes (16,685,941 to 16,227,514). That total does not include Florida or Michigan, which are not part of the USO (United States of Obama). His lead is largely thanks to Cook County, where death does not end the right to vote. (READ MORE)
GayPatriotWest: Obama, Iraq & Reality - When discussing the war in Iraq, Barack Obama, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, never ceases to remind us that he had opposed the initial decision to liberate that nation. He seems to be appealing to that supermajority of Americans who now oppose the war. Just yesterday Obama spokesman Bill Burton used the occasion of the release of Scott McClellan’s book to point out that his candidate had “challenged the president’s rationale for the war from the start.” But, as Ralph Peters reminds us, “our next president will take office in 2009. It’s today’s reality that matters.” (Via Instapundit.) But, instead of addressing that reality, the Illinois Senator dwells the past as if it’s enough to remind people he has always been opposed to the war. Should he win election to the White House, he’ll be in charge of managing its consequences in 2009, not in preventing its occurrence in 2003. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: US: Al-Qaeda on the run - A year ago, Michael Hayden warned that al-Qaeda had rebounded and presented a critical threat to the United States. Yesterday, he told the Washington Post that AQ and its network had suffered defeats across the board and now faced significantly increased hostility from fellow Muslims. What happened? Three guesses: “Less than a year after his agency warned of new threats from a resurgent al-Qaeda, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden now portrays the terrorist movement as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world, including in its presumed haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: New York governor basically legalizes gay marriage statewide - Why “basically”? Because only the legislature can formally legalize it and all attempts to push a bill through have stalled so far. Which means gays can’t get married in New York … but they can, of course, now get married in California or Massachusetts and then come back to New York, where, per Paterson’s new executive order, their marriages will be recognized with full faith and credit (the same principle that lets straights run off to Vegas and then have their Nevada license recognized back home). Not the cleverest gay marriage gambit ever to be tried in NYS but still darned clever in how it (a) lets him argue semi-persuasively that he’s just following the law as it already is, (b) holds the virtue for most conservatives of at least being imposed by an elected official and not a court... (READ MORE)
McQ: Narratives and the Press - The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) has looked at press coverage of John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and found some interesting things. First, a nice little chart to give you an idea of what they found when they looked at how the press coverage of the three candidates as it relates to "positive narratives": Anyone who has followed press coverage to date can't be particularly surprised by what, I'm sure, most realized was happening. Now whether you want to chalk that up to bias, a feverent desire by some in the press to see the Republicans out of office (aka bias) or infatuation with the candidates (hmmm, more bias?), it is clear the chart shows a much kinder press for the Dems than the Rep in the race. (READ MORE)
Reverse Spin: Strategic blunder? Hardly - While the national media continues its mindless merry-go-round coverage of whether George W. Bush “lied us into war” for about the 27th time, it’s time to look at what’s going on in Iraq and the Middle East. I can understand why Barack Obama doesn’t want to go there. What’s happening would be painful for him to see. He would find a rapidly collapsing al Qaeda, helped substantially by President Bush’s aggressive fight against terrorism. Our attack on Iraq has drawn al Qaeda into a fight it has nearly lost. That loss has heavily demoralized the jihadist movement, according to published and internet treatises by the jihadists themselves. The surge has been a particular strategic success because it capitalized on al Qaeda’s reign of terror in Iraq that turned the locals against it. The resulting al Qaeda defeat has fed perfectly into a growing reevaluation of terrorism tactics by the founding fathers of al Qaeda and other radical groups. (READ MORE)
Right Truth: Polygamous Muslim Families in the U.S. - We've been hearing a lot about the Fundamentalist LDS Church polygamous sect, where children on the ranch are being raised in a “pervasive belief system” that grooms males to commit sexual abuse and females to become brides as soon as they reach puberty. But what about all the Muslim polygamous families here inside the United States? I suppose it's too politically incorrect to approach them. This NPR article says that some Muslims are quietly living a polygamous life here in the U.S. “Although polygamy is illegal in the U.S. and most mosques try to discourage plural marriages, some Muslim men in America have quietly married multiple wives. No one knows how many Muslims in the U.S. live in polygamous families. But according to academics researching the issue, estimates range from 50,000 to 100,000 people.” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: Its the Culture, Stupid! - "...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, (Sherlock Holmes) British mystery author & physician (1859 - 1930)" When Bill Clinton ran for President in 1992, the campaign famously centered on the slogan, "Its the Economy, Stupid." It was a clever conceit, aided and abetted by the MSM successfully depicting the slowing economy under George HW Bush as a disastrous recession (only surpassed by the current economic slowdown) and Bush's out of touch appearance of insouciance. For the election of 2008, although the economy is likely to be a major focus of the MSM, it might be more accurate to depict our current straits as related to the culture rather than the economy. (READ MORE)
Stop the ACLU: An Obama Presidency Will Set Race Relations Back Decades - I know some conservative Republicans who almost wouldn’t mind if Barack Obama does win the White House in November. Their theory is that once we as a nation elect a black man to the White House, that election will forever eliminate the claim that Americans are racist because we won’t elect a black man to that office. On its face, it seems a logical theory. In practice, however, it will not work. Not with this black man, not with Barack Obama. If Obama becomes president of the United States, his disastrous time in office will set race relations back 50 years. First of all — and there is just no other way to way this — the man is a liar. He claims to want to solve our partisan strife, doesn’t he? He claims he wants to work with Congress instead of against the other party. (READ MORE)
Steve Schippert: Parsing Pelosi: Military Usefulness - First emerging at Commentary’s Contentions blog and at Ace of Spades, we learn of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stating that “some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians - they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities - the Iranians.” The sheer ignorance of that statement should be self-evident. It’s as if to say that, if we were only negotiating with them (without preconditions, of course), just imagine the peace we could gain. But it is also an unforgiving slap in the face to the United States and Iraqi military forces. For it was they who defeated the Iranians and their proxy militias in Basra. The victory was not negotiated in words scribed upon a mahogany table, but in blood on the streets of Basra. And it was not a ‘peace’ won by Iran nor even the Brits, safely barricaded away in a nearby airfield. (READ MORE)
Lorie Byrd: Forget questioning their patriotism, I question their sanity - It would be really easy to question the patriotism of the person making this statement, but darned if I can get past questioning their sanity (via Ace). “Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn't happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn't accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.” I would love to dismiss the statement above as yet another absurd comment from yet another anti-war, anti-troop whiner grasping at any explanation, regardless how ridiculous, to diminish the success of American troops in Iraq. I would love to just completely ignore it, but since the statement is from the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, that is hard to do. (READ MORE)
Harmless Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Real Patriotism - Memorial Day 2008 came and went, and as you can tell from my post below, for our family it was a time of joy and celebration because my son came home. But for a lot of other families, it was a time to remember and grieve. It was a time to reflect and renew. It was a time to gather and rededicate. Even as our family celebrated the return of our Marine from the crucible of the Long War, we did understand that it was Memorial Day and we did take time to give thanks and recognize those who have given all in our prayers and in discussions. It was also something to see everyone at the National’s Ballpark stand in absolute silence for a National Moment of Remembrance. I know that these things are minor and that our family’s focus was on celebrating our reunion with our son; but we didn’t forget. Lest you think I sound defensive, I don’t regret a minute of our celebration (although I’m still recovering). I do want to comment on something Garrison Keillor wrote about the Rolling Thunder Memorial Day weekend. (READ MORE)
Information Dissemination: The Surge Has Spillover - The last few videos that have been released had already tipped off this conclusion. The CIA is now assessing Al Qaeda has been defeated in both Iraq and Saudi Arabia. “Less than a year after his agency warned of new threats from a resurgent al-Qaeda, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden now portrays the terrorist movement as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world, including in its presumed haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. In a strikingly upbeat assessment, the CIA chief cited major gains against al-Qaeda's allies in the Middle East and an increasingly successful campaign to destabilize the group's core leadership.” (READ MORE)
Raymond Ibrahim: Islam’s war doctrines ignored - At the recent inaugural conference for the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA), presenter LTC Joseph Myers made an interesting point that deserves further elaboration: that, though military studies have traditionally valued and absorbed the texts of classical war doctrine—such as Clausewitz’s On War, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, even the exploits of Alexander the Great as recorded in Arrian and Plutarch—Islamic war doctrine, which is just as if not more textually grounded, is totally ignored. As recent as 2006, former top Pentagon official William Gawthrop lamented that “the senior Service colleges of the Department of Defense had not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic study of Muhammad as a military or political leader. As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered.” (READ MORE)
Greyhawk: Genesis - (Part one in a series) Through the duration of the war in Iraq I've identified key indicators of important trends in the conflict on this web site. These indicators take the form of discrete events of variable duration, the trends are larger scale and longer term, and generally identifiable to the observer only as a series of events. The key to understanding what's happening in Iraq is to be able to identify a trend by it's indicators (and conversely to be able to determine which events are part of a trend) and to recognize which trends or events matter (in long or short term) and which don't. Identifying events and trends (or even distinguishing events from brief trends) is exceptionally difficult without the benefit of hindsight and demonstrably challenging even after the fact. And any attempt at forecasting - extending those trends into the future - compounds that challenge by an unknown degree, and at some point is an exercise in futility. (READ MORE)
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