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)
On the Web:
The Belmont Club: Max Boot versus Andrew Sullivan - The debate between Max Boot and Andrew Sullivan over America’s postwar relationship with Iraq really captures what the Times Online has asserted in a recent article: “the evidence is now overwhelming that on all fronts, despite inevitable losses from time to time, it is we who are advancing and the enemy who is in retreat. The current mood on both sides of the Atlantic, in fact, represents a kind of curious inversion of the great French soldier’s dictum: ‘Success against the Taleban. Enemy giving way in Iraq. Al-Qaeda on the run. Situation dire. Let’s retreat!’ ” While not everyone is unreservedly optimistic, Max Boot rightly points out that the West has been in Middle East for a long time. The French and British in especial will remember that. But even the US has had a long military involvement in the region, much of it spurred by the 1990s requirement to “contain” Saddam Hussein. Time did not begin with Operation Iraq Freedom. Boot writes: (READ MORE)
Information Dissemination: Exploring the Israel-Iran Option - Seymour Hersh has a new article out in the New Yorker called "Preparing the Battlefield," and after going through all seven pages twice, we are still left wondering what all the hype is about. Essentially the article suggests that the US is operating in Iran to collect intelligence, and appears to attempt to shame Democrats for supporting the gathering of intelligence in Iran by funding intelligence gathering. The implication is that because Bush hasn't brought the intelligence gathered back to Congress there is a problem, but speaking from experience, if Bush never brings the intelligence back to Congress, that is probably a good thing for the country. The record there hasn't been pretty, and we prefer he keeps that stuff to himself where it is unlikely to be used to make the case for war. (READ MORE)
Dr. iRack: Abu Abed Falls -- Will the SoIs Follow? (Updated) - Very interesting piece by Ned Parker in the LAT on the rise and fall of Sons of Iraq (SoI) superstar Abu Abed (the guy on the far right in the picture above). Abu Abed came to prominence by creating a group of Sunni security volunteers (the "Knights in the Land of the Two Rivers") to join with U.S. forces to fight AQI in the turbulent Baghdad neighborhood of Amiriya. His group, and groups like it, came to be known as Concerned Local Citizen (CLCs) but are now called SoIs. There are now approximately 100,000 SoIs; 80 percent are Sunnis. Some saw Abu Abed as a hero who fought AQI terrorists; other saw him as a would-be warlord with a very dark side and a proclivity toward brutal methods. Regardless, Abu Abed became the poster child for the expansion of the Sunni Awakening (and "bottom-up" reconciliation) from its origins among the tribes in Anbar to include many "reconcilable" Sunni militants in greater Baghdad and nearby provinces... (READ MORE)
This Ain't Hell: Guantanamo Protest in DC - Today in Washington, DC, Amnesty International and the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, staged events protesting Guantanamo. I learned that they were in town from reading VanHelsing at Moonbattery, so I took the Blogger Urban Reconnaissance Vehicle (BURV) and headed downtown. The first thing I found was the Amnesty International’s Guantanamo Cell Tour 2008. A child who really needed to get a sandwich or two was handing out fliers to passers-by; Then there was the cell itself; The woman who was conducting the tour told me that it’s not representative of normal cells, but those of “Class V” prisoners. But according to Fox News, that’s not true; (READ MORE)
Jay Tea: Blank Like Me - Last Friday, Charles Krauthammer wrote a column that pre-empted a lot of a piece that I was kicking around -- Senator Barack Obama's recent sudden reversals on many positions he'd been holding for some time. Krauthammer outlines Obama's change of heart on the North American Free Trade Agreement and the granting legal immunity to the telecommunications companies that cooperated with the federal government on wiretaps. Krauthammer also touches on Obama's change of heart on public financing for the general election, but I want to look at it a bit more closely. Obama's rationalization for forgoing $85 million from the federal government contained several elements. The first one -- that he needed to be able to counter the expenditures of 527 groups that will be out to sink his campaign -- I demolished yesterday. (READ MORE)
Westhawk: Taliban threat to Peshawar imperils Afghan mission - In a distressing story from today’s New York Times, Taliban groups are suddenly threatening Peshawar with encirclement, if not outright capture. Taliban control of the Peshawar area (their physical control of the city is not necessary) would cut the main supply route into Afghanistan supplying much of the American and NATO effort there. One wonders how Coalition and Afghan securities forces would be able to maintain offensive operations with the widespread use of vehicles and helicopters without the fuel supplied through Peshawar and the Khyber Pass. I have long been concerned about the logistical vulnerability of the American-ISAF operation in Pakistan (most recently expressed here). There was a time back in late 2001 when the U.S. was reluctant to insert a U.S. Army Ranger battalion into the remote Tora Bora mountains to cut off bin Laden’s escape out of fear of repeating the Soviet Union’s disastrous big footprint strategy. (READ MORE)
Cassandra: Elucidating the Obvious - One of the things I have tried to do, over the many years I've been writing, is not to post in anger. There are times when that is not easy, especially when I feel as strongly as I do about what I have to say today. Pent up emotions tend to increase rather than decrease in intensity, and each time an opportunity to respond is declined only makes the next time more difficult. Over the years there have been quite a few times when I have reluctantly decided not to weigh in at all on stories that interested me. I have done so primarily when I didn't think I could distance myself sufficiently from the subject to give it what (according to my own standards, if not in always in the judgment of others) amounted to fair treatment. Let me begin by noting that in an era where so many time-honored traditions have fallen by the wayside, the military has consistently remained the most respected institution in American life. But why is this so? (READ MORE)
Warner Todd Huston: Boston Globe: Obama Afraid of Muslims Because of New ‘Red Scare’ - Derrick Z. Jackson of the Boston Globe has done it again. Now, usually Z is one of those columnists that is sure every white American is a racist and many of his columns are based on that assumption, but it looks like he is branching out from his normal black/white identity politics angle and adding a new twist to his column. You see, Z has just discovered that whites don’t hate only blacks, they hate Muslims too. How inclusive, eh? Even more ridiculously, Z imagines that white Muslim haters in “red states” are forcing Barack Obama to distance himself from his Muslim background. In fact, according to Z, Islam is the victim of white America’s newest “red scare” and Obama is feeling the heat because of that undue hatred. (READ MORE)
Sense of Events: Weather Report - Well, summer's here and the time is right--but, in this part of the world that means seriously hot times. Despite the relative calm in the last several weeks, by the end of last week, Israelis were taking a long hard view eastward to Iran. Over there, work continues unfettered on a nuclear weapon that most Israelis believe will be completed and will be used on Tel Aviv. When Iranians say they intend to use their weapon to eradicate Israel, Israelis believe them. There is no room for error here--as in a "they would never do that" policy. By the end of last week, Israelis were talking about the lastest lull in hostilities with Hamastan (time to increase arms for a possible chance to redeem captives), about the increased weapons practice in the Golan, and the incredibly open airshows all over the north--airborne refueling exercises and "heads-up" levels. There was even one exercise where large numbers of IAF jets scrambled to sea towards Cyprus. (READ MORE)
ROFASix: America's War on Business - As you travel around the world, you can often tell which countries impose confiscatory tax burdens on their citizens by the number of ex-pats living and raising families elsewhere. The OpEd “Monsieur Obama’s Tax Rates” noted that when President Sarkozy of France visited London (France’s 7th largest city), he realized the huge French population there was because of France’s tax rates. It is but aspect of the long Global War on Business that has been underway since the onset of the 20th Century in the West. It is no secret that when you drive out your most productive members of the country, the moochers and takers who remain will never benefit from the innovation, creativity, and investment the émigré’s take with them. When Barack Obama occupies the White House, it will be interesting to see where Americans begin to “squirt to” in order to avoid the confiscatory taxes Obama and his Democratic Congress have promised. (READ MORE)
Right Wing Nut House: HONESTLY, IS JOHN ARAVOSIS A PIECE OF EXCREMENT OR WHAT? - This piece on McCain by Aravosis may be the most inelegant political attack I’ve ever seen. Not only is it a vile, worthless, mindlessly idiotic recounting of this Peeping Tom’s idea of McCain’s military service but the obliviousness of Aravosis to the upchucking irony in his calling anyone out for making propaganda is outrageously, hysterically inappropriate. First, let’s “quell a question” shall we? QUESTION: Why did John McCain make a propaganda film for the enemy? ANSWER: Because if you didn’t, the enemy would torture you until you died. Those “agrarian reformers” and “peace loving socialists” that Aravosis’ ideological brethren were calling the the North Vietnamese back then were not very nice people. Every single prisoner who fell into their hands endured unspeakable degradation and torture until they cooperated. (READ MORE)
McQ: Hope and Change - Jennifer Rubin, at Contentions, points out that Paul Krugman, like David Brooks, is confused as to whether "Obama is more like Ronald Reagan (an ideological, transformative politician) or Bill Clinton ( a poll-driven pragmatist)." As I mentioned in the past: [Obama] hopes to let voters define what "hope" and "change" mean to them and then hang that on his candidacy. They define it, he pretends to agree with it by talking in glittering generalities, he gets elected and then the political bill comes due. Rubin goes one step better and finds Obama saying precisely that in prologue of "The Audacity of Hope": “Obama has told us there is no there, there. In his book he wrote: ‘I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.’ So perhaps searching for Obama's ‘core’ is a fool's errand. He is glib and clever and seized upon a clever formulation (Agent of Change) to attract young and idealistic people longing for meaning. But perhaps that is all there is.” (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson: From Keith Ellison to Barack Obama - Watching the emergence of Barack Obama this year I have experienced at least a slight sense of déjà vu. With modifications and variations, the Obama phenomenon this year was anticipated by the rise of Minnesota Fifth District (Minneapolis) Rep. Keith Ellison in 2006. I didn't know anything about Ellison when he won the endorsement of the DFL Fifth District convention in May 2006. The endorsement kicked off a competitive three-way primary battle that Ellison won by a plurality of the vote in September 2006. Minneapolis and the Fifth District being one-party territory, Ellison's primary win more or less guaranteed Ellison's election to Congress in November 2006. After I first posted an item or two about Ellison in June on Power Line, writing about him as carefully as I could, I started getting calls from prominent Democrats and other knowledgeable sources with first-hand knowledge of Ellison. (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex: The company you keep - I believe I am well within the fairway - in the purely naval sense - to remark that military enthusiasts of General Wesley Clark are notable by their scarcity. Nevertheless, no doubt banking on the fact that the public understands less of how the good general found his way to the top - nor, significantly, how he found himself nudged off stage - he appears to be using his military service as platform from whence to denigrate John McCain’s military service. Playing beard, if you will, for the Obama campaign. Out of pure, disinterested conviction, I’m sure. “Clark said that McCain lacked the executive experience necessary to be president, calling him ‘untested and untried’ on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation.’ And in saying so, he took a few swipes at McCain’s military service. ‘I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.’” (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: Depraved Audacity - The people pushing attacks on Senator John McCain's military record and experience are nothing less than depraved audacity. They demean not only McCain's military record, but attack all those in uniform. McCain served honorably in the US Navy as a fighter pilot, and was shot down after his 23rd mission over Hanoi. He was a POW for nearly five years and was repeatedly tortured. Yet, Wesley Clark and others have the audacity to claim that McCain doesn't have military experience or the record on which to become President? Clark made the following nonsensical statement which got Bob Schieffer to do a double take. (READ MORE)
Dafydd: So Why Do We Need Gitmo? Let Me Count the Ways... - When we capture prisoners of war (POWs), we don't imprison them for punishment; we take them out of commission "for the duration" of the war. That is why they shouldn't get a trial: They're not in the same category as regular "criminals," who can be released without too much damage if the government cannot amass enough evidence for a judge or jury to find them guilty. POWs -- or in al-Qaeda's case, unlawful enemy combatants -- cannot be released as long as they're likely to attack us again; just like ordinary POWs, terrorists are not held in punishment... they're held to keep them from returning to the fight against us, or at least to be available for a prisoner swap, if the Commander in Chief decides that's in our best interest. (READ MORE)
Ace of Spades: Obama Gives Speech On Patriotism - It's being billed as a major speech but listening to it now, it's pretty much about Obama and how "I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign. And I will not stand idly by when people question mine.” Now he's into the 'American can be made better' is really patriotism stuff. Fearless prediction...Andrew Sullivan will LOVE this speech. He does have a lapel pin on. I can't tell if it's one of those false patriotism flag pins or not. He's broken it down to 3 elements...a 'gut love of country', a willingness to speak up when the government is wrong and sacrifice/service. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: (Video) Bush gets bipartisan in signing the war-funding bill - There was a time, not so long ago, that we assumed a Democratic majority would cause enormous problems in getting funding for the war efforts in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, in Afghanistan. If one wanted to see how well the surge has really worked, all the proof can be found in the quiet, mostly bipartisan manner in which the latest supplemental funding bill passed through Congress this month. Instead of crowing over the demolition of Democratic opposition it represents, President Bush took the gracious path of acknowledging the bipartisanship: Despite the conciliatory tones of all the administration officials in today’s announcement, the Democrats are privately annoyed at having lost yet another battle to George Bush during his supposed lame-duck year. (READ MORE)
Mary Anastasia O'Grady: Markets for the Poor in Mexico - Helping the poor may be virtuous, but when the poverty industry starts losing "clients" because the market is performing good works, watch out. Compartamos Banco knows what it's like to have a tarnished halo. The Mexican bank specializes in microfinancing for low-income entrepreneurs in a country that never used to have a financial industry serving the poor. Compartamos not only figured out how to meet the needs of this excluded population, but also how to make money at it. As a result, the bank has been growing fast. With an average loan size of only $450, it now has more than 900,000 clients – 15 times as many as it had in 2000. This strong growth suggests that the bank's for-profit model makes both borrowers and lenders better off. (READ MORE)
L. Gordon Crovitz: Common Sense on Punitive Damages - One of the disconnects of the Information Age is that we expect perfection in the operating systems that make technology function smoothly, but we have low expectations for the predictability and reliability of the operating system for people known as the law. This is surprising, because the law is itself an information system whose aims include telling people as clearly as possible what they can and can't do, and establishing fair and reliable rules, procedures and penalties. Out-of-control jury awards and frivolous litigation are signs of a legal regime that sometimes is less a system than a series of random results. So it's a pleasure to see the Supreme Court grapple with a big failure in the system, in a rare case in which circumstances left the justices free to commit common sense. (READ MORE)
Zachary Karabell: There Is No 'The Economy' - It used to be said that the two things not to discuss at a dinner party were religion and politics. Today, those pose less risk of flying food or guests storming out than the subject of "the economy." One side decries the sorry state of affairs, and the other grumpily rebuts the claims of doom. The public debate is being won by those who say that the economy is in bad shape and getting worse. The consumer confidence report just released by the Conference Board registered one of the lowest readings on record, based on pessimism about food and fuel prices, slack labor markets and plummeting home prices. Democrats, recognizing a potent election-year issue, emphasize economic problems whenever possible. Republicans can hardly gild the lily given much of the data, but they point out that all is not grim. Retail sales and consumer spending were up decently in May, in spite of worsening confidence. Exports have been solid, and GDP figures have yet to register a contraction. (READ MORE)
John R. Bolton: The Tragic End of Bush's North Korea Policy - Maskirovka – the Soviet dark art of denial, deception and disguise – is alive and well in Pyongyang, years after the Soviet Union disappeared. Unfortunately, the Bush administration appears not to have gotten the word. With much fanfare and choreography, but little substance, the administration has accepted a North Korean "declaration" about its nuclear program that is narrowly limited, incomplete and almost certainly dishonest in material respects. In exchange, President Bush personally declared that North Korea is no longer a state sponsor of terrorism or an enemy of the United States. In a final flourish, North Korea has undertaken a reverse Potemkin Village act, destroying the antiquated cooling tower of the antiquated Yongbyon reactor. In the waning days of American presidencies, this theater is the stuff of legacy. (READ MORE)
Michael R. Bloomberg & Thomas A Menino: Some Gun Rules We Can All Agree On - Finally. After decades of ideological debates over the meaning of every word and comma contained in the U.S. Constitution's one-sentence Second Amendment, the Supreme Court has issued a ruling that should largely settle the matter. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the court found that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms, while also affirming the constitutionality of reasonable restrictions aimed at preserving public safety and deterring criminals from acquiring and using firearms. Now it's time for all elected officials to start working together to enact creative new solutions to violent crime. For years, shouting matches over the Second Amendment drowned out reasoned discussion of any middle ground. One side argued for a handgun ban, the other for repeal of an assault-weapons ban. (READ MORE)
Dinesh D'Souza: Michelle Obama's Inferiority Complex - Now that Barack Obama has pretty much wrapped up the nomination, it's time to raise a question that lots of people have been talking about privately but not publicly. Is it possible that Michelle Obama is the force behind Barack Obama's refusal to embrace traditional patriotic symbols? Could Obama's wife be largely responsible for the candidate's damaging associations with crackpot race-baiters like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the Reverend Michael Pfleger? In sum, could Obama's wife be a large part of his political problem? Obama himself seems, at least on the surface, relatively free of the kind of corrosive racial resentment that is so common among African American activists of our day. This resentment is especially puzzling as it often comes from people who, far from being victims, have actually enjoyed benefits and privileges that they would probably never get if they happened to be white. (READ MORE)
Robert D. Novak: Scalia Saving Obama - WASHINGTON, D.C. -- After months of claiming insufficient information to express an opinion on the District of Columbia gun law, Barack Obama noted with apparent approval Thursday that the Supreme Court ruled the 32-year ban on handguns "went too far." But what would he have said had the high court's five-to-four majority gone the other way and affirmed the law? Obama's strategists can only thank swing Justice Anthony Kennedy for enabling Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion to take the Democratic presidential candidate off the hook. Such relief is typified by a vigorous supporter of Obama who advised Al Gore in his 2000 presidential campaign. Believing Gore's gun-control advocacy lost him West Virginia and the presidency, this prominent Democrat told me: "I don't want that to happen with Obama -- to be defeated on an issue that is not important to us and is not a political winner for us." (READ MORE)
Peter J. Wirs: Same-Sex What? - Maybe I took too long a nap. But did America’s conservatives suddenly approve of same-sex marriage? Or are conservatives too busy beating on up on John McCain (you know, the same John McCain who has vigorously fought pork barrel earmarks for years on end). Conservatives, including my brethren Townhall columnists, bemoan the Supreme Court’s recent habeas decision in Boumediene v. Bush, a technically correct decision as it pertains to separation of powers. Habeas corpus, as old as the Magna Carta, challenges the legality of detention. Arguing Boumediene impacts military decision-making is merely a strawman. If detention of enemy war combatants is legal, why be fearful of a habeas challenge? To the contrary, conservatives are always circumspect of unchallenged executive authority. Yet, I hear no outcry over the California Supreme Court’s May 15, 2008 ruling legitimizing "same-sex" marriages. (READ MORE)
Paul Greenberg: Profoundly Superficial - Barack Obama now has cited the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War as a model of the way Osama bin Laden should be tried in the (unlikely) event he’s ever taken alive. He recommends Nuremberg as an example to follow because, he says, those trials embodied universal legal principles. The Nuremberg trials a model of international law? Those stone-faced judges in Red Army uniforms peering down from the bench at Nuremberg, shoulder boards in place and guilty verdicts at the ready, must have been there as representatives of Comrade Stalin’s well-known devotion to universally accepted legal principles. This is not to say that the judges at Nuremberg couldn’t demonstrate exquisite tact. For example, not a one noted the Soviets’ responsibility for the Katyn Massacre, a war crime none dared accuse them of at the time. (READ MORE)
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