236 articles
Here's Rep. Jim Moran blogging at HuffPo yesterday (which is creepy enough given the HuffPo community's shameful response to the attempt on Cheney's life, eloquently described by Dean Barnett as a "paroxysm of joy diminished only by the fact that Cheney did not die"). Moran is writing about…
A friend sends along this interesting analysis of the relationship between North Korea and Iran, the two remaining members of the axis of evil. The author, Alon Levkowitz, is a lecturer at the Department of East Asian Studies at Tel-Aviv University. According to Levkowitz, there is ample evidence…
Pretty unbelievable, but perhaps the Senator has been leafing through old issues of THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Here's the video from yesterdays hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
icon.roggio2.gif The Baghdad Security Plan is showing some early signs of success. Deaths from sectarian related attacks have dropped dramatically since December. "The number of bodies found this month in Baghdad--most shot and showing signs of torture--has dropped by nearly 50 percent to 494 as of…
From Time: Though its constitution officially prohibits war and its army and navy are innocuously called "self-defense forces (SDF)," Japan is a stealth military power, with an annual budget of around $42 billion - the sixth largest in the world. Despite all that money, Japan's armed forces have…
On February 21st, sina.com, the largest Chinese-language infotainment web portal, carried a story titled "U.S. Air Force General Says China, Iran and Venezuela Should Be Regarded as Threats." It discusses an article--"China, Iran Top USAF's Threat List"--recently published in Defense News that…
From the Washington Post: Europe's Runaway Prosecutions, by David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey. From the Los Angeles Times: Going it alone because we have to, by Max Boot. From Slate: The Tehran Option, by Shmuel Rosner. From the Washington Post: Justice for Darfur, by Angelina Jolie. From the…
REPUBLICANS who still can't figure out the Jim Webb phenomenon need only recall the top tier of Democratic presidential candidates in 2004. Each carved out his niche with a signature trait or theme that made party activists swoon and voters cheer. Howard Dean had the Iraq war: Unlike many prominent…
Rich Lowry posts this email from a "Pentagon intel guy": Since my job at the Pentagon is to follow and report these kinds of things- there are several trends we are seeing lately. 1) Definite and measurable decrease in number of sectarian killings within Baghdad: From nearly 1,400 to 680 in the…
We posted this morning on the hundreds of Huffington Post comments railing against the failure of the Taliban to kill the American vice president. It seems that HuffPo caught on, closing down and cleaning out the comments, but not before they became a major embarrassment to the site. Dean Barnett…
Two weeks ago we linked to this story about a software malfunction on the F-22 that delayed a squadron of the stealth fighters from being deployed to Japan's Kadena Air Base. Now reader Bill Walsh sends along a link to this story from Daily Tech explaining what went wrong. It seems that crossing…
icon.roggio2.gifLess than two weeks after the official announcement of the Baghdad security plan, "reporting of sectarian murders is at the lowest level in almost a year," and "170 suspected insurgents have been arrested and 63 weapons caches of various sizes have been seized," reports Stars and…
There have been two disturbing pieces of news from Britain in recent weeks. The first came earlier this month when the King Fahd Academy, an Islamic school in Acton, admitted that it uses some pernicious textbooks. The books refer to Jews as "apes" and Christians as "pigs." When confronted by the…
From Bloomberg: Shoichi Nakagawa, the policy chief of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party said China's rising military spending may cause Japan to fall under the country's influence, the Sankei newspaper reported earlier today, citing his comments. ``If something were to happen to Taiwan in the…
From U.S. News: Maintaining Perspective, by Fouad Ajami. From the Arizona Republic: Cautious Optimism on Iraq, by Jon Kyl. From the New York Times: Billions over Baghdad, by John B. Taylor. From Politico: Pelosi Falls Short On Election Promises, by Daniel W. Reilly & Jim VandeHei. From the…
After seeing the headline on Drudge, "Attacker Was Trying to Reach Cheney," for some reason my fist thought was to see how the Huffington Post would handle the story. He may be the vice president of the United States, but to the lefties at HuffPo, Cheney is every bit as evil as Mullah Omar, and…
DON'T BE DECEIVED by the headlines coming out of Washington. There is more going on than a tussle over the wisdom of the president's decision to send more troops to Iraq. The battles over economic policy are just as intense, if not as eye-catching.
Over the weekend, Coalition forces were tipped off to a major weapons cache in the turbulent province of Diyala. According to Capt. Clayton Combs, who commands the 1st Cavalry unit which raided what he called "an IED factory," the cache included 15 122-mm rockets, two dozen 120-mm mortar rounds,…
This story is a few days old, but offers some insight into the mind of the world's most reclusive dictator. From the blog China Rises, which is an otherwise excellent resource on life in mainland China, comes this bizarre story of Kim Jong-Il's war on Japanese automobiles. In one of the stranger…
Starting this week, Bill Roggio, who edits the excellent milblog The Fourth Rail, will be contributing daily updates on Iraq to the WORLDWIDE STANDARD. Also, each week Roggio will provide a longer synopsis of security developments in Iraq to THE DAILY STANDARD. The first of those is now posted…
Over the last fiscal year, the United States Navy shelled out more than $1.7 billion for development of the DDG 1000, the Navy's next-generation destroyer, and in FY 2007 the Navy plans to spend an additional $3.3 billion, making the DDG 1000 the single largest procurement program in the Navy's…
From the Wall Street Journal: The Choice on Iraq, by Joseph Lieberman. From the Telegraph: Hatred of America unites the world, by Niall Ferguson. From the Washington Post: Deauthorizing Iraq, by Robert Novak. From the Christian Science Monitor: Europe warms to US missile shield, by Jeffrey White.…
Paris
Johann Sebastian Bach
The White House, an aide to President Bush says, is "ratcheting up the rhetoric" against congressional Democrats who seek to restrict the president's ability to send more troops to Iraq. The president is sending Democrats a clear signal that their worst fear may come to pass. If they persist in…
If you think the first videogame ever made was Pong in 1972, guess again. If you think it was Spacewar!, a 1962 concoction of the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club, you are also wrong. The answer is Tennis for Two, designed by William A. Higinbotham, a physicist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on…
A Contentious Bunch
The magazine Edge, on its tenth anniversary, recently asked a number of scientists and thinkers what they found in the world or in their particular lines of interest to be optimistic about. I'm pleased to say that I was not asked. I am of course not a scientist, but I might, just possibly, have…
London
Alan Wolfe is a distinguished public intellectual. He is professor of political science and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. He is a longtime contributing editor to the New Republic. He is a frequent contributor to the Sunday New York Times Book…
Editor's note: The George Polk Awards will be presented April 12 in New York City.
Travel writers, regularly dismissed as trivialists, rarely indulge in the popular book tour whine. It's not just that we have bigger trips to fry, we have fewer bones to pick. We don't see what novelists find so objectionable about a diet of fine hotels, especially when the rooms all come reserved…
Modern Republican
DEFENDING DURHAMITES
Israeli government authorities are building a ramp to allow non-Muslims to reach the enormous platform atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The old access ramp was condemned as unsafe and torn down several years ago. The interim ramp that replaced it was designed for short-term service only.…
Politicians often say foolish things. Members of both parties criticize cavalierly and thunder thoughtlessly. They advance irresponsible suggestions and embrace mistaken policies. But most of our politicians, most of the time, stop short of knowingly hurting the country. Watching developments in…
Amidst the clang and symbolism of the new Democratic Congress's first month, between the hundred-hour marathon and the posturing about Iraq, a peculiar thing has happened. In a matter of a few weeks, with only minor controversy and little fanfare, a 2007 federal budget has taken shape that includes…
Annihilation from Within
Factory Girl
The Bush administration, which once pledged to do "whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan, is increasingly distancing itself from the prosperous and democratic island. This has been going on since August 3, 2002, when Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, first declared that "each side [of the Taiwan…
The Baghdad order of battle as of February 26, 2007.
This Week featured an interview with former President Jimmy Carter. First, the good: Carter talked about his foundation's efforts to eradicate the Guinea Worm from villages in Africa. Carter said that with proper care (and enough money), the parasite could be wiped out in three years. For more…
Among the items included in the Pentagon's supplemental funding request for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is nearly $400 million for two F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and an additional $146 million for one CV-22 Osprey. The Air Force request explained that the F-35s would replace one F-15 and one…
Israel's political and military leaders are facing a crisis of confidence. The consensus view in Israel, as Peter Berkowitz wrote in THE WEEKLY STANDARD just a few weeks ago, is that Prime Minister Edhud Olmert, "and even more his hapless defense minister, Amir Peretz, as well as Lieutenant General…
From the AP: SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) -- A tour bus of U.S. senior citizens defended themselves against a group of alleged muggers, sending two of them fleeing and killing a third in the Atlantic coast city of Limon, police said on Thursday. One of the tourists--a retired member of the U.S.…
A reader sends along this link to a new left-wing group called impeach07.org. The group is planning a massive demonstration against the Iraq war which will culminate in a march on the Pentagon on "March 17, 2007, the 4th anniversary of the start of the criminal invasion of Iraq." There's only one…
On Tuesday night, David Gergen moderated a forum at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government that featured five Harvard veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The event was billed as a special tribute to the roughly 100 veterans of those wars who are currently enrolled at the Kennedy…
From the Washington Post: No Way To End A War, by Charles Krauthammer. From USA Today: Vietnam pilot to receive Medal of Honor, by Alan Gomez. From the New York Times: U.S. Used Bases in Ethiopia to Hunt Al Qaeda in Africa, by Michael R. Gordon & Mark Mazzetti. From the Washington Times: Public…
THERE ARE TWO WAYS to say "I'm here" in Hebrew. Like any language, there are probably lots more, but here are the top two.
LIKE CHARLIE BROWN trying to kick a pigskin but always ending up supine, there's a foolish consistency to California's dream of a grander role in the presidential selection process.
Igor Khrestin, a researcher in the Russian Studies program at the American Enterprise Institute, writes in with news and links from the Russian-language media (you can also click here to read his latest piece in THE DAILY STANDARD): In the wake of Putin's unequivocal rejection of the "one master,…
Here's the video, by way of Defense Tech. And for those who enjoy Defense Tech as much as I do, be sure to check out Noah Shachtman's new blog, The Danger Room.
From the Australian: Blair is right on troops, by Mark Steyn From Real Clear Politics: The Thinking Behind Blair's Iraq Decision, by Gerard Baker. From the Washington Post: A Lack of Courage In Their Convictions, by George F. Will. From Politico: Military Tells Congress of Equipment Shortfalls, by…
IT MAY NOT have been Churchill's Fulton speech, but President Putin's harsh rebuke to Pax America in Munich on February 10, seems to have struck a raw nerve in Washington.
The Humvee is an icon of the modern American military--the primary vehicle for moving American troops and materiel in both times of peace and war. But the vehicle has earned a less than stellar reputation for its service in Iraq, where its limited survivability has been only marginally improved by…
Jerusalem
London
Rich Lowry writing at NRO: Murtha repeatedly says in the webcast that his proposals are meant to "protect" the troops. But he is frank about the not-so-ulterior motive of keeping more troops from heading to Iraq, explaining that "they won't be able to do the work." Because his provisions can be…
The Jawa Report has the scoop: Fahd al-Utaibi a/k/a Naif Fahd Al Aseemi Al Utaibi arrived in Saudi Arabia May 18, 2006 from Guantanamo, along with 14 others released by the US. He is currently on trial in Yemen for forging travel documents in order to join the jihad in Iraq. And Armies of…
From the New York Times: They [experts] say North Africa, with its vast, thinly governed stretches of mountain and desert, could become an Afghanistan-like terrorist hinterland within easy striking distance of Europe. That is all the more alarming because of the deep roots that North African…
Conservatives have rightly been grousing about the latest nuke deal with North Korea. As John Podhoretz put it in the New York Post, "the Bush administration has now gone down the same path as everybody else--paying Kim a bribe in exchange for promises of change." True enough, the North Korean nuke…
From the Wall Street Journal: The Antiwar Surge, by Brendan Miniter. From Politico: The Hired Gun's Hired Gun, by Christian Lowe. From the Washington Post: Terrorist Networks Lure Young Moroccans to War in Far-Off Iraq, by Craig Whitlock. From the Washington Times: Venezuela bolsters military…
IN DAYS GONE BY, when share price movements were recorded on ticker tape, those bits of paper were at times showered from skyscrapers on heroes being honored in New York City's ticker-tape parades. Were it not improper, and had paper tape not been made obsolete by electronic reporting, Ben Bernanke…
Michael Rubin, an occasional contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD (most recently he authored this piece on privatizing the CIA) and the editor of Middle East Quarterly, has written an excellent essay on some of the many books that have come out of the war in Iraq. Rubin reviews a wide range of books…
In an essay for THE WEEKLY STANDARD some years ago, John Derbyshire argued, persuasively, for the retention of Anglo-Saxon geographic nomenclature: The question is rhetorical: Having been given the novels of George Borrow (Lavengro, Romany Rye) to read at an early age, I happen to know that rom…
The Friendship Express, which links the Indian capital with the Pakistani city of Lahore, resumed service in 2004 after a two-year hiatus. Last night, terrorists targeted the train with two IEDs, killing no less than 66 people, mostly Pakistanis, in what many analysts are assuming was an attempt to…
Some amusing propaganda from Red China. The video was posted to YouTube more than a year ago, and it looks older than that, but very entertaining nevertheless. The last minute features some impressive kung-fu. (HT blogenlust)
From the Telegraph: Controversial plans to build a "supermosque" on the doorstep of the London Olympics will be blocked by the Government. Ruth Kelly's Whitehall department is expected to refuse planning permission for the London Markaz, which would be the biggest religious building in Britain with…
Occasional WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has posted his take on today's report from the New York Times that al Qaeda has effectively regrouped in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area. Gartenstein-Ross says it should come as little surprise "that the Waziristan Accord--which…
Occasional WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Jennifer Chou (who is also the director of Radio Free Asia's Mandarin Service) writes in with news and links from the Chinese-language media: On February 15th, the People's Daily's overseas Chinese edition carried an article entitled "China's Defense…
Here's Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday: I think the seven Republican senators and the 17 Republican House members who deserted the cause of victory in the war have their own political vulnerability. There's something called primaries we have in America, and there will be primary challenges in the…
From Vanity Fair: Washington's $8 Billion Shadow, by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. From First Things: The Leadership of George W. Bush: Con & Pro, Joseph Bottum and Michael Novak. From the Baltimore Sun: Run silent, run very fast, by Allison Connolly. From Arab News: Iran: US Has Many…
While U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill has been struggling in Beijing to cut a diplomatic de-nuclearization deal with the regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, some of us here in the United States have been struggling to figure out just how much Kim's promises are worth. As ever, it's…
The 'Feith Memo' Revisited
On December 12, 2006, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad personally brought to a close the infamous Holocaust deniers' conference in Tehran. A strange parade of speakers had passed across the podium: former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, the nutty followers of the anti-Zionist Jewish sect…
What prompted Senate majority leader Harry Reid to think he could outmaneuver Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell on which Iraq war resolutions would be voted on is anybody's guess. Reid never had a chance, and he lost badly. The media played the story as a simple case of Republicans, led by…
On March 27, 2003, Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy secretary of defense, predicted that Iraq's oil revenue would "finance" its reconstruction and do so "relatively soon." With wise investment and management, Wolfowitz might have been right. Even though its oil sector accounts for 95 percent of the…
JUDGING DRUGS
After nearly four years of fruitless negotiations between the EU-3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) and Iran over the nuclear issue, the U.N. Security Council on December 23 passed Resolution 1737. It imposed limited, almost meaningless, sanctions on the mullahs' regime. But it also set a…
On February 2, an AEI research project on climate change policy that we have been organizing was the target of a journalistic hit piece in Britain's largest left-wing newspaper, the Guardian. The article's allegation--that we tried to bribe scientists to criticize the work of the United Nations…
I Feel Bad About My Neck
Carla Cohen is a co-owner of Politics and Prose, a fashionable independent bookstore in Northwest D.C. When her store brings in local or visiting authors, Cohen often serves as emcee. Her plan for this evening is straightforward. She will introduce tonight's speaker, Senator Charles "Chuck" Schumer…
"When Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) saw reporters approaching him last week, he took off in a sprint, determined to say as little as possible about a nonbinding resolution opposing President Bush's troop-escalation plan, which is expected to come before the Senate today. 'You know where I stand,'…
Here are the three leading candidates for president in the Republican party, a party based in the South and in the interior, rural in nature, and backed in large part by social conservatives: the senior senator from Arizona, a congenital maverick with friends in the press and a habit of dissing the…
How to Read a Novel
Saving Persuasion
Last month a series of letters appeared in Science. They were written in response to a study by trauma researchers at Columbia University who examined the extent of long-term stress in Vietnam veterans.
Millennial Stages
"Plagiarize," as I once wrote. "Let no one else's work evade your eyes. / Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, / so don't shade your eyes, / but plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize ... / only be sure always to call it please, 'research.'"
LAST SUNDAY, 13 U.S. church officials left for Iran to meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and build a "bridge of peace" between the two countries.
IT WAS A PRETTY slow week on the Sunday talks show circuit. Meet the Press featured an interview with Tony Snow--the White House press secretary set about defending the president's proposals as best he could. Trying to combat the notion that the troops would be best served by a hasty withdrawal,…
The dedicated website of the George Polk Awards trumpets that the prize is "one of America's most coveted journalism honors-and probably its most respected." Bill Moyers and Russell Baker, among others, testify that the award means more to them than any other. The list of those cited since the…
Excerpt from Lieberman's speech on the floor of the Senate today: The non-binding resolution before us is not about stopping a hypothetical plan. It is about disapproving a plan that is being carried out now by our fellow Americans in uniform, in the field. In that sense, as I have said, it is…
There's been a lot of talk about the demise of the Royal Navy. This piece from the American Spectator gives a pretty good sense of just how bad things have become--the Royal Navy is now smaller than it's French counterpart for the first time in centuries. Now Admiral Sir Jonathan Band, first sea…
Matthew Continetti, writing in today's DAILY STANDARD, points to a disturbing trend in Congress, and more generally in the public debate over the war in Iraq. Continetti calls it warrior chic, "the idea that biography trumps policy, that a person's identity proves the validity of their ideas." In…
Clifford May has a great piece up at National Review on last weekend's Munich Conference on Security Policy. The conference's slogan, "peace through dialogue," sounds an awful lot like appeasement to May, but this is clearly the approach favored by Democrats in Congress. Here's freshman Democratic…
After all the Democratic pressure for a new National Intelligence Estimate of the situation in Iraq, the Democrats themselves seem to be the most shaken by the report's conclusion--that withdrawal "of coalition forces from Iraq would 'almost certainly' increase sectarian violence, intensify Sunni…
From Time: Give Force a Chance, by William Kristol. From the New York Times: Dispute Over Iraqi Cleric, Said to Have Gone to Iran, by Damien Cave. From the Washington Post: Bush Regains His Footing, by David S. Broder. From the Times: The shaky prospects of Mitt Romney, by Gerard Baker. From the…
SECRET INTELLIGENCE work is one of the most important tools a government can use to reduce--in Rumsfeldian parlance--"unknown unknowns." Intelligence is a national security decision-making tool, not a ball to be taken out and kicked about when cheap political points need to be scored. Yet now that…
A FEW YEARS AGO, statues of Sun Yat Sen began disappearing from Taiwan's public parks. In 2004, the Taiwanese government announced it would remove questions about Mainland Chinese geography from its general knowledge exam for civil servants. And last fall, the government renamed the country's…
WARRIOR CHIC--the idea that biography trumps policy, that a person's identity proves the validity of their ideas--now dominates our politics, as anyone who listened to the House of Representatives debate the Iraq war this week can attest. On Tuesday the Democrats began the debate over House…
From the AP: The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq was wounded and an aide was killed in a clash Thursday with Iraqi forces north of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry spokesman said. The clash occurred near Balad, a major U.S. base about 50 miles north of the capital, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.…
FP Passport has the quote from Senator Biden's talk at the Brookings Institution today: Biden said a lot of interesting things in his talk, but perhaps the most colorful wasn't in the prepared remarks (pdf). During the questions period, he said that U.S. combat forces must leave Iraq by 2008 in…
A senior "Netwarcom" official at the Naval Network Warfare Command in Norfolk, Virginia held a meeting with reporters earlier this week. Here's the scoop from FCW.com reporter Josh Rogin: At the Naval Network Warfare Command here, U.S. cyber defenders track and investigate hundreds of suspicious…
Over at the Corner, Andy McCarthy links to this story from Haaretz: A commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday that a commando unit has engraved the military organization's emblem into the side panel of an American warship stationed in the Persian Gulf. Nur Ali Shushkari, the head of…
From the AP: The United States clashed with China and Russia during a disarmament debate Tuesday over how to prevent an arms race in outer space, and Washington criticized Beijing for its recent test of an anti-satellite missile. Russia and China, in turn, condemned the "one state" that refuses to…
Late last month I wrote about some of the problems the Air Force has been having with it's newest stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor. Now David Axe reports that the F-22's first overseas deployment has been postponed due to a software malfunction. So I was all set to fly out to Okinawa, Japan, to…
The Bertelsmann Foundation has released a survey "on the view of Germany held by Jews in Israel and the USA, and the view of Israel from Germany." The full survey is available here, but the most interesting results, I think, are those relating to the threat posed by a nuclear Iran. At 62 percent, a…
BIKFAYA, where three people were killed and many others injured earlier this week by a bomb planted on a bus, is in the Christian heartland of Mount Lebanon, and has hosted a large Christian community since well before the time of the Islamic conquests. In the past, the high mountain passes…
From the New York Times: Bush Declares Iran's Arms Role in Iraq Is Certain, by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Marc Santora. From Powerline: The Under Secretary Responds, by John Hinderaker. From Newsweek: Cheney Ally Blasts Pentagon Report, by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball. From the Times: Bizarre…
WHEN IT COMES to public reputation, Congress is like the kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Perceived as an ill-mannered and unscrupulous institution, Americans' view of this legislative body could inspire songs like, "Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow up To Be House Members." Yet this belief is…
ANYONE WHO flipped on C-SPAN around noon on Valentine's Day was entering a political twilight zone. The House was well into its second day of debate on Concurrent Resolution 63, a statement of support for the American troops in Iraq but disagreement with President Bush's new strategy there, when…
Thomas Joscelyn has an excellent write up of the latest video from al Qaeda number two Ayman al Zawahiri. The key points: Zawahiri [is] seeking a solution in a profound call to all Muslims for unity, "even if be they Afghans, Persians, Turks or Kurds", to heed Islamic doctrine and fight together to…
We've been following for a while now the effort to deploy some 4,100 mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles to Iraq by the end of this year. The Army and Marines only have a couple hundred of the vehicles--which feature a v-shaped hull designed to deflect the force of an IED blast as well…
Occasional WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Jennifer Chou (who is also the director of Radio Free Asia's Mandarin Service) writes in with news and links from the Chinese-language media: On February 7th, the 2007 China Aerospace Exhibition got it's official kick-off at a much-hyped ceremony and press…
Via Michael Fumento, a video from the front lines in Iraq. Fumento explains: Spc. Andy Johnson from A. Co., 1/506th, 101st Airborne sent me this video montage he put together from his vacation at Camp Corregidor this past year. It includes a couple of video clips of mine and some other good action…
The Houston Chronicle reports on the arrest of Daniel Joseph Maldonado, aka Daniel Aljughaifi. Maldonado is charged with "receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the U.S.," and was escorted back to Houston from Kenya by two…
Gary Schmitt and Reuel Marc Gerecht, both frequent contributors to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, have a piece in today's Financial Times on how war with Iran might be averted. Do the Europeans really want to prevent a war between the US or Israel and Iran? If they had to choose between curtailing trade with…
From AFP: Eleven people have been killed when a car bomb ripped through a bus carrying members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards in a sensitive southeastern border province. The bus was taking the Guards from their housing compound in the city of Zahedan to a military base just after daybreak…
From the Washington Post: Tough Questions We Were Right to Ask, by Douglas J. Feith. From the Washington Times: Bolton hits agreement as 'bad signal' to Iran, by Bill Gertz. From the New York Sun: Iran's Top Strategist, In His Own Words, by Steven Stalinsky. From the Taipei Times: The best defense…
The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) recently announced its "Guidelines for the Conduct of Embryonic Stem Cell Research." The results are not encouraging.
WHILE SOMALIA HAS been grabbing all the headlines, it isn't the only area of Africa that has seen a recent surge in terror activity among al Qaeda linked groups. Jihadists have been making advances in the Maghreb--that part of North Africa composed of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia--as well. While…
At 12:31 p.m. on Tuesday, the House voted to debate House Concurrent Resolution 63, a 97-word statement of support for the troops in Iraq and disagreement with President Bush's January 10 decision to send more than 20,000 additional combat soldiers there. Over the next several days, culminating in…
Lee Smith, a Hudson Institute visiting fellow, contributes frequently to THE DAILY STANDARD. He writes in here with a few thoughts on Iran, oil, and the New Yorker magazine. My old friend James Surowiecki has an interesting column in the latest issue of the New Yorker that explains how tough talk…
David Axe has an excellent post up on the Aviation Week blog about the size of the U.S. fleet. I'll quibble with a few points Axe makes, but by and large, he is correct to assert that the size of the U.S. fleet is not the sole criterion for determining U.S. Naval power. The thurst of Axe's…
Mitt Romney made it official this morning. The former Massachusetts governor announced his candidacy for president at an automotive musuem in Dearborn, Michigan. Powerline has more on the address, but here is what Romney had to say on the war in Iraq: Across the nation, there is debate about our…
Barack Obama has already stepped back from remarks he made the other day claiming that we "have seen over three thousand lives of the bravest young Americans wasted." Here's the video clip, which was widely circulated by conservative blogs yesterday.
With the president's launch of a new national space policy this fall, and the subsequent Chinese test of an ASAT missile, it seems the Europeans, and the French in particular, are feeling a bit left out of "the second global space race." Peter B. de Selding, writing at Space.com, reports on a…
The Sydney Morning Herald offered a pretty shocking statistic the other day on the Australian government's plans to buy 100 Joint Strike Fighters to replace an aging fleet of F-111s and F/A-18s. "At a cost of more than $1000 for every Australian man, woman and child, the program to buy the…
From the New York Post: A Putrid Payoff, by John Podhoretz. From the Washington Post: A Blogger for Edwards Resigns After Complaints, by Howard Kurtz. From Bloomberg: New York Magazine's Head Doctors Analyze Bush, by Andrew Ferguson. From the New York Times: Iran and the Nameless Briefers, by the…
THE COMPETITION between New York City and London threatens to get out of hand. New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, a billionaire capitalist, trekked to London to see how Red Ken Livingstone, the communist mayor of London, runs things. Well, not precisely. But he did come to see how Callum McCarthy,…
Whatever happens in Iraq, the initial invasion of that country was an unqualified success. American armor was sweeping through Baghdad only weeks after the first bombs were dropped on the city. And while the Taliban still pose a formidable challenge to American efforts in Afghanistan, the swift…
Clint Eastwood is out promoting his twin WWII movies, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. The subtext of these films does not exactly bolster Eastwood's reputation for intellectual seriousness. Now his campaigning has reached a new low, with these remarks: Clint Eastwood said his…
Tim Johnson, the China correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers, had an interesting story up over the weekend on his blog, China Rises. According to Johnson, Sha Zukang, "the Chinese diplomat who suggested last August that Washington should just 'shut up and keep quiet' about China's defense spending…
The Corner's Andy McCarthy links to this New York Sun report from Eli Lake on Iranian weapons in Iraq. According to Lake: Indeed, while the specific intelligence on the explosive formed projectiles is no longer disputed in the intelligence community, the CIA is questioning whether their export from…
Senator Lieberman addressed the Munich Conference on Security Policy on Sunday. The senator took a not so subtle jibe at John Kerry, saying America is "a principled nation, not a pariah nation. He also responded to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who two days ago asked the same audience, "What is…
Major General Bill Caldwell presented to the Baghdad press corps this morning evidence of Iranian weapons being supplied to insurgents in Iraq. Bill Roggio has culled news accounts for the most relevant bits: "Iran is involved in supplying explosively formed projectiles or EFPs and other material,"…
From the Washington Times: Beijing's dark designs, by James Holmes. From the New York Sun: Vindicating Douglas Feith, by the editors. From the New York Times: Why Are the Pacifists So Passive? by Lynn Chu & John Yoo. From the Christian Science Monitor: Russia intensifies efforts to rebuild its…
The idea has gotten around that Republicans lost the 2006 election because they weren't conservative enough. At National Review's conservative summit, Jeb Bush, the ex-Florida governor, said as much: "Sadly, in Washington, Republicans have lost their way. We have become timid." He said Republicans…
Perhaps the shade of the great Yeats will forgive me:
My Correct Views on Everything
I'm a reasonable man, and I take reasonable precautions to secure my property. This means keeping a lock on all the doors of my house, hiding the spare key somewhere other than under the doormat, and peeking out through the Venetian blinds to see what's stirring when the dog barks in the middle of…
When Lewis Powell, who was to become an esteemed Supreme Court justice, came as a freshman to Washington and Lee in the mid-1920s, he noticed a striking photograph in the hallway of his boarding house. The face of Robert E. Lee was instantly recognizable. But who, he asked, was the pretty little…
Giddy with joy at their sudden good fortune, the Democrats have set out to embarrass the president, pushing resolutions of less-than-no-confidence, clubbing his Iraq surge plan as it lies in its cradle, and declaring defeat in advance. In some sense, they have achieved their objectives: They have…
The Sounds of Jane Fonda's Silence
Because I Said So
Idaho is a red state. Much of the country went Democratic last November, but Idaho saw all its statewide races go Republican, as well as both of its House seats. And no race drew as much attention as Republican Bill Sali's campaign to represent Idaho's First Congressional District.
Karl Marx famously observed that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. The deal that the Bush administration appears to have entered into with Pyongyang is no joke, but it does have eerie echoes of the one signed 13 years ago by President Bill Clinton. Although, at…
T.S. Eliot
Building Red America
History's Locomotives
Forcing people to do what they are not otherwise disposed to doing can be quite difficult. All but three states make car insurance mandatory. Yet, nationwide, about 14.6 percent of drivers are uninsured, a figure similar to the fraction of Americans who lack health insurance: 15.7 percent.
Dreams from My Father
For years now, the political science literature has been exploring the phenomenon of the "democratic peace," according to which, to state it in its bluntest form, democracies do not go to war with one another. It's not that democracies are pacifist by nature. Democratic countries, acting alone or…
WE'RE ALL PART of the pop culture world. Whether you think you are or not, whether you want to be or not, no matter how aloof and superior you feel, even if the Atlantic and Foreign Affairs are the only things you keep in your bathroom, you're as much a part of the celebrity culture as the booker…
STRIKE UP THE BAND! Around the world today, February 12, admirers of Charles Darwin will celebrate the great man's 198th birthday with lectures, concerts, and exhibits.
Fox News Sunday featured an interview with former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, who has taken a beating in the press recently for the way intelligence was handled in the lead up to the Iraq war. He stressed to Chris Wallace that intelligence is very rarely a slam dunk, noting "there was…
No, not by UNIFIL. It would be too much to expect the United Nations to take any action against Hezbollah. But the BBC reports that a truck carrying AK-47s and other small arms--including rockets--destined for Hezbollah fighters was seized by the Lebanese government in Beirut. The Lebanese…
Fantastic and profane parody of the correspondence between John Edwards and Amanda Marcotte, editor of Pandagon and a member of the Edwards '08 campaign team. Here's a sample: To: Senator John Edwards From: Amanda Marcotte Re: Focus Group Dear Senator Edwards: To help you hone your campaign message…
Senator John McCain was one of only 14 senators to vote against the confirmation of General George Casey to be the Army's next chief of staff. In his comments on the floor of the Senate, McCain explained his vote: So, I want to tell my friends that people in the military, particularly our young…
The AP report from the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Seville, Spain: Serial numbers and markings on explosives used in Iraq provide "pretty good" evidence that Iran is providing either weapons or technology for militants there, Defense Secretary Robert Gates asserted Friday. Offering some of…
A worrisome story from Politico: To the surprise of the Bush administration, the House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously Wednesday night to allow all 435 House members to see the classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq sent to the White House last week. The report is…
From the New York Times: Edwards Learns Blogs Can Cut 2 Ways, by John M. Broder. From the Wall Street Journal: Rudy vs. Hillary in 2008? by Peggy Noonan. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Maintaining America's high-tech edge, by Charles J. Dunlap Jr. From the Washington Times: War resolution seen…
"HOLLYWOOD is out of touch with mainstream America."
Max Boot has an interesting post on the Commentary blog about "Iran's long war" with the United States. Boot writes that "in the view of some analysts, the fanatics are in Washington not Tehran. Some of our most eminent foreign-policy thinkers seem to think that supposedly trigger-happy hawks in…
Debra Saunders has a discouraging column about recent goings on at San Francisco State, where the student body has finally decided to take a stand against religious intolerance. You may be able to guess where this is going: This story starts with an "anti-terrorism rally" held last October on…
THERE IS THE PARTY OF WAR, which thinks the Iraq war is important and justified, and the party of peace, which thinks it is neither. And then again, there is the party of petulance, a bi-partisan caucus which seems to believe that the most important thing about the Iraqi invasion is the harm it can…
When British soldier Lance Corporal Matty Hull of the Household Cavalry Regiment was killed in Iraq in March of 2003, it was no more than a few minutes before it became clear that his death had been caused by friendly fire--a "blue on blue incident." Two A-10s from the Idaho National Guard had…
From the Financial Times: Israeli and Lebanese soldiers exchanged fire on Wednesday after Lebanese troops shot in the air as an Israeli patrol crossed a security fence near the border to search for explosives planted by Hizbollah guerrillas. No one was hurt. And from the Jerusalem Post: National…
The International Herald Tribune has a lengthy report today on China's newest fighter jet, the J-10. The article hypes the plane, or at least the headline does--"China adds jet fighter that rivals world best." Still, comparisons with the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Dassault Rafale don't really…
Bill Roggio has up his own analysis of the situation: The suspicion is the Islamic Republic of Iran is behind supplying al-Qaeda with the needed weapons, training and logistical support to supply and field a successful anti-aircraft force, much as the United States provided the mujahideen with…
From the Wall Street Journal: Hillary on Iraq. From the Chicago Sun-Times: Who Won in the Senate?, by Robert Novak. From Real Clear Politics: John Edwards Gets a Makeover, by Gerard Baker. From the Los Angeles Times: Dissent grows in Iran, by Kim Murphy. From CNN: U.S. military: Iraqi lawmaker is…
IS THERE a chink in the armor of absolute opposition to capital punishment in America? In the wake of Saddam Hussein's hanging, a review of the post-mortem press suggests that there was some reluctance of the part of liberal anti-death penalty groups to clearly reaffirm their view that the death…
WHILE THE DEMOCRATIC-CONTROLLED House voted 253-174 to expand federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, it fell far short of the 290 votes needed to override a virtually guaranteed presidential veto. A tragedy for victims of everything from Alzheimer's to warts? Not at all. Each year there…
DURING THE FIRST weeks--or, in Pelosi time, 100 hours--of the 110th Congress, the word "comity" spewed from Capitol Hill like the ash that came out of Krakatoa in 1883. But old ways remain. Consider the continued role of "fact-checking squads" in the House of Representatives. Both the Democrats'…
From the Washington Post: Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) said yesterday that Congress should consider a "war-on-terrorism tax," reducing the need for lawmakers to cut domestic programs to pay for security spending. Lieberman said the proposed increase in the Pentagon's budget for next fiscal…
Over the last 18 days, five American helicopters have gone down in the areas in and around Baghdad. What first appeared to be an unfortunate coincidence, has now started to fuel speculation of a new dimension to the insurgency in Iraq. On January 30, Defense Tech asked a former Kiowa Warrior pilot…
When Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi requested access to military aircraft, she had to know she was inviting trouble. And the White House is dragging out the negotiations, making sure the media has enough time to chew over the details of Pelosi's request. Here are some of the latest comments: From…
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was the featured guest at a reporter's breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor this morning. USA Today's On Deadline has the scoop on the svelte governor's comments on the war in Iraq and fellow Republican John McCain. Asked if fellow Republican…
There are going to be a whole lot of warships in the Persian Gulf over the next few weeks. One carrier strike groups is already on the scene, and a second, led by the USS John C. Stennis, is set to arrive over the next two weeks. This will be the first time two carriers have been stationed in the…
From the Los Angeles Times: Keys to a successful surge, by Max Boot. From the Washington Times: Enemy doubles IED use in Iraq, by Rowan Scarborough. From the New York Post: A Cowardly Congress . . . From CNSNews.com: Who's Blocking Debate on Iraq War?, by Susan Jones. From the Washington Times:…
Beirut
IRANIANS are among the world's biggest consumers of gasoline because the product is kept at an artificially low price through government subsidies. The Iranian cabinet decided in mid-January that it would try to reduce consumption by introducing gasoline rationing, and reports from the provinces…
A while back, Irwin Stelzer had an excellent joke about America's energy policy: I was asked many years ago at a gathering of government and industry experts to lay out an energy policy for America, to cope with a supply interruption. Two words: "aircraft carriers." Funny, that. In the intervening…
There have been a couple stories in the media lately about the possible sale of F-22s to Japan. The story goes something like this: "China has started developing more advanced fighter jets in a bid to match the state-of-the-art F-22 U.S. combat aircraft, sparking a regional arms race . . . Taiwan…
Occasional WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Jennifer Chou (who is also the director of Radio Free Asia's Mandarin Service) writes in with news and links from the Chinese-language media: * According to the February 4th edition of the Chinese-language weekly Yazhou Zhoukan (published in Hong Kong under…
For anyone who has been following the story of Washington Post blogger William Arkin, who accused U.S. servicemen of being mercenaries and wrote that they should be grateful no one is spitting on them or calling them "baby killers," this clip from the O'Reilly Factor ought to be quite satisfying.…
Rudy Giuliani was on Hannity & Colmes last night. He talked about Iraq, Iran, and the recommendations of the Iraq study group among other things. But here's the reality of it: We're at war. And we're at war because they're at war with us. I mean, sometimes, when you listen to these debates in…
From the New York Sun: Spitting on Veterans, by Seth Gitell. From National Journal: Military cutting orders for costly high-tech weapons, by Art Pine. From the Times: As Iraq suffers, all eyes are turning to Iran, by Gerard Baker. From the Wall Street Journal: Can There Be a Liberal Iraq?, by Bret…
IT SEEMS THAT the apocalypse has been postponed. Just a few weeks ago there was an emerging consensus that the American economy was doomed to below-trend growth in 2007 at best, and a recession at worst. The tale of woe went something like this:
I just saw the text of a speech delivered today by Senator Joe Lieberman on the floor of the Senate. Lieberman states his intention to vote against cloture on the Warner-Levin resolution, and he scolds his fellow senators for supporting a resolution that would, "by codifying our disunity, by…
Thomas Millington has a piece up today at National Interest Online about how to tame Tehran. Democrats, echoing the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, have been pushing for engagement with Tehran, with the aim of convincing that regime to use its influence in Iraq in a more constructive way.…
A new poll release by Fox News shows very little popular support for a "non-binding resolution expressing opposition to President Bush's new plan for Iraq." Such a resolution fails even to garner the support of a majority of respondents who self-identify as Democrats. Among Republicans, and to a…
In Afghanistan, a NATO counteroffensive to retake the town of Musa Qala from Taliban militants resulted in the death of a high-ranking Taliban commander, Mullah Ghafour. A NATO airstrike was said to be the cause of death. The Taliban had overrun the town last week, despite an agreement with local…
As Congressional Democrats, and some Republicans, push to condemn the president's new Iraq strategy, the release last week of a new National Intelligence Estimate was said to "strengthen their hand." The reports conclusions, mainly that the violence in Iraq is "self-sustaining," and that the…
From the New York Post: A Ban On Victory. From the Sunday Times: We're far too nice to Muslim extremists, by Minette Marrin. From Real Clear Politics: North Korean Rumors, by Richard Halloran. From the Washington Times: U.S. threatens crushing offensive to calm Baghdad. From National Review Online:…
For independent-minded journalists, there are better ways to see the world than media junkets. But--and my accounting department will back me up here--there aren't many better ways to pay for it. So two weeks ago, I set out for Israel on the dime of the American Israel Education Foundation,…
Rejuvenile
EDITORIAL NOTE: Around the time I was starting Encounter Books in 1997, I mentioned to my friend Jim Denton that I thought a memoir by Jeane Kirkpatrick would be an important book. Jim knew Jeane, and he brought the two of us together at a New York restaurant to talk about it.
At the Academy Awards ceremony on February 25, Helen Mirren is all but certain to be named Best Actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II. Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was last year's Best Actor for his performance as Truman Capote, will present the award to her. Hoffman's successor this year…
Two weeks ago, high above eastern Asia, a Chinese missile unerringly hunted down and struck its target. The precision was impressive--and frightening in its strategic cunning.
Power, Faith, and Fantasy
Do you have a bright idea (albeit a controversial one) that you would like to see implemented as national policy? Would you prefer to achieve this without the inconvenience of having to persuade Congress and the president, let alone the American people? Well, here's how to do it.
Unprotected
When asked by a reporter why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton famously replied: "Because that's where the money is." In the State of the Union address, President George W. Bush focused on domestic policy and, in particular, health care by talking about, not Medicare or Medicaid or health savings…
COLD WAR WARS
The Road
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is under fire as he pursues the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. A recent Internet video highlighted comments made during a 1994 debate against Sen. Edward Kennedy in which Romney declared that he supported a "woman's right to choose." Romney…
No one knows the tragic story of America in Vietnam better than Jim Webb, first as a Marine, then as a writer. So the newly elected Democratic senator from Virginia--a fierce opponent of the war in Iraq--wants to keep Vietnam out of the debate over Iraq. "As much as possible, we need to keep this…
Herzliya Pituach, Israel
Twice this past week, on January 23 and 25, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held hearings on intelligence reform. Topics included the remaining 9/11 Commission recommendations and efforts both to facilitate information-sharing across the U.S. government's 16 intelligence agencies and to…
The 'Democrat' Congress
The Coroner's Lunch
London
The Black Hole of Auschwitz
SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON is waging two presidential campaigns at once. She is running for the Democratic presidential nomination while keeping a sharp eye on the general election campaign against the Republican presidential nominee, whoever that turns out to be. Senator Clinton wants to run as a…
Fox News Sunday featured interviews with two senators who should be considered strong contenders for the vice presidential nomination (if not this cycle, then certainly the next). Democrat Jim Webb was interviewed by Chris Wallace first, and he spoke of the need to involve the nations surrounding…
Governor Mitt Romney addressed a group of conservative House members at a Heritage Foundation retreat in Baltimore today. The presidential hopeful had some strong words for Hillary Clinton, whose position on Iran was met with groans from a pro-Israel audience last night at an AIPAC-sponsored dinner…
He's put up another apology. As John Hinderaker points out at Poweline, "this one shows unmistakable signs that the Post's editors have now caught up with Arkin." Arkin offers this in the way of an explanation: Mercenary, of course, is an insult and pejorative, and it does not accurately describe…
During a Pentagon briefing today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates assured reporters that the United States wasn't preparing for a war with Iran. Said Gates, The president has made clear, the secretary of state has made clear, I've made clear--nobody is planning--we are not planning for a war with…
Now available at Time.com is Bill's latest. It's the story of how the Democrats went from mild to wild in just a few short months--from being "the very soul of moderation" immediately following the election, to one-upping each other in "a tide of antiwar agitation" as the presidential race heats…
The rail gun is one of the most exciting Naval technologies to come along in years. The Navy hopes to fit the gun to the DDG 1000 destroyer sometime around 2020, and if the technology delivers as promised, it would be capable of firing a guided projectile up to 267 nautical miles, which would put…
From The American Spectator: Sinking the Royal Navy, by Hal G.P. Colebatch. From Haaretz: Fatah: Iranian weapons experts were helping Hamas, by Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel. From the New York Post: Israel Fans Groan Over Hill Speech, by Maggie Haberman. From Military.com: Pentagon Asks for $470…
IT'S AMATEUR HOUR at the Super Bowl this year. On Sunday, 90 million television viewers on CBS will be subjected to commercials made by "You"--Time magazine's Person of The Year for 2006. Three Super Bowl XLI advertisers--Doritos, the National Football League, and Chevrolet--will all be running 30…
He's the minister of the interior, the head of the UMP, and the odds on favorite to win the French Republic's next presidential election. Who is he? He's Nicolas Sarkozy, aka Disco Sarko. Enjoy. (HT KMW) Disco Sarko2.JPG Mouvement 3, Dancefloor 2
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, who frequently contributes to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, released his first book today, a memoir of his conversion to Islam and his subsequent radicalization and involvement with a group of American-based jihadists. I've not had the chance to read the book yet, though I've spoken…
Defense Tech reports on new estimates by the Congressional Budget Office on the actual number of troops that will be deployed to tamp down the violence in Iraq. According to the document, the addition of 20,000 combat troops will require a corresponding influx of approximately 28,000 support…
The editors at the New York Times say that "Mr. Bush is at it again, this time trying to bully Iran into stopping its meddling inside Iraq." They go on, We have no doubt about Iran's malign intent, just as we have no doubt that Mr. Bush's serial failures in Iraq have made it far easier for Tehran…
The Senate Armed Services Committee held hearing today on Gen. George Casey's nomination to be Army chief of staff. The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq told the committee that he had asked the president to send two additional brigades--less than half the number the president is sending--to…
Two days ago, William M. Arkin, the Washington Post's national and homeland security blogger, wrote a column that accused American troops of being ingrates, mercenaries, rapists, murders, and just about every other nasty thing he could think of, all because a few soldiers told NBC News that the…
Democrats often point to Afghanistan as "the real war on terror". They say that Iraq is a mere distraction, and that the strain of that conflict on the American military has led to a situation where, in the words of Howard Dean, "We don't have enough troops in Afghanistan." Only it seems that the…
IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROJECT can probably be stopped by significantly cutting its oil income. A meaningful decline in this main source of Iran's income would force its leadership to choose between butter and guns. This is a critical choice; the ayatollahs cannot hope to maintain their hold on power if…
A series of photographs showing Russian President Vladimir Putin's pimped out plane recently appeared on a Russian blog operated by a man identified only as "hectop." I first saw the story over on FP Passport, where Blake Hounshell speculated that the opulent interior might spark a backlash against…
From the Washington Times: No third way in Iraq, by Tony Blankley. From the Wall Street Journal: If the Shoe Fits, by Mark Laswell. From the New York Times: Chirac Unfazed by Nuclear Iran, Then Backtracks, by Elaine Sciolino and Katrin Bennhold. From the Washington Times: Chavez to usher in…
On January 1, 2007, the Chinese government loosened restrictions on the media, including those that limited the freedom of foreign journalists to travel and conduct interviews in the country. Shortly after, the Paris-based press watchdog Reporters Without Borders announced an end to its boycott of…
HONG KONG IS coming up on the 10th anniversary of its reversion to Chinese rule in 1997. At the time, the gloss on turning over more than six million people to Communist rule was that Hong Kong's freedom and rule of law would influence the mainland, rather than the other way around. Another…