248 articles
icon.roggio2.gifYesterday's suicide campaigns in Baghdad and Khalis led to the most deadly day since the beginning of the Baghdad Security operation. The Baghdad attack, where two suicide bombers detonated their vests in a largely Shia market, has resulted in 83 murdered, with another 138 wounded.…
On March 11, three years to the day after the Madrid bombings, a cybercafe in Casablanca was hit. Two terrorists carrying explosive belts entered the cybercafe to surf the web. They were trying to connect to a terrorism-related site, and the manager wanted to prevent them from doing so. When he…
Flight magazine reports on the Joint Strike Fighter's "first manoeuvring flight tests, complete with full-stick rolls." The test went off without a hitch: "It worked exceedingly well," said F-35 chief test pilot Jon Beesley. Below is the video, also posted at flightglobal. (FYI, the video may not…
putin-on-the-phone.jpgPresident Putin speaks often with his American counterpart, and the Kremlin's press service reports that the two leaders conducted yet another round of discussions yesterday regarding "cooperation…on current international issues." Those issues included last week's U.N.…
From Time: In 2008 It's Ronald Reagan vs. Bobby Kennedy, by William Kristol. From Der Spiegel: Evil Americans, Poor Mullahs, by Claus Christian Malzahn. From USA Today: Setting a deadline for withdrawal would guarantee defeat in Iraq, by Joe Lieberman. From the Examiner: Gates' maturity welcome in…
icon.roggio2.gifThe fog around the Tal Afar reprisal killings has cleared some since the Associated Press intimated the Tal Afar police force went on an organized rampage throughout the city following a devastating suicide attack that killed 83 and wounded another 104 civilians. In a conference…
GERALD SHENK, who teaches at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Harrisonburg, Virginia, attended a theology conference on "Madhist doctrine" in Teheran last September. (For many Shiite Muslims, the Twelfth Imam is the Mahdi, or messianic savior, who returns at the end times to establish a reign of…
London
Retired General Barry McCaffrey visited Iraq earlier this month to meet with senior commanders and to get a better sense of the situation on the ground. McCaffrey was hardly a proponent of the president's new strategy, and in January went so far as to call the surge a "fool's errand" in testimony…
The French presidential elections, already taking place against the backdrop of last year's rioting in the suburbs of Paris, now have a further drama at their heart: the pitched battle yesterday at the Gare du Nord--a combined railway station and subway station in the heart of Paris. It all started…
icon.roggio2.gifThree major events occurred inside Iraq over the past 24 hours that merit particular attention. First, in the Shia dominated city of Tal Afar, al Qaeda conducted a double suicide attack. Subsequently, off-duty Shia police are said to have rampaged through the city, conducting…
A ridiculous story from Roll Calll. Apparently the Dems are only setting a timetable for withdrawal as a favor to Bush--to give him leverage in dealing with Iraqi leaders. From the Roll Call: But Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said that for all the president's objections to…
From USA Today: In Iraq vote, Congress is casting aside the Constitution, by David B. Rivkin Jr. & Lee A. Casey. From the New York Post: Hostage Sailors--Britain's Impotence, by Arthur Herman. From RIA Novosti: Putin's seven years in power, by Andrei Vavra. From the Sydney Morning Herald: 'Guilty'…
Update: Over at The Danger Room, Sharon Weinberger links to an English-language copy of the original report. And John at Op-For makes this excellent point: "I've always chuckled at references to China's "asymmetrical" military doctrine. We're the boys with the force-multiplying toys, and China's…
Bayrou Surges A recent IFOP survey shows that 61 percent of French voters trust neither the left nor the right. This generalized mistrust surely benefits the centrist presidential candidate François Bayrou, the so-called "new man in the middle," but it would be a mistake to explain it as a rebuke…
London
Senator John McCain posed this question on the floor of the Senate today: To those who believe that the best course is to withdraw, I ask: Can you explain to the American people precisely what you believe to be the consequences of this action? If we follow the timetable included in this bil--to…
icon.roggio2.gifIraqi and Coalition forces have been pressing hard to dismantle al Qaeda's suicide and car bomb infrastructure in and around Baghdad. Over the past week, some success has been made in attacking the leadership of these networks. Three senior commanders of al Qaeda bomb-making cells…
From the New York Post: Hostage Gambit, by Amir Taheri. From Reason: Blue Light Special, by Katherine Mangu-Ward. From Fox News: Major Mistakes in New York Times Story About Rape in Military, by Rick Leventhal. From the Danger Room: Rain KO'd Interceptors During Korea Missile Tests, by Noah…
Pakistan has officially signed the 'Bajaur Accord' with Taliban operating in the northwestern Tribal agency. The Taliban promised to prevent 'foreign fighters' from settling and stop cross border attacks into Afghanistan in exchange for freedom from attack and arrest by the Pakistani security…
LAST WEEK the House of Representatives seemed to be on the verge of granting the District of Columbia a full vote in the chamber. Currently, Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's delegate, has a vote in committee but no power on the floor; she cannot influence final passage of legislation. For the…
BORROWING OCCURS when a borrower has confidence in his future and a lender has confidence that the price he is getting for the use of his money--the interest rate--compensates him for the risk that he will not be repaid. Both borrower and lender sometimes miscalculate, and wish they had heeded…
I can't believe I'm still shocked by this kind of thing, but here it is. We have two stories on the farewell press conference of Zalmay Khalilzad, but one is not like the other. The first, from New York Times reporter Alissa J. Rubin, bears the sobering headline "Departing Envoy to Iraq Says Time…
On April 14, 2004, in Karabilah, Iraq, Cpl. Jason Dunham threw himself on a grenade to save the lives of his fellow Marines. For that, Dunham was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor--one of only two U.S. servicemen to receive the award since the Iraq war started in March 2003. According to the…
From the Wall Street Journal: Iran's act of war against our British allies, by the editors. From the San Diego Union Tribune: Engineer said to take U.S. military secrets, by Matt Krasnowski. From the Danger Room: Brutal Chinese Weapon, Tailor-Made for Insurgents, by David Hambling. From the Atlanta…
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of March 26, 2007.
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of March 26, 2007.
Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has wrapped up a four-day visit to China that included jaunts to the Nanjing Military Region and the Shenyang Military Region, where he examined an Su-27 fighter bomber and observed Chinese land-combat exercises. During a press…
Senator McCain called into Bill Bennett's "Morning In America," today. Said McCain, "Given the situation that is going to be on the floor of the Senate, I am going to head back first thing tomorrow morning, and try and beat back this new recipe for defeat that the Democrats are trying to hoist off…
Stuart Bowen Jr, the special inspector general for Iraq Reconstruction, testified on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Bowen has been a harsh critic of the incompetence, disorganization, and waste that has characterized U.S. reconstruction efforts in Iraq, which he has documented in a series of scathing…
Drudge links to this story from the San Francisco Chronicle about a town hall meeting in Oakland, California, where Sean Penn and Rep. Barbara Lee gathered with "hundreds of people . . . to denounce the war in Iraq and call for an immediate withdrawal of American troops." Staff writers Carolyn…
On February 4, 2005, an Italian journalist named Giuliana Sgrena was captured and held hostage by a group of angry Muslims in Iraq. After a month of none too covert negotiating by the Italian government, she was released to a high-ranking member of the Italian intelligence service. How many Western…
Rankled by Rudy
New Orleans
When President Bush, at the tail end of his Latin American trip last week, got around to commenting on the controversy over eight fired U.S. attorneys, he was calm, reasonable, and even a bit apologetic. Little good it did him. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Bush administration was…
Scott of the Antarctic
The Amnesia Clinic
John Adams Unbound
A Match Made in Heaven
When Blackstone described the right to carry arms as part of the natural right of "self-preservation," he could not have envisioned the situation of a professional woman coming home late to an empty Washington, D.C., apartment. Yet in a city declared by its police chief to be in a state of "crime…
In order to preserve the cosmic harmony, it seems the gods insist that good news in one place be offset by misfortune elsewhere. It may well be that Gen. David Petraeus is going to lead us to victory in Iraq. He is certainly off to a good start. If the karmic price of success in Iraq is utter…
It will be spring soon and, more to the point, baseball season. This knowledge brings me some joy and not a little anxiety, due to the birth of my son almost a year ago. I'll see him playing on the rug or, now that his teeth are coming in, chewing on the coffee table, a CD case, or, last week, an…
CROSS WITH W&M
More than 18 months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, the state of Mississippi finds itself in a legal battle over homeowners' insurance that may take longer to clean up than the hurricane debris. Thousands of Mississippians have seen their houses reduced to concrete slabs and want…
"A City of Homes . . . A City for Business . . . A City Rich with History and Multi-cultural Diversity"--so reads the motto of Springfield, Massachusetts (pop. 150,000), halfway between New York and Boston. With an ethnic mix of blacks, whites, Hispanics, and others reflected in its local…
300
Rome's Gothic Wars
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the South
SENATORS DIANNE FEINSTEIN and Orrin Hatch have just introduced Senate Bill 812, which explicitly legalizes human cloning and--since a shortage of human eggs is currently impeding human cloning research (one egg is needed for each attempt at cloning)--the bill also authorizes researchers to pay…
Face the Nation had the best show of the weekend, managing to squeeze into one tight half hour interviews with one of the fired assistant United States attorneys, two of the senators leading the investigation into the Justice Department, the New York Times's best columnist, and the head of the…
Face the Nation had the best show of the weekend, managing to squeeze into one tight half hour interviews with one of the fired assistant United States attorneys, two of the senators leading the investigation into the Justice Department, the New York Times's best columnist, and the head of the…
According to a report in U.S. News, last September Iraninan soldiers crossed the border into Iraq and attacked a force of Iraqi soldiers and the American troops advising them. U.S. News points to this document, provided by the 101st Airborne Division: 5-73 Cav was conducting a joint border patrol…
The popular Russian weekly Vlast has published a lengthy account of how President Putin spent his time over the last year. It seems Putin has been burning up the Kremlin's anytime minutes chatting with President Bush. Putin spoke with Bush eight times over the last year, more often than he spoke…
icon.roggio2.gifFriday was another relatively quiet day in Iraq. The only major attack in Baghdad was serious, however. Not because of the size of the attack, but the target. Salam al-Zubaie, one of two deputy prime ministers, was wounded after a suicide bomb was detonated in the courtyard of the…
From today's Washington Post, Retreat and Butter: As it is, House Democrats are pressing a bill that has the endorsement of MoveOn.org but excludes the judgment of the U.S. commanders who would have to execute the retreat the bill mandates. It would heap money on unneedy dairy farmers while…
Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was greeted with full military honors in Beijing yesterday where he met with his counterpart, PLA General Liang Guanglie. The American Forces Press Service reports that the Chinese brought up the "situation" between Taiwan and China and that…
WHEN WILL PEACE come to Darfur? After four years of genocide (the killings started in February 2003), that question has lost all but its rhetorical significance.
THE POST-OSCAR ATTACKS on Al Gore for living in a mansion that consumes 20 times as much energy as the average American house were enjoyable, but unfair. Gore's consumption of fossil fuels has nothing to do with the arguments he has been advancing about climate change. After all, his thesis is…
icon.roggio2.gifThe violence in Baghdad remains low as further evidence emerges that Sadr's Mahdi Army is breaking apart. The most high profile incident in Baghdad occurred after a Katyusha rocket slammed into a building next to the one where U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was speaking. There…
Amy Butler has a fantastic post up over at Ares on the competition for the Air Force's next tanker. The competition pits the all-American Boeing against rival Northrop Grumman, which has teamed with EADS North America to propose a design based on the Airbus A330. The Air Force's urgent need for a…
The New York Times is in trouble with the Russian authorities. On Tuesday, the newspaper reported the encouraging news that "Russia has informed Iran that it will withhold nuclear fuel . . . unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment." Yesterday's editorial further asserted that "The [Bush]…
From THE DAILY STANDARD: Fred Thompson: A Presidential Primer, by Victorino Matus. From the Washington Post: Musharraf at the Exit, by Ahmed Rashid. From CBS News: Use Of Deadly Roadside Bomb Plunges, by Cami McCormick. From the Examiner: Democrats' Iraq plan is irresponsible, by Rep. John Boehner.…
IF FRED THOMPSON were to become our next president, what would he be like? Where would he stand on the issues? Although the former Tennessee senator has yet to declare, support for a Thompson candidacy is steadily growing. The Draft Fred Thompson President '08 website (fred08.com) is already up and…
IN 1937, while Hitler was tightening his grip on Germany and Stalin was killing "unreliable" Russian generals, Emperor Hirohito invaded China and massacred over 200,000 civilians in the Nationalist capital of Nanking. This was the brutal prelude to Japan's far-flung co-prosperity sphere in Asia…
THESE DAYS, MOST EVERYONE AGREES that Americans need to develop a better understanding of Islam. They disagree, though, on how this understanding should be built. I've had ample opportunity to consider this question after the publication of My Year Inside Radical Islam, a book that details my time…
Francois Bayrou, who is polling third in the French presidential election, called for a French boycott of the Beijing Olympics if the Chinese fail to rein in the killing by their Sudanese allies in Darfur. China accounts for the bulk of foreign investment in Sudan and supplies the regime with…
The United States military runs on oil--300,000 barrels a day to be precise. But transformation, which uses technology as a "force multiplier," has made the military increasingly reliant on electricity. The "digital soldier" relies on electrical devices for communications, for electronic warfare,…
This interview with General Petraeus in yesterday's New York Post hasn't gotten as much attention as it ought. Here's the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq articulating the early success of the president's new strategy, so I guess we shouldn't be surprised, but the general is clearly optimistic.…
icon.roggio2.gifSignificant operations occurred in the cities of Anbar province and Diyala while Baghdad remians relatively quiet. Only one significant suicide attack occurred in the city over the past 24 hours, while Iraqi and U.S. security forces found a fuel tanker filled with explosives and…
If you didn't catch John Bolton's performance on the Daily Show last night, it's worth watching. Stewart likes to have it both ways--he's a comedian, but you're also supposed to take him seriously when he squares off against the political and intellectual giants of our time. The only problem is:…
From RIA Novosti: Russia To Put Missile Defense Elements In Embassies. From Defense News: Officials: Congress Faces Temptation of Missile Cuts To Pay Mounting Bills, by John T. Bennett. From the New York Review of Books: On Israel, America and AIPAC, by George Soros. From the New York Sun: Obama…
JUST TWO MONTHS ago, the name Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov would have seemed a desperate attempt to win a Scrabble contest. He is now the president of Turkmenistan, a Central Asian republic renowned for it's largely untapped energy resources and human rights repression. The California-sized nation of…
IT IS A WONDERFUL CASE of man-bites-dog, but don't expect to see this headline in any newspaper: "Bush administration's efforts to protect women through United Nations action thwarted by European Union."
Over at The Danger Room, Noah Shachtman asks how on earth Americans might describe the war in Iraq as "going well," as 30 percent of Americans did last month in response to a survey by the Pew Research Center. No one can speak for those folks, and short of a follow-on survey by Pew, we just won't…
From the MEMRI Blog: Ibrahim Karagul, a columnist with strong anti-U.S. views who writes for the Islamic Turkish daily Yeni Safak, which is the unofficial mouthpiece of Turkey's AKP government, has stated that since the disappearance of former Iranian deputy defense minister Ali Reza Asghari, two…
icon.roggio2.gifYesterday was the four year anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and, predictably, al Qaeda conducted a concerted attack to mark the event. Al Qaeda, however, had to settle for Kirkuk, not Baghdad, for its show of force. As we noted yesterday, the Kirkuk attack was a coordinated…
Le Pen is back! Le Pen.jpgJean-Marie Le Pen, France's ultra-right perennial presidential candidate, managed to obtain the required 500 signatures from local elected officials before March 14, the deadline for presidential hopefuls. He shocked everyone last time around, coming in second on April 21,…
On Sunday, the AP ran a story on this video, which was "posted on an Islamic Web site that frequently airs insurgent messages." The video carries the stamp of the Islamic State of Iraq and purports to show an al Qaeda terrorist planting an explosive under a Bradley armored vehicle in broad…
From Pajamas Media: Fred Thompson on "300". From the Boston Globe: The US needs to stay in Iraq, by Erik Swabb. From the New York Post: The Iraq Surge: Why It's Working, by Gordon Cucullu. From the Philadelphia Inquirer: McCain, why now? He fits the times, by Tom Ridge. From the Wall Street…
AS THEY STRUGGLE to cope with voters' new concern about global warming, the world's politicians seem to be standing in front of Snow White's mirror asking, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in the land is the greenest of all?" while desperately chanting the Everly Brothers hit, "Let it be me."…
From the Toronto Star, via Lucianne, we get a story about the paucity of firepower among the Coalition's Afghan allies. "One of Afghanistan's top field commanders wants Canada to provide his troops with better weapons to fight the Taliban," the Star reports. The paper quotes Lt.-Col. Shereen Shah…
Defense News carries an interesting piece today on the rise of China and its implications for American allies in the Pacific. Reporting from Taipei, Wendell Minnick spoke with two friends of THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD to better understand the impact of China's swelling defense budget. Reuben Johnson,…
Stephen Kotkin is the director of the program in Russian and Eurasian studies at Princeton University, and while I was in attendance there, I was lucky enough to have Kotkin both as a professor and a thesis adviser. You won't find a smarter guy at Princeton, and you're not likely to find anywhere…
Yesterday Powerline linked to this op-ed by Sergeant David Thul in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Thul, now serving in Iraq as a member of the Minnesota National Guard, argues "that a majority of U.S. troops want to stay in Iraq and finish the mission." How does he know that? "Two ways," he says.…
This past Friday, on the last day of the annual convocation of the National People's Congress, Premier Wen Jiabao fielded questions from Chinese and foreign journalists in a press conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Broadcast live on state television, Wen's meeting with the 1,200…
From the Washington Times: Chinese military superpower? by John J. Tkacik Jr. From the New York Times: A One-Man Civil War, by Matthew Continetti. From Foreign Affairs: Japan Is Back, by Michael Green. From the Philadelphia Inquirer: Taking closer look at Al Gore's truth, by Jonathan Last. From…
Symmetry and the Monster
Toussaint Louverture
The White House staff reflects the president. This is obvious to the point of being a truism. Yet it needs to be remembered in the context of a Bush presidency smacked by Scooter Libby's felony conviction, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal, and the overblown flap over the firing of eight…
Valerie Plame's CIA
London
Speaking before the Senate Appropriations Committee on February 27, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stepped into a diplomatic minefield when she referred to the Iraqi-Turkish frontier as "the border between Turkey and Kurdistan." Turkish newspapers and television across the political spectrum…
The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine has just released a position statement on the issue of physician-assisted suicide, in which it abdicates its core professional responsibility. On the impropriety of permitting doctors to help kill their patients, the association has assumed a…
Governor Tom Kean
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900
Mao's Last Revolution
It was Scooter Libby who introduced me to the Washington horror known as "the breakfast meeting." That was back in 1996, as I remember. I hadn't met him before, but I'd just reviewed his novel, The Apprentice, and he sent me a thank-you note, diffidently suggesting that the next time I was in D.C.…
THINK OF THE CHILDREN
"The President . . . shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States." Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 2 "Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or…
In recent congressional testimony, the new director of national intelligence, Admiral Mike McConnell, warned that Russia, flush with petrodollars, feels "emboldened . . . to pursue foreign policy goals that are not always consistent with those of Western institutions." How true. From the murder in…
It's February 28, 2007, in the poorly lit, dank, crowded basement, aka the "Great Hall," of Cooper Union college in Manhattan, and Newt Gingrich is talking to a sophisticated, well-attired, seen-it-all New York audience. As he speaks, the tempo of his words increases, until he begins to sound as…
If the Reagan administration had learned in 1987 that the clerical regime in Tehran was doing what it is doing today, would Washington have approved of preventive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities? If Reagan and company had seen Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rapidly constructing…
Time magazine's April 20, 1962, cover story on Karl Barth announced that the great Swiss theologian would visit the United States for the first, and what turned out to be the only, time. Given Barth's well-known anti-American stance, the visit caused a stir in the White House. President Kennedy,…
Zodiac
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of March 19, 2007.
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of March 19, 2007.
The firing of several United States Attorneys was the big story of the week. Meet the Press featured an interview with Sen. Chuck Schumer, who laid out the Democrats' case, and took a guess on Alberto Gonzales's prospects. "I think it's highly unlikely he survives," Schumer said, adding "I wouldn't…
The firing of several United States Attorneys was the big story of the week. Meet the Press featured an interview with Sen. Chuck Schumer, who laid out the Democrats' case, and took a guess on Alberto Gonzales's prospects. "I think it's highly unlikely he survives," Schumer said, adding "I wouldn't…
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession seems to have prompted more head-scratching than soul-searching. Fair enough for everyone to wonder whether KSM really did commit all these crimes, but as Dean Barnett points out, "regardless of the rough proportions between truth and b.s. in his comments, one…
General Petraeus has written an open letter to the members of Multinational Forces Iraq, the full text of which can be read here. The environment in Iraq is the most challenging that I have seen in over 32 years of service. Indeed, few soldiers have ever had to contend with the reality of an enemy…
On Wednesday we discussed this story from the Boston Globe on concerns about the quality of the officers being promoted by the Army. Frederick Kagan told us that the attrition of the Army's officer corps is "unquestionably bad," but not everyone thought so. Michael Tanji, a frequent contributor to…
From UPI: The U.S. Army is going to need to be even larger than the service is now planning, the Army's top officer told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomacher [sic] said Thursday the planned enlargement of the Army to 547,000 troops over the next five years…
icon.roggio2.gifThe past 24 hours has seen some interesting developments in Iraq. Diyala has flared up as U.S. troops deployed to the region. Additional U.S. forces will be requested to support operations. Further, al Qaeda conducted some successful operations inside Baghdad, the Iraqi general…
From Time: Newt's Disappointing Admission, by William Kristol. From the Washington Post: Diagnosis: Cheney, by Charles Krauthammer. From the Houston Chronicle: NASA: China could be the next to moon, by Mark Carreau. From the Honolulu Advertiser: Gifted generals can change dynamics of war, by Victor…
LAST WEDNESDAY MORNING, while most people kibitzed about Scooter Libby over their morning coffee, Captain America was murdered on the steps of the federal courthouse in New York. Captain America (real-life identity: Steve Rogers) is survived by his crime-fighting partner, Bucky, and his girlfriend,…
THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE is one of the signal symbolic events in the history of Western civilization. Athens and Jerusalem are the standard shorthands for the West's cultural headwaters, but at Thermopylae, Sparta, that historical mystery of a superpower, played a role for which perhaps she, and…
The University of Leeds has canceled a lecture by Matthias Küntzel entitled "Hitler's Legacy: Islamic anti-Semitism in the Middle East." The title had caused some controversy amongst Muslim students, leading administrators to rename the lecture "The Nazi Legacy: the export of anti-Semitism to the…
Kimberly Kagan's latest report on the situation in Iraq is now posted on THE DAILY STANDARD. You can click here to download the pdf. This report, the second in a series, describes the purpose, course, and results of Coalition operations in Baghdad during the first three weeks of Operation Enforcing…
This report, the second in a series, describes the purpose, course, and results of Coalition operations in Baghdad during the first three weeks of Operation Enforcing the Law (also known as the Baghdad Security Plan), from General Petraeus' assumption of command on February 10, 2007, through March…
Writing in the English-language China Daily, Xu Guangyu, a council member of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, offers his "point of view in the hope of clearing away misunderstanding" about the massive spike in China's declared defense budget. Says Xu, The growth is primarily…
Noah Shachtman wonders whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession isn't a bit overdone. Like Wee-Bey, who confesses to nearly every murder in Baltimore at the end of the first season of The Wire, Shachtman suspects that KSM may be trying to take one for the team: was he personally responsible for…
With the approaching vote at the U.N. Security Council on a set of new sanctions against Iran, Russia seems to be finally relenting in its unilateral support of Tehran' nuclear ambitions. According to Tuesday's announcement by the chief of the Russian Federal Atomic Agency (RosAtom) Sergei…
David Brooks in today's New York Times($): The Democratic leaders don't want to be for immediate withdrawal because it might alienate the centrists, and they don't want to see out the surge because that would alienate the base. What they want to do is be against Bush without accepting…
Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, was in Ukraine this week trying to soften resistance there to the deployment of an American missile defense system. Obering tried to convince his hosts that the interceptor system threatened neither Russia nor the Ukraine. "We are…
icon.roggio2.gifYesterday marked the first full month since the official commencement of the Baghdad Security Plan. During joint press conference with Major General William Caldwell Brigadier General Qassim Atta Al Mussawi, the Iraqi Army spokesman for the Baghdad security operation, noted the…
From the Toronto Star: Russia playing dangerous game over Kosovo, by Richard Holbrooke. From the New York Times: Clinton Sees Some Troops Staying in Iraq if She Is Elected, by Michael R. Gordon & Patrick Healy. From the San Francisco Chronicle: Don't ask, don't tell--for the devout, by Debra J.…
London
"In a conversation with this reporter in October 2001, Gen. Gul forecast a future [Pakistani] Islamist nuclear power that would form a greater Islamic state with a fundamentalist Saudi Arabia after the monarchy falls." --Arnaud de Borchgrave, August 2004 THERE REMAINS an inversion of public…
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter performed it's first afterburner takeoff yesterday at a Lockheed Martin facility in Fort Worth, Texas. I'm not sure how newsworthy that is, but it gives me the opportunity to post this picture. According to the report from Flight International, Over its first seven…
From the AP: BAGHDAD - Bomb deaths have gone down 30 percent in Baghdad since the U.S.-led security crackdown began a month ago. Execution-style slayings are down by nearly half. The once frequent sound of weapons has been reduced to episodic, and downtown shoppers have returned to outdoor markets…
The Boston Globe ran a story yesterday on the Army's rush "to fill a growing number of vacancies in the officer corps," which has forced the Army to promote "captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels more quickly and at a higher percentage than before the Iraq war, a trend that some military…
The U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence has posted a 144-page handbook on the history, structure, and doctrines of the Chinese Navy. Defense News reporter Christopher P. Cavas writes that the handbook is "intended to 'foster a better understanding' of the PLAN, according to William Tarry,…
Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the IAEA, just emerged from North Korea with this to say: "The DPRK [North Korea] said they were committed to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," . . . "It is in the interests of North Korea to normalise relations with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy…
icon.roggio2.gifYet another 24 hours have past and there have been no reports of major mass casualty suicide or car bomb attacks in Baghdad or the provinces. The closest incident was a suicide attack which occurred in Tuz Khormato, a town about 130 miles north of Baghdad. Eight were killed and 25…
From Haaretz: The London-based Arabic language newspaper A-Sharq al-Awsat reported Wednesday that the Iranian army has lost contact with one of its high-ranking officers based in Iraq. The report states that the officer, Mohammed Muhsayin Shiradi, from a unit in the Jerusalem Brigade, has not been…
From the New York Sun:Democrats Retreat on War Funds, by Eli Lake. From FCW.com:Army tries to sell Land Warrior overseas, by Josh Rogin. From the Washington Times: Throwing the fight in Iraq, by Roy Blunt. From the Politico: 'Axis' Nations Find Access to Representation, by Aoife McCarthy. From USA…
Recently THE WEEKLY STANDARD published Irwin Stelzer's truly brilliant account of a literary luncheon arranged by President Bush to honor Andrew Roberts's History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, a thick, heavy book that picks up the skein begun by Winston Churchill with his long…
The filming by private persons of acts of violence--crimes, riots, police brutality--has been banned in France. The new measure, sponsored by Nicolas Sarkozy, minister of the interior and a leading candidate for president, is one provision of a juvenile crime law that received final approval from…
This clip is a bit long, but very powerful, and it may offer the most persuasive, liberal argument for keeping American troops in Iraq--"this isn't about national security, this is about saving humans." Really excellent stuff, at least watch the second half if you're pressed for time.
Non to citizen journalism France may make citizen journalism on the Internet a risky business, punishing the filming and broadcast of images of violence except by professional journalists. Pending legislation provides for up to five years of prison and a 75,000 Euro fine for someone who, for…
icon.roggio2.gifThe Baghdad Security Plan continues to show some encouraging signs of progress in reducing the levels of violence in the capital and in the provinces. The sectarian attacks have been reduced significantly. There have been no major suicide or carbomb attacks in Baghdad or the…
I knew it couldn't be true. The Corner's John Podhoretz links to this story from the Sunday Times absolving the great man of any connection to an anti-Semitic article released last week by Cambridge University. Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill's official biographer, said this weekend that the article,…
Tim Johnson, the China correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers, posted this picture yesterday on his blog China Rises. Johnson says, the photo was taken here in Beijing last week at the National People's Congress. And it didn't get published much for obvious reasons. . . . My office assistant found…
From the Washington Post: The Pelosi Plan for Iraq, by the editors. From USA Today: General: Al-Sadr's fighters feel heat, by Jim Michaels. From the Examiner: Rocket ushers new era for combat tactics, by Rowan Scarborough. From the New York Post: '08: FUN WITH FRED, by John Podhoretz. From the Wall…
IT SEEMS THAT share and commodity prices move in more than one direction--a fact that has shocked some investors, but not a bad thing, it turns out. Investors have been reminded that there is something called risk out there, and that the prices they pay for the assets they want to add to their…
I couldn't help but notice that conservative blogs have suddenly embraced country singer Chely Wright and her patriotic ditty "Bumper of My SUV." Today Michelle Malkin is giving Wright "kudos" for heading to Iraq to entertain the troops. And last week, Blackfive praised Wright for "singing her…
Where do the Democrats stand on Iraq? They've only had 17 different plans, literally, since they took back Congress. But if you really want to know, don't bother asking General Pelosi, it seems not even she can keep it all straight.
From the AP: A few dozen peace activists marched across the Golden Gate Bridge and gathered outside the San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday, demanding that Congress stop funding the war in Iraq. "San Francisco has been against this war from the very beginning," said Toby…
Many of you will be familiar with the work of Christian Lowe, who has worked at Army Times and more recently the Politico and has been a frequent contributor to both THE WEEKLY STANDARD and THE DAILY STANDARD (his wife is also a colleague of ours). Christian has now taken a new job as the managing…
The vice president spoke at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's 2007 Policy Conference this morning. Here are some notable excerpts from Cheney's speech. You can read the full text here (pdf). On Iraq: The most common myth is that Iraq has nothing to do with the global war on terror.…
Scott Canon has an excellent piece in the Kansas City Star today on the "massive ordinance penetrator"--the Big BLU--a 30,000 pound bomb the Air Force is building to reach hardened, underground facilities of the kind used by North Korea and Iran to shield their nuclear weapons programs. According…
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of March 12, 2007.
Later this week, China's legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), is expected to pass a law concerning property rights. It will mark the first time in the history of the People's Republic that legal protection will formally be provided for private property. The bill, initial drafts of…
From the Washington Times: Budgetary games on Iraq..., by the editors. From the Los Angeles Times: Do we really need a Gen. Pelosi? by the editors. From NRO: The SOB Factor, by John Derbyshire. From the New York Daily News: Dems' deadline will surely damn the U.S., by Michael Goodwin. From Defense…
Legislators in some 20 states are considering making mandatory Merck & Co.'s Gardasil vaccination for the human papillomavirus. In Texas, Republican governor Rick Perry bypassed the legislature and ordered it on his own. The requirement there applies to 11- and 12-year-old girls entering 6th grade.
Upgrading the CFR
It's been two years since the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri caused the United States to withdraw its ambassador from Syria. But even as the U.S. embassy in Damascus continues to function without its senior diplomat, Syria maintains not one but two ambassadors to…
Last week the stock market experienced one of its largest drops since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. While there were a number of causes, one major factor is investor concern that problems in the subprime mortgage market--which caters to consumers with poor credit ratings--are going to spread. This…
A coworker once gave me a cartoon featuring two guys at a bar, one saying to the other: "When I was a child, I drank like a child, but when I became a man I put away childish drinks."
Randall Jarrell on W. H. Auden
As the saying goes in Washington, when you're not on offense, you're on defense. This isn't so bad if you play good defense, as congressional Republicans and the White House have been doing. As a result the outlook for Republicans and conservatives isn't as bleak as it seemed right after last…
Next year may see the party of the Sunbelt and Reagan, based in the South and in Protestant churches, nominate its first presidential candidate who is Catholic, urban, and ethnic--and socially liberal on a cluster of issues that set him at odds with the party's base. As a result, it may also see…
Art Basel Miami Beach, a polymorphously perverse event if there ever was one, swamped the entire convention center in Miami Beach in early December, and was considerably inflated by more than a dozen large satellite fairs, art collections, private collections, design shows, museum shows, and…
The Man Who Smiled
The Lives of Others
A CIVILIZED PASTIME
American Empire
Anyone who thinks President George W. Bush is spending sleepless nights worrying about the machinations of the Democratic Congress, or figuring out how a lame duck president can limp from the political battlefield with honor intact, had better think again. And anyone who likes to regale his friends…
London
Denver
Supreme Conflict
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace got the week started by interviewing former Tennessee senator, and current film and television actor, Fred Thompson about his intentions with regard to the 2008 presidential race. He came off as a true conservative, positioning himself against gay marriage,…
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of March 12, 2007.
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace got the week started by interviewing former Tennessee senator, and current film and television actor, Fred Thompson about his intentions with regard to the 2008 presidential race. He came off as a true conservative, positioning himself against gay marriage,…
John J. Tkacik, Jr. has posted a must-read on China's military buildup at the Heritage Foundation website. Beijing announced last week that military spending would rise more than 17 percent in 2007 to a total of $45 billion, but Tkacik says the actual figure may be ten-times as much. A closer look…
icon.roggio2.gifBaghdad and the provinces have been quiet for the past 24 hours, after a string of deadly suicide and car bomb attacks on Shia pilgrims on Wednesday. Of the estimated 2.5 million Shia pilgrims who traveled to Karbala, about 150 were killed during the attacks. Today, Iraqi and…
THE LATEST CRAZE in architecture, after fizzled experiments in Modernism, Post Modernism, Brutalism, Deconstructionism, and Post-Brutal-Deconstructed-Neo-Modernism, is a genuflection to environmentalism called "Green Building" or "Sustainable Architecture." For the most part, building "Green" means…
Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey, who submitted his resignation on March 2 after the Washington Post reported on the poor conditions and long delays wounded soldiers were facing at Walter Reed, spoke in Ft. Lauderdale this afternoon on day two of the AUSA Winter Symposium. Upon being…
Last week, the restive Russian republic of Chechnya got a new president, Ramzan Kadyrov. The appointment, however, did not come as a surprise: Kadyrov has been the de-facto president since the assassination of his father, former Chechen president Akhmat Kadyrov, in May 2004. And contrary to…
icon.roggio2.gifArmy General David Petraeus, the commander of Multinational Forces Iraq, gave his first briefing from the theater early this morning. The surge in American forces to Iraq will now include an additional 4,600 troops. About 2,200 Military Police (MPs) will be deployed, along with…
On May 17, 1607, English settlers landed on Jamestown Island in Virginia and created what would be the first permanent British colony. An Anglican clergyman led them in prayers of thanksgiving and in constructing the first permanent Protestant church in the Western hemisphere.
Today was day one of the AUSA Winter Symposium in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The convention is a technology enthusiast's dream, featuring exhibits from nearly every major defense company as well as speeches from the top brass and other Pentagon officials. There is a whole lot going on here that I…
Ryan Sager has launched a new website for the New York Sun with a focus on the 2008 presidential election. The site will pull relevant material from the newspaper, but it will have a good deal of original content as well. Here are some links from NYSunPolitics.com you might find interesting: Why…
icon.roggio2.gifAs we have noted several times in the past, as the Baghdad Security Plan begins to show progress inside the city, the likelihood is the attacks in the provinces will increase. Over the past 24 hours, two major attacks occurred in Hillah (Babil province) and Mosul (Niwena province).…
WOULD SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES accept a candidate who was semi-estranged from two of his children? The question arises because of reports that Rudy Giuliani is not on the best of terms with his son Andrew and daughter Caroline.
A FEW YEARS AGO Al Gore, then dressed in his natural-hued attire, would have been out of place among the Hollywood elite, but last Sunday he was one of them and thrice hailed at the 79th Academy Awards dinner for his apocalyptic documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth.
Military.com reports that Congress has taken up a request to approve $2.4 billion in funding for the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization. That will be in addition to $2 billion that has already been approved. Of course, funding was never a problem in dealing with the IED threat--the Republican…
Uncle Jimbo, who blogs at Blackfive, the ne plus ultra of milblogs (excepting Bill Roggio's Fourth Rail, of course), has contributed an excellent piece to the Politico's user-generated editorial page. I gather that readers are encouraged to vote for their favorite article, which will subsequently…
icon.roggio2.gifAs the Baghdad security operation takes shape, much of the violence continues to occur in the provinces outside the capital. The provinces of Diyala, Anbar, Babil, and portions of Salahadin are where many of the major attacks against Iraq and U.S. security forces, as well as Iraqi…
The Huffington Post has closed down the comments section on an AP story about the blood clot in Cheney's leg. Little Green Footballs: "Looks like the Huffington Post is going to have block comments on all posts about Dick Cheney from now on, so that the 'minuscule portion' of Arianna's readers who…
Eli Lake has an excellent piece in the New York Sun today on "What Gore Doesn't Say" when asked about the Iraq war--mainly that U.S. forces should retreat and redeploy. According to Lake, the Oscar winning, celebrity politician "is a tag 'em and bag 'em tough guy, a former vice president who…
Yesterday, while the Senate worked toward finalizing an important bill "implementing unfinished recommendations of the 9/11 Commission to fight the war on terror more effectively, to improve homeland security, and for other purposes," Senator Maria Cantwell saw an opportunity to offer an amendment…
From Politico: Liberal Democrats Revolt on Iraq Spending Bill, by John Bresnahan. From Time: Is China's Military a Threat? by Bill Powell. From Defense News: Eyes on Iran, by William H. McMichael. From Slate: She's No Fundamentalist, by Christopher Hitchens. From the Washington Times: Webb bill…
WE LEARNED three lessons last week. The first is that geopolitical news does not always drive markets. Just as the increase in troop strength in Iraq seems to be damping down the killing, just as the Syrians and Iranians decide it would be a good idea to meet with the Iraqi government to see if…
KNOWING HE IS SOMEONE who has embedded previously in Iraq, I found Michael Fumento's understanding of the embed process somewhat lacking and simplistic. ("Why I'm Not Embedded In Iraq," 3/2/2007) Of all people, he should sympathize with the importance of being realistic and flexible in his…
Here's an interesting story from today's Telegraph: The disappearance of a former Iranian spy chief has raised speculation he has been kidnapped by Mossad or the CIA. Ali Reza Azkari, 63, who headed Iran's intelligence operation in Lebanon in the 1990s liaising with the local Shia militia,…
The new Democratic Congress seems to have fallen in love with the nonbinding resolution. First it was the resolution condemning the president's new Iraq strategy, which, as a nonbinding resolution, had no effect but to convey to the troops in Iraq and our allies abroad the defeatist sentiments of…
Over at the Corner, Mark Steyn has a great post on the boondoggle that is the Airbus A380. The hook is this headline from Pakistan's Daily Times: "PIA To Buy Airbuses To Appease EU, UK" Says Steyn, So it's grand news for Euro-investors that at least Pakistan's national carrier has been successfully…
On March 2nd, it was reported by both People's Daily and the semi-official Hong Kong China News Agency (HKCNA) that the J-10 jet fighter is to be showcased in the "Peace Mission 2007" joint military exercises between China and Russia. The weeklong drill, scheduled to begin on July 18th in the…
I received the following note in response to a post here last Friday on the limited role of airpower in COIN operations. The author wishes to remain anonymous, but he is an expert in the field. While it may be the stuff of heresy around these parts, I agree with the majority of your post. Airpower…
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of March 5, 2007.
From the Wall Street Journal: The North Korea Climbdown, by John R. Bolton. From the Boston Globe: On war costs, Bush is master of disguise, by Neil Abercrombie. From the Washington Post: Don't Send a Lion to Catch a Mouse, by Shankar Vedantam. From the Washington Post: Going Down With the Ships,…
In July 2006 the Wall Street Journal touted New Mexico's governor Bill Richardson as a man who "embraced tax cutting and benefited politically." The Journal quoted Richardson approvingly for advising his party that "we have to be the party of growth and the American dream, not the party of…
Hu Jintao, president of China, has just completed an eight-nation tour of Africa--a visit that comes on the heels of a meeting in Beijing attended by some 40 African heads of state. Both the recent visit and the Beijing summit on China-Africa cooperation in November reflect China's determination to…
I have been instructing my 15-year-old daughter in driving with a standard transmission and, when asked how things are going, can respond truthfully that things are going about as well as can be expected.
Breach
Caracas
So Many Ways to Begin
MEET THE LOONEYS
Ricky Silberman, 1937-2007
Infidel
When Rudolph Giuliani first ran for mayor of New York in 1989, he made a critical mistake. Assuming that he'd be running against the blue-collar, socially conservative Democrat Ed Koch, Giuliani cast himself as a liberal. Playing against his tough-guy image, he spent his first months on the…
The Immortal Game
It was one bullet point in the plan for the Pelosi Congress's "first 100 hours," two sentences in the Democrats' 31-page "New Direction for America" document released last June: In order to "Defeat terrorists and stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, we will . . . . Double the size of our…
Picasso and American Art
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of March 5, 2007. Click map to view.
The sudden embrace of social conservatism by top Republican presidential candidates has been widely misunderstood. It's been portrayed, particularly in the media, as political pandering of the first order-and nothing more. True, there's a large element of pandering when a candidate switches…
Two years into Ann Veneman's tenure as head of the U.N. Children's Fund, it is clear that she is following in the footsteps of her predecessor, Carol Bellamy. Bellamy spent a decade reorienting the agency from its core mission--child survival--so that UNICEF could pursue the dual ideologies of…
Close observers of Saudi Arabia detect what may be the first faint signs of movement away from tyranny. King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, who ascended the throne two years ago and is now at least 83, is the apparent instigator of this change. The Saudis are polarizing, some say, between the supporters…
The Original Knickerbocker
We know from the philosophers that a true statement is true without regard to the reliability or sagacity of the person who utters it. We have it on good authority that the truth shall set us free. David Geffen spoke truth to Maureen Dowd last week. And he may have triggered a series of events that…
THE BIG NEWS of the weekend was the condition of Walter Reed Army Medical Center's outpatient facilities, and the care that wounded veterans were receiving there. Face the Nation featured interviews with Senators Carl Levin and Joe Lieberman, as well as one of the coauthors of the Washington Post…
U.S. officials continue to push for greater transparency from Beijing in matters of defense spending, with Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte echoing calls made last week by the vice president. The response from the Communist regime: Beijing announced defense spending would grow by 17.8…
Damien Cave reports in today's New York Times: And in a sign of what officials have described as an increased use of offensive air power in Iraq, a second airstrike destroyed a car bomb factory on Saturday in southern Baghdad, the United States military said. Two precision-guided bombs destroyed a…
icon.roggio2.gifBaghdad has been relatively quiet over the past few days, with only one major suicide bombing, yesterday's attack in Sadr City. Much of the Iraqi and Coalition operations and insurgent attacks have occurred in the provinces. The Pentagon said upwards of 7,000 additional logistics…
ORGANIZED LABOR may want to celebrate the House vote March 1 that one newspaper headline touted as a "payoff" for the $56.7 million that unions contributed to Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections. The passage of H.R. 800, the "Employee Free Choice Act," is indeed a milestone for big labor, which…
The Washington Post reports today on the hiring of Eliot A. Cohen, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, to fill the position left vacant by Philip D. Zelikow's departure from the State Department earlier this year. Cohen has been a harsh critic of the…
Just when you thought the "Zionist entity" couldn't stoop any lower, we now have word of a new conspiracy . . . to desecrate synagogues. According to Abu Abir, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza included plans to leave two large synagogues…
The Petraeus Doctrine for fighting counterinsurgency (COIN) operations may be the best chance of success for U.S. forces in Iraq, but not everyone is thrilled with the COIN manual Petraeus recently coauthored with Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James F. Amos. John A. Tirpak, executive editor of Air Force…
icon.roggio2.gifYesterday, Iraqi security forces, backed by the tribes of the Anbar Salvation Council, fended off a major al Qaeda attack in the village of Amiriya, which is just south of Fallujah. Al Qaeda was gunning for a senior member of the Anbar Salvation Front, who was attending the funeral…
More encouraging news from a former U.S. enemy. For many years now political reform has lagged woefully behind Vietnam's vaunted "doi moi" agenda of economic liberalization. But in late January, the Vietnamese prime minister met with Pope Benedict, which the Vatican called an "important step…
From Vice President Cheney at CPAC: In these circumstances it's worth reminding ourselves that, like it or not, the enemy we face in the war on terror has made Iraq the primary front in that war. To use a popular phrase, this is an inconvenient truth. (Laughter and applause.) In bin Laden's words,…
Jay Lefkowitz, appointed by Congress in 2005 as special envoy for human rights in North Korea, testified yesterday before the House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment. There was nothing diplomatic about what Lefkowitz had to say: Many of the human rights abuses in North…
Richard Holbrooke, former assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration and a left-wing favorite for secretary of state in a hypothetical Kerry administration, was put in the hot seat yesterday by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN). Pence asked Holbrooke "'Do you oppose efforts to eliminate or…
From the Washington Post: Iraqi Troops, Tribesmen Kill 50 Suspected Insurgents, by Joshua Partlow. From the Los Angeles Times: U.S. to develop new hydrogen bomb, by Ralph Vartabedian. From the Washington Times: China expands sub fleet, by Bill Gertz. From the Wall Street Journal: Uranium Do-Over.…
WHILE IT'S COMMON for the glitterati to take up political causes, the reverse--a politician taking on glitterati status--is rare, at least at the level that Al Gore has achieved. The formerly stiff, un-sexy Gore has become a bona fide "Rock Star," according to a recent Washington Post headline. The…
DEMOCRATS have Kennedy nostalgia, great gusts of longing for their last president who was not a public embarrassment of one kind or another, and their last burst of mid-century glory, before the ceiling fell in on the party. Republicans have Reagan nostalgia, pangs for what seems, at least in the…
MOST PEOPLE WOULD rather undergo several root canals than go to Iraq. Most reporters would, as well. But there are a tiny number who actually feel the need to do so--even to the extent that they're willing to pay all their own expenses in the hope, but nothing more--of recovering part or all of…
Time just posted the latest from WEEKLY STANDARD editor, and now bona fide blogger, William Kristol. He points to five reasons why Republicans are suddenly bullish about the party's prospects. I have lots of conservative friends and often speak to Republican-leaning groups. I have something…
A new laser-guided bomb from Northrop Grumman--the Viper Strike--was successfully tested against moving and stationary targets at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico last month according to Defense Update. The rather small munition, weighing in at only 44 lbs, is designed for use in urban…
IraqReport_cvr01.jpgKimberly Kagan has posted an excellent analysis of the security situation in Iraq on today's DAILY STANDARD. You can click on the image to download the pdf. Kimberly Kagan is a military historian who has taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Yale University,…
Noah Shachtman's new Wired blog, The Danger Room, is holding a competition to expose the web's worst defense-related government websites. Shachtman explains: The federal government started building websites for its various agencies back in the mid-90s. The idea was to better inform the public --…
icon.roggio2.gifBaghdad has been relatively quiet over the past 24 hours, and no major mass casualty suicide attacks or car bomb atacks have been reported. It is far too soon to translate this into long term success, however, as al Qaeda has shown the capacity to 'surge' mass casualty attacks in…
Arianna disapproves of those of us who called attention to the comments posted on her site Tuesday morning lamenting the failure of a suicide bombing in Afghanistan Tuesday to kill Vice President Cheney. These commenters "make up a very, very small unrepresentative portion of our readers," she now…
Roughly a year after their first visit, Hamas is back in Moscow. According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, whereas the March 2006 invitation was extended by President Putin, this time, Hamas leaders (Khalid Mishal and Musa Abu Marzook) have themselves asked to come to Moscow for "consultations". As last…
From Stars & Stripes: A change of attitude in Hawijah?, by Zeke Minaya. From the Wall Street Journal: The Real American Idol, by Daniel Henninger. From USA Today: Don't negotiate with pariahs, by Victor Davis Hanson. From the New York Post: Battling for Baghdad, by Ralph Peters. From the Wall…
London
This report, the first of a series, describes the purpose, course, and results of coalition military operations between January 10, 2007, when President Bush announced a change in U.S. strategy in Iraq, and February 10, when General David Petraeus replaced General George Casey as overall U.S.…