253 articles
It's so rare to get a positive story from the press about the war in Iraq, let alone a positive headline. So it's certainly worth noting when the MSM knocks out a headline like the one we got from the AP today : "Iraq residents rise up against al-Qaida." The story starts: BAGHDAD - A battle raged…
The Awakening movement, which was started in Anbar province by local tribes and Sunni insurgents that opposed al Qaeda's attempts to Talibanize Iraqi society, has now spread to all of the provinces bordering Baghdad. Over the past month, Awakening movements formed in Diyala and Salahadin, and, this…
We've written on the case of John Murtha's clandestine pork-barrel projects before. Now CNN is taking a closer look at the project in Murtha's district--the National Drug Intelligence Center--that was recently funded by the House Intelligence Committee in violation of House rules. Lest there be any…
The Office of the Secretary of Defense held another in its series of blogger roundtables this morning with featured guests Major General Kurt Cichowski, deputy chief of staff for strategy, plans, and assessment Multinational Force Iraq and Brigadier General Neil Baverstock, Cichowski's deputy. Both…
From the Los Angeles Times: The Lessons of Vietnam, by Henry Kissinger. From the Los Angeles Times: Fire the Incompetents, Find the Pattons, by Max Boot. From Der Spiegel: Lack of Women in Eastern Germany Feeds Neo-Nazis, by staff. From the Danger Room: Welcome to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, by…
The provinces of Iraq. Click map to view.
Interested in finding out who's acting as a paid representative of a foreign government here in the United States? Want to know how many people are lobbying for the United Kingdom, or Mexico, or Iran? You'll want to consult the new online portal for the Foreign Agents Registration Act, just posted…
THE DAILY STANDARD welcomes letters to the editor. Letters will be edited for length and clarity.
According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebar, yesterday's kidnapping of five Britons, one adviser, and four security guards from the Finance Ministry is believed to have been carried out by elements of the Mahdi Army. Reports suggest the raid was carried out by Mahdi fighters who infiltrated…
Senator Lieberman was in Iraq today touring a Joint Security Station, a Forward Operating Base, and a Baghdad market. While he was there, he told a CNN reporter: I'd say what I see here today is progress--significant progress from the last time I was here in December. When you can see progress in…
From Commentary: The Case for Bombing Iran, by Norman Podhoretz. From THE DAILY STANDARD: Testing the Waters, by Stephen F. Hayes. From the American Thinker: Venezuelan Revolt, by A.M. Mora y Leon. From Contentions: Secretary Slaughter? by Gabriel Schoenfeld. From the Fourth Rail: A look at the…
The Democrats promised reform when they took back Congress, but those promises continue to unravel. Though they came to power promising to take the mystery out of earmarking, and require full disclosure, Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey recently said that earmarks will only be inserted…
The Council on Foreign Relations posted an interesting interview with the Carnegie Endowment's Karim Sadjadpour, who seems to have a good understanding of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Much of what he says conforms nicely with a piece we recently ran on THE DAILY STANDARD by AEI's Omeed Jafari.…
Go over and read how Ed Morrissey's innocent question to Sen. John McCain in a media conference call led to a significant new hurdle for the Senate immigration bill. This is the end result: House conservatives are ready to stop the Senate immigration bill in its tracks with a potent procedural…
FRED THOMPSON IS RUNNING for the Republican presidential nomination. In a conference call Monday, Thompson addressed a group of more than 100 supporters and fundraisers whom the campaign has dubbed First Day Founders. He told them that he would be setting up an organization that will allow him to…
InsideDefense.com reports today on the "first combat firing of a 155 mm precision artillery shell in Iraq." The shell, the XM982 Excalibur, was fired at an al Qaeda safe house earlier this month: Standing on a rooftop some 700 meters from the safehouse with his fire support team, Clausen [commander…
The New York Times reports on the problems that Democrats are having in convincing their base that they're not responsible for the continuation of the Iraq war--that it's the president and Congressional Republicans who are at fault: No one would mistake Peter A. DeFazio for a supporter of the Iraq…
In Baghdad, after a brief lull in major attacks, today saw two high profile bombings as well as a kidnapping of foreign workers in the capital. One bombing occurred at a Shia mosque in the Amil neighborhood in the western Rashid district. A suicide car bomber killed ten Iraqis and wounded at least…
From THE WEEKLY STANDARD: The Army We Need, by Tom Donnelly. From the Wall Street Journal: The Conservative Mind, by Peter Berkowitz. From Asia Times: Why Iran will fight, not compromise, by Spengler. From the New York Post: Messing Up the Mullahs, by Peter Brookes. From the New York Sun: Welcome…
Roll Call ($) reports today that with the bitter and draining fight over Iraq funding now behind them, Congressional Democrats intend to focus on domestic issues for no more than a few weeks before returning to Iraq once again: Democrats, meanwhile, will spend the bulk of the week on gas prices and…
Last Friday, the Pentagon released its "Annual Report to Congress, Military Power of the People's Republic of China 2007." The English-language media have widely reported how a Sunday editorial in People's Daily by staff writer Xi Laiwang blasted the Pentagon report as "exaggerating, misleading,…
DIALOGUE. To Europeans, dialogue has always been preferred to what they see as the grim alternative: confrontation. Until now that has been one of many differences between Americans and our European allies. We set great store by results, Europeans by process. That's one reason for our differences…
Fox News Sunday and This Week both took a long look at second tier Republican candidates claiming to be the only choice for real conservatives this primary season. Mike Huckabee, taking a break from celebrating his wedding anniversary, talked to Chris Wallace about his plan to eliminate the IRS, a…
There are times when profound changes to our economic system proceed without notice. This might be one of those times. Capitalism is once again doing what it does best--adapting to change. That's what the wheeling and dealing of those billionaire private equity funds is all about. But the emergence…
In 2006, with Republicans in control of the Senate, an immigration bill that was anathema to most Republicans passed the Senate by a filibuster-proof margin. Now, oddly enough, with Democrats in charge, the Senate is likely to approve an immigration bill--call it Kyl-Kennedy--that from a Republican…
For two of Paul Wolfowitz's most prominent critics, Mark Malloch Brown and Ad Melkert, the war over the World Bank presidency could not have come at a better time. Whatever else the ousting of Wolfowitz has achieved, it has done plenty to distract from the North Korea Cash-for-Kim scandal that just…
The Last Mrs. Astor
From time to time, nations face fundamental tests of character. Forced to choose between painful but wise options, and irresponsible ones that offer only temporary relief from pain, a people must decide what price they are willing to pay to safeguard themselves and their children and to do the…
Forbidden Fruit
Jack Kemp's 'Lonely Voice'
There once was a political subspecies known as the liberal Iraq hawk. These were liberals who saw American interests and ideals at stake in the future of Iraq, and who believed in presidential leadership in waging war. Relatively few in number, the liberal Iraq hawks nonetheless tended to be…
Prophet of Innovation
Not Man Apart. For a 1965 Sierra Club photo book, the environmental activist David Brower took this title from Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962). A mind-cleansing rightness strikes home if we hear those three spare words, "Not Man Apart," the way they actually occur. Praising "Organic wholeness, the…
In early May, South Africa's intelligence minister, Ronnie Kasrils, invited Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas member and prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority, to lead a delegation to South Africa. For good measure, Kasrils also demanded that the international community lift the aid embargo…
It often takes a tragedy to inject some sanity into mental health law. The death of Kendra Webdale is an unforgettable example. In January 1999, Webdale was pushed in front of a New York City subway train by a man with schizophrenia. In her memory, the state legislature quickly passed Kendra's Law…
I was actually thinking about Jerry Falwell before he died last week. A few days earlier, during my daily commute, I saw the golden-oldie anti-Falwell sticker on the bumper of the car ahead of me: "The Moral Majority Is Neither." And this wasn't a faded bumpersticker on a 1980 Volvo. It was a…
When the design for the Flight 93 permanent memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, was first announced in September 2005, there was a minor eruption. The winning plan, titled "Crescent of Embrace," was remarkable. Like many modern monuments, it was intentionally antisymbolic. Nothing about it would…
As the ten declared Republican presidential candidates traveled to Columbia, South Carolina, last Tuesday to participate in a nationally televised GOP debate, Fred Thompson stayed home. While the announced candidates put on suits, smiled, and fielded questions about Iraq, taxes, and terrorism,…
The China Fantasy
To gauge the impact of Jerry Falwell--or, more precisely, the political realignment he was a central figure in precipitating--it is helpful to review the voting behavior of conservative white Protestants in the presidential elections between 1976 and 1984, the years when Falwell's political…
28 Weeks Later
502.jpg This Memorial Day weekend, while most folks are heading to the beach, Operation Gratitude will be kicking off one of its biggest events of the year, what the group's founder, Carolyn Blashek, calls their "Patriotic Drive." The drive will have the group packing boxes starting this weekend…
The return of Muqtada al Sadr from a self-imposed four month exile in Iran dominated the news from Iraq today. Sadr, who leads the Sadrist movement and commands the Mahdi Army, had taken shelter in Iran, under the watchful eye of Iran's Qods Force. Today, he made a grand entrance in Kufa and gave a…
From Time: A Campaign Role Reversal, by William Kristol. From Government Executive: Launching a New Navy, by Greg Grant. From FP Passport: The "supernotes" conspiracy theory, by Blake Hounshell. From War is Boring: Lebanese Army: Not Outgunned, by David Axe. From the Fourth Rail: Sadr Returns From…
Press Release from Senator McCain: "I was very disappointed to see Senator Obama and Senator Clinton embrace the policy of surrender by voting against funds to support our brave men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. "This vote may win favor with MoveOn and liberal primary voters, but it's…
Dr. David Kilcullen, who currently serves as senior counter-insurgency adviser to Gen. Petraeus and Multi-National Force Iraq, participated in a conference call with bloggers and reporters this morning. Kilcullen has a distinguished record, having served as chief counter-terrorism strategist for…
NEXT TO MATHEMATICS, theology is the discipline least conducive to journalism. So certain precincts of the press should be forgiven their recent headlines about the Vatican and the realm known as limbo.
There was no major news out of Baghdad today, but we have two big stories coming out of Fallujah and northern Babil province. Multinational Forces Iraq confirmed that it has indeed recovered the body of one of the three missing soldiers near Mussayab, while al Qaeda plowed a suicide car bomb into a…
It was a busy day in the House of Representatives, with action on both the Iraq funding legislation and a major ethics reform measure. On the ethics front--and with Democratic dissension forcing votes on two separate measures--Republicans provided 195 of the 218 votes needed to pass a strengthening…
Spencer Ackerman has long been a vocal critic of the Iraq war, and his latest piece is no different. Still, he points out one reality that the Democrats have long been loath to confront: the troops want to fight, and they want to win. On the merits of withdrawal, the Democrats have it right. The…
Last Saturday, three members of the German armed forces and seven local Afghans were killed by a Taliban suicide bomber at a bazaar in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz. The attack, which also severely wounded several other German soldiers and scores of Afghan civilians, brought the number of…
From Time: Is al-Qaeda on the Run in Iraq? by Joel Klein. From RealClearPolitics: Is the Sky Falling on America?, by Victor Davis Hanson. From the Independent: Opium: Iraq's deadly new export, by Patrick Cockburn. From Slate: e-Stonia Under Attack, by Anne Applebaum. From the Fourth Rail: Al Qaeda…
When I asked Senator McCain about MRAP on Monday, some folks seemed confused. But there's no doubt that the MRAP program, which seeks to replace up-armored Humvees in Iraq with sturdier, mine resistant and ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles, has risen to the level of presidential politics. In fact,…
I thought the president did a pretty good job there. The Corner has the tape of the exchange between Bush and David Gregory in which Gregory tells Bush that Republicans don't trust him anymore and asks how he, the president, can still believe he's "a credible messenger on the war." Paraphrasing…
Yesterday it seemed House Democrats would punt on ethics reform. But today the wind is shifting. Apparently Dems have decided not to go home this Memorial Day weekend without something to show their constituents (besides a much-delayed Iraq bill favored by the president). A major problem in…
Dublin
Jerusalem
"YOU SAY that you're a full-scale Ronald Reagan Republican, and yet, as you mentioned, you opposed the troop surge and you support comprehensive immigration reform. Are those the stands that Ronald Reagan would take?" Thus did Fox News debate moderator Chris Wallace put Senator Sam Brownback on the…
The search for the three missing U.S. soldiers abducted west of Mahmudiyah on May 11 may have taken a turn for the worse. Unconfirmed reports indicate that up to three bodies resembling American soldiers have been found in a river near the town of Mussayab, south of the search area. The bodies are…
At the end of this month, Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, will be attending the Showcase for Commerce in Johnstown, PA, a defense industry trade show that, despite its remote location, draws some of the biggest names in the business as both sponsors…
Congressional Democrats approach the Memorial Day recess without a single piece of major legislation that they campaigned on signed into law. Few have been sent to the president at all. And in the last week before the holiday, House Democrats have voted to block a reprimand of John Murtha for…
I had the opportunity to participate in a blogger conference call this morning with a senior administration official who spoke about the president's upcoming speech at the Coast Guard Academy. The topic of that speech: recent revelations that highlight the importance that Osama bin Laden places on…
Yesterday was a relatively slow news day in Iraq. While Coalition and Iraqi forces continue to target al Qaeda and other insurgent networks, al Qaeda conducted a mass casualty suicide attack inside the capital--the first large scale suicide bombing since May 11. But the big "story" came from the…
ON APRIL 25, Bill Moyers' Journal, opened its prime time season on PBS with the blare of trumpets and an undisclosed amount of taxpayer support. The Washington Post and Washington Times carried full-page ads touting his new series. Other papers chimed in. The Providence Journal called Moyers's…
It's been reported in several outlets that Congressional Democrats have determined that, at least for now, they can't force the president to withdraw from Iraq. They are preparing to send the president a 'clean' supplemental. According to CQ, the House will vote on legislation as early as Thursday:…
SO IT DOES INDEED end with a whimper rather than a bang. Free trade, I mean. Thanks to a president too weak politically to withstand the protectionist surge of a Democratic Congress, the era of ever-freer trade has come to an end. It expired quietly, with few mourners, and some of those who have…
icon.roggio2.1.gifIt's been three months since the commencement of the Baghdad Security Plan on February 14, and the operation has been marked by both considerable progress and painful setbacks. While the violence in Baghdad has decreased to levels not seen since prior to the bombing of the Samarra…
From THE WEEKLY STANDARD: The Memorials We Deserve, by Jonathan V. Last. From the Wall Street Journal: Battling al Qaeda in Iraq, by Melik Kaylan. From the Washington Post: A Law Terrorism Outran, by Mike McConnell. From Human Events: Pelosi, Dems threaten a Vital U.S. Ally, by Robert J. Caldwell.…
Senator McCain participated in another conference call today with assorted bloggers and reporters. McCain opened the call with an explanation of the widely-reported dust-up that occurred late last week between him and Senator John Cornyn. McCain reportedly dropped an F-bomb on Cornyn after Cornyn…
Multinational Forces Iraq has killed a major player in the January 20 kidnapping and murder of five American soldiers during a complex attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala. On May 19, Coalition forces killed Azhar al-Dulaimi during a raid north of Baghdad after he resisted…
raulchino.jpg Raul Castro meets with Chinese defense
Since February, General David Petraeus and his team in Baghdad have been implementing classic counterinsurgency precepts that have worked wherever they have been tried in adequate strength over a sustained period of time--from the Philippines and South Africa in the early 1900s to Malaya in the…
It is a now deservedly forgotten moment in presidential politicking lore. With the Democratic candidates gathered for one of their countless debates on September 9, 2003, panelist Farai Chideya, purporting to represent the "Gen X crowd," posed what she called a "very personal" question. "What," she…
Absent Minds
Sentimental, depressive, ghoulish, call it what you like, I happen to enjoy, every few months, a quiet half hour or so at the cemetery. My cemetery of choice is called Westlawn, where my parents are buried. Westlawn is in the dullish suburb of Norridge, northwest of Chicago, on Montrose Avenue,…
The Valet
With Frost/Nixon, Peter Morgan confirms his place as the multi-media master of a strange but engaging genre of fiction. The writer behind such award-season heavyweights as The Queen and The Last King of Scotland--both of which garnered dual Oscar and Golden Globe wins for their respective leading…
Three weeks ago, when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Bush administration's firing of several U.S. attorneys and did so to bad reviews even from conservatives, most of official Washington figured he was a goner. When President Bush stepped…
Mansfield Speaks!
Paris
The 1990s were a silly time. But that decade did produce, at its close, an impressive pair of vice presidential candidates--Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman. Both spoke up last Thursday as the congressional debate over Iraq reached a new low.
SEND THEM PACKING
"Astonishing," said a friend of mine--like me, a former smoker who holds only fond memories of our old habit, along with the occasional tug of nostalgic yearning. He had just seen the news last week that movies featuring characters who smoke will risk a more restrictive rating, from PG-13 to R, for…
Los Angeles
The subjection of women in Muslim societies--especially in Arab nations and in Iran--is today very much in the public eye. Accounts of lashings, stonings, and honor killings are regularly in the news, and searing memoirs by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi have become major best-sellers. One might…
The Collected Poems 1956-1998
Thomas Hardy
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of May 20, 2007. Click map to view.
The immigration compromise was the top issue on the Sunday morning show this week. On This Week, Fareed Zakaria gave his interpretation of the events: Both sides have compromised significantly on principles, so it is what legislation in a large, diverse country should be. When people hearken back…
Iraqi-soldier-Baqubah.jpg An Iraqi soldier during operations south of Baqubah.
Last night the New York Republican party held a major fundraising dinner in Manhattan, headlined by Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Both candidates delivered very strong speeches, which were largely devoted to the importance of winning the war on terror. While Giuliani kicked the evening off with a…
Bloomberg reports: The U.S. House of Representatives, by a vote of 397-27, authorized $644 billion for defense spending in fiscal 2008. The measure includes $483 billion for regular Defense Department programs plus $20 billion for the nuclear weapons programs at the Energy Department as well as…
From the Washington Post: Tony Blair's Unshaken Logic, by Michael Gerson. From the Jerusalem Post: Olmert, Master Politician, by Caroline Glick. From the Washington Post: Prelude to the Six Days, by Charles Krauthammer. From Towhnhall.com: Sovereignty at Stake, by Rebecca Hagelin. From Ares: A…
IRONICALLY ENOUGH, aspiring conservative documentarian Evan Coyne Maloney received his inspiration from Michael Moore, the left-wing firebrand responsible for the anti-gun polemic Bowling for Columbine and the anti-Bush screed Fahrenheit 9/11. This isn't to say that Moore inspired him figuratively:…
THE MOST CURIOUS thing about Europe's newest democracies is their propensity to suffer serious reversal at their moment of greatest triumph. After gaining membership in the European Union and NATO, the Central European success stories of the 1990's have hit a bad patch recently.
WHILE THE April 11 suicide bombings in Algiers struck at hard targets--the government palace and a police station--soft targets are most likely the preferred point of attack for terrorists in the region.
EXACTLY TWO YEARS AGO, at a cocktail party, a staff member of the World Bank told me: "I think he is a murderer." "He" was Paul Wolfowitz, then just a week away from taking the helm at the world's biggest development agency. Many at the Bank thought the same way as my friend, who said some of his…
Thursday has been relatively quiet in Iraq, as al Qaeda in Iraq appears to have spent its energy on a major offensive conducted in Diyala, Niwena, and Kirkuk on Wednesday. A significant number of Iraqi Army units have redeployed to secure Baghdad, and al Qaeda and other insurgent groups have…
BushG8.jpg President Bush gives German Chancellor Angela
From THE DAILY STANDARD: The business of Iran's hardline military elite, by Omeed Jafari. From the Washington Post: Salute to a Memorable Marine, by Dan Morse. From the Jerusalem Post: Shin Bet Uncovers Plot to Kill Olmert, by Yaakov Katz. From FP Passport: Russia: Burma's road to nukes? by…
Congressional Democrats claimed majorities in the House and Senate partially on the promise to clean up Washington. With that in mind, the House Democratic leadership has at last introduced ethics reform legislation. There are only two problems: it doesn't go as far as many of their own Members had…
Putin.jpg The man in charge
Yesterday was a good day for House Republicans, who threw a spotlight on the attempt by Democrats to change House rules to avoid tough votes. Simply put, the 'motion to recommit' allows the minority to force a vote on any germane amendment to a given bill. The move by House Democrats would have…
U.S. and Iraqi forces continue to scour the farming regions around Yusifiyah and Mahmudiyah in an effort to recover the three missing U.S. soldiers. As the search for the three missing U.S. soldiers enters its fifth day, the U.S. military continues to pour more troops into the region south of…
RECENTLY a six-man jihadi cell in New Jersey was arrested while allegedly planning an armed attack on a military base. In California a jury is now deliberating the fate of a naturalized Chinese-American, who the government alleges worked as a spy for China. Per various media reports Russian…
ON APRIL 25, the United States and Europe adopted new punitive measures against Iran. While European foreign ministers imposed a complete arms embargo and a more extensive travel ban against Tehran's leadership, the United States sanctioned fourteen people, companies, and agencies which buy and…
Baghdad
The rules of the House of Representatives give a committed majority a lot of power to push through legislation favored by the leadership. Most significant legislation is considered under 'special rules' designed to structure (or limit) debate. Contrary to their campaign promises to change the way…
As we noted late last night, the search for the three missing U.S. soldiers has intensified in the "Triangle of Death," the region south of Baghdad, particularly in the areas near Yusifiah and Mahmudiyah. This region "has been divided into 35 zones of which 32 have been searched," according to CNN.…
From THE DAILY STANDARD: Giuliani's Debate, by Fred Barnes. From Commentary: The Case for Bombing Iran, by Norman Podhoretz. From the Telegraph: We Must Attack Iran, by Toby Harnden. From National Review Online: Time for Choosing, by Senator Joe Lieberman. From the Wall Street Journal: Was Osama…
I just concluded a conference call with Mayor Giuliani in which he spoke with bloggers regarding the state of his campaign in the wake of last night's debate. All-in-all, he sounded pretty pleased. While a candidate who underperformed in the debate might open the call with revisions or additions to…
Jack_Bauer2.jpg Time to torture another suspect.
28_070510043542787_wideweb__300x375.jpg Rose Byrne and Jeremy Renner in 28 Weeks Later.
Coalition forces may have narrowed the search for the missing soldiers missing since last Saturday's attack. U.S. and Iraqi security forces, backed by the local tribes in Karbala and Anbar provinces, have poured into the region known as the Triangle of Death, where three U.S. soldiers were captured…
It seems that everyone has an opinion on the debate, and the consensus seems to be that Giuliani won, and that Huckabee helped himself as well. THE WEEKLY STANDARD's own Fred Barnes weighed in early, saying: ...in a few emotional moments in the debate, he grabbed the national security issue and…
Columbia, SC
Baghdad
ON THE WEEKEND of April 14-15, 2007, delegates from the National Union of Journalists of Great Britain voted to boycott Israeli goods in a viciously-worded motion at their annual delegates' conference in Birmingham. The eminent journalist and MP Michael Gove has resigned from the union as a result.…
A NEW REPORT from the centrist group Third Way complicates one's understanding of the 2006 midterm elections. There are already several competing theories of why last Election Day turned out the way it did. The storyline popular on liberal blogs is that in 2006 Democrats were true to liberal…
Arriana Huffington literally wrote the book on becoming fearless, so I guess we shouldn't be surprised that she's got the stones to stand shoulder to shoulder with Moqtada al Sadr as they both seek legislation that would demand a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. In her latest…
The search for the three captured American soldiers has entered its fourth day. Over 4,000 U.S. troops, along with Iraqi security forces, are scouring the Triangle of Death regions southwest of Baghdad, as well as the desert expanses southeast of Fallujah. "We have conducted more than 450 tactical…
A study from the UK's Tyndall Centre finds that alarmist messages about the dangers of global warming tend to promote feelings of apathy and helplessness in the audience: "There has been over-claiming or exaggeration, or at the very least casual use of language by scientists, some of whom are quite…
marine corp keg.jpg This keg's for you General Conway
From THE DAILY STANDARD: Can Bush Recover? by Fred Barnes. From the Washington Times: LOST at the Helm, by Frank Gaffney, Jr. From the Wall Street Journal: Surging Ahead in Iraq, by Max Boot. From the Fourth Rail: Pakistan Unraveling, by Bill Roggio. From the Danger Room: Shortages for New Armored…
There's stunning news this morning. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has declared that while he believes the president has made numerous mistakes in the prosecution of the war in Iraq, he is scheduling a vote this week on legislation to provide full funding for the conflict and affirm the…
CAN PRESIDENT BUSH RECOVER? It matters enormously in the 2008 election--particularly in the presidential race--whether he does or not. Either way, recovery or no recovery, the president will have a powerful impact on the outcome. If he fails to lift himself out of the political doldrums, his…
Baghdad
TONY BLAIR thinks he has a soul mate in Nicolas Sarkozy. So does George W. Bush. Which is understandable. Anyone would be a relief after the Anglo-Saxon-hating Jacques Chirac, who considered it a major political triumph to embarrass the United States, and thought it amusing to dismiss England as a…
Newt Gingrich is letting it be known that he will probably get into the Republican presidential race: Newt Gingrich, the controversial former speaker of the House of Representatives, on Monday said there was a "great possibility" he would enter the Republican presidential field later this year and…
icon.roggio2.1.gifThe past week in Iraq has been a mixed bag of political success coupled with several successful high profile attacks by al Qaeda. The situation is heating up in Diyala, and al Qaeda conducted a highly successful assault on a U.S. Army team operating south of Baghdad. The search is…
From the New York Sun: As Surge Begins To Take Hold, Tribal Leaders Turn on Qaeda, by Eli Lake. From the Washington Times: Promoting a manly politics, by Suzanne Fields. From Townhall.com: Congress Is Still Feeding at the Trough, by Robert Bluey. From the New York Post: Where Jackals Play Watchdog,…
On May 9th, citing sources at the 301 military hospital in Beijing, the Times (London) reported that Chinese vice premier Huang Ju had died of pancreatic cancer. A short while later, Hong Kong's Phoenix TV, which has close ties to Beijing, also reported that Huang Ju had passed away. Within the…
The big story last week in the House was an attempt to guarantee funding for the Iraq conflict for only a few months and to set up a vote on de-funding the conflict in July (a possibility I wrote about in February). While that approach isn't getting any traction, it's unclear what Congress will…
They only had two and a half hours to settle some knotty questions--Does reality have an ultimate, metaphysical foundation? Is there content to the universe?--so they had to talk fast. But not fast enough. By the time the formidable panel discussion was over last week, I, as a member of the…
The Romance of Halberstam
What's Wrong with Democracy?
Natan Sharansky first came to the world's attention as a renowned Soviet dissident. The day he was released from prison in 1986, he was put on a plane to East Berlin; then he emigrated to Israel, where he entered politics and spent a tumultuous decade in the Knesset. Now, he has left government and…
Only four countries export more oil to the United States than Nigeria. Each day, Nigeria produces the same amount of oil, give or take a few barrels, as Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates. If oil prices hold steady at their current level, Nigeria will continue to earn more than $50 billion a year…
George Tenet's At the Center of the Storm is a self-serving and often whiny recollection of his time as director of central intelligence. Among other failings, the author seems to have fabricated the story that frames his discussion of the Iraq war, an impossible meeting with Richard Perle at the…
Spider-Man 3
Hello. My name is Chris Connolly and I'm a sports addict. I say I am a sports addict because, even though I recently succeeded in abstaining from all sports for several months, one never really stops being a sports addict. One is always just one drag bunt or foul shot away from sitting in the tub…
The Foundation
I was being interviewed recently by a woman who had mistaken me for an expert of some kind. I am an authority on several subjects--how best to pack the family car for a road trip, for example--but an expert, sadly, on none.
Speaking last December before journalists assembled by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Peter Berger had some explaining to do. Berger, an emeritus professor at Boston University, is a rightly esteemed sociologist of religion. "We live in an age of overwhelming religious globalization,"…
Tirana
New York
Cape Wind
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of May 13, 2007.
Chris Wallace spent 30 minutes with Rudy Giuliani this morning on Fox News Sunday, leading off the interview with the issue that will present "America's Mayor" with his biggest challenge in the Republican primary: abortion. I oppose it, that's a principle I've held for forever and I'll hold it…
NATO and Afghan forces have struck a major blow to the Taliban's military leadership. Mullah Dadullah Akhund, the Taliban's top military commander, has been killed during fighting in the volatile southern province of Helmand. "He was killed last night and right now I have his body before me,"…
Al Qaeda in Iraq was able to conduct three successful suicide attacks today. All three targets were bridges spanning major rivers--two were in the Shia region south of Baghdad, and one up north near Taji. Al Qaeda in Iraq attacked two bridges in Baghdad in April, and destroyed one of them. Also, al…
Are you a "career-minded" college student with no hope of finding a summer job? How would you like to make $400 a week, plus expenses, campaigning "for safe redeployment out of Iraq, targeting congressional and senate war votes in selected states/districts?" That's the pitch that one anti-war group…
From the Washington Post: How the CIA Failed America, by Richard Perle. From the Times: French fries are back on the US menu, by Gerard Baker. From the Wall Street Journal: Everything Old Is New Again, by Peggy Noonan. From USA Today: Gitmo detainees have all the rights they need, by David B.…
My colleague Mike Goldfarb noted yesterday that House Democrats were preparing to pass an intelligence authorization bill that directs the CIA not to get bogged down on things like the war on terror, but instead to focus on global warming. It was only later that we--and opponents of pork-barrel…
While Iraq war opponents are loathe to admit it, the departure of U.S. troops from Iraq is not a 'freebie.' Once the United States ends its military involvement, Iraq will still be home to sectarian violence, al Qaeda fighters, economic and political unrest, and a host of other problems. Indeed,…
The BBC has posted a story on their website titled "Cyberspace War" in which THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD's own Bill Roggio is quoted discussing the impact of the Multinational Force Iraq channel at YouTube. Here's what Roggio had to say: So what is the reaction in the blogosphere to the military…
It's more than four months into the new Democratic Congress--not a bad time to see how they're doing. So far there have been 25 bills signed into law. Here's the list: A bill to redesignate the White Rocks National Recreation Area in the State of Vermont as the "Robert T. Stafford White Rocks…
SOMETIMES WHAT WE DON'T KNOW can indeed hurt us. This was the case in 2006, when reporters noticed significant fighting between Iraqi insurgent factions. This confused journalists and government analysts, but the prevailing attitude was that if the insurgents were fighting each other, at least they…
LT. CMDR. KEVIN J. DAVIS, call sign "Kojak," was flying the No. 6 plane with the Navy's Blue Angels at an air show on April 21 in South Carolina when something went terribly wrong. For reasons still unclear, Davis's F/A-18 Hornet crashed in front of the crowd of 100,000. Among those in attendance…
Geez, this is unusual. I find myself in nearly complete agreement with one of the bloggers at TAPPED, the group blog run by the American Prospect. Robert Farley posts there today with a really insightful take on the hype surrounding the MRAP program, which got a front page spot in USA Today. MRAP…
In Iraq, the major developments over the past two days occurred in the political realm. First, the tribes of Diyala are beginning to organize along the lines of the tribes in Anbar province and have now vowed to battle al Qaeda. "Tribesman Sheikh Wameed al-Jabouri told al-Hayat that a number of…
We linked earlier today to the House Select Intelligence Committee's decision to mandate that the director of Central Intelligence spend more time worrying about global warming and less time worrying about terrorism. Unfortunately, that seems to be fairly representative of the priorities of the…
Some hours ago I planned the post I was going to write today on the big news you weren't hearing much about: the bipartisan legislation introduced yesterday to trigger a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Now it looks like that post may have been overtaken by events. I'll just give a few quick links since…
From RealClearPolitics: Your War, Not Mine, by Victor Davis Hanson. From the New York Post: For Colombia, a Chill on the Hill, by Robert D. Novak. From the Washington Times: Money Well Spent, by Raymond E. Johns. From the Danger Room: Armored Vehicle Demand Blows Up, by Noah Shachtman. From FP…
The big political news coming out of Europe this week was the election of Nicolas Sarkozy in France. In Washington, the imminent arrival of Sarkozy--already hailed as the "most pro-American president in recent French history" (admittedly, the competition for this accolade is not that stiff)--is…
The CIA has a lot on its plate these days, mainly a global war on terror...oops, I mean "ongoing military operations throughout the world." Besides detecting terror plots, the agency must also provide policy makers with accurate and timely information on threats to proliferation, i.e. Iran, North…
The Financial Times reports that a DC-based consulting firm called PFC energy has released a report warning of a reduced oil supply in years to come. The twist is that PFC isn't concerned (for now anyway) with a lack of petroleum reserves, but with decisions by governments to nationalize and limit…
In March, we noted the successful model of the Anbar Salvation Council will very likely be replicated elsewhere in regions where al Qaeda has established bases of operation. We singled out Diyala in particular, as al Qaeda's campaign of murder and intimidation there was beginning to anger the…
THE HEADLINE ON the cover of the April 13, issue of the Evening Standard read, '"The US Embassy Siege." Inasmuch as Britain had just endured the unfortunate saga of the 15 marines and sailors captured by Iran and then released with goody bags, one might have assumed this was a feature about the…
AS THE DEBATE HEATS UP about whether the United States should set a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq, little attention has focused on the effect such a move would have on America's allies in that country. The world has not forgotten America's abandonment of the South Vietnamese and later the…
The recent debate over the tightening of regulations pertaining to military blogs has reverberated in the mass media and the govenrment. According to the April 19 Army Regulation 530-1, the restriction on OPSEC content "includes, but is not limited to letters, resumes, articles for publication,…
The president has promised to veto the House Iraq appropriations bill if by some miracle it were to make it to his desk. Both Tony Snow and Secretary Gates have discussed the problems with the approach. As I've noted though, the real challenge for the White House is not what to do in the unlikely…
There have been no major suicide or car bombings inside Baghdad over the past two days. Mortar, roadside bombings, and small arms attacks persist, but sectarian killings are still below the levels prior to the implementation of the Baghdad Security Plan. Much of the significant violence has…
Say Anything takes a closer look at CNN's latest poll on Iraq -- the one that CNN headlines 'Americans disapprove of Bush's Iraq veto -- and finds that the picture is not that simple. Rob notes that when you look more closely at the questions, you see the following: A lot more poll respondents…
Roll Call ($) takes a lengthy look at the Congressional debate on the Iraq/Afghanistan appropriations measure and reports that each House is doing what it must to get a funding measure to conference. The piece notes the Senate's reluctance to pass a short-term bill, and gives a more detailed look…
THE U.S.-TAIWAN relationship is on life support. Over nearly seven years of concurrent presidencies under George W. Bush and Chen Shui-bian, the bilateral relationship has deteriorated to the point that Bush has repeatedly rebuked Chen, either publicly or through emissaries, over perceived broken…
London
shortleash.jpg Culled from a liberal blog: how the Democratic base views the war.
This post was written by DJ Elliott and has been cross-posted at The Fourth Rail. DJ is a retired US Navy Intelligence Specialist with 22 years of service, the primary author of the Iraqi Security Forces Order of Battle and co-author of the the Baghdad Security Operation Order of Battle .) Most…
From THE DAILY STANDARD: Trading Places, by Fred Barnes. From the CS Monitor: The case for strikes against Iran, by Louis Rene Beres. From the Washington Times: Defending Against Iran's Missiles, by James T. Hackett. From Investor's Business Daily: Nordic Awakening, by the editors. From Defense…
Not only can Citi afford to sponsor the New York Mets' new stadium (an offense to my sensibilities as a Yankees fan), but they can apparently afford to spend $50 billion on green projects over the next ten years (offending my sensibilities as a free-marketeer): Citigroup will on Tuesday commit to…
NuteGunray.jpg Nute Gunray
IF YOU EVER GET THE FEELING that you want to be a central banker, lie down until the feeling passes. Consider the problem of Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke as he decides whether the economy is headed towards recession, in which case he should lower interest rates; whether inflation is…
NOW THAT I think about it, there was something noteworthy that occurred at last week's Republican presidential debate. My initial take was the race for the 2008 nomination was unchanged, and indeed it was. But when you compare what was said at the Republican debate with what Democratic presidential…
Bing West, an embedded reporter, former Marine infantryman, and the acclaimed author of No True Glory, the story of the Second Battle of Fallujah, has returned from his thirteenth trip to Iraq and posted an assessment on the situation there and the path forward at Small Wars Journal. Mr. West…
I had the opportunity to participate in a blogger conference call with Mayor Giuliani's campaign manager Mike DuHaime and Communications Director Katie Levinson. It amounted mostly to a 'temperature-taking' in the wake of the first GOP debate. And what does the Giuliani team want you to know,…
icon.roggio2.1.gifThe month of April was particularly hard on both U.S. and Iraqi security forces. As both forces push outward from larger, more secure bases, the casualties have increased. Iraqi security forces--both police and army--had over 300 KIA, while over 100 U.S. servicemen were killed in…
I guess this is the Palestinian version of the Disney Channel. The irony of those Marines singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song as they walked the ruins of Hue City in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket must not have translated well in Arabic.
So my colleague Mike Goldfarb calls me this afternoon and the first thing he asks is what do I make of Carmela Soprano reading Rebel-in-Chief by THE WEEKLY STANDARD's own Fred Barnes. I warned him not to read too much into this--some of us are still trying to understand the deeper significance of…
From Time: The 2008 Formula, by William Kristol. From the New York Sun: How Times Change, by the editors. From the Wall Street Journal ($): Blame America First, by Stephen Rademaker. From Haft of the Spear: Milblog 2007, by Michael Tanji. From the POGO Blog: CSAR-X: Did Boeing fail a key…
Study Times, a journal run by the Party School of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, published in its May 1, issue an article titled "National Security in the Information Age." The author, Gen. Xiong Guangkai (Ret.), is president of the China Institute for International Strategic…
House Democrats quickly denied a report last week that they had given up on a proposed timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. That move would have constituted a significant concession to the president, and it was clearly unacceptable to their real leadership team. Instead, Roll Call ($) reports…
A few days before the March 11 suicide bombing that rocked Casablanca, Moroccan police arrested a big fish: Saad Husseini, number two in the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), the outfit responsible for terror attacks in Casablanca in 2003 and Madrid in 2004 that killed a total of 236 people.…
Divided America
The Rise and Fall of Alexandria
Hot Fuzz
Tenet on Interrogation
Finally joining the high-definition television community, I've come to enjoy several channels in HD, including HBO, ESPN, Discovery, and National Geographic. Not that everything in HD is ideal, mind you. (Here, I am thinking of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Joakim Noah, and anything on Cinemax…
Barring a political earthquake, President Bush will leave office without achieving his goal of transforming Social Security. That's too bad. A successful Social Security effort would be a significant down payment on much needed entitlement reform. But sooner or later, Social Security will find its…
Americans are right to be worried about the prospects for democracy in the Middle East. In Egypt, elections have done little to loosen five-term president Hosni Mubarak's grip on power or to stop his plans for turning power over to his son Gamal upon retirement. Whatever degree of democracy exists…
The Overachievers
The showdown at the White House Correspondents' dinner was more emotional and lasted longer than was first reported. It started when Laurie David introduced herself to Karl Rove. He knew who she was--Hollywood's leading Bush-hater and a producer of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's film on global…
Paris
Trinity of Passion
John Osborne
If Ward Connerly has his way, on Election Day 2008 no fewer than five states will host referenda to bar racial preferences in public college admissions, employment, and contracting. If the measures succeed, Connerly explains in an interview, "we will be witnessing the end of an era" in which…
On April 26, around the same time the Senate passed a war spending bill containing a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq, delivered an impressive briefing on the state of the war to reporters at the Pentagon. Petraeus said his remarks…
The Senate majority leader's "position is irresponsible. . . . We won the war but we are in danger of losing the peace. [Our adversary] is counting on the United States and Europe losing interest--and losing our will--and not staying the course. . . . Funding in the supplemental would support . . .…
The most important speech at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference, held in early March at a Washington hotel, didn't come from any of the Republicans running for president. It came from Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, one of the few Republican success stories in 2006--he was reelected…
Diyala province has become one of the central battlegrounds between the Coalition and al Qaeda. Its capital, Baqubah, is just a short drive from Baghdad, and the province has suffered from and contributed to the ongoing violence in the Iraqi capital. In the months before the full complement of…
The Baghdad Order Of Battle as of May 6, 2007.
BY ELECTING THE conservative Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday, the French actually chose the candidate promising the most radical change, while rejecting a defender of the status quo in socialist Ségolène Royal. The president-elect, whose 53.2 percent to 46.8 percent margin of victory was more than…
Meet the Press featured a hour long interview with former CIA director George Tenet. He continued to perform CYA/damage control on Russert's program, but he also defended the president and his advisers from critics who claimed the executive branch was ginning up intelligence out of thin air to…
The 2007 Milblog Conference was held yesterday at a hotel just outside of Washington. The event was sponsored by our friends at Military.com, and while I did not attend last year's inaugural conference, everyone seemed very pleased with this year's turnout. THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD's own Bill Roggio…
Former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith had a review of George Tenet's just released At the Center of the Storm in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. The piece is now publicly available at Feith's personal website, dougfeith.com. Feith says that "the problem with George Tenet is that he…
Glenn Greenwald strikes again! The Salon blogger is up in arms over the fact that a group of conservative bloggers, including THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD's own Brian Faughnan, have banded together to adopt a clarifyingly simple position on the war in Iraq: We Win. They Lose. Greenwald's beef: One might…
Hand it to the Democrats. While I suggested that they pull the Band-Aid, they are doing their best to avoid this simple reality: they cannot stop the war without de-funding it. Congressman Obey is reportedly deploying a strategy previewed here before -- micro-funding: The plan would split the now…
One of the more interesting parts of George Tenet's new book is his discussion of al Qaeda's attempts to acquire a nuclear weapon and other weapons of mass destruction. It has long been known that al Qaeda seeks the capability to inflict mass casualties with a WMD attack. But Tenet offers new…
If you have not yet done so, I encourage you to go over to We Win, They Lose, and sign on as a supporter of the effort to ensure funding for our men and women in the field and ultimate victory in Iraq. Here's the key: Congress has passed and President Bush has vetoed H.R. 1591, the Iraq Surrender…
CNN reports that Barack Obama has been awarded a Secret Service protective detail: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, has been placed under the protection of the Secret Service, the agency said Thursday. The government is not aware of any specific,…
The key moment in Wednesday's French presidential debate came when conservative frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy promised that all handicapped children in France could be integrated into regular schools. Segolene Royal, the Socialist hoping to become France's first female president, went ballistic. It…
IT'S A GLOWING Mediterranean late-afternoon and Richard Gere is ambling up the red carpet at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is up for the Festival's top prize. A reporter in the crowd asks Gere what he thinks of the man from Flint.
REMEMBER THE FIRST or even the second or third debate among Republican presidential candidates in 2000? I don't, except George Bush's insistence--I think it was in Iowa--that Jesus Christ was the political philosopher who'd influenced him the most. Recall anything that happened in the endless…
The Iraqi Interior Ministry claimed that Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leader of al Qaeda's political front the Islamic State of Iraq, has been killed during combat in the town of Dhuluiya in Salahadin province. This comes just two days after the ministry and other government officials claims Abu Ayyub…
The Campaign for America's Furture hosted a debate today between the editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, William Kristol, and Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect--part of a day-long event at the National Press Club called "Failure of Conservatism: The Big Con." The day's events can be seen here, and…
The Washington Post reported this morning that House Democrats made a key concession in talks with the White House on the Iraq supplemental--they will not include a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops: President Bush and Congressional leaders began negotiating a second war funding bill…
The Danger Room's Noah Shachtman broke the story yesterday on the Army's new rules from military bloggers, which was subsequently picked up by Drudge and just about every wire service. Apparently the onslaught was too much for the Army to bear, as the service just released the following…
German chancellor Angela Merkel--who currently holds both the rotating EU and G-8 presidencies--arrived in Washington last Sunday for the bi-annual EU-US Summit, which focused primarily on deepening transatlantic economic cooperation and fostering joint action on climate change. During their final…
While the ethical questions surrounding the behavior of Majority Leader Reid and Senator Dianne Feinstein have attracted little attention to date, it's refreshing to see them warrant a mention in the mainstream media: The shady improprieties of the current Senate majority leader are another story…
As we've noted before in this space, the debate over the US policy in Iraq suffers from a failure to address a critical question: what happens when we leave? There are ramifications for the Iraqis, for the region, for the world -- and not least -- for US security. CNN posts a piece that touches on…
In a speech to the Hoover Institution on Monday, Senator McCain promised that if elected, within his first year in office he "will call a summit of the world's democracies" in an effort to promote a new international organization: the League of Democracies. Here's how McCain described it: . . . We…
MORE THAN TWO CENTURIES AGO we Americans thought it necessary to send you, our British cousins, a declaration which brought about a permanent separation of our political systems. Yet we retained a reverence for those freedoms which have always characterized our heritage. In a spirit of fraternal…
AS REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL candidates gather tonight in Simi Valley, California, for the first of several debates, one potential candidate will be missing: Fred Thompson. The former senator from Tennessee, still mulling a run, will instead appear alone tomorrow at the Lincoln Day dinner of the…
The status of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al Masri remains uncertain. The Anbar Salvation Council, the grouping of tribes and former insurgent groups united in opposition to al Qaeda, is maintaining it had good intelligence on al Masri's death after it conducted a raid outside the provincial…
With the president's veto of the Surrender in Iraq Act, (and the failure by the House to override the veto) Congress can now get to work on a funding request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Associated Press describes the conundrum in which the Democrats now find themselves, capturing the…
From the Wall Street Journal: The Case for the Strong Executive, by Harvey C. Mansfield. From the Hill: Obama's moment of truth, by Dick Morris. From the Danger Room: New Army Rules Could Kill G.I. Blogs, by Noah Shachtman. From the CBC: Garry Kasparov Q&A, by Nick Spicer. From the Washington…
From today's editorial in the Washington Times: For all the Democrats' talk about the need to train Iraqi security forces, this, too, is a canard. Military expert Bill Roggio, writing in the April 23 Weekly Standard, shows that the training of Iraqis has been cut back thanks to Congress' failure to…
Craig Crawford, who provides political analysis for the family of NBC channels and who used to be a staple of the Imus show, is also a columnist for Congressional Quarterly. He writes a piece today that looks at the recent Democratic debate and warns that the leading candidates might have come off…
THE CHIRAC ERA is fast coming to a close. After a twelve-year stint as French president, Chirac will soon leave the Elysée Palace, and his successor will most likely be none other than Chirac's interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy. But despite Sarkozy's ties to Chirac, he represents a glimmer of hope…
WITH THE DEMOCRATS pushing so hard for withdrawal from Iraq, the party seems unaware that they may be making the job much harder for themselves should they get the chance to govern again someday. After all, the United States has many vital strategic interests in the region, and it is not obvious…
The big news from Iraq is the purported killing of Abu Ayyub al Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq and the newly "appointed" Minister of War for al Qaeda's political front, the Islamic State in Iraq. The claim that al Masri was killed by tribal forces near Taji in Salahadin province has yet to…
So this latest poll from ARG confirms what we've all been sensing for some time now, McCain is back! Was it his rendition of "Barbara Ann," which earned him the support of MoveOn.org. Was it the speech at VMI, which set tongues wagging? Or maybe it was just that McCain flourishes as an underdog.…
From the ArmsControlWonk: So, I am reading my copy of George Tenet's At the Center of the Storm. I turn to the account of the strike on Dora Farm first. Tenet offers the standard account-embellished by an odd new detail here, an occasional defense of his own role there-when Tenet says that "targets…
I just got off a conference call with White House spokesman Tony Snow and NSC Director for Iraq Brett McGurk. The 'occasion' was the receiving and veto of the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill. Overall impressions: the public debate about Iraq now revolves around several questions. Will the…
From the New York Times: Why Congress Should Embrace the Surge, by Owen West. From the New Republic: Congressional leaders are illiterate on Iraq, by Lawrence F. Kaplan. From THE DAILY STANDARD: "More Than Enough Evidence," by Thomas Joscelyn. From Armed Forces Journal: East Africa could be the…
In his new book, George Tenet refers to two members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who were operating out of Baghdad for much of 2002. Tenet explains: More al-Qa'ida operatives would follow, including Thirwat Shihata and Yussef Dardiri, two Egyptians assessed by a senior al-Qa'ida detainee to be among…
Democrats continue to try and have it both ways on Iraq: they promise their base that they will end the war, and they tell the press that they will definitely fund the troops. The two are mutually exclusive. If you intend to cut off funds for the war, you will have to cut off funds for the troops.…
The Center for Security Policy has released another in its "occasional paper series," this one an attack on EADS, the European defense company whose North American branch has teamed with Northrop Grumman to bid on the Air Force's KC-X aerial tanker replacement program. The KC-X competition pits…
Four months into the new Congress, the House has yet to pass ethics reform legislation. In fact, House Democrats have not yet even settled on the ethics package they will propose. Ethics reform has been discussed and debated ad nauseam, and there's nothing new under the sun, Speaker Pelosi and…
Abu Ayyub al-Masri, from a video found last year.
GEORGE TENET'S JUST released book, At the Center of the Storm, has created quite a stir. Over the past few days, a myriad of news accounts have referenced various snippets of the former director of Central Intelligence's self-serving collection of remembrances. But here is something you probably…
ELECTIONS MATTER. Some 85 percent of French voters think so, but only about 60 percent of British and American eligible voters agree. That could be because we Anglo-Saxons see no difference in what is on offer from the various politicians begging for our votes, or because we are too satisfied with…
SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND citizens of the Turkish Republic rallied in Istanbul Sunday. Two weeks ago, 300,000 participated in a similar demonstration. Marchers in the latest protest chanted, "neither sharia nor a coup, but real democracy." They and millions of their peers have found themselves beset…