Sunday, September 03, 2006
On Vacation
Sorry 'bout the skint postings as of late. As usual, a combination of work schedule, drained energy, and moving into new digs as rendered me devoid of an original thought or idea. That said, I anticipate that I'll be posting with much more vigor and frequency in the coming weeks/months. Stay tuned for some fresh postings in the future in mid-September. I'll blog if I can, when I can. Cheers.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
The Greatest Man of the 20th Century, On Islam
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."
-Sir Winston Churchil l (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages
248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).
-Sir Winston Churchil l (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages
248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).
Appeasement Begets...
If it wasn't so sad it would be funny. But alas, it is sad. Germany, socialist appeaser to the muslims (along with the French), gets targeted for an act of terror and can't quite fathom why. After all, when you add it all up, there's no reason why they would be targeted, right? Let's go through the checklist:
a.) Criticized and obstructed United States and British efforts to combat world-wide Islamo-terrorism: check.
b.) Killed six million Jews sixty years ago: check.*
c.) Didn't participate in the Iraqi expedition, and if anything, was openly hostile to it: check.
d.) Routinely preaches tolerance of Islam, and faults the U.S. for creating more Islamo-terrorism: check.
I could probably come up with another twenty, but you get the point. All of these things, the Germans surmised, would grant them immunity from the Islamic rage with all things non-Mohammedan. Like all appeasers, they have been proven wrong. Winston Churchill once said that appeasement as a policy was the same as feeding your friends to the crocodiles in the hopes that you'll be eaten last. Not exactly a winning strategy, ol' Winston was trying to say. Read about Germany's terrorist plot below:
Train bombing plot surprises Germany
By DAVID RISING, Associated Press WriterTue Aug 22, 6:19 PM ET
A Lebanese student suspected of planting a train bomb that failed to explode had contacts in Hamburg, authorities said Tuesday, the latest link to the northern port city where three of the Sept. 11 suicide pilots prepared for their attacks.
The planned attack here stunned Germans who thought the country's vehement opposition to the Iraq war would insulate it from becoming a terror target almost five years after the attacks on Washington and New York.
The main suspect, identified by authorities as 21-year-old Youssef Mohamad el Hajdib, was arrested Saturday in Kiel, about 30 miles north of Hamburg, on suspicion of placing one of two suitcase bombs in German trains on July 31.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors said they had identified a second key suspect, while police searched his Cologne apartment as well as addresses in Kiel and Oberhausen.
ZDF television showed police leading away one man in handcuffs after one of the raids, and said another person had also been detained.
However, prosecutors said a suspected bomber, whose name they did not release, remains at large.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper cited investigators as saying the men were suspected of having contact with the radical Islamic movement Hizb-ut-Tahrir.
Authorities are investigating ties between the suspects and the Muslim community in Hamburg, where Sept. 11 suicide pilots Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah all lived undetected before moving to the United States to attend flight schools, said Manfred Murck, deputy head of the Hamburg state agency that tracks extremism.
"It seems like we do, once again, have some contacts to Hamburg, which is not really surprising," he said. "If somebody lives in Kiel and feels involved in the Islamist scene, it seems to be more or less plausible that he may have a friend or a mosque to visit in Hamburg."
Murck would not elaborate, saying only "we are working, of course, to find out what in our files can help us to identify possible contact persons."
German authorities were widely criticized for not picking up on the Sept. 11 plot, and stiffened counterterrorism laws in the wake of the attacks, though with police-state excesses of the country's Nazi past in mind, were wary of going too far.
While there have been other terrorism plots uncovered since Sept. 11, none has come so close to success.
"I have always said we are threatened by terrorism, and the threat has never been so near," Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told ZDF television after el Hajdib's arrest, calling the case "unusually serious."
Where Germany before Sept. 11 was seen as a relatively comfortable base for terrorists to live and operate — but not a target — that is no longer the case, said Kai Hirschmann, deputy director of Essen's Institute for Terrorism Research and Security Policy.
"Intelligence agencies and police are now very much trying to arrest them ... and the scene is under constant surveillance," Hirschmann said.
Germany is also seen as being on the side of the U.S. and Britain, despite its opposition to the Iraq war, for helping train Iraqi police and military outside the country, taking a large role in operations in Afghanistan, and making other contributions to the so-called "war on terror," he said.
In the failed train bombings, the evidence points to poorly trained radicals not closely linked to terrorist networks, Hirschmann said.
The bombs were cobbled together from propane barbecue canisters to be triggered with gasoline and makeshift detonators that went off but failed to ignite the gas. They were found in suitcases on regional trains in Dortmund and Koblenz.
"It looked rather rushed or amateur. There might be some connection with the Islamist network, the jihad network, but not in the sense that we witnessed in Madrid or London," Hirschmann said, referring to the train bombings in Madrid and the London subway bombings.
a.) Criticized and obstructed United States and British efforts to combat world-wide Islamo-terrorism: check.
b.) Killed six million Jews sixty years ago: check.*
c.) Didn't participate in the Iraqi expedition, and if anything, was openly hostile to it: check.
d.) Routinely preaches tolerance of Islam, and faults the U.S. for creating more Islamo-terrorism: check.
I could probably come up with another twenty, but you get the point. All of these things, the Germans surmised, would grant them immunity from the Islamic rage with all things non-Mohammedan. Like all appeasers, they have been proven wrong. Winston Churchill once said that appeasement as a policy was the same as feeding your friends to the crocodiles in the hopes that you'll be eaten last. Not exactly a winning strategy, ol' Winston was trying to say. Read about Germany's terrorist plot below:
Train bombing plot surprises Germany
By DAVID RISING, Associated Press WriterTue Aug 22, 6:19 PM ET
A Lebanese student suspected of planting a train bomb that failed to explode had contacts in Hamburg, authorities said Tuesday, the latest link to the northern port city where three of the Sept. 11 suicide pilots prepared for their attacks.
The planned attack here stunned Germans who thought the country's vehement opposition to the Iraq war would insulate it from becoming a terror target almost five years after the attacks on Washington and New York.
The main suspect, identified by authorities as 21-year-old Youssef Mohamad el Hajdib, was arrested Saturday in Kiel, about 30 miles north of Hamburg, on suspicion of placing one of two suitcase bombs in German trains on July 31.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors said they had identified a second key suspect, while police searched his Cologne apartment as well as addresses in Kiel and Oberhausen.
ZDF television showed police leading away one man in handcuffs after one of the raids, and said another person had also been detained.
However, prosecutors said a suspected bomber, whose name they did not release, remains at large.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper cited investigators as saying the men were suspected of having contact with the radical Islamic movement Hizb-ut-Tahrir.
Authorities are investigating ties between the suspects and the Muslim community in Hamburg, where Sept. 11 suicide pilots Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah all lived undetected before moving to the United States to attend flight schools, said Manfred Murck, deputy head of the Hamburg state agency that tracks extremism.
"It seems like we do, once again, have some contacts to Hamburg, which is not really surprising," he said. "If somebody lives in Kiel and feels involved in the Islamist scene, it seems to be more or less plausible that he may have a friend or a mosque to visit in Hamburg."
Murck would not elaborate, saying only "we are working, of course, to find out what in our files can help us to identify possible contact persons."
German authorities were widely criticized for not picking up on the Sept. 11 plot, and stiffened counterterrorism laws in the wake of the attacks, though with police-state excesses of the country's Nazi past in mind, were wary of going too far.
While there have been other terrorism plots uncovered since Sept. 11, none has come so close to success.
"I have always said we are threatened by terrorism, and the threat has never been so near," Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told ZDF television after el Hajdib's arrest, calling the case "unusually serious."
Where Germany before Sept. 11 was seen as a relatively comfortable base for terrorists to live and operate — but not a target — that is no longer the case, said Kai Hirschmann, deputy director of Essen's Institute for Terrorism Research and Security Policy.
"Intelligence agencies and police are now very much trying to arrest them ... and the scene is under constant surveillance," Hirschmann said.
Germany is also seen as being on the side of the U.S. and Britain, despite its opposition to the Iraq war, for helping train Iraqi police and military outside the country, taking a large role in operations in Afghanistan, and making other contributions to the so-called "war on terror," he said.
In the failed train bombings, the evidence points to poorly trained radicals not closely linked to terrorist networks, Hirschmann said.
The bombs were cobbled together from propane barbecue canisters to be triggered with gasoline and makeshift detonators that went off but failed to ignite the gas. They were found in suitcases on regional trains in Dortmund and Koblenz.
"It looked rather rushed or amateur. There might be some connection with the Islamist network, the jihad network, but not in the sense that we witnessed in Madrid or London," Hirschmann said, referring to the train bombings in Madrid and the London subway bombings.
Friday, August 18, 2006
Photojounalism In Crisis
Amid the controversy over certain pictures from Lebanon, a longtime student of war photography asks, "I'm not sure if the craft I love is being murdered, committing suicide, or both."
By David D. Perlmutter
(August 17, 2006) -- The Israeli-Hezbollah war has left many dead bodies, ruined towns, and wobbling politicians in its wake, but the media historian of the future may also count as one more victim the profession of photojournalism. In twenty years of researching and teaching about the art and trade and doing photo-documentary work, I have never witnessed or heard of such a wave of attacks on the people who take news pictures and on the basic premise that nonfiction news photo- and videography is possible.
I'm not sure, however, if the craft I love is being murdered, committing suicide, or both.
Perhaps it would be more reassuring if the enemy at the gates was a familiar one—politicians, or maybe radio talk show hosts. But the photojournalist standing on the crumbling ramparts of her once proud citadel now sees the vandal army charging for the sack led by “zombietime,” “The Jawa Report,” “Powerline,” “Little Green Footballs,” “confederateyankee,” and many others.
In each case, these bloggers have engaged in the kind of probing, contextual, fact-based (if occasionally speculative) media criticism I have always asked of my students. And the results have been devastating: news photos and video shown to be miscaptioned, radically altered, or staged (and worse, re-staged) for the camera. Surely “green helmet guy,” “double smoke,” “the missiles that were actually flares,” “the wedding mannequin from nowhere,” the “magical burning Koran,” the “little girl who actually fell off a swing” and “keep filming!” will now enter the pantheon of shame of photojournalism.
A few photo-illusions are probably due to the lust for the most sensational or striking-looking image—that is, more aesthetic bias than political prejudice. Also, many photographers know that war victims are money shots and some will break the rules of the profession to cash in. But true as well is that local stringers and visiting anchors alike seem to have succumbed either to lens-enabled Stockholm syndrome or accepted being the uncredited Hezbollah staff photographer so as to be able to file stories and images in militia-controlled areas.
It does not help that certain news organizations have acted like government officials or corporate officers trying to squash a scandal. The visual historian in me revolts when an ABC producer informs me that Reuters “deleted all 920 images” by the stringer who produced the “Beirut double smoke” image and is “less than willing to talk about it.” Can you say “18-minute gap,” anyone?
There is one great irony here. From a historical perspective, this is the golden age of photojournalistic ethics. In previous eras wild retouching, rearranging, cutting of images and even staging and restaging of events for the camera were commonly accepted in the trade. As someone who has written a history of images of war, I can testify there is more honesty in war photography today than ever in the past in any medium or any war--but there is, of course, much more scrutiny as well.
The main point is that we are now at a social, political and technological crossroads for media—amateur, industrial, and all points and persons in between. First, we live in Photoshop-CGI culture. People are accustomed to watching the amazing special effects of modern movies, where it seems any scene that can be imagined can be pixilated into appearing photorealistic. On our desktop, many of us are photoshopping our lives, manipulating family photos with ease.
In addition, in a digital-Internet-satellite age, any image on the Web can be altered by anyone into any new image and there is no “original,” as in a negative, to prove which was first. The icons are sacred no longer. Finally, there are the bloggers: the visual or word journalist is not only overseen by a familiar hierarchy of editors or producers but by many independents who will scan, query, trade observations, and blast what they think is an error or manipulation to the entire world.
News picture-making media organizations have two paths of possible response to this unnerving new situation. First, they can stonewall, deny, delete, dismiss, counter-slur, or ignore the problem. To some extent, this is what is happening now and, ethical consideration aside, such a strategy is the practical equivalent of taking extra photos of the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The second, much more painful option, is to implement your ideals, the ones we still teach in journalism school. Admit mistakes right away. Correct them with as much fanfare and surface area as you devoted to the original image. Create task forces and investigating panels. Don’t delete archives but publish them along with detailed descriptions of what went wrong. Attend to your critics and diversify the sources of imagery, or better yet be brave enough to refuse to show any images of scenes in which you are being told what to show. I would even love to see special inserts or mini-documentaries on how to spot photo bias or photo fakery—in other words, be as transparent, unarrogant, and responsive as you expect those you cover to be.
The stakes are high. Democracy is based on the premise that it is acceptable for people to believe that some politicians or news media are lying to them; democracy collapses when the public believes that everybody in government and the press is lying to them.
And what of future victims of war? Will the public deny them their sorrows because we will dismiss all smoking rubble and dead children as mere digital propaganda?
Photojournalism must live, but not if its practitioners and owners are determined to jump into the abyss.
By David D. Perlmutter
(August 17, 2006) -- The Israeli-Hezbollah war has left many dead bodies, ruined towns, and wobbling politicians in its wake, but the media historian of the future may also count as one more victim the profession of photojournalism. In twenty years of researching and teaching about the art and trade and doing photo-documentary work, I have never witnessed or heard of such a wave of attacks on the people who take news pictures and on the basic premise that nonfiction news photo- and videography is possible.
I'm not sure, however, if the craft I love is being murdered, committing suicide, or both.
Perhaps it would be more reassuring if the enemy at the gates was a familiar one—politicians, or maybe radio talk show hosts. But the photojournalist standing on the crumbling ramparts of her once proud citadel now sees the vandal army charging for the sack led by “zombietime,” “The Jawa Report,” “Powerline,” “Little Green Footballs,” “confederateyankee,” and many others.
In each case, these bloggers have engaged in the kind of probing, contextual, fact-based (if occasionally speculative) media criticism I have always asked of my students. And the results have been devastating: news photos and video shown to be miscaptioned, radically altered, or staged (and worse, re-staged) for the camera. Surely “green helmet guy,” “double smoke,” “the missiles that were actually flares,” “the wedding mannequin from nowhere,” the “magical burning Koran,” the “little girl who actually fell off a swing” and “keep filming!” will now enter the pantheon of shame of photojournalism.
A few photo-illusions are probably due to the lust for the most sensational or striking-looking image—that is, more aesthetic bias than political prejudice. Also, many photographers know that war victims are money shots and some will break the rules of the profession to cash in. But true as well is that local stringers and visiting anchors alike seem to have succumbed either to lens-enabled Stockholm syndrome or accepted being the uncredited Hezbollah staff photographer so as to be able to file stories and images in militia-controlled areas.
It does not help that certain news organizations have acted like government officials or corporate officers trying to squash a scandal. The visual historian in me revolts when an ABC producer informs me that Reuters “deleted all 920 images” by the stringer who produced the “Beirut double smoke” image and is “less than willing to talk about it.” Can you say “18-minute gap,” anyone?
There is one great irony here. From a historical perspective, this is the golden age of photojournalistic ethics. In previous eras wild retouching, rearranging, cutting of images and even staging and restaging of events for the camera were commonly accepted in the trade. As someone who has written a history of images of war, I can testify there is more honesty in war photography today than ever in the past in any medium or any war--but there is, of course, much more scrutiny as well.
The main point is that we are now at a social, political and technological crossroads for media—amateur, industrial, and all points and persons in between. First, we live in Photoshop-CGI culture. People are accustomed to watching the amazing special effects of modern movies, where it seems any scene that can be imagined can be pixilated into appearing photorealistic. On our desktop, many of us are photoshopping our lives, manipulating family photos with ease.
In addition, in a digital-Internet-satellite age, any image on the Web can be altered by anyone into any new image and there is no “original,” as in a negative, to prove which was first. The icons are sacred no longer. Finally, there are the bloggers: the visual or word journalist is not only overseen by a familiar hierarchy of editors or producers but by many independents who will scan, query, trade observations, and blast what they think is an error or manipulation to the entire world.
News picture-making media organizations have two paths of possible response to this unnerving new situation. First, they can stonewall, deny, delete, dismiss, counter-slur, or ignore the problem. To some extent, this is what is happening now and, ethical consideration aside, such a strategy is the practical equivalent of taking extra photos of the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The second, much more painful option, is to implement your ideals, the ones we still teach in journalism school. Admit mistakes right away. Correct them with as much fanfare and surface area as you devoted to the original image. Create task forces and investigating panels. Don’t delete archives but publish them along with detailed descriptions of what went wrong. Attend to your critics and diversify the sources of imagery, or better yet be brave enough to refuse to show any images of scenes in which you are being told what to show. I would even love to see special inserts or mini-documentaries on how to spot photo bias or photo fakery—in other words, be as transparent, unarrogant, and responsive as you expect those you cover to be.
The stakes are high. Democracy is based on the premise that it is acceptable for people to believe that some politicians or news media are lying to them; democracy collapses when the public believes that everybody in government and the press is lying to them.
And what of future victims of war? Will the public deny them their sorrows because we will dismiss all smoking rubble and dead children as mere digital propaganda?
Photojournalism must live, but not if its practitioners and owners are determined to jump into the abyss.
Monday, August 14, 2006
The Real War ...
…one more time.
By Michael Ledeen
Watching the war in Lebanon and listening to the debate about it, is just like watching the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its attendant debate. Israelis are demanding the resignation of Olmert, just as Americans are demanding the head of Bush. Israeli military experts, real and self-proclaimed, are explaining how the Lebanon war could have been won, if only the ground campaign had started earlier, or had been more ambitious. American strategists of varying competence are explaining how the Iraq war could have been won, if only there were more boots on the ground, or if only a different strategy had been employed, or if only the Baathist army had been kept intact.
I think it’s nonsense. Both campaigns and both debates suffer from the same narrow focus, the same failure of strategic vision, the same obsession with a single campaign in a single place, when the war itself — the real war — is far wider. Our leaders and our pundits are fighting single battles, and, since their strategies are not designed to win the real war, they are doomed to fail. The failure of strategic vision is not unique to politicians, or pundits, or military strategists; it seems common to them all. It is extremely rare to hear an authoritative voice addressing the real war.
The terror masters in Syria and Iran are waging a regional war against us, running from Afghanistan and Iraq to, Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon. Alongside the ground war in the Middle East, they are conducting fifth-column operations against us from Europe to India and on to Indonesia, Australia, and the United States; the plot just dismantled in Great Britain provides the latest evidence.
Israel cannot destroy Hezbollah by fighting in Lebanon alone, just as we cannot provide Iraq and Afghanistan with decent security by fighting only there. The destruction of Hezbollah requires regime change in Damascus. Security in Iraq and Afghanistan requires regime change in Damascus and Tehran. Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, and Afghanistan are not separate conflicts. They are battlefields in a regional war.
Even if the Israelis had conducted a brilliant campaign that killed every single Hezbollah terrorist in Lebanon, it would only have bought time. The Syrians and Iranians would have restocked, rearmed and resupplied the Hezbollahis, and prepared for the next battle. But if the Assad regime were replaced with a government opposed to terrorism and committed to freedom, Hezbollah would die of logistical starvation, cut off from money, weapons, training facilities, and the crucial support of Syrian and Iranian military and intelligence organizations.
In like manner, even if we continue to win every battle in every region of Iraq and Afghanistan, we will only prolong the fighting. The Iranians and their various allies inside Iraq, from the Baathist remnant to the Sadrists to Hezbollah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and other foreign terrorists, would continue to infiltrate the country, buy agents within Iraq, develop new generations of IEDs and smuggle ever more accurate rockets and missiles to use against us and the Iraqi forces of order. They will do the same in Afghanistan. But if the mullahcracy is replaced by a government empowered by the tens of millions of pro-American and pro-democracy people now oppressed by the evil terror masters in Tehran, the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan would be quickly transformed into a manageable operation with the balance of power overwhelmingly on the side of the governments.
The longer we wait, the larger the real war becomes. Iran has been at war with us for 27 years and we have yet to respond. As time passes, and our fecklessness is confirmed, the mullahs’ confidence grows. Surely they must believe that their moment has come, that we will never respond, that they can bloody us and force us to retreat. That is the clear lesson of Lebanon, and they are undoubtedly raising the stakes for the next round. The Iranian missiles used against Israeli warships off the coast of Lebanon are now pouring into Somalia, and will be used against our ships in one of the most strategically sensitive areas of the world economy. The clandestine network rolled up in London surely extends to this country, and it is only a matter of time until they get lucky. Just a few weeks ago, the Germans fortunately discovered powerful bombs on their railroads. The French found similar weapons a couple of years ago. The Italians have arrested 40 people, are expelling many others, and have more than a thousand under surveillance.
These are the outlines of future events in the real war. We have a president who, despite his many weaknesses, speaks as if he understands it. But we have a secretary of state who speaks and acts as if she did not, a secretary of defense who has manifestly failed to grasp the true strategic dimensions of our peril, and an intelligence community that is still obsessed with the failed theories of the recent past, notably the nonsense about the unbridgeable Sunni-Shiite conflict. The president has finally begun to speak the truth about Islamic fascists, but he has yet to level with the American people about the magnitude of the real war, and ask them to support a strategy for victory.
That strategy does not, even today, require greatly expanded military action against the terror masters. Our most potent weapon against them remains the rage and courage of their own peoples. We must support those people, we must openly call and work for regime change in Syria and Iran. Heartbreakingly and foolishly, our failure to support revolution makes military action more and more likely. If we do not do the logical and sensible things, if we do not deploy the massive political weapons at our disposal, we will end by doing terrible things. Or, shrinking from the consequences of such action, we will suffer defeat, and the world will be plunged into a darkness the likes of which any civilized person must dread.
Faster, please.
— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.
By Michael Ledeen
Watching the war in Lebanon and listening to the debate about it, is just like watching the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its attendant debate. Israelis are demanding the resignation of Olmert, just as Americans are demanding the head of Bush. Israeli military experts, real and self-proclaimed, are explaining how the Lebanon war could have been won, if only the ground campaign had started earlier, or had been more ambitious. American strategists of varying competence are explaining how the Iraq war could have been won, if only there were more boots on the ground, or if only a different strategy had been employed, or if only the Baathist army had been kept intact.
I think it’s nonsense. Both campaigns and both debates suffer from the same narrow focus, the same failure of strategic vision, the same obsession with a single campaign in a single place, when the war itself — the real war — is far wider. Our leaders and our pundits are fighting single battles, and, since their strategies are not designed to win the real war, they are doomed to fail. The failure of strategic vision is not unique to politicians, or pundits, or military strategists; it seems common to them all. It is extremely rare to hear an authoritative voice addressing the real war.
The terror masters in Syria and Iran are waging a regional war against us, running from Afghanistan and Iraq to, Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon. Alongside the ground war in the Middle East, they are conducting fifth-column operations against us from Europe to India and on to Indonesia, Australia, and the United States; the plot just dismantled in Great Britain provides the latest evidence.
Israel cannot destroy Hezbollah by fighting in Lebanon alone, just as we cannot provide Iraq and Afghanistan with decent security by fighting only there. The destruction of Hezbollah requires regime change in Damascus. Security in Iraq and Afghanistan requires regime change in Damascus and Tehran. Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, and Afghanistan are not separate conflicts. They are battlefields in a regional war.
Even if the Israelis had conducted a brilliant campaign that killed every single Hezbollah terrorist in Lebanon, it would only have bought time. The Syrians and Iranians would have restocked, rearmed and resupplied the Hezbollahis, and prepared for the next battle. But if the Assad regime were replaced with a government opposed to terrorism and committed to freedom, Hezbollah would die of logistical starvation, cut off from money, weapons, training facilities, and the crucial support of Syrian and Iranian military and intelligence organizations.
In like manner, even if we continue to win every battle in every region of Iraq and Afghanistan, we will only prolong the fighting. The Iranians and their various allies inside Iraq, from the Baathist remnant to the Sadrists to Hezbollah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and other foreign terrorists, would continue to infiltrate the country, buy agents within Iraq, develop new generations of IEDs and smuggle ever more accurate rockets and missiles to use against us and the Iraqi forces of order. They will do the same in Afghanistan. But if the mullahcracy is replaced by a government empowered by the tens of millions of pro-American and pro-democracy people now oppressed by the evil terror masters in Tehran, the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan would be quickly transformed into a manageable operation with the balance of power overwhelmingly on the side of the governments.
The longer we wait, the larger the real war becomes. Iran has been at war with us for 27 years and we have yet to respond. As time passes, and our fecklessness is confirmed, the mullahs’ confidence grows. Surely they must believe that their moment has come, that we will never respond, that they can bloody us and force us to retreat. That is the clear lesson of Lebanon, and they are undoubtedly raising the stakes for the next round. The Iranian missiles used against Israeli warships off the coast of Lebanon are now pouring into Somalia, and will be used against our ships in one of the most strategically sensitive areas of the world economy. The clandestine network rolled up in London surely extends to this country, and it is only a matter of time until they get lucky. Just a few weeks ago, the Germans fortunately discovered powerful bombs on their railroads. The French found similar weapons a couple of years ago. The Italians have arrested 40 people, are expelling many others, and have more than a thousand under surveillance.
These are the outlines of future events in the real war. We have a president who, despite his many weaknesses, speaks as if he understands it. But we have a secretary of state who speaks and acts as if she did not, a secretary of defense who has manifestly failed to grasp the true strategic dimensions of our peril, and an intelligence community that is still obsessed with the failed theories of the recent past, notably the nonsense about the unbridgeable Sunni-Shiite conflict. The president has finally begun to speak the truth about Islamic fascists, but he has yet to level with the American people about the magnitude of the real war, and ask them to support a strategy for victory.
That strategy does not, even today, require greatly expanded military action against the terror masters. Our most potent weapon against them remains the rage and courage of their own peoples. We must support those people, we must openly call and work for regime change in Syria and Iran. Heartbreakingly and foolishly, our failure to support revolution makes military action more and more likely. If we do not do the logical and sensible things, if we do not deploy the massive political weapons at our disposal, we will end by doing terrible things. Or, shrinking from the consequences of such action, we will suffer defeat, and the world will be plunged into a darkness the likes of which any civilized person must dread.
Faster, please.
— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Media Manipulators....and the Jew-Hating Media Who Love Them
It has been an interesting couple of days regarding the Israel-Hezbollah war. Keeping track of the media's coverage, I've noted two things: the exaggerated display of Lebanese war dead, and the complete lack of coverage of Israeli civilian dead. Strange, no?
No. It isn't strange. The new alliance of the Left is with the Jew-hating muslim terrorist groups that seek to extinguish Israel as an entity. And their media enablers are doing their darndest to make sure that world opinion remains firmly against Israel. Remember the photo of the green-helmeted man carrying the child, which made the front pages of every newspaper from New York to Paris (and beyond)? Check this link out, and you'll realize that this man was displaying the corpses for show in one of the most disgusting, macabre displays of media manipulation I've ever personally seen.
Then, of course, there's Reuters, the left-wing media outlet that refuses to label Hezbollah or al Qaeda "terrorists". (They say they don't want to take sides....) Well, turns out that Reuters has been running "photoshopped" pics of Beirut in an attempt to make it look considerably more decimated that it actually is. Little Green Footballs, the folks who keyed in on Dan Rather's fraudulent Bush/National Guard documents, has the goods here.
I will end this post by once again praising God that the internet exists. The dissemination of information is no longer the domain of left-wing demogogues. We're on to you!
No. It isn't strange. The new alliance of the Left is with the Jew-hating muslim terrorist groups that seek to extinguish Israel as an entity. And their media enablers are doing their darndest to make sure that world opinion remains firmly against Israel. Remember the photo of the green-helmeted man carrying the child, which made the front pages of every newspaper from New York to Paris (and beyond)? Check this link out, and you'll realize that this man was displaying the corpses for show in one of the most disgusting, macabre displays of media manipulation I've ever personally seen.
Then, of course, there's Reuters, the left-wing media outlet that refuses to label Hezbollah or al Qaeda "terrorists". (They say they don't want to take sides....) Well, turns out that Reuters has been running "photoshopped" pics of Beirut in an attempt to make it look considerably more decimated that it actually is. Little Green Footballs, the folks who keyed in on Dan Rather's fraudulent Bush/National Guard documents, has the goods here.
I will end this post by once again praising God that the internet exists. The dissemination of information is no longer the domain of left-wing demogogues. We're on to you!
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Hezbollah, And By Extension Iran and Syria, Are Responsible For EVERY Lebanese Death
The abject cowardice with which the Mohammedan jihadists wage their terror campaign against the Israeli people is a sight to behold. Were it not for the internet, they in all likelihood would win, yet again, the propaganda war against Israel. But times have changed, and technology has caught up with them; stories a compliant, left-wing, anti-Israeli press would suppress can no longer be quashed. This link, complete with pictures, tells the story. The three pictures attached to this story see Hezbollah fighters, dressed not as combatants of any kind, but in casual civilian-wear, and carrying out their operations in residential neighborhoods. Being fully aware that the retribution from the IDF and the IAF will target their position, they seek to maximize the civilian casualty numbers, then play it off as if the Israelis are responsible and are deliberately targeting Lebanese civilians. This couldn't be further from the truth. Additionally, Hezbollah is specifically targeting Israeli civilians with their indiscriminate shelling of Israeli cities. I eschew Nazi comparisons normally, but as someone who happens to know more about Nazis than most, I can tell you that these are Nazi tactics. During the London Blitz, Hitler pounded London for 57 straight nights, even though London had no strategic significance. The operation was strictly to maximize civilian casualty figures and break the morale of the English. However, I can find no trace of Hitler ever preventing German (or French, or Belgian, or any other) civilian populations from getting the hell out of a combat zone in areas that were under German control. The Mohammedans have no such principles.
As for Kofi Annan and his eruption of Jew hatred (claiming that the IDF deliberately killed four U.N. observers in Lebanon), I think it is high-time that Annan:
a.) Apologize to Israel for the slander, and
b.) Resign and retire on his oil-for-food kickbacks.
What Kofi Annan neglected to say was that the U.N. "observers" and Hezbollah have been chummy for a every long time and inhabit the same acreage in Lebanon. No doubt, Hezbollah had to have known that if they shelled Israel from these positions, there was an off chance that the IDF/IAF would strike back at that position. Thus, the best possible outcome occurred:
The Israelis killed four U.N. observers, thus ensuring a PR nightmare for Israel.
Of course, when you see a photo of Annan and Hezbollah leader Nasrallah getting cozy with each other, it all makes sense, doesn't it....
Then there is Iran, who are probably smiling from ear to ear over their proxy army's fight with Israel. This conflagration between Hezbollah and Israel has taken their nuke program off the front pages for the last two weeks. This is no coincidence.
As for Kofi Annan and his eruption of Jew hatred (claiming that the IDF deliberately killed four U.N. observers in Lebanon), I think it is high-time that Annan:
a.) Apologize to Israel for the slander, and
b.) Resign and retire on his oil-for-food kickbacks.
What Kofi Annan neglected to say was that the U.N. "observers" and Hezbollah have been chummy for a every long time and inhabit the same acreage in Lebanon. No doubt, Hezbollah had to have known that if they shelled Israel from these positions, there was an off chance that the IDF/IAF would strike back at that position. Thus, the best possible outcome occurred:
The Israelis killed four U.N. observers, thus ensuring a PR nightmare for Israel.
Of course, when you see a photo of Annan and Hezbollah leader Nasrallah getting cozy with each other, it all makes sense, doesn't it....
Then there is Iran, who are probably smiling from ear to ear over their proxy army's fight with Israel. This conflagration between Hezbollah and Israel has taken their nuke program off the front pages for the last two weeks. This is no coincidence.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Oh Well....
"The truth is — let me say this clearly — we didn't even expect (this) response ... that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us," said deputy chief of the Hezbollah's political arm, Mahmoud Komati.
He said Hezbollah had expected "the usual, limited response" from Israel.
In the past, he said, Israeli responses to Hezbollah actions included sending commandos into Lebanon, seizing Hezbollah officials and briefly targeting specific Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon.
He said Hezbollah had expected "the usual, limited response" from Israel.
In the past, he said, Israeli responses to Hezbollah actions included sending commandos into Lebanon, seizing Hezbollah officials and briefly targeting specific Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
A Window of Opportunity
The war against the terror masters redux.
By Michael Ledeen
9/11 happened when Osama bin Laden looked at us, and thought we were ready to be had. We were politically divided, and squabbling over everything. We clearly were not prepared to take casualties in direct combat. The newly elected president seemed unable to make a tough decision. And so Osama attacked, expecting to deliver a decisive blow to our national will, expecting we would turn tail and run, as we had in Somalia, and expecting he would then be free to concentrate his energies on the defeat of local apostates, the creation of his caliphate, and the organization of Muslim revenge for the catastrophes of past centuries.
Within a few months he was driven out of Afghanistan, his organization was shattered, the Arab street he had hoped to mobilize was silenced by the shock and awe of the total victory of the Americans, and he became an instrument of forces greater than himself. If he still lives, he is the servant of the Shiite mullahs, making propaganda movies and audiotapes to bolster the morale of the constantly shrinking number of his admirers, while the mullahs order his followers to martyr themselves against Iraqi civilians.
He had earned his humiliation by misunderestimating his enemy.
He would no doubt recognize the similarities between his own disastrously wrong analysis, and the Iranian blunders leading up to the sequence of events in Gaza and northern Israel. As on 9/11, we, along with our Israeli allies, were internally divided, indeed far more so than in 2001. As on 9/11, there was broad and deep public opposition to war, and both our and Israeli leaders had seemingly lost the will to fight, talking openly about exit strategies and negotiated settlements.
In Israel, the hated Sharon was on life support, gone forever from public life, and succeeded by a man of lesser charisma and limited military experience. The political class drifted from withdrawal to withdrawal. Hezbollah lobbed missiles into northern Israel, totally without response in kind, and Olmert proclaimed yet further withdrawals.
In America, the hated Bush was at record lows in public opinion, daily excoriated by the major media, and constantly criticized by European leaders buoyed by polls showing their electors’ utter contempt for America and the American president. Indeed, the Europeans had protected Iran from any possibility of American action against the regime in Tehran by playing along with a patently phony negotiating strategy.
Who could imagine a forceful response against most any escalation in the mullahs’ long war against the infidels and crusaders? There was not even a rhetorical response to the daily panegyrics from Ahmadinejad, Khamenei, Larijani and the others, calling for death to the Jews, death to the Americans, death to the Iraqi collaborationists, death to the apostate Muslims wherever they were.
The auguries — and the Persians are a superstitious people — were generally good. In some cases, spectacularly good. Fanatics with Iranian support, for example, had overrun Somalia,, and there was good reason to believe the new government would constitute a valuable staging base for terrorists and for Iranian military operations against the American fleet in the Gulf. Throughout the Muslim world, Ahmadinejad was like a rock star, drawing huge crowds wherever he went, even so far away as Indonesia. A demonstration of strength against the greater and lesser Satans in the Middle East would greatly enhance his appeal. And the legions of death now amounted to 23 terrorist groups, plus the obedience of their Syrian puppet, Bashir Assad.
Moreover, escalation was required to address some annoying problems. Demonstrations continued to break out across Iran itself, involving virtually all elements of the country’s diverse population. A show of strength, and above all of American impotence, would weaken the resolve of the mullahs’ enemies. Elsewhere, Hamas was having a tough time in Palestine, and the hasty migration of top leaders to Damascus — obviously concerned about their physical well-being — was not the sort of triumphal message one wanted sent to the Islamist masses. Then there was Iraq, where most of the people were openly hostile to Tehran, and where Ayatollah Sistani continued to exercise a substantial gravitational pull on millions of Iranians. Despite several efforts, the mullahs had been unable to have him assassinated. Nor had the thousands of intelligence agents and military officers sent from Iran to Iraq been able to catalyze a civil war, despite spreading around millions of dollars and hundreds of martyrs among all the ethnic and religious groups.
Finally, there was the Divine Message, the promise that the End of Days would soon be upon mankind, and the Hidden Imam would emerge from the bottom of his well, lead the believers to victory, and command the planet. The description of the moment of his return was well known: a time of chaos and suffering, that could be accelerated by the faithful if they were brave enough.
Not, then, the tactical thinking described by so many — distracting world attention from the nuclear standoff, now headed for the U.N. — but something of an entirely greater order of magnitude. Omar, the insightful blogger at “Iraq the Model,” sees it in the streets of Baghdad:
We are seeing some signs here that make us think that Iran and its tools in Iraq are trying to provoke the rise of the imam through forcing the signs they believe should be associated with that rise. One of the things that do not feel right is the sudden appearance of new banners and writings on the walls carrying religious messages talking specifically of imam Mehdi. These messages are getting abundant in Baghdad and in particular in the eastern part of the capital where Sadr militias are dominant and a special number can be seen in the area of the interior ministry complex.
The interesting part is that these banners appeared within less than 24 hours after Hizbollah kidnapped the Israeli soldiers. Coincidence? I don't think so.
And so they struck, first in Gaza, then in northern Israel, and, as always, in Iraq and Afghanistan and India. They imagined, just as Osama had prophesied five years earlier (almost to the Muslim day; according to their calendar Wednesday the 19th was the anniversary of our 9/11), that the regional assault would bring our allies and us to our knees. We would lose our will to fight, and abandon the battlefield to the army of Allah, and Hamas, and Moqtada, and the Badr brigades, and all the others.
It’s the same misunderestimation as before, for tyrants have always been unable to imagine the remarkable ability of free people to respond to challenge, and to organize quickly, voluntarily, and effectively to fight their enemies. Hwzbollah now risks rout, and Assad, sensing his peril, is whispering promises of betrayal in order to ensure his own survival. The Iranians still threaten Armageddon, but, so far at least, have been unable to demonstrate the capacity to provoke it.
A fine line separates charisma from buffoonery, and, instead of spreading revolutionary hegemony over the region, the mullahs risk being seen as unacceptably dangerous clowns. Never before have Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Kuwaitis, and Iraqis spoken so forcefully against the terrorists (Hamas and Hezbollah, Sunni and Shiite) and their state sponsors in Tehran and Damascus. Instead of driving us from the battlefield, they now must contend with the very real danger that their former prey will unite against the mullahs and the Baathist remnant.
The terror masters risk the same terrible humiliation and defeat as befell Osama, and as things stand, only we can save them from the logical and moral consequences of their folly.
Stranger things have happened, and powerful forces within this peculiar administration are striving mightily to preserve the Iranian and Syrian regimes. To be sure, they do not exactly put it that way. They sing the chorus of crackpot realism: Preserve stability; focus on the immediate problem (Hezbollah); let the professionals do their diplomatic work. Then there are the brief stanzas set aside for the mellow voices of the CIA (joined on this occasion by Thomas Friedman, chanting yet another peace-initiative-for-the-innocents): Syria has always helped us; Assad is young; he will improve; we have friends in Damascus; if he falls the terrorists will take over; let us work with him.
It now lies to President Bush to decide. We must hope that he is not charmed. If he can now recall what he said after 9/11, that the world must make the stark choice of being with us or against us, and that those who support the terrorists will be treated as terrorists themselves, then the deadly logic of their failed attack will close around the throats of the terror masters. The battle against Hezbollah is part of the broader war, as the mullahs well understood when they unleashed Nasrallah and Mughniyah against the Israelis. Israel is now conducting that battle; it is up to us to prosecute the rest of the war.
Now is the time to tell our soldiers in Iraq that “hot pursuit” is okay, that the terrorist training camps on both sides of Iraq are legitimate targets, to be attacked in self-defense. Now is the time to tell the Iraqi government to come forward with the abundant evidence of Iranian evil-doing, and that we will support a fight against the mullahs’ foot soldiers in Iraq. These actions will signal the next stage of the war against the terror masters, which is the vigorous support of the pro-democracy forces in Syria and Iran.
It is a wondrous window of opportunity. As so often in our history, it was opened by our enemies. Let’s go for it.
Now, please. It may not open again for quite a while.
— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute
By Michael Ledeen
9/11 happened when Osama bin Laden looked at us, and thought we were ready to be had. We were politically divided, and squabbling over everything. We clearly were not prepared to take casualties in direct combat. The newly elected president seemed unable to make a tough decision. And so Osama attacked, expecting to deliver a decisive blow to our national will, expecting we would turn tail and run, as we had in Somalia, and expecting he would then be free to concentrate his energies on the defeat of local apostates, the creation of his caliphate, and the organization of Muslim revenge for the catastrophes of past centuries.
Within a few months he was driven out of Afghanistan, his organization was shattered, the Arab street he had hoped to mobilize was silenced by the shock and awe of the total victory of the Americans, and he became an instrument of forces greater than himself. If he still lives, he is the servant of the Shiite mullahs, making propaganda movies and audiotapes to bolster the morale of the constantly shrinking number of his admirers, while the mullahs order his followers to martyr themselves against Iraqi civilians.
He had earned his humiliation by misunderestimating his enemy.
He would no doubt recognize the similarities between his own disastrously wrong analysis, and the Iranian blunders leading up to the sequence of events in Gaza and northern Israel. As on 9/11, we, along with our Israeli allies, were internally divided, indeed far more so than in 2001. As on 9/11, there was broad and deep public opposition to war, and both our and Israeli leaders had seemingly lost the will to fight, talking openly about exit strategies and negotiated settlements.
In Israel, the hated Sharon was on life support, gone forever from public life, and succeeded by a man of lesser charisma and limited military experience. The political class drifted from withdrawal to withdrawal. Hezbollah lobbed missiles into northern Israel, totally without response in kind, and Olmert proclaimed yet further withdrawals.
In America, the hated Bush was at record lows in public opinion, daily excoriated by the major media, and constantly criticized by European leaders buoyed by polls showing their electors’ utter contempt for America and the American president. Indeed, the Europeans had protected Iran from any possibility of American action against the regime in Tehran by playing along with a patently phony negotiating strategy.
Who could imagine a forceful response against most any escalation in the mullahs’ long war against the infidels and crusaders? There was not even a rhetorical response to the daily panegyrics from Ahmadinejad, Khamenei, Larijani and the others, calling for death to the Jews, death to the Americans, death to the Iraqi collaborationists, death to the apostate Muslims wherever they were.
The auguries — and the Persians are a superstitious people — were generally good. In some cases, spectacularly good. Fanatics with Iranian support, for example, had overrun Somalia,, and there was good reason to believe the new government would constitute a valuable staging base for terrorists and for Iranian military operations against the American fleet in the Gulf. Throughout the Muslim world, Ahmadinejad was like a rock star, drawing huge crowds wherever he went, even so far away as Indonesia. A demonstration of strength against the greater and lesser Satans in the Middle East would greatly enhance his appeal. And the legions of death now amounted to 23 terrorist groups, plus the obedience of their Syrian puppet, Bashir Assad.
Moreover, escalation was required to address some annoying problems. Demonstrations continued to break out across Iran itself, involving virtually all elements of the country’s diverse population. A show of strength, and above all of American impotence, would weaken the resolve of the mullahs’ enemies. Elsewhere, Hamas was having a tough time in Palestine, and the hasty migration of top leaders to Damascus — obviously concerned about their physical well-being — was not the sort of triumphal message one wanted sent to the Islamist masses. Then there was Iraq, where most of the people were openly hostile to Tehran, and where Ayatollah Sistani continued to exercise a substantial gravitational pull on millions of Iranians. Despite several efforts, the mullahs had been unable to have him assassinated. Nor had the thousands of intelligence agents and military officers sent from Iran to Iraq been able to catalyze a civil war, despite spreading around millions of dollars and hundreds of martyrs among all the ethnic and religious groups.
Finally, there was the Divine Message, the promise that the End of Days would soon be upon mankind, and the Hidden Imam would emerge from the bottom of his well, lead the believers to victory, and command the planet. The description of the moment of his return was well known: a time of chaos and suffering, that could be accelerated by the faithful if they were brave enough.
Not, then, the tactical thinking described by so many — distracting world attention from the nuclear standoff, now headed for the U.N. — but something of an entirely greater order of magnitude. Omar, the insightful blogger at “Iraq the Model,” sees it in the streets of Baghdad:
We are seeing some signs here that make us think that Iran and its tools in Iraq are trying to provoke the rise of the imam through forcing the signs they believe should be associated with that rise. One of the things that do not feel right is the sudden appearance of new banners and writings on the walls carrying religious messages talking specifically of imam Mehdi. These messages are getting abundant in Baghdad and in particular in the eastern part of the capital where Sadr militias are dominant and a special number can be seen in the area of the interior ministry complex.
The interesting part is that these banners appeared within less than 24 hours after Hizbollah kidnapped the Israeli soldiers. Coincidence? I don't think so.
And so they struck, first in Gaza, then in northern Israel, and, as always, in Iraq and Afghanistan and India. They imagined, just as Osama had prophesied five years earlier (almost to the Muslim day; according to their calendar Wednesday the 19th was the anniversary of our 9/11), that the regional assault would bring our allies and us to our knees. We would lose our will to fight, and abandon the battlefield to the army of Allah, and Hamas, and Moqtada, and the Badr brigades, and all the others.
It’s the same misunderestimation as before, for tyrants have always been unable to imagine the remarkable ability of free people to respond to challenge, and to organize quickly, voluntarily, and effectively to fight their enemies. Hwzbollah now risks rout, and Assad, sensing his peril, is whispering promises of betrayal in order to ensure his own survival. The Iranians still threaten Armageddon, but, so far at least, have been unable to demonstrate the capacity to provoke it.
A fine line separates charisma from buffoonery, and, instead of spreading revolutionary hegemony over the region, the mullahs risk being seen as unacceptably dangerous clowns. Never before have Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Kuwaitis, and Iraqis spoken so forcefully against the terrorists (Hamas and Hezbollah, Sunni and Shiite) and their state sponsors in Tehran and Damascus. Instead of driving us from the battlefield, they now must contend with the very real danger that their former prey will unite against the mullahs and the Baathist remnant.
The terror masters risk the same terrible humiliation and defeat as befell Osama, and as things stand, only we can save them from the logical and moral consequences of their folly.
Stranger things have happened, and powerful forces within this peculiar administration are striving mightily to preserve the Iranian and Syrian regimes. To be sure, they do not exactly put it that way. They sing the chorus of crackpot realism: Preserve stability; focus on the immediate problem (Hezbollah); let the professionals do their diplomatic work. Then there are the brief stanzas set aside for the mellow voices of the CIA (joined on this occasion by Thomas Friedman, chanting yet another peace-initiative-for-the-innocents): Syria has always helped us; Assad is young; he will improve; we have friends in Damascus; if he falls the terrorists will take over; let us work with him.
It now lies to President Bush to decide. We must hope that he is not charmed. If he can now recall what he said after 9/11, that the world must make the stark choice of being with us or against us, and that those who support the terrorists will be treated as terrorists themselves, then the deadly logic of their failed attack will close around the throats of the terror masters. The battle against Hezbollah is part of the broader war, as the mullahs well understood when they unleashed Nasrallah and Mughniyah against the Israelis. Israel is now conducting that battle; it is up to us to prosecute the rest of the war.
Now is the time to tell our soldiers in Iraq that “hot pursuit” is okay, that the terrorist training camps on both sides of Iraq are legitimate targets, to be attacked in self-defense. Now is the time to tell the Iraqi government to come forward with the abundant evidence of Iranian evil-doing, and that we will support a fight against the mullahs’ foot soldiers in Iraq. These actions will signal the next stage of the war against the terror masters, which is the vigorous support of the pro-democracy forces in Syria and Iran.
It is a wondrous window of opportunity. As so often in our history, it was opened by our enemies. Let’s go for it.
Now, please. It may not open again for quite a while.
— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. He is resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Unintentional Funny Quote of the Day
Courtesy of Howard Dean, the man who can rightly be called "the gift that just keeps on giving":
"If you think what's going on in the Middle East today would be going on if the Democrats were in control, it wouldn't, because we would have worked day after day after day to make sure we didn't get where we are today. We would have had the moral authority that Bill Clinton had when he brought together the Northern Irish and the IRA, when he brought together the Israelis and the Palestinians.”
"If you think what's going on in the Middle East today would be going on if the Democrats were in control, it wouldn't, because we would have worked day after day after day to make sure we didn't get where we are today. We would have had the moral authority that Bill Clinton had when he brought together the Northern Irish and the IRA, when he brought together the Israelis and the Palestinians.”
Who Came First....Ron Burgundy Or Dan Rather?
Dan Rather, obviously. But if you read this article, you get the idea that Will Ferell's Ron Bergundy character in Anchorman was inspired, in no small part, by the likes of Dan Rather. Here's a snippet to whet your whistle (too funny for words):
“Sometimes I’ve had people tell me, ‘Dan, this is not healthy for your career,’” he added. “Well, my answer to that is, to hell with the career. I didn’t get into journalism as a careerist. I’m not going to go out of journalism as a careerist. So yes, I’m biased about doing independent journalism. And you bet I’m prejudiced. I’m prejudiced toward reporters — and America is filled with reporters who want to do the right thing...News, real news, is a wake-up call, not a lullaby. And I’m not in the lullaby business.”
Oooh....Dan. You're so brave, sticking your neck out there all these years! Of course, Rather still claims that the Bush National Guard documents (which were a fraud) haven't been proven to be forgeries, so his hoary pronouncements about his independence and his crusading news style all dovetail nicely into his pompous character.
Read the article. 'Tis a hoot.
“Sometimes I’ve had people tell me, ‘Dan, this is not healthy for your career,’” he added. “Well, my answer to that is, to hell with the career. I didn’t get into journalism as a careerist. I’m not going to go out of journalism as a careerist. So yes, I’m biased about doing independent journalism. And you bet I’m prejudiced. I’m prejudiced toward reporters — and America is filled with reporters who want to do the right thing...News, real news, is a wake-up call, not a lullaby. And I’m not in the lullaby business.”
Oooh....Dan. You're so brave, sticking your neck out there all these years! Of course, Rather still claims that the Bush National Guard documents (which were a fraud) haven't been proven to be forgeries, so his hoary pronouncements about his independence and his crusading news style all dovetail nicely into his pompous character.
Read the article. 'Tis a hoot.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Since I Happen To Be Talking About Drummers....
....I figured I'd share with you a funny anecdote.
My friend Evan, a great drummer in his own right, was living in Virginia for a time. He had several drum students. One of whom he had was a 13 yr. old kid who, though he was technically proficient and diligent in his drum studies, hit the drums "like a p**ssy". (His words.) Communicating this issue to me over the phone, I asked Evan if this kid eats red meat. He said he didn't know (how would he?), but he'd ask. I told him he could probably fix this problem with his student if he got him on a red meat diet. (Better to amp up male aggression, didn't you know?) Evan mentioned to this kid's father that he should get his kid to eat more red meat, as it would help him with his drumming.
Week or two later, the kid comes in for his lesson. He's beating the crap out of the drums. The difference in attack is palpable. Evan asks the kid what he's doing differently. The kid says nothing. Evan asks him about his diet. The kid says his father is making him eat steak and hamburger every night, and he doesn't understand why.
Still the best piece of advice I ever gave someone.
My friend Evan, a great drummer in his own right, was living in Virginia for a time. He had several drum students. One of whom he had was a 13 yr. old kid who, though he was technically proficient and diligent in his drum studies, hit the drums "like a p**ssy". (His words.) Communicating this issue to me over the phone, I asked Evan if this kid eats red meat. He said he didn't know (how would he?), but he'd ask. I told him he could probably fix this problem with his student if he got him on a red meat diet. (Better to amp up male aggression, didn't you know?) Evan mentioned to this kid's father that he should get his kid to eat more red meat, as it would help him with his drumming.
Week or two later, the kid comes in for his lesson. He's beating the crap out of the drums. The difference in attack is palpable. Evan asks the kid what he's doing differently. The kid says nothing. Evan asks him about his diet. The kid says his father is making him eat steak and hamburger every night, and he doesn't understand why.
Still the best piece of advice I ever gave someone.
Drummers
I attended a house party last night with a friend in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Featured at this party were two bands, one of whom I arrived too late to have seen (I heard they were awful). But I did catch the second band. Not terribly compelling, this second band did have some sense of melody and an ever-so-slight trace of imagination. But one thing they didn't have was a good drummer. The guy they had playing was awful. Later in the night I spoke to a fellow who was involved with the aforementioned band at one point, but no longer was. He said that he was actually a drummer himself, but was playing keyboards with them (for some reason). When their original drummer left, he wanted to switch to his natural instrument, but the band said they wanted to bring in their friend instead. Their friend, it so happens, had no training on the drums at all. As of last night, he'd only been playing for six months. Supposedly, he'd made "great progress" over the last six months. Not enough for me. He was awful in every way: behind the beat, unimaginitve, no feel. He was excrutiating to listen to.
I make no bones about the fact that I'm a music snob. I come from the school of thought that you should have some semblance of self-awareness regarding your capabilities before you go out in public and perform. I'm not condemning in totality the punk rock movement of the late 70's, but it did do something thoroughly detrimental to the musical ethos that said that you should master your instrument before venturing out into performance. The punk rock philosophy was essentially that the better you are, the more disgusting you are. The original bass player of the Sex Pistols, Glen Matlock, got himself kicked out of the band (despite being the author of all of their songs) because he was "too good....he knew all these fancy chords and he liked the Beatles". The long-term damage this attitude has done to live music is palpable, and it was on display last night at this party. I didn't need to talk to the band members in question to know that they probably had the attitude that their "art" was more important than having proficiency on their instruments. If they didn't think that, they wouldn't have brought their "friend" into the band to play drums. They would've gotten themselves a competent player instead.
A few years back it dawned on me that almost every band that I love has a highly competent, imaginitive drummer as their rhythmic lynchpin: The Who, The Police, Rush, Yes (both drummers, though I like Bruford better), ELP, Genesis, Kansas, to name a few. Even Ringo Starr of The Beatles, no Buddy Rich he, had tremendous imagination. (Listen to "Ticket to Ride" or "Tomorrow Never Knows" for examples of this; those beats are COOL, imaginitive, and highly original.) Another example of this would be the Smashing Pumpkins, who's drummer (Jimmy Chamberlain) was a steamroller of a drummer: technically proficient, energetic, strong, if not terribly innovative.
I hope I'm wrong about this, but it seems as if the day of the kick-ass drummer is over, or at least dormant. Between drum machines and this punk attitude pervading up-and-coming bands, I'm not hearing alot out there, either in the clubs or on the radio.
Where have you gone, Keith Moon? The rock and roll nation turns its lonely eyes to you....
I make no bones about the fact that I'm a music snob. I come from the school of thought that you should have some semblance of self-awareness regarding your capabilities before you go out in public and perform. I'm not condemning in totality the punk rock movement of the late 70's, but it did do something thoroughly detrimental to the musical ethos that said that you should master your instrument before venturing out into performance. The punk rock philosophy was essentially that the better you are, the more disgusting you are. The original bass player of the Sex Pistols, Glen Matlock, got himself kicked out of the band (despite being the author of all of their songs) because he was "too good....he knew all these fancy chords and he liked the Beatles". The long-term damage this attitude has done to live music is palpable, and it was on display last night at this party. I didn't need to talk to the band members in question to know that they probably had the attitude that their "art" was more important than having proficiency on their instruments. If they didn't think that, they wouldn't have brought their "friend" into the band to play drums. They would've gotten themselves a competent player instead.
A few years back it dawned on me that almost every band that I love has a highly competent, imaginitive drummer as their rhythmic lynchpin: The Who, The Police, Rush, Yes (both drummers, though I like Bruford better), ELP, Genesis, Kansas, to name a few. Even Ringo Starr of The Beatles, no Buddy Rich he, had tremendous imagination. (Listen to "Ticket to Ride" or "Tomorrow Never Knows" for examples of this; those beats are COOL, imaginitive, and highly original.) Another example of this would be the Smashing Pumpkins, who's drummer (Jimmy Chamberlain) was a steamroller of a drummer: technically proficient, energetic, strong, if not terribly innovative.
I hope I'm wrong about this, but it seems as if the day of the kick-ass drummer is over, or at least dormant. Between drum machines and this punk attitude pervading up-and-coming bands, I'm not hearing alot out there, either in the clubs or on the radio.
Where have you gone, Keith Moon? The rock and roll nation turns its lonely eyes to you....
Proof (Yet Again) That Supply-Side Economics Works
The New York Times must've caused themselves a great deal of agita going to print with this headline:
Surprising Jump in Tax Revenues Is Curbing Deficit
Ouch! You mean you can actually take in more money by having lower taxes than higher ones?!? What a novel concept! Well....not to those of us who know the hows and whys of supply-side economics (also known as "trickle down economics"). Let me explain to those of you who aren't quite clear how this works:
Businessman A owns a Subchapter S corporation (which means that all the company's profits are counted as his personal, direct income) and makes $500,000 a year. Under the Clinton tax brackets, he got taxed federally at 39.5%, not counting state and local taxes. Then, in 2001, his income tax is lowered from 39.5% to 35%, meaning he gets to keep more of his income...$22,500 more, to be exact. What is businessman A going to do with this money, you ask? Well, he could do a few things. He could a.) invest it back into his company, meaning he'd have buy some more stuff, which creates revenues for another company that he does business with, since he's buying their merchandise, b.) hire a new employee, which would create more tax revenues for the federal government, since that employee will get taxed as well, c.) invest it personally, either into a CD (which creates taxable interest), or even a mutual fund (which also creates capital gains and interest income, all of which are taxed). The only place that Businessman A could put the money where it WOULDN'T create more tax revenues for the government is in a safe-deposit box or under his mattress.
That, my friends, is supply-side economics in a nutshell. The more money you keep, the more you spend. And the more you spend, the more somebody gets taxed.
However, the geniuses at the Times (note the underlying sarcasm) seemed genuinely amazed that such a concept actually works. To wit:
"An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief."
"Unexpected"? Not to this guy.
Someone should force Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Bill Keller, and their resident "economist" Paul Krugman to read Milton Friedman, because obviously, they still don't have even the slightest clue as to how economics work, particularly supply-side, Laffer Curve economics.
Duh.
Surprising Jump in Tax Revenues Is Curbing Deficit
Ouch! You mean you can actually take in more money by having lower taxes than higher ones?!? What a novel concept! Well....not to those of us who know the hows and whys of supply-side economics (also known as "trickle down economics"). Let me explain to those of you who aren't quite clear how this works:
Businessman A owns a Subchapter S corporation (which means that all the company's profits are counted as his personal, direct income) and makes $500,000 a year. Under the Clinton tax brackets, he got taxed federally at 39.5%, not counting state and local taxes. Then, in 2001, his income tax is lowered from 39.5% to 35%, meaning he gets to keep more of his income...$22,500 more, to be exact. What is businessman A going to do with this money, you ask? Well, he could do a few things. He could a.) invest it back into his company, meaning he'd have buy some more stuff, which creates revenues for another company that he does business with, since he's buying their merchandise, b.) hire a new employee, which would create more tax revenues for the federal government, since that employee will get taxed as well, c.) invest it personally, either into a CD (which creates taxable interest), or even a mutual fund (which also creates capital gains and interest income, all of which are taxed). The only place that Businessman A could put the money where it WOULDN'T create more tax revenues for the government is in a safe-deposit box or under his mattress.
That, my friends, is supply-side economics in a nutshell. The more money you keep, the more you spend. And the more you spend, the more somebody gets taxed.
However, the geniuses at the Times (note the underlying sarcasm) seemed genuinely amazed that such a concept actually works. To wit:
"An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief."
"Unexpected"? Not to this guy.
Someone should force Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Bill Keller, and their resident "economist" Paul Krugman to read Milton Friedman, because obviously, they still don't have even the slightest clue as to how economics work, particularly supply-side, Laffer Curve economics.
Duh.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Fun Fourth of July Facts
Though the Fourth is generally regarded as the day the Declaration of Independence was ratified and signed, this is not the case. The motion for independence was ratified on July 2nd, whereas the final document was ratified on July 4th. All the necessary signatories didn't add their names to it until weeks after. John Adams, more responsible than any other colonial delegate for the ultimate vote to break away from Great Britain, wrote this in one of his letters to his wife, Abigail:
"The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more."
Thomas Jefferson's original draft was cut down and/or changed significantly by approximately 25%, according to author David McCullough. Sitting next to Benjamin Franklin on July 3 and 4 as Franklin removed or changed significant pieces of the document, Jefferson "is not known to have uttered a word in protest, or in defense of what he had written. Later he would decribe the opposition to his draft as being like 'the ceaseless action of gravity weighing upon us night and day'."
Jefferson's original draft actually blamed George III for the slave trade, which was promptly extricated for any number of reasons, among them that a.) Jefferson himself owned a plethora of slaves, b.) a large amount of the Continental Congress owned slaves, and c.) George IIII didn't start slavery, and it was silly to say that he did, particularly in so important a document. That said, the slavery issue hung over the revolutionary delegates' heads. In the end, they punted on the issue. The roots of the abolition movement can be traced to before the Declaration of Independence, but the time for abolition had not come. Eighty years later, it would.
John Adams was also intimately involved in the editorial process of the Declaration. Gone from the document, vis-a-vis Adams, were Jeffersonian flights of bathos, such as: "These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren...we must endeavor to forget our former love for them. We might've been a free and great people together". But the one phrase, mostly Jeffersonian, but with small touches from Adams, was this:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Happy Independence Day.
"The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more."
Thomas Jefferson's original draft was cut down and/or changed significantly by approximately 25%, according to author David McCullough. Sitting next to Benjamin Franklin on July 3 and 4 as Franklin removed or changed significant pieces of the document, Jefferson "is not known to have uttered a word in protest, or in defense of what he had written. Later he would decribe the opposition to his draft as being like 'the ceaseless action of gravity weighing upon us night and day'."
Jefferson's original draft actually blamed George III for the slave trade, which was promptly extricated for any number of reasons, among them that a.) Jefferson himself owned a plethora of slaves, b.) a large amount of the Continental Congress owned slaves, and c.) George IIII didn't start slavery, and it was silly to say that he did, particularly in so important a document. That said, the slavery issue hung over the revolutionary delegates' heads. In the end, they punted on the issue. The roots of the abolition movement can be traced to before the Declaration of Independence, but the time for abolition had not come. Eighty years later, it would.
John Adams was also intimately involved in the editorial process of the Declaration. Gone from the document, vis-a-vis Adams, were Jeffersonian flights of bathos, such as: "These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren...we must endeavor to forget our former love for them. We might've been a free and great people together". But the one phrase, mostly Jeffersonian, but with small touches from Adams, was this:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Happy Independence Day.
World Cup
I made an effort, perhaps for the first time in my life, to watch a World Cup match end-to-end. I've never been much of a soccer fan, but I figured, as I've been compelled to do by various pro-soccer advocates, to give it a chance. I did....and the same gripes that I've had about the game since I was a kid (too slow, not enough scoring chances, etc.) all came back to me. But I also came another conclusion about soccer: the utter lack of sportsmanship exhibited amongst the players. Let me explain....
Having grown up watching mostly baseball and hockey, there is a certain etiquette that goes along with winning. There's also a certain behavior that should be observed when it comes to injuries, both minor and major. Soccer has none of them. For example, whilst watching the Portugal/England match, I noticed that almost every player that went down due to a legal or illegal trip writhed in agony as if having been shot. I consequently found myself screaming at the television, "Get the f**k up, you f**king p**y!!!" after a while. (My latent crudities come to the surface whilst watching sports; I otherwise attempt to keep them in check.) In hockey, this is called "diving", and it is looked down upon with contempt. Before the wave of Europeans invaded North American hockey, this type of behavior was rare, and a "diver" was an object of derision throughout the league, even on his own team. European players, perhaps schooled in the soccer ethos predicated on making the most minor of collisions appear as abject acts of evil (with excrutiating physical agony the end result), brought this ethos into the sport. Thirty years after Swedish defenseman Borje Salming entered into the NHL as the first European player in North American professional hockey, the NHL has instituted a two-minute minor penalty for diving. This would've never had to have been implemented during the Rocket Richard/Gordie Howe era, but there you go. I can't say that all European players are guilty of this type of behavior, as there are some genuinely tough ones that follow the North American hockey ethos of playing 'til you need to go to the hospital, but unfortunately there are too many Europeans that cry over minimal contact. In soccer, that's not only not penalized, it's rewarded. Ugh.
Having grown up watching mostly baseball and hockey, there is a certain etiquette that goes along with winning. There's also a certain behavior that should be observed when it comes to injuries, both minor and major. Soccer has none of them. For example, whilst watching the Portugal/England match, I noticed that almost every player that went down due to a legal or illegal trip writhed in agony as if having been shot. I consequently found myself screaming at the television, "Get the f**k up, you f**king p**y!!!" after a while. (My latent crudities come to the surface whilst watching sports; I otherwise attempt to keep them in check.) In hockey, this is called "diving", and it is looked down upon with contempt. Before the wave of Europeans invaded North American hockey, this type of behavior was rare, and a "diver" was an object of derision throughout the league, even on his own team. European players, perhaps schooled in the soccer ethos predicated on making the most minor of collisions appear as abject acts of evil (with excrutiating physical agony the end result), brought this ethos into the sport. Thirty years after Swedish defenseman Borje Salming entered into the NHL as the first European player in North American professional hockey, the NHL has instituted a two-minute minor penalty for diving. This would've never had to have been implemented during the Rocket Richard/Gordie Howe era, but there you go. I can't say that all European players are guilty of this type of behavior, as there are some genuinely tough ones that follow the North American hockey ethos of playing 'til you need to go to the hospital, but unfortunately there are too many Europeans that cry over minimal contact. In soccer, that's not only not penalized, it's rewarded. Ugh.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Churchill On Secrecy During Wartime
"The truth is to be protected by a bodyguard of lies."
[How far we strayed, eh?]
[How far we strayed, eh?]
An Excerpt From Stephen Ambrose's "D-Day"
Ike had these leak problems, too. Difference then was that the Stateside press didn't paste it on the front page. (Think this would be the case today?):
In April [1944], Maj. Gen. Henry Miller, chief supply officer of the U.S. Ninth Air Force and a West Point classmate of Eisenhower's, went to a cocktail party at the Claridge Hotel [London, England]. He began talking freely, complaining about his difficulties in getting supplies but adding that his problems would end after D-Day, which he declared would be before June 15. When challenged on the date, he offered to take bets. General Eisenhower learned of the indiscretion the next morning and acted immediately. He ordered Miller reduced to his permanent rank of colonel and sent him back to the States-the untimate disgrace for a career soldier. Miller protested. Eisenhower insisted, and back he went.
There was another flap in May ['44] when a U.S. Navy officer got drunk at a party and revealed details of impending operations, including areas, lift, strenght, and dates....that officer too was sent back to the States.
In April [1944], Maj. Gen. Henry Miller, chief supply officer of the U.S. Ninth Air Force and a West Point classmate of Eisenhower's, went to a cocktail party at the Claridge Hotel [London, England]. He began talking freely, complaining about his difficulties in getting supplies but adding that his problems would end after D-Day, which he declared would be before June 15. When challenged on the date, he offered to take bets. General Eisenhower learned of the indiscretion the next morning and acted immediately. He ordered Miller reduced to his permanent rank of colonel and sent him back to the States-the untimate disgrace for a career soldier. Miller protested. Eisenhower insisted, and back he went.
There was another flap in May ['44] when a U.S. Navy officer got drunk at a party and revealed details of impending operations, including areas, lift, strenght, and dates....that officer too was sent back to the States.
More On The Seditious Ol' Gray Lady
I pulled this excerpt from Pajamasmedia.com. I think it speaks volumes about the utter arrogance of the mainstream media and their blithe ignorance of the damage and death they facilitate:
KATHARINE GRAHAM, the publisher of The Washington Post who died in 2001, backed her editors through tense battles during the Watergate era. But in a 1986 speech, she warned that the media sometimes made “tragic” mistakes.
Her example was the disclosure, after the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut in 1983, that American intelligence was reading coded radio traffic between terrorist plotters in Syria and their overseers in Iran. The communications stopped, and five months later they struck again, destroying the Marine barracks in Beirut and killing 241 Americans.
“This kind of result, albeit unintentional, points up the necessity for full cooperation wherever possible between the media and the authorities,” Ms. Graham said.
But such cooperation can prove problematic, as her newspaper’s former editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee, has recounted.
In 1986, after holding for weeks at government request a scoop about an N.S.A. tap on a Soviet undersea communications cable, The Post learned that the Russians knew all about it already from an N.S.A. turncoat named Ronald Pelton. NBC beat The Post on its own report.
Michelle Malkin boils down this attitude better than I could possibly. To wit:
"Nothing lays out their priorities better. The risk of them going ahead is our lives, and the risk to them for not going ahead is they may get scooped. The article clearly shows why the media should not be allowed to decide what classified programs to expose. It is an attempt to show how seriously they take their job. But what is shows me is how deadly their arrogant mistakes can be to others. The media now has a self documented history of getting people killed by exposing details they did not understand, or appreciate the implications surrounding these details. Their ignorance and arrogance is a deadly combination, as they have now reported in the NY Times."
KATHARINE GRAHAM, the publisher of The Washington Post who died in 2001, backed her editors through tense battles during the Watergate era. But in a 1986 speech, she warned that the media sometimes made “tragic” mistakes.
Her example was the disclosure, after the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut in 1983, that American intelligence was reading coded radio traffic between terrorist plotters in Syria and their overseers in Iran. The communications stopped, and five months later they struck again, destroying the Marine barracks in Beirut and killing 241 Americans.
“This kind of result, albeit unintentional, points up the necessity for full cooperation wherever possible between the media and the authorities,” Ms. Graham said.
But such cooperation can prove problematic, as her newspaper’s former editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee, has recounted.
In 1986, after holding for weeks at government request a scoop about an N.S.A. tap on a Soviet undersea communications cable, The Post learned that the Russians knew all about it already from an N.S.A. turncoat named Ronald Pelton. NBC beat The Post on its own report.
Michelle Malkin boils down this attitude better than I could possibly. To wit:
"Nothing lays out their priorities better. The risk of them going ahead is our lives, and the risk to them for not going ahead is they may get scooped. The article clearly shows why the media should not be allowed to decide what classified programs to expose. It is an attempt to show how seriously they take their job. But what is shows me is how deadly their arrogant mistakes can be to others. The media now has a self documented history of getting people killed by exposing details they did not understand, or appreciate the implications surrounding these details. Their ignorance and arrogance is a deadly combination, as they have now reported in the NY Times."
Sunday, July 02, 2006
The Battle of the Somme, 1916
Yesterday marked the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme, which was a five-month bloody slog during the First World War that ended with no clear victor. Not a big deal in the States (we hadn't entered WWI yet), it is one of the most solemn occasions in Great Britain, where on the first day alone (July 1, 1916), the British took 60,000 casualties, with 20,000 killed-in-action. By the end of the five month battle, the British, encompassing Aussies, New Zealanders, Canadians, Newfoundlanders, South Africans, as well as English, Scots, Welsh, and Irish, lost a total of 400,000 men, 100,000 of which were KIA. The French lost 200,000, with 50,000 KIA. The Germans lost anywhere from 450,ooo to 600,000, with 160,000 KIA.
It is a source of lasting annoyance to me that the Europeans remain soft in their views regarding the impending takeover of the Islamists on their continent. But when one puts it into context, any time the Europeans used war as an instrument of change in the 20th century, it has had disasterous consequences. Sadly, the one time when they're needed to stand up for Western Civilization, they can't muster the courage anymore. If one needs to have some idea why, look up the story of the Somme.
It is a source of lasting annoyance to me that the Europeans remain soft in their views regarding the impending takeover of the Islamists on their continent. But when one puts it into context, any time the Europeans used war as an instrument of change in the 20th century, it has had disasterous consequences. Sadly, the one time when they're needed to stand up for Western Civilization, they can't muster the courage anymore. If one needs to have some idea why, look up the story of the Somme.
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