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Bombs kill nine on buses in Lebanon
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Page 4: Opinion
11 00:00 CrazyFool [9] 
2 00:00 mhw [6] 
5 00:00 J.D. Lux [11] 
2 00:00 JosephMendiola [6] 
4 00:00 JosephMendiola [5] 
1 00:00 JosephMendiola [4] 
1 00:00 Bobby [6] 
24 00:00 Sic_Semper_Tyrannus [4] 
6 00:00 trailing wife [7] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
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5 00:00 USN, Ret. [4]
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13 00:00 Icerigger [7]
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Europe
Drifting Apart
Posted by: ed || 02/14/2007 07:31 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Very good article. Explains the split between US & EU as well as the link between the left & Islam.

Two points made in particular form a good summation...

"So Washington’s dilemma is whether to make existentially perilous concessions to save an alliance with the unwilling."

"Globalization’s enemies are foes of the modern economy and in many cases of any advancement that comes about without giving them the power to “regulate” it. Evident is that much of this element is not recruited only among the traditionalists who crave security more than they welcome opportunity. Equally apparent is that “globalization’s” – popularly that means “Americanization” – most active foes come from two further, theoretically opposing camps. These are the eternal “Left” and the Islamic radicals."

Posted by: AlanC || 02/14/2007 9:20 Comments || Top||

#2  "Europe is McGovern country" - does this mean Euro will cry on national TV + want to believe that North Vietnam wants Amer to believe that Amer is losing in Vietnam + demand to be ignored = manipulated by the Ultra-Left??? * Article > PELOSI'S AMERICA DOES EXIST - ITS CALLED EUROPE, or in the alt as a commenter put it THE [EMPTY DIRTY GRIMEY COLORLESS WINDY] STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2007 19:47 Comments || Top||


Party Thoughts: Too Good Means Too Stupid. Let Europe Be On Its Own
This Brussels Journal article is two weeks old, but it comes closest to expressing my views as any I have read. Excerpt:
The implications for America’s foreign policy appears to be this:
(1) pursue the closely defined national interest.
(2) In doing so seek the support of the like-minded.
(3) Do not sacrifice defensible positions to purchase the ambivalent approval of those who lack the resolve to protect themselves. Remember that, counting on America once everything fails is “nice“ but also inadequate.
(4) Learn that few enemies can cause as much damage as can friends can who stand on your brake when flooring the gas pedal is called for.
(5) Once the coming crisis of the future materializes, make sure that for those who had knowingly ignored it, the price-tag is attached.
(6) Be certain that you do not reward those who had insisted on wearing dark glasses while the lights were dimming.
(7) Learn a French proverb. Memorize: “Trop bon fait bête” [to be too good means being too stupid].

These recommendations are not meant as “revenge.” The goal of the plea is to make a break with an unequal relationship. In it the USA promised to counter act whatever damage came to her European allies making these know that they are freed from having to pay the price of failure. Unlike generally assumed, blanc checks have a way of undermining security. They remove the inhibitions that prevent irresponsible moves and so provoke frivolity. A tendency is created to put up the farm and the pension fund as collateral in the game and it is coupled to disrespect towards the “bank“. The final culmination is negligence in the matter of ones own survival.

Appearing prepared to “pick up the tab” since 1949 (the foundation of NATO) the US, once Europe recovered, sent the wrong signals. Unconditional commitment being assured, she failed to demand an equivalent local dedication. Contrary to popular assumptions, under this umbrella’s protection it was not maturity that flourished. Commitment became a one-way-street. While the Soviet threat prevailed the extent to which this was true was not apparent. Currently, with the front being everywhere, we face a new situation. Not in the least as the EU has a larger population than the US and enjoys a GNP that is comparable to the “guardian’s.” Under these conditions protection, while justified in the 50s and 60s, is uncalled for.

Europe has outgrown the need for protection and it does not need the tutelage which America hardly ever exercised. By implication, the transatlantic relationship needs to be put on the basis of equality. Fewer one-sided US-guarantees are called for on the leveled playing field. The immediate result will unlikely to be the kind of support Americans, disappointed by Europe’s ingratitude, might wish for. On the long run, however, by attaching conditions to what is taken for granted might have a sobering effect. At any rate, those who exclaim (such as about the NATO’s role in Afghanistan) “this is not our war,” will at least not be doing it inside walls Washington protects. Nor is it likely that the project to place missile defenses for Europe along her east will continue be alleged to have been “agreed only under great-power pressure” and that we “have nothing to do” with what happens with Iran’s nuked missiles. What the US needs is not being liked at any price but useful partners. This means relying on those who know their interests and stand up for them. Such states will be useful associates to achieve goals that are identified as being shared. As things stand, America’s policy of alliances has produced weak and parasitic fiends and correspondingly effective enemies. Senator Kerry, attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, announced that the US is “isolated” in the world. He would obviously not agree with this essay’s allegations regarding the causes of the US’ current rejection. Nevertheless, while Kerry ignores his and his ilk’s contribution, he does state a fact.
Posted by: ed || 02/14/2007 07:27 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Spot on! I'd add that the Eastern european nations (having more recent experience with tyranny) "get it". Western europe with the possible exception of Britain is toast.
Posted by: DMFD || 02/14/2007 10:24 Comments || Top||

#2  I think the President should come up with a Free Trade pact. Get Congress to ratify it, and then any country in the world that wants free trade with the USA and is willing to abide by the restrictions, can sign it as well.

The pact should be between the US and the signatories, not between the signatories and each other. If they want that they should arrange that themselves.

I think the effect of expanding free trade would be rapid and positive, and would make the US an even more vital hub of commerce than we already are.

Oh, and we should pull our troops out of Europe, and shut down NATO. Let the Europeans turn their NATO assets into a Euro force with no logistics.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2007 12:11 Comments || Top||

#3  8) Learn what you are speaking about: the French proverb is : "Qui fait l'ange fait la bête". "Who tries to behave like an angel ends behaving like a beast".
Posted by: JFM || 02/14/2007 14:24 Comments || Top||

#4  IOW, Amer can go back into happy isolationism becuz the Euros don't = won't need us for WW1, WW2, the Cold War, let alone WW3/4, etal.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2007 20:09 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Stop the Bush Death Juggernaut: Exchange Your Dollars For, Um, Some Other Currency!
The World Can Halt Bush’s Crimes By Dumping The Dollar

By Paul Craig Roberts, Countercurrents.org

What would be the consequences of a US or Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear energy sites? . . . Such an attack justified in the name of “American security” and “American hegemony” would constitute the rawest form of evil the world has ever seen, far surpassing in evil the atrocities of the Nazi and Communist regimes.
Do you or someone you know suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome? Symptoms include excessive rhetoric, spontaneous spittle-flecked tirades, frequent flag-burning sensations, and a strange compulsion to support tyrranical madmen who'd as soon cut your throat as look at you no matter how much you do for them.
The Bush Regime has taken the US outside the boundaries of international law and is acting unilaterally, falsely declaring American military aggression to be “defensive” and in the interests of peace. Much of the world realizes the hypocrisy and danger in the Bush Regime’s justification of the unbridled use of US military power, but no countries except other nuclear powers can challenge American aggression, and then only at the risk of all life on earth.
THose with BDS also frequently suffer from immanentization of the eschaton.
The solution is nonmilitary challenge.
You too can be a Y'urp-peon! Challenge your foes with soft power!
The Bush Regime’s ability to wage war is dependent upon foreign financing. The Regime’s wars are financed with red ink, which means the hundreds of billions of dollars must be borrowed. As American consumers are spending more than they earn on consumption, the money cannot be borrowed from Americans.

The US is totally dependent upon foreigners to finance its budget and trade deficits. By financing these deficits, foreign governments are complicit in the Bush Regime’s military aggressions and war crimes. The Bush Regime’s two largest lenders are China and Japan. It is ironic that Japan, the only nation to experience nuclear attack by the US, is banker to the Bush Regime as it prepares a possible nuclear attack on Iran.

If the rest of the world would simply stop purchasing US Treasuries, and instead dump their surplus dollars into the foreign exchange market, the Bush Regime would be overwhelmed with economic crisis and unable to wage war. The arrogant hubris associated with the “sole superpower” myth would burst like the bubble it is.
"They could buy some other stable currency, like, say, Zimbabwean Dollars, or Venezuelan Bolivars, or North Korean Whatchamacallits!"
Mr. Roberts demonstrates just how extreme his BDS is, and how little he knows of economics (or anything): the world buys US dollars because the US is the safest, most secure country in the world. Our treasury securities are the most reliable bond, note, bill, on the planet. You can't get anything better. As Mike notes, what are you going to do, buy Bolivars? Or even Euros? Why buy notes issued by a dying continent? No intelligent investor is going to dump the dollar to buy currencies in dying or strife-ridden lands.
The collapse of the dollar would also end the US government’s ability to subvert other countries by purchasing their leaders to do America’s will.

The demise of the US dollar is only a question of time.
"There's never been a better time to buy gold! Hi, I'm Paul Craig Roberts for GoldBug International Gold Exchange-dot-com . . . ."
It would save the world from war and devastation if the dollar is brought to its demise before the Bush Regime launches its planned attack on Iran.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. Since being diagnosed with chronic, incurable BDS, he resides in a nice sanitorium off County Highway 62 near Bumperstown, Indiana where Nurse Rached attends to his every need. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
Definitely tossed a big plaque, didn't he?
Posted by: Mike || 02/14/2007 00:29 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Do you think that if we follow Paul's advice, we can talk to Iran and agree that Iran should have an atomic weapon and the green light to use it on Israel, and we get some Iranian promises on Iraq? Gee, why didn't Bush think of that?
Posted by: whatadeal || 02/14/2007 1:09 Comments || Top||

#2  The dollar will decline at some point, but not until China stops recycling its trade surplus (into US Treasuries).
Posted by: phil_b || 02/14/2007 1:12 Comments || Top||

#3  ...or we could, y'know, form a ring around the Pentagon and chant "Out demon out!"
Posted by: mojo || 02/14/2007 1:15 Comments || Top||

#4  I'm dumping dollars as quick as I can, and investing heavily in Mmbul, Gaw, Fe' or Rai, Yar, and Reng. These currencies are very stable and are part of a fairly inelastic money supply. I will prolly need to get a bigger mattress to keep them in.
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/14/2007 1:21 Comments || Top||

#5  If you are going to stuff the cash in your mattress, wouldn't you want it to be part of an elastic money supply for the cushiony springyness?

As for the article: the rawest form of evil the world has ever seen, far surpassing in evil the atrocities of the Nazi and Communist regimes. - A joke maybe? The only explanation I can think of is someone slep thru history class. Or spends too much time reading lefty websites.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/14/2007 2:56 Comments || Top||

#6  In what currency are the Iranians paying Mr. Roberts?
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 02/14/2007 2:58 Comments || Top||

#7  The games will be over if we see a mushroom cloud above an American city. An Iranian nuke should be a death sentence for traitors and they should know it beyond the possibility of doubt.

If an Iranian nuclear weapon goes off in the United States or Israel, every surviving moonbat, leftist, peace hypocrite, and freelance liar who has thwarted our efforts to prevent it, or has supported those who do, or has demonized our intentions and facilitated the Iranians in any way, should be hunted down and killed at once.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 02/14/2007 3:52 Comments || Top||

#8  Good grief. I haven't read anything by Paul Craig Roberts in a long time; when did he go off the deep end???
Posted by: Dave D. || 02/14/2007 6:25 Comments || Top||

#9  Apparently, BDS is a communicable disease.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/14/2007 6:45 Comments || Top||

#10  20 years ago, he made a lot of sense. I guess senility has struck early.
Posted by: Jackal || 02/14/2007 7:22 Comments || Top||

#11  It won't be one mushroom cloud. It will be 500.
Posted by: ed || 02/14/2007 7:24 Comments || Top||

#12  The Bush Regime’s ability to wage war

Ah Paul that means America would loose it's ability. Makes you wonder if liberal traitors are born that way,,, or just a side affect of mental illness.
Posted by: Icerigger || 02/14/2007 7:37 Comments || Top||

#13  Dumping The Dollar? Saddam Hussain did that ten years ago!
Posted by: Glineting Slert2228 || 02/14/2007 8:29 Comments || Top||

#14  Some analyses I've seen recently suggest that the budget will be balanced when Bush leaves office. Revenues are way up. (Still have those pesky interest payments though.)
Posted by: Spot || 02/14/2007 8:48 Comments || Top||

#15  The demise of the US dollar is only a question of time.

From the Chicago Boyz
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/004789.html

One Western-trained Chinese economist said: “We just don’t know how to do capital markets. The only countries that get the message — proper financial risk accounting, etc — are the ones that were formerly in the British Empire. Anglo-Saxons seem to have something the rest of the world just hasn’t got.”

***

Asked about reserve diversification, a senior Chinese official told a leading Western banker that China took the long view: “In half a century from now, there will still be the dollar and there will still be China.” What this remark dryly acknowledged was a truth overlooked by the “decline of American power” school. Viewed from one angle, the US is the world’s biggest debtor. Looked at from another, however, it has taken over the business of managing the world’s savings.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/14/2007 9:11 Comments || Top||

#16  The Bush Regime’s two largest lenders are China and Japan. It is ironic that Japan, the only nation to experience nuclear attack by the US, is banker to the Bush Regime as it prepares a possible nuclear attack on Iran.

That one sentence alone shows Roberts' BDS. And, a complete lack of Logic 101. Not to mention understanding that pesky cause-effect thingy.
Posted by: BA || 02/14/2007 9:20 Comments || Top||

#17  Here is a great listing of currencies for Moonbats to invest in:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_currencies

My personal favorite would be Lower Slobovian Rasbukniks. Having no value, this would make each and every Moonbat a multi-billionaire, so that they could dominate the top 1% of all income earners and tax themselves into national prosperity with a 100% tax rate.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2007 9:27 Comments || Top||

#18  They should all invest in Flanian pobble beads. I'll handle the conversions, at a rate of 20 pobble beads to the dollar.

Just give me time to get to the craft store...
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 02/14/2007 10:12 Comments || Top||

#19  In what currency are the Iranians paying Mr. Roberts?

That reminds me of a quote from a historical fiction novel I just read about Elizabethan England:

"The enemies of England are always paid in francs."
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/14/2007 11:52 Comments || Top||

#20  To really torque the Bush Regime they should sell dollars and buy Rantburgia currency.

It really surprises me when ex administration folks go whakky. Not just ex Reagan, but LBJ's Attorney General and a few other big names. I always wonder, where they nuts in the job, did the job make them nuts, did leaving the job and finding their life worthless afterwards make them crack?
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/14/2007 11:59 Comments || Top||

#21  Thanks to Mike's in-line comments, I now not only know what "immanentizing the eschaton" means (though it sounds like a big leap from Gnostics to Hillary Clinton), but I know that The New Politics of Science by David Dickson (1988) is a play on The New Science of Politics by Eric Voegelin (1952).

I love the intartubes.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 02/14/2007 12:01 Comments || Top||

#22  I think Paul just wants to see a dip in the dollar so he, himself, can buy them for less.

Hey, why not take advantage of those other BDS losers?
Posted by: Shineger Unatle5424 || 02/14/2007 12:24 Comments || Top||

#23  I now not only know what "immanentizing the eschaton" means

Me too, kewl.
And a couple french pundits I really appreciate have already mentioned the gnostic undertones/roots of socialist thought and socialism in general, including national-socialism and communism(and thus freeing "orthodox" Christianity of the oft-repeated accusation of having fathered it through a secular heresy),... so I guess this is not such a weird idea now that I know a very complicated bok made the same point 5 decades ago.

Does this means chavez is in fact locked in a desesperate struggle against the Archons to free Humanity's conciousness? Vow.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 02/14/2007 15:27 Comments || Top||

#24  That is positively the loopiest editorial I have read in ages. We can only hope that he convinces like-minded "vulture financier" George Soros to attempt to short the dollar into oblivion and thereby rein in America's power. Nothing would be sweeter than watching Soros bankrupted consequently.

Also, while bombing raids on Iran's nuclear sites are far from imminent at this time, the clock is ticking for Ahmadinejad & Co. Behind all successful international negotiations sit the possibility of the use of force, and America is not the only nation which is determined to see the plans of the mad mullahs of Tehran to possess nuclear weapons stopped in their tracks.
Posted by: Sic_Semper_Tyrannus || 02/14/2007 18:56 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Another one bites the dust (an Official John Edwards Campaign Blogger, that is)
Jim Geraghty, "The Hillary Spot," National Review

Melissa McEwan, who blogged at Shakespeare’s Sister has also departed Edwards’ campaign, resigning from her role as a technical adviser. She says this is not the back end of a deal from last week, and I suppose we should take her at her word, but what a surreal sequence of events.

Judging from the reaction on the lefty blogs, I think yesterday’s suggestion* that this has been a lose-lose for Edwards is looking accurate.

Is the lesson of this, "when your blogger embarrasses the campaign with controversial statements, fire them immediately"? Because if Edwards had done that last week, he would have made enemies among the netroots and perhaps won some respect from Catholic Democrats and folks tired of overheated rhetoric. And we would be talking about something different today. Instead, it's been a weeklong story, nobody's happy with him, and it's been a perfect drip-drip-drip narrative. Marcotte and McEwan couldn't even resign on the same day; now it's a story for another day.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Mike || 02/14/2007 08:41 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The issue isn’t the technology; it’s the temperament.

Chipmunks on acid.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/14/2007 10:33 Comments || Top||

#2  and as McEwan and Marcotte keep adding deranged and anti Catholic nonsense on their own blogs, some enterprizing reporter can ask Edwards,

"Given the comment..., do you still believe their apologies were sincere?"
Posted by: mhw || 02/14/2007 10:42 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Tony Snow Calls Lead in Today's 'NYT' Iran Editorial 'Dumbest' He's Seen in Awhile
In his White House press briefings this week, spokesman Tony Snow, amid new charges from the administration and the Pentagon of deadly Iranian activity in Iraq, has nevertheless charged that the press is "overhyping" the possibility of some sort of U.S. plan to attack Iran. Today, after many questions and challenges on this subject, he called the opening a New York Times editorial on this subject today "what may be the dumbest lead of an editorial I've seen in a long time."

Snow said, "You guys have been constantly -- I did see what may be the dumbest lead of an editorial I've seen in a long time today in The New York Times, which is, 'We need to declare ourselves on Iran.' We've declared it over and over -- we're not going to war with them. Let me make that clear. So anybody who is trying to use this as 'the administration trying to lay the predicate for a war with Iran' -- no, we're committed to diplomacy with Iran. But we are also committed to protecting our forces."

The first sentences of the Times' editorial actually read, "Before things get any more out of hand, President Bush needs to make his intentions toward Iran clear. And congress needs to make it clear that this time it will be neither tricked nor bullied into supporting another disastrous war."
Isn't that what Tony said?
Posted by: Fred || 02/14/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The NY Times is not above deceit, plagerism, and dishonesty. Is this as dumb as when the NY Times declared Fidel Castro was not a communist, but only an agrarian reformer? Just take it easy, dumber things are coming.
Posted by: whatadeal || 02/14/2007 0:27 Comments || Top||

#2  Nice news alert in the pic. What day was that?

The NYT is following the "Have you stopped beating your wife" approach.

Dumb and dumber.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/14/2007 6:23 Comments || Top||

#3  Meanwhile somewhere in Iran there is a Mullah planning to turn the New York Time's building into one big Mosque. Little does he know the liberal traitors there have already done that.

Bet Snow is laughing over his coffee this morning. That car bomb in Iran will make Tony's day.
Posted by: Icerigger || 02/14/2007 7:32 Comments || Top||

#4  lol, Bobby. We must get to the bottom of that love triangle. Actually, on 2nd thought, I'd prefer to leave that one alone.
Posted by: BA || 02/14/2007 9:15 Comments || Top||

#5  Damn it. The administration must be crystal clear on one thing. They must repeat it over and over again:

"If the US armed forces are ATTACKED by Iran, it is NOT our fault for being in the Middle East!"

Because, again damn it, that is what the left will say if Iran attacks us!

They blame America for everything. They have even blamed us for 911. Well, screw them. If Iran does attack us and starts a war, then it is bloody well THEIR fault, and any leftist Moonbat who says otherwise should get punched in the nose and told to STFU.

But it would be the ultimate humiliation for our country if WE were attacked, the left came out and blamed US for having "provoked" the attack, and then, because NOBODY argued the point with them, the public itself believed that WE were wrong for being attacked!

Wrong, damn it. Wrong. But unless Tony Snow says it, and says it a LOT, you know that this is exactly what is going to happen.

If somebody suggested this to him, at first he would say, "You have got to be kidding. Nobody is that stupid." But a few seconds later, he would agree. The left IS that stupid, and the left IS that anti-American.

And, unfortunately, if the left says that big lie enough times, and it isn't refuted, a lot of the public will believe it.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 02/14/2007 9:37 Comments || Top||

#6  How amusing. The New York Times don't care about being accused of lying, because they actually believe their own narrative. But being accused in front of their peers and the world of simple stupidity, when they believe they own the right end of the bell curve? Mr. Snow hit them where it hurts the most!
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/14/2007 21:22 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Review of Books on Iraq
via milblogs (mudvillegazette)
EFL


Iraq in Books
Review Essay
by Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2007

The Iraq war has pumped adrenaline into the publishing industry. Whereas five years ago, few bookstores included any selections on Iraq, today dozens of Iraq books line the shelves. There have been three waves of Iraq-related publishing: First came the embed accounts that described the military campaign; second were examinations of prewar planning and, third, studies of the occupation. Quantity does not equal quality, though, nor does popularity correlate to accuracy. Many of the most popular books have been deeply flawed. Many authors use their Iraq narrative to promote other agendas, be they related to U.S. domestic politics, U.N. empowerment, or independence for Kurdistan. Other authors have substituted theory for fact or tried to propel their experience into the center of the Iraq policy debate. While time has already relegated much Iraq-related writing to the secondhand shelf or dustbin, several authors have produced works that will make lasting contributions, be they to future generations of war and post-conflict reconstruction planners, or scholars looking more deeply into the fabric of Iraq.

The War in Books
Ambush Alley: The Most Extraordinary Battle of the Iraq War. By Tim Pritchard. New York: Ballantine Books, 2005. 320 pp. $25.95.

Marines in the Garden of Eden. By Richard S. Lowry. New York: Berkley Caliber, 2006. 448 pp. $24.95.

Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad. By David Zucchino. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2004. 320 pp. $24.

The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the United States Marines. By Bing West and Gen. Ray L. Smith. New York: Bantam, 2004. 336 pp. $14.

In the Company of Soldiers. By Rick Atkinson. New York: Henry Holt, 2005. 326 pp. $25.

No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah. By Bing West. New York: Bantam, 2005. 400 pp. $25.

Among Warriors in Iraq. By Mike Tucker. New York: The Lyons Press, 2005. 264 pp. $16.95.

The Blog of War: Frontline Dispatches from Military Bloggers in Iraq and Afghanistan. By Matthew Burden. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. 304 pp. $15.

Much more at link.
Posted by: Chuck || 02/14/2007 05:03 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The best here is Bing West's No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle of Fallujah, which will gain greater prominence in 2008 through a screen version with Harrison Ford as Gen. James Mattis.

Hmmmm... Is he a lefty?
Posted by: Bobby || 02/14/2007 7:28 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Ten reasons why Iran will not get the North Korean agreement
Posted by: ryuge || 02/14/2007 07:23 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  IN YOUR FACE, GOD SAYS I HAVE TO KILL YOU; versus THEY-WHOM-MUST-NOT-BE-SEEN/NAMED/HEARD BUT-MUST-BE-OBEYED.

* "All in all you're just a ... another brick in the Wall".
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2007 19:56 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Harvard’s Faustian Bargain
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 02/14/2007 11:57 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Real looker, too.
Yeeeesh..
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/14/2007 12:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Soon to be named Harvard Community College
Posted by: macofromoc || 02/14/2007 14:10 Comments || Top||

#3  I recentlt heard that the tution at Harvard is around $50k? I wonder what they are teaching?
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 02/14/2007 16:01 Comments || Top||

#4  " Men are oppressing me ".
Posted by: J.D. Lux || 02/14/2007 20:27 Comments || Top||

#5  tuition about $50k/yr
endowment about $1.5B
networking with rich people = priceless
Posted by: mhw || 02/14/2007 21:32 Comments || Top||

#6  mhw, slight correction: as of 2006 Hahvahd's endowment was $29.2B (link). Between that and their name, they are way beyond any consumer pressure that may be brought to bear on them.
Posted by: xbalanke || 02/14/2007 21:48 Comments || Top||

#7  > they are way beyond any consumer pressure

Don't count on it. Devaluing the "brand" not only effects potential students, but alumni as well.
Posted by: DMFD || 02/14/2007 22:00 Comments || Top||

#8  Harvard is going from teaching how to have "a life worth living" to spotting "sexism". President Fuss can spot sexist me buying a pound of chocolates on Valentine's Day and giving them to the girl who makes my life worth living.
Posted by: whatadeal || 02/14/2007 22:29 Comments || Top||

#9  What kind of life is it anyway, going around CONSTANTLY complaining about imagined slights and offenses. ?
Posted by: J.D. Lux || 02/14/2007 22:31 Comments || Top||

#10  #9 - a moslem one?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 02/14/2007 22:43 Comments || Top||

#11  Well that kind of explains why the 'feminists' don't go after the Muslims for their treatment of women -- birds of a feather.... Its not about equality - its about getting the bucks.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/14/2007 23:27 Comments || Top||


Forget the chocolates — bring out the podium
By Diana West

Since the American female elected to hop off her pedestal to seek “equality” with males, Valentine’s Day has been seen as a ritualistic throwback to the days when men would routinely strew the ground beneath the pedestal with candy hearts, red roses and assorted chocolates — at least, metaphorically speaking. That is, ideally, he would do so metaphorically speaking.

But it’s the ideal that counts. Valentine’s Day, now driven as much by Hallmark as by the shadow of the pedestal, follows from a societal ideal deriving from the chivalric code — a signal influence on Western civilization — which celebrated women for nobility and strength of character.

Such origins, however remote in a post-feminist world, put the holiday in the middle of that clash we read about between the West and Islam. Distinctly non-Islamic (St. Valentine was a Christian martyr from pre-Islamic times), it embodies an old-fashioned salute to La Femme that helps distinguish the West from Islam. Where the West dreamed up the pedestal, Islam bought the burqa. Where the West gave liberty and justice a female face, Islam depicted womanhood as a lowly state of fearful passion. Where in the West sexual equality evolved, in Islam sexual inequality remains.

Such inequality makes it all the more astonishing that many of the most fearlessly outspoken dissidents to have emerged from the Islamic world are, in fact, women. I have five favorites, most of whom now live in the United States. Rather than simply enjoy Western freedom, however, they have each elected to bear witness, at great personal risk, to what they know. And for all their differences of experience, religion, culture and temperament, a common theme emerges: terrorism and the attendant dangers to liberal democracy come out of the founding texts and living traditions of Islam.

First comes Bat Ye’or, the historian of the group, who has spent decades documenting the overlooked histories of non-Muslim peoples, the dhimmi, who lived under repressive Islamic law. Such chronicles have contemporary relevance as Islam’s influence expands across Europe and into America. Born in Egypt where Jews were persecuted by the government of Abdel Nasser, Bat Ye’or left the country a “stateless” refugee. British by marriage, she has written many books I wish our leaders would read, including “The Dhimmi,” “The Decline of Eastern Christianity,” and “Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis.”

Nonie Darwish, daughter of an Egyptian intelligence officer charged with carrying out Nasser’s vows to destroy Israel, saw life in Egypt from the Muslim perspective. But she never quite accepted it — not even after her father became a “shahid,” or Muslim martyr, when he was assassinated by Israel. Now a Christian, she has explained her skepticism in “Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror,” (Sentinel, 2006). Her answer is must reading.

So is the cautionary tale Brigitte Gabriel tells in “Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Jihad Warns America,” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). Ms. Gabriel, a Maronite Christian, was 10 years old when civil war broke out in 1975 in Lebanon — a war she explains as an Islamic jihad against Lebanon’s ancient Christian community. She spent the next seven years living in a bomb shelter subject to frequent shelling. After her mother was wounded and ministered to in an Israeli hospital, Ms. Gabriel saw Jews in a light her government’s propaganda had shut out. Another eye-opener.

Then there is Wafa Sultan, the Syrian-born psychiatrist and self-described “secularist” who became renowned last year in an Al Jazeera debate on the “clash of civilizations.” (”It is a clash between civilization and backwardness ... between human rights on the one hand, and the violation of these rights on the other,” she said, among many other things.) She hasn’t written a book yet, but everyone should read her transcript online at the Middle Eastern Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Finally, there is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Mogadishu-born, former Dutch parliamentarian who is probably the only ex-Muslim critic of Islam to be profiled in Vogue. (”Ali seems like a calm, reasonable woman in an Escada jacket, not at all like the kind of person who would call Muhammad a pervert or a tyrant.”) With her autobiography, “Infidel,” just out, Ms. Ali continues, calmly and reasonably, to press home politically incorrect points including the notion that rather than hijacking his religion, Osama bin Laden is following it.

Pedestals may be out, but these ladies deserve more than a box of candy. They deserve a podium.

Diana West is a columnist for The Washington Times.

Happy Valentine's Day to the wonderful women of Western civilization! As any regular knows, we have some outstanding examples right here at the 'Burg.
Posted by: ryuge || 02/14/2007 07:53 || Comments || Link || [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Happy Valentine's Day to the wonderful women of Western civilization! As any regular knows, we have some outstanding examples right here at the 'Burg.

Seconded.
Posted by: Excalibur || 02/14/2007 9:29 Comments || Top||

#2  LUCIANNE > CHAVEZ SAYS HE MISSES CONDI [verbal attacks] this Valentines day. No response yet from Hugo's love rivals the Russians.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2007 21:12 Comments || Top||

#3  I think I speak for all the ladies of Rantburg when I say how proud I am to have made the acquaintance of Rantburg's truly civilized gentlemen. Happy Valentine's Day, y'all. Give an extra kiss to your wonderful someone tonight, if you can. (I have to wait until Mr. Wife gets back from Asia, a tricky proposition in this part of the world at the moment.)
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/14/2007 21:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Also from LUCIANNE > BE MY VAGINA-TINE. Yep, feminists/femi-nazis - All together, boyz, wid feeling, "WHAT THE .....".
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/14/2007 22:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Happy Valentine's day to you to TW.
And all the other ladies too.
Posted by: J.D. Lux || 02/14/2007 22:14 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2007-02-14
  Bombs kill nine on buses in Lebanon
Tue 2007-02-13
  Tater bugs out
Mon 2007-02-12
  140 arrested in Baghdad sweeps: US military
Sun 2007-02-11
  Petraeus takes command
Sat 2007-02-10
  Iraqi and US forces push into Baghdad flashpoints
Fri 2007-02-09
  Hamas and Fatah sign unity accord
Thu 2007-02-08
  UN creates tribunal on Lebanon political killings
Wed 2007-02-07
  Fatah, Hamas talks kick off in Mecca
Tue 2007-02-06
  Yemen prepared to grant top Sheikh Sharif asylum
Mon 2007-02-05
  McNeill Assumes Command Of NATO Forces In Afghanistan
Sun 2007-02-04
  Truck boomer kills 135 in deadliest Iraq blast
Sat 2007-02-03
  22 killed and 245 wounded since Thursday in Trucefire™
Fri 2007-02-02
  Three wannabe head choppers in Brit court
Thu 2007-02-01
  Hamas ambushes Gaza "arms convoy" , Trucefire™ holding
Wed 2007-01-31
  Mo Jamal Khalifa mysteriously bumped off


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