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August 23, 2005
"In the Company of Heroes" Again
Tune in to the Fox News Channel Sunday, September 4th at 8 PM eastern. They are wisely re-running "In the Company of Heroes," the dramatic documentary that reveals the character and grit of today's American soldier. It is a careful, nuanced portrait—not blind, rah-rah patriotism. The producers have assembled dramatic shots that have never seen air before and more importantly, ably tell the stories of real soldiers fighting in Iraq. If you liked "Band of Brothers," you will love the real thing.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 08:52 PM
The Syrian Democrats
For those who like to look over the horizon, I recomend checking out this blog by the Reform Party of Syria. The last Ba'athist dictatorship is tottering, and the democratic resistance, small and embattled though it is, has been heartened by the liberation of Iraq, the other Ba'athist thug government.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 07:33 PM
Telling Jokes from Iraq
Michael Rubin, the AEI scholar, has a great eye for detail—and a good ear for jokes. Humor can reveal a lot more about the mood of Baghdad than say, ABC News. Here are two telling jokes that he recently heard in Iraq.
- A Japanese, American, and Iraqi are killed by a roadside bomb and go to hell. After several days in hell, each expresses a desire to call home. Satan gives the Japanese a phone. He calls Japan and talks to his family for five minutes. After the call, he is given a bill for $5 million. "Why so large?" he asks. Satan responds, "Well, Japan is a long way from hell." The American then calls home and speaks for ten minutes. His bill? $10 million. Last, the Iraqi asks to call home. After several tries, he finally gets a line. He speaks to his friends and family for an hour and a half. His bill? $2. "Why only two dollars?" he asks. "For Iraq we only need a local line," Satan responds.
- Ibrahim Jaafari goes to his office on his first day as Prime Minister. He walks into his office, and sees a rooster, a dog, and a donkey. "Why are you here?" he asks the rooster. "There is so much work to be done in Iraq, that my job is to wake you early so you have enough time to do it," the rooster responds. "What about you?" he asks the dog. "Security is a huge problem in Iraq. My job is to make sure you are protected from terrorists." "And you?" he asks the donkey? "I don't know," the donkey responds. "They dumped me in this office, the same as you."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:09 PM
August 18, 2005
Defending Novak, Fisking Gandelman
Joe Gandelman, a blogger who calls himself "the moderate voice," is going after syndicated columnist Robert Novak. He faults Novak for famously walking off a CNN set. Here's Gandelman's view:
"Some folks will make excuses for Novak, but just think about it: how many young journalists, young opinion-makers, bloggers of all ages, and columnists would give their left arm to be on CNN?"Would they walk off the set for any reason?
At the best, it shows strain; at the worst, an amazing sense of confidence that there are no consequences for his actions....which may be why Novak is at the center of the Plame case to begin with."
Okay, let's look at these remarks closely. 1) A lot of young people and bloggers would give their left arm to be on CNN. So? Unknown but ambitous people always want a shot at the small screen. Why would CNN put them on, if they can't draw ratings like Novak? By the way, being a proven TV commodity is no small achievement. TV ratings are broken in 15-minute increments and all of three of the major cable networks actually watch the ratings of their guests; imagine how zealously they scrutinize the ratings of their on-air talent. If these unknowns rated better than Novak, they would be on and he would off.
2) These unknowns wouldn't walk off the set. Again, so what? Novak's little stunt drew more attention to CNN than anything that network has done in years. Brit Hume played the clip, thereby doubling the viewership. I mean, if it wasn't for CNN International in overseas hotel rooms, I wouldn't even know the network was still on the air. Oh, and seeing Wolf Blitzer at Café Milano. Without those two data points, CNN would be well on its way to be a freshman philosophy problem—if a tree falls in the forest, and only CNN covers it, does it make a sound?
As for walking off the set, I was tempted to do that once. I had already ripped the microphone off. I had been set up and wasn't even allowed to respond to a series of attacks, which were not even based on my work. And I've talked to others who are regularly on TV. Everyone has had that moment, at least in my limited sample. But few actually do it.
3) Then Gandelman moves on to the Plame business. I never understood why Novak is supposed to be the villian here. He was simply reporting what his sources told him, which turned out be, ahem, true. You want to blame the sources, fine. They may have committed a crime. But let's not forget the elephant in the pantry here: The CIA, driven by Plame, sent Wilson to Niger with the express purpose of getting back a report to undermine a statement the president had made in the State of the Union. Why is the CIA playing politics? And why this coy, you-exposed-a-secret-agent tripe when they got caught? Why is no one talking about the CIA? I still remember when "moderates" were skeptical of that agency...
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:25 PM
August 13, 2005
Watch Fox Tonight at 9 PM
I just got an e-mail from Brian Gaffney, the former Dateline producer
who has been making some fabulous documentaries for Fox News Channel.
Remember the Oil-for-Food one a while back? That was his. Tonight's
will be even better. If it culled from hundreds of hours of never-before broadcast battle footage from Fallujah, if my memory of an earlier conversation is correct. It is called &qout;Company of Heroes." Here's Gaffney's Blackberry summary: "it's on the marines who led the charge into Fallujah and their families back home." Watch it. You won't be disappointed.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 07:46 PM
Why He Left and Why it Matters
When Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick interviewed now former finance minister Binyamin Netanyahu, she thought he was struggling with something. It turned out to be his momentous decision to resign. Her column is the best analysis of that decision and its consequences that I have seen. She doesn't mention it, but I know that she has worked for Netanyahu and knows him relatively well. Her view: Netanyahu is acting out of principle and she may well be right. She is right about one other thing that she barely touches on: The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, National Review and the major blogs have all but ignored the Gaza pullout or the national security consequences (for the United States) of creating a terrorist state with its own seaport and a land border with Egypt, which has funded terrorist operations in the past. What if Gaza becomes an al Qaeda haven? What will be the political consequences if the next president has to take military action for the mistakes of the Bush Administration?
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:41 PM
August 11, 2005
The al Qaeda video
The U.S. news media are only showing bits of the al Qaeda video recently aired on al Arabiyya. Here is a link to the full video, with English subtitles supplied by Memri, the invaluable Israeli translation outfit.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 09:55 PM
The Iraq Withdrawal We Really Need
Bring home the troops? Maybe. But what about the thousands of contractors in Iraq? asks Michael Rubin. As usual, he makes some smart on-the-ground observations in Iraq. Worth reading.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:00 PM
August 06, 2005
Aid and Comfort?
Mark Eichenlaub, one of my e-mail with a very close eye for War on Terror detail, ask an interesting question: Is the Associated Press making U.S. military operations just a little too public for the enemy to know?
He cites this recent AP wire story: "As the operation unfolds, Marines would continue to hold the region south of the Euphrates, while the Stryker Brigade, which has been based in Mosul, pushes south, putting insurgents in a "vice," a senior U.S. military strategist said." Ultimately, I'd leave this decision up to the commanders on the ground (after all, they work with this reporter)—but a little bit of caution about operational details wouldn't be a bad idea.
A number of military sources have been asking me "just whose side is the media on, anyway?" For a while, I wrote it off as the usual griping. But I've also been thinking about Olivier Roy's book Globalized Islam (Check out this review). Bear with me as a stretch out a tangent (don't worry, it will snap back into place at the end). If read enough of the militant Islamic literature—and I mean the recent stuff, not Milestones or In the Shade of the Koran)—it is surprising how many Marxist ideas and concepts one runs across. If Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri's Knight Under the Prophet's Banner, the no. 2 man in al Qaeda's cri de coeur, one finds multiple citations from the Iranian Communist Party and a frankly Marxist critique of the West. And of course all of that "crusaders" and "imperialist" name-calling is old-school Left chic too. Roy argues essentially that Islamism is not a ideological offshoot of Islam, but a Western proto-Communist ideology which hides itself in the mosque the way a London terrorist hides himself among commuters on the Tube. For many in the media, who grew up in campuses controlled by the irresponsible Left, the Islamists do not seem so foreign but oddly familiar. Rather than seeing Islamism as a civilizational threat, they see those who fear it as the same squares who thought the radical vegetarian "die in" on the quad was the end of life as we know it. Of course, they are not making careful distinctions (between peaceful protestors and bomb builders)—and maybe I am not either. But I know a lot of center-left press and I know they don't feel about the war the same way I do and I wonder why. Maybe Roy is on to something...
Posted by Richard Miniter at 11:56 PM
August 05, 2005
On Target, says former CIA official
When Prime Minister Tony Blair let stand a "shoot to kill" policy of London's Metropolitan police, the usual suspects were quick to complain. Innocents could die and so on. Of course, many more innocents could die if the suspect triggers a backpack bomb. A shot to the chest or leg could provoke the bomber to detonate his device, even if only by reflex. Former CIA operative Wayne Simmons, who recently debated an NYCLU official on Fox News, sent me an e-mail explaining why a head shot is actually the best policy:
"For those who have not seen this yet, the information on this link is EXACTLY what some of us recommended weeks ago and explains why the suspected terrorist was shot in the head. As you heard me say, it is called a NON REFLEX KILL. The purpose is to sever the Medulla Oblongata, and prevent the terrorist from squeezing a trigger or switch. Normally a sniper will shoot through the teeth, the rear base of the skull or through the ear lobe on either side of the head. Very effective."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:12 PM
The U.K, Flags, and Patriotism, Part Two
In the wake of the July 7 bombings, I noticed that there were few flags put out by the English—as compared to the number of flags Americans flew following 9-11 attacks. I received an interesting response from a longtime friend (who also happens to be the webmaster of this site, Skip Keats. As he points, there are traditionalist reasons for not flying the union jack. A (slightly) edited version of his response follows.
"Your item reminds me of something about which I asked my English godmother once, namely why the Union Jack was not flown much. (She only flew it on the Queen's Birthday and the anniversary of VE Day, which commerates the victory of the allies in the European theatre of World War II.) The goodly Hertfordshire lady she was stated that one simply did not show the flag except on military parade, the anniversaries of great military victories, and royal births, marriages or, most importantly, deaths. One did not show it to mark defeats for that would be dishonourable.If one wanted a flag used at other times, it was a national flag — the Cross of St. George in England, the Saltire of St. Andrew in Scotland, the Harp (on St. Patrick's blue, nor green) or Saltire of St. Patrick in Ireland (red-on-white), the dragon in Wales (incidentally the dragon of Wales does include a wee bit of black, mainly to outline the parts of the dragon), the Fleur-de-Lys in the Channel Isles, the Black Griffin of the Lord of the Isles or the three legs in Man. Use of the Union Jack, except at sea, was unseemly for it indicated either great victory, celebration, or the death of the monarch. The Union Jack to the British was as the Royal Standard to the Queen (as opposed to her personal standard) -- it was used only on great or austere occasions.
At my godfather's funeral in the mid-eighties, his casket was draped in the Cross of St. George and the Saltire of St. Andrew, not the Union Jack. (He was an Anglo-Scot.) He received full military honours for his burial as he had been an officer of the RAF, and, more importantly, one of Doctor Snow's "bright young men"" who invented radar and broke the Enigma code.
Aunt Jean (may she rest in peace) would be horrified that you think the Union Jack should be used to mark the remembrances of the terrorist actions. It is not a matter of patriotism. To her, it would have meant honouring the terrorists and bowing to them. The British usage of the flag is a bit different than the American. It does not represent the nation in the same way. The Queen represents the nation, hence it is her standard which has more resemblance to our uses of our flag, but it is only used by Queen Elizabeth herself as the reigning monarch."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 07:45 AM
August 04, 2005
Zarqawi's Mentor
This article by my Iraqi friend Nibras Kazimi is worth reading. The CIA and Jordanian intel decide to do something "clever" by releasing Zarqawi's mentor from prison and having him go on al-Jazeera to denounce his former acolyte. And of course it backfires. Good detail on the current state of ideological development inside al Qaeda and radical Islam too.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 05:41 PM