« October 2005 | Main | December 2005 »
November 30, 2005
Slower, Please
Michael Leeden has an excellent piece on the Bush Administration’s strange drift into appeasement. The Harriet Miers debacle was not a one-off, but a part of a larger trend.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 01:00 PM
This isn’t Disinformation
The head of Fox News Channel’s documentary unit, Brian Gaffney, recently e-mailed me to say that the network will air a one-hour special entitled "Winning Iraq: The Untold Story" on Saturday December 3 at 9 p.m. (EST). It will re-air at midnight. Gaffney writes: "We sent Greg Palkot and a production team all around Iraq for six weeks. They met Iraqis from across the country and came back with a really inspiring hour — one that’s a lot different from what most Americans see each night on the evening news." All of my sources on the ground tell me the same thing: we are winning the war on the ground and losing on the airwaves. The media simply doesn’t cover US and Iraqi military operations, which are almost invariably successful. Have you heard about Operation Namur (Arabic for Tigers), which is taking the fight to terrorists in Ramadi this week? Or Operation Steel Curtain last week? Or the campaign in Tal Afar in September? So far the media only sees fit to report the enemy’s strikes, not those of the allies. Here’s hoping that Fox’s special begins to redress the imbalance.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 11:57 AM
LGF’s Foul Ball
Little Green Footballs scores more editorial touchdowns than The New York Times, but it recently dropped the ball. In Nov. 18 post, a Duke University professor for "demonstrating once again that special moral obtuseness that marks so many of America’s college professors." What was the professor’s offense? Praising bin Laden’s prose style in Arabic. (Prof. Bruce Lawerence reads Arabic and recently translated a collection of bin Laden’s speeches and recordings.) So how did LGF step out of bounds? It turns that Prof. Lawerence’s remarks, printed in a student newspaper (!), were taken out of context. In a recent radio interview I read from LGF’s post and questioned Lawerence about his praise of bin Laden’s prose style. He pointed that Che Guevara and other human monsters can speak beautifully, while doing evil. He made it quite clear that he is not pro-bin Laden, referring to him as "evil" and his message as "poison" among other things. The professor’s anti-bin Laden statements seemed genuine, not a mere rhetorical flourishes. And, while Lawerence is a man of the left, he is an unusual one: he repeatedly described himself as a "24-7 Christian," later adding that he an ordained minister who reveres the orthodox 1928 Book of Common Prayer. LGF could have done better...
Posted by Richard Miniter at 08:48 AM
November 18, 2005
Inside Bush’s NSC
Okay, it is the usually snarky Washington Post piece on a Bush appointee. But the man in question, Michael Doron, runs the Middle East section of the National Security Council, so this entertaining diversion is also worth a read. Note that Doron, an Irish Catholic whose parents did not go to college, is described as a "neo-con." Whatever.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 09:00 AM
When Legal Eagles Are Rats
You’ve heard about the avalanche of lawsuits filed on behalf of terrorists held in Gitmo, ever wonder who is paying their lawyers? It turns out that it is you and me—thorough our mutual funds and 401(k)s. Major American companies, including Boeing and United Airlines, are paying law firms that provide free legal services to miltants captured in Afghanistan and Iraq. Read Deroy Murdock's shocking report.
Here’s a sample:
What drives America’s highest-flying legal eagles to soar tirelessly and for free on behalf of suspected terrorists? While some attorneys seem driven by a leftish quest for "social justice," others seem intoxicated by a volatile blend of sentimentalism and naiveté.
Associate Sarah Havens of Allen & Overy’s New York office flew to Guantanamo bearing gifts for her clients. (The British firm can expect $1.22 billion in revenues, and includes Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase among its 1,800 lawyers’ clients.) "Snickers were a big hit," she said in last Feb. 18’s New York Lawyer. Her colleague, Sarah Fels, sounded downright weepy as she headed home: "The hard part was to leave and know they were going back into captivity."
Covington & Burling’s Marc Falkoff helps defend 13 Yemeni bystanders — as he reportedly called them in the April 7 Miami Herald — who were arrested in the wrong place in Pakistan and handed to U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Falkoff considers these men harmless.
"I would invite any one of them to sleep over at my apartment," Falkoff said. "None of these guys are terrorists. None of these guys is a danger to the United States."
The U.S. military’s "detention of enemy combatants is not criminal in nature," says Pentagon press officer Flex Plexico, "but to prevent them from continuing to fight against the United States in the War on Terrorism...as well as to gather intelligence to thwart further terrorist assaults."
Falkoff might ponder this declassified Pentagon description of one of his potential houseguests: "A detainee who admits to being one of (Osama bin Laden’s) primary drivers and bodyguards had in his possession surface to air missiles when captured."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 08:45 AM
Activist Judges — In Israel
So now it is official. Imperial judges, who ignore the written law for their own policy preferences, cite international laws to overturn domestic constitutions and use the Geneva Conventions to hamper the war on terror, are a major problem—in Israel. Just as in America, and in the European Union, activist judges in the Holy Land have used the Supreme Court for their own ends. Caroline Glick has an excellent column on this phenomena that afflicts the entire industrialized world, with the possible exception of Japan. (And, oh yes, they Bork judges in Israel too.) Glick makes an intriguing point about judicial activism and the war on terror:
"Last month the court outlawed the IDF’s practice of having Palestinians knock on the doors of wanted terrorists in order to shield Israeli security forces from attack. The court based its ruling on the Geneva Conventions even though the Knesset has never ratified its applicability to Judea, Samaria and Gaza.Also this year, in a series of rulings regarding the route of the security fence, the court has repeatedly second-guessed the Defense Ministry’s judgment of how Israelis can best be defended from terrorist attack. The court based its authority to interfere with the Defense Ministry’s executive authority on the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) July 2004 advisory opinion on the security fence - yet the ICJ has no legal standing in Israeli law. Indeed, in the case of the advisory opinion on the security fence, (which has no international legal weight anywhere), the Justice Ministry rejected the ICJ’s right to even discuss the matter and refused to send representatives to present arguments at the Hague."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 08:30 AM
November 16, 2005
Why is Zarqawi Still At Large?
This Los Angeles Times article makes some progress answering that question, but it downplays many of the recent major captures of senior members of Zarqawi’s network. If the LA Times is right, then assassinating Iraqi informants has slowed the flow of tactical intelligence. How is it then that informers are revealing to Coalition forces the hideouts of Zarqawi’s top officers? This account, compiled from DoD press reports, says that Abu Hassan was captured in a safe house thanks a tip from an informant. So why is Zarqawi still free? The truth might be this prosaic: luck and self-discipline. Neither can last forever.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 05:25 PM
Losing by Press in Afghanistan
This paper, by a Canadian historian in Paramaters, a military journal, is the best overview that I have seen in a long time on the current situation in Afghanistan. It is guardedly optimistic. Problems remain, but the author is clear eyed about them. The biggest problems are caused by the press' hunt for an Afghan Abu Ghraib, demanding Nuremberg or Bosnia style international trials, a media obsession with fighting a drug war in Afghanistan, and a continued belief that more boots on the ground are the answer. Really worth reading.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 02:15 PM
November 14, 2005
Time’s Decline
Time magazine still has some fine reporters, but the editorial standards of the newsweekly seem to have declined in lock-step with its circulation. But, as this story makes plain, Time is now relying on enemy spokesmen in Iraq (calling them insurgents, not anti-democratic terrorists) as if they are simply another interest group. In an otherwise vanilla story about the Amman wedding attack, Time cites an enemy propagandist (oh sorry, there I go speakly directly, I mean, "insurgent source") saying that he and they had no foreknowledge of the attack. Do the editors not realize that al Qaeda and Ba’athist enemy forces have entire propaganda units to fight the media war and that that is the only war the enemy is winning? Where do they think those al Jazeera video tapes come from and why do they think that they are produced? Why play into the enemy’s hands by quoting them as if they are simply one point of view among many?
Hat tip: Little Green Footballs.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 11:45 AM
How Myths Are Made
Juan Cole, the University of Michigan Arabist and soon-to-be President of the Middle East Studies Association, finally gets a good Fisking. Read the whole thing. For readers of my new book, Disinformation, who ask how are media myths made? Myriad means, of course. But Juan Cole has created his share.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:43 AM
Persia Unveiled
Michael Rubin, the Farsi-speaking scholar and former Defense Department
official, has written a fascinating overview of Iranian politics. If you want to understand the deep currents of Iranian politics—and therefore the roots of the emerging atomic crisis—you should read it.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 01:07 AM
November 11, 2005
Paris Burns, Brussels Suffers Cyber-Attack
Paul Belien, the editor of the Brussels Journal, a new web site that has had some stunning and politically incorrect coverage of the French riots, e-mails me to say that his site is now under attack.
"Brussels Journal is under attack, apparently someone is trying to bring down our server. Have we been too successful? Luc Van Braekel (the webmaster) thinks the attack comes from someone at Boeing because there is an enormous amount of traffic from Boeing, he says. Poor me, such a Americanophile being attacked by the Americans. ... If we cannot be reached the coming days, you know what is wrong."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:15 PM
November 09, 2005
Damascus, Watch The Skies
This is a more in-depth treatment by the Washington Post of Bush Administration’s evolving policy toward Syria. It is a must read.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 12:50 PM
Investigate the CIA
Jed Babbin, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, finally says in print what certain informed members of the intelligence community have been saying for almost a year: investigate why the CIA sent Joe Wilson to Niger? I add to his list of questions, this one: Why didn’t the CIA simply ask its Niger station chief to look into the yellowcake rumors, rather than sending a retired ambassador living 10,000 miles away?
Posted by Richard Miniter at 07:24 AM
November 08, 2005
Is Syria Next?
The Washington Post is reporting, in its blog section(!), that U.S. military planners have been "updating" their target lists for Syria. Here’s the money quote: "Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld directed U.S. Central Command to prepare a ‘strategic concept’ for Syria, the first step in creation of a full-fledged war plan. The planning includes courses of action for cross-border operations to seal the Syrian-Iraqi border and destroy safe havens supporting the Iraqi insurgency, attacks on Syrian weapons of mass destruction infrastructure supporting the development of biological and chemical weapons, and attacks on the Syrian regime. U.S. forces have also been operating along the Syrian border since early 2003, and there have been numerous reports of clashes between U.S. and Syrian forces on Syrian soil, as well as reports of U.S. special operations forces operating inside Syria."
In fact, that isn’t just the money quote, it is pretty much the whole article. Why doesn’t the Washington Post think this is worth full front-page treatment?
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:52 PM
They’re Burning Churches Too
Michel Gurfinkiel, writing from France for the New York Sun, has some interesting observations. He notes that at least two churches have been torched in the New French Civil War. Adding that the memory of these riots will linger long after the ashes have been swept up, Turkey’s chances of joining the EU have just dropped into the basement.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 07:17 PM
What French Police Should Do Now
As always, Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post is worth reading. This column includes the most sensible advice for restoring order in France that I have seen anywhere. If Sarcozy were in charge, this might actually happen.
It would seem that the French authorities need a two-pronged approach to dealing with their mini civil war. First they need to take control of the violence. In order to do so, they have to stop chasing the rioters and have the rioters come to them. This is necessary in order for them to gain a basic understanding of the command structure of the rival they face. There are people giving orders. There are people deciding where and what to attack. These people need to be arrested and either sent to prison or deported.
Were the police to choose tactically significant locations within the ghettos where these militants live and simply take them over, they would force the militants to confront them in an area they can control. The locations they choose should afford them geographical control over a discrete area - say one square block. As the militants attack them, reinforcements can enter the area from pre-planned routes and easily take control of the area.
In the arrests that will ensue, the police will be able to see, after confiscating the militants' cellular phones, where their orders are coming from, and move swiftly to arrest the lieutenants, who will lead them up the feeding chain. In acting in such a manner, the authorities will induce systemic shock on the militants, who will suddenly be forced to contend with a previously unfamiliar situation - French government control over "their" territory. By thus gaining the initiative, the authorities will be able to eventually achieve control over the violence.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:51 PM
Red State Reads
RedState.org takes a look at Disinformation. Check it out here.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:42 PM
November 03, 2005
Shameless Plug
Here is a link to the National Review Online interview with me, done by ever talented K-Lo.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 07:15 PM
C’est la Zone, monsieur
The riots in Paris have been building for years. This is one of the best pieces that I have seen in a while on rising Muslim rage in Europe and how compassionate Europeans are indirectly fueling it. Largely the same observations could be made about Brussels and, I suspect, Rotterdam and Amsterdam as well as Hamburg.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 02:22 PM
November 01, 2005
The Iraq you don’t know
Iraq is booming and not just with bombs. Michael Rubin, who has
travelled widely in Iraq free of U.S. military minders, writes in National Review Online:
"In August 2005, new business registrations have topped 30,000; this figure does not include the number of start-ups which still ignore Iraqi-registration rules.
"Ordinary Iraqis are financially better off now than they were at any time in the past two decades. According to World Bank and International Monetary Fund estimates, per capita income has doubled since 2003. Iraq’s per capita gross domestic product is today almost twice that of Yemen and nearing that of Egypt and Syria, hardly a sign of failure in a country in which, just three years ago, antiwar groups insisted children were starving en masse. Statistics aside, the Iraqi economic boom is apparent to anyone who visits an Iraqi market. Not only are appliances and luxuries in the stores, but customers are actually purchasing them."
Posted by Richard Miniter at 08:08 PM