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
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
June 01, 2005
Our Corrupt Allies
Jordan has long been identified as a model or moderate Arab land and, in many ways, it is. Civil socitety, an array of institutions from unions to mosques to clubs that is free of state control, still exists. But corruption, that third-world cancer, is no stranger and it is metasizing. If Bush is serious about democratic reform in the Middle East, it will mean turning our "friends" out of power as well as our enemies. No worries. We have plenty of friends in the streets when corrupt regimes fall. If we wait, and try to save those regimes, the people in the streets become our enemies—because we have acted like theirs. Here is an interesting article from a former Wall Street Journal correspondent. I know that this appears in the Nation; it is worth reading anyway...
Posted by Richard Miniter at 01:53 PM