Shaming "Vampire States" Part Two

This War in Iraq Ain't No Vietnam (U.S. casualties)

Defeating Jihad (certainly not the whole story, but an important part)

Mexico prefers to export its poor, not uplift them (from CSM; HT: MediaLies blog)

Indeed, Mexico's leaders have turned hypocrisy from an art form into an exact science as they shirk their obligations to fellow citizens, while decrying efforts by the US senators and representatives to crack down on illegal immigration at the border and the workplace.

What are some examples of this failure of responsibility?

• When oil revenues are excluded, Mexico raises the equivalent of only 9 percent of its gross domestic product in taxes - a figure roughly equivalent to that of Haiti and far below the level of major Latin American nations. Not only is Mexico's collection rate ridiculously low, its fiscal regime is riddled with loopholes and exemptions, giving rise to widespread evasion. Congress has rebuffed efforts to reform the system.

• Insufficient revenues mean that Mexico spends relatively little on two key elements of social mobility: Education commands just 5.3 percent of its GDP and healthcare only 6.10 percent, according to the World Bank's last comparative study.

• A venal, "come-back-tomorrow" bureaucracy explains the 58 days it takes to open a business in Mexico compared with three days in Canada, five days in the US, nine days in Jamaica, and 27 days in Chile. Mexico's private sector estimates that 34 percent of the firms in the country made "extra official" payments to functionaries and legislators in 2004. These bribes totaled $11.2 billion and equaled 12 percent of GDP.

• Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization, placed Mexico in a tie with Ghana, Panama, Peru, and Turkey for 65th among 158 countries surveyed for corruption.

• Economic competition is constrained by the presence of inefficient, overstaffed state oil and electricity monopolies, as well as a small number of private corporations - closely linked to government big shots - that control telecommunications, television, food processing, transportation, construction, and cement. Politicians who talk about, much less propose, trust-busting measures are as rare as a snowfall in the Sonoran Desert.

Geography, self-interests, and humanitarian concerns require North America's neighbors to cooperate on myriad issues, not the least of which is immigration. However, Mexico's power brokers have failed to make the difficult decisions necessary to use their nation's bountiful wealth to benefit the masses. Washington and Ottawa have every right to insist that Mexico's pampered elite act responsibly, rather than expecting US and Canadian taxpayers to shoulder burdens Mexico should assume.

Berger Will Plead Guilty To Taking Classified Paper
(So, that’s how this top Kerry foreign policy advisor would have protected national security!)

The terms of Berger's agreement required him to acknowledge to the Justice Department the circumstances of the episode. Rather than misplacing or unintentionally throwing away three of the five copies he took from the archives, as the former national security adviser earlier maintained, he shredded them with a pair of scissors late one evening at the downtown offices of his international consulting business.
The document, written by former National Security Council terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke, was an "after-action review" prepared in early 2000 detailing the administration's actions to thwart terrorist attacks during the millennium celebration. It contained considerable discussion about the administration's awareness of the rising threat of attacks on U.S. soil….
Berger's archives visit occurred as he was reviewing materials as a designated representative of the Clinton administration to the national commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The question of what Clinton knew and did about the emerging al Qaeda threat before leaving office in January 2001 was acutely sensitive, as suggested by Berger's determination to spend hours poring over the Clarke report before his testimony.

Auschwitz escapee who told the world dies in B.C.

When Rudolph Vrba fled Auschwitz in the spring of 1944, he made what may have been the most monumental escape of all time, slipping past Nazi guards and attack dogs that were trained to rip prisoners to pieces. Although his life ended quietly this week in Vancouver, where he succumbed to cancer at age 82, his escape shook the world 62 years ago because of the secret he and a fellow prisoner revealed. They told the world about Auschwitz….

Canadian troops resume major Afghanistan offensive

As the political situation evolves, the insurgency is focused on Baghdad

WHILE THERE'S A DEBATE OVER IMMIGRATION.... (FOLLOW THE REMITTANCES)

More Republicans Favorably Disposed to Israel than Dems

In response to the supporters’ charge of bias in the media coverage of the war in Iraq, some in the mainstream press raise the defense of the courage of reporters in the war zone. There are many courageous reporters. A more central problem, however, is the cheapness of the media in devoting resources to the war.

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius writes today of “Courage in Coverage.”

They are taking huge personal risks to bring back the news – not “good news,” as some supporters of the administration often seem to want, but the news.

Ignatius points out that most of the reporting resources are Iraqi:

Western journalists in Baghdad depend increasingly on our Iraqi colleagues, who are some of the bravest reporters in the world.

I emailed Ignatius, and he responded:

KESLER: There were 692 embeds during the invasion, compared to several dozen now. Analysts of media have observed that severe economies are being taken, reducing news reporters and reporting, while media management earns large profit margins milking the cash-cow. What is your observation or opinion regarding more, not less, U.S. journalists needed in Iraq? By having more, would there be more depth, beyond dramatic bombings? With NVA Colonel Anh in mind, and PA-aligned stringers for AFP, are we over-relying on Iraqi stringers? Thank you, in advance, for your response. (I may prepare an article about this.)

IGNATIUS: More correspondents might produce more in-depth coverage, but in the
current situation I'm not sure. It's just too dangerous, too hard to move.
Thanks for writing.
David Ignatius

I take Ignatius’ response to center around, as he did in his Washington Post column, on the dangers to journalists as responsive to my questions.

Ignatius, as many in the media coverage debate do, misses another central point, that the U.S. media is covering the war on the cheap. With only a relatively few U.S. reporters on the ground, not to mention out with the troops, the focus is grabbed by dramatic bombings, often staged for their attention, to the neglect of the “good news” boring as it is of peaceful patrols, reconstruction and gratitude in the 15 provinces outside the three surrounding Baghdad.

Ironically, much of the media repeat the charge that the U.S. sent too few troops to stabilize the country, yet devotes meager resources themselves to the war. In this California-size and populated country, there are fewer reporters applied than to all the beats of a single mid-size city in the U.S.

You probably didn’t see the recent worldwide BBC survey, “Tell me if you think they are getting much better, a little better, a little worse or much worse…you and your family’s economic conditions?” Sixty-five percent of Iraqi’s answered better. That stands against 56% of Americans! Similarly, 56% of Iraqis answered “better’ for their country, versus 39% of Americans.

You probably didn’t see much other “good news”, such as this summary from the Multinational Force – Iraq Commanding General George Casey.

This article discusses mainstream journalists “arguing that the security situation is the dominant story and that it is too dangerous for them to get out and do more reporting on the lives of the Iraqi people.” As the author says, “Some of them just don’t add up,” and proceeds to cite more optimistic news from other journalists and bloggers there.

Sig Christenson is the military-affairs reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, and founder-president of the Military Reporters and Editors organization. He’s served in Iraq three times. Christenson says,

I’ve heard stories about reporters refusing to go, and papers having trouble finding them. I guess I travel in the wrong circles, because all the people I know say, “Well, yeah, if it’s time, I’m going.” And if my boss came up to me and said, “We want to go back. Are you ready?” I would say, “Well, yeah. I’m nervous, but I’ll go.”

In my interview by me of Joe Galloway,(here and here) military editor for Knight Ridder newspapers, and outspoken opponent of America in Iraq, he told me he was safer among the troops out in the field than walking around Baghdad.

So, why hasn’t the U.S. media been investing the resources needed to adequately cover the whole story in Iraq? Cheapness. It costs upwards of $30-thousand a month, above wages, to keep an American reporter in the field in Iraq.

As a recent analysis of media economics points out:

[N]ewspapers remain a surprisingly robust business and generate tremendous amounts of cash every year….[N]ewspaper chains have become relentless in their pursuit of cost-cutting. Although much of this has been bad for the art of journalism, it has been very good for the bottom line.

Turning responsibility for what the American people hear to inexpensive Iraqi stringers is simply grossly irresponsible. Galloway tells me that many aspire to be good journalists, and many are undoubtedly brave. However, we just don’t know their loyalties in too many cases. (See, for example, this.)

If I were more of a Marxist, I would see a media capitalist conspiracy!

(BTW: I have an excellent op-ed prepared going into much more depth and revelation on this subject. Any help getting it placed in MSM would reduce my Marxist suspicions.)

Most critics of the mainstream media would be satisfied if even minimal standards of responsible journalism were applied, by the New York Times or AP for example, more consistently. MSM choice of stories, of angles, of sources, veer into opinion far too often, and too often neglect the whole factual story in favor of bias and slant.

Michael Kinsley does a service with his column at Slate online magazine, “The Twilight of Objectivity.” Kinsley too blithely dismisses “objectivity” by presenting a strawhorse of perfection, “less an ideal than a conceit.” As Kinsley observes, “objectivity is a muddled concept.” However, he still manages to describe the distinction between opinions and objectivity, or good journalism, that troubles so many.

Opinion journalism can be more honest than objective-style journalism because it doesn’t have to hide its pont of view….Their “objective” counterparts have to sort their subjective observations into two arbitrary piles: truths that are objective as well, and truths that are just an opinion. That second pile of truths then gets tossed out, or perhaps put in quotes and attributed to someone else….Abandoniong the pretense of objectivity does not mean abandoning the journalist’s most important obligation, which is factual accuracy.

Kinsley then poses some questions a journalist should ask of him or herself, as a check:

Have you tested it against the available counterarguments? Are you open to new evidence or argument that might change your mind? Do you retain a tiny, healthy sliver of a doubt about the argument you choose to make?

More journalists and editors need to carry this checklist around in their wallet.

Intelligence Redo Is Harshly Judged (You can say that again, but I hope we don’t have to suffer another 9/11 to do so! -- Read it all; excerpts below)

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Richard A. Posner sharply criticized the restructuring of U.S. intelligence agencies last week, telling CIA lawyers that the overhaul has done nothing to rectify flaws exposed by al-Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that the changes "in the end . . . will amount to rather little."… "Failure in a democratic society," he said, "demands a response that promises, however improbably, to prevent future failures. [And] the preferred response is a reorganization, because it is at once dramatic and relatively cheap."… In Posner's analysis, the director of national intelligence (DNI), created by Congress to be the president's top intelligence adviser, was given too much to do. DNI John D. Negroponte oversees the CIA and 15 other intelligence agencies, including those at the Pentagon. Negroponte's staff, which has grown to about 1,000, "has become a new bureaucracy layered on top of the intelligence community," Posner said…. Posner said that the DNI should have been given only a coordinating role in U.S. intelligence, and that the CIA director, now Porter J. Goss, should have remained the president's senior intelligence adviser. That approach would have eliminated the requirement that the DNI's office build its own bureaucracy of analysts, he said.

Study Fails to Link Naval Sonar to Whale Strandings (now, can we defend ourselves?)

Defiant Schroeder starts gas job (I thought he already was a "gas job"? -- Thanks Putin; Schroeder follows other buddy Clinton in collecting foreign $)

Statehouses take up immigration legislation

Yahoo! Abomination. (Yahoo continues as kapo for China)

Iran hard-line regime cracks down on blogs

From Feudalism to Consent: Rethinking Birthright Citizenship (purposely crossing the border to birth is common, and allows child citizenship, and parents to stay legally, both causing one of the largest public budget drains of “immigration”)

Profits surge to 40-year high

On table at Hu-Bush talks: Just the tip of China iceberg

Scandals of Accounting

N.Y. Times Probed on Sudan Ad Insert (for $1m you can buy the NYT’s supply of fishwrap)

A bill in Congress would establish a board to advise the government on whether federally funded international relations programs benefit U.S. interests. (polite for: who’s buying into our universities?)

Palestinian minister off to bad start: Bolton

Turning off terrorist television

G.O.P. Is Taking Aim at Advocacy Groups (Can’t squelch free speech, hear that McCain and Feingold; but Dems defend 527's as they spend more for Dems)

After 2004, the Federal Election Commission scrutinized some 527 groups… The result, said Kenneth A. Gross, a campaign finance lawyer, was that "527's have been demonized to some extent," prompting many outside advocacy groups to rely on another provision of the tax code, 501c(4), which governs nonprofit groups. Business and trade associations typically operate under a similar provision, 501c(6). As a bonus, the 501c groups are not required to disclose their donors, as 527 groups are…. Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican who is an opponent of restraining 527 committees, likened the current atmosphere to whack-a-mole, the carnival game where the player hits a mole with a hammer, only to have another pop up. He is backing legislation that would raise limits on contributions to political parties — an idea that opponents say would gut previous reforms.
"We hit political parties and 527's pop up," Mr. Pence said. "We're going to whack them and 501c's are going to pop up."
Despite the current dip in 527 activity, some new ones are being established, including one opposing Senator Rick Santorum, a conservative Republican in a tough re-election race in Pennsylvania. Veteran Democratic operatives just established a new group called Fresh Start for America, which is expected to engage in Senate races this year.
As lawmakers prepare for a potential fight, Mr. Pariser of MoveOn.org said there could be one unexpected consequence. He suggested the effort to clamp down on 527 groups could enhance the influence of his organization because it would have the financial means to mount aggressive campaigns while potential competing groups would be handcuffed.
"We will be better positioned to do political ads," he said. "I presume that was not their intent." )

As I drove my almost 6-year old son home from karate practice, we saw a march of what looked like junior or high school students, waving Mexican flags (no American flags in sight). Jason asked me what’s happening, and I was at a loss for words or, at least, any I would say in front of him.

Peggy Noonan’s essay at Wall Street Journal that I distributed last night struck the chord:

It’s not fear about ‘them.’ It’s anxiety about us. It’s the broad public knowledge, or intuition, in America, that we are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically. And if you don’t do that, you’ll lose it all.

My wife is born in Germany, and my son is completely bi-lingual. The San Diego Union-Tribune featured a photo of him last July 4 holding the American flag at a pancake breakfast. He is “assimilated”, as they say, and multi-cultural. That night we attended a citizenship naturalization celebration dinner for an immigrant from Colombia, the room decked in Stars & Stripes. Nothing less should be acceptable.

The San Diego Union-Tribune’s lead editorial today addresses the Spanish talk radio that turned out hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants to demonstrate:

More power to them. There's a lot of work to do. And there's plenty of room at the table for those who want to make a positive contribution to our politics, our society and our world. But that requires doing much more than simply pumping up the volume and turning out street protests. It's not just about demanding more rights. It's about owning up to one's responsibilities.

These disc jockeys and dozens like them in cities around the country – from Seattle to Des Moines to Charlotte – obviously have the ear of legions of Latino immigrants and their children. So what are they going to do with it? Here's what they should do – urge people to get involved in their children's education, become U.S. citizens, learn English, and be law-abiding and productive members of society. And that's just for starters.

George Will lists the other reasons many Americans are concerned:

[C]ontrol belongs at the top of the agenda, for four reasons. First, control of borders is an essential attribute of sovereignty. Second, current conditions along the border mock the rule of law. Third, large rallies by immigrants, many of them here illegally, protesting more stringent control of immigration reveal that many immigrants have, alas, assimilated: They have acquired the entitlement mentality spawned by America's welfare state, asserting an entitlement to exemption from the laws of the society they invited themselves into. Fourth, giving Americans a sense that borders are controlled is a prerequisite for calm consideration of what policy that control should serve.

And, Will still supports the leading immigration bill working its way through the Senate.

Another credibly conservative commentator whose views are favorable weighs in at Red State blog:

As promised, I have taken some time to read over the Secure American and Orderly Immigration Act (variously referred to herein and elsewhere as the McCain-Kennedy Immigration Bill, S. 1033, or "SAOI"), and I have come to a very simple conclusion: despite the demonization of this bill as a "soft on immigration" "amnesty proposal," this bill is neither of those things. It's not a perfect bill (no bill is), but it's a surprisingly good one, and the Republican Senators who voted it out of Committee absolutely do not deserve to treatment they have received in some quarters of the conservative blogosphere.
With regards to illegal immigrants, the SAOI does the following important things (among others):
1. Requires the Commissioner of Social Security to set up a national electronic database to verify the legal status of all employees. (Sections 402 and 403, generally). The demands for this system are detailed, and leave the Commissioner with very little discretion.
2. Employers must affirmatively verify that every employee is legally entitled to work in this country. Failure to do so subjects the employers to double civil penalties (Section 406), and also subjects them for criminal penalties of up to five years. (Section 701(m)(1)).
3. No illegal immigrants who were not residents as of May 2005 are eligible to obtain nonimmigrant status under the bill. (Section 701(b)(1)).
4. Those who wish to obtain nonimmigrant status are required to pay a $1,000 fine, get a background check, and leave after six years. (Section 701(i)(3)(A)).
5. Those who wish to stay after the six year period must pay an additional $1,000, pay their back taxes, learn English, undergo a health exam, and educate themselves in American history and civics. (Section 702).
All in all this bill addresses most of the concerns associated with illegal immigration in a very practical way.

I haven’t read the bill, just the sketchy and opinionated news stories.

What I have to say at this point is that unless the assimilation agenda is addressed in a major way, all the rest is a sham and more harmful than any external security or public budget concerns.

I don’t ordinarily send out my daily Interesting Stuff post, items that don’t get as much notice as they deserve. Today I will, with excerpts from Peggy Noonan’s great piece in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, which deserves the quickest and widest distribution, saving, and deep pondering and correction. While here, please check out the other Interesting stuff links.

Patriots, Then and Now by Peggy Noonan

With nations as with people, love them or lose them.

I had a great experience the other night. I met some of the 114 living recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award….

He shook his head. The medal didn't prove courage, he said. "It's not bravery, it's taking responsibility." Each of the recipients, he said, had taken responsibility for the men and the moment at a tense and demanding time. They'd cared for others. They took care of their men.

Other recipients sounded a refrain that lingered like Taps. They felt they'd been awarded their great honor in part in the name of unknown heroes of the armed forces who'd performed spectacular acts of courage but had died along with all the witnesses who would have told the story of what they did….And so they felt they wore their medals in part for the ones known only to God.

What this all got me thinking about, the next day, was . . . immigration. I know that seems a lurch, but there's a part of the debate that isn't sufficiently noted. There are a variety of things driving American anxiety about illegal immigration and we all know them--economic arguments, the danger of porous borders in the age of terrorism, with anyone able to come in.

But there's another thing. And it's not fear about "them." It's anxiety about us.

It's the broad public knowledge, or intuition, in America, that we are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically. And if you don't do that, you'll lose it all.

We used to do it. We loved our country with full-throated love, we had no ambivalence. We had pride and appreciation. We were a free country. We communicated our pride and delight in this in a million ways--in our schools, our movies, our popular songs, our newspapers. It was just there, in the air. Immigrants breathed it in. That's how the last great wave of immigrants, the European wave of 1880-1920, was turned into a great wave of Americans.

We are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically now. We are assimilating them culturally. Within a generation their children speak Valley Girl on cell phones. "So I'm like 'no," and he's all 'yeah,' and I'm like, 'In your dreams.' " Whether their parents are from Trinidad, Bosnia, Lebanon or Chile, their children, once Americans, know the same music, the same references, watch the same shows. And to a degree and in a way it will hold them together. But not forever and not in a crunch.

So far we are assimilating our immigrants economically, too. They come here and work. Good.

But we are not communicating love of country. We are not giving them the great legend of our country. We are losing that great legend.
What is the legend, the myth? That God made this a special place. That they're joining something special. That the streets are paved with more than gold--they're paved with the greatest thoughts man ever had, the greatest decisions he ever made, about how to live. We have free thought, free speech, freedom of worship. Look at the literature of the Republic: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist papers. Look at the great rich history, the courage and sacrifice, the house-raisings, the stubbornness. The Puritans, the Indians, the City on a Hill.

The genius cluster--Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, Franklin, all the rest--that came along at the exact same moment to lead us. And then Washington, a great man in the greatest way, not in unearned gifts well used (i.e., a high IQ followed by high attainment) but in character, in moral nature effortfully developed. How did that happen? How did we get so lucky? (I once asked a great historian if he had thoughts on this, and he nodded. He said he had come to believe it was "providential.")

We fought a war to free slaves. We sent millions of white men to battle and destroyed a portion of our nation to free millions of black men. What kind of nation does this? We went to Europe, fought, died and won, and then taxed ourselves to save our enemies with the Marshall Plan. What kind of nation does this? Soviet communism stalked the world and we were the ones who steeled ourselves and taxed ourselves to stop it. Again: What kind of nation does this?
Only a very great one. Maybe the greatest of all.

Do we teach our immigrants that this is what they're joining? That this is the tradition they will now continue, and uphold?
Do we, today, act as if this is such a special place? No, not always, not even often. American exceptionalism is so yesterday. We don't want to be impolite. We don't want to offend. We don't want to seem narrow. In the age of globalism, honest patriotism seems like a faux pas.

And yet what is true of people is probably true of nations: if you don't have a well-grounded respect for yourself, you won't long sustain a well-grounded respect for others.

Because we do not communicate to our immigrants, legal and illegal, that they have joined something special, some of them, understandably, get the impression they've joined not a great enterprise but a big box store. A big box store on the highway where you can get anything cheap. It's a good place. But it has no legends, no meaning, and it imparts no spirit.

Who is at fault? Those of us who let the myth die, or let it change, or refused to let it be told. The politically correct nitwit teaching the seventh-grade history class who decides the impressionable young minds before him need to be informed, as their first serious history lesson, that the Founders were hypocrites, the Bill of Rights nothing new and imperfect in any case, that the Indians were victims of genocide, that Lincoln was a clinically depressed homosexual who compensated for the storms within by creating storms without . . .
You can turn any history into mud. You can turn great men and women into mud too, if you want to.

And it's not just the nitwits, wherever they are, in the schools, the academy, the media, though they're all harmful enough. It's also the people who mean to be honestly and legitimately critical, to provide a new look at the old text. They're not noticing that the old text--the legend, the myth--isn't being taught anymore. Only the commentary is. But if all the commentary is doubting and critical, how will our kids know what to love and revere? How will they know how to balance criticism if they've never heard the positive side of the argument?
Those who teach, and who think for a living about American history, need to be told: Keep the text, teach the text, and only then, if you must, deconstruct the text.

When you don't love something you lose it. If we do not teach new Americans to love their country, and not for braying or nationalistic reasons but for reasons of honest and thoughtful appreciation, and gratitude, for a history that is something new in the long story of man, then we will begin to lose it.

FISA judges say Bush within law (compare that to the NYT’s “treatment” of Judges on Secretive Panel Speak Out on Spy Program )
Then see this: VERDICT: THE NEW YORK TIMES BLEW THE STORY

newspapers remain a surprisingly robust business and generate tremendous amounts of cash every year. (HT: RCP)

Senate To Consider Coburn/Obama "Show Us the Money" Amendment to Put Government Spending on Public Database (NOT)

Fear of a Chavez Planet (He’s cruisin’ for a bruisin’)

POLL: IRAQIS AND AFGHANIS OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THEIR ECONOMIC FUTURE (+64% of the Americans and 59% or the Australians believe that the news media is a negative influence in the world. In no other country does the majority hold a similar jaundiced view of the media.)

Major attack on N.Y. seen costing insurers $778 bln

I SHOULD HAVE DONE THE END OF THE WORLD THING LONG AGO

Permanent Five Agree on Iran: No Consequences, Please

A response to Belmont Club on the political situation in Iraq, and SCIRI the Kingmaker

Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Time magazine’s chief Iraq correspondent, Michael Ware, is brilliant.

Hewitt has invited blogger comments.

I wrote last week about “MSM A-Western, A-Historicism.” I featured seasoned journalist Sol Sanders, who “has forgotten more than most ever knew.” I pointed out:

Young reporters, particularly those whose education and training is virtually bereft of historical knowledge and experience, are – at best – dupes of propagandists and current reporting fads. At worst, they are without basic grounding in Western civilization.

Generalizations never fit well to particular people, and this one does not well fit Michael Ware. His critical reporting from Iraq has served an “intelligence” function, as well, by frequently going into the enemy camp for nuances.

However, as Hewitt points out:

There is no doubting the man's courage and his relentless commitment to the stories he pursues, but the interview raises questions at the heart of journalism's crisis.

Hewitt continues:

Parts of this interview trouble me a great deal. Ware is quite obviously a courageous, battle-hardened and determined reporter, but his answers to a variety of questions leave me concerned that the pressure of his circumstances will impact his reporting, and may have already impacted the candor of his assessment of the jihadists and the "insurgents." His refusal to answer other questions of historical judgment and relevance --were the Soviets better off under Stalin or Khrushchev, for example-- tell me he is aware of the deep problems with his analysis of Iraq under Saddam and post-Saddam, and that he refuses to engage in any conversation that will inevitably expose that analysis as indefensible.

A central excerpt from the interview:

Hewitt: Do you think Iraq is better off today?

Ware: All I can tell you that life here right now is extraordinarily difficult….[T]o be able to compare that to something I never saw is a bit difficult for me….All I can tell you about is what I see, and what I experience. And what I know is the reality on the grounds here. Now was a vicious dictatorship removed? Absolutely. On a human rights basis, it has to have been a good thing. However, as the result of which, we’ve let a horrific genie out of the bottle…I have no stake in your political process [Ware’s Australian] whatsoever. I just call it as I see it….[Many] are just being worn down by the horror and drudgery of the place, to the point where that perhaps their views have changed….

The innate “drudgery” and horrors of war is especially so when the enemy’s strategy is centered on committing horrors to terrorize opposition and to capture news coverage in the West. As Ware admits:

[T]he insurgent groups study very closely everything that we hear, say and write. And given that we’re within their grasp, one always must be diplomatic.

For our mainstream reportage to be so dominated by inadequate a-historicism just increases the potency of erosion of their perspective in such a war.

Tom Bevan, Executive Editor of the must read RealClearPolitics website, the best and deservedly influential aggregator of opinion and polling on the Internet, himself has a must read this morning: “Bad News Is The Only News.”

A brief excerpt, but read the whole post:

Video footage of the flaming wreckage of a car bomb in Baghdad beamed into living rooms across the nation at night -after being played in a loop throughout the day on cable - has a far greater influence on the national psyche than a hundred stories detailing the positive side of things in Iraq.

Let me reiterate this has little to do with ideology (you'll see footage of the flaming car bomb wreckage on every network and cable news channel - though the emphasis of the coverage may vary) but is instead driven by the media's inherent bias toward chaos and bad news. The saying "if it bleeds, it leads" is just as true in Baghdad as it is in your hometown, and the result is that terrorists have now gained a tremendous advantage.

Terrorists have benefited greatly from a variety of aspects of the advancing technology era: cell phones and Internet chat rooms to help coordinate plans and logistics; wire transfers to move money at a moment's notice; web sites to spread the hate and the techniques of violent jihad. One could argue, however, that the greatest asset terrorists have acquired in the past half-decade is the skill to manipulate a global mass media that broadcasts in real-time with high-definition clarity.

I must add a more optimistic note.

For those of us awakened by Barry Goldwater and motivated to the long march from the depths of 1964 to Ronald Reagan and George Bush, there is an understanding that tides do and, indeed, can be turned through resolute dedication to sound ideals and careful organizing.

Believe it or not, I predict the tide will also turn and be turned in the American media by the wide-spread awakening from the bad news fixation and increasingly partisan toward Democrat memes of the mainstream media.

It’s already happening. Witness the influence of more centrist-right Fox News, of bloggers, of MSM venues allowing more access from conservatives while its old stars flail about more noticeably in leftist fits of frustration and expose their bias in shoddy hit pieces. John Kerry was defeated by the awakening new journalism, after all, as he admitted in flailing at it right after the election.

The new journalism will increasingly provide the resources and the speed of more accurately reporting the bad news and to include the good news that neither the U.S. Government is capable of nor the old media is interested in providing as it chases milking-the-profits cow business technique of shrinking infrastructure.

Take heart good soldiers of truth, and keep marching.

Mideast dictators try to "wait Bush out." They may be miscalculating.

Democrats Opening Assault on Bush Security Policies (Even NYT’s says “Most of the proposals are not new. Many echo arguments put forward by Democrats and by their 2004 presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry…” Dems fight last campaign; too late!)

Democrats Finally Agree On National-Security Message: Invade Pakistan

Whose country is this? ( I watched such a demonstration today in San Diego. Many Mexican flags, no American. Says it all: Let me stay here illegally, and not be an American. How does one say chutzpah in Mexicano?)

Katyusha fired for first time from Gaza
(Unlike the homemade, short-range Kassam rockets frequently launched at Israel, Katyushas have a range of close to 20 kilometers and can carry over 20 kilograms of explosives….The Katyusha fired Tuesday, military officials estimated, was smuggled into Gaza through the Egyptian border. Egyptian soldiers have taken up positions along the border since Israel pulled out of the Philadelphi corridor in August, but to Israel's dismay they have not yet clamped down on weapons smuggling into Gaza. )

Public Policy in the Age of Entitlements

I hate to say I’m truly sorry for the Democratic Party but its treatment of the lineup of veterans it recruited for the Fall campaigns is insulting to veterans and once again demonstrates the self-defeating lack of respect by Democrats for those who serve. That’s not how to build a broad American political party.

I’ve written several times about the campaign by the Left to use disaffected veterans in the Fall campaigns to bolster the Democrats’ image and chances. (See links below.)

Non-partisan election handicapper Stuart Rothenberg [HT: Betsy’s Page] writes today of these candidates’ decimation at the hands of the Democrat apparatus and base. Rothenberg concludes that, at best, they were recruited on suicide missions:

In district after district, Democratic insiders preferred to recruit established political figures who already demonstrated that they could run effective campaigns, raise money and appeal to voters. Only when they couldn’t did they turn to Iraq War veterans.

When I first wrote on the subject, I concluded:

How well will the Democrats' ploy play next November? We won't know until then. Count on the major media to be parroting, a la Kerry, "did I mention he's a veteran?" at every opportunity. There is, as yet, nothing pointing at these veterans having manufactured their service records, which all appear honorable. Many other local and national issues, and party registration balances in the districts, will likely count for more. Nonetheless, the veteran bona fide will also count with many, and could tilt many voters.

Rothenberg says, even more pessimistically of their veteran bona fides, that:

But if they win, it will be because they are the Democratic nominees in a year when a Democratic wave sweeps across the country, not because of their status as Iraqi veterans. This year, it is far better to be a Democratic nominee in a competitive district than an Iraq War veteran running anywhere.

Most tellingly, Rothenberg reports on the bandwagon favorable meme echoed by so many MSM journalists about the so-called Fighting Democrats:

Finally, the national media once again deserves plenty of criticism on the way it has covered the candidacies of Iraq veterans. Too many journalists (some of them from as far away as France and Japan) jumped on the story – how those reporters and television producers love “telling a story” – without considering whether the Democratic spin was true.

Don’t worry Democrat vets bitter at being used as stooges. Go into any bar in the country not a liberals’ fern-bar, and another vet will buy you a drink.

The Democrats' '06 replay of veterans gambit

Dems Cynical Veterans Politics 2006

“Band of Brothers” Redux

Democrats’ 2006 National Security Strategy

Another of my series of pieces to bridge differences with civil discourse is my latest column at American Enterprise Institute Online, “Conversation With a Prominent Iraq War Critic.” You may be somewhat surprised at some of my interview with Joe Galloway, about to retire military editor for Knight Ridder newspapers, co-author of We Were Soldiers, and a heck of a nice guy.

The automatic “typesetting’” program at American Enterprise Online makes funny, annoying symbols in place of the many quotation marks in the piece, so here’s the text below.
______________________________________

Joe Galloway, just retired military editor for Knight Ridder, co-author of We Were Soldiers, is a friend who isn’t shy to express his criticism of the U.S. Iraq invasion. He met with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, telling him, “I want you to know that I’m going to keep kicking your butt, to keep you focused.” As part of another piece I’m preparing about the reporter embedding program, I turned to Joe’s 41-years of reporting experience from Ia Drang to his trips to Iraq, most recently a few months ago, to get a picture of what’s happening there.

Joe Galloway’s criticisms of the U.S. invasion of Iraq are not uncommon: “We need not have invaded at that time. We had Saddam in an imperfect box.” “Incompetence [due to] meddling by people without military experience [and] arrogance [with a] plan warped, ham-strung, and almost perverted [in lacking] detailed planning.” “Job number 1 was to take down the Taliban and pursue them everywhere, but we diverted 90% of our resources to Iraq.” “We didn’t send enough troops to do the job.” Joe has also expressed his anguish over the loss of life and limb by any U.S. soldier or Marine, the ordinary Joes who he’s been attached to as a latter-day Ernie Pyle.

Common responses --- WMD’s appeared to all knowledgeable as likely, and Saddam encouraged this thinking; The sanctions were leaking like a sieve and crumbling; Planning was adequate to commonly expected problems, and very few expected the extent of pre-planned and developed Sunni insurgency; The Taliban was taken out and its leadership has been 75% eliminated; More troops may well have fueled increased resistance, and weren’t available anyway --- are largely irrelevant now except importantly in preparing for future military commitments. Democrats may harp on these debates over the start of the war, largely to exploit war-weariness for electoral gain.

What’s most important, however, is whether the sacrifices may yet yield a satisfactory outcome. The consequences are crucial for Americans, for America’s role in the world, for Iraqis, and for others abroad who may depend on the U.S. for their fate today or some day.

Joe Galloway told me that our military has painfully earned successful experience that’s coming to bear. The clear and hold – rather than sweep and leave -- of population centers and geography, and further securing of the borders, is effective. The “standing up of the Iraqi Army, some of which is quite good is good news.” The main problem now for Washington and Baghdad is that the “American people are fed up with it.” Galloway places Congressman John Murtha’s speaking out, regardless of its faults, to this exasperation.

Under the best of circumstances, barring a real civil war of large contending armed forces escalating from the lower level sectarian violence, Galloway sees a gradual drawing down of U.S. forces during 2006, to maybe 50,000 by the 2008 elections, and such a force remaining for several years after. However, citing Senator John Warner, Galloway says that if a larger civil war should break out we should just get out of there.

I asked Galloway to compare the political situation in Baghdad to Saigon’s during the Vietnam war. Galloway called South Vietnam a “military dictatorship” that was “semi-orderly” compared to the “not even semi-orderly” early-stage democracy in Iraq. Although there is sound evidence of corruption and thefts of public moneys by Iraqi politicians, interestingly Galloway sees the pecuniary motive as possibly Iraq’s salvation.

Galloway says the “best thing the Iraqis have going is that they are politicians, all serving a constituency…..who will end up operating from enlightened self-interest to share the oil money.” Galloway agrees with Charles Krauthammer that the most important thing is “getting a place at the table for the Sunnis.” The alternative for the Sunnis, “almost all of the insurgency”, is to be “driven out or killed.” Galloway doesn’t think a split-up of the country will happen, but if it does the Sunni will become another source of regional instability as “Palestinian-type refugees.” Galloway credits U.S. Ambassador Dr. Zalmay Khalizad is doing a “pretty good job of keeping their feet to the fire” for the Iraqis to arrange a reasonable accommodation.

Galloway emphasizes it’s the “Iraqis war to win.” Galloway ended our conversation with “I hope and pray” for a satisfactory outcome “in the context of that country and region…...which won’t be Jeffersonian.”

Given that President Bush needs to be more resolute in leading and holding back discouragement, it doesn’t sound to me like there’s that much disagreement going forward between this leading war critic and the administration’s pronouncements and policy.

It is easy to rush to judgment, and to failure, about Iraq if you focus on isolated facts and fail to see the whole picture

Cries for regulatory relief from Sarbanes-Oxley intensify

A Work in Progress (summary of Iraq war)

Academic Apologists for Shariah: The Real Meaning of the Abdul Rahman Case

MSM Plagiarism Strikes Again – AP Welcome to the Party (Blogs don’t rate citation!) (HT: Instapundit)

Iranian hawk swoops on universities to crush dissent

Israel as a Security Asset for the United States

The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs reminds us why “Israel is a security asset for the United States.” See profiles of its very distinguished advisory board here.

In 1979, JINSA published a “quick reference guide” to the capabilities Israel brings to U.S.-Israel security cooperation. We review it periodically, revise it slightly and republish it when some people - including professors at Harvard and the University of Chicago - seem unsure why the U.S. regards Israel as a partner in a difficult region rather than the beneficiary of “The Lobby.” Twenty-seven years after its debut, the list remains largely intact. Israel has:

A secure location in a crucial part of the world

A well-developed military infrastructure

The ability to maintain, service and repair U.S.-origin equipment

An excellent deep-water port in Haifa

Modern air facilities

A position close to sea-lanes and an ability to project power over long distances

A domestic air force larger than many in Western Europe and possessing more up-to- date hardware

Multilingual capabilities, including facility in English, Arabic and the languages of the (former) Soviet Union

Combat familiarity with Soviet/Russian-style tactics and equipment

The ability to assist U.S. naval fleets, including common equipment

The ability to support American operations and to provide emergency air cover

A democratic political system with a strong orientation to support the United States and the NATO system.

In 1996, we noted that Israel’s military R&D capabilities complement those of the U.S.; its intelligence services cooperate closely with ours - to our benefit; and large numbers of American troops train in Israel.

In 2006, we would add that, in large measure through JINSA’s Law Enforcement Exchange Program, American police and law enforcement officials have reaped the benefit of close cooperation with Israeli law enforcement in the areas of first response and counter-terrorism practices.

Israel and the United States are drawn together by common values and common threats to our well-being. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction across the Middle East and Asia, and the ballistic missile technology to deliver systems across wide areas require cooperation in intelligence, technology and security policy.

Terrorism and the origins and dissemination of violent Islamic radicalism also need to be addressed multi-laterally when possible.
In a volatile region so vital to the U.S., where other states cannot be relied upon, it would be foolish to disengage - or denigrate - an ally such as Israel. The war against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them will be long and hard, and success will depend in no small measure on the allies who stand with us and with whom we stand.

Moscow's spies are at it again, officials say

German State Elections Strengthen Merkel

The empire of Europe (An eye-opener: Thanks to Atlantic Review's invaluable Carnival of German-American Relations collection of blog posts.)

In Iraq and Israel, The Fix Is In (stringers string along “reporters”)

When a Disease Loses Its Most Potent Ally, Fear

US, Mahdi forces clash

Anti-Americanism madness, says Blair

My latest column is up at the Augusta Free Press. Here's the text with links.

The $200+ Billion Ripoff
By Bruce Kesler

Congressional and media attention is focused on whether our representatives can accept a free meal from lobbyists, against the fear and occasional lapses of undue influence on legislation that can affect millions of dollars of specific spending earmarks or government contracts. Porkbusters argue for trimming tens of billions of dollars of Congressional waste (some beauty being in the eye of the beholder).

Meanwhile, a bigger ripoff has been virtually swept under the table or, I could say, into the pockets of public employee unions, and even other beneficiaries of essential government services or largesse are under pressure as a result.

We are on our way to almost 95% of the $246-billion multi-state tobacco settlement in 1998 being spent by state governments for purposes other than preventing and treating the ill effects of tobacco. The Center for Disease Control’s best practices call for $1.6 to $4.2 billion of the approximately $10-billion per year from the settlement to be spent on comprehensive tobacco programs. According to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids in fiscal year 2006 the states have only assigned $551 million for tobacco prevention and treatments.

States and local governments are facing unfunded pension liabilities of $1-trillion and more, causing what S&P says as “U.S. States’ budgets are strained due to rising unfounded pension liabilities...at a time when costs are also escalating in other areas, such as education and Medicaid.” A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago calls it “the 800 pound gorilla in the room,” with funding needs running “from five to ten times current outlays” for another like amount of retiree health care liabilities.

San Diego city’s public employees pension scandal is seen as the forefront of exposing similar troubles across the nation. Almost 80% of the city’s budget is consumed by personnel costs, there is a multi-billion dollar deficit in funding public employee retiree pension and health contracts, and all manner of other essential government services are going begging. Today’s San Diego Union-Tribune features how San Diego’s “Tobacco Payout isn’t combating smoking: S.D. uses settlement for everything but.”

The city has received roughly $66.5 million in tobacco-settlement revenue since 2000, and a spokesman for Sanders [San Diego mayor], who took office in December, said the city doesn’t appear to have spent "one red cent" on anything related to smoking prevention or health.

California has only spent in the latest fiscal year 48% of even the low end of the CDC recommended minimum from the tobacco settlement, New York 45%, Virginia 33%, compared to the rare and exceptionally high over 100% in Mississippi. Only 4 states even meet the CDC minimum. (Visit the site at the above link for reports on every state.)

The mis-spending of the tobacco settlement funds are only one glaring tip of the iceberg of how public employee retiree pension and healthcare programs, more generous than almost anything else in industry’s remaining relatively few such programs – that are bankrupting many, such as airlines and auto makers – are breaking the back of our fiscal responsibility and future. The transfer of government funds from the truly needy, however one wants to define that, to government workers is a disgrace that must be faced and corrected.

Bruce Kesler is a regular contributor to AugustaFree Press and to www.democracy-Project.com blog

A report from France says it is worse than we thought: China bank IPO’s, money supply growth, and inflation

CAIR Caves

Democracy breeds bravery

For Some Who Solve Puzzle, Medicare Drug Plan Pays Off

Cellphones in Flight? This Means War!

Cultivating the seeds of democracy

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds’ comment last Thursday, “terrorism is an information war disguised as a military conflict,” should be embroidered and hung over every journalist’s desk.

It’s bad enough that the same major U.S. media organizations that repeat the mantra critique that we should have had far more troops invading and occupying Iraq, devote relatively puny resources there themselves. From almost 700 embedded journalists during the invasion, the number dropped to a few dozen, sometimes surging to 70 or so as during the securing of Fallujah. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent to cover the Olympics; Associated Press has thousands of employees around the globe; trivial, redundant and repetitive herd articles fill newspaper pages; and expensive coiffed hairdos fill network and cable air with hot-air non-stories. In Iraq, relatively inexpensive stringers are used, often of dubious skill and loyalty, who file the blood and bombs stories their masters want. Stories of a boring peaceful patrol in most of the country, of village-by- village reconstruction projects, of personal bravery and persistence by U.S. and Iraqi troops and ordinary extraordinary civilians, these are not sought after news that editors at home want to feature.

As a result of plain old cheapness by major media, the negativity of the homefront is increased. I’ll bet that there’s enough professionalism among journalists that, virtually regardless of personal opinions, if there were far more in Iraq there’d be more attention able to be paid to the reporting depth that gets below and beyond the terror photo-ops largely staged with undermining resolve in the U.S. homefront in mind.

It’s bad enough that many in the media both echo Democrat themes to undermine the war effort, but in the case of our information efforts within Iraq seem to prefer a professional guild mentality restricting news production there over winning the information war, the battle for hearts and minds that so many extol but only treat as a platitude when it comes to actually doing the job.

The Washington Post today has a smarmy piece, “Propaganda? Nah, Here's the Scoop, Say the Guys Who Planted Stories in Iraqi Papers” that still contains much basic information and common sense.

Some excerpts:

Bombs are blasting in Baghdad. War fills the air there and fills the airwaves here. But a more quiet war -- the information war -- is waged by stealth, in the words and images deployed by pundits, partisans, policymakers, propagandists, psychological operators and influence specialists, both civilian and military.

Call it influence. Or call it propaganda, info-ops, psyops or strat comm (that's short for "strategic communications"). It's all information, and information can be a weapon as lethal, at times, as bullets and bombs.

But wait! Not only are we in an information war, we are also in a war over the info war -- over techniques such as Lincoln's and the extent to which the U.S. government should or does disseminate propaganda, even pay to publish favorable "news" stories….

Says Garfield [Lincoln Group exec]: "One of the things our critics do in the deployment of the term propaganda is they then seek to stifle any debate."
Now he breaks into a full-bore lecture: "It's as if telling the Iraqi people about the positive aspects, about the emergence of democracy in their country, the significant efforts being done by the coalition to protect them, to achieve the security that everybody acknowledges is necessary for people to embrace a new government and a new armed forces -- as if all of that is bad. The moment you label it with the term propaganda, you immediately end any debate. It's absolutely necessary to counter the negative use of information by our adversaries."…

They've planted those fake news articles trumpeting pro-U.S. stories. They've conceived and distributed anti-terror comic strips and leaflets. They ran a campaign that distributed water bottles bearing a phone number that Iraqis could call to report terror activity to U.S. authorities. They do research, media analysis, polling and focus groups. They seek to completely understand a culture, so they can better influence it….

But Americans just don't understand. The culture hasn't come to grips with information as a part of warfare. That's Garfield, lecturing again….

"People are more comfortable with killing than they are with influencing," he says. "The majority can be convinced that the use of military force is acceptable, but everybody becomes very uncomfortable when you talk about the use of information," like "promoting your cause, promoting your ideals" and "discrediting the tactics and the arguments and the strategy of the enemy."…

In an op-ed piece last month in the Los Angeles Times, Rumsfeld bemoaned the uproar over the Lincoln Group and described its work as a "non-traditional means to provide accurate information to the Iraqi people in the face of an aggressive campaign of disinformation. Yet this has been portrayed as inappropriate: for example, the allegations of 'buying news.' "…

Craig and Garfield make much of their assertion that they traffic in the truth. It's as if they think truth and propaganda are mutually exclusive. But consider this:
"For a long time, propagandists have recognized that lying must be avoided," wrote Jacques Ellul in his classic 1965 work, "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes." For the masses to believe it, "propaganda must be based on some truth that can be said in a few words and is able to linger in the collective consciousness."
But truth can be elastic, even inconvenient. For instance, Garfield says Lincoln really had no choice but to hide the authorship of those upbeat "news" stories.
Had they been identified as products of the U.S. government, someone could have gotten killed. And just how receptive would Iraqi readers have been to a U.S. government product anyway?…

So, yes, there was that deception.
"But the aim is not deceit," he says.
It's just a means to an end in wartime.

Would we prefer more U.S. troops, or more Iraqi support? Would the U.S. media prefer to have more reporters assigned to Iraq, or to see the information war lost there as well as on the homefront? Those are key questions the media needs to ask itself, and be constantly reminded of the choices it makes.

Terror War Requires Partnership, New look At Strategy (Gen. Pace, Chmn. Joint Chiefs)

Frist Things First! :The Senate Majority Leader has a point on immigration. (See March 23 post)

A Draft FEC Internet Rule

Pay No Nevermind (Jeff Jarvis rotisserees Bill Keller of NYT’s)

Some Realism about Affirmative Action

Give the President his own Sergeant-Major (I like this idea)

The Anti-Semitism of the Presbyterian Church, USA

Why is Abu Ghreib a cover story again but not Darfur? (A Must read, and weep, then do something)

In a discussion of the media’s attitude toward the U.S. in Iraq on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show yesterday, with Slate online magazine’s Mickey Kaus and Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds, they estimated that 80% or 90%, respectively, are “anti-Bush” and 65% or 85%, respectively, are “anti-war.”

Mickey Kaus commented:

First, then, they’re very careful about who they hire. And if they hire somebody who Bush makes puke, or whatever he wrote in that memo [John Green, currently executive producer of the weekend edition of ABC’s GOOD MORNING AMERICA], he’s not going to change his spots just because he’s ordered to be sensitive. So, these people are all over the media, they have tenure, they’re not going away.

What has largely “gone away”, due to inbreeding and ageing, has been the seasoned reporters of yesteryear. One, whom I’m proud to call a friend, is Sol Sanders. I last wrote about him in September:

Seasoned Asia reporter Sol Sanders never forgets. Or, I should say, Sanders has forgotten more than most ever knew. He’s been a correspondent for Business Week, US News & World Report and UPI. Those knowledgeable who experienced the Vietnam War know him as one the finest correspondents there, and his contacts and experience continue to be invaluable.

In an email to me this morning, Sanders wrote at length about the roundly discredited screed from Harvard, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”, that repeated every anti-Israel shibboleth it could find. (Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz even traces much of the arguments to neo-Nazi sites.) Sanders added this personal experience:

I always remember my rented car driver in Cairo, an Arab, in the mid-60s who told me he was originally from Haifa, that he had been told if he left for a couple of weeks he could come back and get his Jewish neighbors' property. He was frank and rather philosophical about the whole thing, just remarking sarcastically, that it had been a long two weeks. As some of us older types remember, the Arab states' radios called on the local Arabs to sabotage and leave…. In fact, there were no Palestinian Arabs until Arafat -- born in Egypt -- put them together in his fashion. I was alongside the so-called Palestinian Brigade in the British 8th Army just as the war ended in northern Italy in 45 -- they were Jews, mostly Germans and Austrians from Tel Aviv, volunteers who fought through the whole Italian campaign [forbidden, by the way, by the British command from crossing into Austria for fear they would try to revenge themselves -- more than once I gave them lifts in my ambulance to visit their old summer holiday retreats on the Wiessen Zee. Until relatively recently "Palestinians" were Jews from the Mandate. The others were Arabs. Also there has been steady the inflow of Arabs before WWII from elsewhere as the Jews drained the swamps, started the citrus industry, revived tourism, etc., etc.

Sanders’ regular column at World Tribune is a must read for understanding the underreported stories, and the story behind the stories, of Asia.

Young reporters, particularly those whose education and training is virtually bereft of historical knowledge and experience, are – at best – dupes of propagandists and current reporting fads. At worst, they are without basic grounding in Western civilization. Historian Victor Hanson was on another segment of Hugh Hewitt’s show yesterday.

Hewitt: …What is the disease in the media? Where did it come from?

Hanson: I think it came to be frank between the journalism schools, the academic training of a lot of the people, and this affluent, elite culture, to be frank, that comes out of the universities on the left and right coasts, that's divorced from the tragic view, because these people are not...they don't open hardware stores. They don't service cars. They've never worked physically with their hands. They have an idea in this international culture of the West that somehow, all of their affluence, all of their travel, all of their freedom came out of a head of Zeus, and it's not dependent on the U.S. military, the United States role in the world. They have no appreciation for the very system that birthed and maintained them. And they've had this sort of sick cynicism, nihilism, skepticism, and the height of their affluence and leisure, that they don't have any gratitude at all, which is really one of the most important human attributes. Humility to say you know, I'm very lucky to be a Westerner, and have certain freedoms. And that's why he cannot appreciate what we're trying to do in Iraq, because he has no appreciation of the very idea that he can jet out of Baghdad anytime he wants on a Western jet that's going to get him safely to a Western country, where he's going to be protected, that the people in Iraq want that same thing that he doesn't seem to appreciate. And that's...I know I'm sounding a little emotional, but that's been one of the most depressing aspects of this entire media...

Arnold Kling in today’s TCS offers key questions to prospective 2008 presidential candidates. They should be widely distributed to see whether the candidates share the view with concrete policies, rather than platitudes:

I see myself as an American, first and foremost. I value America for its folk beliefs in liberty.

Kling’s questions:

Do you believe that it is possible for America and its values to co-exist with a militant Islam as strong and as popular as it appears to be today?
If your answer is "yes," then:
· Does that mean that you envision a world in which American values have a sphere of influence and Islamofascism has its sphere of influence, and we achieve a sort of detente?
· What parts of the world are you prepared to see come under the Islamofascist sphere of influence?
· Are you prepared to see the Islamofascist sphere armed with nuclear weapons?
· How would you defend the American homeland if Islamofascists choose to attack?
If your answer is "no," then:
· Do you believe that Islamic militancy can be reduced through appeasement, or does it have to be opposed militarily?
· Who do you see as our key allies, and who do you see as our key adversaries?
· What is your strategy for limiting the military capability, particularly access to weapons of mass destruction, of Islamic militants?
· How important are American values in this conflict?
· How would you go about promoting American values abroad?

These same questions need to be asked of every journalist writing about Iraq.

Accuracy In Media’s media analyst Roger Aronoff, who also wrote and directed the documentary “Confronting Iraq” wrote about “Deceptive Polling” today. Coincidentally, Aronoff favorably mentions the posts I did about the deceptive Zogby “poll” of troops in Iraq.* (For proof there’s no “in” here, Aronoff misspells my name.)

Aronoffs’ column follows:

Deceptive Polling By Roger Aronoff | March 24, 2006 In this case it exposed the problems inherent in the CBS poll finding Bush at a very low 34 percent approval. Polls are among the most telling expressions of bias in the media. They are very often agenda-driven, used to make a political point, or to pile on a favorite target. The most controversial and flawed poll that has been most cited in recent weeks has been the CBS News poll finding that President Bush's approval rating was down to 34%.

But another poll, purporting to find that U.S. troops are weary of the Iraq War or want a premature withdrawal, is also suspect.
Once again, CBS's Public Eye website, the blog/ombudsman run by a different division of CBS, provided a great service to its readers. In this case it exposed the problems inherent in the CBS poll finding Bush at a very low 34 percent approval. The poll was based on a sampling of 1018 "adults," rather than likely voters, and the sampling was top heavy with Democrats, 409, against only 272 Republicans, which is a ratio of approximately 40% to 27%. After adjusting for the imbalance through a process called "weighting," the results of the poll now show that the sampling was 37% Democrats, 28% Republicans, and 35% independents. The number of Democrats was inflated to get a more dramatic anti-Bush result.

But when the New York Times refers to the poll, it makes no mention of how the poll is weighted or what the sampling was. Only that Bush's approval rating was a miserable 34% was highlighted. In other polls taken over the same period, Bush's approval rating was as high as 46% and, according to the highly regarded Real Clear Politics, was an average of 39.8%. But over and over, on Meet the Press, Chris Matthew's Hardball, and many other shows, Bush's approval rating was stated as the much lower 34%. Not surprisingly, even the North Korean Times trumpeted Bush's low ratings.

Another recent poll that has raised eyebrows was a Zogby International poll supposedly showing that 72 percent of U.S. troops in Iraq support troop withdrawal from Iraq within the next year. One in four, according to the poll, called for the military to leave immediately. It said that 42% of the 944 military people questioned for the poll said the U.S. mission in Iraq is hazy, while 58% say it's clear.

But these findings are suspect for several reasons, as pointed out by Bruce Kessler of the Democracy Project. The questions asked, the methodology used, and the demographics of the military people questioned are not known. Normally there is at least the representation of transparency but that doesn't exist here. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof said he had been informed about the methodology, off the record, a strange way to try to bolster the results.

Kristof, perhaps best known as the columnist who first publicized Joseph Wilson's dubious claims about uranium from Africa, seized on the Zogby survey to say that it is "one more bit of evidence that our grim stay-the-course policy in Iraq has failed. Even the American troops on the ground don't buy into it—and having administration officials pontificate from the safety of Washington about the need for ordinary soldiers to stay the course further erodes military morale."

The Democracy Project also questions the survey co-sponsor, something called the Le Moyne College Center for Peace and Global Studies. Kessler said it is "a typical leftist campus creation." And he questions the foreign policy predilections of Zogby, whose brother James is the president of the Arab American Institute.

For a different view of how the troops regard their mission in Iraq, consider Ralph Peters, a former military man who wrote a series of columns from Iraq in early March. He clearly has a different take on how the mission is going. He thinks we are making clear progress and that morale for our troops is high.

* Posts on Zogby "poll":
How reliable is Zogby poll of military in Iraq?
Expert: Zogby "poll" needs "big 'grains of salt' "
John "I am a patriot" Zogby
What MSM owes readers when reporting outside polls
Proof Zogby poll is BS
Civil Discourse with Clarence Page re: Zogby "Poll" of Troops in Iraq
Zogby can run but can't hide

The Iraq Price Tag

Europe’s Ailing Social Model: Facts & Fairy-Tales

Patterns of Discontent: Will History Repeat in Iran?

TWO STORIES DEMONSTRATE MSM'S ANTI POST- SADDAM IRAQ BIAS

Darfur’s lesson or the limits of American power

Hamas says won't arrest militants behind attacks

Democracy Isn't 'Western' :Cultural determinists should look beyond Ancient Greece.

Bias in Jericho

The NYT Misinforms On Pentagon Psyops

China’s competitiveness ‘on the decline’

Army plans to transform IRR

Rough Draft: The gross unfairness of an all-volunteer Army

WHERE'S THE OPEN DEBATE? I WANT TO SEE AN OPEN DEBATE!! (RE: “THE ISRAEL LOBBY”)

Basque ETA's Permanent Cease Fire: The End Of Basque Terrorism?

Freed Peace Creeps Insult Rescuers

Shaming "Vampire States" (Africa transparently corrupt)

Unmasking UNRWA: Resolution on militancy shows clear double standard, critics say

What went wrong with bond plan (Schwarzenegger blows it, but column doesn’t mention chief advisor is Democrat)

What Happens When One Picks The Losing Horse (Palestinians)

BOLTON'S REMARKS AT TODAY'S MEF LUNCH

Intelligence Failures and Their Fallout: Decades of spying on nuclear programs have had low yields.

Guard's balancing act: Should it change?

If you don’t know columnist Richard Louv, you’re missing someone who is truly special. We have become correspondence friends who usually agree and when we don’t discuss each other’s points in order to broaden our own.

Louv is one of the most thought-provoking, original, common-sense columnists among the hundreds I see regularly. Louv is a true “moderate” but that is too bland a term for someone who ranges so widely over the landscape of ideas, culture, family, politics and reaches sometimes into our souls. Louv is not a moderate by seeking the medium or avoiding controversial positions, but by eschewing ideologies and rigidities and instead seeking promise across the spectrum of portents.

His website, www.thefuturesedge.com, is a treasure trove of his past columns and about his books. His latest book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder is truly genius, and every parent should read it to enrich their child’s life and our society’s future.

Healing the broken bond between our young and nature is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demand it, but also because our mental, physical, and spiritual health depend upon it.

Fashionable despair is the song of the day, at the top of the charts since 2001….“there is a crisis of the spirit, a crisis of faith in our society – faith in the self, faith in something higher than the self and faith in one's family and community.”… Cultural depression, an anthropological term, is the accumulation of societal ills, such as chronic substance abuse, that typically follows a major, widespread tragedy: an epidemic, a war, a terrorist attack. But when is cultural depression a matter of choice?… What good is a roomful of Cassandras without a plan?…

Well, buck up, Bucky, life isn't half bad – and it could get better, with a little faith and effort. Yup, we've got problems that may yet do us in, but despair is unlikely to increase our odds. So far, no one has suggested a practical alternative to hope. By this, I am not recommending the “What? Me worry?” brand of optimism that assumes that invaders will be welcomed or that global warming does not exist.
Instead, we need an activist hope, the kind that comes by decision and without warranty – the realistic optimism that put men on the moon and fueled the civil rights movement. As has been said, Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech was not called “I Have a Nightmare.” In fact, we're well positioned to build a better civilization, to create a new peace, to make life gentler for those who really do have something to worry about, to avoid the storm of storms.
Consider the available technologies that could slow global warming to a tolerable rate – if we choose to make that investment. Consider the fact that the nation's murder rate has dropped to the lowest level in decades; and that the predicted attack of teen “super-predators” never happened; and that – mysteriously – teen crime shows the sharpest decline in modern history. Someone somewhere has done something right.
And consider the startling findings of the first Human Security Report, published last year by Oxford University Press, which documented that, since the end of the Cold War, the “global security climate has changed in dramatic, positive, but largely unheralded ways,” that “civil wars, genocides and international crises have all declined sharply – as have military coups and the average number of people killed per conflict per year.”
Our greatest current fear, international terrorism, “has killed fewer than 1,000 people a year, on average, over the past 30 years” – a terrible number, yes, but one that must be seen in context. This is not to diminish the value of the lives lost, or to deny the carnage in Iraq, or to accept at face value all the statistics in the report.
This, however, is known: With a little help from a handful of terrorists, we have made despair both fashionable and comfortable. And this also is true: Cultural depression is real, but only as real as we choose to make it.

INDIA SHAMEFULLY DISINVITES DANISH PM

Dutch Socialist Leader in Fear of Muslim Party Members

“THE POLICE WERE SMILING” (Can the protest babes be defeated?)

A reason to believe (“civil war” meme subs for insurgency undefeatable)

Reports from the Idea Industry :Opposing Nukes For Iran

A Deadly Silence: Leaving the Left’s victims of terror behind (HT: RealClearPolitics)

Citing Foreign Law

Murtha Democrats: The Pentagon is the embodiment of farsightedness and circumspection compared with its critics

Kalb Upbraids Harvard Dean Over Israel

Holocaust History Project

International Study: German State Media Most America Critical in Europe

Union Dues and Don'ts

A NEW LOW FOR LOVEN (AP WATCH)

Fallujah, media memes, and public debate

Counterfactual history (Iraq without US entry)

Victory over Terror?

THEY TOO DARE TO SPEAK OUT! (THE ISRAEL CONSPIRACY)

Evolving policies for the Middle East

American Death Rate In Iraq Lowest In Two Years

Compare and contrast:
Anti-War Anniversary Protests a Bust
and
Huge protests against French job law, some violence

Avoidance of international responsibility is trumped by avoidance of domestic responsibility, but are two sides of the same coin.

While relatively puny crowds turned out today to protest the U.S. in Iraq, up to 1.3 million French turned out to protest a new employment law that allows more “at-will” terminations during the first 2-years of their first job contract of those under age 26.

As Reuters reports:

Unemployment is the top political issue in France, where the national average is 9.6 percent and youth joblessness is double that. The rate rises to 40-50 percent in some of the poor suburbs hit by several weeks of youth rioting last autumn.
Defending the CPE contract, Cope argued it was better than the present situation in which 70 percent of employees under 26 work under short-term contracts of only a few months, after which they can be fired just as easily as with the new contract….
Latest opinion polls show that 68 percent of French people oppose the law, a rise of 13 percentage points in a week, and that Villepin's popularity has dropped six points to 37 percent.
The crisis has isolated Villepin politically at a time when his patron Chirac is himself badly weakened. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, Villepin's main rival on the right, has stood back discreetly as the prime minister's troubles mount.

Can't field an army capable of doing much of anything.
Can't field a competitive workforce.
Can field protestors.

Get set for a Democrat campaign in 2006 of heightened misinformation and false pretenses.

Rowan Scarborough at the Washington Times obtained a copy of the Senate Democrats’ national security strategy for the 2006 election. What the memo titled “Real Security” lays out as the Democrats approach is to whine without program. This “political offensive targets Bush” stands in stark contrast to the serious presentation of issues and policies presented by President Bush this week. See here.

Example of Democrat Strategy:

"Hold a town hall meeting with state officials and a local National Guard unit at their armory to discuss the security impact of long deployments. ... Ask National Guard members to offer input on how security and disaster response at home is compromised by long deployments."

As the reporting of the new commission to study the National Guard and Reserves lays out:

As the commission begins its work, 120,125 National Guard and reserve personnel are on active duty, about half the peak number mobilized for Iraq and Afghanistan. At one point last year, nearly half of all U.S. troops in Iraq were from the Guard and reserves.

The Washington Post points out that:

The Pentagon says the decline in Guard and Reserve call-ups also reflects that some troops whose specialties make them among the most frequently deployed have served their required time. Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said some "high demand" units such as military police, military intelligence and special operations forces have completed their 24 months of mobilization time. This means they are no longer available unless they volunteer.

Greyhawk collects some of the recent stats belying claims of a demoralized or broken armed services. Nonetheless, recruits are flocking to service. The Army Guard exceeded its target by 7% so far this fiscal year. The regular Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force also exceeded their recruitment goals in the latest month. Are active duty members fleeing service? The 2005 desertion rate is 7% of that during 1971, and since 9/11 the annual rate of desertion in the Army, Navy and Air Force has dropped by 57%.

Meanwhile, this recent study of response to Katrina last year, when National Guard and Reserves in Iraq were far higher, puts to rest that the Guard and Reserves were not up to the task:

While the press focused on FEMA's shortcomings, this broad array of local, state and national responders pulled off an extraordinary success--especially given the huge area devastated by the storm. Computer simulations of a Katrina-strength hurricane had estimated a worst-case-scenario death toll of more than 60,000 people in Louisiana. The actual number was 1077 in that state.

The Democrat memo calls for photo ops that “clearly conveys the message in the shot. Planes, vehicles, equipment and signage in the background enhance the pictures coming out of your event.” That should say, clearly mis-appropriates images of many of the weapons programs Democrats sought to eliminate or reduce, and try to appear more real than Dukakis in his tank photo-op.

What's Missing in the Media's Pellicano File (Hilaryious)

Armed Resistance to the Holocaust (Draft: HT Instapundit)

Three Firms Selected to Take Part in IRS Delinquent Tax Collection Effort

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL BATTLESPACE (Civil Discourse Vs Irrational Thought)

Neutral aides or active partisans?:UNRWA staff comes in for scrutiny

"New Low" Update (Bush polling)

Exclusive!!! The secret weapon of the pro-Israeli lobby

That’s what Timothy Waters says in “What now for war trials after Milosevic?” Waters was part of the team that drafted the original indictment for the International Criminal Tribunal of Slobodan Milosevic (don’t RIP). Waters’ reflections are an appropriate footnote to today’s update of the President’s National Security Strategy. See here and here and here.

Waters writes that,

[H]opes were high that the architect of ethnic cleansing would face justice, and a definitive record of the war would be established…It’s hard to say he won, but clearly international law hasn’t….Tribunals have proliferated since the cold war, becoming the international community’s choice for responding to mass violence. In the process, law has crowded out other options….Claims that international courts deter violence, create a record, or promote reconciliation remain speculative.

What does Waters see as the priority?

The energy expended on tribunals might be better invested in building consensus on robust, timely intervention when crimes are being committed rather than seeking punishment afterward.

It’s understandable that Waters feels Milosevic cheated the hangman. However, nonetheless, relatively few countries in the world are prepared or willing to intervene militarily, whether in Iraq, Iran or Darfur, and the United Nations new improved Human Rights Council is a sham which can only be expected to keep a membership self-protective of despots and to continue demonizing Israel. So, that leaves only victors’ justice, however delivered, or continued injustice.

Even then, injustice alone – in a world rife with it - is not sufficient to warrant support, and to continue support, from Americans to spend its youth and fortune in war. As imperfect as a court may be, it’s less so than the inevitable costs and confusions of war, especially to those whose overriding priorities are avoiding confrontations with evil or in exploiting war-weariness for the next electoral self-interest. But, emotional or tired avoidance of the need for armed intervention, or idealistic or sophistic reliance on international opinion, that is infecting more of our discourse about Iraq, Iran, and other peril zones is not a responsible substitute for the need to confront the more dire alternatives of serious threats to our security.

The Fact Sheet summary of the President’s National Security Strategy that is presented today well sums this administration’s thinking and stance. Read it before reading MSM or blog treatments, favorable or critical.

There’s too much detail and richness of explanation in this very important document to rely on a media or blog summary. It will tell what to expect over the next 1 and 3-years, and much not to expect if Democrats assume power in either 2006 or 2008.

The choice is as clear as can be, and those who harp – from either side of the aisle – are not doing themselves, America, and the world a favor by forgetting or fogging the stakes.

According to The Hill newspaper, the House Rules Committee met yesterday to determine the ground rules for debate of H.R. 1606, The Online Freedom of Speech Act. The bill "would exclude online content from the 'public communications' covered by campaign-finance laws."

H.R. 1606, was introduced by Congressman Jeb Hensarling, in the wake of outrage in the blogosphere over a decision by United States District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that public communications in favor of specific candidates constitute an expenditure as defined by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act [aka McCain-Feingold]. Later, this decision was stupidly upheld by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Hensarling bill, unfortunately failed passage when placed on the suspension calendar last November[which means that the bill would receive a non-recorded vote] because it didn't receive the two-thirds majority needed for passage. The good news though is that more than half of the House did vote for the measure. So, the House's new Majority Leader John Boehner has scheduled the measure for a recorded vote sometime next week.

Representatives Chris Shays and Marty Meehan are calling for an up or down vote on an alternative proposal being sponsored by Reps. Tom Allen and Charlie Bass that would require websites that exceed annual expenditures of $10,000 to file campaign finance disclosures. The blogosphere must resist the effort by the likes of Shays, Meehan, and Pelosi to implement this onerous regulation upon the blogosphere.

How does one measure the $10,000 figure? Is it based upon the market value of our submissions? Or whether or not our posts are linked by a major blog site like Instapundit or Hugh Hewitt, or whether we actually spend more than 10K on the site? Such a regulation is a prior-restraint upon operators of blogs like myself, who can neither afford nor have the time to fill out the FEC's paperwork.

Cambodia's Killers

US to publicize health care price data

Blowing the CIA's cover

Freedom of speech finds new meaning in Wen’s world

ZUBR AND THE “DENIM REVOLUTION” (Belarus)

Turkish, foreign academics debate WWI Armenian massacres

Between Democrats seeking anything at all to criticize the Bush administration, their MSM enablers, and conservative Republicans refighting against this expansion of Medicare, one might think the new Medicare Part D prescription program a debacle.

Not so, say Medicare beneficiaries.

A survey