Month: July 2006

He’s strongly against it. I really am going to hell.

Go check out the absence of any substantive discussion about the Israel-Hezbollah war on Daily Kos’s main pages.

"It is an advantage that Iraq is near Palestine. Muslims should support its holy warriors until an Islamic emirate dedicated to jihad is established there, which could then transfer the jihad to the borders of Palestine," – Ayman al-Zawahiri, on al Jazeerah.

The connection between what is happening in Iraq and what is happening in Lebanon cannot, to my mind, be under-estimated. What else are the Shiite militias in Iraq gradually seizing the levers of government in Baghdad but a version of Hezbollah?

It doesn’t exist.

Know and revere: it’s Colbert interiewing Eleanor Holmes Norton. You can’t stop watching.

Michael Totten has an insightful post:

I spent a total of seven months in Lebanon recently, and I never could quite figure out what prevented the country from flying apart into pieces. It barely held together like unstable chemicals in a nitro glycerin vat. The slightest ripple sent Lebanese scattering from the streets and into their homes. They were far more twitchy than I, in part (I think) because they understood better than I just how precarious their civilized anarchy was. Their country needed several more years of careful nurturing during peace time to fully recover from its status as a carved up failed state.

By bombing all of Lebanon rather than merely the concentrated Hezbollah strongholds, Israel is putting extraordinary pressure on Lebanese society at points of extreme vulnerability. The delicate post-war democratic culture has been brutally replaced, overnight, with a culture of rage and terror and war.

What is happening in the Lebanon is a tragedy for the Lebanese, a horrible  – and terrifying – conundrum for the Israelis, and a disaster for US policy in the wider struggle against Islamic extremism. And, oh yes, it is not, unfortunately, going to bring an end to Hezbollah…

‚ÄúWhat will become of us?‚Äù is the question on everyone‚Äôs mind. No one can know what will happen after Israel lifts its siege and the temporary national unity flies apart into pieces. And it will fly apart into pieces. The only question is how far the pieces will fly and how hard they’ll land.

The photograph above from Totten’s website is of a Christian mob attacking a car in Beirut because it had a Hezbollah logo. It may be the future of Lebanon – a country just beginning to grope its way toward democracy and normalcy. Totten wants to return as soon as possible. His reporting and analysis is as good as anything in the MSM. Donate to him. He has a tip-jar on the site.

It’s been two years since we had a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. Shouldn’t this be done annually so we can know what the intelligence agencies actually believe is happening out there? It’s important data for a national debate, whatever judgment you reach. And yet the administration refuses. What are they afraid of? Reality? Or the November elections? Ken Silverstein comments here. Meanwhile, here’s some hard data from Brookings. A glass half-full assessment can be read here.

The latest service member to be dismissed makes the number of soldiers trained to be Arab linguists and now fired for being gay 55. This dismissal even violated the basic rules of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," because the individual was closeted at work and was outed by an anonymous email campaign:

The U.S. Army recently discharged a highly regarded Arabic linguist who was the target of an anonymous email "outing" campaign. Former Sergeant Bleu Copas was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., and was a member of the prestigious 82nd Airborne Division. A decorated Sergeant who received impressive performance reviews, Copas also performed in the 82nd Airborne Chorus. His dismissal, under the federal "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel, brings the total number of Arabic language specialists dismissed under the ban to at least 55. Neither Copas nor his command know who was the source of the email campaign.

We really aren’t serious about winning this war, are we?

This is another chilling story from Iran. This time, a 16-year-old girl is hanged for "sexual immorality" which, so far as we can tell, was a function of being raped continuously by a man three times her age. Money quote:

Being stopped or arrested by the moral police is a fact of life for many Iranian teenagers. Previously arrested for attending a party and being alone in a car with a boy, Atefah received her first sentence for "crimes against chastity" when she was just 13. Although the exact nature of the crime is unknown, she spent a short time in prison and received 100 lashes… [Subsequently], the moral police said the locals had submitted a petition, describing her as a "source of immorality" and a "terrible influence on local schoolgirls".

So she was arrested again. Then there’s this moment in her "trial":

When Atefah realised her case was hopeless, she shouted back at the judge and threw off her veil in protest.

That earned her the noose. This is the enemy we face. And they do this in God’s name.

I think I just witnessed the most brilliant and surreal televised political interview in my life. When it’s up on YouTube or somewhere, would someone let me know? It was priceless. (Sign of the times: this fact is on Wikipedia’s profile of Holmes Norton within fifteen minutes of its being broadcast.)