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July 10, 2008 US Senate confirms Petraeus for Middle East command The U.S. Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly confirmed Army Gen. David Petraeus as commander of the military headquarters responsible for U.S. operations across the Middle East, including Iraq and... July 10, 2008 If the Messiah Is Going To Lecture Us About the Importance of Speaking Spanish … then shouldn’t he speak Spanish? As Abe Greenwald notes at Contentions, he doesn’t.... July 10, 2008 Finally, a Surveillance Pass B... July 10, 2008 Global Ripples from the Niger Delta On June 19, militants affiliated with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) launched their most audacious attack to date on the West African country's p... July 9, 2008 Why Iraq Is Changing Its Tune on Withdrawal In a surprising development, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his national security advisor Mowaffak al-Rubaie made a dramatic shift in their positions in the SOFA negotiations with the US. By r... July 9, 2008 Uzbeks presence in Pakistan’s tribal areas reignites intra-Taliban conflict A several-year-old intra-Taliban conflict between two South Waziristan warlords has flared up again. Mullah Nazir has teamed up with Mullah Gul Bahadar to oppose Baitullah Mehsud's s... July 9, 2008 Rising hopes in Tarmiyah tempered by recent violent past TARMIYAH, IRAQ: Not much lingers of this youth center' s former role in the city of Tarmiyah. An entrance to the building, now bracketed by T-wall barriers and a weapon' s clearing barrel, shows an old mural of children at play. Refurbished and rededicated in August 2006, the youth center was a source of Army civil affairs pride before grim setbacks six months later. Now, in 2008, the center has become a Joint Security Station (JSS), manned by US soldiers with Iraqi Army and police operating from a new police station next door. A company of US infantrymen use this place as their residence and headquarters. Hopes are rising here, but now they' re based on painful experience. In the latrine at the JSS, over the urinals where soldiers have to read them, red-bordered signs tell part of the story. There, the leadership of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division has posted urgent reminders '“ tips about IED searches, what not to do, and how to avoid insurgent traps and kill zones. Each warning is a lesson learned the hard way by some soldier, sometime, somewhere. Along with the signs is tacked up the old 2006 Army news release, heralding the youth center' s opening, at the cost of $200,000 '“ it was under a new, point-making headline 'œWhen Security Fails a City.' Alpha Company' s presence here is not a triumph, but a necessary position of force brought on by the collapse of the city' s security' s situation last year. In February 2007, a previous US unit' s city outpost was destroyed by a car bomb that killed several soldiers. That was two US units ago. US soldiers needed a new outpost within the city limits, and the size and space of the youth center fit the bill. The US unit that Alpha Company replaced occupied the youth center first, but rotated back and forth between here and nearby Camp Taji, doing very little in the way of improvements when they had a rotation to the Forward Operating Base to look forward to. It didn' t take long for conditions to deteriorate. When Alpha' s soldiers arrived last December, they said they found leaking walls, rats, and ice-cold temperatures. Now, the Joint Security Station is - almost - a mini-Forward Operating Base (FOB). While it does not have a mammoth dining facility like Camp Taji, it does have two dedicated cooks who spend a lot of time to make sure soldiers have real meals before all-day patrols. It doesn' t have complete latrines, but it does have water for showe July 9, 2008 BREAKING: Gunmen Attack the U.S. Embassy in Turkey The New York Times report is here. Three assassins and at least three Turkish officers killed.... July 9, 2008 What Will Sarkozy Do? China warns the French president not to meet with the Dalai Lama.... July 9, 2008 Susan Rice, Obama’s Foreign Policy Adviser, Strikes Again She’ll be a source of non-stop amusement if Obama wins. Here, from Eli Lake at the New York Sun, is what McCain’s spokesman said regarding the ongoing negotiations with the I... July 9, 2008 Russian Military Threats Eli Lake of the Sun also reports that Russia has threatened a military response of some kind if the U.S. moves forward with installation of a missile shield in the Czech Republic.... July 9, 2008 Surveillance Reform Has Passed the Senate The AP report is here. The bill, typically described by leading Democrats as a cave-in to Bush’s shredding of the Constitution, passed by more than a 2-1 margin (69-28) in a Democrat... July 9, 2008 North Korea, the Model Iran as part of its “Great Prophet” war games test fires missiles, flaunting this on TV, bragging up a range that can hit Israel. What to do? Obama calls for “a... July 9, 2008 Pakistan signs peace agreement with extremists in Khyber Just 10 days after the Pakistani government launched an offensive against extremist groups threatening Peshawar, the government signed a peace accord with the Lashkar-e-Islam, one of the... July 9, 2008 The Washington Posts Friendly Apolitical Palestinian … Who Screamed “Allahu Akbar!” While Bulldozi CAMERA (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) deconstructs the Washington Post’s bizarre attempt to portray a Palestinian jihadist as if he weren’t a Palesti... July 8, 2008 Ben Wittes and I Discuss the Boumediene Fallout at TNR I think Benjamin Wittes (a former Washington Post editorial writer who is now at Brookings and writes a regular legal column for The New Republic) is one of the nation’s most thoughtful leg... July 8, 2008 Re: Bush v. Jefferson At his Pajamas Media website, Roger Kimball has a characteristically interesting take on the incident Andrew referred to earlier -- involving President Bush's speech writers editing Presiden... July 8, 2008 Re: Refined Refinements Yuval, of all the very interesting things in your post, the most interesting is Obama’s inadvertent admission that the notion of him “trying to look centrist” is fraudulent and... July 8, 2008 Caroline Glick To echo Michael (which is always a smart move), Caroline is as good and fearless as it gets in analyzing the Middle East, the Israeli/American relationship, and the nature of the war. I esp... July 8, 2008 Lebanon’s Militia Wars Lebanon's civil war was a complex, multisided battle whose implications still shape the country's politics today. This article analyzes the forces involved domestically and the course o... July 8, 2008 String of bombings rock Karachi One day after a suicide bomber killed 19 Pakistanis, including 15 policemen, in the capital of Islamabad, a string of bombings rocked the southern port city of Karachi. One civilian was k... July 8, 2008 Achille Lauro Terrorist Released in Italy One of the Palestinian terrorists who hijacked the Achille Lauro in 1985 — among other things, shooting and killing 69-year-old, wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer before tossing him overboa... July 8, 2008 Cordesman: “U.S. Won’t Let Israel Attack Iran” The Jerusalem Post reports that Anthony Cordesman, the former Pentagon official and current analyst for ABC, made the remark during a meeting with Israeli defense analysts held by the Institute o... July 8, 2008 Obama’s Clarification Iowahawk understands what Obama is saying. ... July 8, 2008 Venezuela Supports Hezbollah The Washington Times reports that a top diplomat in Hugo Chavez’s government has been designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a facilitator of the Hezbollah terrorist organization.&nb... July 7, 2008 Punishing Mugabe, Steps 1 & 2 Meeting in Japan, the leaders of the G-7 industrial powers (plus Russia, with which President Clinton made it the G-8) are stymied over how to punish Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who is this m... July 7, 2008 For the Glass Houses File The Detroit News reports that City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers, wife of House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) is under investigation by the FBI for bribery in connection with... July 7, 2008 41 killed in Kabul suicide strike at Indian embassy Kabul was rocked with a major attack on Monday. A suicide car bomber hit the outside wall of the Indian embassy in a crowded neighborhood in Kabul on Monday, killing 41 people and woundin... July 7, 2008 Re: The Undecider Rich, it’s good to see that Dan Benjamin and other top Clinton officials have become such sticklers for orderly process and gut-check decisions. It wasn’t always so. Re... July 7, 2008 Re: Obama’s Abortion Spin Ramesh, good stuff on that John McCormack post (which usefully updates what Ramesh, Yuval and Jen Rubin have done in the way of analysis). But I have to confess I laughed when I first read... July 7, 2008 Answering Peter Robinson Peter, over the weekend I watched your Uncommon Knowledge interview with Philip Bobbit — parts beyond what you asked me to take a look at. Prof. Bobbit is plainly a thoughtful guy but... July 7, 2008 Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Central Planning At the G-8 meeting now underway in Japan, the talk is all about targets. Double aid to Africa. Funnel resources as directed under the UN’s 8 millennium development goals, to be met by the y... July 7, 2008 The Afghanistan-Pakistan Theater: Militant Islam, Security and Stability What is the optimal strategy for the United States and its allies to pursue in Afghanistan? Observers across the political spectrum agree that military operations alone are not enough to secure A... July 7, 2008 Kabuki Diplomacy The G8 began coherently enough in 1975 as a vehicle for leveraging the combined political and economic strength of its members in pursuit of their common interest. The six largest... July 6, 2008 Victory in Iraq … Yawn Al Qaeda’s being crushed in Mosul, its last holdout in Iraq. You need to go to the British press to learn about it. Here’s from the Times of London [h/t TigerHawk]:... July 6, 2008 Good for the Washington Post The Post, which supports the result in the Supreme Court’s Kennedy v. Louisiana decision invalidating the death penalty for rape, concedes (in an editorial yesterday) that the case should b... July 6, 2008 Iraqi forces pursue Mahdi Army in Baghdad Clashes broke out in the Sadr City district in northeastern Baghdad after Iraqi forces detained a senior Sadrist leader, an Iraqi news outlet reported. Iraqi soldiers and police... July 6, 2008 Is There Legitimate Doubt About Obama’s Eligibility to be President? I had not caught up until today with this apparent controversy over whether the Hawaii birth certificate proffered by Obama’s campaign is a forgery and whether there are legitimate question... July 6, 2008 Suicide bombing outside Lal Masjid in Islamabad kills 19 A suicide bomber killed 19 Pakistanis, including 15 policemen, in an attack outside a police station in Islamabad. More than 40 Pakistanis were reported wounded. "Most of the inj... July 6, 2008 US forces kill 20 Taliban on Pakistani border US forces killed 20 Taliban fighters during airstrikes in Nangarhar province today in the latest in a series of attacks along the Pakistani border. The US military targeted "a la... July 6, 2008 Re: Is There Legitimate Doubt About Obama’s Eligibility to be President? A reader alerts me that AJ Strata has looked carefully at the Obama citizenship story and says it is nonsense.... July 5, 2008 Pakistan suspends Khyber operation, peace negotiations underway The Pakistani government has halted military operations in the tribal region of Khyber and has opened up negotiations with extremist groups in the region. "The operation has been... July 5, 2008 NYTimes & Obama: Which Is It? My buddy TigerHawk has some insightful fun laying out the possible reasons why the Gray Lady is in a snit (at least for public consumption) over Obama’s flip-flops:... July 5, 2008 Getting FISA Wrong . . . Again A federal court in California has dismissed a civil lawsuit that alleged surveillance violations against a Muslim charity the government has formally designated as supporter of al-Qaeda and other... July 3, 2008 Afghan Army kills 25 Taliban after ambush in the northwestern province of Badghis The Afghan National Army killed 25 Taliban fighters after being ambushed and fighting a 10-hour battle in the northwestern province of Badghis. The attack in Badghis is the latest in a se... July 3, 2008 The Supremes’ Wayward Child-Rape Decision After consultations with our Bench Memos crew, I've updated this morning's... July 3, 2008 RE REFINING ON IRAQ I, for one, will not criticize Obama if he is moving to the right on Iraq. Iraq is the most important front in the global war being fought by our jihadist enemies. They have told us so – an... July 3, 2008 Dick Morris on the Supremes’ Gun Case I generally enjoy Dick Morris’s insights about politics because, even if you don’t agree with him, he is a master tactician. But when he writes about law, he is often out of his... July 3, 2008 Re: Iran Blinks? Jonah, while I don't doubt your reader is right, I suspect what the mullahs want is the North Korea deal which, at least in the Norks' case, seemed to be available right now. Maybe if t... July 3, 2008 Morris on Combatants Continuing his critique of the Supremes (see my last post on this), Dick Morris focuses on Boumediene, the enemy combatants decision. He starts out with some critical information, but when...

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