Critical Perspective on Developments in National Security, Intelligence, and Technology
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I was just surfing through Google News and I stumbled across this shocker:
A group of unidentified insurgents have brutally killed ten Iraqi Shia women in a district in northern Baghdad after kidnapping them.
The women were on their way to Baghdad Monday when they were kidnapped by militants in the Habhab district of northern Baghdad.
Reports out of Habhab say the headless and scorched corpses of the women and their driver were found in the area.
And then, this:
According to informed sources, terrorist operations in violence-stricken Iraq are organized by the US and British intelligence services and perpetrated by the remaining members of the Baath party affiliated with Iraq’s former dictator, Saddam Hussein.
That’s some really heavy-handed propaganda there. Time to check the “About” page:
PRESS TV is the first international Iran-based news network to broadcast in English on a round-the-clock schedule.
Our Tehran-based headquarters is staffed by media professionals from around the world. PRESS TV has an extensive network of bureaus located in the world’s most strategic places.
Suddenly it all makes sense. Surfing back to the home page I find even more Iranian propaganda. Digging a little deeper I discover that some of it is generated by the American left, specifically the folks at CounterPunch.
None of this is surprising really – except for the laughably bad execution. Is this the Iranian cooperation the Bush administration is chasing after?
This is alarming:
The man told the Journal-Constitution he was in Rome during his honeymoon when the CDC notified him of the new tests and told him to turn himself in to Italian authorities to be isolated and be treated. The CDC told him he couldn’t fly aboard commercial airliners.
“I thought to myself: You’re nuts. I wasn’t going to do that. They told me I had been put on the no-fly list and my passport was flagged,” the man said.
He told the newspaper he and his wife decided to sneak back into the U.S. through Canada. He said he voluntarily went to a New York hospital, then was flown by the CDC to Atlanta.
He is not facing prosecution, health officials said.
“I’m a very well-educated, successful, intelligent person,” he told the paper. “This is insane to me that I have an armed guard outside my door when I’ve cooperated with everything other than the whole solitary-confinement-in-Italy thing.”
And we’re keeping known and suspected terrorists out how?
Bloggers React:
Michelle Malkin
Homeland security? What homeland security?
Webloggin
The selfishness of the man is unbelievable.
Thompson is on my short list so I’m looking forward to this:
Thompson’s formal announcement is planned for Nashville. Organizers say the red pickup truck that was a hallmark of Thompson’s first Senate race will begin showing up in Iowa and New Hampshire as an emblem of what they consider his folksy, populist appeal.
A testing-the-waters committee is to be formed June 4 so Thompson can start raising money, and staffers will go on the payroll in early June, the organizers said. A policy team has been formed, but remains under wraps.
Fred ThompsonThe supporters on Tuesday’s call make up a group the campaign is calling “First Day Founders.” When launched, the campaign will have offices in Nashville and Northern Virginia, the advisers say.
A new web site is on the way:
In addition, the nascent campaign is planning to launch a Web site in the next 10 days, according to one person familiar with campaign planning. Thompson will give a speech in Virginia this weekend and is scheduled to appear on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” next month.
And I trust that the videos will be rolling out frequently.
Bloggers React:
The Hillary Spot
Just talked to a Thompson source I’ll call “TA3″ (Thompson Associate 3). Much more coming shortly, but the first word was, there will not be a presidential announcement from Fred Thompson on July 4. The Politico got it wrong, it appears.
Don Surber
Fred is like the second-string quarterback in the NFL. He looks good holding that clipboard in that nice crisp uniform on the sidelines. He ain’t never thrown an interception or fumbled the ball. On the other hand, look who we’ve got in the game.
Scared Monkeys
But Fred Thompson has the right stuff. He walked away from the Senate and all its sycophantic garbage that McCain thinks of as the be all and end all. He can express in very simple and concise terms complicated ideas, something that Giuliani and Romney are far from able to do. And when it is time to face Hillary or Obama, he carries himself so well that they will look shrill and lightweight compared to him.
Wonkette
It seems like only yesterday when we were bemoaning the terrible non-Hollywood crop of not-that-tall Republican front-runners Rudy, Walnuts and L. Ron Romney. When, oh when would giant right-wing dreamboat Fred Thompson and his latest wife join the race?
Gay Patriot
Thompson will unfortunately have to pander somewhat to the extreme Right in order to win the nomination which I hate to see. Since the GWOT remains my #1 issue above any other, in order for him to get my vote he will need to convince me that he is far more capable than any other candidate of successfully prosecuting the war while not going overboard like Bush on other issues I care about. My loved ones and this country mean far more to me than anything else, including gay rights.
MyDD
Without even announcing, Thompson has reached double-digits nationally. It will be interesting to see if this announcement boosts him even further. Given current Republican dissatisfaction with their announced candidates, he certainly has a lot of potential in this campaign. The Republican top tier now includes four candidates.
Captain’s Quarters
Unlike Sager, though, I believe that Thompson has made several serious moves towards his candidacy — just nothing official. He has managed to make himself very relevant by delivering much-anticipated speeches to various Republican groups. Thompson has also written a series of essays, erudite and sensational, on various hot issues as well as explaining and expanding on his federalist beliefs. It’s almost a philosopher’s campaign for the White House, an approach that may not have a parallel since Woodrow Wilson.
Hot Air
I can live with the hokiness of the pick-up truck, I guess, but if he starts riding horses I’m out of here.
Michelle Malkin
What’s there to say?
The American Mind
Fred Thompson entering the race means more competition which is good. Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and the other candidates will have to stay sharp, hone their messages, and continue building up their campaign infrastructure. Also, a benefit of primaires is the new ideas candidates bring. To win next November the Republican nominee will have to offer a positive program to make government better, more accountable, and cheaper. He must offer substansive ideas the public can glom onto.
Mary Katherine Ham
I, for one, was tired of waiting. I like the prospect of a Fred! in the race, but I was wondering if he’d hit a point where waiting so long was producing diminishing returns. Donations on June 4, huh? Right around the corner.
Blue Crab Boulevard
Oddly, I was just reading a Newsweek magazine while waiting for my daughter in the dentist’s office. They reported that the red pickup was sitting in Thompson’s driveway with peeling paint. Their spin was that local political prognosticators were watching that truck to see if it suddenly underwent a facelift.
Wizbang!
Right now he is polling really well as someone not officially in the race. There are actually many advantages to not being in the race now — not having to participate in those early debates for one. Okay, I know there are advantages and disadvantages to participating in the debates, but for someone with high name recognition, and even higher face recognition, like Thompson, I think not being in the early debates has been a plus.
TexasFred’s
Fred Thompson needs to get this thing going, NOW!! America needs him, Conservatives can and will support him, and by God, if we don’t, then we deserve whatever bullshit that DOES fall out of the mouths of the Repubs or Dems, because if we don’t get Thompson in the White House, it really doesn’t matter WHO you put in, there’s not a dimes worth of difference in the lot of em…
The Hase Times
Aarons prediction: After announcing, Thompson will quickly gain support, easily jumping to number two in the GOP standings, with McCain taking a hit in support. Then as the January primaries/caucuses roll around Thompson will have consecutive losses in all of the crucial states, with the possible exception of South Carolina. After that, the snowball effect will catch up to him, and Romney will walk away with the nomination. At the RNC convention in Minneapolis, Romney will announce (or at least offer) Thompson as his VP running mate, shoring up the crucial Southern vote.
The Jump Blog
He’s the bandwagon I’m gonna hop on (well, as soon as he gets it rolling).
Misunderestimation
Will he actually run? Will people vote for Fred Thompson? Could Fred Thompson the second-coming of Ronald Reagan? Will Law & Order’s ratings drop? I don’t know. What I do know is this already interesting presidential race just got more interesting.
Need to Know is a short roundup of key blog posts that shouldn’t be missed on your cruise through the blogosphere. The number of links in the roundup may vary but if you find it here you can trust that it’s must-read material.
Tengu House | The truth about Halliburton
It’s true that the profit motive looms big and strong over there. Personally, I see that as a good thing, because that’s what gets a lot of our civilians over there to support those guys. But then, lots of folks disagree with me, and that’s fine. But you can’t say we’re not doing our job. Whatever happens, you can’t say that KBR isn’t supporting the troops. We handle everything from food service to laundry to entertainment. We build everything from gyms to barracks to dining facilities for our troops, embassies for our stuffed suits, and schools, oil infrastructure, military and medical facilities for the Iraqis. We’re laying sidewalks, planting friggin’ trees, surveying roads, and training engineers. We’re helping. We’re doing our part. More than our part, really. And some of our people have died doing it.
Michelle Malkin | Uh, feminists?
Last August, I wrote about the plight of an ex-Muslim woman in Malaysia named Lina Joy. She had converted to Christianity and wanted to marry a Christian man. As the Abdul Rahman case made chillingly clear to the world, there are dire consequences for leaving Islam. Joy bravely went to court to stop being identified as a Muslim–and earned death threats and family disavowal for her apostasy. Now, the verdict is in. Sharia wins, Lina Joy loses
The Jump Blog | The perception is the reality
We are losing the war not due to operational failures but due to popular perception. If the perception of the support base for the war is that we are losing it then we will lose it. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. And all of the human interest stories about this school and that project and this village and that unit and these men simply do not have the collective weight enough to shift that perception.
Dean Barnett | The McCain campaign dead pool
The general trend of the polls is unmistakable. John McCain’s campaign is sinking like the Titanic after having run into the iceberg of immigration “reform”. Oh sure, we can expect the McCain campaign and its misguided sympathizers to cling to the occasional outlier poll that shows the opposite much the way Leo DiCaprio clung to that piece of driftwood after the Titanic sank. But the rest of the Republican Party is like Kate Winslet, desperately trying to pry the McCain campaign’s frozen clammy hand from our own as we prepare for a limitless future.
NewsBusters | Creepy Al Gore worshippers
News magazines love to float above the real news and focus on nebulous trends, and perhaps none are more nebulous than the sudden popularity of the “beta male,” as represented by Al Gore. The “cultural dispatch” by writer Jennie Yabroff celebrates Gore as “the proto beta male” who’s “having the last laugh as a movie star, an ecosavant, a best-selling author, and a potential dark-horse presidential candidate.”
Cheat Seeking Missiles | Robert B. Zoellick heads to the World Bank
What’s missing from all the summaries I’ve read so far is what cred he’s got in the area of his most important task: Rooting out corruption and streamlining the bank. We know such stuff can get you fired from the World Bank (forget all the girlfriend smoke and mirrors!), so hopefully Zoellick has the stamina and smarts to take on the World Bank staff and its more corrupt participating states.
The Belmont Club | Transformation
Western society still needs to find ways to mobilize all the sources of its national power to fight in the economic, intelligence and information warfare fields. This will likely take the form of public/private partnerships which are still evolving.
Captain’s Quarters | Valerie Plame covert?
She traveled abroad under her own name. She helped arrange for her husband to do some fact-checking on a sensitive intelligence matter. Her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, then came home and leaked his observations to two nationally-known journalists, and then wrote his own op-ed in the New York Times under his byline.
Ali-Reza Anghaie and Scot Terban
Information Security, Hackers, China, and Cyber Hype
Jon Iadonisi and Tim Newberry
Phillip Smyth
Dr. Rebecca Johnson
