Blogs of War

Need to Know is a short roundup of key stories 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.

Israpundit
Homeland Security: Forget everything you’ve been told about “moderate” Muslim groups in America. New evidence that U.S. prosecutors have revealed at a major terror trial exposes the facade. Exhibit No. 003-0085 is the most chilling. Translated from Arabic by federal investigators in the case against the Holy Land Foundation, an alleged Hamas front, the secret document outlines a full-blown conspiracy by the major Muslim groups in America – all of which are considered “mainstream” by the media.

Leaning Straight Up
In short, when newspapers or other media avoid or censor anything that might be offensive to Muslims, where it is fairly obvious that such avoidance action would not happen if it was say Catholics or Jews. My interest in this is equality. I refuse to accept that the media or others have an obligation to handle all matter Islam with kid gloves where people of my particular faith are open targets for scorn, mockery and derision.

NewsBusters
Has Bill Moyers become PBS’s Jack Cafferty, Bill Maher, Rosie O’Donnell, and Keith Olbermann all rolled into one crusading, Bush-hating, anti-war propagandist funded by American tax dollars?

Pajamas Media
High tech big boys Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have been subject to much criticism, in and out of the blogosphere, for cooperating with online censorship in the People’s Republic of China. Some say this cooperation has even led to the incarceration of journalists and dissidents. Now Yahoo and Microsoft are at it again, signing a “self discipline” pact with the Internet Society of China. Pajamas Media CEO Roger L. Simon has a suggestion for what bloggers and their readers can do about it.

OPFOR
In Iraq, Al-Qa’ida has sought to change the will of the enemy, not the people, a failure which is most evident in Anbar. They choose spectacular and violent attacks on Iraqis, aimed at affecting the will of the American people, instead harnessing the power of Islam to revolutionize the Iraqi countryside. And it is a failure that is working in our favor.

Wizbang
Miss Teen USA South Carolina Lauren Caitlin Upton is a YouTube hit. The video of her bumbling answer to why one-fifth of Americans can’t locate our country on a world map has been viewed over 1.5 million times since Friday. Let this be an example to our young people; trying to B.S. your way through an question you don’t understand or know the answer on a live primetime TV broadcast is a bad idea…

Cheat Seeking Missiles
The Dems have convinced themselves that Iraqis are incapable of self-government, in their typical “I’m not a racist” racist style. They must convince themselves of this because should Iraqis actually govern themselves democratically, George Bush was right. It is no consolation to them if the Hussein violence, the sectarian violence, the infringement of liberties all stop, if George Bush being right is part of the deal.

The Captain’s Journal
In A-10s Aid in Counterinsurgency, we discussed the new role being contemplated for A-10s. The storied tank-killer has a new mission, i.e., that of aiding and assisting in counterinsurgency, or so it was being planned (debates on this can be seen in Air Power and Small Wars, and Warfare and Lawfare: An Unstable Alchemy). Perhaps as a test for this mission, the A-10 (438th Air Expeditionary Group) went back into action to provide close air support for Marines in the Anbar Province. Not long after this deployment, it was announced that the The USAF was considering a new A-10 COIN Squadron.

Power Line
On Friday, Charles Krauthammer argued that the U.S. should work with elements in the Iraqi Parliament to bring down the Maliki government. Krauthammer’s criticism of Maliki seems well-founded. But because Maliki is a symptom of the problems in Iraq and not their cause, it’s difficult to see what would be gained by ousting him.

Neptunus Lex
It’s fascinating: On the left, the term “Swift-boating” has come to mean a baseless attack on an opponent, mere propaganda. Everyone knows that the Swift boat people were liars, albeit liars who had maintained a remarkably coherent story ever since some of them had squared off with Kerry on his “Genghis Khan” narrative right from the start.

Axis of Right
At the Midwest Republican Leadership Conference this weekend, prominent Republicans seemed to be foaming at the mouth in delight at the prospect of a She Who Must Not Be Named general election campaign. Some Republicans had an “anybody but her” attitude, others weren’t too clear on who they wanted competing against her, and some worried about turnout next year.

Redstate
So if unemployment was at 10% that would be bad news, if it’s at 3% that’s bad news. Maybe it has more to do with the party of the President than actual economic news. To be clear, the Mountain West is booming and it creates increases in wages for working families. That is the private sector doing its thing, making people richer for their hard work. Perhaps reporters in NYC and DC no longer understand basic economics, but we should all be happy that the Mountain West is doing so well and we should be thankful that we are in a major economic boom with historically low unemployment.

The Corner
A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region. It may have been impossibly idealistic and even naïve to entertain such hopes (though I don’t think so), but an ambitious freedom agenda was always a part of the justification for the Iraq War – and that’s something that everyone who argues the Bush “lied us into war” is purposely ignoring.

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