Rumsfeld in Germany

While we're on the subject of der Spiegel, we should note that they recently conducted an extensive interview with Don Rumsfeld in which he lays out his view of the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and other states in the region. Interesting stuff... Read it here.

German Sex Workers -- A Photographic History

Der Spiegel has a small archive of photographs from the Museum der Arbeit of German prostitutes, 1900-2002. The poster above is from 19oo warning emigrant women to be careful regarding employment opportunities. Check it out here.

The Mitrokhin Archive -- More Leftist Myths Exposed

Vasili Mitrokhin was a senior KGB archivist who over the course of many years took notes on the contents of KGB files and transferred thousands of those notes to British intelligence on the condition that they be made public so that the world could learn just how extensive and corrupting Soviet subversion had been.

The first volume based on these archives, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB, came out in 1999. [here]

It covered KGB activities in the West, especially those directed against “the great adversary,” the United States. In it are details of a spectacularly successful espionage effort aimed at the US military and a largely successful attempt to manage the western media including an extensive ongoing disinformation campaign that spread unsavory rumors about major figures such as Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan and J. Edgar Hoover, which have passed into popular folklore. The KGB also used a variety of techniques, including a mail bombing campaign, to increase racial tensions in the South during the Civil Rights era and spread the rumor, widely accepted at the time, that the CIA was implicated in JFK’s assassination. Since the archive is incomplete, much of its contents is still classified by British intelligence, and the KGB efforts at controlling information so extensive, one is left wondering just how much of “what is commonly known” [especially among leftist academics] about American history in the past half century has been shaped by Soviet disinformation efforts.

Now the second volume of the archives has been published under the title, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World. It too is chock full of fascinating and disturbing information.

The book has had its biggest impact in India because it contains explosive information regarding Soviet successes in penetrating government offices and political parties. Allen Judd summarizes:

A KGB director frankly admitted that it had "scores of sources throughout the Indian Government… It seemed as if the entire country was for sale." Elections were swung, major deals concluded or prevented and suitcases full of banknotes delivered in secret to Mrs Gandhi's house at night (she never returned the empties). In 1975 alone the KGB calculated that its Active Measures operations brought about 5,510 anti-Western or pro-Soviet stories in the Indian media. Among its best agents was one of Mrs Gandhi's senior ministers; yet all the while it was the threat of CIA subversion that worried her.

Indira Ghandi (code name “Vano”) was one of several world leaders who were considered by the KGB to be, if not fully active agents of the Soviet Union, “confidential contacts” whom they could influence and whom they supported. President Allende (code name “Leader”) of Chile was another. Kommersant reports:

Allende’s victory cost the KGB $420,000…. It was not the Soviet Ambassador to Santiago that he regularly met as the main Soviet representative after assuming power but it was a KBG chief in Chile, Svyatoslav Kuznetsov, who personally “guided” Allende. The president’s lover, Miria Kontrereas Bell, known in Moscow as “Marta”, organized the meetings.

Among the payoffs to Allende were various sex films and “associated cavortings” with prostitutes.

There were numerous other KGB successes, among them “active measures” campaigns that spread stories through the world media “ranging from the widely-believed CIA-started-Aids story to the alleged kidnapping of Latin American children for US spare part surgery….”

It is these media successes that are today most troubling because the lies originating in KGB operations have become implanted in the minds of left wing political activists here and around the world and are still part of the global political discourse. I recently reviewed the deeply duplicitous film, The Constant Gardener, based on the book of the same title by spy novelist John LeCarre and noted that a number of film critics, working for major publications throughout the West, assumed that the outrageous premise of the story – that western governments and international corporations were testing out dangerous, often fatal, drugs on unsuspecting Africans, masking the programs as charitable aid – was perfectly plausible and probably accurate. The almost universal suspicion with which American policy initiatives are met throughout the world owes a lot to this half century of systematic lying. Publication of materials from the Mitrokhin archives is a small first step toward correcting that false perception.

Reviews cited here and here.

UPDATE:

Christopher Andrew will be discussing "The World Was Going Our Way" on C-SPAN on November 05, at 4:12 p.m., EST

Picture Of the Week

As I navigate the net I often come across pictures by contemporary artists that for some reason appeal to me. This is one of them. It's an oil titled "Asha" by Hye Seong Yoon (San Francisco, CA) that won an honorable mention in the Salon competition by the Art Renewal Center this year [here]. Most of the stuff in the file is pretty insipid, but this one really stood out. I thought I'd share it with my readers.

liar, liar, pants on fire..., Joe Wilson's Agenda In His Own Words

Joe Wilson's objectivity takes a big hit in Gateway Pundit's latest post in which he discusses a speech Wilson gave to a left-wing organization shortly after the war began in which he lays out his agenda. It's important reading. Check it out here.

The American Thinker notes that for more than a year after his mission to Niger, in several public statements, Wilson made none of the charges that later made him famous. In fact, his statements support the administration's contention that Saddam posed a threat because of his pursuit or possession of WMDs. Read it here.

Democrats who seek to hang their case against the war on Wilson's ever more bizarre and erratic statements are making a big mistake.

Maeanders

We spent the weekend at the Harbor. The weather was great and I was able to devote a fair amount of time to wandering around the city.

As I have noted in other posts I occasionally like to spend a couple of hours in a coffee shop, either with friends (for a gab session) or alone (sorting out my thoughts on what I’m currently reading and writing). My favorite place has been changing lately. It’s in an excellent location, right across the street from a popular urban market and adjoining a very up-scale residential neighborhood. It does a very good business and wins “best of” awards and such.

Lately the shop has begun to attract large numbers of twenty-something, stay-at-home moms. About nine o’clock [just after their husbands leave for work] women descend on the place with their toddlers to socialize and it begins to resemble a day-care center. Then about ten o’clock businessmen begin to filter in for informal meetings and the place changes again. It’s hard to concentrate when some young guy is pitching an idea to his boss, or some salesman is trying to close a deal, or someone is conducting a job interview at the next table. Then comes the lunch crowd and the place is packed. By that time, though, I’m usually long gone. On weekends the shop fills up so early that there’s no point in going there.

So I’ve been looking for a place that is a bit more conducive to sitting and thinking. I may have found one. It’s another coffee shop, just about three blocks from the one I usually frequent, on the edge of a rapidly gentrifying, but not yet exclusive, old working-class neighborhood. It’s much smaller and doesn’t do nearly the business of my old favorite and has undergone at least two changes in ownership in the past few years. The local paper describes it as a “funky neighborhood place that wants to be something more.” I kinda like it. It’s the sort of place where regular customers wander behind the bar and serve themselves.

The day I was there the shop had several customers but wasn’t crowded. There was the usual in/out, on-their-way-to-work trade, and a few old men sitting alone and reading the paper. There were about half-a-dozen young men sitting at the bar staring intently at newspapers and some middle-aged women sitting and chatting in small groups. There were also a few people sitting alone working on computers [ah, my kind of folk]. I found a spot in a corner, unpacked my computer, and got down to figuring out a graceful way to end the chapter I’m currently struggling with. The only problem was the sound system. The owner is heavily into urban blues and “Screamin’ Jay” is not good for serious thought processes. [“…because you’re MIIIIIIIINE!!!” – shudder.] But, that’s what I-pods and Bose headphones are for. I cocooned with Brahms and got a lot of work done before packing up and heading home.

Another Cultural Indicator -- Alito Nominated to Supreme Court

For all you ethno-cultural types out there:

Half a century ago it was a cliche to note that the United States was a Protestant country, dominated by a WASP [White Anglo-Saxon Protestant] elite. A great deal of the energy in the whole field of ethn0-cultural studies consisted of an assault on that elite.

If Alito is confirmed, and there is every reason to expect that he will, he will be the fifth Catholic sitting on the Supreme Court. Add in the two Jewish justices and that leaves only two seats occupied by WASPS.

One of the key weapons -- perhaps the key weapon -- used by ethnic minorities to assault the WASP citadel was the concept of "meritocracy", status within which was determined by academic and professional certifying institutions. Status and appointments reached through other means was labled "cronyism" or "favoritism."

Charges raised in both the 2000 and 2004 about Bush's personal history, the controversy over Condi Rice and Colin Powell's "blackness", and the turmoil precipitated by Harriet Miers' nomination all testify to the power exerted by the once-discredited concept of "the best and the brightest" and the controversies still surrounding it.

Perhaps it is time for historians to turn their attention to this concept -- its origins, it's success, and its consequences. Academic histories, produced by denizens of credentialing institutions, have been uncritically positive in discussing the subject, but Black and Hispanic critics in the political realm have been far less welcoming of a concept that produces results in which they are under-represented.

I would note that this concept was not new in the mid-twentieth century. It was a prominent part of Progressive ideology and can even be traced back to the idea, dealt with so well by Gordon Wood in Radicalism of the American Revolution, that the public should defer to "men of talent and ability."

Perhaps now would be a good time to step back and reconsider this concept that has done so much to shape contemporary American politics and society.

The Cliopatria Awards

For those of an historical bent, or for bent historians, Cliopatria, a group blog for historians, is running the first annual competition for excellence in history bloggery [did I type "history" enough?]

Cliopatria is welcoming nominations in six categories: Best Group Blog, Best Individual Blog, Best New Blog, Best Post, Best Series of Posts, and Best Writing.

Nominations for the Awards will be open throughout November. You can make nominations here. There you'll find simple guidelines for each award. You may want to use the History Blogroll and/or the History Carnivals to prompt your memory. Judging will take place in December. The winners of the Awards for 2005 will be announced at the Philadelphia convention of the American Historical Association at 9:00 a.m., Saturday 7 January, 2006, and will be posted here at Cliopatria shortly thereafter.

For more information go here.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Islamic Radicals Behead Christians in Indonesia

The Malaysian Star reports:

Three teenage Christian women were beheaded on Saturday by two assailants wearing helmets in eastern Indonesia as they walked to school near the Muslim town of Poso, officials said.
...

Two men on a motorcycle and armed with machetes attacked the 16-year-old students on the eastern island of Sulawese, a police official in Poso told Reuters.

"The men slashed and chopped off their heads. One of the students managed to escape and jumped into the bushes in a ravine and the assailants stopped chasing her," said the official who declined to be identified.

Poso, 1,500 km northeast of Jakarta, is in an area where three years of Muslim-Christian clashes have killed 2,000 people until a peace deal was agreed in late 2001.

So much for peace deals. The lid is off again.

If you have a strong stomach, photos of the victims are posted here. WARNING! These are headless corpses.

The Next Big Thing -- Iran

While the American media have been navel gazing and obsessing on trivia -- Scooter and Judy and Harriet etc., a major challenge has emerged in the Middle East.

By now everyone paying attention knows that Iranian President Ahmadinejad threatened to obliterate Israel, a threat that has to be taken seriously because Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Well, there's more to the story than has been generally reported, and certainly a lot more than you might have seen in the MSM.

Regime Change Iran reports on the full context of Ahmadinejad's remarks. Both the imagery and Ahmadinejad's rhetoric make it clear that the United States, as much as Israel, is in Iran's crosshairs. In the picture above, which was displayed while Ahmadinejad spoke, Israel is plummeting to its doom, but ahead of it, lying in pieces is the already demolished United States. It is also clear that Israel is seen by Ahmadinejad and his supporters as an extension of Western culture into the Islamic world, one that must be erased. The great enemy in his eyes is not Israel per se, but the Western world it represents.

As he put it:

We are in the process of an historical war between the World of Arrogance [i.e. the West] and the Islamic world, and this war has been going on for hundreds of years. ...

Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved...

Read the rest of his remarks and those of his supporters here.

Faking It -- Science at MIT

The corruption of the scientific enterprise continues.

New Scientist reports:

A high-flying researcher has been fired from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston for fabricating data. A New Scientist investigation can, however, reveal that serious doubts are also being expressed over the accuracy of data published by the same researcher much earlier in his career.

Luk Van Parijs, 35, was an associate professor of biology at MIT. On Wednesday, he was sacked by the institute after admitting to fabricating and falsifying research data in a published scientific paper and several manuscripts and grant applications.

MIT will not confirm which paper contains the faked data, but over the past 8 years, Van Parijs has co-authored 40 research papers, and was considered a rising star in the fields of immunology and RNA interference, a technology with promise for finding new genes and treating genetic disease.

Read it here.

Note he is an associate professor which means that he came up for tenure review and passed, and that he has published 40 papers that were subject to peer review.

The credibility of the entire scientific enterprise depends on the trustworthiness of its practitioners. Rampant careerism and ideological/political bias have resulted in widespread corruption and rendered the judgment of scientific authorities suspect. The problem permeates all levels of the enterprise, and as the public becomes aware of it, scientific authority itself will suffer.

Previous posts on this subject here, here, here, here, and especially here.

And also note this.

Democracy in Iraq -- Update

Mohammed at Iraq the Model notes the official start of campaigning for next month's Parliamentary elections.

He writes:

As a matter of fact, it has to be acknowledged that the political experiment in Iraq has matured by far during these two and a half years and the political language slowly began to take more realistic dimensions and we can sense a growing faith in the ways of democracy giving some sort of special divinity to the ballot box which shall remain the only base for building a new Iraq.
The more Iraqis believe in elections and in voting as a way to express themselves, the weaker violence becomes and the more isolated the terrorists will be.

Iraqis will prove that they do believe in democracy and they do want liberty and justice and the will show the region an example of how partners can work out their differences in spite of all the hardships.

Read it here.

Twit Alert! -- Prince Charles on Islam

The Telegraph reports:

The Prince of Wales will try to persuade George W Bush and Americans of the merits of Islam this week because he thinks the United States has been too intolerant of the religion since September 11.

The Prince, who leaves on Tuesday for an eight-day tour of the US, has voiced private concerns over America's "confrontational" approach to Muslim countries and its failure to appreciate Islam's strengths.

The Prince raised his concerns when he met senior Muslims in London in November 2001. The gathering took place just two months after the attacks on New York and Washington. "I find the language and rhetoric coming from America too confrontational," the Prince said, according to one leader at the meeting.

Read it here.

A few points here. 1) For years Bush has been so sensitive with regard to Islam that his avoidance of the term had become a national joke. It is only in the past few months that he has been willing to identify our enemy as radicals who have perverted the concepts of Islam. If the Prince finds that too harsh he is little more than a stooge for the radicals who falsely claim to represent all of Islam.

2) In what alternative universe does the President control what the American press does or does not print? The strongest indictments of Islam come from a free press that publishes what it wants, and are part of an ongoing dialogue over the war and its origins. Would the Prince have President Bush simply stifle that dialogue? If so, how?

3) It is Britain, not the United States, that has instituted harsh anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim measures. Despite protestations to the contrary by radicals the United States has consistently taken a moderate and accepting position regarding its Muslim minority and clearly differentiates between radicals and other Muslims. This is true not just of the government but also of the general public. When it comes to tolerance, the US should be a model for Britain and Europe, not the other way around.

RELATED:

It seems that "sophisticated" France is having a bit of trouble relating to its Muslim minority. Funny we haven't seen anything like this in the US.

Gateway Pundit is all over the story here.

TWIT UPDATE:

The Guardian reports:

Prince Charles will kick start a week long tour of the US tomorrow
night with the rather gloomy hope that people will appreciate him better when he
is dead.

He might have been referring to his reputation with parts of the
British public, but the sentiment equally applies to America.

Gee, I wonder why? Could it be because he's planning to lecture us on things about which he is absolutely clueless?

In an interview to be broadcast nationwide on CBS tomorrow evening, the
prince admits he struggles to be taken seriously in his attempts to be relevant,
and that his efforts to "make a difference" are insufficiently recognised.

I know it's not popular to say this sort of thing these days, but it's not the effort but the result that counts. If you keep on saying stupid, clueless things in public, people will think you're stupid
and clueless, and arrogant to boot.

Read Charles' complaints here.

Unfortunately, Chuck's fate is to be remembered as the perpetual king in waiting who ditched his hot psycho wife for a rottweiler.

Sustainability -- More Green Nonsense

The Times looks at the Green concept of "sustainability" and finds nothing there.

In the absence of any precise meaning, the concept of sustainability is pointless. It could mean virtually anything, and therefore means absolutely nothing. It has become merely a marketing slogan. If you buy a “sustainable” hardwood floor does it mean that the factory could theoretically carry on sawing up trees ad infinitum, or that the floor will sustain your weight? I couldn’t argue with a consumer who was more interested in the latter assurance: at least it can be proven.

Well said!

Read the whole thing here.

Maryland Politics -- For the Democrats It's a Family Affair

The Washington Times reports that Paul Sarbanes' son has declared his candidacy for the House seat being vacated by Ben Cardin, who is currently running to replace the retiring elder Sarbanes in the Senate.And so it goes....

Read it here.

Flores "Hobbit" Update -- Man or Monkey?

The discovery of what seemed to be dwarf hominid ["Hobbit"] fossils on the Island of Flores in Indonesia has sparked a long-running international dispute as to just what they represent.

The first, and most sensational interpretation, hilighted by National Geographic, was that the fossils represented a previously unknown hominid species -- a dwarf form of Homo Erectus -- that had persisted down to about 12,000 years ago and shared the island with Homo Sapiens. An alternative explanation was that they represented an isolated population of microcephalic homo sapiens. Then anatomical studies suggested that they represented a new australopithecine species. Complicating the picture was the presence on the island of small-statured Homo Sapiens and there was a question as to whether tools associated with the fossils had been produced by them or by modern humans.

See here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Now comes the suggestion that the "Hobbits" weren't even bipedal. A Dutch anthropologist, Gert Van den Bergh, argues that they were quadrupedal and unrelated to any known human species.

Van den Bergh makes his case based on the long, strangely shaped arm bones of Homo floresiensis, which were recently described in the journal Nature. “The humerus of Homo sapiens (modern man) and Homo erectus (our ancestor) has a significant twist in the connection to the shoulder," van den Bergh said in a statement issued from the magazine. "In the Hobbit, however, the humerus is connected to the shoulder without twist. You don’t see this in the even more ancient Australopithecus, nor in erectus or sapiens, nor in apes, but you do see it in gibbons and macaques! As a consequence, the Hobbit’s shoulder is less mobile. Probably she could freely move her arms forward and backward, but had difficulty moving them sideways, like we can.”

Van den Bergh speculates the Homo floresiensis might have adapted to climbing steep mountain slopes as well as trees, like macaques do. “This could be an adaptation to the inhospitable and rugged island of Flores, where the largest coastal plain is just fifteen kilometers wide. The larger part of the island consists of very steep mountain sides.”

Carl Zimmer discusses the article and includes dismissive comments on it from other anthropologists here.

John Hawks Critiques Human Migration Hypotheses

Last week I noted the publication of a new study on human migration patterns. It uses analysis of DNA to reconstruct the appearance of sequential "founder populations," first in Africa, then in the Middle East, then Europe, then Asia, and the Americas. Read it here. In the same post I noted an alternative model that had Asia colonized before Europe.

Now John Hawks weighs in on the migration study. He has read the paper itself and finds it far less impressive than media accounts would have it. He notes practical and theoretical problems with the methodology used and discusses alternative interpretations and hypotheses. It's an instructive critique and well worth the time to read it.

Check it out here.

Maryland Politics -- The Left Get Really Dirty

Left-wing blogger Steve Gillard has launched a despicable attack against Lt. Gov. Michael Steele who is running as a Republican candidate for Paul Sarbanes' Senate seat. He posted a picture of the candidate crudely altered to make him look like a character in a minstrel show, with the insulting caption, "I's Simple Sambo, and I's running for the Big House."

Democrats and Republicans alike have denounced this atrocity.

Speaking for the Steele campaign, Leonardo Alcivar responded:

"The Democratic Party has finally reached a new low with the worst kind of racist gutter politics, and it's the kind of racism that people in Maryland reject, regardless of their political party."

The Democrats quickly disavowed the contemptible blog.

The Steele depiction was "extremely offensive and distasteful and has no place in politics or in any other aspect of public discourse," said Derek Walker of the Maryland Democratic Party.

He also stated:

"This rogue attack on Lt. Gov. Steele is distasteful, despicable and degrading," Walker said. "Democrats are ready to engage Michael Steele in a spirited discussion about the issues that matter to Maryland and to our nation. ... Hatred and bigotry are enemies of the Democratic principles of fairness and opportunity for all people."

Virginia Gubenatorial candidate, Tim Kaine [D], immediately withdrew a campaign ad that had been running on the site.

Another left-wing blogger, Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos, however, defended Guillard.

He said:

that advertisers should expect edgy content and that Kaine's actions could threaten their editorial independence.

"I don't want bloggers to be afraid to say things because they don't want to offend an advertisers," Moulitsas said.

Guillard responded with a post in which he attacked Kaine as a coward for pulling the ad. He also ran a picture of Kaine with the caption "Black people should shut their mouths" implying that Kaine is a racist. In an e-mail interview with the Sun, he stated that he considered Steele to be "a traitor to his race."

Read it here [WaPo] and here [Sun].

Dave Wissing's commentary on this atrocity is here.

Michelle Malkin's post is here.

Blogometer summarizes the discussion in the blogosphere here.

Andrew Sullivan rightly labels Gillard's blog part of the "racist left." [here]

Oh my! This is so despicably degrading on so many counts! Where to begin?

First, as many commentators have noted, the charges are simple, blatant, racism. It does not matter that Gillard is black. The depiction of Lt. Gov. Steele itself, from whatever source, is racist -- as is the assumption, apparently made by Gillard, that racism issuing from a black source doesn't count. It does, and it should be denounced as strongly as if it came from the mouth of a Klansman.

Secondly, attacks like this have no place in political discourse. This is just bomb-throwing and it does more damage to the thrower than to his target. Giillard's post simply serves to discredit not only himself, but anyone who associates with him. Kaine was absolutely right to pull his advertising.

Moulitsas's comments are just stupid. It is frequently argued by people on the left that any failure to financially support their idiocy constitutes censorship. Pulling ads on irresponsible and offensive blogs is not censorship, and it does not constitute any infringement on freedom of speech.

There is a real sickness abroad in the blogosphere and people like Gillard epitomize it. This is bully-boy stuff and it serves to discredit the entire enterprise of bloggery. Stuff like this is not confined to the Left, although it often seems to be. We saw plenty of dreck pour out of the right in the Harriet Miers mess.

UPDATE:

Gillard unleashes his venom on Robert George, a black blogger who criticized his attack on Steele. [here]

Good News In the Middle East

Things seem to be looking up in the mean streets of Iraq's "hood."

First there is news that three major Sunni parties have formed a coalition to run in the upcoming parliamentary elections. This is a major step toward integrating the disaffected Sunni minority into the new political system. The article notes that not only Sunnis are forging coalitions.

[O]ther political parties and personalities continued negotiations aimed at forging other alliances ahead of the Dec. 15 parliamentary election.

Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, was expected to announce his own coalition of Shiites and Sunnis by the end of this week.

Read about it here.

Note that these coalitions are taking form not just within religious blocs, but between them. A democratic polity is in the process of formation and that's an exciting thing to see.

Yassin Musharbash, writing in Der Spiegel, notes signs of progress.

As of Tuesday, Iraq is a democracy. It's not, of course, a stable one yet -- nor is it anchored in the popular imagination. And the constitution's problematic text hides more problems than it solves. But Iraq's democracy also hasn't failed, which separates it from the myriad 'democratization' projects in other Arab countries.
...
Iraq has taken a first, tiny step -- but a decisive and indispensable one. It's possible that the Iraqi constitution will be seen one day in the same positive light as the US or German constitutions. One should remember Tuesday's date, because the experiment might just succeed. And if it does, possibilities for the rest of the Middle East could be endless.

Yes. The costs of our operations in Iraq has been heavy -- more than 2,000 dead -- but the payoff could be world-changing. That possibility too is exciting.

Read him here.

Salaam at The Mespotamian is certainly excited. He writes:

[T]he progress towards democracy is unstoppable and inexorable and total victory is in sight.

He then explains how the recent terror attack on the Palestine Hotel is a reflection of insurgent weakness.

The enemy is now counting on one and only one forlorn hope, and that is to wear down the resolve of the American and western people, with the help of the MSM, which explains the latest explosions near the Meridien/Palestine hotel, a show staged entirely for the benefit of the MSM cameras that obliged and did their part admirably. The terrorist game is at least 90% TV and Internet phenomenon, deprive them of these and you will deal them a blow far more fatal than any kind of military action. The terrorists know very well that the Iraqi people are not going to give up or submit; therefore their hopes are pinned on influencing the peoples of the free world, encouraged by reports in the MSM. In any case it is becoming clear that their senseless crimes are not going to help them achieve anything, and it seems that they don’t even have any clear ideas or objectives to speak of apart from destruction and hate.

He's right. Attacks on foreign journalists are a tacit admission that other strategies are increasingly non-productive and that the "insurgents" only hope is to demoralize the American public.

Read him here.

And there's this report from the Guardian:

'We don't need al-Qaida'

Abu Theeb is the leader of a band of Sunni insurgents that preys on US targets north of Baghdad. Last week he openly defied al-Qaida in Iraq by actively supporting the referendum. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad spent five days with him - and uncovered evidence of a growing split in the insurgency

Read it here.

This is significant not only because it confirms reports that the jihadist radicals are being marginalized within Iraq, but because it appeared in the Guardian, a staunchly anti-Bush, anti-war organ. Slowly but surely the western media are beginning to awake to the fact that something good and potentially earth-shaking is going on in Iraq.

Meanwhile in the rest of the "hood." The Lebanese government has begun to assert itself to control its borders. AP reports:

Lebanese authorities dispatched commandos and tanks Wednesday to a pro-Syrian Palestinian militant base and sent hundreds more soldiers to a second camp in an apparent crackdown on groups accused of smuggling weapons from Syria.

Read it here.

This, as the article notes, poses a danger of retaliation from the Palestinian militants in southern Lebanon, but it is an essential step toward the assertion of national sovereignth. It is good to see that the Lebanese government has sufficient confidence to take that step.

And then there's this remarkable report:

DAMASCUS, 28 October 2005 — Syria issued an appeal yesterday for dialogue with the United States as the UN Security Council mulled a strong response to its implication by a UN inquiry into former Lebanese Premier Rafiq Hariri’s murder.

“It’s time for dialogue, which must take precedence over the use of force,” said an editorial in the official daily Al-Thawra.

“The language of pressure and threats used by US President George Bush and his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are closing off the avenues for dialogue even though there are many points on which agreement is possible,” said the commentary, signed by editor Faisal Al-Sayegh, who is considered close to the corridors of power. “This is not the time for the use of force, which has proved a failure in other parts of the world but the time for dialogue... because Syrians and Americans have a lot in common and the American people are a friendly people.”

Read it here.

Syria is blinking fast and furiously. This is the sort of thing that Musharbash was referring to when he stated that the ramifications of what is happening in Iraq represented endless opportunities for progress throughout the Middle East. Real change is taking place in Lebanon and now in Syria. A new Middle East is being born in Baghdad and Beirut and Damascus, and the attending physician and midwife are named "Dubya" and "Condi."