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A Hero Among Heroes – New York Post editorial
President Bush announced yesterday that the nation's highest military distinction will be awarded - posthumously - to a Long Islander of incredible valor.
Lt. Michael P. Murphy, a Patchogue native and Navy SEAL, was deep in enemy territory in Afghanistan two years ago when Taliban gunmen ambushed his unit. Forsaking cover, he was shot as he scrambled into the open to send a distress signal back to the base. He succeeded - but was killed in the ensuing gunfight.
Lt. Murphy will be the first to receive the Medal of Honor for heroism in Operation Enduring Freedom. The president will present it to his parents at the White House on Oct. 22.
Make no mistake: Americans owe their freedom to all the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces. But the courage and instant self-sacrifice that sustains their effort can be seen most clearly in heroes like Lt. Murphy…
Secretary Gates Declares War on the Army Brass – Fred Kaplan, Slate
… The speech was delivered to the Association of the United States Army, an organization that's happy to hear applause lines and boilerplate; but Gates used the occasion to call for a radical restructuring of the Army—its training, personnel policies, basic strategy, and missions.
He issued the call about halfway into the speech, when he noted that future wars will be more like Iraq and Afghanistan—"asymmetric" conflicts that don't play into the American military's traditional prowess for large-scale, head-to-head combat…
To the civilian newspaper reader, this may seem a passage of dry common sense. But to an Army insider, it's practically a declaration of bureaucratic war.
The heart of the establishment Army is the tank and infantry corps. Its key mission is high-intensity, open-field combat against an enemy army of comparable capability…
Divide and Conquer – James Robbins, National Review
… Is partition really a viable way forward? Partisans of the idea like to mention that Iraq’s borders are artificial — unlike, say, the 49th parallel. Or that they were the product of war and imperialism — unlike, say, almost every national border on the planet. The implication is that left to other, natural, peaceful forces, the country would divide amoeba-like into self-sustaining, organic pieces. The September 26, 2007, non-binding Senate resolution on Iraq which Biden and Brownback championed called for a weak central government over three mostly autonomous states. Apparently, it was inspired by the successful experiment of our Articles of Confederation period.
One small problem with the plan is that most Iraqis oppose it. All the major Iraqi papers published editorials denouncing the Senate resolution, and Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki sent a protest letter to Biden. A 2006 IRI poll showed that 78 percent of Iraqis opposed partition of the country, 66 percent strongly so. There was regional support in the Kurdish areas, 52-percent approval overall. Yet Kurdish political leaders opposed the language in the Senate resolution because they see the issue as one for the Iraqis to work out. Even dressing up the proposal in beltway-inspired language like the currently fashionable “soft partition” makes it dead on arrival in the region. Any use of the word “partition” vitiates the concept. It is a fighting word. It is about as effective as calling Israeli West Bank settlements “soft Zionism.” …
Hope yet for Iraq? - Victor Davis Hanson, Washington Times
Iraq for most Americans is now a toxic subject — best either ignored or largely evoked to blame someone for something in the past.
Any visitor to Iraq can see that the American military cannot be defeated there, but also is puzzled over exactly how we could win — victory being defined as fostering a stable Iraqi constitutional state analogous to, say, Turkey.
But war is never static. Over the last 90 days, there has been newfound optimism, as Iraqis are at last stepping forward to help Americans secure their country.
I spent last week touring outlying areas of Baghdad and American forward operating bases in Anbar and Diyala provinces, talking to Army and Marine combat teams and listening to Iraqi provincial and security officials.
Whether in various suburbs of Baghdad, or in Baqubah, Ramadi or Taji, there is a familiar narrative of vastly reduced violence. Until recently, the Americans could not find enough interpreters, were rarely warned about land mines and had little support from Iraqi security forces.
But now they are asked by Iraqis in the "Sunni Triangle" to join them to defeat the very terrorists the locals once championed. Anbar, just months ago was deemed lost by a U.S. military intelligence report, is now in open revolt against al Qaeda. Why the change? ...
Gasps from al Qaeda - Jack Kelly, Washington Times
The last days on Earth of Abu Osama al-Tunisi apparently were filled with anxiety: "We are desperate for your help," he said in a letter to al Qaeda chieftains.
A copy of the letter was found by U.S. troops sifting through the rubble of the building in Musayb, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, where on Sept. 25 al-Tunisi had been meeting with two local al Qaeda operatives when an F-16 cut their discussion short.
Al-Tunisi was a key member of the rapidly dwindling inner circle of Abu Ayoub al Masri, the al Qaeda chieftain in Iraq. Another key member, Abou Yaakoub al Masri, an intimate of Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, was killed Aug. 31 near the northern Baghdad suburb of Tarmiyah.
Al-Tunisi was responsible for bringing foreign al Qaeda recruits into Iraq and placing them in operational cells, U.S. military spokesmen said. That effort suffered a major blow when "Muthanna," the al Qaeda emir for the Iraq-Syrian border region, was killed in early September...
Newsworthy Reconsidered – Victor Davis Hanson, National Review
… In this time of war, our news channels — with updated alerts no less that interrupt the usual IED fare from Iraq — tell us more than we wish about O.J.’s latest rampage in Vegas. But they give us almost nothing about Colonels Rick Gibbs, or David Sutherland, or JB Burton, or Paul Funk, or Michael Kershaw — or dozens more like Cols JR McMaster and Chris Gibson, who are daily trying to incorporate former enemies in the so-called Triangle of Death into coalition forces to stabilize Iraq.
How they, and hundreds of their fellow officers — away from their families on serial tours, replete with MAs and PhDs, and often survivors of multiple IED attacks — do this is largely lost on the American public in a way Aruba, the ghost of the drug-laden Anna Nicole Smith, and the trashy Britney Spears are not.
I don’t wish to suggest that our present titillation on the home front, or amnesia about those fighting overseas, is entirely foreign to the American war experience…
Inflaming the Turks - Boston Globe editorial
The historical evidence shows that the 1915-1917 massacres of Armenians in eastern Turkey constituted what the world now knows as genocide, and Turkey ought to acknowledge this reality. But a resolution before Congress has provoked an upsurge of nationalism that threatens US interests and would do nothing to lift Turkey's willful amnesia. It should not be pursued at this time.
"There's never a good time," said Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week. She supports the resolution, which was approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday and is now before the full House. That committee vote, just one step in the legislative process, prompted protests in Turkey and caused the government to summon its ambassador home. Also this week, unrelated to the vote, the Turkish government sought parliamentary approval for raids into Iraq to pursue Kurdish guerrillas there. And as they have done for over four years, US supply planes shuttled across Turkish air space, via the base at Incirlik, to supply US forces in Iraq.
Approval of the resolution by the House would threaten use of the base and make it harder for US diplomats to persuade the Turkish government to stay out of Iraq. Eight former secretaries of state have warned that its passage would harm US security interests.
This page recognizes the truth of the Armenian genocide, but with the nation embroiled in Iraq, we agree that Congress should not inadvertently complicate the mission of American forces...
From Bad to Worse in Sudan - Alex de Waal, Los Angeles Times
Helping bring peace to southern Sudan in 2005 was the Bush administration's finest foreign policy achievement. It is now unraveling, risking a new north-south civil war that would surpass Darfur as a political and humanitarian disaster.
The Darfur advocacy campaigns have familiarized the American public with the suffering and abuse visited on civilians in that region of western Sudan. The people of southern Sudan suffered no less during the years of civil war beginning in 1983. The successive governments in Khartoum had two weapons of choice: freelance militias licensed to raid, burn and plunder; and deliberate famine that starved southern Sudanese to the point where vast tracts of their fertile land are now depopulated. The stakes were undeniably high. Khartoum didn't want to lose control of the south, which has oil. But most of those who live in southern Sudan -- Christians and followers of traditional theistic faiths -- believe that their homeland should separate from northern Sudan and end generations of exploitation by Khartoum's Arab-Islamic elites. Over 20 years, up to 2 million southerners perished...
Change in North Korea? – Washington Post editorial
The Bush administration and the South Korean government are behaving as if they expect a remarkable transformation in North Korea within the next few months. The administration is quietly preparing to remove the regime of Kim Jong Il from the list of state sponsors of terrorism -- essentially reversing and repudiating President Bush's description of Pyongyang as part of an "axis of evil." For his part, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun -- like Mr. Bush, an unpopular lame duck -- showered Mr. Kim with promises of investments in North Korean roads, railroads and industrial zones at a summit meeting last week. One South Korean institute estimated that all the pledges would cost South Korea $11 billion if they are implemented by Mr. Roh's successor.
And the transformation? So far the evidence of it is mixed, at best. North Korea has shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and allowed monitoring by international inspectors, as it did in exchange for economic and diplomatic favors during the Clinton administration. Last week it approved a statement that said it would disclose all of its nuclear programs and materials -- presumably including the nuclear bombs it possesses -- and "disable" the Yongbyon facilities by the end of this year…
Russian Reservations - New York Times editorial
Vladimir Putin is a master at bluster and hyperbole, but his latest comments on Iran were especially counterproductive. This week, Mr. Putin asserted that “we have no real data to claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, which makes us believe the country has no such plans.” In fact, there is no concrete proof of weapons development. But there is enough credible circumstantial evidence to be seriously worried.
There’s also no excuse for Iran’s continued defiance of a Security Council order to halt production of enriched uranium, usable for nuclear fuel or a weapon. Mr. Putin’s comments — and his opposition to tougher sanctions — will only feed that defiance and lessen the chances for the diplomatic settlement that Mr. Putin says he wants.
The Bush administration and Britain — their credibility after Iraq is shaky to say the least — aren’t the only ones who believe that Tehran wants to do a lot more than generate electricity. France, which strongly opposed the Iraq war, is also raising alarms. The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is the source of much of the data — and the questions — about Iran’s program...
Tehran’s Price for ‘Solidarity’ – Amir Taheri, New York Post
Anxious to create what they call "a global progressive front," Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela are sponsoring projects to underline "the ideological kinship of the left and revolutionary Islam."
The theme - hammered in by Ahmadinejad during his recent visit to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia - inspired a four-day seminar organized by his supporters at Tehran University last week (partly financed by Chavez).
The hope was that the conference would produce a synthesis of Marxist and Khomeinist ideologies and highlight what the Iranian leader has labeled "the divine aspect of revolutionary war." But the event itself proved rather embarrassing…
Eternal Nausea – John Podhoretz, New York Post
And so, here we are again, on the verge of another Middle East peace conference - this one in Annapolis, starting Nov. 1.
And so, again, here we are, with Israeli politicians leaking possible territorial concessions and Palestinian politicians loudly insisting they won't change their position - the position that Israel must give while they need only take.
And yet again, we are here, with the State Department imagining that because so-called "moderate Arab states" say some reasonable things about Israel's existence to American diplomats behind the scenes, those same principalities will come out from behind the curtain, take the Palestinians by the hand - and openly seek the cessation of hostilities between Jew and Arab…
Combat Stress – London Times leader
“The best time of my life was being in the Army and fighting for my country,” Private Dave Forshaw wrote in his heart-rending suicide note. It was life outside the Army, back in the country for which he had been fighting as a reservist, that he could not face. As Martin Fletcher reports today, Private Forshaw may or may not have been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but he was surely a casualty of the Iraq war in which he fought for two six-month tours. And there will be more like him.
Even in peacetime, the Territorial Army provides essential technical, logistical and medical support for regular soldiers. With British troops engaged in two major military operations, it carries a heavy burden. Yet while reservists and regulars run similar risks and endure comparable hardships in warzones, there is mounting evidence that those who serve in the TA pay a higher price in terms of mental health. Their transitions between civilian and military life are harsher, and they stand less chance of finding timely and appropriate treatment. Help is available, but too few reservists know about it and the systems in place to encourage them to use it are inadequate. They deserve better…
A Convenient Nobel Prize for Politics – Ross Clark, London Times
Al Gore is not the least worthy recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace – that title, perhaps, belongs to Yassir Arafat. Nor is his film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, quite as riddled with questionable statements as the autobiography of Rigoberta Menchú, the Guatemalan activist and 1992 peace laureate, which has since been exposed as a work of fiction. But for an independent assessment of the former US Vice-President’s contribution to world peace and understanding, I am inclined to favour Mr Justice Barton over the Nobel committee.
In the High Court on Wednesday, the judge ruled that schools must not show An Inconvenient Truth without using material to balance Mr Gore’s “one-sided views” on the issue. The film is political rather than scientific, he added, because it contains nine statements that are either untrue or are unsubstantiated. It mistakenly attributes the drying-up of Lake Chad to global warming and falsely claims that polar bears have drowned because they can’t find enough ice…
Inconvenient Errors – The Australian editorial
When Martin Durkin's documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle was shown on ABC TV earlier this year we suggested that Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, be subjected to the same level of scrutiny. Predictably, the ABC ignored our request, but yesterday a British judge of the High Court did what the ABC refused to do and critically examined Mr Gore's documentary. He found that the "apocalyptic vision" presented in the film was not an impartial analysis of climate change but part of a politically partisan crusade.
Justice Burton was asked to rule whether the documentary should be shown to school children. He found that the documentary had nine factual errors and was deliberately alarmist. As we pointed out earlier this year, the claim that sea levels could rise by 6m "in the near future" is a deliberate exaggeration. The claim that Pacific atolls had already been evacuated is untrue and the claim that polar bears are drowning while searching for icy habitats is fanciful. Mr Gore blamed the drying up of Lake Chad, the melting snows of Mount Kilimanjaro, coral bleaching and Hurricane Katrina on global warming but the judge found the scientific community has yet to find evidence to support these claims. The suggestion that the Gulf Stream would be shut down is "very unlikely" according to the International Panel on Climate Change. Justice Burton also found that the use of two graphs showing that carbon dioxide levels and temperatures over the last 650,000 years were an "exact fit" overstated the case.
What all this illustrates is the vital importance of taking a scientific, evidence-based approach to climate change. Those like Mr Gore who exaggerate to make their case inevitably damage their credibility…
What has Al Gore Done for World Peace? - Damian Thompson, London Daily Telegraph
So Al Gore is the joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Admittedly, he has to share it with the United Nations’ climate change panel - but, even so, I think we need to declare an international smugness alert.
The former US Vice-President has already taken over from Michael Moore as the most sanctimonious lardbutt Yank on the planet. Can you imagine what he'll be like now that the Norwegian Nobel committee has given him the prize?
More to the point, can you imagine how enormous his already massive carbon footprint will become once he starts jetting around the world bragging about his new title? Just after Gore won an Oscar for his global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth - in which he asked American households to cut their use of electricity - the Tennessee Centre for Policy Research took a look at Al's energy bills.
It reckoned that his 20-room, eight-bathroom mansion in Nashville sometimes uses twice the energy in one month that the average American household gets through in a year. The combined energy and gas bills for his estate came to nearly $30,000 in 2006…
There are so many reasons why Gore shouldn't have won the peace prize for his preachiness. Alas, it is too late to influence their decision, but I'd have liked to refer the judges to a ruling by Mr Justice Burton, a High Court judge who has criticised the Government for sending out An Inconvenient Truth to schools without a health warning.
The reason? It's full of errors and unsubstantiated claims…
An Inconvenient Peace Prize - Bjorn Lomborg, Boston Globe
This year's Nobel Peace Prize justly rewards the thousands of scientists of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These scientists are engaged in excellent, painstaking work that establishes exactly what the world should expect from climate change.
The other award winner, former US vice president Al Gore, has spent much more time telling us what to fear. While the IPCC's estimates and conclusions are grounded in careful study, Gore doesn't seem to be similarly restrained.
Gore told the world in his Academy Award-winning movie to expect 20-foot sea-level rises over this century. He ignores the findings of his Nobel co-winners, who conclude that sea levels will rise between only a half-foot and two feet over this century, with their best expectation being about one foot. That's similar to what the world experienced over the past 150 years...
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