By Ted Belman

President Bush was asked about Iraq at his press conference this week and answered,

“The strategy is to help the Iraqi people achieve their objectives and their dreams, which is a democratic society. That�s the strategy. The tactics � now, either you say, yes, its important we stay there and get it done, or we leave. We’re not leaving, so long as I’m the President. That would be a huge mistake. It would send an unbelievably terrible signal to reformers across the region. It would say we’ve abandoned our desire to change the conditions that create terror. It would give the terrorists a safe haven from which to launch attacks. It would embolden Iran. It would embolden extremists.”

Does this make sense? Is this strategy appropriate or achievable?

Continue reading…

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by Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com*
August 28, 2006
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3909
* Cross-posted with permission

An Italian named Angelo Frammartino, 25, espoused the typical anti-Israel views of a far-leftist, as he expressed in a letter to a newspaper in 2006:

We must face the fact that a situation of no violence is a luxury in many parts of the world, but we do not seek to avoid legitimate acts of defense. … I never dreamed of condemning resistance, the blood of the Vietnamese, the blood of the people who were under colonialist occupation or the blood of the young Palestinians from the first intifada.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

The Washington Post warns of “Pakistan’s Awkward Balancing Act on Islamic Militant Groups.” But if one looks closely at the actions of Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, it is clear that he has made his choice to side with the West, there’s no going back, and he is beyond the pale of reconciliation with his country’s lunatic Islamists. The scale has tipped to one side. It is time for Musharraf to explicitly say so and do so, as he’ll never appease Pakistan’s radicals. Here’s an excerpt from the Post:

The basic problem for Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is that he is trying to please two irreconcilable groups. Abroad, the leader of this impoverished Muslim country is frantically competing with arch-rival India, a predominantly Hindu country, for American political approval and economic ties. To that end, he has worked hard to prove himself as a staunch anti-terrorism ally.

But at home, where he hopes to win election in 2007 after eight years as a self-appointed military ruler, Musharraf needs to appease Pakistan’s Islamic parties to counter strong opposition from its secular ones. He also needs to keep alive the Kashmiri and Taliban insurgencies on Pakistan’s borders to counter fears within military ranks that India, which has developed close ties with the Kabul government, is pressuring its smaller rival on two flanks.

There’s no way for Musharraf to “please” the Islamists. Let me explain point by point:

1. The Islamists tried to assassinate Musharraf twice in the short span of 11 days in December 2003. He survived one attack by a few seconds. Any idea how one would reconcile with one’s own assassins?
2. Pakistan and Israel’s foreign ministers met for the first time in Istanbul in September 2005 — a prelude to eventual full diplomatic relations. Musharraf initiated the new dialog. The Islamists surely see this move as an ultimate betrayal. Meeting with the Little Satan?
3. Don’t forget that Israel has forged strong strategic ties with India, Pakistan’s arch rival.
4. Musharraf has sought to break the ice between his country and India, the world’s largest democracy, and chock full of free-thinking, entrepreneurial apostate Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians. Relations between the two nuclear rivals are better than they’ve ever been since they gained independence from Britain. The Islamists are surely angered by Musharraf’s diplomacy. One only need look at the many Islamist terrorist atrocities wrought against India.
5. On On September 17, 2005 Musharraf spoke before the American Jewish Congress. Again, another slap in the face of the Islamic radicals.
6. Pakistani intelligence helped Britain thwart a plan to bomb airliners this month.
7. There is evidence that Pakistan might not be quite as radical as the politically-correct, hand-wringers of doom claim: “New research is calling into question the prevalence and increasing popularity of religious schooling in Pakistan, with survey data that show previous estimates of enrollment in Islamic madrassas to be far lower than widely reported.”
8. Finally, Musharraf’s military, probably his strongest power base, has specifically targeted and killed scores of Islamists and other militants in his own country. Just this week, Pakistan’s military offed one of the country’s major terrorist leaders, Sardar Akbar Bugti (”Bugti, the Sardar or chief of more than 200,000 Bugti tribesmen, was killed along with more than 35 of his followers when the Pakistan Air Force bombed his hideout in the Bambore mountain range in the Marri tribal area.”).

So instead of indulging in an “awkward balancing act,” President Musharraf needs to lay his cards on the table, shut down Pakistan’s virulent Islamist madrassas, crack down on militants, and move the country out of the religious Stone Age into a modern, civilized society. To think that Musharraf could find a rapprochement with radical Islam is like believing Neville Chamberlain’s claim of “peace in our time” in 1938 — a worthless peace of paper signed with Hitler. You know what happened next.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

A headline on the BBC today: “Nasrallah sorry for scale of war.” Do readers really believe this stuff? If Nasrallah had any interest whatsoever in protecting Lebanese lives, he would have turned over the captured Israeli soldiers on the first day of the conflict. Shooting badly-aimed missiles at Israeli civilian targets did nothing to protect Lebanon or even Hezbollah fighters. Yet Nasrallah gets front-page treatment for lying:

“We did not think that there was a 1% chance that the kidnapping would lead to a war of this scale and magnitude,” Sheikh Nasrallah said.

“Now you ask me if this was 11 July and there was a 1% chance that the kidnapping would lead to a war like the one that has taken place, would you go ahead with the kidnapping?

“I would say no, definitely not, for humanitarian, moral, social, security, military and political reasons.

“Neither I, Hezbollah, prisoners in Israeli jails and nor the families of the prisoners would accept it.”

By Andrew L. Jaffee

Victor Davis Hanson provides the usual clarity, this time into the lessons Westerners have not learned in the war on terror:

…death is the mantra of terrorists. In urban landscapes, they hide among apartment buildings, use human shields and welcome all fatalities - friendly or hostile, combatant or civilian. Death of any kind, they think, makes the liberal West recoil, but allows them to pose as oppressed victims.

Their nihilistic hatred intimidates, rather than repels, third parties - whether “moderate” Arabs, Europeans who back off from peacekeeping in Lebanon, or the Western public at large. Our enemies call Jews “pigs” and “apes” and employ racist caricatures of the U.S.’s African-American secretary of state. Meanwhile, we worry about incurring charges of “Islamophobia,” when we should be stressing our liberal values and unabashedly contrasting Western civilization with the 7th-century barbarism of the jihadists. …

by Michael Rubin
National Review*
September 11, 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/996
* Cross-posted with permission

No issue has so shaped America’s recent politics or defined its present role in the world as the Iraq War. NR asked a symposium of military experts, geopolitical thinkers, Middle East scholars, and conservative writers the two paramount questions: Are we winning; and, if not, how can we? Here is what they had to say.

[Other commentators are: David Frum, Newt Gingrich, Mark Helprin, Lawrence F. Kaplan, Robert D. Kaplan, Michael Ledeen, Ralph Peters, Mark Steyn, and Bernard Trainor].

The U.S. is losing in Iraq because American politicians and the general public have not decided they want or need to win. Many congressmen look at Iraq through the lens of the 2006 election: They care neither how their words embolden the enemy nor how their grandstanding impacts Iraq. Meanwhile, many commentators have cast accuracy aside to cater to, and cash in on, public ennui.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Ray Nagin has shot his mouth off again, calling 911’s hallowed ground — the remnants of the World Trade Center — “a hole in the ground.” One only knows how he was re-elected as New Orleans’ mayor, given his track-record of public gaffs. Touchy, touchy. Nagin lashed out at New York City after being “confronted by accusations that he’s taking too long to clean up his city after Hurricane Katrina.” This was a Freudian slip, as Nagin does bare responsibility for the disastrous response to Katrina, as do Louisiana state officials. But I doubt we’ll see any change in Nagin’s pattern of behavior.

John McIntyre of RealClearPolitics today pointed out that Nagin’s outburst may just create a forceful political backlash:

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Thank you Italy for pledging 3,000 troops to police Lebanon, and thank you Silvio Berlusconi for telling like it is regarding the proposed UN peacekeeping force:

What exactly they have to do must be clear: they must disarm Hezbollah. I don’t believe that without the disarming of the Hezbollah militias we can solve anything.

Hey, he’s not prime minister anymore, but Berlusconi still leads the Casa delle Libertà party.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

I’d thought I’d heard it all before, but France’s President Jacques Chirac said today that “the deployment of 15,000 peacekeepers there [in Lebanon] would be excessive.” Anything to keep France from doing what it should do, not what it says it should do. More French hypocrisy. Here’s my translation of Chirac’s words, from the French language (mais naturellement!): “We don’t enforce resolutions; we just write them.”

France co-authored UN Resolution 1559, which “Call[ed] for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias.” It also sponsored Resolution 1701, which calls for the “removal from southern Lebanon of Hezbollah as an armed force.” France initially offered 200 troops for a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.

15,000 troops is excessive? Lebanon is a Wild West ruled by Hezbollah terrorists who respect nothing but the language of the gun.

So… call for disarming Hezbollah, condemn Israel for trying to disarm Hezbollah, but when push comes to shove, let Israel disarm Hezbollah. Make sense? But Chirac also called for the rearming of Hezbollah:

Chirac also criticised Israel’s continued blockade of Lebanon, saying it was “extremely prejudicial to the economy and life in Lebanon. And, in my view, quite unjustified.”

French life is sacred, but to hell with those pesky Jews.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Amnesty International is busy distributing a new report accusing Israel of “war crimes” — now featured on its website. But as to Hezbollah’s intentional targeting of Israeli civilians, hiding behind human shields, killing Arab children, hiding weapons in mosques, commitment to the destruction of Israel, and strong ties to Syria and Iran — well, they’ll get to that later:

The human rights organisation said it would look into Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel separately.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

By Andrew L. Jaffee

Was today’s decision by France to increase its contribution of peacekeepers to Lebanon due to clarified rules of engagement, or because the French can’t stand the thought that Italy had offered to lead the force? From Radio Free Europe:

But according to the basic details in an alleged UN draft document published today by the French newspaper “Le Monde,” the strengthened UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon will have the authority to shoot to defend themselves, to protect civilians, or to disarm Hizballah guerrillas in their way. …

Perhaps not coincidentally, just a few hours after “Le Monde” published its report on the draft, French officials said President Jacques Chirac would make an announcement at 8 p.m. today stating that Paris could send hundreds more peacekeepers — up to 2,000, in fact.

Originally, France had been expected to lead the new peacekeeping force, only later to spurn the idea.

[Italian defense analyst] Gasparini says France’s latest about-face is hardly coincidental. “France played the card of not giving troops in order to gain a stronger mandate and stronger rules of engagement,” he says. “It looks like they succeeded. Now that they got the outcome that they wanted, they are more willing to relinquish more troops, also because this has convinced the military of it, and they were a bit skeptical at the beginning.” …

If France does return to seek to lead the peacekeeping force, where would that leave Italy’s leadership offer?

A report in the Rome daily “La Repubblica” today says France has offered a dual command with Rome. France would continue to command the force on the ground in Lebanon through General Pellegrini, while Italy would take control of the UN Office of Peacekeeping Operations.

That means France would have operational command on the ground, with Italy given political control at the UN in New York.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

As if it wasn’t enough that Hollywood spews ultra-violence, shows all manner of sexual perversions during prime-time, and has turned comedy into an “art form” where insulting, berating, and hurting people is “funny” — all while claiming to be politically correct. Now the limousine liberals are pitting races against each other, and peddling it as “entertainment.” From the BBC:

The 20 “castaways” in the 13th season of US reality show Survivor will be divided according to their ethnicity.

The contestants will be segregated into four “tribes” of blacks, whites, Asians and Latinos when the hit CBS programme returns on 14 September.

Of course, this race-bating is being rationalized:

Organisers said they were addressing complaints that previous series had not been sufficiently ethnically diverse.

“So we said, ‘Let’s turn this criticism into creativity,’” host Jeff Probst told CBS’s Early Show.

“It fits in perfectly with what Survivor does. It is a social experiment.”

How does creating adversity between races constitute ethnic diversity?

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Terrorism works. Just listen to the wife of one of the Fox News reporters kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists. Not only is she giving the terrorists the attention they desire, she is rationalizing their lunatic ideology. She could’ve appealed to common decency — “please let my husband go; it’s the right thing to do” — but instead she brought politics into her statement and implicitly blamed Israel. From Reuters:

“Olaf and Steve have always worked for the interest of the Palestinian people, they came here to support you by telling your story,” she said.

“I do not question that you who are holding them have suffered greatly, as everyone in Gaza — in the Palestinian territories — is suffering, but these two men are not responsible for the injustices that you speak of, and they should not be punished for them.”

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

I don’t know how many of you are fans of archeology, let alone that of Meso-America, but there are certainly those of you interested in the politically-correct whitewashing of terrorism. How are the two subjects related? Let me explain. The justification of current-day terrorism is advocated by the same ilk, those who would rewrite the modern-day cause of terrorist atrocities (e.g., “Palestinians are driven by desperation”), as well as those who would edit, for example, the pre-Columbian history of Mexico. Recent archeological evidence shows that the Aztecs were indeed as despicable as reported by Spanish Conquistadors, defying politically-correct rationalizations for the tribe’s thirst for human sacrifice.

I recently watched a History Channel “documentary” which either 1) rationalized the Aztec tribe’s insatiable appetite for human sacrifice on the grounds that they were “deeply religious” people, afraid that, if not enough ritual blood was spilled, the sun wouldn’t rise the next day; or 2) the Spanish Conquistadors, led by Hernando Cortez, made up their accounts of mass Aztec human sacrifice rituals as a form of propaganda.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Jules Crittenden, Boston Herald City Editor, explains why there is a double-standard in the mainstream media when reporting on the Fox News correspondents being held hostage by Palestinian terrorists. I have excerpted salient points here, but you should read the entire essay, entitled “Asking for it: why terrorism vs. Fox TV is not news:”

In the case of Centanni and Wiig, observing the atypical media silence, I had the same suspicions some of the bloggers had, notably www.michellemalkin.com, www.riehlworldview.com, and www.freedomszone.com, that Fox newsmen don’t command the same level of sympathy and interest in our largely left-leaning media that Carroll did.

I am well aware of the complexity of news placement decisions on any given day. It is easy to throw stones.I would not be inclined to believe there might be bias at play here if it wasn’t for the vitriol I’ve seen expressed repeatedly about Fox within the news business and out of it, over the mere existence of a news outlet with the effrontery to offer a rare alternative to the media’s prevalent starched-shirt liberalism … to be unabashedly pro-American, pro-Israel and anti-terrorist at a time when those things are anathema. We are very accustomed to this kind of criticism at the Boston Herald.But it has achieved a new cynical depth. With two men missing and held by an unknown terrorist group, this is what is posted at www.poynter.org/romenesko, a media discussion forum with a marked tendency to highlight liberal views and give short shrift to voices that don’t march in lockstep.

San Diego Union-Tribune TV critic Bob Laurence:”They are far from the first to be kidnapped … the kidnapping or targeting of journalists in Iraq isn’t the story it once was.”

A patently false statement, given the huge coverage Jill Carroll’s retrospective is currently receiving, not to mention the factual issue that these two were taken in Gaza, not Iraq. But a fair discussion of the issue.

Then he goes on to suggest it is Fox’s own fault, that Fox’s honest conservatism in a “fair and balanced” presentation — which we can compare to the bulk of the American media’s sham pretense of “objectivity” — has set Fox apart in its own conservative ghetto.Other media outlets can be excused if they don’t care about these particular newsmen. Fox has been asking for it.

“Fox has deliberately set itself apart from other media … You can’t keep insulting people and then expect friendship when you need it,” writes Laurence.

Proclaiming a desire to be “fair and balanced,” and to have executives and commentators question whether this is true of other news outlets, has placed Fox beyond the Pale. For these ideological reasons, an act of terrorism targeting news professionals just isn’t a big deal.

I have no doubt news organizations will fall over themselves to make up for the silence now. They have the terrorist video to run, and they are not insensitive to jabs from the right.They need to keep their fig leaves in place.

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