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Sunday, November 30, 2008
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| A Quick Backgrounder on Lashkar-e-Taiba |
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There is a lot of talk about Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group that is strongly suspected of being behind last week's terror assault in Mumbai, India. Below is a quick primer on Lashkar-e-Taiba I've excerpted from an update on the situation in Mumbai I wrote yesterday. There is far more to the terror group than this, but it should help explain the relationship between what is called "al Qaeda Central" and their affiliated groups. There are a lot of people out there twisting themselves in knots to disassociate Lashkar-e-Taiba from al Qaeda. They are wrong to do so.
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Friday, November 28, 2008
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| Giving Thanks |
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John Ondrasik, the lead singer of Five for Fighting, has released a second "CD for the Troops" -- a free download for anyone with a military ID. Ondrasik is a great guy and this is a worthy project. Spread the word and send people here.
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Thursday, November 27, 2008
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| Happy Thanksgiving |
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Hat tip: NewsBusters
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| Mumbai Attack Most Significant Since Sept. 11 Attack on U.S. |
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The terror assault on Mumbai is in its second day as Indian security forces struggle to regain control of the city and clear the remaining terrorists from two hotels and a residential complex. Hundreds of Indian Naval and National Security Guards commandos have been rushed into the capital to help end the hostage situations at the Taj and Oberoi Trident hotels and the Nariman House. Reports from India indicate the commando assaults are underway. More than 200 hostages, many foreigners, are still held captive. The Indian Mujahideen have demanded the release of all jihadis currently in Indian jails to end the crisis. While it is too early to know exactly how the Mumbai strikes were planned and executed, one thing seems clear: This attack is the most significant terrorist attack since the Sept. 11 attack against the United States. The terrorists launched a sophisticated, multi-pronged attack into a city of 18 million residents. This requires planning, training, funding, and detailed reconnaissance. The targets were chosen carefully to achieve maximum effect. The terrorists hit hotels, a train station, a movie house, a residential complex, and a hospital--all soft targets. They also were able to plant bombs in taxis as well as capture a police van, which was then used in a drive-by shooting spree. The assault teams--there is no other way to describe them--coordinated and synchronized their attacks to overwhelm Mumbai security. The terrorists were able to take a significant number of hostages. They knew where to find foreigners and wealthy Indians--at the five star hotels. Past attacks in Indian cities and in other parts of the world may have had higher death tolls, but they failed to achieve the results of Mumbai. The city has been completely shut down for two days, while the Hindustan Times said the country is gripped by a "fear psychosis." India's government has long treated the terrorist problem as a secondary issue. This will change. The mode of attack--assault teams launched into the heart of a major city--is already sending chills down the spines of security officials and governments throughout the world.
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Wednesday, November 26, 2008
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| Number of Injured Rising, Bush and Obama Respond |
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The number of injured is up to a gut-wrenching 900, and the Deccan Mujahideen (which Bill connects to Lashkar-e-Taiba) has reportedly taken responsibility for the attacks, sending e-mails to media outlets. The Times of India has more information on hostages and apprehensions:
At least some of the terrorists have been shot or arrested:
Early reports attributed the attacks to Lashkar-e-Taiba, members of whom were arrested in the 2006 bombings.
Bush hasn't released an official statement, "but White House spokesman Tony Fratto made clear the Bush Administration’s reaction. 'We condemn these attacks and the loss of innocent life," Fratto said, adding that "we continue to seek more information.'" The outgoing and ingoing presidents' teams are said to be in close contact about national security issues during the transition period, during which the hand-off could make the country more vulnerable to attack.
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| Indian Mujahideen Takes Credit for Mumbai Attacks |
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Thomas Joscelyn is absolutely correct in suspecting the Pakistan and Kashmiri-based terror groups as being behind today’s terror attacks in Mumbai. A group called the Deccan Mujahideen, or Indian Mujahideen, has taken credit for today’s strike, the Times of India just reported. While it is certainly possible that the group is taking credit for another’s handiwork, the Indian Mujahideen has been implicated as being behind several recent attacks in India. Indian intelligence believes the Indian Mujahideen is a front group created by Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Harkat ul Jihad al Islami to confuse investigators and cover the tracks of the Students' Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, a radical Islamist movement. The groups receive support from Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence and are al Qaeda affiliates.
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| Reports: Terrorists Holding Western Hostages in Mumbai Hotels |
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Of the eight targets hit today, authorities say there are still hostages at two of them:
The Times Online has more specific information:
From the Taj Mahal hotel:
All American diplomats have been accounted for, but the State Department is still working to track down tourists and visitors who might have been staying in the hotels.
Fighting was ongoing in the city as the first reports emerged from the chaos:
MSNBC offers some raw footage from India in their report, and a glimpse of one of the gunmen, some of whom witnesses are describing as "very young." ![]() Video below the fold:
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| Is Pakistani Intelligence Involved in the Terrorist Attacks in India? |
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In some ways, today’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai (Bombay), India are unremarkable. India has been repeatedly attacked in recent years. Pakistani and Kashmiri based terrorist groups, as well as so-called homegrown terrorists, kill up to hundreds every year. But if the early reports are correct, then today’s terrorist attacks seem unprecedented. As many as seven different locations (if not more) have been struck, with hostages taken. Most, if not all, of the targets are places that cater to westerners – restaurants, hotels, trains, etc. Moreover, the terrorists have laid siege to a couple of hotels and the terrorists are incredibly mobile, moving from location to location. The attacks are ongoing and the casualty count keeps rising. The result is a traumatized city and nation. It is too early to tell with any precision who is behind these attacks. The smart money is on the multi-headed hydra of terrorist and extremist groups based in Pakistan and Kashmir. Indeed, Pakistan’s intelligence service has waged a proxy war against India using terrorists for decades. The two nuclear powers have avoided a large-scale exchange, but the Pakistani ISI has repeatedly sponsored or aided terrorist groups targeting civilians in India. For example, Indian authorities were quite vocal in blaming Pakistan for the July 11, 2006 train bombings, which killed more than 200. Today’s attacks, if they are indeed a continuation of Pakistan’s proxy war, threaten to destabilize relations between the two nations further. The contest for regional hegemony has played out across the region from Kashmir to Afghanistan. And terrorist groups have, once again, reminded India of their reach deep into the subcontinent. In the coming weeks, when the chaos has played out and authorities stabilize the situation, it will be crucial for American authorities to pay attention to the evidence accumulated by Indian authorities. It is possible that Pakistani intelligence played no role in this attack, but it is equally possible, if not likely, that they did. All of the prime suspects have ties to Pakistani Intelligence: Kashmiri separatists, Pakistani extremists, and even the Taliban and al Qaeda. American authorities should, therefore, look not only for evidence of which specific terrorist groups are involved, but also evidence of ties to the ISI.
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| Terrorist Attack in India Kills 80, Injures 250+ |
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Via Hot Air, Times of India reports:
Via Ace of Spades HQ, the Times of India reports the terrorists took hostages:
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| Obama the Realist |
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As President-elect Obama puts together his national security team, a narrative has emerged to explain the somewhat surprising continuity on foreign policy between President Bush's second term and the incoming administration. There will be a shift to the left, but not a big shift, and certainly nothing that represents a drastic change in how Washington does business. The expectation is that Obama is set to continue the course set by Bush in his second term -- continued draw downs in Iraq, an increased focus on the Afghan-Pakistan border, greater engagement with Iran, and a serious effort to restart the peace process in Israel -- because Obama is a realist, as is Bush after the failures of his first term. Secretary Gates will remain at Defense. Jim Jones, another realist, will serve as National Security Adviser. And Hillary Clinton, who has been a consistent hawk, will head the State Department. The always sharp Robert Kaplan explains:
Kaplan's larger point is that Obama will preside over a period of foreign policy (and economic) recovery, and will get the credit for policies that are little different from those of his predecessor. Obama will be in the right place at the right time. This is almost certainly true, but the way Kaplan describes the Bush administration's second term is revealing: with the exception of the surge, Bush has been a realist. Of course, the surge has been the signal accomplishment of the Bush administration's second term -- and the realists opposed it. The surge was, at its core, a doubling down on the notion that American foreign policy objectives could be achieved by force of arms. Yes there was more to it than that -- a greater emphasis on co-opting the local population and a new willingness to negotiate with reconcilable elements of the insurgency -- but this was a military solution to a problem that realists like Jones, and liberals like Obama, claimed could not be solved militarily. So what did the realists of the Bush administration achieve in the second term? There is a functioning peace process in Israel, but the two sides are nowhere near a deal. The imbalance in the Taiwan Strait continues to grow, the realists having fought against Taiwan's efforts (supported by this magazine) for a massive purchase of American arms that was ultimately pushed through but without the more than 60 F-16s Taiwan had requested. President Bush did nothing in the face of Russian aggression in Georgia. Democracy activists were slaughtered in Burma. The administration has removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terror in exchange for what exactly? The genocide in Darfur continues unabated. And while President Bush has tried to engage Iran, offering a long list of incentives for a halt to uranium enrichment and sending Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns to deliver the offer in person, the Iranians continue toward a nuclear weapon -- perhaps because they will not be convinced to do otherwise through mere diplomacy. The realist policies of the Bush administration appear to have been failures, while the surge, championed by the neoconservative wing of the party, has been an unbridled success. However, one can say that the realist failures of the Bush administration have, so far, been small. While they have not made any real headway on North Korea or Iran, the worst outcomes have, for now, been avoided as well. Realists focus on an incremental approach to solving problems, neoconservatives and liberal hawks tend to favor bold strokes -- with greater risk and greater reward. Of course, none of this is to say that conservatives of all stripes shouldn't be pleased by the direction Obama is taking. As Max Boot says, "Only churlish partisans of both the left and the right can be unhappy with the emerging tenor" of the Obama administration. The realists may have opposed the surge, but they were not hostile to it -- they worked diligently for its success once the decision was made. If there is an emerging consensus on American foreign policy, it is that the players should remain the same even if the outcomes are different -- that the center should hold.
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| Board Unanimously Rejects Franken Petition to Include Rejected Absentee Ballots in Recount |
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CNN reports:
Here's where things stand in the Coleman-Franken recount. With 82 percent of the ballots recounted, Coleman leads Franken by 243 votes, but--and this is a very important but--both campaigns agree that Coleman's lead is smaller than that. The Coleman campaign has challenged 1,897 ballots, while Team Franken has challenged 1,806. Almost all of Coleman's challenges will go to Franken or neither candidate; almost all of Franken's challenges will go to Coleman or neither candidate. But both campaigns agree that Coleman has challenged a larger number of ballots that will end up going to Franken in the end than vice versa. After 79 percent of the votes had been recounted, the Coleman camp claimed their candidate's lead was about 180 votes, but the Franken camp said Coleman's lead was only 84 votes. This number, Team Franken said, reflected the "election judge's actual calls from the table" at each recount site. It is highly unlikely that a significant number of election judges' rulings will be overturned by the canvassing board. If the Franken campaign has resorted to telling the truth, and Coleman's lead is actually 84 votes, Coleman would still be on track to win when the entire recount process has finished. If Coleman's lead dropped from 215 to 84 votes, that translates into a 61 percent decrease in Coleman's lead after 79 percent of the votes had been recounted. To catch Coleman, Franken would have to pick up votes at twice the rate he has thus far among the share of ballots yet to be recounted. Even though a large chunk of Minneapolis haven't been recounted, it seems unlikely Franken will pick up the votes he needs because all of the ballots from the Democratic strongholds of St. Paul and St. Louis County (where Duluth and the Iron Range are located) have already been recounted. But the Franken campaign will almost certainly go to court in an attempt to include rejected absentee ballots. The issue could be decisive. John Fund sketches out the arguments of both campaigns in today's Wall Street Journal
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| What Is Admiral Fallon Thinking? |
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The Boston Globe published an interview with Admiral William Fallon, the former CENTCOM commander who was relieved of command in March 2008 after just one short year. Admiral Fallon discusses the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. In a portion of the interview on Pakistan, he demonstrates why his tenure was short lived. Admiral Fallon displayed a very real lack of understanding of the situation on the ground in the Taliban-controlled, al Qaeda sanctuaries of North and South Waziristan. He promotes the fallacy that the "local Taliban" drove out elements of al Qaeda and the Pakistani government’s policy has been successful in dealing with the terror group. He claims al Qaeda, and not the Pakistani Taliban, are the root of the problems in Waziristan.
There are plenty of problems with Fallon's narrative, I’ll touch on the major ones.. First, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and I debunked the idea that the "good Taliban" drove out the Uzbek al Qaeda fighters out of the kindness of their hearts back in April 2007. The clashes between Nazir's Taliban in South Waziristan and Uzbek fighters from the Islamic Jihad Group were due to local issues of land ownership and intermarrying with the tribes, not out of a desire to rid the region of jihadis. Senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders ultimately mediated the dispute. The Pakistani government promoted the idea that Nazir's forces were "pro-government" because they fought the Uzbeks, however Nazir has openly supported al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Nazir routinely sends fighters into Afghanistan fight U.S. and Coalition forces. And Nazir doesn't harbor ill will towards Uzbeks of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan; Tahir Yuldashev, the group's leader, is thought to have been killed in a US airstrike on a meeting in South Waziristan. He was meeting with none other than Nazir, who was wounded in the attack. Second, Fallon completely ignores the elephant in South Waziristan's room: Baitullah Mehsud, the commander of the Pakistani Taliban. Baitullah has been behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and a rash of suicide attacks throughout Pakistan as well as a military campaign in Pakistan's northwest. Baitullah and Nazir openly operate in South Waziristan; the government has essentially ceded this region to them. Third, the "the outsiders in South Waziristan" are not mostly Uzbeks. Fallon should explain why several senior and mid-level al Qaeda leaders have been killed in U.S. strikes in South Waziristan. Also, the biggest U.S. cross-border incident inside Pakistan this year occurred in Nazir's tribal regions in South Waziristan. U.S. special operations forces conducted an air assault in an effort to take down some high-value targets. Finally, Fallon said "I'm not there, this is all second and third-hand but we get a lot of reports that indicate that this is the way it is." Fallon clearly was getting his information from the Pakistani government, which had a vested interest to show some progress against al Qaeda in the tribal areas. Here's the rub: you don't need classified information to figure out what is happening in Pakistan's tribal areas. For all of Pakistan’s failings, its press does an excellent job in providing the nuggets of information that allow you to paint a picture on what is happening in Pakistan.
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| What's Wrong With This Picture? |
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The London Times has written an over-the-top story on the recent airstrike this weekend that is reported to have killed Rashid Rauf, the al Qaeda operative behind the foiled London airlines strike. The headline alone says it all: Top al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubair al-Masri ‘was missile target in Bush campaign for favourable legacy. The problem is the Times gets a few basic facts wrong in this story. First and foremost, the Times identifies the target of the raid as "Abu Zubair al-Masri, an Egyptian described as being 'high up in the al-Qaeda pecking order.'" While the target of the raid is debatable, Zubair's status in al Qaeda isn't. He's a mid-level operative at best. So bagging Zubair would do little to enhance Bush's "favourable legacy." Second, there is a photo of Zubair accompanying the article. The problem is the photo is of Abu Ayyub al Masri, the current leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, and not Zubair. Third, there is very little to the claim that these strikes are designed to enhance Bush's "legacy." In early September I recognized that the United States had dramatically ramped up its strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas. I asked around and to a man, the people I spoke to said U.S. intelligence is fearful the next strike will emanate from al Qaeda's safe havens within Pakistan's tribal agencies. Not a single person mentioned legacy. While I am sure it is true President Bush would love to kill bin Laden before he leaves office, there is no evidence he's launched a campaign in an allied country strictly to enhance his legacy. This type of war reporting is all too common these days. Any editor that had half a clue about al Qaeda and the war in general should have at least caught the photo mismatch. Abu Ayyub al Masri's photo is often splashed on the pages of newspapers and on the television. This should have immediately set off alarm bells. We deserve far better reporting on the war than this.
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| The Daily Grind |
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The economy brings an uptick in "struggling" families, just in time for the holidays. Yuck. "Heavy is the head that wears the tiara." Obama is still asking for your money, at the bottom of public service announcements about the ailing economy and how he'll rescue it. Classy. Obama talks to Barbara Walters, doesn't cry. A decision in Minnesota could be months away. President Bush gets former Fugee John Forte out of jail. He will get zero cool points for this. Giving thanks for the free market. Sunni lawmakers are demanding concessions before signing onto the security pact that would keep U.S. troops in Iraq until 2011. The vote is expected to be today. McCain's first post-election news conference:
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| Kathleen Parker Continues to Endear Herself to the Base by Endorsing a Newspaper Bail-Out |
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As an encore to last week's "Giving up on God," Parker is now endorsing a federal subsidy for a daily supply of newspapers to high-school students, which will make students smarter and — Bonus!— save the newspaper industry with your tax dollars. This plan is necessitated, according to Parker, by an abysmal performance by American voters on an Intercollegiate Studies Institute civics quiz (the average score was 49). Right, because what corrects a left-leaning public school education lacking in respect for America's founding fathers, documents, and principles better than a daily dose of the New York Times, whose circulation and ad revenue will have been artificially inflated by the government in circumvention of the very free-market system of which many Americans are sadly ignorant? Yeah, that'll do the trick. Clearly she didn't read P.J. O'Rourke in this week's Standard, or she would have known why newspapers don't deserve a bail-out. I'm all for young Americans getting a better civic education, but why not do that through assigning readings readily available in all public schools? The Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Gettysburg Address, and the Federalist Papers are undoubtedly sitting under a thick layer of dust, while "Dylan has Two Mommies" and the companion study guide to "An Inconvenient Truth" are widely distributed.
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Tuesday, November 25, 2008
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| Turkey Farmer in Palin Turkeygate Video Speaks Out |
Don't mess with her, he says. It's up to you if you'd like to ignore a man that handy with a turkey chipper.
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| Happy Hour Links |
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Gates will stay on at Defense; Jim Geraghty notices some gnashing of teeth on the left. Michael Yon writes that the Iraq war is over. Without missing a shot, a corporal tallies 20 kills, as 30 U.S. Marines defeat 250 insurgents in Afghanistan. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco blocked a major offshore drilling effort. Mitt Romney v. Jennifer Granholm on the auto bailouts. Peter Schiff, who predicted the recession, is a bear on the bailouts and Obama.
Why Obama spends so much time at the gym.
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| Iraq as a Humanitarian Success |
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The University of Chicago's Eric Posner writes: A conservative estimate is that more than 40,000 Iraqis survive per year today than during the sanctions regime, and probably most of them children. The tight correlation between GDP and child mortality across countries bolsters this conclusion. Let’s suppose that the sanctions regime had continued for 10 years, from 2003 to 2013, and further that security flattens out—it doesn’t get worse, but it doesn’t get better. Under these assumptions, 400,000 Iraqi children would have died if the war had not occurred and the sanctions regime continued. Now, almost 100,000 Iraqis died during the war, and so one of the war’s benefits is that it saves the lives of 300,000 Iraqis (over 10 years). ... The 2003 war damaged it even more, but now the economy is recovering. GDP per capita (PPP) in 2002 was about $2400; today it is about $3600. Everyone hears about how bad electricity is in Iraq, but that is news from Baghdad. For the country as a whole, there is more electricity generation today than there was prewar (see the Brookings report).
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| Pirates Have a Friend in Virginia |
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A bizarre development in the story of the pirates operating off the coast of Somalia:
Military.com has the exclusive interview with Ms. Ballarin, definitely worth reading. But the real news here is that the pirates, with their seizure of the Saudi-owned supertanker, seemed to have crossed the Islamist insurgent group Al Shabab, successor to the Islamic Courts Union that was toppled by an American-backed Ethiopian invasion.
It seems obvious enough that the Saudis have some kind of relationship with this group. That concerns me. Al Shabab has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States State Department. One wonders how much money the Saudis gave these terrorists in exchange for a little help protecting the sea lanes in the Gulf of Aden and further out into the Indian Ocean. And if the terrorists are running some kind of racket here, shaking down the Saudis for help with keeping the pirates under control -- isn't that our racket? What is the United States Navy doing if not protecting sea lanes and insuring the free flow of commerce on the world's oceans? Interestingly, there is a current on the left that would welcome a return of Islamist rule in Somalia for the measure of stability it would bring -- even if that stability allowed the state to become a safe-haven for al Qaeda affiliated terrorists. There are others who think we should embrace the pirates as the "secular, liberal capitalists of Somalia," who might serve as a bulwark against what now seems to be the inevitable return of Islamist rule. Must we accept a choice between pirates and terrorists? Shouldn't we be for killing them all?
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| Arabs Not Quite Swooning Over Obama |
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Nate Silver would probably take issue with this number:
Just 60 percent of those surveyed say Obama will be "a better president" than Bush (apparently Arabs are a little more circumspect than the American media) and "little more than a third believe he can turn the US into a 'force for good.'" To hear the New York Times and the Associated Press tell it, Obama's election turned the entire Arab world upside down -- our enemies "suffered a defeat in the global war of ideas with Mr. Obama’s election" the Times said. Perhaps an al Qaeda defeat in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, accompanied by prosperity, freedom, and democracy for the people of those two countries, would do more to convince the Arab world of America's good intentions than the feel-good election of a man with a Muslim middle name as President of the United States. But for a quick popularity boost in the Arab world, he can always bomb Iran.
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| Don't Sweat the Fairness Doctrine? |
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Over at the Next Right, Patrick Ruffini writes that conservatives shouldn't waste their time crying wolf about the Fairness Doctrine, a regulation that would mandate equal time for political opinions on public airwaves and thus kill conservative talk radio. Ruffini notes that the re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine would "constitute a direct provocation to the Right without any tangible political benefit in the Center or the Left", and, futhermore, Obama said he does not want to bring it back. Focus on legitimate threats like nationalized health care and card check, he writes. But Conn Carroll responds:
An article by Marin Cogin in The New Republic argues that concerns about the Fairness Doctrine were mere "Republican paranoia."
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| Brennan Out |
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The left gets its first scalp:
In the end, the responsibility of governing will lead Obama to many of the same war on terror policies that Bush endorsed -- just as he came to support telecom immunity when the chips were down. Surely whomever Obama appoints to head the CIA will be someone he views as pragmatic, and hopefully ruthless as well. But consider this another early sign of overreach: if conservatives want to stage a comeback, they should be heartened by any evidence that Obama is catering to the loudest, and most ideological, elements of the Democratic base.
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| Reid: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Will Come Early |
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Harry Reid told the Detroit Free Press that he expects comprehensive immigration reform to be passed relatively early in the next Congress:
One senator who wields significant influence on the debate is Robert Menendez, and he seems to be pushing ahead on the issue as well. Menendez is no extremist among Senate Democrats, either; he's just been named head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. Expect Menendez to lead a push--apparently with Reid's blessing--to get comprehensive reform passed in the first half of 2009. Proponents will argue that while the measure may be unpopular, it's better to swallow a bitter pill far in advance of the midterms. And if it seems that they lack the votes to pass it in the next few months, they'll bargain for a commitment for passage later in 2009.
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| Atomic Irony |
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Less than a week after the IAEA reported that "a Syrian site bombed by Israel last year had features resembling those of a nuclear reactor site," the AP reports that Mohamed ElBaradei wants to...help Syria build a nuclear reactor:
It will be fascinating to see how an Obama administration, so keen to strengthen our alliances and restore our standing in the international community, will respond to this kind of idiocy from our international institutions.
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| Keeping Young Voters in the Democratic Column |
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Eighteen to twenty-nine-year-old turnout did not live up to all the pre-election hype. According to CNN exit polls, the proportion of voters under 30 increased by about 1 percent nationally--from 17 percent of the electorate in 2004 to 18 percent this year. Yet even if their share of the electorate was relatively flat, their propensity to choose Barack Obama was not. The Democratic share from this subgroup surged in 2008. Barack Obama’s 34-point (66 percent-32 percent) victory among 18-29-year-olds was the largest winning margin in that age group since Lyndon Johnson beat Barry Goldwater in 1964. By way of comparison, George W. Bush lost the under-30 vote by 9 points to John Kerry (54 percent-45 percent) four years ago. Even though younger voters are hard to turnout and often inattentive to politics, they provided a huge number of votes to Barack Obama. Not surprisingly, Democrats are already working hard to maintain their edge with this cohort. This recent Los Angles Times piece discusses some of the efforts already under way. Reporter Laura Olson writes:
Republicans may not win this age group in the foreseeable future. But a Republican won’t step foot in the White House again if the party continues to lose this roughly 20 percent of the electorate by more than a 2-1 margin. Closing that gap--at least to low double digits--should be a top priority of the Republican Party hierarchy now that the election dust has settled.
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| Biden Burns Delaware Democrats |
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Mary Katharine points out that Joe Biden's chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, has been named to fill his boss's seat. Kaufman says he will step down in 2010. By all indications Kaufman is simply keeping the seat warm until Beau Biden, Joe's son and Delaware's attorney general, will return from serving in Iraq as a JAG and run for his dad's seat. In what NBC reporters describe as a "lengthy" statement from Biden (is there any other kind?), the vice president-elect pretty much says he would have wanted his son to have his seat if he weren't in Iraq:
Delaware Democrats seem a bit miffed that no one informed them of Kaufman's appointment prior to the governor's announcement. Could Biden's positioning to get his son in the Senate lead to a backlash and create an opening for a Republican to have a serious shot at the seat? Perhaps. But the fact that Beau Biden wasn't directly appointed to fill his father's seat lessens the appearance of blatant nepotism--the kind of nepotism that nearly led to the defeat of Alaska's senator Lisa Murkowski in 2004, who was appointed by her father Frank. The Alaska legislature later passed a law against appointing a family member to office, and you may recall Frank Murkowski was walloped in a gubernatorial Republican primary by a certain moose-hunting former mayor of Wasilla. |




