Let's blogroll!

Michael J. Totten wins the "Best Post Title of the Day" award for this. I think it'd make a pretty good bumper sticker too.

Rachel Lucas is the Dorothy Parker of the blogosphere. She's back from the dead once again, this time in the incarnation of Blue-Eyed Infidel, and she'd like you to know that she will not, repeat NOT, be running Comments this time around. She likes Eomer from LOTR, but doesn't like babbling hobbits. (Hobblits?) Don't think she'd care for Shane's hairstyle in "The L Word" either, but she does approve of Lindsay Lohan, and I'm inclined to agree.

Morning Report: December 17, 2004

Roh, Koizumi meet. Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi met with South Korea's Roh Moo Hyun Friday on the Japanese island of Kyushu. The leaders discussed North Korean issues including still-missing Japanese citizens kidnapped by the DPRK in the 1970s and 1980s, and North Korea's nuclear program. Reuters reports that the leaders agreed that it was too early to impose sanctions: '"I am not saying I am opposed to sanctions or that they are impossible. But even if they are to be carried out, the decision should be made cautiously and calmly," said Roh, speaking through an interpreter. Roh added that it was his hope that such measures would not have a detrimental effect on the six-party talks or Japan's efforts to normalize ties with North Korea. ' (Reuters)

Bug found at United Nations. A bugging device was discovered at the United Nations in a room used by officials for conferences concerning the Iraq situation. The device is said to be of apparent East European or Russian origin and at least 3 - 4 years old. The Scotsman reports that 'The art deco room [known as the Salon Francais] in the UN’s European headquarters hosts a teleconference meeting between UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the head of the Geneva office, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, every Wednesday. ' (The Scotsman)

Tehran likely to try to foil Iraqi elections. The Iranian regime, frustrated by recent setbacks to its nuclear program, will likely stage an all-out offensive to try to sabotage upcoming Palestinian and Iraqi elections, some analysts believe. An important article available from Debka discloses that 'US agents foil Iran’s import of smuggled “laser guns” for uranium enrichment. They blew up components crated for shipment in source country'. Amir Taheri writes that Iran 'wants to bleed the United States as much as possible en route to eventual success in Iraq. The cost of success should be so high as to make it impossible for the Bush administration, or its successors, to win popular support at home for any similar venture, for example, in targeting Iran itself.' Michael Ledeen argues that Iran is 'the keystone of the terrorist edifice, and that we are doomed to confront it sooner or later, nuclear or not.'

Update

As you may have noticed, I've been putting in a fair amount of time at the keyboard this past week. I still have a lot of ideas for Dreams Into Lightning and its affiliated blogs, and I will probably continue in "high gear" through next week. (Yes, I do have a life outside of blogging.)

Miscellaneous tech notes. My views may not always be PC, but I did break down and buy a Toshiba laptop with Windows XP. I do love my 17" iBook and my G5 desktop, but there are some things that Microsoft just does better - or that Mac won't do at all. (Sorry, Charles and Helen.) As a long-suffering Windows ME user, I found Mac to be a breath of fresh air. I've got to tell you, though, that I found myself growing tired of the "Spinning Beachball of Death" and the unapologetic announcement that "This application has unexpectedly quit." (Would I like to send a bug report to Apple? Honestly, I'd really rather they had fixed the problem before I bought the product. But I digress.) I never could get used to the Apple keyboards. The G5's keyboard sticks, and looks like a 20-year-old IBM keyboard. The notebook feels like an oversized pocket calculator; more problematically, it's much too easy to hit the shift key and the up-arrow key at the same time, thus highlighting (and, on the next keystroke, DELETING) a large block of text. And would it have killed them to include a forward-delete key? And there are so many little features that just don't operate on Mac - the formatting buttons on Blogger, for instance, and the AOL browser's handy drop-down mail preview. Reliablity? Well, it looks like old Bill has finally gotten his act together, that's all I can say.

This isn't a pro-Windows or anti-Mac post, although I know loyalties are very strong on both sides. I do like the sound and picture quality I get from my G5 - Apple is without peer in that department, for sure, and I wouldn't trust my RealMyst or Mathematica to a PC.

My own technical expertise is exactly zero, so I'm sure there are all kinds of geeky solutions and work-arounds that would make my computer life easier if I'd only take the time to learn them. Well, what can I say.

Miscellaneous tech notes, part 2. As some other ITM regulars have noticed in the past, Blog*spot pages don't always refresh right away on the AOL browser for some reason. (I've found this with both AOL/Mac and AOL/Windows.) The work-around seems to be to close AOL and open another browser (MSIE or Safari, for example) and then switch back to AOL again.

Miscellaneous tech notes, part 3. You probably grew up being taught to shut things down when you're finished using them; nowadays they say you shouldn't power down your computer too often (just put it on power saver) so you don't wear it out. There's a happy medium though; apparently it's best to shut down at least once a day because this gives the computer the chance to clear out garbage files. (Learned from experience: when I stopped doing that, my Safari browser began running very slowly and finally ground to a standstill - until I re-started, or powered down, the machine.)

Miscellaneous tech notes, part 4. My Toshiba never crashed until I installed a new HP printer. The crash reports from Microsoft identified the printer driver as the problem. After a couple of sessions with the HP help desk, I tracked down the problem - a bunch of applications that run automatically in the tray and don't really serve any useful purpose. The tech told me how to get them off of the startup menu (they're not on the regular menu, you have to run "msconfig" and uncheck a bunch of boxes). That solved the problem; since then, I haven't had a single crash with my Toshiba. So that's why I say it looks like Microsoft has cleaned up its act. I'm still not giving up my Apple gear though.

Back to the non-cybernetic world: after I get my blogs up to where I'd like them to be, I plan to take a short hiatus of a few days (a week at the most) to catch up on reading, outdoors time, social life, and other AFK stuff. After that, hopefully I'll be able to establish a regular schedule for the blogging end of things.

Morning Report: December 16, 2004

Debka: Bush, Sharon compromise on settlements. According to the latest Debka bulletin: 'Bush administration has quietly dropped its demand for removal of dozens of illegal West Bank outposts, asked EU and Abbas for silence on issue. Sharon’s argument has been accepted that his government cannot tackle both outpost removals and pullout from Gaza Strip and northern West Bank at the same time - for lack of manpower resources and popular backing.' (Debka)

New bin Laden audio tape appears. CNN reports that 'A new audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden and referencing the December 6 attack on the American consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, appeared on Arabic Web sites Thursday. The voice on the tape says instability in Saudi Arabia is due to the regime there and not the action of the jihadis. "While the struggle in Saudi Arabia appears to be internal, it is part of the struggle between believers and non-believers" of Islam, the speaker said.' The CNN article links the tapes to the recent terror attack on the US Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: 'A Saudi militant group with ties to al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the December 6 attack in Jeddah, posting its claim on several Islamist Web sites often used by militants. Five consular employees -- four local staff members and a contract guard -- were killed. Four other local staff members were wounded. Saudi forces killed three of the gunmen and captured two others, both of whom were wounded, the Saudi Interior Ministry said. One of gunmen later died.' A breaking report from Fox announces: 'The CIA has "high confidence" that the voice on a new audiotape praising anti-U.S. attacks belongs to terror mastermind Usama bin Laden'. The MSNBC report adds: 'Also Thursday on the same Web site, an audiotape surfaced that was purportedly a recording of the sounds of the consulate attack transmitted via the attackers’ mobile phones. Sirens, machine gun fire and shouts of "God is Great!” can be heard. At the end, a man recites Quranic verses and then says: “Humiliation for America the infidel and its allies!”' (various)

Saudi police thwart protest. A scheduled protest by the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia was blocked on Thursday by police in riot gear, according to news reports. The CBC says that 'Calls from an exiled dissident for demonstrations against the Saudi royal family were met with an overwhelming police presence Thursday, with protesters being chased through the streets of the port city of Jidda and others arrested in the Saudi capital. There were reports of scores of arrests in Jidda and Riyadh but officials refused to confirm or deny those reports, saying a statement would be released soon. London-based dissident Saad al-Fagih, head of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, had called via his TV and radio stations and on his website for simultaneous anti-monarchy protests in Riyadh and the eastern seaport of Jidda. Al-Fagih could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday. ' (CBC, Arab.de)

The New Republican: Where do we go from here?

What kinds of compromises should liberalism make? Must advocates of domestic reform and liberty join foces with foreign entities that oppose those things, simply because they see "the Government" - our government - as a common enemy?

Harking back to the days of the Americans for Democratic Action (renamed from the Union for Democratic action) Peter Beinart's very fine article in the December 13, 2004 print issue of The New Republic provides a postmortem for the Kerry candidacy and a sobering assessment of American liberalism's future. Quoting ADA member Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (who attended the seminal 1947 Willard Hotel conference to "save American liberalism"):

Free society and totalitarianism today struggle for the minds and hearts of men. ... If we believe in free society hard enough to keep on fighting for it, we are pledged to a permanent crisis which will test the moral, political and very possibly the military strength of each side. A "permanent" crisis? Well, a generation or two anyway, permanent in one's own lifetime."

Beinart contrasts these words from The Vital Center with the ideology of today's MoveOn: "Like the [soft liberals] of the early cold war, MoveOn sees threats to liberalism only on the right. And thus, it makes common cause with the most deeply illiberal elements on the international left."

He also makes the important point - again drawing from the lessons of the Cold War - that "while in a narrow sense the struggle against totalitarianism may divert resources from domestic causes, it also provides a powerful rationale for a more just society at home. During the early cold war, liberals repeatedly argued that the denial of African American civil rights undermined America's anti-communist efforts in the Third World. This linkage between freedom at home and freedom abroad was particularly important in the debate over civil liberties."

The cold-war-era debate lies at the root of the split between the very different liberalisms of TNR and The Nation: following the 1948 defeat of the leftist (and Communist sympathizer) Henry Wallace, "The New Republic broke with Wallace, its former editor."

Michael J. Totten covers this article, citing a letter published in Andrew Sullivan and advising today's liberals to take a strong stand against terrorism and fascism.

Every conflict involves compromises. In prosecuting the war on terrorism, for example, our Government must sometimes make pacts with such unsavory players as Pakistan, Syria, and even France. And on the home front, we must sometimes strike deals with parties we don't especially care for, in order to obtain a greater benefit to our cause.

Even magazine editors must make such trade-offs. Back in May 2000, Heather A. Findlay, editor-in-chief of Girlfriends, announced to her readers: "In the eyes of some, Girlfriends sold its soul. Last year, we sold advertising space for the first time to a tobacco company ..." Findlay, who had "watched five queer publications go out of business just since January", had to make a difficult decision between a "pure" magazine and one that could pay its bills; she chose the latter. I can't fault her for that.

The New Republic, too, has made some interesting choices in the advertising it hosts. For some months now, they've been hosting an occasional feature called "TNR/ON", administered by one Joan Daly and billed as a "symposium on public policy". (For you non-classicists, "symposium" is a Greco-Latin word meaning "advertising supplement".) Past installments of TNR/ON have featured analyses on "America's Energy Crisis" (brought to you by the Nuclear Energy Institute) and "Securing the Nation's Energy Supply" (courtesy of the American Gas Association).

But by far the most important topic of debate in these forums is Saudi Arabia - sponsored, the magazine drolly informs us, by "The People of Saudi Arabia". And so it happens that you cannot read Peter Beinart's article without flipping past a four-page special on "The Future of the U.S. - Saudi Partnership" ... sponsored by, well, you know who. For good measure, there's also a two-page testament to that same Kingdom's "Ongoing Progress, Enduring Change" on pages 20 and 21.

Now the case of TNR advertising for Saudi Arabia is not like the case of Girlfriends advertising for RJ Reynolds. It is more like Girlfriends carrying an ad for the Family Research Council. In fact, it is worse than that, because the "panel" featured in the Saudis' propaganda piece includes two of TNR's most distinguished editors, Lawrence Kaplan and Leon Wieseltier.

There is something viscerally repulsive about the spectacle of Jewish intellectuals whoring themselves for the Saudi princes. There is something revolting about a liberal, Washington-based magazine playing host to representatives of the same regime that furnished the West with Osama bin Laden and the majority of his psychopathic murderers.

To be sure, Wieseltier poses some tough challenges, both to the Saudi regime and to his fellow liberals: "I think that the President has got it essentially right when he believes that freedom is not just a matter of American morality, but also a matter of American security. ... I warn you that when I hear phrases like 'Islamic liberalism' or 'Islamic democracy,' the adjective makes me nervous, because Islamic liberalism to me sounds like 'Islamic algebra' or 'Islamic physics'. There is no such thing. There is only physics. There is only algebra. There is only democracy."

Even in this vile setting, Wieseltier manages to shine. But of course it is the voice of "realism" that must have the last word: "... that transformation is occurring rather gradually, but that it need occur; and finally, that America's role in this process, like it or not, will be a minimal one."

At the risk of stating the obvious, let me state the obvious.

Wieseltier, Kaplan, Lippman and the others have obviously managed to retain some of their integrity here, as the foregoing Wieseltier quotes (and others) abundantly demonstrate. But it is impossible to know what they did not say, or could not say, or said without being quoted in the "edited transcript" published in the pages of The New Republic. It is similarly impossible to know what effect those Saudi dollars are having on the content of the magazine.

We do know that the Saudi regime is actively involved in a propaganda campaign directed at the West, and specifically at the United States. As reported earlier at Dreams Into Lightning, the Saudi regime has employed a public relations firm called Qorvis - which is now under FBI scrutiny - to burnish its image in the US.

The indispensable Little Green Footballs covered Qorvis back in 2002, here, and here in 2003. And finally, Judith's post at Kesher Talk provides this interesting little detail about one Qorvis contract:

Qorvis' representation agreement that it filed with Ambassador Prince Bandar has an interesting wrinkle. The firm agrees to tell the Saudis about any foreign client that approaches it for representation during the contract period. QC also agrees that for two years following termination of the Arab account, QC "will not accept any engagement with any client that would be deemed adverse to the interests of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia."

I don't know, and I don't really care, which PR firm abetted the Saudis in their usurpation of the once hallowed pages of The New Republic. Once, strong liberals might have had in TNR a forum to challenge - rightly or wrongly - some of the Bush administration's more questionable policies, such as its accommodationist stance toward Saudi Arabia. But not now.

I began writing The New Republican because I saw that my favorite liberal magazine, like American liberalism itself, was heading down the wrong track. Now, I fear, that process is irreversible. I've just received a notice in the mail that my subscription to TNR is about to run out; I will let it. The New Republic has nothing more to say to me, and I have nothing more to say to them. This will be the last installment of The New Republican.

"The New Republican" - complete series

Morning Report: December 15, 2004

Senator Joseph Lieberman declines cabinet invite. Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman has reportedly declined invitations to join the Bush administration in a cabinet-level post, according to a CNN report. The Democrat was said to have been offered the posts of Ambassador to the United Nations and of head of Homeland Security. (CNN)

Iraqi defense minister: Tehran is Threat Number One. Iraqi Defense Minister Hazen Shaalan called Iran his country's "most dangerous enemy". Shaalan also pointed the finger at Syrian intelligence and former Ba'athist regime elements in Iraq's continuing terrorism problem. (Stratfor, Debka)

Debka: Al-Qaeda attacks planned for December. Another Debka bulletin reports: 'Cairo and Jerusalem warned by Washington of planned al Qaeda attack in December. Chemical weapon hazard possible or strike against Mediterranean, Gulf of Aqaba and Suez Canal targets. Threat is posed by Al Qaeda’s new Sinai bastion teamed up with new Saudi al Qaeda chief Saud Hamid al-Utaibi who orchestrated US Jeddah consulate attack on December 6.'

US will not join EU-IRI parley. Washington has said that the United States will not join nuclear negotiations between the Iranian regime and the European Union, according to an AP article. 'Iran is willing to talk with the United States about a nuclear program that Washington alleges is aimed at secretly acquiring the bomb, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Monday. The White House, however, rejected the idea. ... "When it comes to Iran, we are very supportive of the efforts by our European friends to get Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions. And we stay in close contact with our European friends on their discussions and the progress that they have made ... That's the way we're approaching this issue," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "What we believe is important is that ultimately Iran agree to end its nuclear weapons program, not just suspend it." ' (AP via Free Iran)

Hezbollah TV: France no, Europe yes. Clarifying an earlier report (see MR 12/14), Democracy for the Middle East explains that while Hezbollah-controlled al-Manar TV is indeed banned from the French airwaves, 'France is turning a blind eye toward Al-Manar's other distribution channels in Europe and around the world.' DFME provides a chart outlining the links between al-Manar and its distributors. Meanwhile, the Tehran Times reported that the Association of Muslim Journalists called for protests against the French government's decision to ban al-Manar domestically, according to a bulletin from the Middle East Media Research Institute. (DFME, MEMRI)

Against "self-service fatwas". Amir Taheri writes in the Gulf News that 'the increasing use of Islam as a political ideology rather than a religious faith, and an instrument for seeking power has led to the perversion of the role of the ulema [religious schaolars]', with large numbers of newly-anointed clerics bringing quantity, rather than quality, to the office. He cites the role of television in this "ulema inflation", with reporters seeking a photogenic cleric wearing 'a beard and some kind of theological headgear'. (Gulf News via Benador Associates)

FBI searches Saudi-linked PR firm's offices. According to this item at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, 'FBI agents searched offices of Qorvis Communications last week looking for information about its client, Saudi Arabia. According to a Justice Department report, the Saudis paid Qorvis $14.6 million for a six-month period, ending Dec. 31, 2002. (How much they paid in other periods was not immediately known.) The money went to fund lobbying and public relations, including the distribution of material "to promote public awareness" of Saudi Arabia's "commitment in the war against terrorism and to peace in the Middle East." ' An article in the Washington Times explains that the investigation centers on Qorvis' compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), noting that "Saudi Arabia is Qorvis' only foreign government client. " The Washington Times cites concerns by three Qorvis founders who quit the firm over "a deep discomfort in representing the government of Saudi Arabia against accusations that Saudi leaders have turned a blind eye to terrorism." The firm's managing partners are Michael Petruzzello, Doug Poretz, Curtis Robinson, Esther Thomas Smith, Michael Tucker and Karen Vahouny. Dreams Into Lightning has commented on Saudi media influence here. (FDD, Washington Times, Dreams Into Lightning)

The coming revolution. The latest post at the Belmont Club explores the idea that ' ''freedom and politics are really going to be the agents of destruction for the ancien regime of tyrant and terrorist", not as a figure of speech but as literal truth. The role of the US military would be strategically indirect and subtle: to ensure that the old regimes cannot contain the forces that would naturally spring up against them.' (Belmont Club)

Regime to Execute Mentally Handicapped Rape Victim

The islamist entity is preparing to sacrifice another life in Iran. Nineteen-year-old Leyla has been sentenced to death for "acts incompatible with chastity" by the Iranian regime. According to the Amnesty International news release:

Leyla M was reportedly sentenced to death on charges of "acts contrary to chastity" by controlling a brothel, having intercourse with blood relatives and giving birth to an illegitimate child. She is to be flogged before she is executed. She had apparently "confessed" to the charges. Earlier reports stated that there would be an appeal, and the 28 November report indicates that this process is now at an end.

Social workers have reportedly tested her mental capacities repeatedly and each time have found Leyla to have a mental age of eight. However, she has apparently never been examined by the court-appointed doctors, and was sentenced to death solely on the basis of her explicit confessions, without consideration of her background or mental health.

Leyla was forced into prostitution by her mother when she was eight years old, according to the 28 November report, and was raped repeatedly thereafter. She gave birth to her first child when she was nine, and was sentenced to 100 lashes for prostitution at around the same time. At the age of 12, her family sold her to an Afghan man to become his "temporary wife". His mother became her new pimp, "selling her body without her consent".

At the age of 14 she became pregnant again, and received a further 100 lashes, after which she was moved to a maternity ward to give birth to twins. After this "temporary marriage", her family sold her again, to a 55-year-old man, married with two children, who had Leyla’s customers come to his house.

Amnesty Statement on Leila (Free Iran)

SIGN THE PETITION:

To: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
8-14 Avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland

Leila, a 19 year old woman, faces imminent execution in Iran. What childhood she has had has been marred with physical and sexual abuse from the age of 8, giving birth to her first child at the age of 9. Having become a concubine to an Afghan man at the age of 12, Leila was forced into prostitution by him until the age of 14 when she gave birth to twin daughters. Leila was then given to a 55 year old married man who continued her history of abuse until her arrest at the age of 18, when she was found guilty of prostitution. Prostitution carries the death penalty under the Islamic laws of Iran.

We, the undersigned, appeal for your involvement on Leila's behalf based on principals of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html), to which Iran is a signatory.

Petition to Save Leila

Donna M. Hughes: The Mullahs' Killing Fields

'On the occasion of International Human Rights Day (Friday, December 10), the torture and execution of political prisoners in Iran was the focus of a briefing in New York hosted by the non-governmental organization Women’s Freedom Forum. The treatment of women, especially women political activists, was featured.

The walls of the room were lined with documentary posters with names and photographs of men, women, and children who had been killed by the mullahs in Iran. A number of the photographs were family groups – mother, father, and two, three, four, five, even six children ‑ that had been killed by the Iranian regime for their political activism.

The program included videos and photographs of trials, lashings and executions over the past 25 years. Some images were from the early days of the revolution, some from the late 1980s, and one photograph showing the hanging of a group of seven men in Zahedan just three days before the event on December 7, 2004.

The victims are hoisted into the air by a crane in a public place in order to terrorize the population and suppress further resistance to the regime. Another Iranian-American pro-democracy non-governmental organization ‑The Committee in Support of Referendum in Iran‑sends out news clippings on a regular basis that document the executions of men, women, and sometimes children, as the Iranian regime executes minors. There are often two or three pages of listings of sentences and executions. Their most recent report for November 2004 listed 15 executions or sentences for execution. A number of them are punishment for political activity against the regime inside and outside Iran. ... '

Read the whole article at the Free Iran message board:
The Mullahs' Killing Fields (Free Iran)

Morning Report: December 14, 2004

Egypt / Israel free trade accord signed in Cairo. An Israeli - Egyptian free trade agreement was signed in Cairo, reports a Debka bulletin: 'Israeli-Egyptian trade agreement signed in Cairo for jointly produced goods made in three Egyptian industrials zones to gain duty-free access to US market. The Qualified Industrial Zones similar to Israel-Jordanian projects will be located in Greater Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said industrial zone. Agreement under umbrella of US-Israel free trade accord was signed by Israeli industry minister Ehud Olmert, Egyptian minister Rachid Mohammed Rachid and US Trade representative Robert Zoellick. Israeli delegation welcomed by Mubarek.' (Debka)

Saddam regime trials set to begin. According to the BBC, 'Leaders in Saddam Hussein's regime will go on trial for crimes against humanity and war crimes as early as next week, Iraq's interim premier says. Iyad Allawi said that the "symbols" of the former regime would be tried "one by one" but gave few details. There was no indication when Saddam Hussein himself would face trial.' (BBC)

Hezbollah loses French airwaves. And speaking of the BBC, Democracy for the Middle East credits that august organization with the news that 'France has kicked Hezbollah TV off the air for broadcasting judeophobic content.' (BBC via DFME)

New at "Pacific Memories"

As we begin Chapter 2, the crew of the USS Monroe gets its first tantalizing glimpse of New Zealand - and encounters an unexpected visitor. Our narrator comes to respect the New Zealanders' understated appreciation for American GI's - and finds himself facing some excitement in Auckland. Read the whole story at Pacific Memories.

My father did not live to see the attacks of September 11, but the sentiments he expressed in a poem written in the late Cold War years feel familiar. I like to think his imaginative "Instructions for Using the Survival Equipment" would not be out of place in today's world. Read it at Urban Renewal.

Also newly posted: more of my sister's poetry at Wilderness Vision. Read; enjoy; reflect.

Giant Leaps

Omar and Mohammed Fadhil continued their US tour with a visit to Roger L. Simon. Roger Simon blogs about the event:

I think I can I could speak for the others present when I say both brothers exuded a unique combination of calm, warmth and intelligence. They are also deep lovers of freedom in a way it is difficult to be for those of us who grow up with it. If many Iraqis are like these two young Baghdad dentists, I am quite anxious to go to Iraq.

I was relieved by what they were like on a deeper level as well. They don't know this, but on the darkest days of the war, at the times the media were at their gloomiest and I was racked with guilt that I had so adamantly supported our actions, I almost always turned first to them. I didn't look to them for unbiased opinions. There is no such thing. I looked to them to see how real Iraqis were reacting to a situation that affected them more directly than it could ever affect me or the prognosticators of doom in our media. They were the ones who bucked me up-not the other way around, as it should be. In a certain sense they helped my sanity. And I suspect I am not alone in that.

Roger speaks my own thoughts here. The three brothers who bring us Iraq the Model - Omar, Mohammed, and Ali Fadhil - have been a crucial voice and a real light in the dark for those of us who have been involved with the situation in Iraq. They are also an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.

Ali, for reasons as yet undisclosed, was unable to join Mohammed and Omar and is staying home in Baghdad for the time being. I imagine he must feel a bit like Michael Collins, orbiting the moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left footprints, planted flags, and hit golf balls ... oh, wait, the golf balls came later. Well, you get the idea.

But I'm wrong there, of course, because Iraq is where it's all happening. Iraq is what it's all about. And yes, it's still dangerous and lives are still being lost; but changes for the better are happening at an amazing pace.

Think how far we've come in a year. A year - yes, you do remember what happened a year ago, don't you?

That's right - December 14 marks the anniversary of the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Rejoice.

Let's blogroll!

Atlas shrugs. 'Three months ago [in DR Congo], militiamen burned 17 people to death while a detachment of MONUC troops 200 metres away, whose mandate authorised them to use force to prevent such massacres, did nothing.' Thus reports an article in The Economist, cited by Wretchard in his December 4 post at the Belmont Club. With war and bloodshed raging in central Africa, what does the mighty United Nations do? Why, it tackles Problem Number Four.

And don't miss Belmont Club's recent posts for more on Kofi Annan and the UN, Europe's future, and the British government's intriguing concept of "active passivity".

A strong week. As Dreams Into Lightning belatedly acknowledges Hanukkah (what can I say? I've been busy), Dave Koppel posting on Slate gives us the run-down on Armed Jews Week. (Oh, and happy Hanukkah to you, too, Pat Buchanan.) Judith at Kesher Talk is inspired by her Apocryphal namesake; she offers Hanukkah links here, here, and ... oh heck, just go read the blog.

Muslims and Christians in Egypt. Big Pharaoh has the latest word on the case of Wafaa Constantine, an Egyptian Christian woman who reportedly expressed a desire to convert to Islam. GM explores the relationships between Christians and Muslims in Egypt, asking "What will save Egypt?" and examining a story with many stories.

V is for Values. Sherri (alias Evil Conservative) offers guidance and inspiration based on the acronym "VICTORY". It begins at this post. Don't forget to visit the latest posts at Straight Up With Sherri - scroll down for a very moving tribute to her grandmother.

Is "looking Jewish" a crime? Well, not exactly, but if something bad happens to you, just remember it's all Israel's fault. Michael J. Totten tells us what he thinks of that sick and twisted mentality.

Ampersand hits the Washington Post and this sudden fame has put him in a generous mood: the entire Hereville archive is free this week. Go read the interview with Ampersand (aka Barry Deutsch) at Alas, a Blog (December 12 post). Don't miss the adventures of a nice Jewish girl as she wrestles with problems of theodicy, knitting, and dragon-slaying at Hereville. Also be sure to explore "Alas" for thoughts on one of the most insidious prejudices of our time.