AJWS: Help End Darfur Genocide

From the American Jewish World Service:

As we approach the holiest time in the Jewish calendar, American Jewish World Service is launching an unprecedented campaign to end the horrific genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

I need your help: please sign our Call to Action
today.

AJWS has brought together Jewish leaders from across the spectrum to urge President Bush to lead the world community in putting an end to the atrocities that have claimed more than 400,000 lives and left millions homeless. You may have seen our full page ad in The New York Times on Tuesday, which officially kicked off the campaign.

After the Holocaust, the world vowed "Never Again." That pledge was repeated after the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Yet genocide continues in Darfur, Sudan.

I'm asking you to sign this Call to Action to President Bush today and to spread the word to your friends and colleagues. You will be adding your name to an extraordinary list of signers from the American Jewish community.

Sign the Petition
American Jewish World Service

"How can you determine a source's biases?"

What are a source's biases?  And why is it important to consider a source's biases? 

In November 2006, just days before the national mid-term elections, the magazine Vanity Fair issued a press release suggesting that several leading neoconservative thinkers - David Frum, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, and others - had renounced their earlier beliefs about Iraq and the Middle East.  But according to the neoconservatives, the release grossly distorted and misrepresented their views, and some expressed regret that they had granted the interviews at all:  in the words of Frank Gaffney, "None of us who responded candidly on the basis of such promises to thoughtful questions posed by reporter David Rose would likely have done so had the magazine’s true and nakedly partisan purpose been revealed."  More at the post Neocons Blast Vanity Fair.


Suppose you are the reader, reading a magazine - or a book, or a newspaper, or a page on the internet.  How do you determine the source's biases?

I don't think there's any simple answer, and I'm not sure it's the kind of question you can really find the answer to by typing it into a search engine.  But I'll share my own thoughts on it.  I addressed the problem of media (and source) bias in an earlier post, "Poison Pill:  The Media Today".  I quoted a New York Times editorial by Patrick Healy and a post by Neo-Neocon tracing the use of anonymous sources.  The media's problem, I argued, was largely created by its own reliance on apocryphal sources - potentially biased, and anonymous, informants whose reliability and accountability are doubtful.  As a first step toward correcting the problem, I echoed Neo's suggestion that

If the MSM really wanted to clean up their act, they might follow these sensible guidelines, devised by prominent journalists in a 2003 Poynter report:

• Anonymous sources should be encouraged to go on the record.

• We should weigh the source’s reliability and disclose to readers the source’s potential biases.

• The more specific we can be in describing the source in the story, the better.

• Anonymous sources should not be used for personal attacks, accusations of illegal activity, or merely to add color.

• The source must have first-hand knowledge.

• Journalists should not lie in a story to protect a source.

Now to the question at hand.  Journalists are here being exhorted to "disclose to readers the source's potential biases".  How would a journalist, or a layperson, make such an assessment?  Well, I think it's mostly commonsense, but I'll throw a few ideas out there:

What is the source's ideological orientation?  What are the person's political sympathies, their party affiliation, etc?  This is not to say that people can't be objective or critical about a movement they belong to - but the potential for bias is certainly there.

What are the source's financial interests?  I think this one is a no-brainer, but a person who owns a lot of stock in XYZ Corporation is going to have an incentive to promote pro-XYZ legislation and contracts.  In the case of the MSM, we all know that "bad news sells".

Debts and favors.  Is the source looking for a payoff down the road?  If I go on record saying nice things about Candidate A, maybe I am hoping to get appointed to a nice comfy job if A wins the election.

The medium is the message.  News stories go through news networks, broadcast networks, and publishers.  Books go through publishing houses.  In other words, somebody has to provide the materials for the message to be communicated.  Somewhere, a network executive makes decisions about what gets on the air and what doesn't.  Somewhere, an editor or publisher decides what gets printed and what doesn't.  So if you're reading a book you have to think about not only the author's background and point of view, but also the publisher's orientation:  for example, they might publish mostly liberal books or mostly conservative books.  Knowing something about the background of a publisher or a broadcast network can help give you an idea of what to expect.

What are the source's own experiences?  How might those experiences be relevant, and how might they affect the source's perceptions?  First-hand knowledge of any issue is always helpful; on the other hand, a person might have had an experience that was atypical or unrepresentative.  A soldier on the front lines is going to have a very vivid, detailed, and specific recollection of a battle.  The general in a command bunker may not see the battle up close, but he will have information on the "big picture" of troop strengths, enemy positions, strategic decisions, and other things that the soldier will not know, and may not be allowed to know.  The soldier's memory may be distorted by trauma, confusion, fear, or shame (of a real or imagined failiing on the battlefield); the general may ignore or suppress key information, perhaps with his career in mind.  Both perspectives are valuable, both have their limitations.

Psychological factors.  There are basic psychological factors that operate in all of us to one degree or another.  Resistance to change is one; Neo has written extensively and insightfully on the human reluctance to change familiar patterns of thought.  There is a need for approval of others; there is also a need for a sense of autonomy and a belief that we determine our own destiny.  And of course we all like to be thought knowledgeable, which is why we are often tempted to speak more than we actually know.

The centrally-managed and -edited traditional media (including radio, TV, print periodicals, and books) have nothing to fear from the internet ... provided they do not contribute to their own irrelevance by ignoring it.

The internet is anarchical, and therefore makes great demands on the individual user in terms of critical thinking skills. How do we know to trust a site? We compare information from multiple sources, listen to different analyses, learn to weed out irrelevant input and compare the picture with what we know from our own previous experience.

With the traditional media, this is all delegated to the editor, publisher, producer, or university. Often we have to do this, because the material is specialized or technical in nature, or because individual contributors don't have the credibility to reliably provide the information we need.

But centralized media can serve their own agendas at the expense of accuracy. That's where the supremely democratic world of blogging comes in.

Traditional media still play a valuable role. But they risk abdicating this role if they fail to recognize the democratizing effects of electronic communications.

Why do we believe what we believe? How do we decide what is true, and what is important? Consider the role of the following factors, and feel free to add others:

· internal consistency (details of the narrative agree with each other)
· external consistency (details of the narrative agree with information previously verified)
· insider details (information available only to an authentic source)
· dialog and dissent (narrative welcomes questions and challenges; fosters better understanding among divergent opinions)
· awareness of objections (narrative recognizes legitimate counter-arguments and seeks to refute them)
· nuance (recognition that a proposition may hold true in general and still admit of exceptions)
· the human voice (an intangible quality that may include a distinctive personality, awareness of ambivalence, self-analysis and self-criticism)

Finally, what does biased writing look like?  Bias isn't necessarily bad, but you need to be aware of it and, if necessary, allow for it.  Yahoo offers this:

Check for the tone of the publication - pick out opinion statements and check the publication's references (are all of the references from the same author or does the publication offer a variety?). What other articles has the author written - the topics of these may help determine her/his bias.

Does the author present both sides of the argument/topic? If not, which side is presented more often? What is the point s/he is trying to make? Ask yourself these questions and you should be on the right track!

That sums up the main points:  variety of sources, obvious rhetorical slant, agenda.  Going a little deeper, I'll offer the following ideas:

* Look for "snarl words" versus "purr words" - words that mean the same thing but sound bad or good.
* See if you can tell what kind of overall picture, or "narrative", the writer is trying to present.
* Sometimes an article will seem to present both sides, but will use better arguments to represent one side, and weaker arguments for the other, so that one side sounds more convincing; this is a kind of implicit bias.
* Sometimes people will use bogus arguments (called "red herrings" or "straw men") to evade questions they don't have answers for; these are examples of fallacies or bad logic.  Studying the types of fallacies can help you see when somebody is trying to pull a fast one on you; you can find out more about logical fallacies here, here, or here. 

Another common form of potential bias is the use of "weasel words" - words or phrases that make a statement appear factual but really undercut the precision of the statement.  They're called "weasel words" because they allow the writer to wiggle out of being pinned down to a specific statement that can be proved or disproved.  Wikipedia's style manual has an excellent section on weasel words:

Words and short phrases that make a statement difficult or impossible to prove or disprove:

• Some humans practice cannibalism. (True, but useless and misrepresentative)
• Many humans practice cannibalism. (“many” could well be two, three, ten, or even five billion)
  
  • Throughout human history, there have been many individuals with three arms. (to illustrate.)
• Most scientists believe that there is truth
  
  • "Most" can mean any amount over 50% but short of 100%
  • A "scientist" could be anyone with any knowledge of science
  • The statement gives no necessary contextual data:
    
    • How, when and by whom were the individual beliefs counted
    • Whether the statement concerns all published scientists, or all
      those presently alive, or only those who are qualified in the given
      scientific field
  • The meaning of "truth" varies
• "More and more", "more than ever", "an increasing number"
• "Possibly", "may", "could", "perhaps" and the like
• It is believed that... Anyone could believe anything so it is very important to know who believes that, and why?
• It remains to be seen... Pointless, since it usually introduces an unverifiable statement.

The following examples often qualify for weasel words by vaguely attributing a statement to no source in particular:

• "According to some (reports, studies, rumors, sources…) …"
• "Actually, Allegedly, Apparently, Arguably, Clearly, Plainly, Obviously, Undoubtedly, Supposedly ..."
• "(Contrary, as opposed) to (many, most, popular, ...) ..."
• "(Correctly, Justly, Properly, ...) or not, ..."
• "Could it be that..."
• "(Critics, detractors, fans, experts, many people, scholars, historians, ...) contend/say that ..."
• "It (could be, should be, may be, has been, is) (argued, speculated, remembered, …) …"
• "(Mainstream, serious, the majority of, a small group of ...)
  (scholars, scientists, researchers, experts, scientific community...)
  ..."
• "It has been proven that…"
• "Research has shown..."
• Personifications like "Science says ..." or "Experience has proven..."
• "There has been criticism that ..."
• "It turns out..."'

In an earlier post at Dreams Into Lightning, I complained about the use of vague modifiers in the media: 

Have you ever noticed how often they use vague quantifiers like "some"
and "many", especially when they're talking about public opinion? But
of course you have - Dreams Into Lightning readers are a smart bunch.
So you've already figured out that that's an easy way for the
"journalist" to introduce his or her own opinion into a story, without
having to defend a more stringent assertion, e.g. the claim that said
opinions represent a majority (which would require the word "most").

Now go take another look at Wikipedia's list - better yet, print it out! - and spend some time looking for weasel words in your favorite media source.   I bet you'll find a lot of them.  (How many is "a lot"?  Well, try it and find out for yourself!)

Make a game of it:  print out a copy of this post, and go through your local newspaper with a pen or a highlighter.   Look for anonymous sources, or people who might have an incentive to be partial, or examples of journalists possibly putting their own opinions into the mouths of the ubiquitous "some people".  Look for snarl words, purr words, and weasel words.  Try to spot logical fallacies.  Check for internal consistency, external consistency, and awareness of objections.  Ask yourself which analyses come from people who know what they're talking about - those who have first-hand knowledge of the relevant "facts on the ground" and who are prepared to respond to opposing arguments - and which ones are unsupported opinions from people with their own agenda. 

I hope you have found this post helpful.  But the most important thing in determining a source's biases is to do your own thinking!  And that's important for students, too - so if you are a student, please take the time to come up with your own answers to this question.  Remember, your instructor can use a search engine just as easily as you can.

Related. On Scott Thomas Beauchamp and source biases.

Update

I've been taking a break from playing "Mr. Universe" due to pressures from school and real life. Hoping to get back to posting soon.

Third-semester calculus looks like it's going to be fun. The prof is a young guy from Mexico, very articulate, an excellent explainer, and has an enthusiasm for the material that's infectious. He killed us with homework the first week - review problems - but I'm glad he did because there's so much stuff you have to memorize in the first two semesters that it's easy to forget. Derivatives and integrals of circular functions, integration techniques (integration by parts, partial fractions, etc.). Now we're looking at convergent and divergent series; it's more logic-based. I've taken this class before, but I only got about a C, and it was a few years ago. I'm hoping to get more out of it (including better grades) this time around.

"Modern physics" means all the stuff they don't teach you the first year: relativity and quantum theory. Our prof is a bald German guy with coke-bottle glasses and a thick accent. Relativity is pretty straightforward once you get the hang of how to plug in the Lorentz equation. Quantum theory is weirder than relativity; Einstein himself famously refused to accept quantum physics. The late Richard Feynman, in his popular series of lectures delivered in the early 1960s, explained that "things on a very small scale behave like nothing that you have any direct experience with." That is, you have to set aside your whole sense of "how the world works" - which was built up over a lifetime and painstakingly reinforced in first-year physics - and learn a whole new mental vocabulary of wavefunctions and probability amplitudes. I should point out, by the way, that I do not have any particular facility with mathematics or physics, but I'm really excited by the prospect of learning this stuff and mastering the techniques, so I'm determined to challenge myself a little bit and see this program through.

Our English class just finished Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey". It's one of Austen's early works, a spoof on Gothic novels in general and "Mysteries of Udolpho" in particular. A key element of the storyline centers around Catherine's overactive imagination (stimulated by the pulp fiction of her day) and her eagerness to believe the most fantastic and dreadful things about Northanger Abbey and the Tilney family. I think the other plot element - General Tilney's changing attitude toward Catherine - invites us to contrast Catherine's mindset with the General's. In a sense, Catherine and the General find themselves in similar situations: both have made mistaken assumptions about other people, and are found out. But while Catherine experiences an epiphany, the General only becomes more obstinate and defensive.

With "Northanger Abbey", Austen is clearly calling on her contemporaries to provide worthwhile reading and not literary "junk food". Even more important, though, is the broader point about how we interpret the information we get about our environment - and I think there's a direct relevance for us in the modern world, not only in the blogging universe but in our daily lives. Here is Henry's rebuke to Catherine, after he has caught her snooping in the Tilney home and she has blurted out her wild imaginings about the Tilneys:

"... Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you -- Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing; where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dear Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?"

Henry appeals to the highest ideals of their society ("we are English, we are Christians") not to suggest that their neighbors are incapable of committing such a horrid crime as Catherine imagines, but to impress upon her the wildly improbable nature of the sorts of conspiracies she has dreamed up.

"What have you been judging from?" This is the question we have to ask ourselves constantly. Where do we get our information, and how well does it mesh with what we know about the real world? Do we prefer the subtlety and complexity of real life, or the feverish excitement of our paranoid fantasies? "Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you."

I'm going to enjoy English class. The discussion among the other students is fascinating and stimulating; it's especially fun to get the input of younger minds. (I don't think the prof likes me, but that seems to be a constant among my humanities professors, so I'll accept my fate. I'm taking the class to learn literature, not to make the prof happy.) I think immersing myself in literature makes my blogging richer, too.

And back on the subject of blogging, we now have a face and a name for the famous Wretchard of The Belmont Club! Pajamas Media identifies him as Richard Fernandez, a native of the Philippines now living in Australia and working as a software developer. He will be serving as the Australian Editor for PJM; go read his full profile at the link.

PS - I will probably be posting more on the subject of blogging and critical thinking in the near future; there's quite a bit more I find I want to say. So keep watching this space.

You can't stop the signal!

Latest News From the Other Other Portland

Superstitious Portland, Dorset (UK) residents wary of "Wallace and Gromit" film with "rabbit" in title.

Hat tip: Tammy "Why We're Us and They're Them" Bruce.

Morning Report: October 6, 2005

Man killed in Oklahoma bombing. The Counterterrorism Blog: 'There's an interesting story out of Oklahoma that has gotten surprisingly little media attention. Joel Hinrichs III died on Saturday after apparently detonating an explosive device while sitting on a bench about 100 yards from Oklahoma University's football stadium during the Kansas State-Oklahoma University game. There's speculation that Hinrichs may have been a suicide bomber. ... First of all, a local TV station has reported that Hinrichs had been attending the same mosque in Norman, Oklahoma that alleged 9/11 "twentieth hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui frequented. On top of that, Dustin Ellison, a feed store operator in Norman, claims that Hinrichs attempted to purchase ammonium nitrate a few days before his death. The store didn't carry the product because of federal guidelines regarding its sale. Ammonium nitrate was a key ingredient in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. A local television station reports that sources have stated that one of the components in the bomb used by Hinrichs was triacetone triperoxide (TATP). TATP is relatively easy to make, and is one of the most sensitive explosives. Attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid had TATP in his shoes. Local television in Oklahoma is also reporting that Hinrichs attempted twice to enter the Kansas State-OU game before he exploded. ... What to make of these various facts? A definitive conclusion cannot be drawn at this point.' Stay tuned. (CTB)

Spy for Philippines caught in White House. Tammy Bruce was among the first bloggers to pick up the story of Leandro Aragoncillo, a US Marine who worked in the Vice President's office and is accused of having stolen classified information over a period of three years. The Belmont Club has more: 'Leandro Aragoncillo, a former US Marine of Filipino origin has been arrested for passing classified documents to foreign leaders, over a period during which he may have been assigned to the White House. SBS News Australia says Aragoncillo passed 100 classified documents from FBI computers which included material damaging to the current President of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The information was given to "opposition politicians planning a coup in the Pacific nation" -- including, apparently, former President Joseph Estrada, in jail on various corruption charges. ... (Speculation alert) One might reasonably ask how Joseph Estrada and Panfilo Lacson recruited a spy in the White House. Estrada's most notorious route of access into the 1999 White House was through Mark Jimenez, sentenced to two years in a Miami jail for federal election fraud in 2003. His sentence coincidentally, will be completely served this month. ... Mark Jimenez knew a lot of people in the Democratic Party. Newsmax has connected him with John Kerry in an article dated from 2004.' Full article, with further links, at the Belmont Club link. (Belmont Club)

Britain points finger at Iran regime. Guardian: 'Britain and Iran clashed openly last night after a senior British official directly accused Tehran of supplying Iraqi insurgents with sophisticated roadside bombs that have killed eight British soldiers and two security guards since May. ... The British official said that Iranian interference in Iraq could be related to British pressure on Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons ambitions. "It would be entirely natural that they would want to send a message 'Don't mess with us'," he said. An Iranian government spokesman rejected the British accusations and said it was opposed to the insurgency in Iraq.' Meanwhile, Canada is speaking out against the IRI's human rights violations; Reuters: 'Canada will put forward a resolution in the United Nations shortly accusing Iran of human rights violations, Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew said on Wednesday. "Iran has not lived up to its international human rights obligations and has not conformed with past U.N. resolutions on this matter. We believe this must change," Pettigrew said in a statement.' Both links via Regime Change Iran. (Guardian, Reuters via RCI)

Syria: Regime change soon? Telegraph: 'Israel predicted yesterday that America would impose fresh sanctions on Syria in an attempt to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Shaul Mofaz, the defence minister, said he believed sanctions would follow publication of a United Nations report expected to implicate senior Syrian officials in the murder of Rafik al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister. "I won't be surprised if Syria gets a red card," Mr Mofaz told Israel radio.' Full article at link. Also, via RCI: Lebanese Lobby reports Washington tells Turkey that Syrian liberation is approaching: 'A well known minister in the Turkish parliament revealed yesterday that Steven Hadley, the American National Security advisor reported to the Turkish officials in his latest visit to Ankara, that Washington wants to use the “Angelink” [Incirlik] air base, in its operations to get rid of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al Assad, and to supervise Iran and be able to isolate it from the International world.'

Your friendly neighborhood Hezbollah office. Michael Totten talks to the PR department at Hezbollah.

L'Shanah Tovah

... and Ramadan Mubarak to Muslim readers.

This evening marks the beginning of the year 5766 on the Jewish calendar, and (as every year) the beginning of the period known as the Ten Days of Repentence. The second day of Rosh haShanah is also my father's yahrzeit.

I'm afraid I don't have any words of inspiration and wisdom right now, but please go visit Judith at Kesher Talk for plenty of both.

Also, go visit Paula Gaon for a tribute to John Lennon, with whom Paula shares a birthday.

L'Shanah Tovah teykatvu v'teychatmu ... may you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.

Lavender Alert

New DTWOF release from Alison. Alison Bechdel's new book Invasion of the Dykes to Watch Out For has just been released. Don't miss Alison's blog and her awesome comic ... as her characters confront ethical dilemmas - with ramifications for automotive safety - in her latest episode.

More fanaticism from Denmark. Irshad Manji has some thoughts on the latest love letter from islamo-fanatic "Abdel" (alias "Andersen"):

Sounds to me a like a convert -- and a “homegrown” or “Western-raised” threat. We're seeing more and more like him. Which is why pretending that the problem exists outside of the West is no longer an option.

Responding to Eileen in Belfast, Irshad writes:

Many Westerners today would like to have it both ways -- embracing the universality of human rights as well as the equality of cultures. But that's not sustainable. Because if you believe that all human beings are entitled to a certain set of dignities, then cultural practices that violate those dignities can't, by definition, be defended. The French-Arab novelist, Amin Maalouf, nailed it when he wrote, "Traditions deserve respect only insofar as they are respectable - that is, exactly insofar as they themselves respect the fundamental rights of men and women."

The other "Exodus Ministries." You might have heard that President Bush's new Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, was connected with something called "Exodus Ministries." You might have wondered: You mean, the "ex-gay" group? Ken Sain at the Blade Blog clears things up:

ep, I heard correctly. In fact, it turns out Miers is a former board member of Exodus Ministries. But turns out there was no need to panic.

Exodus Ministries, Inc. has nothing to do with the anti-gay group Exodus International.

Bruce at GayPatriot has some thoughts.

"Please do not leave us alone." The Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization (PGLO) posts this article by Doug Ireland:

The Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization (PGLO) has appealed to North American activists for help in mobilizing support for their campaign against the vicious, lethal, anti-gay crackdown taking place in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The anti-gay pogrom in Iran includes arrests and torture of gay people, executions of gay Iranians on trumped up charges, and a well-organized Internet entrapment campaign by Iran's religious sex police that is ensnaring gay Iranians daily.

In his latest e-mail sent to me today from Turkey, the secretary of the PGLO's Human Rights Commission, Arsham Parsi, wrote: “Dear Doug, Would you please introduce PGLO to your activist friends and groups and organizations? We need it, we are going to make a big campaign. We need their e-mail addresses. We reach out our hands of need to you!”

The PGLO is an outgrowth of an earlier, smaller Iranian gay group called Rainbow, which first organized in 1981. But PGLO, in its current form, has existed only since 2004. “We are a young team yet,” said Parsi in a telephone interview. With secretariats in Norway and Turkey, the PGLO claims a mailing list of over 29,000 Iranians. It maintains a trilingual website in Persian, German, and English. PGLO conducts educational and mutual aide activities inside Iran, and provides support for Iranian gays who have escaped from the Islamic Republic – the world's largest religious prison – and tries to help them obtain asylum in a country where they won’t be persecuted for who and how they love.

PGLO edits a monthly magazine in Persian, Cheragh and produces Persian-language radio programs for webcast ...

Finish reading the article at the link.

I guess that's why the call it MADchester.

Without further comment, I bring you this from the invaluable Tammy Bruce:

Bishop backs panty parties to spread Church message.

The Rev Jan Harney, a Church of England cleric in Manchester who also works for Activate, said that she wanted Christians to relax, have fun and to get to know people before trying to convert them. "I have not conducted a lingerie party myself, but when Bridget Jones was all the rage I know that some Christian groups were holding knickers parties" ...

Finish reading at the link.

CENTCOM

Did you know that the United States Central Command has a homepage? Here's the URL:
http://www.centcom.mil/
I've also linked CENTCOM on my sidebar.

Let's blogroll!

Familiar faces in Beirut. Michael Totten of Pajamas Media is in the Mideast for an extended trip. He's renamed his blog Michael J. Totten's Middle East Journal for the occasion. This time in Beirut, Michael sees some familiar faces where he wishes he didn't have to see them; read his post on martyrs of a different kind.

Our man in Wherethehellistan. Let's admit it - well-informed citizens though we are, there are still some places that even you and I can't find on a map. Or even pronounce. Well, our ignorance is about to end, thanks to PJM's resident Central Asia expert, Registan.

Warning: Politically Incorrect Lesbian. And also from Pajamas, Tammy Bruce now has her own blog, and we've been honored to witness its inception. Tammy takes on today's Neville Chamberlains, anti-gun hysteria, drunken sailors in Washington, and al-Qaeda denial. And don't miss her photos from the blessing of the animals. And yes, I'm proud to have Tammy Bruce on my sidebar.

Morning Report: October 3, 2005

CENTCOM: Iron Fist a success. Stratfor (subscription) reports: 'U.S. Central Command on Oct. 3 announced that several successful engagements against insurgents in Anbar province occurred during the first day of an offensive to route out jihadist and Sunni nationalist insurgents located by the Syrian border. Operation Iron Fist began Oct. 1 against insurgents around Sadah, Iraq, with U.S. Marines from Regimental Combat Team-2 backed by air support from the 2nd Marine Air Wing engaging terrorists in combat. The operation is part of a larger offensive in Anbar province known as Operation Hunter, which is taking place along the Euphrates River valley.' (Stratfor)

Belmont Club on Iron Fist. Wretchard returns after a few days' absence with this analysis of Iron Fist, concluding: 'After the Marines anchored their western defense on Fallujah in November 2004 they have been steadily creeping westward within the riverine zone along the Euphrates. The latest efforts to secure Ramadi means they can move the Iraqi training center from Habbaniyah westward to Ramadi; and the probable objective is to extend the writ of the Iraqi government until it reaches Rawah. In the meantime, Task Force Olympia, with the 11th ACR and the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (including Michael Yon's 1st BN, 24th Infantry "Deuce Four") has been campaigning in Mosul along the Tigris. Therefore, returning to the New York Times account, whether Zarqawi decides "to send the foreigners south to Baghdad or north across the desert to Mosul" he will be running into hard stops and harassed in all the intervening ground. If the US is successful, it will greatly reduce the insurgency's prospects of holding out against the government.' (Belmont Club)

Debka: Egyptian al-Qaeda in striking range of Israel, Suez, Jordan. Debka reports: 'Al Qaeda has established local terror networks in northern Sinai – centering on el Arish, as well as strongholds in the inaccessible central mountains of the peninsula around Jebel Hillal. In all, the jihadists control roughly one-fifth of Sinai total area (61,000sq. km or 23,500sq. miles). Egyptian forces of law and order have learned not to venture into these bastions or into the areas commanded by age-old smuggler clans who currently collaborate with al Qaeda. This leaves about half of the forbidding desert peninsula inaccessible to Egyptian security forces. Today, they can only claim to control the main roads routes fringing the vast desert expanse: from Ras Sudeir down to Sharm el Sheikh along the Suez Canal and Suez Gulf shores; from the Suez Canal east to El Arish along the Mediterranean shore and from the Sharm el-Sheikh resort center north along the Gulf of Aqaba to Taba and the Israeli port of Eilat. ... the only way for Egypt to wrest mastery of the Sinai heartland from the terrorists is by a combined aerial bombardment coupled with helicopter landings of at least two special forces brigades. This in present circumstances is not feasible because - 1. The 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty demilitarizing Sinai precludes Egyptian air force operations. In theory, Cairo can approach Jerusalem for permission, but in practice this would expose the Mubarak government to widespread Muslim opprobrium for collaborating with the Jewish state in the war against Islamic terror. 2. Egyptian intelligence does not have an exact count of the anti-air missiles in al Qaeda’s hands. The passage of a quantity of these weapons from Sinai to the Gaza Strip leads Egyptian intelligence to deduce a fairly sizeable number – enough to cause havoc with a helicopter commando drop. 3. Al Qaeda’s smuggling routes crisscross Sinai day and night, freely plied by fighters, weapons, explosives and food. These routes exploit the peninsula’s exceptional geography to run between Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and of late the Gaza Strip. ... 4. That al Qaeda has established a presence in the Gaza Strip is no longer a matter of speculation. Today, Israeli military intelligence AMAN and the Shin Beit are taking the new manifestation of Al Qaeda-Palestine as an offshoot of Al Qaeda-Sinai with the utmost seriousness. Foreign terrorists have been detected entering the Gaza Strip, welcomed and integrated in to the logistical infrastructures of Hizballah, Hamas, Jihad Islami and the Popular Fronts.' Full article, with map, at link. (Debka)

"Communism is bad for business." Discarded Lies reports on an astonishing discovery: 'Hong Kong has become less competitive, with political concerns helping to drag it down seven places to rank 28 in an annual worldwide table, according to the latest Global Competitiveness Report drawn up by the World Economic Forum.' Not only that, but 'China slipped three notches from last year, to 49th spot, the ranking of 117 economies shows.' Could it possibly have something to do with communism? Well, Taiwan ranks #5 on the list. Go read Evariste at the link. (Discarded Lies)

Dawn Patrol. Don't miss Holly Aho's latest installment of Dawn Patrol at the Mudville Gazette.

Update

A new year, a new sidebar. Well, not totally new, but I'm re-organizing my sidebar. I've added a section for Pajamas Media.

No posting Tuesday and Wednesday due to Rosh Ha-Shanah.