Night Flashes

CTB traces a string of al-Q plots against planes: 'In statement by Osama bin Laden issued in early October 2002, he warned: “We will target the nodes of your economy.” ... but the Iranian economy isn't doing so hot, as 20,000 workers lose their jobs in Mazandaran province: "Unfortunately the employment situation in the industrial city of Ghaem-shahr is destroyed and factories and workers are in a very bad situation; unemployment is the biggest concern for the authorities here.” ... and Ahmad Batebi (you remember, the T-shirt guy) is on a hunger strike after his re-arrest and his family are being told not to get any ideas about speaking out ...

... Arutz Sheva lists the names of Israel's fallen soldiers ...

Drinks on a plane!

Wisdom from the LiveJournal universe, via rhiannonstone:

First they came for the knitting needles, and I didn't speak up
Because I wasn't much of a knitter
Then they came for the shoes, and I didn't speak up
Because I wear sandals
Then they came for the lighters, and I didn't speak up
Because I don't smoke
Then they came for my Dr Pepper
And now it's on, motherfuckers.

Islamic Fascists Object to Being Called "Islamic Fascists"

Via Atlas: CAIR objects to Bush's use of the term "Islamic fascists".

We believe this is an ill-advised term and we believe that it is counter-productive to associate Islam or Muslims with fascism,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group.

Tough shit.

FDD Update

Foundation for the Defense of Democracies:
Notes and Comments

1559 OR FIGHT? Two years ago, the "international community" expressed its will. UN Security Council Resolution 1559 -- a rare Chapter VII resolution that carries the force of international law -- calls for Hezbollah to be disarmed.

Had 1559 been implemented, Hezbollah would not have been able to launch a war without the consent of the government and people of Lebanon. Had 1559 been implemented, many Lebanese and Israelis who have been killed in recent weeks would still be alive today.

One thing should be clear: Hezbollah cannot use this war as a way to accomplish the de facto repeal of 1559. Hezbollah must, finally, be disarmed. If not, the lesson will be that the international community rewards aggression. That will mean more aggression, more wars in the future, not fewer. Yes, it's that simple. My column on a related theme is here.

MEDIA AND MESSAGE, PART I: I was watching CNN on Sunday when precision bombing was being carried out by Israel on Hezbollah targets in a Beirut suburb, and Hezbollah was firing missiles at civilians in Haifa.

The first headline focused on the Arab "outrage." The second headline was passive: "Haifa hit by barrage of rockets."

How do you explain this difference? Discuss among yourselves.

MEDIA AND MESSAGE, PART DEUX: Charles Johnson of the Little Green Footballs blog found evidence that Reuters photographers have been manipulating photos of Lebanon to make Israel look worse. More here.

Civilian Casualties

From the 911Neocons group, member isirota sounds off:

Israel is taking so much grief from so many countries over
its "disproportionate" response to the Hezbollah terrorist attack.
I was wondering what the record of some of those countries who are
criticizing Israel might be.

Let's see, why don't we start with Russia. Ah, the Russians are a
peaceful group, aren't they? Why, look at what they did in
Chechnya: http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/archive/index.php/t-
1965.html. Estimates range from 20,000 to well over 100,000 Chechen
civilians were killed when Grozny was levelled. Now, the Chechens
undoubtedly have engaged in terrorist acts against Russia, but they
didn't killed tens of thousands. So, methinks the Russian response
was, shall we say, DISPROPORTIONATE.

Okay, what about those wonderful nations of Western Europe. I'll
give you that they don't like to use military action. Hell, they
were protected by the American nuclear umbrella for 50+ years after
WWII, so they really didn't have to do much (though the ultra-
hypocritical French managed to knock off some 82,000 Algerian
civilians when that country dared to assert that it should not be a
French colony--see http://www.ppu.org.uk/war/facts/www00-95a.html),
but now they've been involved in some military adventures of late,
like in Bosnia and Kosova (through NATO). How many civilians were
killed there? Well, according Human Rights Watch, over 1,000
civilians were killed in those two actions. See
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/nato/Natbm200-01.htm and
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/nato/Natbm200.htm.

Now, near as I can tell, Serbia NEVER threatened Western Europe, and
NEVER posed an existential threat to France, or Holland, or Great
Britain, or Germany, etc. Any of you remember Serbian suicide
bombers blowing themselves up in Parisian cafes? How about in
London pubs? No? What about in German brauhaus'? I didn't think
so.

And of course, Israel has been condemned by those paragons of
virtue, the Chinese. In Tiananmen Square, the government itself
admits that it killed at least 200 people, but estimates range into
the thousands. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989.
Those numbers too low for you? Ask the Tibetans how nicely they've
been treated. Over 1,000,000 (a conservative estimate, according to
some) of them have died as a result of the Chinese takeover. See
http://www.asiaquarterly.com/content/view/34/40/. Let's do the
math, shall we? That works out to 18,181.8 people per year since
1951, when the Chinese moved in. Gee, sounds kind of
DISPROPORTIONATE to me, especially given that I don't believe that
Tibetans have ever lobbed so much as a snowball in the direction of
Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, etc., etc.

Then there is the Arab League, and the various Muslim organizations
around the world. I wonder what they have to say about Darfur,
where over 300,000 people have died and 1.2 million have been
rendered homeless? See http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?
id_article=16199. Gee, not a thing. What a shocker! Then again,
that situation involves Muslims killing non-Muslims, so that's
justified, I guess.

And what about Rwanda? Twelve years ago, 500,000 Tutsis were
murdered by the Hutu government. See
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/07/world/main610604.shtml.
Yet, the world did nothing, and I don't recally any mass protests
around the world to decry what was going on. I don't recall
Security Council condemnations being issued, or resolutions being
contemplated. Where was France then? Where was Russia? Where was
China? Where was the Arab League?

What's my point in all of this? It is simply this: There is one
standard for Israel, and another for the rest of the world. The
discussion of "proportionality" is a joke, offered only because
those who hate Israel or simply can't bring themselves to say that
they don't like Jews can't come up with anything better to say in
response to what is obviously a defensive action. It's frustrating
and it is simply wrong.

Okay, I'm done ranting for the day........

Israeli and Lebanese Bloggers at Iraqi Bloggers Central

Thanks to Jeffrey from New York in the Comments, for calling our attention to an excellent series of posts at Iraqi Bloggers Central. First of all, if you've been missing IBC, you've been missing out on an excellent web journal, so why not take a moment to bookmark that IBC homepage on your browser!

The new series is a collection of interviews with Lebanese and Israeli bloggers on the current conflict. Here's Yael K, interviewed by the inimitable Mister Ghost:

MG: For those Americans and others who question Israel's actions in Lebanon, what would you tell them?

Yael K: I would tell those who are questioning our actions that this is not a war that Israel wanted in any shape or form. It is not one we were looking for and it is not one that we started. It is a war that was forced upon us. It is certainly not a war that anyone on our side is taking any joy or comfort in. It is a situation that is taking a terrible toll on civilians on both sides of this conflict and our hearts go out to the innocent Lebanese civilians caught up in this chaos. We are not fighting a war against Lebanon. We have no anger or enmity toward the Lebanese people. Far from it. We are fighting against a terrorist organization that has as a stated goal the destruction of our country ...

Read the rest at the link, and don't forget to pay a visit to Yael's homepage.

Lebanese journaler Lebanos is interviewed here:

MG: Why do you think Hezb'allah acted now?

Lebanos: Alan M. Dershowitz, a Jewish I presume, the Professor of Law at Harvard and the author of "Preemption" wrote today at jpost.com that Israel was attacked from areas that it does not occupy. And that last sentence says a lot about the situation. Hizbullah indeed attacked inside the Israeli borders, but Israel is occupying a 40 km2 of silver land, sending it's warplanes and sea destroyers to Lebanese territories, prisoning 3 Lebanese captives from earlier operations inside Israel lead by the Palestinians, and refusing to hand out the mines maps to the UN. Those points I stated above are the reasons which Hizbullah is exploiting to keep on it's political agenda, if any. ...

The rest is at the links, and there's much more at the IBC homepage, including interviews with long-time readers of Iraq the Model and some beautiful artwork by IBC contributors and friends.

More on Transatlantic Terror Plot

Debka: 'The White House says the terror plot to blow up six UK planes bound for the United States was a direct threat to the US. Five major American cities were targeted but not named. American officials reported the terrorists had planned to target flights to California, Washington and New York by United Airlines, American Airlines and Continental Airlines. The terror alert for incoming British flights was raised to red after the general level was put up to orange. The terror plot was suggestive of al Qaeda, according to US homeland security, which is sending federal air marshals to the UK. New York Mayor Bloomberg announced extra security measures at international airports and baggage searches on the subways as a precaution. All liquids have been banned on hand luggage in America. The suicide bombers were suspected of plotting to smuggle explosives aboard targeted flights in liquid form in hand luggage. Scotland Yard said 21 suspects, all British Muslims of Pakistani origin, had been arrested in the police operation and more were on the way. They said the terror plot was bigger than 9/11, would have involved deaths in “unimaginable” numbers and had “global dimensions.” ...'

ThreatsWatch explores the Pakistan connection and the link with Lashkar-e-Taiba.

From ABC News, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito report that British Intelligence had a man on the inside of the 30-man cell that sought to blow up US-bound airliners in a plot becoming known as “Bojinka II,” nearly identical in scope and method to Operation Bojinka I in 1995. In British Penetrate Terror Cell, it is also detailed that an arrest in Pakistan two days earlier caused the British operation – Operation Overt – to descend upon the cell before they learned of the individual arrested. A link between the deep mole and the arrested would have apparently tipped the cell to the British operation.

Also, the BBC reports that a Pakistan arrest several weeks ago originally unearthed the plot, which Pakistan claims uncovered the plot and led to the British investigation.

While it was feared that the Pakistani arrest on the Afghan border days ago would jeopardize the British operation, it is worth noting that the five ringleaders of the 30-man terror cell are not among the apprehended and on the loose, presumably still in Britain. Word from Pakistan would logically reach the leaders first. Did they take immediate evasive action and run aground in haste without informing the 24 who were eventually arrested? ...

The analysis disputes the conventional wisdom of the "busted-up, decentralized" terrorist organization, and of the "homegrown terrorist". Worth reading in fulll.

CTB has a roundup..

British authorities have been tracking the plot for months, and the arrests were made "when they learned several of the men had booked flights to the U.S. in the next several days, for apparent trial runs." The plot is walked back to Karachi, Pakistan. See the ABC News story on Matiur Rahman, key Al Qaeda operative who might have planned this operation. Also on ABC News site: Three alleged ringleaders have been identified; two recently traveled to Pakistan and later received money wired to them from Pakistan, reportedly to purchase tickets for the suicide bombers. Sources identify the three, now in custody, as Rashid Rauf, Mohammed al-Ghandra, and Ahmed al Khan. Fox News at 3 pm ET:"British authorities are 'urgently' seeking the arrests of up to 10 more suspects in the terrorist plot uncovered early Thursday morning to blow up U.S.-bound flights with liquid explosives carried onto planes via carry-on luggage." Twenty-four main suspects are now in custody. ...

Afternoon Roundup

Michael Totten arrives in Israel.

Tel Aviv is surreally normal under the circumstances. The soft beaches – and these are some of the best in the Mediterranean – are packed with sunbathers, tourists, and probably refugees. Restaurants, cafes, shops, and bars, are all open. I hear languages from all over the world in the lobby of my hotel. Some of these people are obvious tourists, dutifully attending vacations they booked long before the shadow of war hung over the city.

If it weren’t for the military aircraft ominously flying low over the beach on their way to pound Hezbollah, this could be Miami. Or – dare I say it? – Beirut.

Meanwhile, Kiryat Shmona in the north is a bad place today, darkened, covered in smoke, all but abandoned, and randomly exploding like a miniature Sarajevo. ...

ITM: Logic amid the sands.

What I'm trying to say here is that sometimes making people aware of simple and available statistics can change a mindset from "they came to steal" to "then why are they here?" and this for sure is a dangerous beginning for the ruling regimes in this region and this primitive language of numbers poses a threat to the dominant mentality because it leads to a few logical results that collide forcefully with the illusions being spread by the Arab and Islamic regimes and media institutions who hate logic even more than they hate the west.

The sad truth here is that fighting this misinformation is very difficult although I do see some encouraging signs and growing awareness among many thinkers and intellectuals here. However the deepest problem here remains that the two institutions in charge of spreading information and forming the mindset of the population, that is the educational and media institutions ... [Sounds familiar. - aa]

ThreatsWatch: Hurry up and wait.

No one can question the IDF’s initial caution.

But at some point, if you are going to win, Israel needs to drop the leash and loose the dogs.

Otherwise, call a unilateral ceasefire, bring the boys home and resettle northern Israel to other parts of the country beyond Hizballah’s reach, to which victory will have been ceded.

There is no nuance in the choice before Israel.

What is being executed at present is “Hurry up and wait,” leaving the fight for another day, perhaps not soon and perhaps a day when Hizballah fights with a nuclear-armed Iran behind it.

What then?

Arms and the Woman: Grey Eagle

Don't miss the chance to visit Grey Eagle's blog, A Female Soldier.

Here's one captain's tale of the glamorous life of a battle captain:

If someone would have said, “Captain, what is the absolute LEAST thing you want to do while serving in Iraq?” I would have said, “I NEVER want to be a Battle Captain–I want to have boots on the ground–rally the troops in a blaze of glory–kick some doors in–wooohooo!” So, of course, that being the case, here I sit at 0250 AM, as the Battle Captain. I rarely see daylight so I look something like I just crawled out of a cave in order to stalk my next victim for chow–while all my buddies are sporting their “California” tans looking like they belong on the cover of a Maxim magazine. I have made close friends with the other Battle Captains because by nature of the job, we have to communicate quite frequently, even though I have never seen half of them in real life. The most excitement I have in a day consists of trying to beg my boss to let me leave the FOB ...

But that's the price to be paid for getting to see the "big picture".

Military spouse Balding Eagle posts an inspirational clip. You know the drill, clickee clickee. Trust me, it's worth it.

Names.

Let's blogroll!

Melanie Phillips on the media war against the Jews. Here's a clip from Part 1:

What do you do if you don’t like Jews, and someone else who doesn’t like Jews makes a crude if drunken anti-Jewish remark and finds that his reputation sinks through the floor as a result? Why, you make even more gross anti-Jewish remarks, about the fact that it’s impossible to make anti-Jewish remarks because these Jews are so up themselves as ‘God’s people’ that they not only ‘crucify’ (sic) the person who has made the original remark (just as they crucified Jesus Christ — the collective libel, as it happens, which happens to be the very message of the movie made by the man who made the offending remark in the first place) but they also try to suppress the freedom of speech of those who want to scapegoat them; the bloody cheek of these people who claim to be ‘the great unimpeachable race apart’.

Find out who - and where! - at the link.

Neo: The skinny on Bush. Here's the latest on a guy who's just turned 60:

First, the bad news: he's shrunk a quarter of an inch. Haven't we all? And gained five pounds, although he still has very little body fat, especially for a man his age (sixty, prime of life!).

The rest of the statistics are astounding, especially for a man under the sort of stress a post-9/11 war president endures. Blood pressure? 106/68, a level usually achieved only by young children, and by yogis who've attained nirvana.

Remind me to stop complaining about my stressful life.

Atlas: Visit to a secret Israeli base. Yes, we're linking her again. Deal with it.

Of everything I saw today, The secret IDF military installation brought it all home. Down in a valley where detection is difficult (if not impossible), our vehicle traveled down a dirt gravel road. And suddenly down under a slope in the terrain were tents, jeeps, choppers and a flurry of activity as a team of special IDF forces was preparing an operation to rescue soldiers that were down (we subsequently learned two of the men died.)

Rome wasn't built in a day, but this place was. Go to the link for details, and some great photos. (No, not photos of the secret base, what do you think this is, the New York Times?)

Steven Vincent: Honoring a Life

What are we doing here?

What is it, exactly, that gets us from one day to the next, that gives our lives meaning, and that makes tolerable the intolerable fact that, as surely as we live, we will one day die?

To know how each person answers this question is to know the person. Those who had the honor of knowing Steven Vincent in life, know how he would have answered.

I did not get to meet Steven, but I did meet his widow, Lisa Ramaci-Vincent, in New York last November. I was struck by her strength, her poise, and her dedication to the same ideals that Steven gave his life for. This is what it means to truly respect a person, to honor them, and to support them: it is understanding and striving for the highest values that guided the other's life.

A couple of weeks ago, a screen pal on an online community I belong to wrote that she'd seen "Gunner Palace", and that until then, she hadn't had much compassion for US soldiers "in the abstract"; but after learning that so many of them were uneducated people with no other options, she was able to muster some form of sympathy.

Now as you can see, here the "compassion" is wholly dependent on the individual's own moral and intellectual superiority. It is a compassion that kicks in once its subject can be cut down to size. This person knew I was a veteran, but never thought to satisfy her curiosity about military life (and she must have been curious, because she took the time to watch the movie) by asking me directly. Because she was unable to see me "in the abstract".

Countercolumn has a great post on this, responding to a "Support the Troops" article at left-wing Mother Jones:

How about showing your support for your wife by condescending to her, infantilizing her at every turn, constantly telling other people what a dupe she is, and by opposing and hating everything she does?

Think she'll appreciate that?

Just askin'.

So back to Steven Vincent. A few months ago, I showed a friend the laptop I'd had signed by various luminaries at the Pajamas Media launch - including Lisa Ramaci-Vincent. "Don't know if you recall who Lisa Ramaci-Vincent is," I prompted, because it was clear she didn't know, "but she's the widow of Steven Vincent, the journalist killed in Iraq."

My friend rolled her eyes piously and let out an anguished sigh. "So many," she mused. Well, the theatrics were nice, but was there any curiosity about who this Steven Vincent person had been as an individual? What he had stood for, what he'd believed in, what he lived and died for? There was none.

You cannot "support" or "honor" anybody without knowing something about them - who they are and why they do what they do. Today we have honored Steven Vincent's memory with blog posts; tomorrow, and every day for the rest of our lives, we can honor his memory by the way we live.

Update

As you'll have noticed, my posting break is now officially over. Morning Report has had its leave cancelled. And it's not like I haven't got other stuff going on. As I commented in today's Morning Report Stratfor's observation about the difficulty of managing multiple tasks hit home.

Yesterday evening I went on a canvassing trip in the Portland area with Basic Rights Oregon. I'm pleased to report that we had an amazingly successful night, and got lots of support from the people we contacted. I also came out of the closet as a Republican to a couple of the other volunteers, who handled it quite well, and put out feelers about any Log Cabin activity in the area.

Will be making a trip to the Bay Area in the near future, to visit The Next Generation (who's almost 11).

Meanwhile, the blogosphere rolls on. Judith is coordinating a blogburst in honor of Stephen Vincent. I had the honor of meeting Lisa Ramaci-Vincent last year, and there's quite a bit I want to say. I will get a post up by the end of the day.

Please visit Atlas Shrugs and take some time to read her posts (and view the videos) from Israel. I am not sure how soon she'll be posting from Israel again, so please keep Pamela and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

And Tisha b'Av starts tonight - the commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem in ancient times. Something to ponder.