Cartoon: Saddam’s Acorns Fall
From Cox and Forkum:
The American Media…Searching for the Jaws of Defeat in the Face of Victory
From the folks at the Media Research Center:...In reporting on the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein, on Wednesday's NBC Nightly News Jim Miklaszewski griped about how "there are questions today why the U.S. military used such heavy firepower to take down a few lightly armed men." But his complaint about overkill in firepower came after he recounted how the U.S. forces escalated their weaponry to overcome the resistance as the four men in the house opened fire and injured three soldiers, prompting the U.S. servicemen to "pound the house with rockets, grenades and heavy machine gun fire while helicopter gun ships fire rockets through the roof." Yet, in Miklaszweski's own term, "unbelievably" those inside continued to shoot back.
Every heard of the term "overwhelming force"?
...At the White House press briefing on Wednesday, ABC's Terry Moran wanted to know if President Bush felt "bound" by the Geneva Convention rule that the dead are "honorably interred...according to the rites of the religion to which they belong." A few hours earlier in Iraq, international reporters grilled U.S. Army General Ricardo Sanchez about why the lightly armed Uday and Qusay were not waited out so they could be taken alive and questioned. One reporter insisted the operation represented "a failure" because "you didn't use commandos to come and surprise them both." CNN's Aaron Brown also wanted to know: "Why not wait 'em out, starve 'em out? Try and take 'em alive?"
In other words why not spend an extra few months in Iraq, or risk a few more American troops?
...Odai and Qusai Hussein, as the AP spells their first names, are the lucky beneficiaries of the fact "that the Bush administration has not bothered to enforce the prohibition" on "political assassinations," AP reporter George Gedda asserted in the lead of a July 23 story. "Odai, Qusai Deaths Go Against U.S. Ban," announced the AP's headline.
Another war crime against that President Bush? Perhaps this is why CNN's Aaron Brown wanted them taken alive. Oh, another lost interview--"Tell our CNN audience, Odai, is it true as some commentators and editorialists have stated, that the American embargo forced you and your brother to the dark side."
...The best news in weeks, if not since the taking of Baghdad three months ago, came out of Iraq on Tuesday with the announcement of the killing of Saddam Hussein's two henchmen sons, second only to Saddam himself in brutality and instilling fear, but Katie Couric led Wednesday's Today by pairing the news with how the good news was "tempered" by how "two more American soldiers have been ambushed and killed today." In contrast, ABC's Good Morning America led by trumpeting the good news of the killings ("a triumphant day for President Bush") as well as Jessica Lynch's return to her hometown.
This is sad news. It is also the reason why the U.S. should use "overwhelming" force more often to prevent such ambushes.
...Of the gunfire in Baghdad after the killing of Uday and Qusay, "some of it was most certainly" in "anger," insisted CBS's Byron Pitts in the capital city. His assertion on the Wednesday Early Show followed a Tuesday Evening News contribution in which he expressed confusion over whether the gunfire was prompted by "anger or jubilation."
Obviously Bryon Pitts is still angry. He probably voted for Al Gore.
Related: Saddam Hussein's Real Ministers of Disinformation Come Out of the Closet
Jinetera: What You Can Do With a Cuban Education
From Salon:At 10 p.m., Camilla rings the doorbell as I'm touching up the dark on my lashes. We're bound for a trendy salsa club packed with rich tourist men. I look at myself in the mirror, a strange confidence reflecting back at me. I've made up my mind. With my bank account dwindling, and employment here impossible, I've reluctantly joined the ranks of the Cuban demimonde. Educated. Professional. Hopeful. And part-time hookers. With Camilla as my mentor, I'm going dancing.
The jockey has an outfit. A whip. Riding boots. Jodhpurs, the breeches with reinforced patches at the knee and thigh where the rider's legs grip the beast. "Jinetera," the Spanish word for a female jockey, means much more in Cuba. It's a fitting metaphor for what many educated and beautiful Cuban women do after hours to feed their families as well as their dreams. I'm American, but I'm also Cuban. And to live on my island home, the place I was born, the land where my family surely resides, I've little choice if I want to stay. So I jockey. I ride the beast. I control the beast.
Is this why NBC's Couric praises the Cuban 'education system' so much?
Cartoon: A Left-Wing Journalist’s Dream
From Cox and Forkum:
Oh, those 'patriotic' maggots in the media. Related item.
Saddam’s Real Chemical Weapon
Good stuff from Christopher Hitchens' (author of The Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq) at Slate:The overwhelming consensus among inspectors and monitors, including Hans Blix's sidekick Mohammed ElBaradei, is now to the effect that Iran's mullahs have indeed been concealing an enriched-uranium program. For good measure, it is a sure thing that they are harboring al-Qaida activists on their territory. Will the "peace" camp ever admit that Bush was right about this? Or about the "evil" of North Korea: a demented starvation regime now threatening to export ready-to-use nuclear weapons (which Saddam Hussein, say, might have been interested in buying)? Don't make me laugh: The furthest the peaceniks will go is to say that Bush's rhetoric made these people turn nasty. I am not teasing here: The best of the anti-war polemicists is Jonathan Schell, who advanced this very claim in a debate with me earlier this month. Meanwhile, the overwhelming moral case for regime change in both countries is once again being left to the forces of neoconservatism, with the liberals pulling a long face while they wait to be reluctantly "persuaded."
Here is another gem from Hitchens published in Slate:
The report of June 25 was followed by an article of extraordinary importance by Rolf Ekeus ("Iraq's Real Weapons Threat," Washington Post, June 29). Ambassador Ekeus was the chairman of the U.N. inspectors in Iraq between 1991 and 1997. He pointed out that Saddam's chemical and nerve agents had a tendency to decay in storage and that the regime's nuclear projects "lacked access to fissile material but were advanced with regard to weapon design." His conclusion, written just before the unearthing of the centrifuge but published just after it, was:
This combination of researchers, engineers, know-how, precursors, batch production techniques and testing is what constituted Iraq's chemical threat--its chemical weapon. The rather bizarre political focus on the search for rusting drums and pieces of munitions containing low-quality chemicals has tended to distort the important question of WMD in Iraq and exposed the American and British administrations to unjustified criticism.
The Times “Iraqi Resistance”
Another gem from Hitchens:I notice that, in covering the continuing violence and sabotage in Iraq, the New York Times has begun to use the descriptive term "the Iraqi resistance" to characterize those responsible. This makes me queasy for two reasons. First, it is too broad. Many of those fighting are either part of the former secret police of the regime or imported from jihad groups outside the country. The term "resistance" suggests, for most people, in addition to its honorable historic associations, the idea of a civilian insurgency. Second, it is too narrow. There have been many Iraqis and Kurds over the past decades who have, at great risk to themselves, fought against Saddam's dictatorship. Do they not deserve the "resistance" title at least as much? Or do they have to fight against coalition forces in order to earn that distinction? The Times is more precise when it comes to the al-Qaida and Taliban elements in Afghanistan. Now might not be the ideal moment to give credit in advance to Saddamist "irregulars"--the most euphemistic or neutral term that seems permissible.
On CNBC, Hitchen's also mentioned that newspapers like the Times have identified to the American forces who are busy routing out Saddam's thugs as "occupiers." What are these journalistic thugs thinking?