FrontPage Magazine

On yesterday's program, Jeff Jarvis and Jim Geraghty both stated that big media had to act on the Eason Jordan scandal in relative short order to avoid the appearance of complicity in a cover-up of a friend's scandal.

Jay Nordlinger reports at NationalReview.com today on what he was told happened after the Eason Jordan accusation session: "Afterward — again, as it is reported to me — Jordan is surrounded by Arab attendees, who congratulate him on having the "courage" to speak the hard truth. Jordan accepts those congratulations." There's another account at NewsDissector of the reaction to Jordan's slander: "'The room went wild,' someone who as there told me, reporting that most people there didn't have a clue that that had even happened. Its another sign of the media not doing its job–even about its own losses."

Jordan and CNN have now provided at least four statements --the most recent of which is at Carol Platt Liebau's site-- on what he said at Davos, and they don't hang together at all. There is also the nugget uncovered by Peter Cook and publicized broadly by Ed Morrissey, that in late 2004, Jordan accused American troops of torturing journalists:

"'Actions speak louder than words. The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the US military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by US forces,' Mr Jordan told an audience of news executives at the News Xchange conference in Portugal."

Eason Jordan is a serial slanderer of the American military, and he upped the charge from torture to murder this week. He's a senior exec at CNN, which is indifferent to his slanders. Perhaps because they play well where they are intended to? More Jordan, from a 2002 interview:

"The reality is that we are a US-based news channel, but that doesn't mean we're American in perspective with our international service. In fact the person who oversees all our international outlets is not an American at all, he's British, and we hired him from the BBC several years ago. There are more than fifty nationalities of journalists who work at CNN International producing that service. If we were to move CNN's base to Egypt maybe they'd say we're Egyptian—you have to be based somewhere. It's the people who produce the channel and the people who provide the reporting who are really responsible for it, and those are people from all over the world, the very best journalists and program makers we can find. No matter what CNN International does, as long as CNN's headquarters is in the United States people are going to say, well, it's an American service. But the reality is that it's an international service based in the United States, and we don't make any apologies about that." Thursday, February 3, 2005

MSM'S SILENCE ON EASON JORDAN

The mainstream media has spent another news cycle ignoring the Eason Jordan scandal, where he has been discovered to have made repeated claims of atrocities deliberately committed by US troops against reporters. CNN felt that Eason's Fables could be so damaging that they took the unusual step of not only e-mailing a statement to those who e-mailed their complaints, but also to bloggers who posted on the story but never sent a complaint to CNN. (We believe they worked off of Hugh Hewitt's link list on the scandal.)

However, despite the obvious concern at CNN, they still have posted nothing on the story, not even their own statement. The Washington Post, where Howard Kurtz was rumored to have been working on this story, likewise has nothing on its pages or website this morning, more than 36 hours after it achieved national prominence from broadcast and bloggers. Likewise, the "Paper of Record" managed to avoid recording anything on this story. The Los Angeles Times provides nothing on its West Coast pages.

Here we have the man running a major news organization who has accused the US military, on at least two separate occasions in the last three months, of atrocities specifically aimed at journalists -- and the news media remains completely silent about it? Does that make any sense to you, other than a deliberate media blackout? Hell, even Eason Jordan responded, if completely inadequately -- doesn't that make the newspaper or the web sites?

POLL SHOWS BUSH GAINED CONVERTS WITH SOTU SPEECH

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows that President Bush gave one of his most effective speeches, picking up converts for his strategies on Social Security and Iraq and wound up with an 86% positive response, his highest in 3 years:

The news in the poll will be the double-digit gains Bush made, but the pre-speech numbers were surprisingly substantial. Gallup apparently found that even before the SOTU speech, two-thirds of people now support his policies in Iraq and the same feel our country is heading in the right direction. On the "third rail" of American politics, he even had a majority supporting his reforms for Social Security, a remarkable number that only got better immediately afterwards.

Even if his gains recede as the afterglow of his speech fades, Bush shows an amazing mandate -- and one that the press has apparently failed to report. The election in Iraq opened a lot of eyes around the world to the true nature of the Bush administration, and the scales may have fallen from the eyes of American voters as well. The Democrats had better wake up to the fact of Bush's popularity and support, because if all they can do is catcall during important occasions like high-schoolers, the Party of No will rapidly become the Party No More. Thursday, February 3, 2005

UNSCAM ROLLS ON, HOPEFULLY SO DO HEADS

Not that Europe has any immigration problem. Certainly not. From Expatica, with thanks to Kemaste:

ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON

As for the new Palestinian President Abbas, see the articles in this post. Thursday, February 3, 2005

ANALYZE THIS

TIRED OF SHAVING WITH THEIR EYES CLOSED?

It seems that some liberals are tired of closing their eyes to avoid looking in the mirror after having shamefully and intentionally mischaracterized the President’s policy in Iraq and worse, failing to support our troops and their mission. Mark Brown writing in the Chicago Sun-Times might be one of those liberals, but he’s still not quite sure. After establishing his rock solid anti-Bush bonafieties in the opening paragraph, Brown makes this startling admission

“But after watching Sunday's election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong? It's hard to swallow, isn't it?”

There are so many questions raised by this statement that it is hard to know where to start fisking. It is astonishing that an American (I think he’s an American) could believe that freedom would not “mean something” to the perennially abused people of Iraq. I mean it meant something to the people of Eastern Europe only 16 years ago, the people of Nicaragua and El Salvador before that, and every other group of people released from tyranny’s grip since the beginning of time. I suppose that many people in the US take the freedoms that we all enjoy completely for granted, and have no idea how those freedoms were obtained and are protected to this day. I would be embarrassed to have made such an admission on the pages of a major newspaper, but humiliation rarely occurs to liberals for some reason. While this aspect of his piece is the deepest and most substantive point, I get the feeling that he wouldn’t agree.

It’s the swallowing part that really drives this article, and it’s cliché at this point to say that Bush the chimp is wrong or lying every time he opens his mouth. Choking down the possibility of the President being proven right about his decision to invade Iraq is going to be tough. So tough that few liberals will likely join Mr. Brown in the admission of this very distasteful scenario even after it is proven a fact beyond reasonable doubt.

“For those who've been in the same boat with me, we don't need to concede the point just yet. There's a long way to go. But I think we have to face the possibility. I won't say that it had never occurred to me previously, but it's never gone through my mind as strongly as when I watched the television coverage from Iraq that showed long lines of people risking their lives by turning out to vote, honest looks of joy on so many of their faces.”

Again the incredulity he displays at the “honest looks of joy” the Iraqi people were feeling and showing is telling. I guess for a liberal, Election Day has been somewhat of a disappointment for the past several years which might explain some of the confusion about the people’s enjoyment voting.

“Going to war still sent so many terrible messages to the world. Most of the obstacles to success in Iraq are all still there, the ones that have always led me to believe that we would eventually be forced to leave the country with our tail tucked between our legs. (I've maintained from the start that if you were impressed by the demonstrations in the streets of Baghdad when we arrived, wait until you see how they celebrate our departure, no matter the circumstances.)”

This statement startles me for its total lack of confidence in the US military. At the time of the invasion, we had just conquered Afghanistan with a handful of SOF troops and aerial bombardment. Not to mention having mopped up the floor with the Iraqis just ten years earlier. But once again a liberal shows his ass by projecting his personal weaknesses and lack of resolve onto the US military where it surely doesn’t belong.

“Obviously, I'm still curious to see if Bush is willing to allow the Iraqis to install a government that is free to kick us out or to oppose our other foreign policy efforts in the region.”

He just had to drop the Bushitler reference, but he ends with this…

“For now, though, I think we have to cut the president some slack about a timetable for his exit strategy. If it turns out Bush was right all along, this is going to require some serious penance. Maybe I'd have to vote Republican in 2008.”

Fat chance. I will say this. If you have to watch a liberal flap his gums, it's best to watch him eating crow. Wednesday, February 2, 2005

WARD CHURCHILL A PHONY NATIVE AMERICAN

Ward Churchill, whose reference to certain 9/11 victims as "little Eichmans" drew such outrage, may have more to hide than first thought. Churchill has frequently touted his background as a Native American (Cherokee Nation) as his bona fides to teach and speak on Indian issues, among other causes. Now CQ reader Jim Walker notes a press release from the American Indian Movement and signed by well-known activist Dennis Banks that outs Churchill as a fraud:

This press release is dated January 31, but Technorati only shows a few blogger links. It appears that Ward Churchill may have even more explaining to do in his capacity as a Native American Studies professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. If he received tenure while fraudulently posing as a real Native American, they have just cause to dismiss him altogether. Thursday, February 3, 2005

Sen. Hillary Clinton listens to witnesses at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on military death benefits on Tuesday. Photo by Pedro Sa Da Bandeira

AL-MOAYAD BOASTS THAT HE WAS OSAMA BIN LADEN'S SPIRITUAL ADVISER

Al-Moayad update. "Code Words for 'Terror,'" from the New York Post, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

It’s mission is also to run interference for Saudi Arabia’s extremist Wahhabi agenda. Far from “encouraging dialog,” their goal is to stop all criticism of Islam by exploiting the weak-minded multiculturalism of the West.

General Mattis was very clearly saying that it is “fun” to shoot people who deserve to be shot—i.e., radical Islamic fascists who abuse women. Good for him.

CNN (yeah, I know) reports that the State Department knew about and condoned Saddam Hussein’s illegal oil deals with his Arab neighbors: Documents: U.S. condoned Iraq oil smuggling. (Hat tip: Baikal.)

Edward Walker is one of those former Foggy Bottom diplomats who benefited mightily from his association with Saudi Arabia, and now spends considerable time promoting Saudi interests in the United States. Thursday, February 3, 2005

THE LONG WAR II?

"To promote peace and stability in the broader Middle East, the United States will work with our friends in the region to fight the common threat of terror, while we encourage a higher standard of freedom. Hopeful reform is already taking hold in an arc from Morocco to Jordan to Bahrain. The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future. And the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East."

"To promote peace in the broader Middle East, we must confront regimes that continue to harbor terrorists and pursue weapons of mass murder. Syria still allows its territory, and parts of Lebanon, to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance of peace in the region. You have passed, and we are applying, the Syrian Accountability Act -- and we expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom. Today, Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror -- pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium reprocessing, and end its support for terror. And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you."

In The Shield of Achilles, Philip Bobbitt looks the interrelationship between law, strategy and history, and how these subjects influence the course of nations. The reasons nations choose to go to war cannot merely be distilled down to greed or malice; wars are ultimately determined by constitutional issues (not always a “document”, constitutional can also mean the makeup of the nation) and the need to grant legitimacy to the constitutional order. Changes in the constitutional order of states contain “the seeds of future conflict”; the “peace” outlined at the end of World War I provided the “seeds” that led to the outbreak of World War II, and the “peace" established at the end of World War II led to the Cold War.

The primary example used to explain this idea is “The Long War”. The Long War, which he states spanned most of the Twentieth Century, from 1914 to 1990, was fought over the legitimacy of three competing and incompatible forms of constitutional governments – Parliamentarianism, Communism and Fascism. After Fascism was defeated in WWII, the fight for legitimacy between Communism and Parliamentarianism continued during the Cold War, which included battles of the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the crises of the Berlin Blockade, Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. According to Mr. Bobbitt, the Long War ended with the fall of the Soviet Union and the defeat of the Communist constitutional form of government.

The question that ultimately arises is: did the Long War actually end in 1990? While Fascism and Communism were ultimately defeated in Europe, these forms of government have not been eradicated from the rest of the world, particularly Fascism in the Middle East and Africa. It can be argued that these leftover Communist and Fascist states are remnants of the defeated European versions; however these states have remained in existence well after the end of the Long War. Before we move further, perhaps it will help to define the nature of the regimes we are discussing. And lest I be accused of using the term Fascism incorrectly, the textbook definition of Fascism is as follows:

We can generalize a bit and break out the regimes of the Middle East into two types of states: (1) the Dictatorial Fascists states such as Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, the Palestinian Authority and the former Baathist government of Iraq; (2) the Islamist Fascists states such as Iran, Afghanistan’s former Taliban government, and perhaps Sudan. Saudi Arabia could easily be classified in either category. An overriding commonality of both types of states is their acceptance, permissiveness or open support of Sunni Islamist ideologies of Wahhabism and Deobandism (even Iran, a Shiite Islamic theocratic state, cooperates with Sunni Islamists, and of course sponsors the Shiite terrorists of Hezbollah). These states use Islamists as a “relief valve” to detract from the failings of the regime as well as a clandestine external arm of state power. The Islamist ideologies themselves can be traced back to fascist origins (see part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4 in this series for a full explanation).

Last evening’s State of the Union Address cemented President Bush’s bold vision of promoting democratic forms of government throughout the world to defeat the bankrupt Fascist forms of constitutional governments prevalent throughout the world. He has properly framed the conflict between parliamentary governments against Fascist governments that are the wellspring of terrorism. Like the “Cold War”, not all conflicts will be “hot” (open warfare). President Bush was clear in his statements that he desired internal changes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and will work to promote these changes peacefully.

But also like the Cold War, there will be active conflict. Afghanistan and Iraq required war and occupation to affect the necessary constitutional change in the regions, much like the defeat and occupation of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were required to force constitutional change in Europe after WWII. President Bush laid down the gauntlet to Syria (the mention of the Syrian Accountability Act (PDF) was quite clear on this point) and Iran, leaving them an opening to push forward internal changes and renounce terrorism and the pursuit of WMD technology. He was explicit in his wording that he would not shy away from active conflict if needed: “we must confront regimes that continue to harbor terrorists and pursue weapons of mass murder.”

Mr. Bobbitt's concept of "epochal war" applies to this very conflict. Iraq and Afghanistan are merely individual battles in the great war currently referred to as "The War on Terror", which will not be won until the current incarnations of Fascism are wholly discredited. It looks to be yet another long war, if indeed the Long War ever ended.

Michael Meckler writes on the CIA’s resistance to releasing records pertaining to cooperation between suspected Nazi war criminals and the United States government. Thursday, February 3, 2005

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