AL-REUTERS: HEZBOLLAH PROPAGANDIST

Reuters announced Sunday (August 6) it was suspending its relationship with Adnan Hajj, a freelance photographer in Lebanon who had worked for the British news service since 1993, because he doctored a photograph on the aftermath of an Israeli air strike in south Beirut.
Mr. Hajj cloned the image of a plume of smoke rising from a bombed building, which made it appear the damage was more widespread than in fact it was.

The doctoring was discovered by Web logger Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs), the man who proved the memo then CBS anchor Dan Rather was relying on for (more…)

2006 FOR THE DEMS: 1972 OR 1974?

My dish of crow went down easier after I read the hilarious editorial in the New York Times Wednesday celebrating zillionaire businessman Ned Lamont's victory over Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary. (I'd predicted a Lieberman win in a July 16 column.)

"The rebellion against Sen. Lieberman was actually an uprising by that rare phenomenon, irate moderates," the Times declared.

Flanking Mr. Lamont when he gave his victory speech were those famous moderates, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  Just the faces, I'm sure, Democrats in swing districts want representing their party in the fall.

The Web logger Anchoress was (more…)

WORLD OPINION IS OVERRATED

Hezbollah and its sponsors, Iran and Syria, are relying upon our soft hearts and softer heads to destroy us.

Many think Israel suffered a major defeat last Sunday (July 30)  when the Israeli air force bombed a building in the village of Qana, near the Lebanese port city of Tyre.

Initial reports were that 57 people — most of them women and children — had been killed. The Red Crescent (the Muslim version of the Red Cross) has been able to confirm only 28 deaths.

The bombing's aftermath featured some of the most dramatic pictures of the war.  Several featured (more…)

THE THIRTIES ALL OVER AGAIN?

Certainly there is lots of bad news, most of which confirms what we already knew: The Western world hates Israel; the taboo on anti-Semitism is off; the Western world has been P.C.'ed to the edge of death; there is no stomach for fighting the war against Islamic fascism.

Sounds like the thirties to me.

I always have my doubts about "trends." The history of 20th-century America is largely about a country that never prepared for war, and was always compelled – by our enemies – to conduct enormous crusades. It was seemingly all or nothing for us.

The history of (more…)

GOOGLE’S SECRETS – AND YOURS

Warren Buffett can feel confident about sinking his $4 billion into Israel – at least from an electronic-security point of view.

I can say with utmost certainty that the country's most sensitive secrets are safely stowed away on secure servers, inaccessible to the public.

Try as I might, I couldn't find any Word documents marked "top secret" regarding Israel's plans regarding Iran on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web site; no PowerPoint presentations on Israel's alleged nuclear weapons program on the Ministry of Defense site; no PDFs on future political plans on the main government site – nothing, nada, not (more…)

ISRAEL, IRAN, AND AUGUST 22

In military parlance, a "spoiling attack" is when you see your enemy mobilizing to strike you, you hit him first to throw him off balance.

By responding more vigorously to the kidnapping of its soldiers and the rocket attacks on its cities than Hezbollah likely expected, Israel may have launched a spoiling attack on Iran.

On July 20, Iran said it would reply on August 22 to the Western package of incentives for ending its nuclear program.  For Westerners, the only thing peculiar about this is the length of time Iran is taking to respond, since for us, the date (more…)

A LESSON LIBERALS NEVER LEARN

The Israeli-Hezbollah war wouldn't have happened if John Kerry were president, John Kerry told the Detroit News last Sunday.

President Bush hasn't devoted the attention to the Middle East that he would have, Mr. Kerry told reporter Valerie Olander.

Sen. Kerry didn't explain how his personal attention would have prevented Hezbollah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers, or its firing of rockets into Israeli cities, and Ms. Olander didn't ask.

Sen. Kerry has misplaced confidence in his own persuasive powers, and in what can be accomplished by diplomacy.

President Clinton hoped a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would (more…)