"WHEN THE FINAL HISTORY IS WRITTEN ON IRAQ, IT WILL LOOK LIKE JUST A COMMA."
--President George W. Bush; cited in Cenk Uygur, "The Worst Talking Point Ever: The Comma" (Huffington Post, October 4)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/t...-e_b_30964.htmlSEE ALSO
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/10/05/t...bout-the-comma/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEJY6g-Z3nE&eurl=NORTH KOREA - ROGUE STATE OR NEXT TIGER? - JOHN GARNAUT (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, AUSTRALIA, OCTOBER 8): It is national policy in Washington, Tokyo and Canberra to view North Korea exclusively through the lens of its apocalyptic public diplomacy.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/north-...0246011402.htmlTHE AGE OF TERROR -- A LANDMARK REPORT - ROBERT FISK (INDEPENDENT, OCTOBER 8/ ZNET, MA): Remarkably the US still believes that it is increasingly loathed in the Arab world not because of its policies but because its policies are not being presented fairly. It's not a political problem, it's a public-relations problem. Hence, the appointment of Karen Hughes as US "Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy."
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article....53§ionID=22IRAQ: TWO VERSIONS OF THE SAME REPORT - GUY W. FARMER (NEVADA APPEAL, OCTOBER 8): If we are to effectively communicate our foreign policy goals and objectives to the "Muslim mainstream," we must find a way to reinvent the specialized U.S. Information Agency (USIA), which was abolished by the Clinton administration seven years ago and merged into the sprawling State Department. Unfortunately, President Bush's personal choice as his public-diplomacy czarina, alleged message maven Karen Hughes, has been unable to craft a coherent message that most Muslims can accept and/or understand.
http://www.nevadaappeal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/...mplate=printartTHE WORLD ACCORDING TO RUMMY - FROM A SECRET MEMO TITLED "ILLUSTRATIVE NEW 21ST CENTURY INSTITUTIONS AND APPROACHES" OBTAINED BY JOURNALIST BOB WOODWARD (WASHINGTON POST, OCTOBER 8): "Strategic communications ... A new U.S. agency for global communication could serve as a channel to inform, educate and compete in the battle for ideas. ... Today the centers of gravity of the conflict in Iraq and the global war on terror are not on battlefields overseas. Rather, the center of gravity of this war are on the centers of public opinion in the U.S. and in the capitals of free nations."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0601384_pf.htmlEXPORTING DEATH AS DEMOCRACY: AN ESSAY ON U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN LEBANON - IRENE L. GENDZIER (ZNET, OCTOBER 5, 2006): In 1983, a Memorandum entitled, "Public Affairs and Public Diplomacy Strategies for Lebanon and the Middle East," prepared for the Chair of the International Political Committee and signed by Robert C. McFarlane, as Chairman of the Special Planning Group of the National Security Council, argued for "an effective short-term strategy which coherently argues why Lebanon is of strategic importance to the United States..." -- information that would "penetrate the twelve media centers in the U.S." in addition to reaching out to business, labor, special interest groups, as well as educational and religious institutions with the assistance of reliable "heavy hitters." The above memo was as applicable in 2006 as it when issued in 1983.
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article....23§ionID=22A PANEL (AND MEDIA SIGHTINGS) - ANKUSH (PENGUINS ON THE EQUATOR, OCTOBER 7): Ali Soufan -- the FBI agent who, according to Lawrence Wright in "The Agent," came heart-breakingly close to connecting enough dots to prevent 9/11 -- wants the US to engage with people in the Middle East in a meaningful public diplomacy effort.
http://penguinsontheequator.blogspot.com/2...-sightings.htmlAL-JAZEERA AND ISRAEL - MARC LYNCH (ABU AARDVARK, OCTOBER 6): From an American public diplomacy perspective, it's hard to believe that even Israel gets more high ranking politicians on to al-Jazeera talk shows than does the United States, whose senior officials are regularly invited but have gone back to a surly de facto boycott of al-Jazeera since Lebanon. This hurts America more than it hurts al-Jazeera, and it's a shame.
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark...eera_and_i.htmlAL-JAZEERA'S WORTH - NABIL A. RAHMAN, RALEIGH (LETTER TO THE EDITOR, NEWS & OBSERVER, NC, OCTOBER 8): Al-Jazeera is a highly reputable news source in the Middle East. Alberto Fernandez, the U.S. State Department's director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, is a frequent guest in its live dialogues.
http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/495491.htmlPSY-OPS JOURNALISM: WASHINGTON'S BUDDING NEW INDUSTRY - ALVIN SNYDER (PUBLIC DIPLOMACY LOG, USC CENTER ON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY, OCTOBER 7): Some $400 million in media consulting contracts has been awarded during the past few years by the Pentagon, for the purpose of helping "to effectively communicate Iraqi government and Coalition goals with strategic audiences." Thus far both the Pentagon and its contract psy-op journalists have experienced a painful learning curve, but the most recent contract award will show how much each has learned. The outlook is not promising.
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/index.php/ne...g_new_industry/U.S. CASUALTIES IN IRAQ RISE SHARPLY: GROWING AMERICAN ROLE IN STAVING OFF CIVIL WAR LEADS TO MOST WOUNDED SINCE 2004 - ANN SCOTT TYSON (WASHINGTON POST, OCTOBER 8)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6100700907.htmlTHE TWO FACES OF IRAQ - SAMI MOUBAYED (ASIA TIMES, OCTOBER 7): The last thing Iraqis need are the confronting words of the US secretary of state, who seems to care little for the number of Iraqis dying per day, and the ineffective US military in the country, which is unable to end the raging insurgency.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ07Ak02.htmlLISTEN TO THE IRAQIS - NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (NEW YORK TIMES, OCTOBER 8): Iraqis are crystal clear about what the U.S. should do: announce a timetable for withdrawal of our troops within one year. They're right.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/opini...agewanted=printPAID SUBSCRIPTION
MALIKI'S MOMENT - REVIEW & OUTLOOK (WALL STREET JOURNAL, OCTOBER 9): Iraqis have to make their own political compromises to limit the incentive for violence, and sooner rather than later. The time has long since passed where the U.S. can play anything other than a supporting role in Iraq.
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB1160...7294386227.htmlPAID SUBSCRIPTION
AMERICA PONDERS CUTTING IRAQ IN THREE - SARAH BAXTER (SUNDAY TIMES, OCTOBER 8): The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by James Baker, the former US secretary of state, may recommend carving up Iraq into three highly autonomous regions, according to well informed sources.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2393750,00.htmlBLUNKETT BLAMES CHENEY, RUMSFELD; BAKER COMMISSION TO ACCEPT 3-REGION SOLUTION? - JUAN COLE (INFORMED COMMENT: THOUGHTS ON THE MIDDLE EAST, HISTORY, AND RELIGION, OCTOBER 8): "A loose federal Iraq with 3 semi-autonomous regions is a very bad idea for so many reasons it would take me forever to list them all ... the Arab and Muslim worlds would ever forgive the US for breaking up Iraq, and there are likely to be reprisals if it happens."
http://www.juancole.com/ (scroll down link for item)
ONE IRAQ OR THREE? - EDITORIAL (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 8): A decision by Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis to separate would effectively portend the end of that country.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...newsopinion-hedTIME FOR ACTION -- NOT RHETORIC -- IN IRAQ - REP. JOHN MURTHA (HUFFINGTON POST, OCTOBER 6)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-john-mur...rh_b_31107.htmlTHE MOST OUTRAGEOUS SCANDAL? BUSH'S IRAQ POLICY - SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD (HUFFINGTON POST, OCTOBER 5)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-russ-fei...html?view=printLOSING THE WILL TO FIGHT - PATRICK J. BUCHANAN (AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE, OCTOBER 9): Despite all the propaganda about Islamofascism and the coming caliphate, Americans do not see the war in Iraq as an existential crisis. They do not want to lose the war but are unwilling to pay a much higher price in blood and treasure to win it.
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_10_09/buchanan.htmlHISTORICAL ROOTS AND PATTERNS OF CONFLICT: THE US, ISRAEL AND LEBANON - DAVID GREEN (COUNTERPUNCH, OCTOBER 7/8): The destructive and lethal forces unleashed this past summer by the United States and Israel upon Lebanon are not surprising in light of their historical roots. As American and Israeli efforts to control events in the Middle East become increasingly problematic, there are increased efforts to re-cast the conflict in terms of a "clash of civilizations" between "Judeo-Christians" and "Islamo-fascists."
http://www.counterpunch.org/green10072006.htmlTHE STRUGGLE FOR PALESTINE'S SOUL - JONATHAN COOK (ANTIWAR.COM, OCTOBER 7): If the goal of establishing a Palestinian state cannot be realized, then the danger is that many Palestinians will look elsewhere for their liberation, not necessarily in national but in wider, regional and religious terms. Do Israel and the United States not understand this?
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=9812THE ISRAELI LOBBY: DOES IT HAVE TOO MUCH INFLUENCE ON US FOREIGN POLICY? - POSTED BY MICHAEL CERVIERI (SCRIBEMEDIA, OCTOBER 3): A debate took place at Cooper Union in New York City and was captured by ScribeMedia on behalf of the London Review of Books. Panelists: John Mearsheimer; Shlomo Ben-Ami; Martin Indyk; Tony Judt; Rashid Khalidi; Dennis Ross.
http://blog.scribestudio.com/articles/2006...-foreign-policyVIA
http://www.juancole.com/THE MYSTERY OF AMERICA - GIDEON LEVY (HAARETZ, OCTOBER 8): In the Middle East, the U.S. has an opportunity to fundamentally change its image, from a warmonger to a peacemaker. And how does the U.S. respond to the challenge? It sends Rice to tell the excited Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert how she falls asleep easily on her unnecessary and ridiculous flights to and from the Middle East.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/771541.htmlRICE'S TOUR OF MIDEAST YIELDS LITTLE PROGRESS ON KEY ISSUES - ROBIN WRIGHT (WASHINGTON POST, OCTOBER 8): A wide range of senior Arab officials, who all spoke on background because of sensitive diplomacy with Washington, asserted that the administration's brick-by-brick approach to transforming the Middle East is so minimalist that it is unlikely to make significant progress during President Bush's remaining time in office.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6100700699.htmlRICE'S BAFFLING MIDEAST TRIP: DODGING BULLETS WHILE HYPING PROGRESS IS NOT A CONVINCING PERFORMANCE BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE - EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, OCTOBER 8)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-...pinion-leftrailCONDI ON THE RUN - (WONKETTE, OCTOBER 6): Why the Secretary of State's sudden Middle East jaunt? Two reasons: She was either handing out ultimatums and bribes to the regional lackeys because the Iran War starts October 21, or she was shuffled out of Washington to wait out the latest Woodward-9/11 revelations -- that she received and deliberately ignored and then perjured herself over the 9/11 warnings she got two months before the attacks.
http://www.wonkette.com/politics/iraq/cond...-run-205903.phpPAID SUSBCRIPTION
COALITION BUILDING BETTER: CHALLENGING THE ASSUMPTIONS OF THE EUROPEANS - SAUL SINGER (NATIONAL REVIEW, OCTOBER 6): If Bush made "radical but undeniably sensible demands of Arab states, he would be paving the right path to peace."
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDQ2M...jlmZWU4YTRjMGY=FROM BUDAPEST TO BAGHDAD: IN A LONG-AGO REVOLUTION, ECHOES FOR TODAY - ROGER COHEN (NEW YORK TIMES, OCTOBER 8): At this 50th anniversary of the Hungarian revolution, once again, in Middle Eastern guise, the United States confronts issues of containment or rollback, of moral principle or pragmatic caution, of liberty or stability.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/weekinre...agewanted=printPAID SUBSCRIPTION
5 YEARS LATER, AFGHANISTAN PAYS FOR SINS OF OMISSION - ALI AHMAD JALALI (BALTIMORE SUN, OCTOBER 8): (Ali Ahmad Jalali was interior minister of Afghanistan from January 2003 to October 2005.)
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlinesAFGHANISTAN: FIVE YEARS LATER - DONALD H. RUMSFELD (WASHINGTON POST, OCTOBER 7): What matters is the overall trajectory: Where do things stand today when compared to what they were five years ago? In Afghanistan, the trajectory is a hopeful and promising one.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0601373_pf.htmlHE HUFFS AND HE PUFFS: NORTH KOREA'S DEAR LEADER THREATENS TO EXPLODE A NUKE - DAN BLUMENTHAL (WEEKLY STANDARD, OCTOBER 16): The lesson we should be teaching Pyongyang is that breaking your commitment to non-nuclearization leads not to concession after concession, but to isolation, pressure, and the uncomfortable position of having a nuclear arsenal pointed at you.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/801vbeke.aspMILITARY THAIS - JOHN HASEMAN AND EDUARDO LACHICA (WALL STREET JOURNAL, OCTOBER 8): Cutting America's contacts with the Thai military is hardly the best way to promote an early return to democracy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1160345672...ain_europe_asiaPAID SUBSCRIPTION
JOURNALIST CRITICAL OF CHECHEN WAR IS SHOT DEAD - C. J. CHIVERS (INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 8): Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has been one of the world's more difficult and dangerous countries for journalists. The climate has continued in recent years; at least 12 journalists have been killed in Russia in contract-style murders since 2000, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file....1008journo.phpOUR FAILURE IN EUROPE'S EAST - BRUCE P. JACKSON (WASHINGTON POST, OCTOBER 8): Instead of combining our efforts with those of the European Union to end the isolation of Europe's East, we have allowed the fecklessness of the European Union and the impatience of U.S. policy to re-create what the Soviet Union used to call its "near abroad."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0601388_pf.htmlGEORGIA: THE THREAT OF OVERHEATING - (RFE/RL, OCTOBER 6): Some commentators see the latest confrontation between Georgia and Russia as another test of wills between Russia and the United States for influence in what Moscow considers its backyard.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/...b01950fc05.htmlBUSH'S BORDER SECURITY: MEXICAN OPINION NOT ON THE FENCE - EDWARD M. GOMEZ (SF GATE OCTOBER 6): The 700-mile wall that George W. Bush's Republican-led Congress wants to build along the U.S.-Mexico border isn't what the United States' southern neighbors want.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/det...5&entry_id=9568SANCTIONING LAWLESSNESS - DAVID COLE (NATION, OCTOBER 5): The world at large is the community before which we will need to defend ourselves if we send Guantanamo detainees, even those who are admittedly "the worst of the worst," to their death through trials that fail to meet basic guarantees of fairness, preclude meaningful judicial review and allow the use of coercive interrogation. We are losing on the battlefield of world opinion.
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20061023&s=coleHUMAN RIGHTS: HOW GUANTANAMO'S PRISONERS WERE SOLD - CLIVE STAFFORD SMITH (NEW STATESMAN, OCTOBER 9): "Many of my clients in Cuba insist that, far from being captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan, they were grabbed in Pakistan and flogged to the Americans, like slaves at auction." (Clive Stafford Smith, the legal director of Reprieve, a UK charity fighting for the lives of people facing the death penalty and other human-rights abuses, represents 36 prisoners in Guantanamo.)
http://www.newstatesman.com/200610090029AT GUANTANAMO: HARD TIME AND A VIEW OF WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN: DETAINEES AT A NEW CAMP WILL SEE ONLY A SLIVER OF A COMMON AREA; ISOLATION HAS BECOME THE NORM - CAROL J. WILLIAMS (LOS ANGELES TIMES, OCTOBER 7)
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/a...1,1844572.storyTHE BEST FOR THE WORST - JACOB SULLUM (WASHINGTON TIMES, OCTOBER 8): Since Congress has chosen to confirm the president's power grab with the Military Commissions Act regarding detainees instead of checking it, the Supreme Court will decide whether this is a country where people can be snatched off the street as enemies of the state and never heard from again.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...07-104918-1699rHABEAS CORPUS SELLOUT - NAT HENTOFF (WASHINGTON TIMES, OCTOBER 9): The Military Commissions Act of 2006 makes it impossible for our detainees anywhere in the world to protest in our courts that their conditions of confinement violate the humane standards of the Geneva Conventions.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...08-101402-8020rBE AFRAID, AMERICA. BE VERY AFRAID - BRADLEY BURSTON (HAARETZ, OCTOBER 8): What if the terrorist you're looking for is not an Arab, not a Muslim, not swarthy and foreign-born and, yes, alien? What if he looks and acts the way Americans used to believe that real Americans were supposed to look: cool, quiet, Christian and, yes, white?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/770409.htmlREPORT: THOUSANDS WRONGLY ON TERROR LIST - ASSOCIATED PRESS (NEW YORK TIMES, OCTOBER 8): Thousands of people have been mistakenly linked to names on terror watch lists when they crossed the border, boarded commercial airliners or were stopped for traffic violations, a government report said Friday.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Terr...agewanted=printBUSH'S TERRORISM HYPOCRISY - JIM LOBE (ANTIWAR.COM, OCTOBER 7): The administration's efforts to find a foreign refuge for Luis Posada Carriles -- implicated in the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 shortly after it left Barbados en route to Havana, killing all 73 people aboard -- and its refusal to charge him under the Patriot Act have naturally spurred charges of double standards in light of the priority that it has placed on its "global war on terrorism."
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=9815DEFEATING INTERNET TERRORISTS - JOSHUA SINAI (WASHINGTON TIMES, OCTOBER 8): Required are new counterterrorism "armies" possessing new strategies, capabilities, tactics and cyber weapons to counteract the Jihadi Web sites.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...07-104915-3656rTERRORIST COUNTDOWN DISTRACTION - JAMES JAY CARAFANO (WASHINGTON TIMES, OCTOBER 8): Declaring that the war on terror is "creating more terrorists" than it's getting rid of is more of a bumper-sticker slogan than a serious attempt to gauge our progress in this long war. Americans deserve better than empty rhetoric.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...07-104917-5724rTHE 'WAR' SHOULD BE NOT ONLY A WAR - ROBERT HUTCHINGS (INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 6): Surely, when all 16 of America's intelligence agencies declare that the terrorist threat is spreading and intensifying, this should be reason enough for the country to seriously rethink the "war on terror." An effective strategy must equally address the grievances, many of them legitimate, on which the jihadist movement depends.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file...ion/edhutch.phpWHY WE ARE STILL GETTING IT SO WRONG IN THE 'WAR ON TERROR': THE ILL-CONCEIVED AND BADLY EXECUTED CAMPAIGN IN IRAQ IS DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR SPAWNING A NEW GENERATION OF TERRORISTS - HENRY PORTER (GUARDIAN, UK/COMMON DREAMS, OCTOBER 7)
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1007-22.htmCONTRACTS AWARDED - JUDITH MBUYA (WASHINGTON POST, OCTOBER 9): CACI International Inc. of Arlington won a $12.4 million, two-year contract from the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security to continue supporting the bureau in operations, maintenance and development of worldwide security, and law enforcement information technology systems.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6100800522.htmlAN AD-MANS SNAPSHOT OF THE US - JACKIE WULLSCHLAGER (FINANCIAL TIMES, OCTOBER 6): 21st-century American art, created in the shadow of 9/11 and the Iraq war, has a distinctiveness and seriousness that now matters internationally, as witnessed by an invasion of contemporary and historical shows in Europe this autumn -- the Serpentine's Uncertain States of America, Frankfurt's I Like America, the Pompidou's Rauschenberg retrospective hot on the heels of its Los Angeles show.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/74c26f78-5563-11db...00779e2340.htmlBRANDS THAT STOP AT THE BORDER - GERRIT WIESMANN (FINANCIAL TIMES, OCTOBER 5): What makes the Big Mac global burger great, says the chief executive of consumer products group Henkel, is that consumers want to buy the same thing with the same name all over the world.
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