September 16, 2008 – 2:53 am

In today’s American Spectator online, I have a piece about the Iraqi Parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi, whose sons were murdered in February 2005 following his visit to Israel to attend a counterterrorism conference there. Over the weekend, I received an alarming e-mail from al-Alusi’s friend Esther Kandel, who alerted me …
Check out this terrific story about an Iraqi sheikh who helped U.S. forces expel al Qaeda from Anbar province. Apparently he is now providing the U.S. with information about Afghan tribes, presumably including those along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
This courageous sheikh, Ahmad al-Rishawi, says of President Bush, “He is a brave man. He is a …
In today’s New York Times Sabrina Tavernise reports that young people in Iraq have begun to turn against extremist Islam.
“The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore,” she quotes one young man as saying.
Her reporting also contains some interesting and important facts that …
I’ve received a couple of comments to my last post about Angelina Jolie to the effect that celebrities are generally full of it and I should be skeptical of anything they come up with. Fair enough, but at least Ms. Jolie spoke with the troops directly before sounding off about whether or not they …
On Thursday, actress Angelina Jolie published an opinion piece in The Washington Post arguing that U.S. troops should be allowed to stay in Iraq and provide the security necessary for the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) to address the humanitarian crisis in Iraq.
While I’m a bit skeptical of any United Nations undertaking …
September 27, 2007 – 10:53 am
Just returned from a Hudson Institute briefing at The Four Seasons restaurant this morning given by John McCain. He seems a little tired, and who can blame him? The man is 71, has survived torture at the hands of the Viet Cong and, worse still, the ineptitude and foolishness of many of his fellow …
September 5, 2007 – 11:28 am
Over a year and a half ago, Mithal al-Alusi, a courageous Iraqi politician about whom I have written for The Wall Street Journal, who has lost more than his life in the struggle to build a democratic Iraq, told me that Iran had infiltrated the Iraqi political process.
Last week in …
Timing for Maximum Impact: Insurgents Make Sure to Hit When Cameras Roll
From The Los Angeles Daily News
BY HEATHER ROBINSON
October 30, 2005
What better way for terrorist insurgents in Iraq to make headlines in the U.S. during a heavy news cycle than to attack journalists?
Monday’s three-stage attack on a hotel compound housing Western media in Baghdad was the latest desperate attempt on the part of …