Interesting News From Around the Web - 12-18-07

The U.S. is providing intelligence to Turkey on the location of PKK targets in northern Iraq and Turkey is following that up with targeted strikes. This has Iraq’s Kurds screaming like stuck pigs, but it seems the only reasonable solution to what could otherwise prove a very destabilizing issue.

Our House of Representatives is still refusing to fund the war in Iraq. The President needs to refuse their proffered Budget until they do so. The House Democratic Leadership varies between insane (Pelosi), dementia (Murtha), and adolescence (Obey). They are the not so funny 3 Stooges who are determined to declare defeat in Iraq, irrespective of the national security consequences and wholly irrespective of the reality of our success in Iraq. They are al Qaeda in Iraq’s last best hope for victory.

$7.4 billion has been pledged for aid to "Palestine" at an international conference. The amount actually exceeds what the Palestinian government of Fatah was seeing in aid. It is not clear from the news story how much, if any, of these funds will be provided to Hamas. If there is a single dollar that goes to them, the U.S. should halt its portion of the funding. As to the rest, funding the Palestinians has been a black whole of corruption to this point. I wonder if the donors will start requiring accountability?

The Economist takes a look at Indonesia’s program for deradicalizing jihadists. And WaPo looks at a similar program in Saudi Arabia for recent guests of Guantanamo. And then there is a very successful program being run by our military for detainees in Iraq.

Right Truth has more on the infiltration of our CIA by people related to Hezbollah and the potential damage that could be severe.

Q&O looks at the insanity of our entitlement programs and the gap between what is promised and what our income streams look like. My own thought, we need an NIE that tells us this is no problem and that we can safely ignore it. And take a look at this.

Done with Mirrors has an interesting post on Glenn Greenwald and his mildly biased criticism from on high of Michael Totten.

Bastard. Since I blogged this when it occurred, I need to also blog it now. The conservative student at Princeton who claimed to have been beaten for his exercise of free speech has now admitted to having made it all up. See here.

A really good post the other day from Dr. Sanity: "When religion is rooted in human freedom, as it is in the Judeo-Christian tradition, then it is able to enhance human life and give meaning and purpose to that life. When it is perverted and used for secular political ends--by either the political left or right who want to impose or mandate some social policy or another on others, then it inevitably leads to oppression and cheapens or devalues human life. Even on his best day, a "good" communist, socialist, fascist etc. will never be any better than a really "bad" Christian."

And from TNOY, it’s a Muslim Rage Boy Christmas Caroling . . . .



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