– The genuine Tourist Guy surfaces. Via Ken Layne. But the fun continues.
– What is it with the Germans? Stern has an obnoxious cover: Stop This War! filled with celebrity antiwar idiocy (celebrities are out here but still in there). So singer Nina Hagen (yes, singers always set the best foreign policy) blathers about her “Afghan sisters” and another actress says, “The biggest art is peace.” Gag me with a mad-cow-disease bratwurst. Now I take a lot of crap from a surprising number of Americans for doing business in and liking Germany — but Stern could make me regret that. Sure, Germans lost the war to us but then we rebuilt their country; we became their ally; we fought for them in the cold war; yet now too many of them abandon us, attack us, and don’t even show the slightest shame that the attack on us was plotted in their backyard. Thank goodness Chancellor Schroeder had the guts to stand up to them. That makes me still like Germany.
– Christian Science Monitor on what’s next after Afghanistan: Trying to find and destroy cells all over the world; hard work. The story concludes: “The best outcome … might be the establishment of a ‘new post-cold-war deterrence,’ in which no nation willingly harbors terrorists, for fear of US action.”
– How to avoid pesky trials: Take no prisoners, says Rumsfeld in the Times of London.
– Powell knocks Israeli and Palestinian heads together. High time.
– It takes a country singer to tell the truth: Charlie Daniels wasn’t going to be allowed to sing his new anti-Osama country kickfest at the CMT Country Music Awards benefit and so he refused to appear. That has been spreading around the Internet lately and Snopes verifies the veracity of it. Among the lyics:
This ain’t no rag it’s a flag
and we don’t wear it on our heads
It’s a symbol of the land
where the good guys live
are you listening to what I said…
We’re gonna hunt you down
like a mad dog hound
and make you pay for the lives you stole
We’re all through talking and messing around
and now it’s time to rock and roll
These colors don’t run
and we’re speaking as one
when we say united we stand
If you mess with one you mess with us all
every boy, girl, woman and man
– Two Reuters journalists among the four feared dead in Afghan ambush; others are from Spain, Italy.
– Matt Welch: “I know media-bashing is fashionable this season, but letís not forget to thank the people brave enough to cover the dangerous situation inside Afghanistan.”
– Islam Online sees 9/11 as a PR opportunity for Islam. That’s unfairly stated but true nonetheless: In my community, people are eagerly going to lecutures to learn about Islam. That’s a good thing; education always is. But at the same time, including an Iman in your public event is suddenly the politically correct thing to do — and we’re taking that too far.
– Newsmax: Muslim cleric warns of extremists with nukes in the U.S. For what it’s worth…
– Frontier Post (Pakistani) says the British may pull their special forces out for now.
– CNN exec says, Let reporters cry. If Dan Rather can, why can’t everyone?
– The Mirror finds an anthrax factory in Kabul. I’ll still bet, until I see evidence to the contrary, that this was a foreign attack. More from the Mirror.
– Nice point from Andrew Sullivan this morning on the new trilateralism, the arc from Washington to London to Moscow. (And that’s one more good thing about blogs: You don’t have to fill a column of type to make a point; good writers like Sullivan can cram a lot of IQ into just one graph.)… “THE ARC: Forget the broad coalition for action against al Qaeda. Forget the U.N., which has once again been shown to be essentially useless in a real crisis. Forget the E.U., which also dissolves into constituent parts at the first sign of gunfire. The only real alliance worth anything right now is a tripartite arc from Washington through London to Moscow. In Afghanistan, British and American troops are jointly fighting the war. The Brits have also been a handy bridge for Washington with the other European powers, as well as an indispensable diplomatic tool. The Russians for their part have provided hard intelligence, accommodation on missile defense, and lower oil prices. In the coming decade, I predict a massive Western investment in oil exploration in Russia – a giant quid pro quo after September 11. And last Friday, Tony Blair joined two remaining dots by offering a new role for Russia within NATO. On Saturday, straight from Crawford, Putin called Blair to thank him. Putin’s statement read: ‘Moscow highly esteems the practical reaction of the British leadership to the Russian president’s repeated suggestions on the need to alter the mutual relations between Russia and the Western alliance in response to new challenges.’ So we have a new entente cordiale between two old imperial powers and the current hegemon. This arc might come under strain if Washington aims next for Iraq – and, so far, the Brits have expressed panic at the very idea. But I deeply doubt that, when the crunch comes, the Brits will fiercely protest an Iraqi extension of the war. Blair has too much invested in this new alliance to watch it unravel now. Same with Putin. He sees the new alliance as a way for Russia to leap forward in international relations. And Bush finally has two foreign leaders he can trust. Neither unilateralism nor multilateralism: this trilateralism could actually work, i.e. do more useful things than employ professional diplomats.”
– I’m experimenting with Pyra’s Pyrads and Google’s Adwords. If you clicked through from either, bless you for increasing the overall clickrate of the Internet.
