Target Centermass

Day: September 25, 2005

  • D.C. Protests: Associated Press Picks Side

    In straight news reporting, the lede is everything. The opening paragraph should carry the gist of the entire article and answer all of the fundamental questions of who, what, when, where and how. Why is questionable, as it can paint a bias on the story or be immediately undetermined.

    This weekend, the American capital of Washington, D.C. saw back-to-back gatherings of anti-war and pro-troop rallies. The Associated Press’ lede paragraph for today’s rally in support of the U.S. efforts in Iraq is as follows:

    Support for U.S. troops fighting abroad mixed with anger toward anti-war demonstrators at home as hundreds of people, far fewer than organizers had expected, rallied Sunday on the National Mall just a day after a massive protest against the war in Iraq.

    My attention is immediately drawn towards the mention of anger. Actually, my first reaction is that I dare you to diagram that rather poorly written sentence. Past that, I’m taken by the mention of anger in the lede. Why? Well, let’s look at the lede from the AP’s coverage of Saturday’s rally.

    Opponents of the war in Iraq rallied by the thousands Saturday to demand the return of U.S. troops, staging a day of protest, song and remembrance of the dead in marches through Washington and other American and European cities.

    What? Song and remembrance? No anger?

    Well, judging by photoblogging by Michelle Malkin and Davids Medienkritik, I would beg to differ. There seems to have been a great deal of unreported anger at Saturday’s shin dig. Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit followed Saturday’s speeches and seems to have identified a great deal of anger, as well as a great deal of failed leftist talking points.

    So why no mention of anger Saturday while it made the lede Sunday? Well, I’ll leave it to one of the best bloggers out there, Jeff Goldstein, to absolutely rip the puff piece that was Saturday’s “news” story by the A.P. Suffice it to say that the A.P. has happily allowed the slant of their writers to overwhelm their supposed straight news reporting.

    As the Indepundit allows a Marine in Iraq to point out, this weekend was critical for the home front of the war against the radical Islamist movement and our efforts in Iraq.

    Thanks for doing this. The battlefield this weekend will be on the homefront. The only thing that truly concerns me is that the seditionist groups will succeed in causing the American people to lose their will and the enemy will win politically the victory we have denied them militarily.

    Let there be no mistake: we are winning here. Morale is outstanding and we are successfully taking the fight to the enemy. You will see a successful referendum in less than 3 weeks and a successfull election in less than 3 months. I see the positive resuts of our actions everyday. The MSM ignores or denigrates almost every piece of positive news, exaggerates every negative and makes the enemy and his actions out to be more than they are.

    They absolutely cannot defeat us militarily and have no strategic vision except the destruction of all who oppose them. A strategy based on such a negative is doomed to fail, unless we cut and run. That is the enemy’s only chance to win. The biggest threat we face is a determined enemy who will not quit because, like the Vietnamese they see the possibility of victory because of a perceived willingness to quit at home.

    Folks, in the war the Marine describes, the A.P. has long since chosen sides. This weekend, they made it very freakin’ obvious.

  • Gaza Erupts as 40 Rockets Hit Israel

    Well, so much for belief that Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would immediately lead to a greater peace in the region as Palestinian terrorists launched a slew of missiles into Israel. I should note, of course, that I would seriously question anyone foolish enough to have ever harbored such hopes.

    Barely two weeks after Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip, the area erupted into violence over the weekend as Islamic militias launched 40 missiles into Israel, which responded by resuming assassinations, as the two sides sought to set new ground rules in the wake of the pullout.

    Four alleged Hamas operatives were killed on Saturday when helicopters fired missiles at two cars in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, the area from which missiles aimed at the Israeli town of Sderot had been launched. In this and other Israeli air attacks against weapons facilities and other Hamas targets, 17 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were wounded. Six Israeli civilians were lightly wounded in the Palestinian attacks.

    For the first time, Israel moved artillery into position at the edge of the Gaza Strip and warned that it would use it if necessary.

    “We are undertaking a continuing series of attacks on Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” said Israeli General Yisrael Ziv. “Our time framework is open-ended.”

    […]

    The weekend flare-up was triggered by two incidents, one on the West Bank and one in Gaza.

    The first took place before dawn on Friday, local time, when Israeli security forces killed three alleged Islamic Jihad operatives near the West Bank town of Tulkarm. Israeli officials said the three had organised several suicide bombings and were drawing up plans to make rockets to be fired from the West Bank at Israel’s heartland. The officials said the three, after being surrounded, had started the exchange of fire that killed them.

    Hours later, three Palestinian-made Kassem rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip by Islamic Jihad into Israel in retaliation for the Tulkarm killings. There were no casualties.

    In the second incident, on Friday evening, an explosion occurred during a military parade staged by Hamas in the Jabaliya refugee camp celebrating the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza after 38 years. Fifteen people were killed and 80 wounded in the blast. Hamas accused Israel of being behind the explosion and unleashed dozens of rockets at Sderot and other Israeli targets.

    Israel denied involvement and, surprisingly, was supported by the Palestinian Authority. “The explosion occurred when a Hamas vehicle loaded with locally made rockets blew up during the rally,” said the authority’s Interior Ministry spokesman, Tawkif Abu Khoussa. He noted that a similar explosion during a Hamas rally last month had killed five onlookers. “We urge our brothers in Hamas to assume their responsibilities instead of levelling charges against others,” Mr Khoussa said.

    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement issued a statement condemning Hamas for staging paramilitary rallies in residential areas. “This rally was held despite our warnings to refrain from displaying and storing weapons in residential areas,” he said. “The Fatah Central Committee holds Hamas fully responsible for the deaths.”

    My problem with the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from an unstable Gaza was that it inevitably would be trumpeted as a triumph by the terrorists. Never an inch given without an inch deserved. Perhaps there is a silver lining to the maneuver, however, as a shift in Israeli strategy would seem to indicate.

    In this first military confrontation with Palestinian militants since the pullout, Israel is intent on establishing new rules of combat that will permit it greater freedom of action against the Palestinians than it allowed itself when it was an occupying power. Officials have warned that there would be “zero tolerance” after the withdrawal and that Israel would regard an attack upon it from Gaza as an attack on its sovereignty by a foreign entity.

    Israel also wants to undo the attempt by Palestinian militants to create a deterrent balance, by which Israeli activity against militants in the West Bank will be met by retaliatory fire from the Gaza Strip, as occurred on Friday with Islamic Jihad. By employing wide-ranging strikes against militant targets Israel hopes to discourage such linkage.

    Ah, at least the battlefield has lines that are far more clearly drawn now than during the age of the settlements and occupation. Though there is still a great political need for restraint and judicious use of force, the Israelis once again have a defined an area where they can go “weapons free” as needed.

  • Sen. Clinton Opposes Museum at WTC Site

    Shrewd. Very shrewd.

    Sen. Hillary Clinton is opposing a freedom museum planned for ground zero, citing concerns raised by the families of the World Trade Center victims who say the proposed museum would dishonor the dead.

    The International Freedom Center last week released a report saying the museum “will tangibly link Sept. 11 and the lives of its victims to humanity’s greatest idea: freedom.”

    In addition to the terrorist attacks, its exhibits would deal with events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, efforts such as the Civil Rights Movement, and documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the South African constitution.

    But relatives of some of the Sept. 11 victims say it would over shadow a memorial museum and dishonor the 2,749 people who died there by fostering debate about the attacks.

    “I am troubled by the serious concerns that family members and first responders have expressed to me,” Clinton said Friday. “I cannot support the IFC.”

    Clinton said she does not think plans should move forward until the rebuilding agency, Lower Manhattan Development Corp., addresses the families’ concerns.

    While I agree with Sen. Clinton in this regard, I have serious doubts that we reached the same position for the same reasons.

    More on the IFC and the families’ campaign can be found at their site, Take Back the Memorial.

  • Quote of the Week, 25 SEP 05

    Good generals, unlike poets, are made rather than born, and will never reach the first rank without much study of their profession; but they must have certain natural gifts, the power of quick decision, judgment, boldness, and, I am afraid, a considerable degree of toughness, almost callousness, which is harder to find as civilization progresses.

    —Field Marshal Lord Arthur Wavell