FDD

CLIFF MAY: At Least They Didn't Burn it Down

Hamas plans to convert a Gaza synagogue into a museum showcasing the terrorist organization’s weapons – from stones to rockets. A story is here.

Hat tip: Kathryn Lopez.

WALID PHARES: Newsweek's speedy conclusions lead to analytical crash

An interesting Newsweek story this week -that references CT Blog among its sources- claim scoring a point against what it paints as a “questionable Bush administration portrayal of Abu Azzam.” In short, the authors of the article, Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball claim the Administration’s leaders aggrandized the real importance of the killed al Qaida commander basing their conclusion on a number of “non identified” US counter Terrorism officials and a report posted by our colleague Evan Kohlman on the blog. The “charge” by Newsweek is about the hierarchy of the man. Was he or was he not the “number two” of abu Mus’aab? In fact, the article’s real problem is in semantics. Was Abu Azzam number two, deputy commander, a top lieutenant, the second most powerful man, or even a future heir for the organization? What seems to be journalistically a one status are in fact multiple functions with various consequences on the War in Iraq, and different statements made by different people. Isikoff and Hoseball are right to “investigate” the matter, as all experts should do, but their fast conclusion missed crucial nuances, crashing analytically.

ANDY McCARTHY: Garden-State-Variety Profiling Hysteria

From today's National Review Online:

Do you think Americans are threatened by Islamic terrorism? If we are, don’t you think that in trying to prevent Islamic terrorism it is proper for the police to consider whether someone is actually Islamic? If so, what exactly are you condemning when you condemn “profiling”? Read more.

CLIFF MAY: They Shoot Schoolteachers, Don't They?

From today's Scripps Howard News Service:

For decades, too many correspondents covering the Middle East failed to report Saddam's worst atrocities – sometimes because they knew little beyond what the dictator's flacks told them, sometimes to protect their local staffs, sometimes to avoid getting kicked out of the country or tossed into jail themselves.

But what can be the excuse for so many media heavyweights continuing the cover-up now -- overlooking documented history, soft-peddling the murder of innocents by Saddam loyalists and al-Qaeda invaders, and shifting blame from terrorists to those fighting them? Read more.

Read the Spanish translation.

This Week's Global Jihad Monitor is Now Available

Terrorist in Iraq slaughtered five schoolteachers and killed scores of civilians in a string of suicide bombings and attacks.  Read this story and more in this week's GJM.

To receive the GJM please email 'subscribe' to GJM@defenddemocracy.org.

RICHARD CARLSON: Dispatches from the Danger Zone

Washington DC government sent a convoy of ten buses to New Orleans to help in the evacuation, drop off some diapers and food and water, and bring back up to 200 evacuees for shelter.

The caravan left on September 2nd a Friday.  You’ll be amused by the official list of who was aboard:

10 drivers.
19 social workers.
2 "mental health professionals."
3 "emergency management workers."
2 physicians
1 physician’s assistant’s
And 28 police officers.

Now that’s 65 people.  There may have been more, but if so the City’s not admitting to it.   

Hard to believe they didn’t have a couple of  p.r. people aboard.

Five days and 2160 miles later –that’s 44 hours of driving time- the caravan returned.  The only evacuees they brought back were two college students who hitched a free ride to Washington.  200 evacuees from New Orleans came to Washington but they had the good sense to fly.

The best part of this story is this:  When this expensive motorized boondoggle arrived back a DC city councilman named David Catania declared the mission “a success.”

This is our Government in Place for when – not if - we have a serious calamity in Washington, DC.  Scary.

CLIFF MAY: NYT PR For A.N.S.W.E.R.

I noted in FDD’s weekly newsletter that the Washington Post had failed to tell its readers anything about A.N.S.W.E.R., the radical organization that was a principal organizer of the demonstrations demonstration in Washington last weekend.

But Christopher Hitchens notes that The New York Times told its readers that the group “embodies a wide range of progressive political objectives.”

Hitchens observes:

The name of the reporter on this story was Michael Janofsky. I suppose that it is possible that he has never before come across "International ANSWER," the group run by the "Worker's World" party and fronted by Ramsey Clark, which openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and the "resistance" in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Clark himself finding extra time to volunteer as attorney for the génocidaires in Rwanda. Quite a "wide range of progressive political objectives" indeed, if that's the sort of thing you like. However, a dip into any database could have furnished Janofsky with well-researched and well-written articles by David Corn and Marc Cooper—to mention only two radical left journalists—who have exposed "International ANSWER" as a front for (depending on the day of the week) fascism, Stalinism, and jihadism.

Hitchens Slate article is here.  Hat tip: Little Green Footballs.

WALID PHARES: al Qaida TV, complements al Jazeera as "the" imperial source..

Writing in the Washington Post , Daniel Williams announced that al Qaida has launched its own news bulletins via Internet. He referred it to an Italian news agency called Adnkonois, reporting from Dubai. He mentioned that the entire 16 minutes was available on an Italian web site. At first, one would be impressed by the news value of the "story." And indeed, in our current world of Global War on Terror, sensational pieces such as this one make headlines, inflame talking heads, and put writers on TV screens. If we agree that Terrorism and counter terrorism have produced an industry and consumers a headline such as "al Qaida has its own newscast now" will open ears and eyes and drag mouses to click on links. But let's examine where is the real meat in this story, with a comparative analysis.

CLIFF MAY: Al-Qaeda TV

The anchorman wears “a black ski mask and an ammunition belt.” Think of how much that saves on makeup and wardrobe. And bad hair days? No problem!

A news story is here and Captain Ed has commentary here.

WALID PHARES: "The hand that severed a female's arm in Lebanon will answer to justice"

I knew May Chidiac like most residents of Lebanon since the mid 1980s. A close friend to my cousin, she was the rising female anchor on the leading TV network in Lebanon, The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, known as LBC. Lebanese TV During the last five years of the Lebanese War, LBC was the 'Free Lebanon' station broadcasting from East Beirut. It was facing off with pro-Syrian, and Jihadi outlets from Syrian-occupied areas. May, a graduate in journalism, was always eager to tackle the hot issues with no fear. Throughout the 1990s, and particularly in the last months leading to the Cedars Revolution, May Chidiac conducted many "hot" interviews with high profile opposition leaders. Acting like a Lebanese Paula Zahn, she was in the center of Beirut's television mornings. But her media thrusts didn't please the Terrorists. Last Sunday, the anti-democracy cells placed a bomb inside her car blast.