Worth Reading, 1/14/08

Christopher Hitchens: The Case Against Hillary Clinton Hitchens absolutely eviscerates Senator Clinton are shows why she shouldn't be in public office at all, let alone president.

Mark Steyn: Capitalism Is The Real `Agent Of Change' Given the bloviated rhetoric on the campaign trail about `change' and `hope', Mark Steyn does a fine job in proving that free will an ddynamic capitalism are the real mechanism for that agenda, NOT metasizing government.

Gary Anderson: Why Al-Qaeda Is Losing a fascinating article by a lecturer at George Washington University who led a study of al-Qaeda from 2003 to 2005 for a Defense Department contractor.

His proposition is simple and direct: Al Qaeda is losing becuase they are, essentially, foreigners who glory in brutality, especially towards Muslims under their dominion. It is for this reason, as he points out, that where al-Qaeda has gained some measure of control over a civilian population, whether in Kabaul or in Anbar, the locals have tired of being ruled by them very quickly.

Of course, an interesting question that comes up immediately is to wonder whether local Muslims would still turn against al-Qaeda if Al Qaeda limited it's murderous ways to non-Muslims, but I digress.

Anderson has a common sense and very likely effective solution to winning the battle of hearts and minds, and it doesn't involve trying to sell Muslims western values.it simply involves publicizing the Muslim victims of al-Qaeda and helping Muslims understand how Islamist radicals actually treat other Muslims.

If I were the president, I'd hire Anderson forthwith and put him to work.

Judith Miller: Abu Dhabi - East Leans West A fascinating portrait of one of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi by a distinguished reporter.

Debbie Schlussel:Mitt Happens: Prominent Hezbollah Supporter/Funder in Romney Camp, Ditto for Bad News Political Hack Blogpal Debbie Schlussel raises some major questions about some of the people around the Romney campaign and their conections with Hezbollah. If this is true, Mitt Romney has some explaining to do.

Spychief Wants to Tap Into Cyberspace Siobhan Gorman writes in the WSJ's Washington Wire about US Director Of National Intelligence Mike McConnell's plan to pass laws giving the government the ability to monitor all the information crossing the Internet in the US as a matter of security. In view of fellow Council member Wolf Howling's account of Britain's prosecution of UK blogger Lionheart and a similar development in Israel, we may be on to a trend here.

Artur Davis and Eric Cantor: Israel's True friends speaking of Israel, there is a superb editorial in, of all places, the Los Angeles
Times by two congressmen, one Democrat and one Republican. In it, they procede to devastate the myth of the all powerful 'Israel Lobby'.