[I’d like to welcome Patrick Lang to the front-page of Booman Tribune. He is one of our country’s foremost experts on the Middle East and intelligence matters. And my father is a big fan of Pat’s from watching him on McNeil/Lehrer. Here is Pat’s Bio.] -Boo
I have decided to continue my commentary on the decline
of the quality of the editorial page of the Washington Post and its
leadership. This is today’s
leading editorial in the WashPost.
"WITH THAT statement, which
appeared on an al Qaeda Web site Thursday, Iraq’s al Qaeda network at
last made explicit the goals of the Iraqi insurgency: to prevent a
freely elected, constitutional government from taking power and to
promulgate a totalitarian Islamic republic instead."
WashPost
It is the US government’s position that the insurgencies in Iraq have several
components; sorehead Baathists, criminal mercenaries, disaffected
tribals and, in a special category, international Jihadis (AQ Iraq)
under the command of Abu Musaab Al-Zarqawi. If you read Mr.
Hiatt’s editorial as quoted above, you will see that he says that a
statement made on an AQ web site speaks for all the components of the
insurgencies. What’s the evidence for that, or is this yet another
example of the WashPost editorial page distributing "talking
points?" pl
"Shortly after meeting with Iraq’s
most important Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, another
Shiite Muslim leader, Abdul Aziz Hakim, told a crowd in the holy city of
Najaf to support the constitution in order to unify the country.
"We should not let this chance of accomplishing this goal to go
away," he said."
Who are the "we" in this
speech by Hakim? What is the "goal?" Is the goal
of this Shia activist to unify Iraq on the basis of inter-communal
equality, the rights of minorities (like women), and the civil rights we
think were given to mankind by "nature’s God" as
"inalienable." Is that what he means? Or does he
mean that this is the great chance to consolidate Shia power in the
pursuit of a Godly morality and unity of effort and purpose?
The Post does not even consider the
latter possibility. I should not complain too much about the
Post. It has been "subdued" like much of the
media.
That’s all right. The blogosphere
and media forms yet unconceived are coming to put the old media out of
their misery. Pat Lang
Pat Lang’s blog: Sic Semper
Tyrannis || Bio