The war on terror with Blackfive and Op-For on Pundit Review Radio

Pundit Review Radio
Sunday 7-10pm est
Streaming Live on WRKO

7pm EST: Week in Review; Best of the blogs
8pm: TBD
9pm: Blackfive’s Someone You Should Know and John Noonan from the Milblog Op-For

We are really looking forward to the 9pm hour tomorrow featuring Matt from Blackfive with another edition of Someone You Should Know.

Matt and Michael Yon were featured in the Wall Street Journal this week, so we will also ask him about that.

John Noonan, co-founder and author of the military blog Op-For joins us after that. You may have read about John this spring in an excellent Boston Globe article on milblogs. Just this week, John had an article published in National Review,

The Rise of the Service Gap
Academics vs. military service.

Unfortunate as it is, the service gap is becoming a reality. Not because of boogie-men scapegoats like �??the rich�?� or �??high-society,�?� but due to the efforts of a small, determined group of academics, who opt to channel their anger over past and present government policies toward young men and women whose only sin is to serve.

John is on active duty in the Air Force. He is putting his experience to good use at Op-For, where he has been all over the Israeli air campaign in Beirut. We will cover that, and a whole lot more!

What is Pundit Review Radio?

Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week Kevin and Gregg give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called �??Groundbreaking�?� by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 7-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston�??s Talk Station.

Peter Beinart hits a home run

What a great article by Peter Beinart in today’s Washington Post. The Democrats would be well served to listen to him. Here’s the intro,

After years of struggling to define their own approach to post-Sept. 11 foreign policy, Democrats seem finally to have hit on one. It’s called pandering.

and the conclusion,

The Democratic Party’s single biggest foreign policy liability is not that Americans think Democrats are soft. It is that Americans think Democrats stand for nothing, that they have no principles beyond political expedience. And given the party’s behavior over the past several months, it is not hard to understand why.

Peter Beinart will be our guest on Pundit Review Radio next Sunday, August 6th at 7pm est. We will discuss not only this article, but his new book, The Good Fight: Why Liberals — and Only Liberals — Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again.

Neal Bortz Wants to Know: Where is the Muslim Outrage?

Neal Bortz answers the question.

Here is the amazing audio/video of Neal Bortz and his Muslim caller to his program.

This is amazing. A Must Listen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HT our friend Janet Levy of Jihad Watch.

Here is a brief list of the “low lights”

Muslim outrage huh. OK �?� let�??s do a little historical review. Just some lowlights:

Muslims fly commercial airliners into buildings in New York City. No Muslim outrage.
Muslim officials block the exit where school girls are trying to escape a burning building because their faces were exposed. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims cut off the heads of three teenaged girls on their way to school in Indonesia. A Christian school. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims murder teachers trying to teach Muslim children in Iraq. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims murder over 80 tourists with car bombs outside cafes and hotels in Egypt. No Muslim outrage.
A Muslim attacks a missionary children�??s school in India. Kills six. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims slaughter hundreds of children and teachers in Beslan, Russia. Muslims shoot children in the back. No Muslim outrage.
Let�??s go way back. Muslims kidnap and kill athletes at the Munich Summer Olympics. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims fire rocket-propelled grenades into schools full of children in Israel. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims murder more than 50 commuters in attacks on London subways and busses. Over 700 are injured. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims massacre dozens of innocents at a Passover Seder. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims murder innocent vacationers in Bali. No Muslim outrage.
Muslim newspapers publish anti-Semitic cartoons. No Muslim outrage
Muslims are involved, on one side or the other, in almost every one of the 125+ shooting wars around the world. No Muslim outrage.
Muslims beat the charred bodies of Western civilians with their shoes, then hang them from a bridge. No Muslim outrage.
Newspapers in Denmark and Norway publish cartoons depicting Mohammed. Muslims are outraged.

Listen and watch video here.

Bloggers talking across the front lines

One of the great things about the blogosphere is the ability to connect with people in parts of the world where news is breaking. All of us now have access to the so-called ‘man on the street’ and it is great to get that perspective, which is often very different from what you see in the MSM.

We saw that firsthand last Sunday on Pundit Review Radio when we spoke live with Jerusalem-based video/photojournalist and blogger Dave Bender who operates Israel at Level Ground. Dave had some very compelling, thoughtful things to say about the situation in Israel, its impact on Lebanon and his family. You can listen to that interview by clicking here.

We plan on speaking with other bloggers in the Middle East in the coming weeks, and have sent out some feelers to Beirut-based blogs. More details as they solidify. This is the future of media.

Wall Street Journal
Page One
In the Midst of War, Bloggers Are Talking Across the Front Line; Online Conversations Go On Despite the Explosions

As missiles and hostile rhetoric fly back and forth between Lebanon and Israel, bloggers on both sides are talking to one another.

Lisa Goldman, a 39-year-old Canadian-born Israeli blogger in Tel Aviv, wrote in a recent post, “Will this turn out to be the first time that residents of ‘enemy’ countries engaged in an ongoing conversation while missiles were falling?”

Bloggers from Lebanon and Israel — some on the scene, others around the world — are providing live updates of their experiences, commenting on each other’s writing and sometimes linking to blogs across the border.

Unfortunately, subscription required to access the full story.

Our favorite milbloggers featured in Wall Street Journal

Congratulations to our two most frequent quests on Pundit Review Radio, Matt from Blackfive and Michael Yon who were featured yesterday’s Wall Street Journal!

Matthew Burden, an Army veteran, started his blog, “Blackfive,” in December 2003 after he learned that an Army buddy, Maj. Mathew Schram, had been killed in an ambush near the Iraq-Syria border. Mr. Burden, 39, felt his friend received short shrift in media coverage and decided to blog about military stories he felt weren’t getting the attention they deserved.

“Does Abu Ghraib need to be told 40 times above the fold in the New York Times when half your readers couldn’t name the guy who won the Medal of Honor?” Mr. Burden says.

Michael Yon, a 42-year-old Army Special Forces veteran, is perhaps the most attention-grabbing blogger, with appearances on MSNBC and CNN. In December 2004, he embedded himself with troops in Iraq and posted dispatches online for the next several months.

Most of Mr. Yon’s writings related heroic acts by American troops and Iraqis. Mr. Yon also praises some media coverage of Iraq. But in an interview, he says many reporters “haven’t stayed long enough to see what’s going on. Most of the reporting is not deep enough.” According to Mr. Yon, Iraqis are determined to fight insurgents and embrace a new government, a storyline he says he doesn’t see in mainstream news coverage.

To read the full story, click here.

To listen to Blackfive and Michael Yon on Pundit Review Radio, click here.

Liberal bloggers and Israel

Washington Post
Liberals and Israel
By Howard Kurtz

Usually, bloggers get hammered for what they say. These days, liberal bloggers are being denounced for what they aren’t saying.

As I’ve noted before, most of the lefty blogs are avoiding the Middle East war. Some of those puzzled by the relative silence have suggested that these bloggers don’t want to wade into this particular crossfire. Some of the bloggers have noted that they have no particular expertise on the subject.

Now the debate has taken a new turn, with the accusation that the liberals are really just hiding their anti-Israel views. I have no idea whether this is true or not–the bloggers are not exactly reticent on other subjects–and there are some liberal commentators who have certainly not shied away from criticizing Israel.

Still, conservatives are ramping up the argument that there’s a game of camouflage going on, and the back-and-forth is revealing.

Yes it is.

Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine has some related thoughts in his post Fearing for Israel

To listen to Jeff Jarvis on Pundit Review Radio, click here.

When We “Negotiate” With Terrorists They Always Win

A commenter on our blog suggests that there are “political” solutions to “military problems.” Essentially, he suggests that Israel should just sit down and reason with those Hezbollah chaps and all will be well in the Middle East.

We don’t “negotiate” with terrorists. Been there and done that with Carter and Clinton and it got us nowhere. We should not expect our friend and ally Israel to negotiate with them either.

Don Feder puts it best:

For these ravenous wolves, concessions, negotiations and ceasefires are the scent of blood. An outstretched hand is always answered with a kick in the teeth. Prior to the Second World War, Winston Churchill warned of the Germans, “The Hun is either at your feet or at your throat” — meaning you will subdue him or he will subdue you. That goes double for the Sons of Allah.” KILL ‘EM ALL. LET ALLAH SORT ‘EM OUT.
GrassTopsUSA Exclusive Commentary
By Don Feder
07-24-06

The currrent crisis in the Middle East is not “political.” Terror organizations and
terror states (Iran and Syria come to mind) have declared War on Israel (and are intentionally targeting the civilian Israeli population unlike the Israelis who continue to try to minimize civilian casualties while targeting military terror strongholds and installations in defense of their nation (Although this is a somewhat difficult endeavor given the propensity for Hezbollah to imbed themselves among heavily
concentrated civilian populations). You don’t “negotiate” with terror organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah and countries such as Iran and Syria who have publicly stated that their goal is to eviscerate Israel from the face of the earth.

People who advocate the same discredited and failed “solutions” to how to respond to terrorist acts of war. Negotiating and appeasing terrorist organizations has back fired every time b/c terrorists perceive conciliation and appeasement as a sign of weakness and they prey on any hint of reticence. The Jihadist throat cutter that thinks that he is going to “heaven” with his “72 Virgins” after he straps a bomb to himself and blows up a pizza parlor full of innocent Jewish teenagers only comprehends brute force and that’s what our military is going to give the throat cutters and what the IDF is going to give Iran sponsored Hezbollah and any other terror organization that seeks its annihilation.

Again, more “negotiating” and “diplomacy” as John suggests the US and Israel engage in does not work. Been there done that. Feder puts it best:

“Ronald Reagan forced Sharon to let Arafat go and pull back. The U.S. sent in a peacekeeping force of Marines. The Sons of Allah thanked us by murdering 241 of them, in the 1983 bombing of the Marine compound in Beirut. (Hezbollah claimed responsibility, a fact little noted by the media today.)

“The Sons of Allah took the American withdrawal from Lebanon as a sign of our impotence. Along with Clinton’s pull-out from Somalia and Gomer Pyle’s non-response to the 444-day Tehran hostage crisis, this set the stage for 9/11.”

Will those mostly on the ideological left seeking “political” solutions in response to blatant acts of terror and war ever learn that the only viable “solution,” when dealing with crazed Islamo Facists who seek your total destruction, is to put as many of them as possible in body bags as quickly as possible before they kill you, your entire family, and fellow countrymen?