Year in Review: Congress Weak on National Security
By John Isaacs | December 28, 2006
On national security, the 2006 Republican-led Congress received at best an “incomplete,” failing to challenge the Bush administration's course in Iraq and the Middle East and going AWOL when it came to many other hot-button issues across the globe. Read full story.
If Only Israel Had Won?
By Jim Lobe | December 29, 2006
This summer Israel lost a key battle for the neocons, according to one prominent neoconservative thinker, Meyrav Wurmser, who claims that “If Syria had been defeated, the rebellion in Iraq would have ended.” Read full story.
See also:
Right Web Profile: Meyrav Wurmser
A Lose-Lose Situation with Iran
By Trita Parsi | December 29, 2006
The idea of sacrificing good relations with Iran to promote a supposed Mideast peace is nothing new, but the stakes are high. Read full story.
ALSO NEW ON RIGHT WEB
Right Web Profile: Karl Zinsmeister
Bush's domestic policy chief and former AEI fellow, Zinsmeister taught his children “to think of military jet noise as ‘the sound of freedom.'”
Right Web Profile: Elaine Chao
The former Heritage fellow and current Labor Secretary has championed the view that China should be viewed as an economic opportunity, not simply a mortal enemy.
Letters
Re: Middle East Media Research Institute
I believe it is time for Right Web to review and revise its assessment of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Your profile repeats the allegation that MEMRI “cherry picks” the news items it translates. It also cites a MEMRI critic who accuses the organization of presenting “unbalanced propaganda [that is] littered with inflammatory articles aimed to incite hate and bigotry toward any person whom MEMRI considers anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist.”
I have been a subscriber to MEMRI's daily e-mails for nearly two years. During that time their translations have opened my eyes to the conflict within Islam regarding modernity vs. tradition; the reformists' calls for democracy in all the Middle East states; the calls for women to be educated, protected from spousal abuse, and obtain equality before the law; the incisive self-criticism regarding the decline of Arab culture and importance; as well as the ugly anti-Semitic news (of which there is no Western counterpart) and the violence of sharia law.
In short, contrary to the right-wing's oft-touted view of Islam as a monolithic, unchanging threat to Western civilization, MEMRI reveals the news of a complex culture under pressure and undergoing change written in languages few, if any, of us read. Right Web would do well to encourage its readers to subscribe to MEMRI's daily e-mails rather than encourage them to dismiss anything from MEMRI as automatically biased toward a right-wing, reactionary mindset.
Rael Nidess
Marshall, Texas
