Linkagery
Here are some links I recommend to you, with commentary as sometimes provided by readers. I try to do this once in awhile, but time can be pressing. My blog’s readership level has reached the point where I get a lot of email now, which is good because I like hearing from you. But I can no longer promise anyone a reply via email. But I do read it all, and much eventually makes its way into my periodical Linkagery posts. So away we go.

1. I found this one on my own, by accident. It is a report of the Congressional Research Service called, "Al Qaeda after the Iraq Conflict," a PDF file of six pages, dated May 23, 2003. CRS is sort of the academic-research arm of the Congress.

2. Blog Iran is a consortium of bloggers uniting to support freedom and democracy for the Iranian people. I am not a member yet, but will join soon.

3. Rick Ballard writes,

Here is a decent summary at NRO of what went on in Cancun recently. There are some links within the article that detail subsidy amounts. We really do starve Africans to enrich corporations. (Like that’s news.)

. . . the whims of petty dictators are seen as co-equal with the expressed will of democratic peoples. We need a new body; we need a body dedicated to a higher ideal than diplomacy for the sake of diplomacy.

I propose a new international body: The Association of Free States. The emphasis here is squarely on the word "free." This body should be formed with the aim of protecting, preserving, and promoting freedom, liberty, and self-determination.

. . . African progress is told, the U.N. takes its deserved lumps, and the Toyota Taliban NGOs and French both get their comeuppance in 2 sharp Guardian paragraphs.

I was Steve Russell's XO when he was a company commander in the OPFOR at Ft Irwin in the early 90's. He was a piece of work, no doubt, but a good guy, and a good officer. He was very much as described ... deeply religious and very focused on taking the battle to the other guy (we had the best MRB in the Regiment during his command). Some folks got put off by the religious thing, I think ... it's OK to be gung ho, but not to expect God to work through you towards His ends, I guess. Anyway, he always took good care of the soldiers, and most of them really liked him, though they were sometimes bemused by his flair for speaking dramatically (to the point of being corny sometimes). But that's him being genuine, not necessarily looking for a headline or a good quote ... I have no doubt he feels God's hand is on him over there.