[Updated frequently throughout the day. Please come back often.]

Murtha will have to testify in defamation case
Bryan Preston

He’ll have to submit a deposition. Hopefully he’ll be more forthcoming this time than his office was when I called them up last month. Perhaps by the time he testifies, he’ll actually know what’s going on in the trials. Not that not having all the facts slowed him down from pronouncing the Marines guilty of murder “in cold blood” starting last year.

A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a defamation case against Rep. John P. Murtha and ordered the Pennsylvania Democrat to give a sworn deposition in the case. ...

Why We're Winning Now in Iraq
Anbar's citizens needed protection before they would give their "hearts and minds."
Frederick W. Kagan

Many politicians and pundits in Washington have ignored perhaps the most important point made by Gen. David Petraeus in his recent congressional testimony: The defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq requires a combination of conventional forces, special forces and local forces. This realization has profound implications not only for American strategy in Iraq, but also for the future of the war on terror.

As Gen. Petraeus made clear, the adoption of a true counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq in January 2007 has led to unprecedented progress in the struggle against al Qaeda in Iraq, by protecting Sunni Arabs who reject the terrorists among them from the vicious retribution of those terrorists. In his address to the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also touted the effectiveness of this strategy while at the same time warning of al Qaeda in Iraq's continued threat to his government and indeed the entire region.

Yet despite the undeniable successes the new strategy has achieved against al Qaeda in Iraq, many in Congress are still pushing to change the mission of U.S. forces back to a counterterrorism role relying on special forces and precision munitions to conduct targeted attacks on terrorist leaders. This change would bring us back to the traditional, consensus strategy for dealing with cellular terrorist groups like al Qaeda--a strategy that has consistently failed in Iraq. ...

Quick hits:

• Senior Al Qaeda in Iraq Leader Killed by U.S. Forces
  WASHINGTON —  U.S.-led forces have killed one of the most important leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq, a Tunisian believed connected to the kidnapping and killings last summer of American soldiers, a top commander said Friday. ...
• Senior AQI Leader Reaches Room Temperature

• Goose Creek update: Pipe bomb jihadists sought to hurt troops

• U.S. Needs ‘Long-Term Presence’ in Iraq, Gates Says

• Bill Roggio: Counterinsurgency in al Qaeda’s last bastion in Baghdad

• Radical Syrian cleric 'shot dead'

• Secret Bush-Aznar Memo Sparks Controversy

• Cognitive Dissonance Watch: National Security Edition

• Satellites confirm reports of Myanmar violence
• Burma burns
• Reports: Military junta cuts Internet access in Burma;
  Sniper reportedly killed Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai;
  Update: Videos added; Update: Worldwide condemnation

• A Truther finds the real truth 

• What Limbaugh Said
• Media Matters leads dishonest smear on Rush Limbaugh’s “phony soldiers” line
• Phony Outrage

• Clinton: $5,000 for Every U.S. Baby
• The Second Coming of George McGovern
• Clinton: Let's Add A $20 Billion Entitlement

• John Edwards talks smack about blacks
• Edwards: 'Pretty Soon We’re Not Going to Have
  a Young African-American Male Population in America.'
• Silky said what?
• Tigerhawk: Hyperbole and democratic politics
• John Edwards, Deplorably Racist?
• Now You Know Edwards Is Really Done

• Report: Three illegal immigrants found welded into van

I linked this last night but I think it's important enough to make sure you didn't miss it.

The Nuclear Renaissance Begins
William Tucker

If you're tracking the nuclear power revival in America, last Tuesday, September 25, was a milestone. For the first time since 1973, a new application for building a reactor was placed before the federal government. ...

The proposal submitted Tuesday is to build two new reactors with a total capacity of 2,700 megawatts at the South Texas Project site in Matagorda County, where two nuclear units have already operated for 25 years. The size of the reactors is unprecedented -- the biggest American plants generally produce about 1,200 MW.

"This is a historical event," said Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, long the Senate's strongest supporter of nuclear. "Consumers around the world are benefiting from clean nuclear power. Finally our nation is on the verge of taking greater advantage of this technology. I hope it is the first of many."  ...

See also: Sen John McCain: America’s Strategic Vulnerability

Contributed by Bill Faith on September 28, 2007 at 12:17 AM | Permalink

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