Roundup: Media's Take

Robert Fisk: Genocide forgotten ... Armenians horrified by treaty with Turkey

[Robert Fisk is the Independent's award-winning Middle East correspondent.] In the autumn of 1915, an Austrian engineer called Litzmayer, who was helping build the Constantinople-Baghdad railway, saw what he thought was a large Turkish army heading for Mesopotamia. But as the crowd came closer, he realised it was a huge caravan of women, moving forward under the supervision of soldiers. The 40,000 or so women were all Armenians, separated from their men – most of who

Michael Hirsh: Is Obamamania Like Gorbymania?

[Michael Hirsh is also the author of At War with Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World.] They've given the prize to terrorists (Yasir Arafat), war makers (Le Duc Tho), and frauds before, as well as many true heroes of peace (Martin Luther King Jr., Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, and on and on). But this may be the first time the Olympics committee—whoops, I meant the Nobel committee—has awarded the peace prize to an infant. I mean that metaphori

Michael C. Dorf: Does the Second Amendment Bind the States?

[Michael C. Dorf, a FindLaw columnist is the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell University. He is the author of No Litmus Test: Law Versus Politics in the Twenty-First Century and he blogs at michaeldorf.org.] In 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court invalidated a Washington, D.C. handgun ban as applied to home possession by a law-abiding citizen. The 5-4 majority said that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for self

Soner Cagaptay: Islamists and Ottomans

[Mr. Cagaptay is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of "Islam Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who is a Turk?" (Routledge, 2006).] The reaction in Turkey to the recent death of Ertugrul Osman, heir to the Ottoman throne and successor to the last Caliph, could not be more shocking. Islamists in kaftans and long beards gathered in Istanbul two weeks ago to bury the titular head of the world Muslim community. He was a scotc

Tony Blair: China's New Cultural Revolution

[Mr. Blair was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1997-2007.] Yesterday, just a week after the 60th anniversary celebrations of the People's Republic, China kicked off its first World Media Summit. It shows how far China has come—and how far it has to go. First, understand the problem. We all know China is a nation of 1.3 billion people, but that is just a statistic. Think of how we regard the United States—how different California is from Ohio, for example. Then quad

Sergey Brin: A Library to Last Forever

[Sergey Brin is the co-founder and technology president of Google.] “THE fundamental reasons why the electric car has not attained the popularity it deserves are (1) The failure of the manufacturers to properly educate the general public regarding the wonderful utility of the electric; (2) The failure of [power companies] to make it easy to own and operate the electric by an adequate distribution of charging and boosting stations. The early electrics of limited speed, range and util

Carlo Strenger: Ahmadinejad, Netanyahu and the Holocaust: The ethics of memory

[Professor Carlo Strenger was born in Basel, Switzerland, trained in philosophy and psychology and received his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He currently teaches at the psychology department of Tel Aviv University, a member of the Institute of Existential Psychoanalysis, Zurich and of the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism of the World Federation of Scientists.] When the German Foreign minister recently called Ahmadinejad a shame to his own country and people, h

Scott Whitlock: Newsweek Seriously Asks: 'Was Russia Better Off Red?'

[Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center.] Proving yet again how out of touch the publication can be, the October 12 issue of Newsweek seriously asked the question: "Was Russia Better Off Red?" The "Back Story" page of the magazine featured a graphic comparing life under communism to now and bizarrely asserted: "Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has seen an increase in oligarchs and Louis Vuitton outlets. But by ma

WSJ Editorial: The authors of the 2007 Iran NIE have some explaining to do

When it comes to politicized intelligence in the Bush years, the critics may finally have a point. Perhaps the work of America's intelligence agencies was manipulated to suit the convenience of a small group of willful officials, intent on getting their way against the better judgment of their colleagues. Except the intelligence was about Iran, not Iraq, and the manipulators weren't conniving neocons but rather the Administration's internal critics on the left. That's o

Mehdi Hasan: Barack W Bush ... Change we can't believe in

[Mehdi Hasan is senior editor (politics) of the New Statesman.] On a cold February morning, less than three weeks after Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States, a lawyer from the department of justice stood up in a San Francisco courtroom to defend the government from accusations of torture. Five detainees, including the British resident Binyam Mohamed, had filed a suit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc, a subsidiary of Boeing, for its alleged role in &quo

Ira Chernus: Obama Trapped Behind Wall of Mideast Containment

[Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Apocalypse Management: Eisenhower and the Discourse of National Insecurity. Read more of his writing on Israel, Palestine, and American Jews on his blog.] Damn the Iranians and full speed ahead. That was the U.S. policy in the Middle East. But the waters have proved treacherous, with torpedoes everywhere. Despite an initial hopeful sit-down with Iranian negotiators, this won't be th

Malou Innocent: Defining Victory to Win a War

[Malou Innocent is a foreign-policy analyst at the Cato Institute and the lead author of the Cato white paper "Escaping the 'Graveyard of Empires': A Strategy to Exit Afghanistan." Jason Reich is an Israeli journalist specializing in security and defense issues. He has just returned from a six-week embed with U.S. forces in Afghanistan.] After nearly a decade at war in Afghanistan, the United States still has not defined the terms of the conflict. Seven months after Presid

Mark Thompson: Eight Years in Afghanistan: Can the U.S. Still Win?

[Mark Thompson is an investigative reporter.] President George W. Bush, eight years ago today, in his first press conference after launching the Afghan war, conceded he didn't know when the conflict would end. "People often ask me, 'How long will this last?' " he said 96 hours after the invasion began. "It may happen tomorrow, it may happen a month from now, it may take a year or two, but we will prevail." Three weeks into the war, New York Times reporter R.W. Ap

Michael B. Oren: Why the Holocaust Still Matters

[Michael B. Oren is an Israeli scholar, historian, author, now Israeli ambassador to the United States.] ... Detractors of Netanyahu alleged that, by asserting the reality of the Holocaust, he stooped to Ahmadinejad's level--worse, that he granted credibility to the Iranian thug by debating him over a universally accepted truth. “If 64 years after World War II concluded with Hitler’s fall … the debate on the reality of the Holocaust has reached the UN General Assembly,” Benn wrote,

Michael Rubin: Don't Sacrifice Human Rights for Iran Diplomacy

[Michael Rubin, a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School.] Iranians who took to the streets this summer to protest electoral fraud failed to win a new election. But they nevertheless returned concerns about the Islamic republic's human rights record to the international stage. On June 20, U.S. President Barack Obama declared: "The Iranian governmen

Ted Cruz and Kelly Shackelford: War Memorials and the Constitution

[Messrs. Cruz and Shackelford represent the Veterans of Foreign Wars, The American Legion, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, and the American Ex-Prisoners of War as amici curiae in Salazar v. Buono.] At Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., the Argonne Cross was erected to honor our fallen World War I soldiers. If you stand at the foot of that memorial, you cannot help but be moved by the sacrifices so many brave souls have made for our nation... ...

Peter Beinart: Bury the Vietnam Analogy

[Peter Beinart, Senior Political Writer for The Daily Beast, is a Professor of Journalism and Political Science at City University of New York and a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation.] “Those who can remember the past,” Arthur Schlesinger once wrote, turning George Santayana on his head, “are condemned to repeat it.” Maybe someone should staple that to the computers at The New York Times. In recent weeks, with Barack Obama rethinking his Afghan policy, the Tim

Carsten Volkery: Will Blair Become Europe's First President?

[Carsten Volkery is a writer for the German publication, Der Spiegel] After Ireland's Yes vote on the Lisbon Treaty, many Britons see their former Prime Minister Tony Blair as a shoe-in to become the first president of the EU. But his appointment is far from certain. There are deep misgivings across the EU about handing the top job to the old friend of George W. Bush."A spectre is haunting Europe," wrote London Mayor Boris Johnson in his column in the Daily Telegraph thi

Brent Baker: Couric Relies on Albright to Blame Obama's Afghanistan Conundrum on Bush

[Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center] On Monday's CBS Evening News, Katie Couric delivered a “How We Got Here” review of Afghanistan after eight years of U.S. troops on the ground, culminating with Couric conveying as fact -- based on the view of Clinton administration Secretary of State Madeleine Albright -- the relatively simplistic liberal critique of how Iraq distracted the U.S. from the more important battle in Afghanistan.

Tomás R. Jiménez: Mexican-Americans have deep U.S. ties

[Tomás R. Jiménez is an assistant professor of sociology at Stanford University and an Irvine Fellow at the New America Foundation. He is also author of the forthcoming book, "Replenished Ethnicity: Mexican Americans, Immigration, and Identity" (University of California Press).] Just about any celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 - October 15) will highlight the diversity among Hispanics. They come from different parts of the Spanish-speaking w