Michael J. Totten's Blog, page 50

Thanks to You All

I am pleased and astonished to announce that I reached my fundraising goal for my upcoming trip to Libya with my Kickstarter project in less than 24 hours. Kickstarter is a much more effective fundraising tool than PayPal. I never raised as much for a trip abroad the old way. Never.

I owe every donor a personal thank-you, I owe some of you a public thank-you, and I owe one of you recognition as the official sponsor of my trip for donating a gobsmacking 2,000 dollars, but if it’s okay with ever...

Let's Go to Libya

I just launched a Kickstarter project to raise money for a trip to Libya in December. I’m not asking for donations this time. This time I’m asking for funding and will give something back in return. Check out the project page for all the details.

With Kickstarter, you can see how much money I need and how much I’ve raised. I won’t get any money at all unless the entire project is funded, so please make sure I don’t come up short. You and I both need me back in the field, but alas traveling—esp...

The Israeli Who Sneaked into Syria

My friend and colleague Jonathan Spyer sneaked over the border with the Free Syrian Army to cover the war against Assad from the front lines. He did it twice. And he’s an Israeli.

He has the chops for it. His magnificent first book, The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict, is partly about his experience in South Lebanon, first as a tank operator with the Israel Defense Forces during the war against Hezbollah in 2006, and then again as a journalist the following year. I...

The Most Overrated Intellectual in the World

Sohrab Ahmari at the Wall Street Journal takes a good hard look at Tariq Ramadan’s new book, Islam and the Arab Awakening, and it isn’t pretty. The man Time and Foreign Policy magazines hailed as one of the greatest intellectuals in the entire world is outing himself as a hysterical conspiracy theorist, one whose theories look asinine not only in the West, but in the Middle East, too.

Ramadan is the Swiss-born grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, and he’s a p...

Linkage

I’ll have more long-form material for you shortly. In the meantime, here is some more very short-form material I published over at Instapundit.

CLIFF MAY ON JOURNALISTIC MALPRACTICE and what Ahmadinejad really said at the UN.

THIS IS REALLY GETTING RIDICULOUS: Greece says it will run out of money next month if it doesn’t get yet another bailout.

HMM: The Israeli air force shot down a drone in the southern part of the country near Gaza. No one seems to know where it came from yet, but they're say...

Something to Tide You Over

I’m working on my novel this week, but here are some links to other stories that you might find interesting. (Cross-posted at Instapundit.)

ARMIN ROSEN on Jeffrey Sachs’ African NGO gone awry: “Sachs gives the impression of being unbothered by leaders who steal elections, imprison dissidents, and meddle in their neighbors’ affairs. Just as importantly, these leaders seem unbothered by him. Sachs’s brand of development doesn’t require systemic political reform—just pliant authority figures who...

Around the World

Here are some links to stories around the world. Cross-posted at Instapundit.

WHO SAYS JEWS AND MUSLIMS CAN'T GET ALONG? Azerbaijan, a Muslim country that was once part of the Persian Empire, strike Iranian nuclear weapons facilities.

TOO BAD THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN: Gallup surveyed Libyan public opinion a few months ago and found that 95 percent of respondents wanted the country's militias disarmed at once.

ANOTHER STATE DEPARTMENT SCANDAL: An American lawyer nam...

Give Egypt's Aid Money to Libya

The U.S. Senate voted down a bill this weekend that would have frozen aid money to Pakistan, Egypt and Libya. The bill's sponsor, Republican Sen. Rand Paul, was right that Egypt no longer deserves American aid. But Libya does. Libya needs help, and it needs help right now. Libya should not only continue receiving the aid it's already slated to get from Washington. Libya should also get Egypt's.

Consider how differently the governments in each country have behaved in the last couple of weeks.

Eg...

What a Real Alliance Looks Like

President Barack Obama came under criticism recently for describing Egypt as neither an ally nor an enemy of the United States and then backtracking days later. Most Americans who follow the Middle East and North Africa know perfectly well that Egypt’s relationship with the United States is no longer friendly. After what happened over there during the last couple of weeks, even many Americans who hardly pay any attention at all have figured it out. But it’s not diplomatic for the White House...

Instapunditry

I'm working on a few things at the moment--a novel and an opinion piece about Egypt and Libya. So I'll have more for you here shortly. In the meantime, here are some links I posted over at Instapundit.

LIBYA’S GOVERNMENT announces that all militias will be disbanded. The Supreme Security Council, a quasi-government militia under the command of the ministry of interior, responds by storming the Rixos Hotel, a headquarters of sorts for the new Libyan government.

I’VE NEVER EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT publ...