The Secret of Sherlock Holmes in Lenox

The stage is set at Shakespeare & Company. This is the clever set at their Founder's Theater for the new production which runs thorugh October 28th. (Kevin Sprague photo)


Michael Hammond contributes a new and memorable interpretation of the great detective in the Shakespeare and Company production. (Kevin Sprague photo)


The classic fight to the death between Sherlock Holmes and the evil Moriarity as portrayed in film.


Basil Rathbone is the image of Sherlock Holmes for earlier generations of moviegoers.


Jeremy Brett established a more contemporary Sherlock Holmes in the PBS-Granada series which was written by Jeremy Paul. At the urging of Brett, Paul also wrote the script for "Secret of Sherlock Holmes," creating dialogue directly from the Arthur Conon Doyle canon of books. The London production of this play starring Brett never made it to the USA.


Dave Demke and Michael Hammond as Watson and Holmes have a fireside duel of wits. (Kevin Sprague photo)

The New Production at Shakespeare & Company is great fun and thought provoking. Is the secret really the truth? Or is there more to it than is being said. See the play and decide for yourself. You'll find no spoilers here.

Directed by the very capable Robert Walsh, the Lenox, MA production of this play is the long overdue American premiere, and Sherlockians by the score are making haste to see it. After all, it was originally produced in London's West End in 1988, and after a nearly two decade wait to see this thriller, the chance may never come again in this lifetime.

Read my full review of this show in Berkshire Fine Arts magazine.

Larry Murray's Review

Shakespeare & Company is making a major event out of this premiere, part of the 120 year Celebration of Sherlock Holmes. Information on performances, special events and tickets can be found here:

Secrets of Sherlock

CNAS: Intellectual Support on Foreign Policy for Hillary Rodham Clinton

As to 2008 election, Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most likely to win Democrat nomination for presidential candidate. In a previous post, “Democrats Need to Act beyond Defeatism on Iraq”, I quoted a comment by AEI Resident Fellow Thomas Donnelly, saying that a new think tank called the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) will provide intellectual support for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign. Donnelly criticize CNAS “a rather awkward name summons echoes of the Project for a New American Century, well, it is supposed to--has brought together a powerful collection of veterans of the Clinton administration.” Let’s have a brief look at the webpage of CNAS.

This think tank was founded by Kurt Campbell, current CEO, and Michèl Flournoy, current president. Both are educated at Oxford University (Campbell received BA from UC San Diego, certificate from the University of Erevan in USSR, and D Phil from Oxford; Flourny received BA from Harvard, and M. Litt from Oxford). This background could have tied them with the Clinton administration, as there were some Rhodes Scholars in this cabinet including President Bill Clinton himself, Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott.

The mission of CNAS is mentioned in Co-Founder’s Forum and the Introductory Video. In view of new security challenges in the post 9-11 era, both founders describe their missions as the following.

The CNAS mandate is to help identify the key challenges confronting this generation of Americans in the foreign policy and national security arena, and to help shape thinking about the governance choices for dealing with these concerns. We aspire to transcend the current campaign mode that permeates many Washington policy shops and political discussions to consider the real and enduring challenges and opportunities facing the nation.

CNAS states that they are ready to provide ideas for any administration from 2009 onwards, regardless of the party. However, it is noticeable that CNAS explores some different approaches in US foreign policy from those of the Bush administration. Regarding personal contacts, this think tank develops ties with liberal Republicans who do not necessarily share national security visions with the current administration. Also, in terms of policy agendas, CNAS tackles new issues.

Leading Republicans like Senator Chuck Hagel and Senator Richard Lugar are associated with CNAS. Particularly, Senator Hagel has been a vocal critic to President George W. Bush’s Iraq policy. It is quite noteworthy that Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage who served the Bush administration joins the Board of Directors along with Clinton cabinet members such as Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Former Secretary of Defense William Perry. Quite importantly, Armitage was one of signatories to launch PNAC, which was co-founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan: leading proponents of the Iraq War. This implies that CNAS is more suitable for a centrist like Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton than other Democrat candidates like Senator Barak Obama, Former Senator John Edwards, and New Mexican Governor Bill Richardson.

CNAS held its official launch on June 27 this year at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, DC. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chuck Hagel delivered keynote addresses. This illustrates close relationship with Hilary Clinton and bipartisan nature of CNAS.

Among many research subjects, key issues at CNAS are the Iraq problem and transformation of US military forces. Asia Initiative ’09 is another important project, which explores further cooperation between the United States and Asia, beyond preoccupation with Iraq. Quite importantly, CNAS tackles some issues which were not given sufficient consideration by the Bush administration, such as climate change and international refugee problem.

Among those subjects, Iraq is the most crucial one. The most recent report on Iraq, entitled “Measuring Progress in Iraq”, published on August 30 by Assistant Professor Colin Kahl of Georgetown University, recommends that the surge should end no later than the spring of 2008. Also, this report says that successful transition of power from US military to the Iraq Security Forces is the key to make some gains meaningful and sustainable in the long run.

However, since the Center for a New American Security is a small think tank, some critical issues to US foreign policy are not discussed sufficiently. Though active commitment to Asia is mentioned, CNAS has not published a policy brief on North Korea. Alliance with Western industrialized nations like Europe, Japan, and Australia, is no less important than ever in the global war on terrorism. Democracy promotion has been a key agenda in US foreign policy, and the Bush administration addresses its preeminence for US and global security. However, CNAS has no project on this issue.

Whichever party wins 2008 election, CNAS will address new agendas which current administration does not explore enough. The Center has to spend sufficient energy on some issues with which the Bush cabinet is struggling. At this stage, it is important to watch how this new think tank provides intellectual support for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mass MoCA turns to Jenny Holzer's "Projections"

Some of Holzer's earlier work.

By the time it opens on November 17 Jenny Holzer's Gallery 5 Installation Projections will have replaced bad boy Buchel as Topic #1 among Mass MoCA watchers.

For thirty years, Jenny Holzer has used public places and great institutions as the venues for her work, including the Venice Biennale, the Reichstag, and the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao. Her medium is virtually anything. Her words have been previously cast in bronze, carved in stone, projected on a building and drawn on a T-shirt. It seems that wherever there is a surface, Jenny has words to provoke, prod and fill it. And though the casual observer may see the words as a graphic that fills a void, those who who think about it will enjoy the clever insights they reveal about the human condition.

Projections will use MASS MOCA’s massive Building 5 as a stage for her first interior light projections in the United States. She will also exhibit a new series of paintings shown, in part, at the 2007 Venice Biennale. She has an impressive collection of artistis credentials, but it is her work, and its pollitical, sociological and conceptual content that matters.

In a serendipitous coincidence, this artist who was born in Ohio and trained at RISD, MFA and the Whitney, operated out of New York and travelled the world, finally settling into Hoosick Falls where she continues her pioneering work.

More background is at Wiki Profile

Broadway could go dark next week

The Great White Way could go dark Monday, October 1, if the League of American Theaters and Producers carries out its threats to the stagehands union. One producer I know thinks there is a 50-50 chance that rather than a settlement being reached, the owners will shut down their shows and try to force the union's hand.

Each side has a kitty to help them through this battle. The producers have $20 million, and the union has much less, just $4 million stashed away. But the disparity in funds is not as lopsided as it appears. The unions have only 2,100 members, of which only 350 to 500 are working on Broadway at any given time. The League's members need huge amounts to keep borderline shows from closing. Its funds will disappear at a much faster rate.

The battle is the usual business vs. workers contratemps. The Producers want work rules changed, like being able to hire stagehands for a day or two during the "load-in" of a show. The union wants a level to be maintained for the whole load in period whcih can take a week or more, regardless of whether the stagehands are needed for the whole period. There are other issues, too.

Stagehands earn between $1,200 to more than $1,600 a week on average, but with overtime and premium rates, it is not unusual for a stagehand to take home more than $100,000 a year.



There hasn't been a strike on Broadway for four years, since the musicians struck, and it is surprising there are not more considering that there are more unions in a theater than on a typical construction site.

The union isn't saying anything to the reporters, but back in July, James J. Claffey, the president of Local One, said the union would not change work rules without getting something in return. On the other side, the League sent out e-mails warning the theater owners and producers not to speak to the media about the negotiations.

It is important to note that we are talking about a "lockout" here, not a "strike" since it would be the producers, not the stagehands, who would dim the lights. October is a slower month than the holidays when business booms. Even so, seven shows are scheduled to begin previews next month. One, “Young Frankenstein,” is playing in a nonleague theater, and would probably open no matter what. Likewise, Disney’s New Amsterdam theater and the four nonprofit Broadway theaters would not be included in a lockout.

But oldtimers like me are willing to bet there is lots of activity behind the scenes. How likely is it that Mayor Bloomberg is going to let an industry that generates almost $1 billion a year for the city to close down. Without shows, there is no audience and that means no business for restaurants, hotels, ticket brokers and parking lots.

Word of this pending strike has been limited as the industry has tried to keep a lid on the pending disaster, Nobody wants ticket sales to stop, hotel reservations to be cancelled, and tourism to drop during a peak time of year.

Negotiations are still going on, but it is late in the third act. Here's hoping there is a happy ending!

UPDATE AS OF OCT. 2:

The parties have agreed to extend the deadline in order to continue negotiations today, and on Thursday of this week. It is generally agreed that if a strike were called, it wouldn't be until November, but that if talks broke down, the producers might call for an immediate lockout to force the issue before the lucrative high season.

Buchel offers Mass MoCA a parting gift

Photoshopped image by Larry Murray

Lost in all the commotion over the decision to disassemble the never completed Training Ground for Democracy exhibit was a telegram that Christoph Buchel sent the Boston Globe. In it..."he offered to donate a permanent installation that would not cost anything to mount. He concluded the e-email with an image of the plan, a tweak of the museum's rooftop signs to spell out "Mass CoMA."

The Globe article by Goeff Edgers also carried details the local newspapers in the Berkshires avoided mentioning, or were too lazy to dig for. For example, it will cost the museum another $40,000 to remove and dispose of the remains, though not all of it will end up in the dump. A mile of cinder blocks, a house trailer, and numerous other items have some value which they may recoup, or donate to worthy causes. The MoCA Director, Joe Thompson is quoted as saying he will try "to find good places for those. Clothes, stretchers, beds, file cabinets. In some ways, what we have is a vast recycling effort."

Globe story

The Weekly Berkshire Advocate, a shadow of its former sometimes feisty self, relegated a short mention to the back third of the paper, finding recipes and church suppers to be of more importance. Sometimes they just don't understand what is news and what is filler. Boring is as boring does. Their idea of controversy is publishing Jack Murphy's homophobic rants in their letters to the editor column. Not once, but over and over. Once was mroe than enough.

Anyway, Joe, I still think that "what we have" is the makings of a vast and newsworthy Tag Sale. Who says you couldn't lay it all out in the parking lot in roughly the same order it was inside and let people look it over?

Wink, wink.

Au Revoir, Marcel Marceau

Marcel Marceau has left us, and some of us had the pleasure of knowing him as a person as well as a performer. My visits to Av. Montaigne, 15 have come to an end. He was the world's greatest mime, but my how he could chatter on! I'll never forget the day he paid a surprise visit to Boston's little Pocket Mime Theatre which once performed in a candy box theatre in the Church of the Covenant, where Gallery Naga is now located. He delighted J Tormey, Kate Bentley, Michael Atwell and director Annegret Reimer, and made their years of work for little compensaton worthwhile. Over the course of a year, more people saw Pocket Mime than Marcel Marceau, but who is counting anymore! I miss those days, too. The Boston Repertory Theater was just down the street, and the wonderful actor David Morse (who played Wiley Fox in "The Little Prince") is the only one I see still working.

Mass MoCA vs. Christoph Buchel

It's been nine months of uncertainty but finally the spendthrift Christoph Buchel is about to have his garbage dump of an installation hauled off to be disposed of forever. About time. This uber genius is just a hoarder in artist's clothing and gives contemporary artists - already hard pressed for respect - a bad name.

In case you haven't heard, Buchel's "Training Ground for Democracy" was a pretty monumental undertaking, scheduled to have filled the football field sized Gallery 5 at the Massachusetts Museum of Contermporary Art (Mass MoCA) in North Adams, MA where I live. It was to be Buchel's first major American museum work, and by December when he walked off the site, it had already included a two story house, an oil tanker, mobile home, and sixteen truckloads of donations from resideents of North Adams to fill the space.

But Buchel appears to have been stymied by the size of the place, and asked for a full sized and burned out hulk of a 727 plane to fill some of the space. Apparently even adding the defunct North Adams Cinema from Route 8 was not nearly enough to fill the gaping yaw of the gallery. After making many more outrageous demands, the museum said enough and Buchel walked off the job, and conducted negotiations through his lawyers, tying up the site well into its scheduled run. The public never got to see anything.

The exhibition was scheduled to cost $160,000, the artist spent twice that, some $300,000 and Mass MoCA even offered another $100,000 in hopes it might be finished but the artist was adament that there could be no ceiling, no limit to his demands, no discussion, no deal. No shit.

Eventually this all ended up in court, as Rinker Buck from the Hartford Courant so ably reported at:

Rinker's story

Now the museum has announced that the entire mess is to be dismantled over the next five weeks and eventually there will be a forum, seminar, or some such event to discuss everything that happened. I hope Buchel attends.

The Museum has a blog that explains it all (from their perspective, of course.)

MoCA Blog

My own reaction to the unraveling is that the museum should move everything out to the parking lot and have a giant tag sale. They would at least recoup some of the expenses, and maybe the North Adams folks could purchase back their donations.

1-11 Shock: Reagan Diplomacy Needed against China’s Ambition in the Space

China’ success in anti-satellite weapon test on January 11 this year poses no less serious threat to the United States and its allies in East Asia than 9-11. Ashley J. Tellis, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that the United States should develop both offensive and defensive space weapons in order to curb Chinese ambition to undermine American predominance in the space. I would like to talk about his recent policy brief, entitled “Punching the US Military’s ‘Soft Ribs’: China’s Anti-satellite Weapon Test in Strategic Perspective”, released in June this year.

On 1-11, China launched a medium range missile from Xichang space facility in Sichuan Province, which was fired at an aging Chinese weather satellite. The missile test chilled to the spine of American policymakers, because the success of this test implied that China was able to cut off space based communication systems of US forces. Ashley Tellis refutes dovish idea that the United States make a deal on arms control in the space with China immediately.

First, Tellis explains strategic logic of Chinese counterspace program. Since remarkable success of US armed forces in Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War, Chinese strategists had begun to explore how to defeat far superior US conventional forces by attacking American space based facilities. American satellites play the key role in C3 (command, control, and communication) systems, and they are vital for military intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Tellis says “China understands that its best chance of successfully countering US military power lies in being able to attack America’s relatively vulnerable eyes, ears, and voice.” He insists that China as a rising power will not recognize an arms control regime in the space, which could strengthen its competitors. In other words, it is quite unlikely that China be willing to negotiate space arms control at this stage.

Also, Ashley Tellis categorizes China’s counterspace programs against US forces. These programs include from space object surveillance and identification systems to attack weapons. In accordance with the altitude of orbits, China thinks of using specific ASAT (anti-satellite) weapons. Ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and laser beams are designed for lower orbit satellites. Electronic wave attacks would be applied for medium and higher orbit satellites. China even considers attacking US facilities on the Earth which transmit information from space based satellites to American strategists.

In conclusion, Ashley Tellis mentions three implications of China’s space programs, and makes policy recommendations. To begin with, Tellis points out that China invests in counterspace projects because of strategic necessity. It is not willing to conclude arms control agreement with the United States unless one of the following conditions is satisfied.

(1) China can defeat the United States despite America’s privilege for access to the space.
(2) China’s investments in counter space programs yields less return because of technological superiority of the Unites States nullify Chinese efforts.
(3) Chinese space projects provoke offensive counterspace programs of the United States, and the return of R&D exceeds the threat posed by America.

Second, Tellis warns that US supremacy in the space is endangered due to ASAT weapon test success of China. He recommends that the United States improve its ability to identify and assess all orbiting objects, and to anticipate the sources and the capacity for counterspace attacks.

Finally, Tellis warns of s “Space Pear Harbor” in case of crisis over the Taiwan Strait. The United States may have to consider preemptive attacks or horizontal escalation on the Chinese mainland, if it happens before American space facilities become survivable from surprise attacks by China. Ashley Tellis advocates the United States build up offense and defense military power in the space, instead of negotiating for arms control arrangements that are doomed to failure.

Tellis’ arguments sound rational for me. In the past, President Ronald Reagan launched SDI project in order to make the Soviet Union give up expanding its nuclear arsenals, and talk on arms reduction with the United States. American Siegfried must stop dangerous ambition of the Chinese Dragon like this way.

Is the UN More Legitimate than the US?

It is 9-11 today, which lead the United States to attack Afghanistan and Iraq. There has been widespread criticism to American strike against Iraq, because it is not approved by the UN Security Council. But I must ask this question. Is the United Nations more trustworthy than the United States? In addition, I have to mention that the United Nations is in no position of supervising any sovereign states. It is an independent nation, particularly a liberal democracy that can make a decision for world peace.

Then, why do people regard the United Nations as the anchor of peace and stability of the world? Its decision making system is not clear, and far from accountable. Rogue states and failed nations are involved in this process. There are no organizations to check and balance elitist bureaucrats. Their inefficiency and corruption are too well known. More importantly, while close ties between the United Nations and the global civil societies are supposed to make global governance democratic, this dark connection marginalizes the public throughout the world. There is no reason to rely on UN mandates when it is necessary to defeat grave threats like Saddam Hussein and other axis of evil.

Despite some drawbacks as I mentioned above, the United Nations is expected to play the key role to assure multilateral diplomacy successful. Robert Kagan summarizes European view to US-UN relations as the following.

From the European perspective, the United States may be a relatively benign hegemon, but insofar as its actions delay the arrival of a world order more conductive to weaker powers, it is objectively dangerous. This is one reason why in recent years a principal objective of European foreign policy has become, as one of European observer puts it, the “multilateralising” of the United States. It is why Europeans insist that the United States act only with the approval of the UN Security Council. (Of Paradise and Power, p. 40; Originally from “Unilateral America, Light Weight Europe”, working paper, Centre for European Reform, February 2001 by Steven Everts)

In reality, foreign intervention without UN approval has been necessary to maintain a peaceful world order. In Kosovo, NATO started bombing on March 24 in 1999, without approval of the UN Security Council. Britain intervened to Sierra Leone unilaterally in 2000. Thanks to successful mission, Tony Blair “Gets Hero’s Welcome in Sierra Leone” (Christian Science Monitor, June 1, 2007) on his final trip as the prime minister. It is utterly strange that global public opinion is extremely critical to US attack against Saddam Hussein. Quite interestingly, some antiwar global civil societies courted the United States to intervene into Myanmar and Liberia right after the overthrow of the Ba’athist regime in Iraq. What are they?

Actually, the United Nations and the global civil societies do not necessarily act on behalf of universal humanitarianism. It is quite well known that UN bureaucracy and multinational NGOs constitute an exclusive circle for decision making. Also, they cloud out local civil societies quite often. The UN-multinational NGO axis lacks accountability to the global public.

Dark connections between the United Nations and multinational NGOs nurture dreadful corruption. Joseph Lonconte and Nile Gardiner, Research Fellows at the Heritage Foundation, describes UN-NGO relations as the following.

Indeed, most of the U.N.’s favorite NGOs would use international rulings to overturn democratic protections in their home countries. The U.N.’s vision of civil society, in other words, is a penumbra of activist groups that simply endorse its agenda of centralized economies, large welfare states, and massive social engineering. Indeed, most of the U.N.’s favorite NGOs would use international rulings to overturn democratic protections in their home countries. The U.N.’s vision of civil society, in other words, is a penumbra of activist groups that simply endorse its agenda of centralized economies, large welfare states, and massive social engineering. (“Human Rights Failure”, National Review Online; September 28, 2005)

Also, they criticize sex scandals in Sudan and West Africa by UN and NGO staff.

Furthermore, the Oil for Food scandal symbolizes corruption of UN bureaucratic system. (“Oil for Food Scandal Draws Scrutiny to UN”, Fox News, September 20, 2004)

The veto of Russia and China at the Security Council, which blocks efficient decision making, makes UN incompetence even more serious.

Leading liberal democracies, notably the United States, Britain, and NATO can act more quickly and effectively to curb imminent threats than the United Nations. NATO will be globalized when Japan and Australia join. Then, UN mandates will be less important for international security.

Media and Jurists’ Humiliation to the Iraq War and the War on Terror

Some reports on Iraq are released these days. NIE report mentions some progress, while GAO report presents pessimistic viewpoints. It is commonly understood that Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is to be blamed for strategic mistakes. But liberal media and lawyers are also responsible for current hardship in Iraq. These agitators must be well aware of negative consequences of their work. As they respond to accidents in Iraq and treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo camp outrageously, terrorists make use of such tumults. For terrorists, particularly jihadists, liberal upheavals are endowments from Allah to humiliate America by all means.

One of my blog friends Mike Ross wrote some interesting posts on his blog, entitled “Conservatism”, which is published in Japanese. He is a diehard conservative American, and holding a Japanese passport as he has been living in Japan for decades.

One of his posts is “A Caricature of the Iraq War”, in which he comments briefly about a cartoon in Town Hall. See the picture above. As he mentions in this post, the media are too happy to find negative stories in Iraq, in order to blame America. In the other post on the same August 27, entitled “The War on Terror Is beyond Judicial Authority”, Mike criticizes vehemently that liberals are wrong to insist that terrorist prisoners at Guantánamo must be treated as civil criminals such as murderers and robbers. He is right. If terrorists were treated as civil criminals and easily released from the prison through normal legal procedure, they would repeat mass murder and destruction.

The threat of rogue leaders and terrorists is so grave that they must be treated completely different from good citizens like us. When I appeared in an NHK TV forum about Japanese pacifist constitution on August 15, Professor Setsu Kobayashi of Keio University and an antiwar activist Shigemitsu Hisamatsu blamed US attack on Iraq by quoting international law. I argued against them based on the logic of Hobbesian and Kantian world by Robert Kagan. However, the moderator did not give me enough opportunity to refute their egg-headed legalism.

Certainly, Setsu Kobayashi is a leading expert on Japanese constitution. But I have to mention an important point. However finesse those liberals’ arguments may be, they miss the vital point. Law protects our freedom, but not terrorists’ and rogues’. It is extremely regrettable that liberals like Professor Kobayashi put the cart before the horse. Japanese SF hero Kamen Rider fights against Shocker, an army of super villains, in order to protect freedom of human beings. But liberal extremist lawyers like Setsu Kobayashi fight against human beings, in order to protect Shocker’s freedom.

Why the media and lawyers are so happy to shame American hegemony in the world? Apparently, the world is better off when America defeats rogues and terrorists unabashedly. Europeans and Japanese have common interests with Americans. As I mentioned in a previous post, “Is Middle East Democratization a Neocon Plot?”, Europeans are tackling for Middle East reform. Japanese such as Former Foreign Minister Taro Aso, also advocate democratization throughout East Asia. Just as Josef Joffe who is an adjunct professor at Stanford University points out, victory in Iraq is the key to success in the War on Terror and global democratization (“If Iraq Falls”, Wall Street Journal、August 27). Despite this, liberal media and lawyers are extremely joyous when they find policy errors in Iraq and the War on Terror. Moreover, they defend “human rights” of terrorists at Guantánamo.

In my view, crooked pride and elitism of liberal media and lawyers lead them to help our enemy. Those media and lawyers take pride in their resourcefulness to criticize the authority. Since America is the hegemonic state, any US president is the easiest target for their attack. Also, their crooked pride lies in their “privilege” to glorify their career through blaming leaders. Although liberal media and lawyers disguise themselves acting on behalf of general public, these elitists look down on grassroots deep in their heart.

Regarding media response to the Iraq War, I would like to mention some articles written by experts at the American Enterprise Institute. In a pervious post, entitled “Democrats Need to Act beyond Defeatism on Iraq”, I quoted essays by Michael Barone and Thomas Donnelly. Both resident scholars point out that party politics plays an important role in the Iraq debate. In addition, I have to mention another article by Thomas Donnelley and an article by Frederick Kagan, in order to understand how media portrayal of the war misleads the public. In an article “NBC's Body Armor Embarrassment” in the Daily Standard on June 20, Donnelly concludes as the following.

The press and the leadership of the Democratic Party, in the throes of an extended Vietnam flashback, have decided the war is lost. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid even thinks he knows what's going on in Baghdad better than does Gen. David Petraeus, the commander on the scene. But the media and the Democrats still fear that their defeatist attitudes may alienate people in uniform, or Americans more broadly. Thus the need to cast soldiers as victims. The only victim in the body army story, though, is the truth.

Frederick Kagan contributed “Misunderstanding the Surge” to the Daily Standard on June 5, in which points out misreport by the New York Times due to poor understanding of situation in Iraq. According to Kagan, the New York Times failed to discern former chief commander General George Casey’s strategy from current chief commander General David Petraeus’ strategy when their staff published an article “Surge Has Failed” on June 4. General Casey’s plan was based on 2003 assumption, which had been focusing on transitioning security responsibility to the Iraqi forces. In order to curb sectarian conflicts in Iraq, the Bush administration decided to appoint new commander General Petraeus, and change the strategy. The New York Times evaluated the consequence of surge based on former commander’s plan. In fact, the surge has stated when new commander reviewed trials and errors of his predecessor to execute new strategy announced on January 10 by President George W. Bush. Kagan said it is necessary to wait and see the consequence of surge by September, and strategists such as Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution admit some progress in the war in August.

I have talked about the media, and I need to explore further sources to denounce arrogant and egg headed legalists. Why are these liberal extremist elitists so pleased to blame the White House? Frederick Kagan explains such psychology in his conclusion.

There will be many difficult months to come, as our enemies attempt not only to make the strategy fail, but to convince Americans and Iraqis that it will fail. ……. The New York Times wrongly judges the current commanders by their predecessors' expectations. And it wrongly presents their efforts to solve legacy problems as evidence that the current effort has failed. It may be emotionally easier for some simply to convince themselves that the U.S. has already failed in Iraq. But success remains possible if we have the will to try to achieve it.

Any kind of extralegal activities are legitimate in both wars because the nature of enemies is completely different from those in traditional wars. It is utterly wrong to blame this. Liberal extremist Brahmins, stop helping our enemies! They are overjoyed when Brahmins distort our public opinion. Is there any ways to keep these nuisances silent? They are much more to be blamed than Donald Rumsfeld!