Inside the Beltway

Creating Osama

Wonder what some in the Middle East are saying about America?

We’ve learned that a special team from the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) will begin monitoring 18 to 20 Arabic TV stations every day, translating in real time and sending clips almost instantaneously to Western news channels.

For instance, if CNN wants to report on an anti-American series aired on Iranian television, the network can obtain translated clips easily, something previously unheard of.

“We’ve informally started the project and found a bunch of interesting clips,” MEMRI’s Elliot Zweig tells this column. “Among them is an interview on Al Arabiya with a Lebanese member of parliament, Walid Jumblatt, who accuses U.S. intelligence of being behind 9/11 and controlling Osama bin Laden.”

Said Mr. Jumblatt: “Who invented Osama bin Laden? The Americans, the CIA invented him … I am of the opinion that somewhere, someplace, there is an intelligence agency profiting from al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.”

“Another great clip we’ve got is from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV, of an 8-year-old girl yelling for Muslims to open the gates of jihad,” Mr. Zweig said. “It’s quite disturbing stuff, seeing it from a child.”

Founded in early 1998, MEMRI provides translations of Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew media, as well as analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural and religious trends in the Middle East. Three members on MEMRI’s board include former Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke, former CIA Director James Woolsey and former Education Secretary William Bennett.

Campus kooks

As the school year winds down, parents of college students may wonder what they are getting in return for all that tuition money. One answer: Student newspapers that ridicule American soldiers killed in combat.

University of Massachusetts graduate student Rene Gonzalez wrote in the campus newspaper, the Daily Collegian, that Cpl. Pat Tillman — the former NFL star who joined the Army Rangers and was killed in combat in Afghanistan — was an “idiot” who “had it coming.”

“You know he was a real Rambo, who wanted to be in the ’real’ thick of things,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “I could tell he was that type of macho guy, from his scowling, beefy face on the CNN pictures. Well, he got his wish.”

“Americans automatically knee-jerk into hero worship” of soldiers like Cpl. Tillman because they are “unable to admit the stupidity of both the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars,” Mr. Gonzalez said. The former football player was posthumously promoted yesterday from specialist to corporal.

“However, in my neighborhood in Puerto Rico, Tillman would have been called … an idiot. Tillman, in the absurd belief that he was defending or serving his all-powerful country … decided to give up a comfortable life to place himself in a combat situation that cost him his life. … This was a ’G.I. Joe’ guy who got what was coming to him. That was not heroism, it was prophetic idiocy.”

In December, Mr. Gonzalez had distinguished himself by comparing the United States to Nazi Germany and likening President Bush to Hitler. Full-time tuition at UMass is about $16,000 a year for out-of-state students.

Grit your teeth

When President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were testifying yesterday in a closed-door Oval Office meeting with September 11 commission members — its mandate: to provide a “full and complete accounting” of the terrorist attacks — the National World War II Memorial opened on the Mall.

What better day to call on an “old World War II Marine” who provides unique observations about intelligence failures during that war and the war in Iraq today.

“When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, everyone understood that serious blunders on our part had contributed to the Japanese success,” says John K. McLean of Alexandria. Yet “unlike today, an inquiry into the disaster was conducted in private and the results not made public until after the end of the war, so as to avoid a severe distraction to the war effort and encouragement to the enemy.

“Were there intelligence failures? Yes, plenty. The unknown underwater obstacles at Tarawa and the failure to detect the German buildup that led to the Battle of the Bulge in Europe, to name a couple,” he says.

“Prior to our attack on Iwo Jima, I was told to expect no more than 13,000 Japanese defenders and a three- to five-day operation. There were actually 23,000 Japanese troops, and the operation lasted five weeks with unexpectedly heavy Marine casualties, the last pocket being our regimental zone of responsibility.”

But, the veteran says, “Not one Marine returned home to denounce the war, accuse fellow Marines of massive atrocities, and attack the president for bad intelligence and lying to the people. We just gritted our teeth and finished the job. …

“The behavior of the Democrat opposition today is disgraceful and presents to the world a spectacle of national disunity that gives aid and comfort to our enemies. It ought to be an affront to every patriotic American.”

• John McCaslin, whose column is nationally syndicated, can be reached at 202/636-3284 or jmccaslin@washingtontimes.com.