Notable News

Yes, I’m feeling lazy; so it will be a cut-and-paste day, mostly. First up is the news and Big Media commentary.

• In his perennial quest to improve the English usage of his journalist colleagues in Kenya, the Old Man expounds on the phrase “Young Turks.”

What is not true is that, when you stop being a Young Turk, you become an “Old Turk”.
There is no such thing. The term “Young Turk” describes a political standpoint and movement. It has nothing to do with chronological age or the Turks, the Caucasian people of the Anatolian peninsula. [SNIP]
The term refers to a 19th-century movement of Turks — really young in age — who, after years of study in Western Europe, returned home full of “Enlightenment”, determined to transform their country overnight from feudal despotism to “liberal democracy”.

This was the movement that produced celebrated nationalist Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the military leader who founded the Turkish Republic in 1923 and ruled it till 1938. His revolutionary triumph was what personified the Young Turks fulfilled.

• Rosenberg grand jury testimony is set to become public.

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors have agreed to make public some secret testimony about the biggest spy case of the Cold War.

The government took the unusual position Monday as leading historical groups press for the release of grand jury transcripts in the criminal investigation of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Following their 1951 espionage trial for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, the husband and wife were executed in 1953.

The Rosenberg case has significant historical importance that qualifies it for an exception to grand jury secrecy rules, the office of the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York City said in court papers. [SNIP]

A U.S. District Court judge in New York, Alvin Hellerstein, will have the final say. Vladeck said the historians may seek additional disclosure, leaving it to the judge to sort out disputes that could take months to resolve before any public release.

Under the approach laid out in the government's court papers, transcripts would be released for 35 of the 45 witnesses who testified to the grand jury in the Rosenberg probe. The 35 are dead or consent to disclosing their testimony.

(Thanks to David)

• So what else are we supposed to do, Seymour Hersh? Sit around with our thumb up our collective butt?

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

With the Left’s penchant for “inducing” informants to spill classified information, one wonders how Mr. Hersh knows about all this.

• And the Iraqis are allowing foreign bidding on six new oil fields.

The potential participation of big Western companies like BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell and Total SA in Iraq's oil industry has been criticized in recent weeks following published reports that several were close to signing no-bid contracts with the Iraqi government.

There was an immediate outcry over perceptions that the U.S. did invade Iraq to gain access to its massive oil reserves and there was no announcement of contracts Monday by Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani.
He did, however, name 35 companies that would be qualified to bid on service contracts for the oil fields of Rumeila, Zubair, Qurna West, Maysan, Kirkuk and Bay Hassan.

With the price of gas being what it is, were we to do what we were accused of doing in Iraq—that is, taking out Saddam Hussein and his government to get Iraq’s oil fields for ourselves—it’d be fun to see how the Left would react. Oh they’d howl for a minute, but only so much howling would be heard after the price of gas dropped, say, 75 cents in a day.

Of course we won’t appropriate the oil fields. Will the US get credit from the Left and from international sources for *not* stealing Iraq’s oil? Of course not. But it’s a fool’s errand to look for “credit” from those who hate America.