The furor over the Saturday night train crash last weekend in eastern China that killed at least 39 people and injured at least 192 has left the Chinese government scrambling to control public reaction. But its efforts may be doing the ruling Communist party more harm than good. Here's a roundup of some of the most interesting bits coming out about the crash:

Official reports from earlier this week said the crash was caused by a lightning strike. Today, however, the state-affiliated Xinhua News Agency is reporting testimony from the head of the Shanghai Railway Bureau at a meeting of the central government's State Council saying that the blame lies with design flaws in the railway's signaling system. The revelation confirms questions aired publicly by a number of Chinese railway experts wondering why safety mechanisms didn't kick in after the lightning strike to avert disaster (Caixin, Wall Street Journal).

Meanwhile, five days after the crash, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao finally made a public appearance today in Wenzhou to address the disaster. He blamed his earlier absence on an illness, which knocked him out of action for the last eleven days. His explanation didn't sit well with a number of users of the popular Chinese microblogging site, Weibo, who circulated official press photos showing Wen up and about with visiting state leaders between July 18 and July 24. But the confusion may boil down to a simple reporting error; the original Xinhua report appears to have misquoted Wen in saying that he had been in the hospital, while the premier said only that he was sick and in bed.

Whatever the reason for Wen's absence, his appearance means that the central government is taking seriously the crash -- and not a moment too soon. The Ministry of Railways (MOR) has come under fire from citizens, journalists, and even fellow government officials for its handling of the crisis. At a press conference on Monday, MOR spokesman Wang Yongping elicited howls from journalists with his efforts to explain why initial state reports about the cleanup were proven false (see item #13). Meanwhile, stories from the Wenzhou City News and the Beijing News describe how Wenzhou officials clashed with MOR officials over cleanup at the crash site. One local security official told the City News how he disobeyed orders on Sunday afternoon to bury the trains (translation by China-watching blog Shanghaiist):

Read on

Today's proceedings were interrupted for ten minutes after a man who was sitting in the fourth row of the audience "calmly walked up" to Rupert Murdoch and splattered him with a foam pie, yelling "Greedy."

Murdoch's wife Wendi leaped up and attacked the man. One Guardian reporter in the room tweeted: "Wendi can throw quite a punch."

She is the woman in the pinkish jacket in the below video who is leaping over other people to intersect the attacker:

On Twitter, a self-described anarchist, activist, and comedian who goes by Johnnie Marbles is claiming responsibility.

"It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat"

Earlier, he tweeted:

"I'm actually in this committee and can confirm: Murdoch is Mr. Burns."

And:

"Rupert Murdoch appears to be going senile #hackgate"

The man was handcuffed and dragged out of the committee room.

There are only 40 seats in the audience of the committee hearing room where Murdoch is testifying. And the Guardian reporter staking out the scene had this interesting observation this morning:

Harry Evans, the former editor of [the] Times when Murdoch bought it, is second in line [to get in], having flown in from New York yesterday.

Evans, who is married to Tina Brown, was the legendary editor of the Times of London until Murdoch bought the paper in 1981 and forced him out. His 1984 autobiography, Good Times, Bad Times, was a "corrosive attack on Rupert Murdoch," according to the Independent.

He wrote in the book, "I knew that Murdoch issued promises as prudently as the Weimar Republic issued Marks."

And he's called Murdoch elitist, anti-democratic, and ruthless in business.

So, one suspects he's not there to cheer Rupert on.

Since the News of the World scandal went into hyper drive two weeks ago, Britain has been overloaded with high-level officials announcing inquiries into the matter. But has the country gone overboard in its rush to inquire?

According to the Guardian's Andrew Sparrow, there are now 10 separate probes going forward. Yes, it's a fast-moving, expansive story with tentacles into a number of areas (police corruption, media ethics, political influence). But 10 separate inquiries? Surely, in this age of British austerity they can't all be needed.  

Today, three new inquiries were announced by Home Secretary Theresa May in response to the shake-up at the top of Scotland Yard. One will look at the relationship between the media and the police; another will look at police corruption in general; and a third will look at the independent police complaints commission -- the internal investigative arm of the police -- and whether it needs new authorities (given that they seem to have missed a lot of police corruption lately).     

Meanwhile, all of Britain is on tenterhooks awaiting the testimony of Rupert and James Murdoch at a parliamentary inquiry tomorrow ( before one of two committees exploring the fallout from the scandal).

There are also two judge-led inquiries set up by Prime Minister David Cameron: one of which will look specifically into phone hacking, and the other, more generally, into media standards in the country. Additionally, there are two criminal investigations by the police -- the first stems from a January civil lawsuit brought by the actress Sienna Miller and other celebrities against News International for allegedly hacking their phones; the second opened this month to look into police bribes by people connected with Murdoch-owned papers. Not to be outdone, there's also an internal News Corp investigation led by Joel Klein.

And then of course there's the preliminary inquiry opened last week in the United States by the FBI looking into whether News Corp. employees tried hack the phones of September 11 victims (technically, this is probe  No. 11).

What does it all amount to? Too early to say, but the flood of new information, allegations, leaks, rumors -- and added noise -- isn't likely to ease up anytime soon.

The fallout from the News of the World hacking scandal continues to swarm the News Corp. chain of command like a school of flesh-eating piranhas. Les Hinton, the CEO of Dow Jones and former News International executive, resigned on Friday, and the picture only got bleaker over the weekend with the arrest of Rebekah Brooks and the resignations of Scotland Yard's top cop and his deputy. Murdoch and his son are said to be in campaign-style damage-control mode for the full-on assault they are likely to receive tomorrow at a parliamentary hearing. And today, Bloomberg News is reporting that Murdoch's hold on his company is shaky, with some board members questioning whether a change in leadership is needed. It's hard to believe just how far the mighty have fallen in two short weeks.

But whom is the media tycoon listening to these days, now that one of his main confidants was forced to resign and his son and heir-apparent is even more damaged than he is?

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal

The second-biggest News Corp. shareholder after Murdoch is a key voice in the company. On Thursday he gave an interview to the BBC (in shorts, aboard his yacht in the south of France) that got a lot of attention.

"If the indications are for her [Brooks's] involvement in this matter is explicit, for sure she has to go, you bet she has to go," the Saudi royal said.

Within 24 hours, she was indeed gone (though some reports say Murdoch was leaning in that direction since at least Tuesday). The prince also urged Murdoch and his son James to cooperate with the British inquiries. Murdoch, who previously had said he wouldn't attend tomorrow's parliament hearing, reversed course and announced his plan to take part. As some analysts speculate, the prince is voicing the concerns of many shareholders. He holds a 7 percent stake in the company, but despite falling share prices, he said he wouldn't sell.

Joel Klein

The former chancellor of New York City's public schools was brought in last fall to take a key advisory post at News Corp. Dealing with New York's unruly teachers' union might soon seem like child's play by comparison. According to Reuters, Murdoch has turned to him for guidance since the crisis began and has brought him in to his "inner circle." He's now directing a newly formed management and standards committee at the company, and analysts say his power in the company will grow -- especially since the resignations of Brooks and Hinton. Klein headed the antitrust division of the U.S. Justice Department in the 1990s and is thought to be good at times of crisis.

Chase Carey

Another key News Corp. figure in Murdoch's inner circle, Carey is hard-charging and, according to some, ruthless. The company's chief operating officer (and Murdoch's deputy) flew from New York to London at his boss's side. Carey is reportedly responsible for getting Murdoch to drop his bid for BSkyB -- an indication of how influential he is (News Corp insiders have described him as a "brake on Murdoch"). There's talk that he might nudge aside Rupert's son James to take over the company eventually.

Steven Rubenstein

This is the guy you go to when you're deep in crisis. Remember when David Letterman was being blackmailed over affairs with work colleagues? He hired Rubenstein. But this could be the famed public-relations expert's toughest case yet. Murdoch brought Rubenstein in last week to help manage the crisis. He is now helping to prep Murdoch and his son for their grilling tomorrow in parliament. As Murdoch's biographer Michael Wolff points out -- Rubenstein has a lot of work to do.

"[Murdoch] is awful at this sort of stuff. He is pretty inarticulate, mumbles all the time, and is incredibly defensive," he told the Guardian.

Brendan Sullivan Jr.

With an FBI probe bringing the company's legal jeopardy stateside, News Corp. is lawyering up. Brendan Sullivan, the famed Washington defense lawyer, has reportedly been hired by the company to battle any potential fallout. Sullivan, who is a partner at the firm Williams & Connolly, has defended Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso, and Oliver North, among others.

Given that News Corp. is currently without a general counsel (bad time to be hiring for that job), Sullivan seems a necessary addition.

The chair of the committee said if Murdoch doesn't show on Tuesday, he would be in contempt of Parliament -- though there was confusion about what that actually means since its rarely ever been implemented. The BBC said it was "unchartered waters,"given that Murdoch is a non-Brit.

"If they have any shred of sense of responsibility or accountability for their position of power, then they should come and explain themselves before a select committee," the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, said today (referring to Murdoch and his son James, who has also declined to testify Tuesday).

The Murdochs are most likely trying to buy some time, hoping the media frenzy dies down a little before they are forced to talk publicly -- in what is likely to be a very hostile setting. (James said he'd be willing to testify in August).

In the meantime, things aren't going any better for Murdoch in his home country -- the United States -- nor in Australia, his place of birth. The scandal has truly taken on a global dimension.

United States: Today, there were more calls for a congressional investigation. Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA), a powerful member of the House oversight committee, accused Murdoch's company of potentially engaging in "political espionage or personal espionage."

He joined Republican Peter King, who yesterday called on the FBI to look into whether journalists tried to tap into the phones of 9/11 victims. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said earlier in the week he suspected a U.S. probe would "find some criminal stuff."

A U.S. criminal investigation -- though unlikely -- would be disastrous for Murdoch, who's empire is based in the United States. It would put the company -- and its many holdings, including the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and the New York Post,under a microscope like never before. Even beyond illegal activity, embarrassing or less-than-exemplary practices could be exposed.

Eliot Spitzer, for one, believes more shady dealings will emerge -- and will likely include Murdoch properties based in the United States. "Given the frequency with which he shuttled his senior executives and editors across the various oceans-Pacific as well as Atlantic-it is unlikely that the shoddy ethics were limited to Great Britain," the former prosecutor, governor, CNN anchor, and expert on shoddy ethics wrote in Slate.

Australia: Speaking of the Pacific, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard today said she was open to initiating a probe of Murdoch's Australia holdings -- which comprise nearly 70 percent of the country's print media and a good chunk of its TV market. 

Gillard said she was "disgusted" by the extent of the scandal in Britain.

The head of News Limited, Murdoch's Australian media arm, John Hartigan, said there would be an internal review of the company's practices, but said it was "offensive and wrong [to] connect the behavior in the UK with News Limited's conduct in Australia."

So, where does that leave Murdoch? Maybe China, where he's been expanding his footprint lately, is looking like a good refuge. His wife, Wendi, just produced a movie that is a hit there.

In fact, she told the Los Angeles Times -- apparently without any sense of irony -- that she had little trouble raising money for the movie: "Everybody in China wanted to give us money," she told the paper. "In China, everybody knows who I am. It definitely helped. They have confidence in me."

With one sentence, the New York Times raised dozens of Middle East pundits' hopes that their words were reaching the most powerful man in the world.  "At night in the family residence...Mr. Obama often surfs the blogs of experts on Arab affairs or regional news sites to get a local flavor for events," read Mark Landler's account of how the Obama administration will attempt to use the killing of Osama bin Laden to recast the U.S. relationship with the Arab world.

Well, Mr. President, we have some late-night reading suggestions for you. First, of course, there's Marc Lynch and the Middle East Channel - Foreign Policy's own contribution to the fast-changing world of politics in the Arab world. But there's also an entire community of Middle East bloggers who obsessively follow and comment on developments in their countries, and throughout the region.

Caveat emptor: Many of these authors will take you outside the comfort zone of the Washington policy debate. What's more, if you tried to gather them all in one room, you'd be virtually guaranteed a fight. But these blogs will also give you a more realistic sense of the political conversation in the Arab world. Don't stay up too late - you have a full-time job, after all.

Read on

I love a good blog fight as much as anyone, but after reading several thousand words of accusations and counter accusations being slung between Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald and Wired's Evan Hansen and Kevin Poulsen, I'm left scratching my head trying to figure out what, exactly, this particular dispute is all about.

For those of you who haven't been paying attention, first of all: congratulations. Second, here's a quick synopsis: On June 6, Poulsen and his colleague Kim Zetter broke the sensational story that a young Army intelligence officer, Bradley Manning, had been arrested for disclosing classified information to WikiLeaks, including a video showing a U.S. helicopter gunship killing three civilians in Iraq and more than 250,000 State Department cables. Wired's main source was Adrian Lamo, a former hacker who says he turned Manning in to U.S. authorities after the latter confessed to the deed in a Web chat. As Lamo explained his motivation: "I wouldn't have done this if lives weren't in danger."

Four days later, Poulsen and Zetter published a new article on Manning, as well as an incomplete transcript of Lamo and Manning's chats, which had begun on May 21 and continued for a few days. "The excerpts represent about 25 percent of the logs," they wrote. "Portions of the chats that discuss deeply personal information about Manning or that reveal apparently sensitive military information are not included."

That same day, the Washington Post published its own article on Manning's arrest, quoting from the logs, which the paper said it had received from Lamo. Some of the quotes do not appear in Wired's excerpts. Wired also continued to follow the story.

On June 18, Greenwald wrote a long blog post raising questions about Poulsen's scoop and about Lamo. He said he found the story "quite strange," called Lamo an "extremely untrustworthy source," and accused Poulsen of being "only marginally transparent about what actually happened here."

What was curious about Greenwald's post was that he didn't challenge any specific facts in Wired's reporting; he just pointed to what he saw as inconsistencies in the story, as well as Lamo's account, and condemned the ex-hacker's actions as "despicable." He didn't suggest outright that Manning had not actually confessed to Lamo. He didn't try to argue that Manning hadn't broken the law. He didn't say the log excerpts were fabricated. He did, however, complain that Lamo had told him about conversations with Manning that were not in the chat-log excerpts published by Wired, and called on the magazine to release them. Poulsen said he wouldn't be doing so, telling Greenwald: "The remainder is either Manning discussing personal matters that aren't clearly related to his arrest, or apparently sensitive government information that I'm not throwing up without vetting first."

Still with me?

Then, on Monday, several weeks after the cables had begun trickling out, Greenwald again returned to the issue. In a torqued-up post titled "The worsening journalistic disgrace at Wired," he excoriated the magazine and Poulsen for refusing to release the full logs, calling Poulsen's behavior "odious" and "concealment" of "key evidence." Greenwald appears to have been motivated to weigh in anew by Firedoglake -- a left-leaning website whose members had been obsessively trolling the Web for stories about Lamo and Manning, and even pulled together a handy, color-coded expanded transcript from the logs -- as well as by a flawed New York Times article reporting that the Justice Department was trying to build a conspiracy case against WikiLeaks frontman Julian Assange. Presumably, the logs would be an important part of the prosecution's argument.

Wired responded to Greenwald Tuesday night with twin posts by Evan Hansen, the magazine's editor in chief, and Poulsen. Greenwald fired back with two angry posts of his own today (1, 2). Long story short: Wired reiterated its refusal to release the logs (Poulsen: "[T]hose first stories in June either excerpted, quoted or reported on everything of consequence Manning had to say about his leaking"), Greenwald rejected that explanation, and both sides traded some nasty barbs about each other and made competing claims about the nature of Poulsen's relationship with Lamo.

What still remains a mystery to me is what, exactly, Greenwald thinks is being covered up here. What is he accusing Wired of doing, and why? Does he think that the full transcript of the logs would somehow exonerate Manning, or prove Lamo a liar? And if he catches Lamo telling a journalist something that wasn't in the logs, what then?

Ironically, Wired seems most worried about protecting Manning, whom Greenwald is ostensibly trying to defend. The magazine has hinted all along that what's not been made public is mainly stuff that Manning would not want to see on the front page of the Daily Mail. Hansen writes:

To be sure, there's a legitimate argument to be made for publishing Manning's chats. The key question (to us): At what point does everything Manning disclosed in confidence become fair game for reporting, no matter how unconnected to his leaking or the court-martial proceeding against him, and regardless of the harm he will suffer?

In other words: Be careful what you wish for, Glenn.

UPDATE: Over Twitter, Greenwald responds. Here are three tweets put together:

To answer your question, I want the logs because it'll show if Lamo's claims are *true* - isn't that what journalism is? You seem confused because I don't know whose cause will be helped by disclosure - it'll help the cause of truth. Lamo made lots of fantastical claims about what Manning said - Wired can say if those claims are true. Why shouldn't they???

I know Glenn is looking for a normative answer, but I'm going to answer this in a roundabout way. Reporters generally don't consider it their business to fact-check claims made by sources in other publications. They look for ways to advance a story, or move on to other topics if there doesn't seem to be any "news" to be had. They also generally do weigh the harm that will come of too much disclosure against the value of the information to be disclosed. And they judiciously husband their scarcest resource: time.

I think some combination of all that is what is going on here, in addition to the bad blood that has been generated by Greenwald's unfortunate impugnment of Poulsen's integrity and his motives. Would it be relatively easy for Wired to take a look at the specific claims Lamo has made and check them against the logs? Probably. Would it be worth someone's time there? Maybe. Do I wish Poulsen would just directly address the seeming contradictions in Lamo's statements, in a way that protects what shred of privacy Manning has left? Yes. (In fact I emailed him this morning hoping to talk with him about it myself.) But at this point, I doubt it will happen.

Judging by my Twitter feed, Time has managed to tick off the entire Internet in selecting Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as its "person of the year" -- the youngest to earn the title since Charles Lindbergh. The magazine's rationale: "for connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives" is not likely to mollify the Twitterati, who tend to be a snobbish crowd. (Sample: "Time Magazine just named its Person of The Year 2007.")

Snark aside, it's unclear what's particularly 2010 about this pick. Facebook has been huge for a while now, and if anything, it may be headed for inevitable decline. I suppose it's a step up from 2006,when Time's editors picked "You" as its POY, citing the rise of "Web 2.0" sites like Facebook, Wikipedia, MySpace (remember that?), Second Life (ditto), and YouTube.

This year, just like in 2006, the magazine asked its readers to cast their votes, and just like in 2006, it ignored them. Back then, it was Hugo Chávez who stirred the masses (though Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the official runner-op); this year it was Julian Assange of WikiLeaks fame, who ran away with the online poll.

I suppose we'll now be treated to a dreadfully predictable debate about whether Time wimped out by not choosing Assange, and maybe those crazy Anonymous hackers will seek revenge on Time's servers. I'm sure the magazine's editors will embrace the discussion in any event: Controversy sells.

A front-page story in Pakistan's The News today reports that new WikiLeaks cables have confirmed what reads like a laundry list of Pakistani suspicions and grievances against India:

A cable from US Embassy in Islamabad leaked by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks disclosed that there were enough evidences of Indian involvement in Waziristan and other tribal areas of Pakistan as well as Balochistan.[...]

An earlier cable ruled out any direct or indirect involvement of ISI in 26/11 under Pasha's command while Mumbai's dossier, based on prime accused Ajmal Kasab's confessional statement was termed funny and "shockingly immature."

WikiLeaks revealed that a cable sent from a US mission in India termed former Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor as an incompetent combat leader and rather a geek.
His war doctrine, suggesting eliminating China and Pakistan in a simultaneous war front was termed as "much far from reality." Another cable indicates that General Kapoor was dubbed as a general who was least bothered about security challenges to the country but was more concerned about making personal assets and strengthening his own cult in the army. The cable also suggested that a tug-of-war between Kapoor and the current Indian Army chief had divided the Indian Army into two groups. [...]

An earlier cable described Indian Army involved in gross human rights violations in Indian-held Kashmir while some Lt Gen HS Panag, the then GOC-in-Chief of the Northern Command of the Indian Army, was equated with General Milosevic of Bosnia with regard to butchering Muslims through war crimes.

The only problem is that none of these cables appear to be real. The Guardian, which has full access to the unreleased WikiLeaks cables, can't find any of them. The story, which ran in four Pakistani newspapers, isn't bylined and was credited only to Online Agency, an Islamabad-based pro-army news service.

It's actually surprising this hasn't happened yet. The vast majority of the cables are still unreleased, but the newspapers which have access to them have often reported on some of the more salacious details before the original cables are actually available. (Take for instance, the famous "Batman and Robin" description of Putin and Medvedev, which appeared in newspapers days before the actual cable was available). 

So, it's pretty easy to just make up cables to serve your political agenda. If the Pakistani forgers had been more sophisticated they would have invented quotes or even mocked up fake cables rather than just paraphrasing. This, in my opinion, is an argument for just releasing the full archive now rather than trickling them out at the newspapers' pace. It will be a lot easier to fact check false claims if we no longer have to rely on the Guardian as WikiLeaks' gatekeeper. 

On another note, while the Pakistani revelations seem cartoonish, it wouldn't be surprising if some damaging cables from New Delhi are coming soon. In working to improve the political and economic relationship with India, both the Bush and Obama administrations have papered over a number of unpleasant facts, from India's tacit support to the Burmese military junta to still rampant governmental corruption. I'm guessing the embassy staff in New Delhi has probably been a lot blunter. 

The WikiLeaks revelations about Pakistan mostly just confirmed how both governments not-so-privately already feel about each other. In the case of U.S.-India relations, there's a lot more to lose. 

After you read through enough of these WikiLeaks cables, you realize that most of it is fairly mundane. And then you stumble on a line like this: Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to CENTCOM Commander John Abizaid: "The Somalia job was fantastic."

The Somalia job? 

The month is January 2007, and U.S. airstrikes have just taken out alleged al Qaeda leaders in Somalia. Days earlier, an American-backed Ethiopian invasion of the East African country rolled into Mogadishu and unseated Somalia's government -- the first functioning (if still flawed) one it had had in two decades. The job would later go a bit sour: Today, the central government controls just about a third of the land in the capital. The rest is in the hands of one of several Islamist militant groups that sprang from the extremes of that once-ousted government. Yes, the one ousted by the Somalia job. 

But back to the cable: the point here might be more about the weapon than the target. During the conversation, Zayed makes clear that he wants to acquire predator drones as a signal to Iran: "Iran has to know that there is a price to pay for every decision they make. They are expanding day by day -- they have to be dealt with before they do something tragic."

I wonder if they'll finally get what they asked for in the $7 billion U.S. arms deal anticipated to land in the UAE next year?

Sarko's temper flares again in response to a reporter's question about allegations that he took kickbacks from a weapons deal with Pakistan to fund his presidential campaign:

"And you! I've no evidence against you. But it would seem you're a paedophile. Who told me? I have an absolute conviction. I've seen the intelligence reports but I won't tell you which ones; I've seen someone but I won't tell you who, and it was word of mouth. But I have an absolute conviction you're a paedophile ... Can you explain yourself?"

After a 10-minute diatribe against various journalists, during which he kept returning to the paedophile analogy, he walked off declaring: "See you tomorrow, paedophile friends."

Well that should throw them off the trail.

While reading Eric Pape's informative profile of new French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, I was struck by the fact that she's managed to keep such a low international profile despite her remarkable rise to power and pulling off the first ever ministerial "grand slam" -- she's headed the Justice, Interior, Defense, and Foreign Ministeries -- in French history. It seems to be largely because she's remarkably managed to rise to the highest levels of French government without a major personal scandal, accusation of political malfeasance, or high-profile feud. 

If you watched the midterm election results come in -- and if you're reading Passport, there's a  good chance you did -- you likely saw this commercial from The Israel Project. And according to the organization's president, you're going to keep seeing the ad for some time.

The commercial, which was arguably the most prominent instance of a foreign policy issue rearing its head on election night, features remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair interspersed with pictures of smiling children. Both Blair and Netanyahu are quoted lauding the Israel's democracy and affirming its desire to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

Another ad urged Israel and the United States to work together on developing alternative energy sources, "so that some day, every neighborhood will be free from our dependence on Middle East oil."

Jennifer Mizrahi, the Israel Project's president, said that the ads started airing during the night fo the midterm elections, and will continue to appear for sometime. The organization bought air time on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and Comedy Central, among other networks.

"We bought a lot of ads," said Mizrahi. "I don't know, but I think we were on every break. And we should still be on -- it's a very heavy rotation."

Mizrahi estimated the cost of producing the ads at $50,000. She said that her organization had spent "hundreds of thousands of dollars" on ad time over the past year.

Mizrahi said that the Israel Project decided to buy ads at this time because they knew that they would reach a demographic concerned about national security issues. And she wanted to ensure that, though the election may have hinged on domestic economic issues, the next session of Congress doesn't neglect the U.S. alliance with Israel.

"[W]e want people in Washington to understand that the holding of the peace process is very important to Israel and to people who care about Israel -- that we want these peace talks to move forward," said Mizrahi. "That was the first thing: to show the Israeli prime minister's commitment to a peace process and a two state solution, and a better future for all."

The much anticipated Wikileaks document dump of 400,00 classified U.S. military documents, which cover events during the Iraq war from 2004 to 2009, is upon us: The Guardian and the New York Times have both just published their assessments after reviewing the files.

Both newspapers seem to highlight the same broad takeaways from the documents: Iraqi civilian deaths were higher than the Bush administration suggested, the United States largely ignored prisoner abuse conducted by Iraq's security services, and Iran played an extensive role in training and arming the anti-U.S. insurgency -- even raising fears in the military that it may be planning to provide chemical weapons to Shiite insurgents. 

One big winner out of the document dump may be Iraq Body Count, an organization whose methods for counting Iraqi civilian casualties in Iraq were consistently criticized by the Bush administration as being unrealistically high.

There's one more issue that, while certainly not as important as other considerations, I'm curious about: After weeks of preparation and hype, why would Wikileaks and major news outlets settle on 5 p.m. on Friday as the time to release these documents? Presumably, the New York Times and the Guardian are savvy enough to know that a Friday afternoon isn't exactly the time to attract the largest possible readership. Just one more sign that, while Wikileaks may aspire to revolutionize journalism, its media strategy leaves something to be desired.