Petrified Truth

Vacation - II

Made it to the Rockies via Amarillo, a bit of scenic New Mexico, and up into Colorado through Trinidad, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, and Denver. Total of about 1200 miles. Stopped in Denver to visit The Tattered Cover -- worldclass bookstore. Good stuff to read now by the rushing river outside our door. Our host says we should watch out for chipmunks, elk, and the occasional mountain lion.

Vacation

Goin' on vacation today, heading west. Updates will be sporadic for a while, depending on connections for the laptop... and competing interests. Ciao!

UPDATE: Drove as far as Abilene today, about 400 miles. Via Texas Hill Country -- lovely terrain. Colorado tomorrow; lots more elevation.

Quote of the Day

"To win the War on Terror, we must win also win a war of ideas by appealing to the decent hopes of people throughout the world . . . giving them cause to hope for a better life and brighter future . . . and reason to reject the false and destructive comforts of bitterness, grievance, and hate. Terror grows in the absence of progress and development. It thrives in the airless space where new ideas, new hopes and new aspirations are forbidden. Terror lives when freedom dies."

- National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleeza Rice, speaking to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London

via the White House

"An Army of Lots More Than One"

The Left has been wringing its sensitive hands for months about the lack of "sacrifice" called for by President Bush for the global war on terror. For the most part, it's been bunk since the Left only wants a justification for higher taxes and more government spending across the board. However, there is one area that's getting renewed attention and is a legitimate concern. But it isn't what the Left wants to hear: our military needs to be dramatically larger.

The armed forces of the United States are too small to support the missions required of them in the post-9/11 world. In many of the situations we now face, using troops on the ground is nonnegotiable, and America has too few of them. If that assertion seems counterintuitive given the impressive performance of the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq, two numbers may help drive it home: Of the 495,000 troops in the U.S. Army, 370,000 are already deployed around the world.

via The Weekly Standard

Ceasefire?

Hamas has supposedly agreed to a cease-fire with the Israelis. I'll believe it when I see it, and it could all come to naught. But maybe, just maybe, it's an opening for the Palestinians who want to co-exist with the Jews, not just exterminate them.

Hamas, the Islamic extremist group, said yesterday it had decided to suspend attacks against Israel, opening the way for a delayed American-backed peace plan to swing into action. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, said in Gaza that, "having studied all the developments", the organisation had reached a decision to call "a truce, or a suspension of fighting activities".

The truce is likely to be for three months and comes with conditions - particularly that Israel stops killing Palestinians, demolishing their homes and starts freeing prisoners - and still has to be finalised with other militant groups. The decision was taken despite continuing actions by the Israeli army to kill Hamas operatives, which in the past would have been enough to provoke it into a new wave of attacks. But American pressure has been so strong, and the Hamas infrastructure so weakened by Israeli strikes, that it has decided to agree to a pause.

via The Telegraph (UK)

This might be why.

Something radical has changed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The change is not the views of the Israeli top brass, who still believe in using an iron fist. It is not in the minds of the Palestinian extremists who send young men to blow themselves up inside Israel; they still believe in eternal struggle. How then to explain the fact that Hamas, the Islamic extremist movement, is preparing to sign a three-month truce, obliging it to stop attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians?

In return for accepting what Palestinians widely see as a "surrender document", Hamas will get almost nothing from the Israelis, not even a promise that the lives of its leadership will be secure. The change is not on the ground, but 5,900 miles away, in the mind of President George W Bush. He told the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, earlier this month that bringing peace to the Middle East was a "divine mission" for him. The Palestinians were astonished at these words - the last they expected to hear from a US president.

Mr Bush's divine mission is gathering strength, and all the Arab leaders are scrambling to avoid being trampled by the diplomatic and military juggernaut. The most scared of all are the Syrians, whose capital, Damascus, has been the home of the exiled leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

With American troops in Iraq on its eastern frontier, Syria is coming under intolerable pressure to heed American wishes and send radical Palestinian leaders away. The fact Washington has offered no explanation - let alone an apology - for a raid on June 19 in which five border guards were wounded and taken away is the clearest indication that the US is no respecter of Syrian sovereignty.

The exiled leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Khaled Mashal and Ramadan Shallah, have been moved from their Damascus offices to a Palestinian refugee camp. Their next stop would most likely be Beirut - within range of the Israeli air force and Mossad hit squads. Even the compliant Lebanese might want to move them on but where to? No Arab country dares provide a haven.

That is why, according to Palestinian officials, the exiled leadership has all but signed the ceasefire proposal. The local leadership in Gaza is resisting this decision, which they see as a surrender of fundamental principles. If God has decreed there should be no Jewish state in the Middle East, they argue, who has the right to declare a truce?

"The exiled leadership sees the regional picture, which is not at all favourable," said a diplomat. "The local leadership sees things differently."

via The Telegraph (UK)

Euro-nannies give ground

Crisis averted, for now. Whew!

Millions of European men who buy tabloid newspapers for a daily dose of topless women can relax. The European Union said that proposed EU sex discrimination laws won't ban the "page-three girls" from The Sun of London or their scantily clad counterparts on the front page of Bild, Germany's biggest circulation daily.

"To talk about banning certain aspects of certain publications is not possible," explained EU spokeswoman Antonia Mochan. "The European Union does not have the legal tools to intervene." The measured words from EU head office contrast with a media uproar this week after reports of a clampdown on gender stereotyping filtered out of Brussels.

"I'm supposed to be gotten rid of," proclaimed Bild, pointing to a topless blonde, wearing a tiara and a rhinestone G-string, who appeared Thursday on the newspaper's front page. "The EU wants to outlaw the beautiful girls from the front page," bemoaned the German daily.

via the Sydney Morning Herald

Mansoor on Pakistan

Mansoor Ijaz is back from South Asia and has checked in with an interview on Fox News as well as a new article at NRO. He has a lot of advice for the U.S. and for Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Mansoor's a smart guy and he bases his statements on firsthand knowledge -- worth reading the whole thing.

Musharraf may still be the best bet for stabilizing a very dangerous region, but he's not invincible and no U.S. president should ever again rely on a single man to represent the alliance between two nations.

Asking Musharraf to settle his self-manufactured domestic political crisis, in which Islamist parties demand his overly broad powers of governance be curtailed, must be at the top of the Bush agenda whether bilateral protocols allow for it or not. Its resolution alone will define the manner in which the general can move on matters of most concern to ordinary Americans.

For the U.S., ending the operations of Osama bin Laden's terror franchises on Pakistani soil is a vital first step. It is no longer acceptable for Pakistan to deem itself a key ally in the war on terror while terrorist plotting against the U.S. and its allies continues and bin Laden maintains refuge in Pakistan's northern tribal regions. Neither is it acceptable that the American people be extorted over a few al Qaeda arrests every time Pakistan's bank balances need replenishing, or hawkish generals run to Musharraf to demand more funding for the next generation of nuclear-capable missiles.

Pakistani intelligence has had a pretty good idea of bin Laden's whereabouts for some time. President Bush must tell his guest that Pakistan's babysitting services are no longer needed. The Iraq campaign is over. Al Qaeda cells in Europe and the Middle East have been largely dismantled or are at least under surveillance. And so the time has come to bring the Saudi fugitive to justice before new cells can regenerate and attempt another major terrorist attack.

via National Review Online

Pas de Joan d'Arc

There is a counter-revolution going on in France as well -- they're not all a bunch of Euro-sissies. Their new, charismatic leader is Sabine Herold and she's on fire. Wish my French skills were still good. Zut!

She is a political science student, very beautiful and speaks perfect English. She has also just become the most famous 21-year-old in France.

Dubbed France's Lady Thatcher by the newspapers, Mademoiselle Herold has been leading the rallies against the unions who have been crippling her country. Standing on a telephone box in her pearl earrings and high heels, she addresses crowds of 80,000, urging them to rise up against the striking teachers, Metro workers, rubbish collectors and air traffic controllers who are ruining people's lives. With her student friends, she has set up an organisation: Liberte J'Ecris Ton Nom, which has thousands of members, demanding that France reforms.

Now, she wants to come to Britain. Her email is simple: "I would like to spend my time meeting politicians. I don't wear jeans; I like red meat; please could I bring a camera crew?"

Here, she has been called Joan of Arc. "That is stupid," she says. "I love Britain. I love Margaret Thatcher. I love the way you have overcome the unions and are not afraid to privatise. I love the way you work so hard. In France, we have become lazy and staid. We think only of weekends, holidays and how great we once were. We need a dose of Thatcherism."

via The Telegraph (UK)

"The War Isn't Over"

In a tough editorial today the WSJ addresses the nature of ongoing conflict in Iraq and calls for much more aggressive de-Baathification, including public trials for past atrocities. Makes absolute sense to me.

Large elements of Saddam's regime are still around, pursuing almost daily attacks of sabotage. Foreign jihadis are joining them, some of whom may well be allied with al Qaeda. This is the reason GIs continue to die, and it means the U.S. will have to make a much more forceful, systematic effort to kill and punish them if stability is going to be restored.

The first step is to stop underestimating the nature of the threat. The CIA keeps telling U.S. officials that there is no "organized" resistance, as if it needs to find some headquarters in a basement to prove it. When oil pipelines are being blown up, Iraqis who work with Americans are assassinated, and GIs are routinely ambushed, the prudent conclusion is that the attacks are organized until proven otherwise.

It's possible that this guerrilla strategy was part of Saddam's plan all along. Retired Marine Colonel Gary Anderson predicted much of what is now unfolding in the April 2 Washington Post. Saddam admires Ho Chi Minh and has studied the U.S. debacles in Lebanon and Somalia. Rather than confront the U.S. in a conventional fight they'd lose, the Baathists "seeded the urban and semi-urban population centers of the country with cadres designed to lead such a guerrilla movement."

This strategy would explain why the Baathists didn't use chemical weapons; the act would have turned the world irreparably against them. The major fighting also ended before U.S. troops swept into the Sunni areas north of Baghdad, where two Republican Guard divisions were able to blend into the population. Now the Baathists can maintain hope of outlasting the Americans, who they assume will grow tired of taking casualties and turn Iraq over to the U.N.

Most Iraqis believe Saddam is still alive, and may well return. His allies are spreading leaflets and word about "the party of return," further scaring Iraqis from assisting any new government. They know that the Yanks can always go home, leaving them to cope with any Baathist revival.

via The Wall Street Journal (subscribers only)

Intelligence City

With DEBKA one never knows, but this report is really good news if true. We're settling in to establish permanent operations in Iraq, which is perfectly positioned as a strategic location in the Middle East.

The Americans are secretly building two giant intelligence facilities in Iraq at a cost of some half a billion dollars, according to an exclusive report received from DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources. US engineering and construction units are setting up what amounts to an “intelligence city” on a site north of the oil city of Mosul in Kurdistan and a second facility in Baghdad’s Saadun district on the east bank of the Tigris. Our military experts infer from the vast dimensions of the two projects and their colossal expense that it is Washington’s intention to retain a large US military presence in Iraq in the long term, for a decade at least.

The new installations will greatly enhance America’s military, intelligence and electronic command and control over Iraq and its neighbors, notably Iran and Syria. The Mosul facility will guard northern Iraq’s oilfields and the pipelines carrying Iraqi gas and oil to Mediterranean terminals. Its instruments will reach into every corner of Iran and Syria, replacing America’s electronic eyes and ears in southern Turkey. This facility will be activated a section at a time according to need. Upon completion at the end of 2005, it will employ an operating staff of around 4,000 American intelligence personnel and electronic engineers.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Middle East sources report that the intelligence center going up near Mosul is causing much nervousness in Damascus and Tehran. Both governments understand that when the first sections are activated in three months time, not a single military or intelligence move of theirs will go unseen by America’s electronic spies – and that goes for terrorist activity as well.

via DEBKA

Quote of the Day

"The best protection that we can give our soldiers is an offensive spirit in a tough place."

- Army Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, saying that coalition forces in Iraq need to seek out the enemy and bring the fight to them, during his Senate confirmation hearing to be the next commander of U.S. Central Command

via DefenseLink

Maureen's futility

Documented prevaricator Maureen Dowd is still filling the pages of the NYT with her screeds. Today her target is Clarence Thomas, who apparently will never be forgiven by the Left for forgetting his place and hewing to the conservative side of the law. Unfortunately for poor Maureen, her diatribes have no credibility and no effect, no matter how much huffery and puffery accompanies the delivery. Her barbs are now pre-Tefloned.

The dissent is a clinical study of a man who has been driven barking mad by the beneficial treatment he has received. It's poignant, really. It makes him crazy that people think he is where he is because of his race, but he is where he is because of his race. Other justices rely on clerks and legal footnotes to help with their opinions; Justice Thomas relies on his id, turning an opinion on race into a therapeutic outburst.

via the New York Times

Comical Ali

One loose end in Baghdad has been tied up now, according to The Mirror in the UK.

Comical Ali, Saddam Hussein's ludicrous spin doctor, has been arrested in Baghdad, it was claimed last night. Information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf had been hiding out at a relative's house since April watching satellite TV - banned under Saddam. US troops set up a road block in the Baghdad suburb and caught him in his car on Monday night.

The Americans hope that Sahaf, who did not appear in their deck of cards of Iraq's most wanted, will tell them where Saddam is hiding. A senior coalition source said: "He has some serious talking to do ... this time." Relatives said Sahaf has been in a state of shock since the regime collapsed.

via The Mirror (UK)

Quote of the Day

"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling said she killed off one of the characters in her book, and today Hillary Clinton said, "You can do that?"

- Jay Leno, The Tonight Show

Utopia a-borning?

The march of the Euro-nannies goes on. Surely they could also do something about the problem of the British and their longheld belief that there is nothing funnier than men in women's clothes.

Advertisements that affront "human dignity" by demeaning women would be prohibited under proposals being drafted by the European Commission. Television programmes would also be censored to ensure there was no promotion of gender stereotypes. The plans, still in their infancy, are already provoking bitter dispute in Brussels and were described by one commission official yesterday as "lunatic".

Tabloid newspaper "Page Three" pictures would also be threatened. Most forms of gender discrimination - either for or against women - would become illegal, affecting welfare benefits, education and health insurance. But plans to ban London gentlemen's clubs have been abandoned as a step too far.

The proposals were drafted by the European Union's employment and social affairs directorate, known in Brussels as one of the last outposts of "unreconstructed" 1970s Leftists.

via The Telegraph (UK)

NATO is helping... by sea

The threat of terrorists moving by sea is a possible weak point that doesn't get the same visibility as air transport. Glad to see this news.

NATO naval forces, which tipped off Greece to a ship in its waters carrying 680 tonnes of explosive, are hunting a list of 20 "suspect" vessels that intelligence trackers say could be used by terrorists. Lieutenant Commander Harvey Burwin said "Operation Active Endeavour" began in October 2001 and covers the Mediterranean. Its activities have recently been stepped up, with suspicious vessels boarded and searched. "We look for ships that have had frequent changes of flag and ownership," he said.

Asked if the ships on the list were suspected of being operated by militant groups like al-Qaeda, he replied: "Yes at the extreme."

via the Sydney Morning Herald

Oliver Kamm

Oliver Kamm in the UK says he is a British liberal who nevertheless finds himself supporting President Bush and having some difficulty disagreeing with Baroness Margaret Thatcher's recent book. If he lived here, he'd be a great "swing voter."

I stand on the Left and I'd certainly vote for Bush.... The single most pressing question for those who believe in democratic politics is the threat to liberal values - indeed to the lives of our own citizens and the very survival of western civilisation - from Islamofascist totalitarianism. President Bush, who campaigned in 2000 with an ominous aversion to what he called 'nation-building' amid hints that he would reduce US overseas commitments, has shown that he is squarely in the tradition of liberal internationalism exemplified by Harry Truman. Rather than treat terrorist attacks on American soil as an isolated criminal act, he has rightly regarded them instead as an act of war. He has prosecuted that war with due regard to America's allies (in fact, with far more than due regard in the case of some of them) but a determination to defend a civilisation that separates religious and civil authority, defends women's rights, upholds the rule of law and constitutionally enshrines the right to political dissent.

via Oliver Kamm

Is al Qaeda transmogrifying?

Even more reminders today about the ongoing threat from al Qaeda. I hope the people were listening when GWB said this war is going to take years.

A third generation of an estimated 800 to 1,000 Al Qaeda terrorists -- mainly suicide attackers based on several continents -- is preparing strikes against tourist and economic targets worldwide, a French terrorism expert said Tuesday. Roland Jacquard, a French consultant to the United Nations, said the new generation of terrorists is unpredictable, hard to track and ready to strike.

Jacquard took part in preparing a report for a U.N. Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. In a telephone interview, he said the estimate of 800 to 1,000 terrorists in the new generation was his figure and would not appear in the U.N. report scheduled for release next week.

Jacquard said, the first generation of Al Qaeda was the original group based in Afghanistan. It spawned the second generation -- those who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States. "Today, Al Qaeda has become a terrorist organization that no longer reacts in pyramid fashion," Jacquard said, referring to the highly structured organization headed by Usama bin Laden that handed out orders from the top and followed a strategy.

Now, he said, it works "in concentric circles," with each layer acting independently of the other. "It is more dangerous as each group chooses its target."

via Fox News

And even a local angle to the threats emerged today.

U.S. intelligence agencies early this month eavesdropped on two suspected al-Qaida operatives discussing potential terrorism in Texas timed for the July Fourth weekend, raising the specter of an attack on energy facilities in the Houston area, officials here said Monday. That information, which did not specify a target, an exact time or a type of terrorist attack, was passed along to state officials.

With Texas as the target, officials are especially concerned about oil or gas facilities and pipelines because al-Qaida terrorists in the past have talked about attacking the energy sector as a way of damaging America's economy, officials said.

A federal official confirmed an account first published in Newsweek magazine that a possible al-Qaida operative known as "Sakr" told another person during an Internet chat room conversation that an attack had been planned for a long time, and that terrorists inside the United States were only waiting for approval from a man dubbed "the Sheik" before striking in early July.

The information was more intriguing to intelligence analysts than much of the avalanche of vaguely suspicious electronic intercepts because Sakr had sent a message predicting "good news" coming from Morocco shortly before a successful terrorist strike in that country.

via the Houston Chronicle

Int'l Bank of Osama?

Jonathan Stevenson from London's International Institute for Strategic Studies is worried about al Qaeda's ability to adapt to the global war on terror. I don't think he would disagree that one key to success is a continued aggressive campaign to find them first -- wherever they are. Offense is better than defense.

al Qaeda operatives may be harder to track than before the Afghanistan intervention, as they now have no substantial physical presence to defend. Experienced al Qaeda "middle managers," either virtually or actually roaming the world, provide planning and logistical advice, materiel and financing to smaller groups that are inspired by al Qaeda but only loosely connected with it. The Moroccans involved in Casablanca's recent suicide bombings, for example, have been linked to a local outfit called Salafist Jihad; yet they received $50,000 in financial assistance from an al Qaeda source and possessed al Qaeda training manuals.

In short, the new al Qaeda remains a terrorist "network of networks" with unequaled global leverage. Rather than the holding company to which it has often been likened, al Qaeda is now a multinational full-service investment bank -- available to assist any number of sympathetic terrorist groups or insurgencies.

via the Wall Street Journal Europe (subscribers only)

ALA's shame - IV

The Cuban government showed its true colors again, using its "high court" to reaffirm repression and tyranny. This is the government about which the American Library Association, supposed advocate of a fundamental "Freedom to Read," is silent. OK with tyranny; OK with obscenity -- that's ALA today.

Cuba's high court has upheld the 20-year sentence of independent journalist Raul Rivero, who was among 75 Cubans sentenced to prison in a crackdown on the opposition this year, Rivero's wife said Monday.

The prison terms ranged from six to 28 years and have been condemned by governments and human rights organization around the globe. The Cuban government has defended the crackdown as a necessary defence against U.S. attempts to change the island's socialist system. Blanca Reyes said her husband's defence lawyer told her Monday that her husband's appeal had been rejected by the Supreme Tribunal, the island's court of last resort.

"I always thought that this would be the unfair decision," Reyes said. The tribunal also upheld the 20-year sentence of fellow independent journalist Ricardo Gonzalez, who was tried with Rivero.

Fifty of the sentences have now been upheld, said Carlos Menendez of the non-governmental Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

via Canada.com

An ALA defeat

Amidst today's hoopla over the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion upholding racial discrimination in college admissions, another decision has been under-noticed: the Supremes also ruled against the American Library Association.

ALA has resolutely opposed the Children's Internet Protection Act and its requirement for Internet filtering in the areas of public libraries where kids use computers. This is while the library profession as a whole declines to offer a realistic alternative that would shield kids from porn and other offensive materials. Like most of the educrats who oppose standardized testing, they only point out the flaws in the mandated approach but can't seem to use their brainpower to design a better solution -- whining, not thinking.

Congress may use its spending power to encourage public libraries to install filtering software on their computers to protect children from pornography on the Internet. In a major 6-to-3 decision Monday, the US Supreme Court upheld a federal law that conditioned the receipt of federal aid to libraries upon the use of such content-blocking software.

Free-speech advocates had attacked the law as an unconstitutional form of government censorship. But the court disagreed, ruling instead that the law, the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), did not violate the First Amendment rights of library patrons. In addition, the justices said the law was a valid use by Congress of its spending power.

via the Christian Science Monitor

The ALA's response was typical:

The American Library Association (ALA) today expressed disappointment in today’s very narrow decision from the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the Children’s Internet Protection Act.

The American Library Association again calls for full disclosure of what sites filtering companies are blocking, who is deciding what is filtered and what criteria are being used. Findings of fact clearly show that filtering companies are not following legal definitions of “harmful to minors” and “obscenity.” Their practices must change.

To assist local libraries in their decision process, the ALA will seek this information from filtering companies, then evaluate and share the information with the thousands of libraries now being forced to forego funds or choose faulty filters. The American Library Association also will explain how various products work, criteria to consider in selecting a products and how to best use a given product in a public setting. Library users must be able to see what sites are being blocked and, if needed, be able to request the filter be disabled with the least intrusion into their privacy and the least burden on library service.

via ALA

Read the full Supreme Court opinion in PDF format.

Where is Aung San Suu Kyi?

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is being held in primitive conditions by the dictators who run Burma.

The Washington Post has noticed:

Since government-sponsored goons attacked Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters on a provincial road May 30, the Nobel Peace laureate has been in confinement and virtually cut off from the world. In editorials earlier this month urging that Aung San Suu Kyi be freed, we asked, "Where is she?" Now we know -- and the answer could hardly be more discouraging. According to the British Foreign Office, the corrupt generals who rule Burma moved her from a "guesthouse," where she had been held ostensibly for her own protection, to the notorious Insein Prison, a colonial-era monstrosity where old dog kennels have been converted to torture cells. The disclosure of the move came on Aung San Suu Kyi's 58th birthday -- a nice touch, and well in keeping with the usual mode of operation of Burma's ruling thugs, who a few years back refused to allow Aung San Suu Kyi's husband to visit her even when he was dying of cancer.

via Washington Post

So has Kofi Annan.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is being kept in "deplorable" conditions and should be released immediately. Mr Annan said through a spokesman he "considers the conditions under which she is being held - incommunicado and without charge - to be truly deplorable".

via the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Robert's New Rules

Robert Kaplan has been researching and pondering how America can run its new world empire (the one we never wanted but must have if we're going to survive). Along the way he's formulated some Rules.

Kaplan has spent much of his time over the past several years traveling with the U.S. military, observing the implementation of American power on a day to day basis by Special Forces troops who work on the ground in countries around the globe. Based partly on these extensive travels, Kaplan has come up with a list of "Rules for Managing the World":

1. Produce More Joppolos
2. Stay on the Move
3. Emulate Second-Century Rome
4. Use the Military to Promote Democracy
5. Be Light and Lethal
6. Bring Back the Old Rules
7. Remember the Philippines
8. The Mission is Everything
9. Fight on Every Front
10. Speak Victorian, Think Pagan

In essence, these rules are an articulation of power on a global scale. Have the best men possible on the ground; be everywhere; use American citizens—foreign and native born; use the military to further democracy; do a lot with a little; covert means and dabbling in moral ambiguity are sometimes necessary; a country united under one name may need more than one policy; the mission cannot be forgotten or compromised; sell the product; be idealistic, but know that realism wins the day.

via The Atlantic Online

Wingardium leviosa

Well, this is certainly good news.

A 14-year-old Philadelphia boy was treated and released from a hospital this morning after being shot in the chest by a friend who wanted his new copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, according to a news release from Bloomsbury, the publisher of the book. Physicians say the boy would be dead but the bullet struck the 870-page book first, leaving the child with only minor injuries.

In related news, the publisher also reports that....

-- A New Jersey woman has petitioned a state court for permission to marry a copy of the book. "If loving Harry Potter is wrong," she said, "I don't want to be right."

-- Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group, agreed to a 72-hour cease fire with Israel to allow its young homicide bombers time to read the new J.K. Rowling offering.

via Scrappleface

Quote of the Day

"Our purpose is not to manage terrorism, or just to arrest and prosecute terrorists after they have attacked us. Our goal is to destroy and delegitimize it – the way slavery and piracy were delegitimized in the 19th century."

- Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, commencement remarks at the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island

via DefenseLink

Cuba's Independent Libraries

As opposed to the American Library Association, which apparently only gives lipservice to the "freedom to read" when that freedom is threatened by the Left's favorite dictator, Fidel Castro, several organizations are trying to support Cuban dissident librarians.

Amnesty International monitors political prisoners around the world, including Cuba. Héctor Palacios Ruiz is prisoner #51 in their recent report:

51. Héctor Palacios Ruiz, aged 61, is director of the unofficial Centro de Estudios Sociales, Centre of Social Studies, and secretary of the reporting committee of the "Todos Unidos," "All United," coalition.

Héctor Palacios is a well-known and longstanding figure among Cuban dissidents, and has been considered by Amnesty International to be a prisoner of conscience following arrests in 1994, 1997 and 1999. In August 1994, he was among a group of activists targeted for arrest in the wake of violent clashes between police and protesters who had gathered on the Havana shore following a spate of attempted armed hijackings of local ferries.(189) In January 1997, when he was president of the unofficial Partido Solidaridad Democrático (PSD), Democratic Solidarity Party, and member of Concilio Cubano, Cuban Council, he was detained and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for "disrespect, "desacato," following an interview with a German television station in which he criticised the Cuban government. He was released in February 1998 following Pope John Paul IIs visit to Cuba.(190)

Héctor Palacios was detained on 20 March 2003 and subsequently tried in Havana. He was convicted under article 91 of the Penal Code and articles 4.1, 4.2a-b, 6.1, 6.2a-b, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 8.1, 8.2, 9.1, 9.2, 10 and 11 of Law 88 to 25 years in prison.(191) The prosecution had called for life imprisonment.(192)

Hector Palacios was accused, among other activities, of

having in his home one of the so-called independent libraries, a program created at the request of the already mentioned organisations based in Miami that financed this project with money received by USAID, in other words the United States government, the majority of the books sent being subversive and counterrevolutionary. (193)

Héctor Palacios is currently imprisoned in Kilo 5 1/2 prison in Pinar del Río province. His wife, Gisela Delgado Sablón, was reportedly refused permission to visit him in May and threatened with imprisonment if she participated in public demonstrations on his behalf.

via Amnesty International

ALA's shame - III

The American Library Association's annual convention is starting to resemble the U.N. General Assembly. Representatives of tinhorn dictators are given legitimacy and a speaking platform, while dissidents are being imprisoned or worse back home. ALA is supposedly a staunch advocate for intellectual freedom but its members make value judgements based on credentialing -- like discussing cosmetology licenses -- not moral legitimacy. Again, shame.

Cuba's national libraries director accused the United States on Saturday of bankrolling small, independent book lenders in the island nation to undermine its communist government.

Fourteen people who ran small libraries from their homes in Cuba were arrested in March and given hefty prison terms in a major government crackdown on dissidents in the country. A total of 75 activists were sentenced to prison terms in April ranging from six to 28 years on charges of being mercenaries working with American diplomats to subvert the island's socialist system.

Cuba says the dissidents were arrested for accepting U.S. government money, a charge U.S. officials and the dissidents deny. "The independent libraries have ... demonstrated they are receiving money to subvert the institutional order of Cuba,'' Eliades Acosta said Saturday at a book convention in Toronto.

The United States has given more than $20 million since 1997 to non-governmental groups supporting Cuban's opposition movement and promoting democracy, human rights and free enterprise in Cuba. The U.S. government broadcasts American propaganda into Cuba through radio and television reports, which cost about $25 million annually.

Ramon Colas and his wife founded the Independent Libraries of Cuba in 1998 after Castro said there were no forbidden books in Cuba. He left Cuba in December 2001 and now lives in Miami. Colas said he was detained 20 times for lending books, finally being sent to a military-style sugar cane farm. Authorities confiscated a large part of his library. He said the American Library Association, which organized Toronto's convention jointly with its Canadian counterpart, should do more to criticize Castro. "I'm looking for solidarity,'' he said.

He did not find it from Ann Sitkin, a librarian at the Harvard Law School and a Cuban-American. "These people are not librarians. They never went to library school,'' Sitkin said. "A lot were set up as funnels to get money from the U.S. to dissidents.''

The ALA said it would propose a resolution Wednesday that would "express concern'' to Cuba about the arrests. Almost 15,000 delegates registered for the Toronto conference, one of the few not to flee the city because of the dwindling outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome. Guest speakers included feminist Gloria Steinem, novelist Margaret Atwood and consumer advocate Ralph Nader.

via the Longview News-Journal

Nefarious KBR?

The NYT profiles Halliburton's KBR unit and frets mightily about the integration of contractors into military operations. Plenty to watch out for there -- no question -- but it's painful to watch the major media try to analyze things they barely seem to understand. Sample quote:

KBR/Halliburton, then, has rounded the bases when it comes to Iraq. It got rich doing business with Iraq, it got rich preparing to destroy Iraq and it's now getting rich rebuilding Iraq.

That's the bottom line? Note that while Halliburton is "getting rich," its shares closed down 5.2 percent on Friday following a "slashed" earnings estimate. Just once I'd like to see media outside Houston and Tulsa show a real grasp of the fact that there are now very, very few companies left who can do these jobs. The oil production, oil services, and engineering/construction industries underwent massive consolidations and downsizing since 1980, in large part due to government policies, and it means that the giant companies are the only game in town.

The NYT article does end up giving plenty of examples of what the private sector can do. Here's one:

A good example is Camp Arifjan, a U.S. Army base about 90 minutes southwest of Kuwait City. Six months ago, this was nothing but a small collection of buildings that was supposed to be a training base. On Oct. 11 -- the day Congress gave President Bush authority to wage war on Iraq -- someone in the Pentagon picked up a phone and told KBR it had nine weeks to turn Arifjan into a full-blown Army base for 7,000 people. The job went to Robert (Butch) Gatlin, a wizened 59-year-old Tennessean who served 32 years in the Army Corps of Engineers before coming to perform the same work, at much greater pay, for KBR.

''When we got here, there was no power or water,'' Gatlin said as we stepped from the air-conditioned trailer that is KBR's Arifjan headquarters into the blinding desert sun. Within about 72 hours of the Pentagon's call, Gatlin had a handful of KBR specialists -- electricians, carpenters, plumbers -- on planes headed here. Most of the rest were hired locally. ''I had a thousand people working here in 24 hours,'' he said. ''The Army can't do that.''

KBR essentially took an entire Army base out of containers and made it rise in the middle of the Kuwaiti desert two days ahead of schedule: air-conditioned tents complete with 110-volt outlets for the soldiers' boom boxes, male and female shower blocks, kitchens, a laundry, Pepsi machines, a Nautilus-equipped health club with an aerobics room (''Latin Dance Thurs & Sat!''), a rec center with video games and a stack of Monopoly sets, a Baskin-Robbins and a Subway sandwich shop. (No beer, though; alcohol is illegal in Kuwait.)

To conjure Camp Arifjan in a twinkling amid one of the most hostile environments on the planet was by any measure a stunning logistical achievement. And now, as at many bases in the U.S., it's KBR civilian employees, not soldiers, who cook, do the laundry, shuttle supplies and control the airspace overhead. KBR does everything but fight.

via The New York Times Magazine

Marines Special Forces

Special Forces are about to get more, well, special. This could rock.

Eighty-six men have begun a one-year trial to determine if the Marines will join Navy SEALs, Green Berets and Air Force Special Operations Forces in the military's special operations forces. The Marine Corps Special Operations Command Detachment One was activated during a ceremony Friday at Camp Pendleton, where it will begin training next week. In October, the commando force will join Naval Special Warfare Group One in Coronado, Calif., to train with the Navy. It will go overseas in April, likely for combat missions in the war on terror.

Unlike other special operations forces, the Marines unit will have a deep roster of specialists in areas including fire support, counter-intelligence, linguistics and communications. Marine Lt. Col. Robert J. Coates, a seasoned reconnaissance officer, is heading the unit.

The mix of troops "provides the type of light mobile and lethal forces critical to success in the global war on terrorism,'' said Lt. Gen. Earl B. Hailston, who commands all Marine Corps forces in the Pacific region.

via AP and the Longview News-Journal

ALA's shame - II

The omniscient InstaPundit has publicized today the latest developments in the American Library Association's attempt to paint a benign face on Cuban repression while it also lobbies bitterly against John Ashcroft's efforts to root out genuine terrorists here at home.

This travesty was noted here earlier in June but now the confrontation inside ALA is coming to a head at their annual meeting. Librarianship is a noble profession, but librarians who profess a foundational commitment to a non-negotiable "Freedom to Read" have no business ignoring the plight of Cubans taking a stand to do the same.

A cold war has broken out at a librarians' conference in downtown Toronto as accusations fly that pro-Castro elements within the American Library Association are trying to silence debate over Cuba's crackdown on independent libraries.

The battle has laid the groundwork for the improbable scenario of a shouting match among librarians at a meeting tomorrow.

The ALA has "secretly manoeuvered to have only pro-Cuban voices" on a discussion panel, said Robert Kent, a co-founder of the Friends of Cuban Libraries and a librarian with the New York Public Library. "And the extremists within the ALA are going to try to pack the meeting to exclude people who might be critical of the Cuban government."

Fearing the panel will ignore the plight of Cuba's independent librarians, many of whom have been imprisoned, some delegates have vowed to force their way into the debate tomorrow.

Their concern is for the 14 self-styled librarians, many of them journalists or writers, who open their private collections to the public, and who were jailed with 64 others in March for treason, while the world was preoccupied with Iraq.

via the National Post (Canada)

Vermin drawn to the exterminator?

This doesn't have to be all bad, as long as we're prepared to deal with them -- it's somewhat convenient that they will come to us. But the supply of fanatics may be large. So, now is the time to deal with the organizers decisively. Hunt 'em down, kill 'em, take their money and weapons stashes. This insurgency was long-planned and is of a piece with the hidden WMD. Saddam and his cadres think they can win over the long-term through attrition and politics -- we have to teach them otherwise.

United States military commanders say foreign fighters are being actively recruited by loyalists to Saddam Hussein to join the resistance against American forces in Iraq, posing a new challenge to efforts to stabilize the country. Military officials say that American troops in Iraq have had to contend with Syrians, Saudis, Yemenis, Algerians, Lebanese and even Chechens.

Many of these fighters took up arms against the United States during the American thrust to Baghdad. But a significant number remain, and a new effort is under way to lure more to Iraq to join the fight against the Americans, officials say. "You have got Baath Party and regime loyalists west and northeast of the city who are calling buddies in foreign countries and getting fighters to come across the border," Maj. Gen. William Webster, deputy commander of the allied land command, said in an interview. "They are also rounding up those who are already here and issuing them weapons."

New evidence about the role of foreign fighters, including passports and other documents, was gathered after the American air and ground attack last week on a militant camp at Rawa, about 150 miles northwest of Baghdad. According to American military commanders, two wounded foreigners were also captured — a Saudi and a Syrian. American officials said the two captives had told them that they were offered money to come to Iraq and kill American soldiers.

What is significant now, American military officials say, is that foreign fighters continue to play an active role in Iraq and continue to be recruited for pay or to join in a new struggle against the Americans. This indicates a considerable degree of organization behind the resistance against the American presence, though officials say it does not appear to be under the central control of a single leader or group.

It also points to an emerging threat to American forces. Militants who want to strike against American targets no longer need to travel to Persian Gulf states. They can accomplish that in Iraq, where there are 145,000 American troops and a growing core of civilian administrators and experts.

The American military has been been trying to track the fighters and has been attacking them when they find them. The goal is to demonstrate that the fighters have no hope of evicting American forces from Iraq and to prevent Iraq from becoming a magnet for Islamic militants. The goal of the foreign fighters, for their part, seems to be to raise the American casualty toll and to create pressure on the Americans to withdraw.

via The New York Times

Spies that fly

PBS's NOVA program had an episode earlier this year called "Spies That Fly," focused on the past, present, and future of aerial surveillance. I missed the broadcast, but will be looking for it in reruns. PBS has built an informative web site to expand on the program. It's chock full of facts and images -- check it out.

The air war in Afghanistan showed that sometimes the hottest pilots are sitting on the ground operating the remote controls of UAVs -- or unmanned aerial vehicles. In newly declassified footage, "Spies That Fly" reveals the astounding capabilities of UAVs and the ambitious plans for future models.

As demonstrated in every aerial operation involving United States forces since the Gulf War in 1991, UAVs can fly places and perform missions that are often too dangerous for humans to risk. Among the advanced UAVs now under development are super-efficient jets that can soar halfway around the world on autopilot without refueling and six-inch flying disks with penny-sized cameras. Right now the Marines are developing their own UAV, which can be carried in a backpack and launched by small units for battlefield intelligence.

The ultimate robotic flyer could be as small as a bee, however. Because of recent breakthroughs in understanding how insects hover, the future may hold fly-sized, flapping UAVs that can infiltrate buildings as antiterrorism surveillance vehicles.

via PBS.org

Dems drive off the cliff

David Brooks examines some of the reasons that mainstream Democrats have become so virulent in their attacks on George W. Bush and the Republicans. (He doesn't even try to deal with the Far, Far Left.) The upcoming election is going to be the ugliest in modern memory. Everyone should grab an airsickness bag now.

Across the country Republicans and conservatives are asking each other the same basic question: Has the other side gone crazy? Have the Democrats totally flipped their lids? Because every day some Democrat seems to make a manic or totally over-the-top statement about George Bush, the Republican party, and the state of the nation today.

"This republic is at its greatest danger in its history because of this administration," says Democratic senator Robert Byrd.

"I think this is deliberate, intentional destruction of the United States of America," says liberal commentator Bill Moyers.

George Bush's economic policy is the "most radical and dangerous economic theory to hit our shores since socialism," says Senator John Edwards.

"The Most Dangerous President Ever" is the title of an essay in the American Prospect by Harold Meyerson, in which it is argued that the president Bush most closely resembles is Jefferson Davis.

Tom Daschle condemns the "dictatorial approach" of this administration. John Kerry says Bush "deliberately misled" America into the Iraq war. Asked what Democrats can do about the Republicans, Janet Reno recalls her visit to the Dachau concentration camp, and points out that the Holocaust happened because many Germans just stood by. "And don't you just stand by," she exhorts her Democratic audience.

When conservatives look at the newspapers, they see liberal columnists who pick out every tiny piece of evidence or pseudo-evidence of Republican vileness, and then dwell on it and obsess over it until they have lost all perspective and succumbed to fevers of incoherent rage. They see Democratic primary voters who are so filled with hatred at George Bush and John Ashcroft and Dick Cheney that they are pulling their party far from the mainstream of American life. They see candidates who, instead of trying to quell the self-destructive fury, are playing to it. "I am furious at [Bush] and I am furious at the Republicans," says Dick Gephardt, trying to sound like John Kerry who is trying to sound like Howard Dean.

It's mystifying. Fury rarely wins elections. Rage rarely appeals to suburban moderates. And there is a mountain of evidence that the Democrats are now racing away from swing voters, who do not hate George Bush, and who, despite their qualms about the economy and certain policies, do not feel that the republic is being raped by vile and illegitimate marauders.

The Democrats, indeed, look like they're turning into a domestic version of the Palestinians--a group so enraged at their perceived oppressors, and so caught up in their own victimization, that they behave in ways that are patently not in their self-interest, and that are almost guaranteed to perpetuate their suffering.

via the Weekly Standard

Heads in the sand

D.C.'s educrats are in full ostrich mode about their abject failure to provide real education to thousands of children in the nation's capital. Their unwillingness to face the truth would be unnerving if it weren't so typical.

The superintendent of D.C. public schools yesterday said he had found some good news in a new national report that ranks D.C. schoolchildren as the country's worst readers and only slightly better than some non-English-speaking children in the U.S. territories. Superintendent Paul L. Vance said the achievement gap between white, black and Hispanic students has narrowed.

D.C. public schoolchildren in all grades are falling behind their peers in other jurisdictions, even though the District spent $9,650 per pupil in 2001 — the second-highest per-pupil expenditure among the states, according to the NAEP report. Only New Jersey spent more per student — $10,145. Meanwhile, the average salary for a D.C. teacher was $48,651 in 2001 — among the highest in the nation, according to the NAEP report. The District's 16-to-1 student-teacher ratio was about the same as that of the states. Mr. Vance is paid $175,000 a year

D.C. school officials yesterday declined to provide current per-pupil expenditure, average salary and student-teacher ratio information.

via the Washington Times

The education establishment in this country remains largely in denial about their role in conducting a massive and disastrous social engineering experiment for the last 50 years whereby they have foisted bogus education theories onto the backs, and into the minds, of several generations now. Gifted and dedicated individual educators are hemmed in, prevented from doing what works, and forced to focus on test scores per se and plenty of other nonsense. In D.C. they can't even achieve that pyrrhic victory.

President Bush was right to call attention to this continuing crisis during the 2000 campaign. But he and others need to realize that leadership -- from the colleges of education to the school boards, school districts, campuses, and into the classrooms -- is the key. The idiots and incompetents need to be weeded out now and replaced with those who will lead and demand the best, without regard to social theorizing. School districts would do well to consider the kind of long-term commitment to developing leaders practiced by organizations like the U.S. Army and GE.

Quote of the Day

"Also remember that in life there is death. This is the way of the world and we should now do what our country asks of us. We must support our nation. We must avenge our brothers and sisters. To do this, we must use our very sharp claws."

- Special Forces Staff Sgt. Brian C. Prosser, killed in action in Afghanistan, in an e-mail to his family sent on the day after September 11, 2001.

via the Ventura County Star

Staff Sgt. Brian Prosser

This letter was written by a retired LAFD firefighter, the father of Special Forces Staff Sgt. Brian C. Prosser, 28, of Frazier Park, Calif.

Sgt. Prosser was killed in action fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

May 2, 2003

Dear President Bush

I’ve been wanting to do this since the fifth day of December, two thousand one. That’s the day, on a hill in Afghanistan, my son and two fellow soldiers gave their all to the cause of freedom and their country, I have never spent one second thinking they died in vain, but yesterday watching you and the way you conducted yourself on the ship, I knew it was time to write. I guess the odds of this letter getting to you are about the same as winning the lottery, but I’m going to chance it anyway, because even if you don’t ever see it, I will feel better for writing it.

There have been many thoughtful and unusual things done in the name of our son. One of the first ones came from the Army by allowing us to have his body here in California, for his hometown to pay their respects...before he went to Arlington. I have no idea where the order for that came from, but based on what I learned in my tour of duty; it wasn’t from the company level.

To whoever is responsible for making that possible, I humbly say thank you and I’m grateful. His site at Arlington looks directly at the section of the Pentagon impacted on September eleven. A fitting place for a warrior, who lost his life in a battle, started that day, to rest.

When you were first elected, I was very happy and was thanking the "stupies" in Florida that made it possible. As time goes by, each day I’m more and more convinced it was divine intervention. I’ve not seen anyone more suited for his role, than you are...you are, for sure, the man for the hour. I wonder if you realize what great changes you are making possible in our country?

After my son died, I found myself doing things I never would have considered before (this letter is one). Along with this came some long hours of wondering and thought. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that what’s been missing in our country is faith: And its demise came out of the Viet Nam "experience".

When I say faith; I’m not talking about only spiritual Faith. I mean faith in your parents, faith in your teachers, faith in the police, etcetera, etcetera. What’s the first thing they teach you in the military? "Have faith in your buddy", " faith in your weapon", " faith in your commanders".

The betrayal of our troops and the rest of us created a whole new species of Americans prone to suspicion and distrust...toward anything...and it’s lasted thirty years, through multiple Presidents.

I can tell you sir, based on the literally hundreds of people that have connected with me through the mail, or talking, or the internet, our country is getting well...and you are the main reason. For the first time in many years we have a leader that says what he means and means what he says...and then does it! That really isn’t an overwhelming assignment, but for some, it’s insurmountable.

By example, you are showing not only Americans, but the world in general, "Proud to be an American" is not an idle statement. As once it was, it is again becoming a lofty goal for people to aspire to...young and old.

I’m glad I’ve lived long enough to be a witness to this transition.

One other thing I noticed about your demeanor yesterday was you seemed less stressed and definitely at ease with the folks you were surrounded by...as they were with you.

Your job, if done in a conscientious manner, includes some decisions that can carry some hefty emotional collateral effects.

I have a piece of work on a wall in my home, written by somebody much smarter than I am, entitled "The Strength of a Man". Among other things, it says: "The strength of a man is not how much he can lift, it is the burden he can carry".

You show the effects of carrying the load necessary in protecting, not only your own people but the others in need, throughout the world. But more importantly, you show, also, the grit to get it done.

I hope none of what I’ve expressed here, has offended or upset you in any way. They are just some things I’ve needed to tell you for some time...as I said previously.

In closing, I’ll share this: While you would not be considered a large man physically, the shadow you cast is as big as any in history...big enough to cover the World. I’m proud that you are representing me and the land that I love.

Respectfully,

Brian Prosser

via the Los Angeles City Fire Department Chief Officers Association

Thanks to Steve W. for the tip.

Sakharov

Elena Bonner has a tough critique of Putin's Russia and refuses to endorse a plan to erect a monument to her late husband, Andrei Sakharov, in Moscow. Bonner has seen a lot and should be heard.

Writing in "The Wall Street Journal Europe," Elena Bonner of the Andrei Sakharov foundation says over the past three years, President Vladimir Putin's Russia has seen "the systematic dismantling of democratic institutions, the suppression of independent media, and the instigation of nationalism and xenophobia. But the gravest crime perpetrated by the government is the ongoing genocidal war in Chechnya," which has resulted in 180,000 dead and 350,000 displaced persons.

Oppressive regimes like Putin's often like to "decorate themselves with fake attributes of democracy -- sham elections, a servile judiciary, manipulated media. In today's Russia," she says, "the masquerade is called 'managed democracy.'" And Moscow often stages "quasi-democratic" exercises for the benefit of world leaders. "Thus, the recent Chechen 'referendum' that was no referendum, and the 'amnesty' [for Chechen fighters] that was no amnesty."

Bonner says "another falsification of Moscow's 'managed democracy' has been unfolding in a London court," where moderate Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev is fighting an extradition request by Russia. But she says Zakayev's innocence "was established in December when Denmark threw out [the] fake Russian charges."

Bonner writes: "I am told that the appeasement of 'managed democracy' is the necessary evil needed to keep an important ally within the coalition against terror." But "legitimizing false democracy, false justice and a make-believe war on terror [in Chechnya] casts doubt on the real things, particularly for those who, like myself, continue to value them."

Summary via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Full article via Wall Street Journal Europe (subscribers only)

Handicapping Hillary

Michael Barone examines Hillary's presidential aspirations today. I have no doubt she will run, and that the Dems will embrace her, and that they could win -- if the Republicans do not do more to prepare candidates to follow George W. Bush. Where are the new Republican leaders? It would sure be hard to vote for the likes of Orrin Hatch and Rick Santorum.

Sen. Clinton has made no move to run for president in 2004; evidently she has calculated that she and other Democrats have little chance at beating George W. Bush. Of course she denies that she has decided to run in 2008, and she will surely say that whoever is the Democratic nominee in 2004 has a real chance of being elected. These untruths are not evidence of special mendaciousness but harmless white lies required by the conventions of American politics. Of her ambition there can be little doubt. The most sensitive and convincing (though not friendly) portrait of her, by the late Barbara Olson in "Hell to Pay," shows a woman determined to wield political power from her days in college and law school. She has been working toward this goal for 35 years now. She is not going to give up when the highest prize seems within reach.

But does the Democratic Party want to tie its fortunes to Sen. Clinton? Polling suggests she is in a strong position to win the Democratic nomination.

As a general-election candidate, she is less than a sure thing. In an ABC News poll 53% said they did not want her to run for president. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed her trailing George W. Bush 53% to 40%. Her enthusiasts might dismiss this as due to Mr. Bush's current strength, but the fact is that 100% know her and 60% are not supporting her.

Democrats would be unwise to give up entirely on their chances in 2004; as the Clintons showed in 1992, great turnabouts in politics are possible. But if 2004 turns out as most people suspect, Democrats must decide if their psychic investment in the Clintons, and in Hillary Rodham Clinton as an icon of feminist success, justifies nominating a candidate with her electoral weakness. Democrats exulted when Bill Clinton seemed to be paying no price for his personal shortcomings in the 1992 and 1996 elections, and in the impeachment controversy. But nothing in politics is free; there is only some question about when you pay the price. Democrats may end up paying the price for Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky, Whitewater and Travelgate, in 2008.

via the OpinionJournal

France's civil war

A French author, a judge no less, has been blocked, at least temporarily, from stating the blindingly obvious and then documenting it. There is a bit of a civil war going on in France too.

A Paris court last night halted publication of a book by a former investigating magistrate that claims France is institutionally corrupt. The book by Eva Joly, who uncovered political and financial corruption at the Elf oil company, is the first by a judge to have been blocked by the French courts.

The court ruled that publication of Is This The World We Want To Live In? might prejudice the trial of former Elf executives, now in its third month, which has already revealed the extent of political and financial corruption in France. The court ordered that publication, intended for today, must be postponed until the trial is over. Mme Joly said she would appeal.

Arnaud Montebourg, a Socialist MP, said she should be given the Legion d'Honneur rather than be attacked for her honesty. Mme Joly, 57, said the French establishment was one of the most rotten in Europe. "It is a country of networks that don't like to be challenged."

via The Telegraph (UK)

Muslim moderation

The PM of Malaysia has been getting his talking points from Ramsey Clark and Noam Chomsky. Perhaps he is listening to KPFT Pacifica radio via the Internet. Note that he is described as leading a "moderate Muslim government." Any wonder we have real trouble from "extreme" groups?

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad launched a vitriolic attack on the European race today, accusing them of warmongering, indiscriminate attacks on Muslims, greed and sexual deviancy. Europeans, including "those who migrated and set up new nations in America, Australia and New Zealand", wanted "to control the world again", he said.

Predicting that he would be condemned as a "racist", the veteran Southeast Asian leader said he was "not anti-European. I have many friends and acquaintances who are Europeans."

"They are very clever, brave and have an insatiable curiosity," he said. But "unfortunately they are also very greedy and like to take forcibly the territories and rights of other people."

via the Sydney Morning Herald

Civil wars

Austin Bay says there are four civil wars going on right now in the Middle East, and makes an especially interesting observation.

There's a case to be made -- by no means totally facile -- that the War on Terror is a Saudi civil war diverted to the rest of the globe. The Saud regime's petro-princes were always an al-Qaida target, but as long as al-Qaida was off in Afghanistan with the Taliban or in East Africa blowing up American embassies, the princes could pretend the Islamists were no threat to them.

The Saudis now say their response to last month's bombing in Riyadh demonstrates they are full participants in America's War on Terror. The civil war's come home with a vengeance. The Saudi bust of an al-Qaida cell in Mecca is a key event. Controlling Mecca is to Saudi politics what controlling the eastern oil fields is to the Saudi economy -- absolutely vital.

via the Houston Chronicle

Rudy fighting back

Rudy Giuliani is speaking out to the leaders of Europe on their responsibility to fight anti-Semitism, which has seen a resurgence in the last few years, helped in large part by prejudice from the Left as they exploit "anti-Zionism" in their bitter rhetoric.

Anti-Semitism is the Western world's oldest and most persistent species of hatred. There are larger and more widespread minority groups than Jews — at 13 million, they comprise about 0.2 percent of the world's population — but the Holocaust made clear how virulent hatred of them has been. To the extent that anti-Semitism persists, we have yet to fulfill the promise of "Never Again" to those who were martyred.

President Bush has asked me to head the United States delegation to a conference on combating anti-Semitism, held by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which begins tomorrow in Vienna. The meeting is a direct response to the worldwide surge in anti-Semitic violence. Last spring, physical attacks against Jews in France were occurring at a rate of 8 to 12 a day, with 14 arson attacks on synagogues in a two-week period. In Russia, signs reading "Death to Jews" were placed along highways and rigged to explode if anyone sought to remove them.

The conference represents a critical first step for Europeans, who have too frequently dismissed anti-Semitic violence as routine assaults and vandalism. Anti-Semitism is anything but routine. When people attack Jews, vandalize their graves, characterize them in inhumane ways, and make salacious statements in parliaments or the press, they are attacking the defining values of our societies and our international institutions.

via The New York Times

Hamilton's wisdom

Larry Miller says he was feeling kinda down the other day about the U.S. vs. the world and all, but then he called his friend Hamilton and just felt better. Hamilton said:

"President Bush is a Christian, and he stopped drinking on his own. He's tough as nails, and he knows right from wrong, and he's not going to do the politic thing, he's going to do the right thing. Every time. He's not his father, and he's not anyone else, and he's not interested in trying to make awful people like him. He's interested in fighting evil where he finds it and making the world a better place, and he will, because he's a man of his word. He knows he can't free everybody, but if it's a place that's in our national best interest, he'll make a plan, and he'll do it. Period. He's not going to turn gray or turn tail.

"We're not going to be whittled away in Iraq. Bush and Rumsfeld won't let that happen. They're going to tell their commanders to do the job, and these guys will do it. The Arabs have seen that, and they will continue to see it, and that's the only thing that will make them take notice. And they have. They're going to help this peace process and not let it die, because someone's going to force them to, and that someone is President Bush.

"Rumsfeld hasn't changed a bit, either. He did everything we love about him in Europe. They said he was annoying and impolite and undiplomatic. They hated him. It was great! Hell, every time the French or German ministers stood up to say something, the guy practically pulled out a crossword puzzle and put on a Walkman.

"Donald Rumsfeld is going to tell these wine-tasters what to do, and they're going to do it, and that's that. None of this is going to slip away, in fact it's all going to succeed, because this president decides what's right and then does it.

"Bush is ending the days of nineteenth century diplomacy, where a lie wasn't a lie, it was just a tool. Crap. He's going to listen to everything they want, then cut it off and say, 'Thanks for your valuable help. Now here's what's going to happen.'"

via the Weekly Standard

Jessica redux

The Washington Post has probably the best account of what really happened to Jessica Lynch in Iraq. It's an amazing story. Jessica is really damaged, but tough, too. She'll pull through, but it ain't gonna be easy.

It became the story of the war, boosting morale at home and among the troops. It was irresistible and cinematic, the maintenance clerk turned woman-warrior from the hollows of West Virginia who just wouldn't quit. Hollywood promised to make a movie and the media, too, were hungry for heroes. Lynch's story is far more complex and different than those initial reports. Much of the story remains shrouded in mystery, in large part because of official Army secrecy, concerns for Lynch's privacy and her limited memory.

At Walter Reed, Lynch's bones have been put back together with such a delicate and extensive network of rods and pins that it can take an hour for her to move from bed to wheelchair. "She is still struggling with pain and her recovery will be slow," said family spokesman Randy Coleman. Her mother said, "It's amazing she can walk at all -- she is a body full of pins and screws," Coleman recounted.

Still, Lynch is making progress. She recently walked more than 100 steps using a walker. "She works hard at physical therapy. She doesn't sit around and complain. She is certainly determined to get well," said Walter Reed spokeswoman Beverly Chidel.

People who have seen her said she is psychologically traumatized, and appears somewhat dazed, though she is better now than in the early weeks. Recently she has talked on the phone to friends and sent e-mails from her laptop.

via the Washington Post

Iraq

The guerrilla war in Iraq goes on.

A shadowy group of Saddam Hussein loyalists calling itself al Awda, maning "the Return," is forming an alliance with Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda for a full-scale uprising against the U.S.-led occupation in mid-July. The information comes from leaflets circulating in Baghdad, as well as a series of extended interviews with a former official in Saddam's security services who held the rank of brigadier general.

Al Awda is aiming for a spectacular attack and uprising on or about July 17 to mark the anniversary of the Ba'athist revolution in 1968, the former general said. The Islamists have indicated they are willing to join forces to battle the Americans, even though they dislike Saddam and his secular Ba'ath Party ideology.

via the Washington Times

Today is Bloomsday

Ninety-nine years ago, on June 16, 1904, Leopold Bloom, a good man who never existed, spent an extraordinary 24 hours in Dublin, Ireland, and thereby birthed the modern novel. People around the world will celebrate this day as "Bloomsday."

There are many puzzles attached to James Joyce's Ulysses, not the least of which is its reputation of being unreadable. It might be the greatest novel in the English language, so it goes, but who can read it?

For those who can, there is no puzzle: Joyce's account of one day in the life of his antihero, Leopold Bloom, is as spellbinding as the entire history of Odysseus's journeys during the Trojan wars in Homer's Odyssey, on which it is loosely modelled.

The spell is first cast by Ulysses' virtuosic language. Rich in puns, invented words and literary and mythological allusion, it is like a new kind of "reading-music" playing in one's head, scored from some long-forgotten memory bank. Homer might have given us "the wine-dark sea", but Joyce gives us the deep, dark night sky, "the heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit". Heavenspeech in the awkward, broken accents of earth, as one critic described it.

Or it could be his equally virtuosic use of stream-of-consciousness narrative, where characters' thoughts can begin each to their own self, then collapse and meld together into the storytelling, creating a multiple world of being and sensation. Whatever the spell's first cause, nevertheless it has sustained Ulysses' reputation as being the book that changed the novel forever.

The riddles of Ulysses - its allusions, meanings, characters - have kept scholars busy for the past 80 years since its publication in 1922; if Joyce has his way, they will for centuries to come. He claimed to have filled Ulysses with enough enigmas to keep "the critics busy for the next 300 years".

via the Sydney Morning Herald

Listen to James Joyce himself read an excerpt from Ulysses, as recorded by Sylvia Beach, proprietor of the Paris bookstore Shakespeare & Co., and first publisher of the great book.

The truth comes out

Well, at least part of the puzzle has been solved...

A 2002 CIA report which disproved allegations of a nuclear deal between Iraq and Niger was so top secret, no one was allowed to read it. An unnamed Senior CIA analyst said that a clerk accidentally classified the report beyond anyone's clearance level. "Even the CIA director and the President couldn't open it," said the unnamed analyst. "At meeting after meeting in the White House, the envelope just sat there on the table. Mr. Bush would glance at it, shrug, and move on."

via Scrappleface

Hamas! Listen Up!

Richard Lugar was interviewed on Fox News today by Tony Snow. Coming from the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I'd say these comments should be interpreted by Hamas as an ultimatum. Are they smart enough to take it seriously? Probably not.

LUGAR: But let me just say at the outset that after the Aqaba summit, each of the three parties, including ourselves, has been tested.

The dilemma for the Israelis is that it's possible that Abbas simply does not have security forces that are adequate to take on Hamas, quite apart from even the territories being suggested for his security now. And pragmatically, this may mean down the road -- and this will come after a good number of talks -- there has to be some fill in.

At this point, Kofi Annan of the U.N. has suggested U.N. peacekeepers, maybe even armed peacekeepers. There have been suggestions that NATO may be involved, that the United States may be involved. At that point, the polls turn very sharply south, with regard to United States involvement.

But I would just say after one week of it, in which much of the press, much of the public says, "Here we go again" and sort of back to this.

Never underestimate President George Bush. Once his teeth are into this situation, there are likely to be unforeseen circumstances, and the security situation may change.

SNOW: Should the United States lend some sort of military aid, directly or indirectly, so that he is capable of dealing with Hamas, dealing with the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the third group that was involved in the bombings earlier in the week and, by the way, which answers to Yasser Arafat. Is that a possibility?

LUGAR: Well, it's always a possibility. But having said that, I would just say this is down the trail. We have to be very, very careful about the use of American forces, whether they are to be all by themselves, whether with NATO, whether with the U.N., with WHO.

But clearly, if force is required, ultimately to rout out terrorism, it is possible that there will be an American participation.

SNOW: You have mentioned that Kofi Annan has suggested either NATO or U.N. support, and you have just talked about American participation. Do you believe it is going to be necessary for some international armed force to intervene to keep the two sides from going at each other?

LUGAR: It may be. And even more important, is to rout out the terrorism which is at the heart of the problem.

SNOW: So in other words, international forces ought to be going after Hamas, ought to be going after some of these groups?

LUGAR: That may be the conclusion. Now, I don't want to race ahead of a lot of talks that must take place that set the stage for this, because clearly to the extent the Israelis and Abbas can settle the situation, clearly we ought to allow them.

I'm just saying that failure, really, is not a possibility here, if we pursue it avidly, which I think the president will do.

via Fox News

Quote of the Day

"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

- Mark Twain

Run, Condi, Run

Condi Rice is a warrior, a scholar, a pianist who's willing to practice (wow), and an all-around achiever. What a role model for the 21st century. Pay attention, girls -- there are no limits!

Condoleezza Rice is used to making tough policy decisions as President Bush's national security adviser. Soon she'll face a tough personal decision: whether to run for governor of California. Republicans in the state have been buzzing about the possibility that Rice, the former Stanford University provost who makes Silicon Valley her permanent home, may seek the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2006.

Rice, 48, has been coy about her intentions, but those who know her well say the state's top job is potentially appealing to her. She has not publicly expressed interest and has taken no visible steps to lay the groundwork for a campaign. But key Republicans said she has sparked optimism by not ruling it out, which she did when approached about a run for the U.S. Senate in 2004. That's been enough to start many GOP insiders and political analysts salivating. More so than actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rice is viewed as the true dream candidate for the downtrodden California Republican Party.

She's a well-known and respected African-American woman, a self-professed moderate on several key social issues, including abortion and gay rights, while a loyal and trusted adviser to the popular Bush. A poll in April by Sacramento Republican consultant Ray McNally found Rice would crush Schwarzenegger in a GOP primary, 66 percent to 17 percent, and would defeat both of the leading potential Democratic candidates.

``If she wants to be governor, she could be governor,'' said McNally, who added the questions to an existing poll out of his own curiosity.

via The Mercury News

Scary news

This is actually the worst news of the day, and we're doing it to ourselves. Put down that Whopper!

One in three U.S. children born in 2000 will become diabetic, triple the American Diabetes Association's current estimate, unless many more people start eating less and exercising more, a scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned. The odds are worse for black and Hispanic children: nearly half of them are likely to develop the disease, said Dr. K.M. Venkat Narayan, a diabetes epidemiologist at the CDC. "I think the fact that the diabetes epidemic has been raging has been well known to us for several years. But looking at the risk in these terms was very shocking to us," Dr. Narayan said.

The implications are frightening. Diabetes leads to a host of problems, including blindness, kidney failure, amputation and heart disease, and diabetics are getting younger and younger. Including undiagnosed cases, authorities believe about 17 million Americans, nearly 6 percent of the U.S. population, have diabetes today. If the CDC predictions are accurate, some 45 million to 50 million U.S. residents could have diabetes by 2050, said Dr. Kevin McKinney, director of the adult clinical endocrinological unit at the University of Texas Medical Center in Galveston. "There is no way that the medical community could keep up with that," he said.

via AP and the Washington Times

Staying the course

Victor Davis Hanson says there's hope for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if the U.S. and Israel can stay the course, keep the pressure on, and let history work its will. So far, President Bush has shown a remarkable ability to forge ahead even as the chattering class panics around him, so there is reason for optimism. Alone among recent leaders, he seems to grasp the necessity of taking action against the state sponsors who keep terrorism alive.

The upcoming presidential election campaign may be the acid test. The pressure to waffle will be enormous even as the stakes rise for the nation and the world.

While pessimists lament the intractable forces that prevent resolution, the position of the Islamic and Palestinian radicals has in fact already markedly weakened — and from the rear.

The withdrawal of American troops from Saudi Arabia, coupled with its devastating victories over the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, give the United States new flexibility in chasing down the abettors of terror. The suicide attacks on Russians in Chechnya and Arabs in Saudi Arabia has eroded support of such tactics in these countries, which formerly sponsored the Palestinian cause. And if terrorists in the past calculated that the United States either could not or would not strike at their sanctuaries, they now accept that neither premise is tenable.

If we continue to get tough with Syria and Iran, and if we stay the course in Iraq, we can turn generic terrorism in the Middle East into a sort of Potemkin existence — snarly, ugly, loud marchers, who when the cameras cut out skulk home in fear that either American arms or a suddenly hostile host government are waiting at the door. Even as bombers strap on their munitions and head for Israel, an entire avalanche of events, both military and cultural, is undermining their entire bankrupt ideology — whether it be pan-Arabism, theocracy, or international jihad.

The strategic balance is tipping ever so gradually away from the terrorists and toward the realists, who grasp that the end is coming for Hamas or Hezbollah, and for the safe houses of Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank from which they unleash their terror.

via National Review

Vultures at work

The Persians are busy, busy, busy. Interesting, and scary, to watch the neighbors trying to feast off the carcass of fallen Iraq.

Iran is recruiting top Iraqi weapons scientists to join a dangerous brain drain from Baghdad as international concern grows about Teheran's clandestine arms programme. The pro-Iranian Badr Brigade, an Iraqi Islamic militia, is helping scientists to travel through tribal areas north east of Baghdad and across the border for meetings with senior military and regime figures in Teheran, The Telegraph has learnt. The Iranian regime is particularly seeking Iraqi specialists in solid missile propellants, a technology in which Baghdad was strong but Teheran weak. Iran wants to switch from liquid to solid fuels to improve the performance of its long-range Shahab missiles, which may soon be able to reach Europe.

via The Telegraph (UK)

What a girl wants

Just in case American voters have forgotten, this is what Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy have planned for us if they get their way.

British troops injured in war are being forced to pay for private medical treatment or face long delays for operations on the National Health Service.

A staffing crisis in the Defence Medical Services (DMS) means that more than 10,000 soldiers - the equivalent of 15 infantry battalions - are currently not fit for frontline duty. That figure rises to more than 17,000 when all three services are taken into consideration, according to Government figures given to the Liberal Democrats. Senior officers have told ministers that unless they receive an emergency injection of cash, large sections of the Army will be declared unoperational because of the number of troops waiting for surgery.

One soldier, who was injured on active duty in Afghanistan, has now been told that he faces a 12-month wait for a knee operation unless he is prepared to pay £2,000 for private treatment.

Another soldier who recently returned from Afghanistan after serving with the International Stabilisation and Assistance Force (Isaf) has been told that he will have to wait six months before he can see a specialist about his damaged ankle. He may then face a further year's wait for an operation. He has, however, been advised that if he were to go private, he could see a specialist immediately and have the operation within three weeks.

via The Telegraph (UK)

Information comes to everyone

Generally speaking, I don't comment much on the deep meaning of blogging per se -- seems too much like mere navel-gazing. But once in a while it's worth pondering the significance of what's happening around us.

A thoughtful 1999 piece by Kevin Maney in USA Today quoted historians to the effect that the printing press turned the world upside down. By allowing information to more easily be made permanent and easing its widespread distribution, the printing press contributed to the industrial revolution, the Protestant reformation and the growth of democracy, he writes. He poses the question of whether the Internet might be as significant over time. No one really knows, he concedes, and that is clearly the only intellectually respectable answer.

The evidence grows daily, however, that the Internet is a powerful democratizing, educational instrument that puts a library's wealth of information - and the equivalent of a personal printing press - in every home that has a PC and an Internet hookup. Bloggers are part of the story, but it doesn't stop there. You can read virtually every daily newspaper in America, and many in Europe and elsewhere in the world, on the Internet - and for free. You have encyclopedias there, and magazines and, yes, books: There is a site that offers many of the classics.

A frequently heard criticism is that you can't trust all you read on the Internet. My response is that you cannot trust all you read and otherwise encounter outside of the Internet, either. Both on the Internet and outside of it, you have to learn to discriminate; outside of it, for instance, you have to know the difference between a guy mouthing off in a saloon and a treatise by someone with a doctorate from Harvard. (You trust the guy in the saloon, right? Just kidding, Harvard, although bloggers may teach me differently someday.)

Not everything about the Internet is good, of course. There is some terrible trash to be found there. But it's not as if the printing press has not been used for trashy ends, too. My assessment is optimistic - that the Internet's overall impact will be to further the truth and that this instrument will prove personally empowering and liberating.

via the Sacramento Bee

Today is Flag Day

The American Flag means many things to many people. Fifty stars, thirteen stripes, freedom and safety is what the flag means to me. Our American Flag right now has fifty stars for the fifty states and thirteen stripes for the thirteen colonies. The red on the flag means hardiness and courage, white for purity and innocence, and the blue stands for vigilance, perseverance, and justice. My country's flag means freedom to me. When I look at the flag, it reminds me of the people fighting in the war. From the people fighting in the war, we have freedom. Freedom gave us the right to do more things.

What would it be like without the American Flag? Without the American Flag over my head, I would not feel that well. I wouldn't feel safe. That is what the American Flag means to me. But it might mean different things to different people. I love my country's flag.

- Becky Risler, student - Gilmanton, Wisconsin

via the Winding River Review (1995-96)

Over the past 226 years, our flag has been a symbol of freedom wherever it flies. It inspires hope in people suffering under tyranny or terror. It welcomes immigrants from every land searching for a better life. And it rallies our nation in times of conflict and crisis.

Whenever the flag is raised, Americans are reminded of our unity in the great cause of liberty and justice for all. Our nation's flag is hung proudly in homes an schools, honored in parades and stadiums, flown on the field of battle, and folded at the graves of heroes.

When Francis Scott Key saw the Stars and Stripes flying over Fort McHenry in 1814, he knew that liberty would persevere. That same faith was affirmed by Marines who planted the flag at Iwo Jima, and by the heroes of 9/11, who raised and saluted the flag at Ground Zero.

By showing respect for our flag, we show reverence for the ideals that guide our nation. And we show appreciation for the men and women who have served and sacrificed in defense of those ideals -- from the early patriots of the Continental Congress to the members of our military defending freedom around the world today.

- President George W. Bush

via The White House

Jihadist infiltrators

The guerrilla war in Iraq has several dimensions besides the Baathist resistance.

A growing number of Islamic militants are crossing into Iraq from Iran and Syria in an attempt to attack the tens of thousands of American soldiers there, posing a lethal new threat to stabilization efforts, U.S. officials said on Friday.

In the case of Iran, intelligence reports indicate that the effort to secretly move a large number of third-country Arab fighters into neighboring Iraq has the backing of parts of Iran's divided government. It is being orchestrated by elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the classified information involved. It is less clear whether the Syrian government is aiding the foreign fighters, some linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network, who are crossing its porous border with Iraq, the officials said.

via the Houston Chronicle

Fighter pilots

Steve W. sends a list of "Great Aviation Thoughts," which can also be found on the Web as "Fighter Pilot Truths." All ring true, but a few are especially worth noting.

5. There are Rules and there are Laws. The rules are made by men who think that they know better how to fly your airplane than you. The Laws (of Physics) were made by the Great One. You can, and sometimes should, suspend the rules but you can never suspend the Laws.

6. More about Rules:

a. The rules are a good place to hide if you don't have a better idea and the talent to execute it.

b. If you deviate from a rule, it must be a flawless performance. (e.g.: If you fly under a bridge, don't hit the bridge.)

18. About night flying:

a. Remember that the airplane doesn't know that it's dark.

b. On a clear, moonless night, never fly between the tanker's lights.

c. There are certain aircraft sounds that can only be heard at night.

d. If you're going to night fly, it might as well be in the weather so you can double count your exposure to both hazards.

e. Night formation is really an endless series of near misses in equilibrium with each other.

f. You would have to pay a lot of money at a lot of amusement parks and perhaps add a few drugs, to get the same blend of psychedelic sensations as a single engine night weather flight on the wing.

20. At the end of the day, the controllers, ops supervisors, maintenance guys, weather guessers, and birds; they're all trying to kill you and your job is to not let them!

30. The ultimate responsibility of the pilot is to fulfill the dreams of the countless millions of earthbound ancestors who could only stare skyward and wish.

Check out the entire list via FighterPilots.net

IP6

The Pentagon has made a decision that will push faster adoption of the new IP standard, and it's a good example of the military taking advantage of non-military innovation.

The US Defence Department said yesterday it planned to link its high-tech weaponry, battlefield sensors and other communications systems to an upgraded internet operating system within five years.

John Stenbit, the Pentagon's chief information officer, said the current system, which the Defence Department helped develop decades ago, was too limited to meet the needs of today's technology-driven armed forces. It was not secure enough and was too prone to dropping information "packets" used in such things as videoconferencing, he told reporters. Another shortcoming, he said, was the limited, telephone-like numbering system that underpins familiar domain names such as http://www.yahoo.com.

Stenbit said the Pentagon planned a five-year switchover to the new system, or protocol, because he expected a majority of mobile phones, laptops and other devices that connect to the internet to use the new approach by then. The new standard, known as Internet Protocol Version 6, or IPv6, being developed by an independent standard-setting body, will help glue together the key components of the Defence Department's so-called Global Information Grid - its sensors, weapons, aircraft, information systems and digitally linked forces.

Article via Reuters

And I liked this exchange between reporters and Stenbit at the Pentagon. Apparently he's one of those non-techie CIOs, which is OK.

Q: And what happened to IP 5? You're going from 4 to 6.

Stenbit: Don't ask me. You have to ask some Internet person. I don't know.

Q: But is there such a thing --

Stenbit: Probably. Could be. I have no idea. I assume they are logical people, and I assume there was one and they decided that wasn't the way to go.

via DefenseLink

"Compassionate conservatism is a Jewish ethic"

Better communication with Jewish voters is important for the Republicans, as shown by Norm Coleman's roadtripping.

This bigotry is wrong in and of itself and worth opposing on its own merits. But it's also true that speaking out against it could offer significant electoral benefits to Republicans. A moral and political twofer.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota is on the road again. Some 30 years ago, Coleman was a rock group roadie for the band Ten Years After, setting up the stage and steadying the bass amplifier during concerts for the 1960s musicians.

Today, Coleman is a roadie of a different sort. The freshman senator, one of only three Jewish GOP members of Congress, is traveling around the country appealing to Jewish groups to support President Bush and hoping to reverse a nearly century-long trend of Jewish support for Democrats.

The Democrat-turned-Republican talks up Bush's efforts to combat terrorism and the president's support for Israel, but Coleman also focuses on his own personal transformation a Brooklyn-born Jew who switched parties in hopes of swaying Jewish voters. "Compassionate conservatism is a Jewish ethic," the senator tells his audiences.

Although Jews make up only about 2 percent of the population, the Jewish vote could be critical in next year's presidential election because of the concentration of likely Jewish voters in competitive states such as Florida and Pennsylvania. In the 2000 election, Bush garnered only 19 percent of the Jewish vote, according to exit polls, but Republicans hope to expand those numbers.

via AP and ABC News

Bullfighting - not just for matadors any more

Advocates of plain language have a new tool: the Bullfighter. Now if they could only incorporate a PowerPoint auto-destruct plug-in...

The people blamed for incentivizing companies to repurpose, build mindshare and utilize change agents have taken aim at their own lingo.

Deloitte Consulting, an arm of the accounting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, has developed a free software program, Bullfighter, that identifies jargon in documents. The goal is to make it easier for investors to decipher what companies are trying to say, said Chelsea Hardaway, the Deloitte marketing director who led the team that designed the software.

"We hope that it is a fun way to make business communications safer for all of us," Ms. Hardaway said. Upon request, she shifted effortlessly to the language of consultants to offer an alternative — or, perhaps, actually the same — explanation: "We envision a center of excellence where our accelerated change agents can maximize their core competencies."

The software design was relatively straightforward. Next, the firm held a contest to build a dictionary of objectionable words and phrases, or "bullwords." The winner of the contest received a trip to the California Academy of Tauromaquia — otherwise known as bullfighting school.

"We got over 10,000 submissions," Ms. Hardaway said. "Some of the most hated were `leverage,' `bandwidth,' `touch base,' `incentivize,' `inoculate,' `bleeding edge,' `robust,' `synergize' and `envisioneer.' "

Article via The New York Times

Free software available at Deloitte Consulting

David Brinkley remembered

George Will wrote well today about the passing of David Brinkley.

To have worked alongside David Brinkley on television is to have experienced what might be called the Tommy Henrich Temptation. Henrich, who played right field for the Yankees when Joe DiMaggio was playing center field, must have been constantly tempted to ignore the game and just stand there watching DiMaggio, who defined for his generation the elegance of understatement and the gracefulness that is undervalued because it makes the difficult seem effortless.

Brinkley, who died Wednesday, a month shy of his 83rd birthday, was a Washington monument as stately, and as spare in expression, as is the original. Long before high-decibel, low-brow cable shout-a-thons made the phrase "gentleman broadcaster" seem oxymoronic, Brinkley made it his business to demonstrate the compatibility of toughness and civility in journalism.

via the Washington Post

So did Cal Thomas.

David Brinkley, who died Wednesday night at age 82, was the greatest broadcast journalist who ever lived. There are many reasons for that.

One is that he had a gift for stating complicated things simply. If there was ever a cliche in his writing (and he wrote all of his own stuff, unlike many in what passes for broadcast journalism today), I never saw it.

Some people thought David aloof, but he was merely reserved. That was a character trait of his generation. He thought too much talking about himself was conceit.

With typical North Carolina modesty, Brinkley once said, "I didn't create anything. I just got here early." Many, especially me, are glad he did.

via the News and Observer

Oliver Kamm blog is good

Oliver Kamm is a Brit with some interesting and erudite commentary and I plan to visit his new blog regularly. Check it out.

The poverty of language evident in the BBC's accounts of terrorism matters, because it's sometimes accompanied by a clear atrophy of moral imagination.

via Oliver Kamm

Real peace

David Horowitz has no illusions about what's required for real peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The only alternative would seem to be for democratically-oriented Palestinians to fight and win a civil war, but the opponents of terror are too cowed to act. After all, they've been killed in droves by Arafat & Co. whenever they've "collaborated" with the Israelis.

The premise of the Road Map to Peace imposed on the parties to the Middle East conflict by the United States, Britain, the EU and Russia is that the conflict cannot be solved by military means. As the terrorist attacks of the last few days should make clear to everyone, the premise is wrong. The Middle East conflict can only be solved by military means.

As the President said after the bombing in Jerusalem, "It is clear that there are those in the Middle East who hate peace." We know who they are because they have declared themselves: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbollah and Yasser Arafat's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

There can be no peace with someone who wants to kill you. The terrorist entities on the Palestinian side of the conflict want exactly that. The Road Map powers have put Israel in an impossible position. No government in the world can fail to respond when its civilians are murdered. Since the Palestinian Authority is completely unable (and probably unwilling) to keep its terrorist armies and allies in check, someone else has to do it. The regrettable statement by the President condemning Israel's wholly justified military response to Hamas's first military attack shows that the Road Map powers do not want Israel to protect itself, nor to disarm the terrorists. Therefore, it is morally incumbent on the Road Map powers to do it themselves. Only that way can real peace negotiations begin.

The President needs to assemble a coalition of the willing once again, insert a military force into the West Bank and the Gaza strip, hunt down the Palestinian terrorists and bring them to justice.

via Frontpage Magazine

North Korea at sea

Good to learn we're working with allies in the western Pacific to do something about North Korea's illicit fleet.

America met two of its allies yesterday to agree plans to confront North Korea's "secret navy" of merchant vessels, which have been covertly shipping drugs, counterfeit money, missiles and nuclear technology around the world.

The United States, Australia and Japan were considering seeking a change in international law to allow suspect vessels to be boarded in international waters. The move follows growing fears that Pyongyang is continuing to export to various countries components for programmes to produce weapons of mass destruction.

On Tuesday, Japan began an unheralded programme of inspections of North Korean ships in its ports. Two vessels were temporarily detained, apparently for "safety violations". North Korea denounced the move as a back-door attempt to impose sanctions, which it has said it would regard as an act of war.

via The Telegraph (UK)

Good night, David

David Brinkley has died. He was among the best TV journalists I ever saw. We watched the "Huntley-Brinkley Report" every night when I was a kid. His commentary at presidential nominating conventions helped get me interested in politics. He re-invented the Sunday morning news shows with "This Week," and the show has declined in every way since his retirement. He'll be missed.

And like for so many others, a librarian and a teacher played a part in setting him on his path. Not a surprise.

Brinkley got his start in journalism when he was a high school student in his native Wilmington, N.C., writing for the Wilmington Morning Star.

His father, a railroad man, died when Brinkley was 8 and his mother showed little interest in the five children she was left to raise alone, he once said. Since he was much younger than his four siblings, Brinkley took refuge in books.

"I would go every day after school and stay till it closed … That's really where I learned what little I know. I once took out Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West. The librarian said I was the only one in Wilmington who would ever read it, so she gave it to me. I still have it," he told the Washington Post in 1974.

When he was 15, a teacher saw his talent for writing and suggested a career in journalism.

via ABC News

Astros 8; Yankees 0

The Astros laid some serious smack on the Yankees last night, which just rocks. Way to go, team!

Forced to scramble after starter Roy Oswalt was injured, a record six Houston pitchers combined Wednesday on the first no-hitter against the Yankees in 45 years.

"It's embarrassing," Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said. "We should be embarrassed. If you're not embarrassed something's wrong with you."

"This is one of the worst games I've ever been involved in," Yankees manager Joe Torre said.

via the Houston Chronicle

Colin Powell vs. Burma

Colin Powell is speaking out forcefully for democracy and genuine human rights this week, first about Cuba to the OAS, and now concerning Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her peaceful democratic movement in Burma. As usual, Powell is eloquent at the strategic level, but his State Department staff bears watching on the ground -- will they undercut these lofty goals through their typical accomodationist actions? Let's wait and see.

Simply put, the attack on Ms. Suu Kyi's convoy and the utter failure of the junta to accept efforts at peaceful change cannot be the last word on the matter. The junta that oppresses democracy inside Burma must find that its actions will not be allowed to stand.

There are a number of measures that should now be taken, many of them in the proposed legislation. It's time to freeze the financial assets of the SPDC. It's time to ban remittances to Burma so that the SPDC cannot benefit from the foreign exchange. With legislation, we can, and should, place restrictions on travel-related transactions that benefit the SPDC and its supporters. We also should further limit commerce with Burma which enriches the junta's generals. Of course, we would need to ensure consistency with our World Trade Organization and other international obligations. Any legislation will need to be carefully crafted to take into account our WTO obligations and the president's need for waiver authority, but we should act now.

By attacking Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters, the Burmese junta has finally and definitively rejected the efforts of the outside world to bring Burma back into the international community. Indeed, their refusal of the work of Ambassador Razali and of the rights of Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters could not be clearer. Our response must be equally clear if the thugs who now rule Burma are to understand that their failure to restore democracy will only bring more and more pressure against them and their supporters.

via the OpinionJournal

Quote of the Day - 2

"After a whirl of book promo, including several signings in DC area stores, I have seen many stacks of Mrs. Clinton's latest. A friend of mine in publishing told me he thought it was supremely dull. Note it well. Dull was how she became Senator from New York--plodding through upstate, saying wonkish earnest things. Dullness makes conservative critics look rabid (it helps that many of us are), and soothes the inattentive middle. Be very afraid. The former First Lady knows what she is doing, and does it very well."

- Richard Brookhiser

via NRO: The Corner

Quote of the Day

"The distinction between old and new in Europe today is not really of a matter of age or size or even geography. It is a matter of attitude, of the vision that countries bring to the trans-Atlantic relationship.

It is no surprise that many of the nations with fresh memories of tyranny and occupation have been among those most willing to face the new threats, and contribute to dealing with them. This attitude is why, a decade after the cold war ended, NATO has now invited 10 new allies to join the Atlantic Alliance. They are bringing new vision and new vitality to our old alliance.

"Let me be clear: those countries have not been invited as junior partners, allowed to join the grown-ups' table so long as they sit quietly. No, they have been invited to lead."

- Donald Rumsfeld, speaking at the 10th anniversary celebrations of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany

Flag Day is coming

Saturday is Flag Day. Fly yours, and think about those things for which it stands.

Ben Muller still gets chills thinking about it. In 1945, Muller was a POW being held by the Japanese at a hospital on Hainan Island, off the coast of China. The war had ended, but his captors didn't know it. When a U.S. general came to rescue him, Muller saw something he remembers to this day.

"He lowered the Japanese flag outside the hospital and raised an American flag," Muller, 79, said. "That flag means a lot."

Muller was one of more than 250 people, many veterans, who attended a celebration Tuesday in honor of Flag Day, which is Saturday. "Just look at the flag," Col. Henry J. Ostermann told the audience. "Doesn't it send goosebumps up and down your spine?"

via the Houston Chronicle

Garofalo smackdown

Sometimes there is a little justice in this world.

Less than a week after ABC pulled the plug on Janeane Garofalo's proposed midseason comedy, "Slice o' Life," speculation is already building that the comedian fell victim to her liberal political views.

In a column in the Chicago Sun-Times, Bill Zwecker cites an unnamed source close to Garofalo who remains convinced that the show's failure was an example ''of a network bowing to the perceived power of the Bush administration. Janeane is convinced her politics and all the hate mail the right-wing lobby stirred up during the war is what is behind all this.''

Certainly, no network would ever cop to anything so nefarious and the Disney-owned ABC blames the show's failure on the usual generalities like creative disagreements and script problems.

Answering the title of Zwecker's column, "Did liberal-bashers cost Garofalo her sitcom?" a poster on the gopusa.com message board responds simply, "I certainly hope so. If it didn't, we weren't trying hard enough."

via Zap2it

Iran + N. Korea = Nuclear "Evil"

This is why it's called the Axis of Evil.

Iranian experts on nuclear issues secretly visited North Korea this year, possibly to ask Pyongyang officials for advice on how to handle international inspectors, a Japanese newspaper claimed yesterday. The Iranians made three visits to North Korea between March and May, the conservative Sankei Shimbun said, quoting "a Korean peninsula source".

The visits "may have been intended to ask North Korea for know-how on how to act when accepting inspectors", Sankei quoted the source as saying. "Co-operation on nuclear development may also have been discussed."

Two Iranian experts stayed in North Korea for several days in March for talks with officials in charge of nuclear development, it said. One expert visited in April and two visited in May, it added.

via the Sydney Morning Herald

Iran

Michael Ledeen makes the case for supporting the nascent democracy movement in Iran. If we are doing something significant, it isn't very visible. Maybe that's as it should be, but I hope it doesn't mean we are really idle. Iran is important, even more than Iraq.

It is always difficult for outsiders to gauge the strength of a democratic opposition to a tyrannical regime, and just as the West underestimated the power of the Soviet dissidents, Western leaders today are busily gainsaying the strength and resolve of the Iranian democratic opposition. Yet there is far less reason to misread Iran today than there was to botch the analysis of the Soviet Union during the latter stages of the Cold War, and there is no excuse -- aside from lust for oil revenues -- for the West's failure to support the Iranian opposition. Both recent history and the regime's current behavior show that Iran today is in full political, economic and social crisis.

Over the past two years, millions of Iranians have taken to the streets in open rebellion. For the most part, these demonstrations have been led by "students," but these are not the kids in Paris or Berkeley in the 1960s. Iranian "students" are considerably older (some of the leaders are in their late thirties or early forties), and hardened by years of street fighting, imprisonment and torture. Soviet dissidents like Vladimir Bukovsky and Natan Sharansky are better models than Mario Savio and Daniel Cohn-Bendit. We do not know the names of the pro-democracy leaders (a good thing, because if they were known they would be either dead or under torture). But we do know they are there, because you do not get hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of a vicious dictatorship without effective leadership.

via The Wall Street Journal Europe (subscribers only)

9/11 and history

Insightful Peggy Noonan gets it right again, this time about 9/11 and its meaning as we move through time, which constitutes our history.

Someone speaking of the shooting of John Kennedy once mused on the moment when the trigger was pulled and the bullet launched. That instant bore so much weight of subsequent history that it became a kind of warp in time, a moment whose weight was so much greater than its duration that it was like a collapsing of time, a special lost moment of gravity, like a black hole in space.

I think 9/11 is like that. People are still changing from it, being affected by it. There are those who have wondered why 9/11 was so cataclysmic, compared with, say, the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, by essentially the same people with the same motives and intentions. One answer is that on 9/11 almost 3,000 people died, and eight years before the number was six. Another is that the Pentagon was in effect bombed on 9/11. America has two great capitals, of politics and money, and both capitals were hit.

Both answers are true. But truest I think is this: The first time the towers didn't fall. The first time they were damaged and unchanged. They were blacked with smoke. We cleaned them up. We took it--some of us anyway--as a warning. The second time--that was not a warning. That was war. And a war shockingly begun, with two great skyscrapers crumbling to the ground.

That was then. New York is rebuilding downtown and taxing uptown. The national story line has changed from trauma to triumph, at least right now. A new Mideast peace process has begun, and there is perhaps a sense that this time, after all we and others have been through the past two years, maybe it can be got as right as . . . well, as it can be got.

via the OpinionJournal

Jobs, jobs ... where are the jobs?

Paul Craig Roberts drove over the intellectual edge a while back, like Pat Buchanan, but (like Pat) he does occasionally bring forth an idea worth pondering. Today is one of those days.

It's worth thinking about why our own citizens aren't worth employing any more, as well as the (usually government-induced) factors that make this economically attractive to companies. It would also be useful if this could be addressed without automatically becoming another nanny-state program for Democratic Party constituencies, but I'm not optimistic.

The U.S. continues to lose jobs. Since President Bush has been in office, 2.5 million manufacturing jobs and nearly 600,000 service jobs have been lost for a total decline in private sector employment of 3.1 million. The unemployment rate has risen to 6.1 percent. If this is recovery, what is going on?

Pundits call it "the jobless recovery." The economy is growing, but jobs are not. Why? One economist recently blamed the absence of job growth on high U.S. productivity. Those who are working are so productive, he said, that their output meets demand, making additional jobs superfluous. His solution, apparently, is to make people less productive.

I think the jobless recovery is an illusion and that the U.S. economy is creating jobs — but not for Americans. Those 2.5 million manufacturing jobs have not been lost. They have been moved offshore and given to foreigners who work for less.

via the Washington Times

"It is a miniwar"

The NYT, reporting from Falluja, has realized that an active guerrilla war is underway in Iraq.

Since the American command quadrupled its military presence here last week, not a day has gone by without troops weathering an ambush, a rocket-propelled grenade attack, an assault with automatic weapons or a mine blast.

American forces are still not clear exactly who their opponent is. Enemy fighters they have killed have not carried identification, and local residents have provided only limited intelligence about who is behind the attacks. But one thing is already clear. American forces seem to be battling a small but determined foe who has a primitive but effective command-and-control system that uses red, blue and white flares to signal the advance of American troops. The risk does not come from random potshots. The American forces are facing organized resistance that comes alive at night.

Iraqi officials say the attacks are being carried out by what they call outsiders who slip into Falluja and attack at night. Evaluating that claim has been difficult. But there have been clear indications that many of the attacks are coordinated.

American troops say they believe that the adversary's goal is not just to pick off American soldiers but also to provoke the troops to fire into civilian neighborhoods, a response that would build popular opposition to the American presence here.

via The New York Times

Fakery

The NYT book reviewer is not kind to Hillary's fake autobiography.

"Living History" is a mishmash of pious platitudes about policy (not unlike those found in the author's earlier book "It Takes a Village"); robotic asides about her official duties in Washington (not unlike those found in her Martha Stewart-esque book "An Invitation to the White House"); and by now familiar accounts of Hillary Rodham Clinton's metamorphosis over the years from Goldwater girl to liberal student activist to high-powered lawyer to first lady to senator from New York.

Overall the book has the overprocessed taste of a stump speech, the calculated polish of a string of anecdotes to be delivered on a television chat show.

via The New York Times

Not free, but not dead

At least the Nobel Laureate isn't dead at the hands of Burma's tyrants.

A UN envoy who met with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi said she was "well and in good spirits" and that Burma's military rulers had assured him she would be released, perhaps in two weeks. Razali Ismail, the envoy, was the first outsider to meet with Suu Kyi since she was detained by Burma's junta on May 30 and moved to a secret location. Her detention followed a bloody clash between her supporters and military backers, and was accompanied by a crackdown on her pro-democracy party.

"They gave assurances but they didn't give specific dates," Razali told reporters after arriving back in his home country of Malaysia. "I think two weeks, they should release her."

via The Age (Australia)

North Korean horror

There's news from North Korea that is tragic and horrifying on several levels. First, the news itself. Second, the fact that the reporter never once blames the deluded dictator ruling this impoverished land. Third, a WFP spokesman who seems to just accept it, and even says it's a problem for the WFP and its donors, without mention of the starving North Koreans.

And lastly, the fact that such a story published in a major UK newspaper two days ago has received no coverage in the Western media, at least according to a Google News search tonight. Only bloggers have noted it so far. It leaves me both angry and heartbroken.

Cannibalism is increasing in North Korea following another poor harvest and a big cut in international food aid, according to refugees who have fled the stricken country.

Aid agencies are alarmed by refugees' reports that children have been killed and corpses cut up by people desperate for food. Requests by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to be allowed access to "farmers' markets", where human meat is said to be traded, have been turned down by Pyongyang, citing "security reasons".

Anyone caught selling human meat faces execution, but in a report compiled by the North Korean Refugees Assistance Fund (NKRAF), one refugee said: "Pieces of 'special' meat are displayed on straw mats for sale. People know where they came from, but they don't talk about it."

The NKRAF, an aid body set up in China five years ago which helps to smuggle food and medicines into parts of North Korea off-limits to WFP officials, interviewed 200 refugees for the report.

"If a funeral takes place during the day and the burial is performed that evening, the grave may be dug open and the body stolen before morning," said one refugee.

Another witness, named only as Lee, 54, said he feared that his missing grandsons, aged eight and 11, had been killed for food. As he searched widely for them, they boys' friends said they had vanished near a market. Mr Lee said police who raided a nearby restaurant found body parts. The business's owners were shot.

Gerald Bourke, the WFP's representative in Beijing, said it was difficult for his organisation to substantiate the reports of cannibalism as they were unable to get to the markets. "As in any desperately poor country, it is something we might stumble on," he said. "It's not just a problem for us, but also our donors." Because of the food shortages, many people were having to survive on nine ounces of rations a day - less than half the recommended minimum daily intake.

North Korea's ability to feed itself has been hit by floods, deforestation and lack of farm fertilisers and equipment. The WFP says Japan provided 500,000 tons of food aid in 2001, making it the biggest donor, but sent nothing last year. Food aid from America has been cut from 340,000 tons in 2001 to 40,000 tons so far this year. Washington has pledged to send a further 60,000 tons if Pyongyang lifts restrictions on the operations of agencies such as the WFP.

via The Telegraph (UK)

Kudos to Tim Blair and others

Aung San Suu Kyi

Good news -- Aung San Suu Kyi may still be alive. But she's injured and who knows what else. Here our State Dept. and the UN could do some good, if they would.

Razali Ismail, the United Nations envoy to Myanmar, said the country's military rulers have given him permission to see detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Agence France-Presse reported. "I am happy to announce that I shall be going to see Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in half an hour from now,'' Razali, a Malaysian diplomat, told reporters in Yangon, the country's capital. Razali is scheduled to leave Myanmar today.

Suu Kyi and other members of her National League for Democracy party were detained after clashes last month between her supporters and those of the junta. The military has ruled Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, since 1962. Witnesses said the opposition leader was hurt by glass when her car windshield was broken during the clashes. The government said it took her into "protective custody'' and denied she had been hurt. Suu Kyi was under house arrest for most of the decade before her release in May 2002.

via AFP and Bloomberg

Monkeypox

A new plague being spread by prairie dogs, rabbits, and giant rats seems, well, unnatural. At the same time, wouldn't (as Dave Barry might say) "Monkeypox" be a great name for a rock band?

Health officials investigating an outbreak of monkeypox that apparently spread from pet prairie dogs to people said Monday the number of reported cases has risen to at least 37, including four that have been confirmed.

Steve Ostroff, deputy director of the CDC's National Center for Infectious Diseases, said he expects the numbers to rise as human and animal samples are tested. But Ostroff said that only people who had direct contact with infected prairie dogs, or in one case a rabbit, have come down with the illness. There have been no instances in this outbreak of the virus being spread from person to person, though that has happened in Africa in the past.

Investigators said the prairie dogs were probably infected with the virus by a Gambian giant rat, which is native to Africa, at a Chicago-area pet distributor.

via AP and Yahoo! News

More evidence found

The Iraq war is still going on, and we are facing well-organized resistance. The situation goes well beyond "lawlessness" -- it's a campaign, pre-planned and now being executed. Saddam's not-yet-found WMD stash has been hidden both for future use and to embarrass the Coalition leaders.

Will this story be picked up by the major U.S. media or are we still to be subjected to more endless blathering about the Laci Peterson tragedy and Hillary Clinton's faked auto-biography?

A document from the Iraqi intelligence service in Basra — which was captured in April as coalition forces gained control — orders agents to start campaigns of sabotage, looting and murder should Iraq lose the war. The document, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, also orders intelligence agents to infiltrate political parties and religious institutions, should the Saddam Hussein regime be toppled.

The document, stamped "Extremely Confidential," described itself as an "Emergency Secret Plan" and is signed, unintelligibly, by "The Head of General Intelligence". It comprises just one page on official letterhead and uses the terse style typical of other captured security documents.

The Arabic-language document is noteworthy because it tracks closely with the chaos that has since descended on Iraq, with daily ambushes of U.S. soldiers and mass anti-American demonstrations by Muslim groups. In the past two weeks, at least seven American soldiers have been killed and dozens wounded in ambushes by Saddam loyalists.

via the Washington Times

State Dept.'s counter-revolution

The U.S. State Dept. continues to try to run its own foreign policy, irrespective of President Bush's policy decisions and apparently unimpeded by Sec'y of State Colin Powell. A new article includes a litany of end-arounds attempted by senior State operatives in Iraq, as if the U.S. didn't have enough to do to fight both generic Saddamite recidivists and what appears to be an organized guerrilla war. State's Arabist fascinations are costing American lives -- right now. Colin Powell should either put a stop to it or be replaced, no matter his other good qualities.

Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, is now facing underhanded attempts at undermining his agenda from State Department officials in Baghdad, with one referring to his sweeping de-Baathification policies as "fascistic," according to an informed source in Iraq. The senior administrator who made the comment, Robin Rafael, is not alone in her sentiments, as several other Foggy Bottom officials stationed in the country are trying to covertly remake Iraq as they want it, not as Bremer — or the president who sent him there — wants it.

via National Review Online

Space - the next frontier of defense

The U.S. has a plan to manage space on behalf of our national security and that of other free nations, and by extension, in opposition to those who would threaten us. Naturally, this will now be another opportunity for one-worlders to wring their hands. I would think that any country that is (a) an ally and (b) sufficiently mature technically and strategically, could be a partner. Something to watch.

The United States is planning to take control of parts of space and develop patrolling military aircraft in orbit as part of a revived Star Wars proposal for an American military empire above the ozone layer. According to James Roche, the US Air Force Secretary, America's allies would have "no veto power" over projects designed to achieve American military control of space.

The key theme of the ambitious plans is described as "negation" - the denial of the use of space for military intelligence, or other purposes, without American endorsement.

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the intelligence agency that is responsible for US spy satellites, is to develop a strategy that ensures America's allies, as well as its enemies, never gain access to the same space resources without Washington's permission. Recent proposals that have been circulated at Space Command and NRO briefings suggest that access to "near-earth space" may be refused to other nations.

All GPS satellites are located within near-earth space, which covers the orbital distance from Earth to the moon. A fleet of spacecraft will be developed, designed to attack and destroy future satellites of enemies and rivals. The rapid-launch "military space plane," the potential cost of which has not been disclosed, would also be used as a mobile "bodyguard" for US space installations. It would be the first "space plane" in history with a directly military function.

A prototype is expected by 2005 although military deployment is not expected before 2014.

via The Telegraph (UK)

Elf scandal

The politico-economic elites in France are closing the books on the Elf scandal, making an example of three former executives for taking too much for themselves, but without addressing any of the fundamental issues of France's incestuous relations between the state and business. The fact remains that the same elites, mostly graduates of the various ecoles superieure, move seamlessly between government and corporate posts and modify their ethics as needed. France uses "private" businesses for state purposes in a way that goes far beyond what we see in the U.S., and with far less potential for public disclosure.

The biggest corruption trial in French history is winding up, leaving largely untouched the question of political involvement in the siphoning off of [400 million euros] in the late 1980s and early 1990s from Elf, then a state-owned oil group. The prosecution this week sought prison sentences ranging from five to eight years and fines of up to [5 million euros] for the three main figures among the 37 defendants on trial. But the thrust of the prosecution case has centred on pure venality and personal enrichment.

In particular this accusation has been levelled against the top three - Loik le Floch-Prigent, the Elf chief executive from 1989-93, Alfred Sirven, who handled the oil company's pay-offs to middle and foreign dignitaries, and André Tarallo, in charge of the oil group's substantial African interests.

However, by no means all the vanished funds were accounted for, and the judge never pressed them hard on whether money ended up with the politicians.

When Mr Le Floch-Prigent began to touch on the sensitive subject of Elf having a political slush fund, he said: "We financed the political process throughout my mandate. . . One political group seemed particularly close to Elf. . . But I ask the bench whether they want me to name names". He never was.

The political shadow behind this trial was that of the late president François Mitterrand who appointed the Elf chief executive and signed every year a secret list of foreign "commissions" the group paid which was then tax deductible.

via the Financial Times (may require subscription)

Estrich blurts out the truth

Democratic Party strategist Susan Estrich, speaking on Fox News today, said something interesting: Bill and Hillary Clinton are engaged in an active effort to derail any electoral chances for their own party in the 2004 presidential race -- the better to set up Hillary's run in 2008.

Estrich has spoken and written before about the Clintons' unwillingness to reign in their personal egotism:

The Clintons suck up every bit of the available air. Nothing is left for anyone else. They are big, too big. That's the problem.

This was the first time I'd heard someone from the Left discuss the Clintons' recent PR efforts as a conscious political strategy. From the Right, a Google search does lead me to a report of Dick Morris saying the same thing on May 30 to Sean Hannity:

"There is a conscious effort going on by the Clintons to distract attention from the current field of candidates," Morris told nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity. "They do not want a Democrat to win in '04."

"They want Bush to be re-elected," the former Clinton adviser explained. "And that way they want Hillary to be able to run for an open seat."

"If Bush lost and a Democrat were elected, then obviously [Hillary] would have to support him in '08," he noted. "She couldn't run until 2012. She'd be 65 years old and would have been out of office for 12 years. It's kind of hard at that point to keep the bloom on the rose and be able to run."

Morris said that Bill Clinton wants to maintain his role as spokesman for the Democratic Party so he can "trivialize and minimize the Democratic candidates" and thereby keep the Oval Office open for Hillary.

via NewsMax

This is entirely consistent with the Clintons' behavior for years. They've used, abused, and discarded Democrats without remorse throughout their sordid career together. What's pathetic is how Democrats cling to them despite years of failure and disgrace -- Bill never won a majority of the popular vote in two presidential elections, and the Democrats routinely lost congressional seats under his leadership. The Dems are like a battered wife who won't leave an abusive husband because "he's a good provider."

The cost of freedom

Relatively little attention has been paid to the wounded casualties of the Iraq campaign. Yet they and their families face dramatic struggles that will last for many years, and they will get perhaps less recognition and support than those killed in action. This is a reminder to us as citizens to offer our thanks in tangible ways, as well as to our government & military leaders to carefully exercise their responsibilities.

Although President Bush declared hostilities in Iraq over more than a month ago, private battles go on for troops recovering from wounds. Some will have to learn to walk again on prosthetic limbs, others to dress themselves. And others still will learn to live with vivid memories of the moments when their lives were changed forever.

Hospitals such as the Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington are still treating soldiers wounded in Iraq. The two hospitals are way stations for troops, who usually arrive from Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Eventually, most will return home or to veteran's hospitals for rehabilitation.

Walter Reed and the Naval Medical Center have treated more than 500 soldiers, Marines and sailors. Troops injured after the war ended are still trickling into the wards.

Along with medical treatment, the military provides psychological help. Some troops show signs of post-traumatic stress and receive counseling, while those who seem fine are given tips about symptoms of the disorder to watch out for.

via AP and the Houston Chronicle

Dixie Schticks

Apparently empty-headed Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks are not only shallow and uninformed, but also liars. Not a surprise.

The U.S. ambassador to Great Britain and Northern Ireland has disputed a statement made by Dixie Chick Martie Maguire in the May 2 issue of Entertainment Weekly. The extensive interview with the band centered around the controversy that began in March after lead vocalist Natalie Maines told a London concert audience she was ashamed that President Bush is from their home state of Texas. In the EW interview, Maguire said, “After the show, we went to a party, and the American ambassador to Britain, who had been at the concert, was there. He didn't say anything and he wanted a picture with us, so he must not have been offended.” In a letter to the editor published in EW’s May 30 issue, Ambassador William S. Farish wrote, “Your recent cover story on the Dixie Chicks suggested that I ‘must not have been offended’ by the comment about President Bush at a London concert. This is simply untrue. I considered the remark to be inappropriate and offensive, and I stated my views -- directly and clearly -- to Natalie Maines immediately after the concert.”

via CMT.com

Shawcross making sense

Journalist William Shawcross, best known for his unrelenting disdain for Henry Kissinger, and someone I usually think of as part of the vast left-wing conspiracy, has a clear-eyed analysis of the fake brouhaha over Saddam's WMD. Impressive eloquence from an unexpected source.

Opponents of the war had predicted all manners of disasters -- millions of refugees, famine, thousands of deaths in battle, revolution on "the Arab street" throughout the region. None of these horrors happened -- instead it is obvious that the coalition indeed liberated Iraqis from a monster and has created a new, much more hopeful map of the Middle East.

All that is unbearable to those who preferred the Saddam status quo. So now they are using the missing weapons as an excuse to turn on Mr. Blair with self-righteous fury. They declare that the war was "a monumental blunder" (former foreign minister Robin Cook) and that we have been "duped" (former overseas development minister Clare Short). This is opportunistic, irresponsible rubbish from self serving politicians.

I am surprised that we have not yet found more evidence of his WMD than the trailers which seem to have been for the mobile production of biological agents. But remember that the WMD was always well hidden in the 1990s. Remember also that we were never able to find the IRA's arms caches in an area far smaller than Iraq.

The matter of his WMD remains extremely important and I am personally sure we will find the evidence. But there are other huge issues which Mr. Cook, Ms. Short et al shamefully gloss over. The first is that Iraq has been liberated. Its political and social reconstruction will be difficult. But Iraqis now have a chance of decent futures that they would always be denied under Saddam.

Why do critics in the press not look at the mass graves that are uncovered, one after another, day by day, and say, "If only we had done this before, thousands of these dead people might still be alive today?"

And there are many other enormously beneficial results. The coalition has removed a cancer from the heart of the Middle East and created completely new opportunities for peace.

Sadly, Mr. Cook and Ms. Short seem less interested in these revolutionary changes than in promoting their own places in history. They cannot forgive Mr. Blair for seeing through the hypocrisy of the left and for allying himself on this occasion with Saddam's only effective enemy, the United States, the Great Satan of the left as well as of Islamic terrorists.

I believe that the record and subsequent investigations will show that the government and the intelligence agencies acted properly in the face of a deadly if unquantifiable threat from Saddam. The record will also show that Mr. Cook and Ms. Short have behaved in a manner which should shame even them.

via The Wall Street Journal Europe (subscribers only)

Tyrannical Burma

More thuggish rulers are busy in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi is a Nobel Prize laureate for her courage in the face of this unrelenting oppression. Now she has been arrested and may be dead. U.S. media have been slow to pick up this story, but the Australian press has been watching.

The United States and Britain have warned Burma's military regime it will face increasing global isolation if it fails to free detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and end the week-long crackdown against her National League for Democracy.

The ultimatums came after the US State Department said it had evidence that Ms Suu Kyi - arrested a week ago after a violent clash during a tour of northern Burma - was the victim of a planned attack involving Government agents.

Two US diplomats who this week visited the scene, north-west of Mandalay, reported finding evidence of "great violence", including bloody clothing, smashed glass and abandoned home-made weapons.

"Their findings indicate that there was a premeditated ambush on Aung San Suu Kyi's motorcade. Circumstances and reports from individuals in the region indicate that the attack was conducted by Government-affiliated thugs," State Department spokesman Philip Reeder said.

Officials at the US embassy in Rangoon earlier told the Associated Press that their information supported claims by Burmese exile groups that the death toll was substantially higher than the four dead claimed by Burmese authorities. The groups have also given conflicting and unconfirmed reports that Ms Suu Kyi was injured in the attack.

via The Age

More than 100 opposition supporters may have been killed in the unrest that led to the Burma democracy leader Aun San Suu Kyi's detention, a report said today. Government-hired thugs wielding sharpened bamboo stakes and wooden clubs "unmercifully pounded" the opposition members in a May 30 ambush in northern Burma, BBC radio has reported.

The report said that the latest details emerged after an unnamed American investigation team had visited the site of the attack. The team "concluded that the attack was planned and coordinated by the military government", the report said.

via The Age

ALA's shame

It's shameful that the largest professional group of U.S. librarians would sell out to the Leftist infatuation with Fidel Castro's Cuba. Recent arrests and executions made it crystal clear what this tinhorn regime is all about. According to the ALA, it's OK to have pornography available in libraries in the name of the "freedom to read" and imminent fascism if anyone says otherwise. But they are silent in the face of genuine oppression. Unthinkable.

The American Library Association (ALA) is under fire for inviting Cuban government librarians to its upcoming annual convention, while ignoring colleagues from independent libraries in Cuba who were recently sentenced to prison terms of up to 27 years.

"After years of silence, double talk and coverups by the ALA, the current vicious attack gives the ALA no excuse for failing to take action," said Robert Kent, founder of Friends of Cuban Libraries and a librarian at the New York Public Library.

In contrast to the ALA, most American and European journalist organizations produced resolutions and statements supporting their jailed colleagues. On Tuesday, Amnesty International condemned Cuba's crackdown on dissent and declared all 75 prisoners as "prisoners of conscience." And yesterday the European Union announced that it had decided unanimously to re-evaluate its relations with Cuba.

Mr. Kent, and others, charged that the ALA has been hijacked by several of its board members, whom they say have close ties to Cuba's government. One of the board members, Mark Rosenzweig, is chief librarian of the Reference Center for Marxist Studies, the archive of the Communist Party USA. He is also a leading figure in the ALA's Social Responsibility Round Table, one of the most vocal factions in the ALA supporting the Castro regime.

"If justice is harsh in Cuba, it is because Cuban independence is threatened by the machinations of the hostile U.S. administration, trying to create the conditions for a puppet government to take over," Mr. Rosenzweig wrote in a recent e-mail. Mr. Rosenzweig made his comment in response to an e-mail campaign seeking support for the imprisoned Cuban librarians. He went on to call the imprisoned librarians "pawns," saying they "do not remotely qualify as librarians." Another ALA board member, Ann Sparanese, is a member of the Venceremos Brigade, a radical Marxist group that dates to the 1960s. "They are not librarians," she said of the imprisoned Cubans in a brief telephone interview yesterday.

via The Washington Times

North Korea

A North Korean defector is trying to speak out about the folly of South Korea's accomodationist stance towards its dangerous northern neighbor. The U.S. should not fall into the same trap.

Upon my arrival, I was debriefed by South Korea's National Intelligence Service, and occasionally put in the hands of unsophisticated American questioners in Seoul. Remarkably, the South Korean officials made it clear to me that I would be in danger if I were to speak out about the WMD programs I had worked on or the atrocities I had witnessed. It soon became obvious that they feared my testimony because it might jeopardize South Korea's "sunshine policy," which seeks to keep the North's repressive regime in power in order to avoid the economic consequences to the South were it to collapse.

Incredibly, Seoul seems unwilling to accept that propping up Kim Jong Il's regime has had grave consequences for the world.

My experience as a North Korean weapons official and defector, and my knowledge and ongoing relations with other defectors and current North Korean officials, led me to a few critical conclusions that may be of value to American officials who now, in a post-Iraq world, are confronting full-force the reality of Pyongyang's lunatic regime.

First, "understandings" with Pyongyang that cause the exchange of hard currency for "guarantees" that the regime will discontinue its nuclear and WMD programs are both immoral and doomed to failure. Immoral because such understandings come, in the end, to this: promises by Pyongyang not to export terrorism are exchanged for assurances to Pyongyang that it is licensed to commit as much terrorism against its own people as it wishes. And doomed to failure because, as the Clinton agreements prove, any effort to finance, legitimize or empower the regime only strengthens its desire and capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction.

via the OpinionJournal

Trading Spaces?

Ann Coulter cuts to the bone, as usual, on the hypocritical hand-wringing from the Left about the fact that we haven't found Saddam's WMD stash yet.

Seething with rage and frustration at the success of the war in Iraq, liberals have started in with their female taunting about weapons of mass destruction. The way they carry on, you would think they had caught the Bush administration in some shocking mendacity. (You know how the left hates a liar.)

For the sake of their tiresome argument, let's stipulate that we will find no weapons of mass destruction – or, to be accurate, no more weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps Hussein was using the three trucks capable of assembling poison gases to sell ice cream under some heretofore undisclosed U.N. "Oil For Popsicles" program.

Should we apologize and return the country to Saddam Hussein and his winsome sons? Should we have him on "Designer's Challenge" to put his palaces back in all their '80s Vegas splendor? Or maybe Uday and Qusay could spruce up each other's rape rooms on a very special episode of "Trading Spaces"? What is liberals' point?

No one cares.

If Americans were lied to, they were lied to by liberals who warned we would be annihilated if we attacked Iraq. The left's leading intellectual light, Janeane Garofalo, was featured in an anti-war commercial before the war, saying: "If we invade Iraq, there's a United Nations estimate that says, 'There will be up to a half a million people killed or wounded.'" Now they're testy because they fear Saddam may never have had even a sporting chance to unleash dastardly weapons against Americans.

via AnnCoulter.org

Fox News rocks

In March some "anti-war" demonstrators were not only arrested but got their feelings hurt by Fox News. This story is circulating around the Internet now under the title "Why I Love Fox News." Gotta agree.

More than 200 people were arrested Thursday for blocking traffic in Manhattan during a day of civil disobedience called to protest the war in Iraq and the corporate media's reporting of the conflict.

Waves of protesters lay down in the streets throughout the day, conducting mass "die-ins" that city police broke up by hauling people away in handcuffs, sometimes by the busloads. The largest die-in occurred during the morning rush hour in the area around Rockefeller Center - home to such media giants as the CNN, NBC, and Fox networks.

And in an unusual turn of events, the showing provoked a public display of pro-war sentiment by Fox News.

Fox News had its own response to the demonstrators. The news ticker rimming Fox's headquarters on Sixth Avenue wasn't carrying war updates as the protest began. Instead, it poked fun at the demonstrators, chiding them.

"War protester auditions here today ... thanks for coming!" read one message. "Who won your right to show up here today?" another questioned. "Protesters or soldiers?"

Said a third: "How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them."

Still another read: "Attention protesters: the Michael Moore Fan Club meets Thursday at a phone booth at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street" - a reference to the film maker who denounced the war while accepting an Oscar on Sunday night for his documentary "Bowling for Columbine."

The protesters said Fox's sentiments only proved their point: that media coverage, in particular among the television networks, is so biased as to be unbelievable.

via The Bergen (NJ) Record

Kudos to Steve W. for the tip.

D-Day: June 6, 1944

The American cemetary at Normandy, France holds the remains of 9,387 U.S. soldiers killed. 1, 557 soldiers were declared Missing in Action in the vicinity of the cemetery.

I hope the people of France will remember today. I know we do.

Quote of the Day

"On the day World War II began, Dwight Eisenhower wrote his brother, 'Hitler should beware of the fury of an aroused democracy.' Ike was right. Galvanized by the atrocities and conquests of the totalitarian nations, America sent her best and brightest to the beaches of Normandy, Sicily, Iwo Jima, and many other battlefields oceans away from her shores.

The American sailors, soldiers and airmen came not to conquer, but to liberate, not to loot or destroy, but to bring life and freedom. Eisenhower told his troops, 'We will accept nothing less than full Victory!' After horrendous sacrifices, that is what they produced."

- Stephen Ambrose, historian and patriot

via The National D-Day Museum

ADD'd on the outside world

Larry Miller is at it again, this time on the collective inattention to The News. I think it's partly just summer, partly it's the contrast between the big clarity of a real war and the small ambiguities of the detailed, dirty work of statecraft and national security. But Larry's on to something, too. Insights from a funny guy.

Remember "Short Attention-Span Theater"? I think we're in it, and not on the audience side. I think we're the stars. I don't believe this is just me, or a third of us, or even half of us. I think it's every American (not counting the fiercest partisans on the left and right, say, ten percent on both sides). What I'm getting at is . . .

Have you found yourself thinking about Iraq these days roughly as much as you think about Afghanistan, which is to say not that much, which is to say, frankly, not at all?

And it's not just the pundits, it's all of us, and it happened so quickly, didn't it? One second we were arguing about whether or not the Turks were screwing us up in the North, and watching Baghdad Bob insist the sky was green. Next thing you know, we were all putting the kids to bed, strolling into the bedroom, picking up the remote . . . and not turning on Fox. ("Whatever you want, honey, just not one of those goofy decorating shows. Wait a minute, is this the one with the little Scottish blond? Okay.")

On Friday I got into the car after work and couldn't listen to any of the radio talk shows. I just couldn't. I tried one, then another, then another, then the first one again, and finally just turned the thing off. They all felt so . . . shrill. Redundant. Reaching too hard. Even NPR was so boring I couldn't get angry at it.

via The Weekly Standard

Forrest Gump? Nah

Pugnacious Tony Blankley explains to the credulous Left why GWB is no Forrest Gump. Priceless.

Until about two weeks ago, our friends in the liberal media, the Democratic Party, the State Department and France had consistently accused our president of being a simpleton. He was not like them, with their beautiful, subtle minds that could see 12 sides to every issue and thus be paralyzed into inaction. George Bush -- in their lofty view -- saw everything as good and evil, black and white, right and wrong, friend and foe. He was, of all appalling things -- a moralist, and, gasp, a practicing, believing Christian. He simply didn't have the intellectual firepower of his critics that permitted them to be devious, clever and amoral. Unlike them, President Bush didn't understand why we could never beat the Taliban in the rocky redoubts of Afghanistan (after all, they had held the British Empire and Soviet Union at bay for generations). Unlike his critics, the president didn't understand that defeating Iraq, if it could be done at all, would cost tens of thousands of dead G.I's, who would be subject to blistering volleys of chemical and biological weapons. But somehow, George, in his simpleminded, straightforward way, managed to blunder into Kabul and Baghdad, taking fewer casualties than are typically run up by drunken U.N diplomats crashing their cars into civilians around the world in a good year.

But after two years of being accused of being too stupid and moralizing to be president, George W. has passed two tax cuts, won two wars and maintained the highest sustained public job approval ratings in the history of presidential polling. So, just in time for the 2004 model year unveiling, the liberal media, et. al have come up with an even more implausible description of George W. Bush. We are now to believe that the president is the devious mastermind of a mind-bogglingly complex plot to deceive the world into thinking Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. Not only did he have to deceive the credulous and naive French Intelligence Service, but also Russian and German intelligence, the U.N. Security Council and their inspectors, the State Department bureaucracy, including Colin Powell personally, and Tony Blair and the vaunted British Intelligence establishment. Because before the war, all those entities honestly believed -- and consistently reported to the world press -- that they believed Saddam had such weapons.

The real question the world should be asking is not why Bush went to war, but why Saddam did. For what was Saddam willing to risk his regime and life? Consider, up to the moment of the war, if he had agreed to cooperate with the U.N. weapons inspectors, war could have been avoided. That Saddam chose to fight answers all rational questions. But even now, a deranged world and a Bush-hating Democratic Party (and their media auxiliary) insist on putting our good president in the dock, rather than the evil Saddam -- the greatest killer of Muslims in history.

via Townhall

"The Day that Changed Everything"

Gifted author Peggy Noonan has a new book coming out called "A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag." It's about the year that followed Sept. 11, 2001. It sounds wonderful.

From the introduction:

This is a book about love. That's an odd thing to say about a collection that spans 9/11/01 to 9/11/02, and that centers on the attacks on America. But the primary emotion I felt in those days was a love, or a tender sense of appreciation, for everyone who played a part in the drama--the dead, the survivors, the firemen and the heroes on the planes, the families left behind and their shaken neighbors down the block. For us. September 11 changed everyone, and for me, among the changes was one that had a professional impact. It liberated me to include in my work what I felt but had not always expressed: the idea that people are precious, that they're beautiful and deserving of honor and respect. And the knowledge that we are all brothers and sisters together, whatever our circumstances. Before 9/11, I held these convictions but they did not always seem pertinent, or appropriate, to what I was writing. But after 9/11, I felt free to say what I thought and let it frame my work, and even become an engine for that work.

I think that I have this in common with a lot of people. People always say we became better, more appreciative as a people after 9/11, especially New Yorkers.

But I think the event simply left a lot of people feeling freer to be who they were, as if, in Os Guinness's phrase, tragedy cracked our hearts wide open and forced the beauty out.

via the OpinionJournal

Osama evidence found

Hellzapoppin' in Saudi Arabia. One hopes this is more evidence of real anti-terror measures being taken by a sobered Saudi leadership. In any event, I like evidence found on dead terrorists.

A hand-written letter, believed to have been sent by al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden, was found on a terror suspect killed by Saudi security forces late on Saturday, a newspaper has reported.

The bloodstained letter was found on the body of Yussef Saleh Fahd al-Ayeeri, killed in a shootout with police in the northern province of Hail. It was signed by bin Laden and dated six months ago, Al-Watan newspaper said. It was addressed to a person whose name was covered in blood and could not be identified, the report added.

Bin Laden sent the recipient his congratulations on Eid Al-Fitr, the Muslim feast that follows the fasting month of Ramadan, which fell last November, and noted the "achievements of the cells" run by the unidentified person.

Two Saudi security men were also killed and at least two others wounded in the shootout with Ayeeri and a second gunman, who was later arrested. Ayeeri was one of 19 men Saudi authorities have been hunting since they uncovered a secret cell belonging to the al-Qaeda terror network.

Riyadh announced on May 7 it had uncovered the cell that planned to carry out major attacks in the kingdom and that security forces were hunting 17 Saudis, one Kuwaiti-Canadian of Iraqi origin and a Yemeni. The announcement came five days before triple suicide bombings in Riyadh that killed 35 people, including nine attackers.

According to Al-Watan, Ayeeri had a belt with explosives wrapped around his body.

via the Sydney Morning Herald

Posted by Alan at 12:03 AM

No hype here

Savvy William Safire knows "hype" when he sees it, and the statements of GWB and Tony Blair about the Iraqi threat weren't "hype" by any means. The hand-wringing currently on view is exactly analagous to the panic by the elites when the war in Iraq didn't happen according to their preconceptions. As then, the real "hype" is on the Left.

"Hype" means "exaggerate." As used by those who were prepared to let Saddam remain in power, it is prelude to a harsh accusation: "You lied to us. You pretended to have evidence that you never had; you twisted dubious intelligence to suit your imperialistic ends, so we were morally right and you were morally wrong."

Never mind the mass graves now being unearthed of an estimated 300,000 victims, which together with the million deaths in his wars make Saddam the biggest mass murderer of Muslims in all history. Never mind his undisputed financing of suicide bombers and harboring of terrorists, from al-Qaida's Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi to the veteran killer Abu Nidal (the only "suicide" with three bullets in his head, dispatched in Baghdad probably because he knew too much). And never mind our discovery of two mobile laboratories designed to produce biological and chemical agents capable of causing mass hysteria and death in any city in the world. Future discoveries will be dismissed as "dual use" or planted by us.

No, opponents of the removal of this genocidal maniac now accuse President Bush and Prime Minister Blair of a colossal hoax. Because he didn't use germs or gas on our troops, they say, that proves Iraq never had them. If we cannot find them right away, they don't exist. They believe Saddam sacrificed tens of billions in oil revenues for no reason at all.

As reassured Iraqi technicians and nurses come forward and as Baathist war criminals seek to save their skins, we will learn much more about Saddam's terrorist connections and his weaponry. It took five years to catch the Olympic bombing suspect in North Carolina and 18 years to catch the Unabomber; the location of Saddam and Osama bin Laden won't remain a mystery forever.

In the meantime, as the crowd that bitterly resents America's mission to root out the sources of terror whips up its intelligence-hoax hype, remember the wise "mistake" we made in overestimating the fighting spirit of Saddam's uniformed bully-boys.

When weighing the murky evidence of an aggressive tyranny's weapons, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair were obliged to take no chances. The burden on proof was on Saddam. By his contempt, he invited invasion; by its response, the coalition established the credibility of its resolve. There was no "intelligence hoax."

via The Charlotte Observer

Quote of the Day - 2

"I've ordered 400 copies of Harry Potter and 10 copies of Hillary's book."

- Barbara Theroux, owner of Fact & Fiction bookstore in Missoula, Montana

via The Washington Times

Quote of the Day

"Could you and Miguel Estrada take Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy in a tag team wrestling match? Could tag team wrestling be a compromise to the gridlock which has kept so many nominees in limbo?"

- "Rich" in New York City, asking Counsel to the President Judge Alberto Gonzales, in a White House web chat

via The White House

Justice and democracy

The DOJ's Office of the Inspector General says that the feds mishandled some of the people detained after Sept. 11.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Department of Justice (Department) used federal immigration laws to detain aliens in the United States who were suspected of having ties to the attacks or connections to terrorism, or who were encountered during the course of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) investigation into the attacks. In the 11 months after the attacks, 762 aliens were detained in connection with the FBI terrorism investigation for various immigration offenses, including overstaying their visas and entering the country illegally.

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) examined the treatment of these detainees, including their processing, bond decisions related to them, the timing of their removal from the United States or their release from custody, their access to counsel, and their conditions of confinement. The OIG's 198-page report focuses, in particular, on detainees held at the Federal Bureau of Prisons' (BOP) Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York, and at the Passaic County Jail (Passaic) in Paterson, New Jersey, a county facility under contract with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to house federal immigration detainees. We chose these two facilities because they held the majority of September 11 detainees and also were the focus of many complaints of detainee mistreatment.

"While our review recognized the enormous challenges and difficult circumstances confronting the Department in responding to the terrorist attacks, we found significant problems in the way the detainees were handled," said Inspector General Fine.

Naturally, the DOJ disagrees that it did anything wrong:

The Justice Department believes that the Inspector General report is fully consistent with what courts have ruled over and over -- that our actions are fully within the law and necessary to protect the American people. Our policy is to use all legal tools available to protect innocent Americans from terrorist attacks. We make no apologies for finding every legal way possible to protect the American public from further terrorist attacks.

What I like is the fact that in our democracy this can be discussed and debated, not only between opponents in the chatting class, but even within the government itself. Gives the lie to the Left's mindless accusations that we are on the fast track to fascism.

Press release and full report (pdf) via the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General

DOJ rebuttal via the Dept. of Justice

Smart Dust... and more

InfoWorld looks at how the commercial and military IT sectors can learn from each other, with case studies from the Iraq campaign.

Warfare drives innovation, even in IT. The first computers grew out of British and American code-breaking research during World War II. The Internet began as a Cold War defense network designed to survive even if key nodes vanished in a nuclear cloud. But in recent years, the locus of innovation for IT has shifted to peacetime pursuits.

“Historically, the flow of development has usually gone from the military to commercial,” says Epstein, executive editor of features who directed our 13-page special report. "But with IT, the military is using many solutions that are either available to enterprises today or soon will be, so you can really get a look at how they function in the ultimate stress test.”

via InfoWorld

Includes articles on communications, supply-chain & logistics, security & data-mining, and robotics & automation.

Zimbabwe

Where is the voice of Nelson Mandela and the other advocates of peace and justice? Not to be heard when the dictator of Zimbabwe is hard at work clinging to power.

In a strategy reminiscent of white South African rulers in the dying days of apartheid, President Mugabe yesterday sent troops and tanks into Zimbabwe’s poor black townships to crush a planned five-day “final push” for his resignation.

Brazilian-made Cascavel tanks and troop carriers lumbered through dusty back streets, their crews giving ruling party clenched-fist salutes while manning cannon and machineguns menacingly.

Residents averted their gaze, poker-faced, giving little hint how they will respond to calls for mass action, starting with a march this morning to the High Court, where the four-month trial of Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, was due to resume on capital charges of plotting Mr Mugabe’s assassination.

“There is a 95 per cent chance someone may be killed,” Trudy Stevenson, an Opposition MP, predicted, warning the country’s 30,000 remaining whites that they were prime targets for pro-Mugabe former guerrillas and youth militia. When Mr Mugabe, 79, last deployed troops and tanks, to suppress food riots in 1999, eight people were shot dead.

via The Times (UK)

Quote of the Day

“Drink the chalice of poison.”

- From an open letter by 127 of 286 Iranian legislators to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

via Newsweek

China's repression

Don't forget that the Chinese run the world's largest penal colony -- their own country. I'll be waiting for Sean Penn's analysis.

Human Rights in China (HRIC) has learned that four Chinese Internet activists, Xu Wei, Yang Zili, Jin Haike and Zhang Honghai, have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms after posting articles on matters of public concern.

Yang Zili, a computer engineer, Xu Wei, a reporter and editor for Beijing’s Consumer Daily newspaper, Jin Haike, a geological engineer, and Zhang Honghai, a freelance writer, had all posted a number of articles on the Internet expressing concern over current events and social conditions. They had also established an organization called the New Youth Society, dedicated to exploring ways toward social reform. All four were arrested in March 2001 after a government agent infiltrated their group, and they were tried on charges of subversion on September 28 of that same year, but without a verdict being delivered. Over the past two years their lawyers have been protesting their prolonged detention while the trial was in recess.

All four men have previously complained to the court about abusive treatment in detention, but no official investigation has been carried out to date. During the trial on May 28, Xu Wei complained to the court that he had been brutally beaten in custody and tortured with electric shock to his genitals, causing long-term numbness in his lower body. While protesting his treatment, Xu Wei struck his head on the judge’s desk and fell unconscious, and had to be carried out by six police officers. After a few minutes of confusion and a court recess, the judge delivered his verdict against all four defendants and adjourned the trial.

via Human Rights in China

Kerry the poseur

Sen. John Kerry, or John F. Kerry as he newly prefers ("JFK" -- get it?), apparently is not running for president on a platform of oratorical originality.

Since the last president we had who tried to channel the real JFK -- Bill Clinton -- turned out to be a political sociopath, maybe this is worse than merely laughable. As with Gore, we just don't need any more presidents who would spend their terms working out their inner psychological issues at the nation's expense.

"In this time of testing, of profound danger and vast potential, the real question we face is not what America can offer to us, but what each of us owe to America."

via the Concord Monitor

"I am not in Baghdad"

Poor fellow.

Comical Ali is alive and living in a Baghdad suburb - and still wearing his trademark uniform and beret, according to reports. The Mail on Sunday said it had tracked down the former Iraqi information minister, ending speculation he had committed suicide or fled the country. The newspaper said it found him "cowering in his modest home, terrified his own people will kill him".

They said his wife and daughter act as his human shields while his sons had temporarily left their jobs as doctors to help protect him. The paper described Ali - full name Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf - as "a broken man, spending his days pacing his study in his uniform and green beret". He refused to talk to the paper and friends said he may never go out in public again.

"The family are worried he is going out of his mind", it reported one friend as saying.

via Sky News

Naked and stupid

Leftist protesters are gettin' naked again and again, this time for the G-8 summit. Not a pretty sight, but interesting from an anthropological point of view.

Worldwide Attack Matrix

U.S. News & World Report has a 5,500-word review of the war against al Qaeda since 9-11. Lots of details. Very favorable to the CIA -- they surely cooperated with the authors -- and many kudos to allies, both familiar and strange, around the world for their help.

America's frontline agents in the war on terror have hacked into foreign banks, used secret prisons overseas, and spent over $20 million bankrolling friendly Muslim intelligence services. They have assassinated al Qaeda leaders, spirited prisoners to nations with brutal human-rights records, and amassed files equal to a thousand encyclopedias. But the war is far from over.

With all the headlines about the latest attacks and warnings, however, it is easy to miss the amount of damage America's terrorist hunters have inflicted on bin Laden's ragtag army. U.S. News has retraced the war on terror, starting in the very first weeks after 9/11, to examine in detail how Washington and its allies launched an unprecedented drive, led by the Central Intelligence Agency, to disrupt and destroy bin Laden's operation.

The story--part detective yarn, part spy tale--is one of unsung heroes. It is a story of nameless CIA analysts who matched tortured renditions of Arabic names with cellphone numbers around the globe, of Pakistani soldiers killed while smashing down doors of al Qaeda, of Jordanian interrogators who wore down some of bin Laden's craftiest killers. Much of this has not been told before. A windfall of intelligence has led to a newer, more profound understanding of bin Laden's secret network, intelligence officials say. They have built up dossiers on his followers from a scant few hundred before 9/11 to over 3,000 today. They have identified the core group's sworn membership, now thought to number only 180 true believers. And bin Laden's personal fortune, investigators say, is all but gone.

This much is clear: America waited too long to join the fray, and the battle is yet to be won. "I've never had a job where you can celebrate success, and you're still so paranoid at the end of the day," says a senior intelligence official. "I don't know if we'll ever be able to declare victory."

via U.S. News & World Report

NYT publishes sane article about Bush!

Author and critic James Traub has a very sane article in Sunday's New York Times Magazine in which he dismantles the self-serving paranoia of the Left when it accuses the Bush administration of fomenting "fascism" and recreating 1933 Germany. Great article from an unexpected source. Read the entire piece. Excerpts:

Have you heard that it's 1933 in America? God knows I have. Three times in the last few weeks I have been told -- by a novelist, an art historian and a professor of classics at Harvard, none of them ideologues or cranks -- that the erosion of civil liberties under the Bush administration constitutes an early stage, or at least a precursor, to the kind of fascism Hitler brought to Germany. I first heard the 1933 analogy a few months back, when one of the nation's leading scholars of international law suggested at a meeting of diplomats that Bush's advisers were probably plotting to suspend the election of 2004.

Now, I think I understand the argument that compares the United States with imperial Rome, or with one of the unwitting great powers of 1914. But 1933? Hitler? That's grotesque; and the fact that is has achieved such currency among what the French call the bien pensant is vivid proof that in much of the left, 9/11 and its aftermath have increased the visceral loathing not of terrorism or of Islamist fundamentalism but of President George Bush.

Like all forms of reductio ad Hitler, the 1933 analogy constitutes a gross trivialization of the worst event in modern history. Do we remember what actually happened in 1933? Hitler ascended to the chancellorship, suspended constitutional rights and banned all opposition political parties, sent the Brown Shirts into the streets and issued the first decrees stripping Jews of their rights. To compare the passage of the U.S.A. Patriot Act and the proposed -- but scotched -- program to get ordinary citizens to pass along tips about suspicious dark-skinned strangers, not to mention the cancellation of Tim Robbins's invitation to appear at the Baseball Hall of Fame because he might criticize the war in Iraq -- to compare these and other inroads on our liberties to Hitler's budding terror state is repellent.

Why, then, the hysteria? I have several explanations. First of all, you cannot miss the element of wish-fulfillment in these prophecies of doom. Those of Bush's critics who loathe him as an overprivileged lout and corporate cats' paw regard the new moral and political stature he has gained as a result of the war on terror as an intolerable twist of fate; and so the terrible events they predict will prove the ultimate unmasking. We will see ''Bush as Fuhrer,'' to cite one recent Internet posting. But we will also, of course, see America as Germany, a society so ''demobilized'' that it will stay glued to reality TV as Karl Rove cancels the presidential elections. It is this contemptuous dismissal, I realize, that makes my blood boil every time I hear the 1933 analogy. When will the left learn that this is not simply a nation of dimwitted yahoos?

via the New York Times Magazine

WMD duplicity - NOT

Jim Hoagland addresses the mewling of those who claimed to feel duped by the Bush administration over Iraq's WMDs.

It is disingenuous to look back now and say that support for the war was built primarily on a belief that weapons of mass destruction would be found soon after battlefield victory. Some critics now saying just that originally blasted Bush for offering too many reasons for going after Saddam Hussein instead of relying on one overriding cause. The very multiplicity proved -- or so it was asserted -- that regime change was the real motive for the war, not weapons of mass destruction, humanitarian intervention or terrorist links. Now the same people are shocked that they got it.

Three weeks before the war began, a representative Time/CNN poll reported that 83 percent of their sample said "the most compelling reason to disarm Hussein is that he has wantonly killed his own citizens." "Saddam's cruelty" was the top reason for action, followed by 72 percent who felt that a war "would help eliminate weapons of mass destruction."

There was a mosaic of valid reasons for removing Hussein, and most Americans understood and approved of that mosaic. Feigning shock on behalf of "duped" citizens who were fairly clear-eyed about what they were getting into takes some doing.

via the Washington Post