Petrified Truth

Falling... with style

Some mentioned Icarus, but my first thought was... Buzz Lightyear: "To infinity, and beyond!"

An extreme sports fanatic was celebrating yesterday after successfully flying across the English Channel without any power, using a carbon fibre "wing". Felix Baumgartner jumped from a plane into the freezing air 33,000ft above Dover to become the first man to cross the Channel in an unpowered flight.

The journey took six minutes and 22 seconds, with crowds, including journalists from across Europe, on hand to greet him as he landed near Calais.

Mr Baumgartner, 34, from Austria, began the free-fall flight at a speed of about 220mph before slowing to about 135mph. After opening his parachute, he made a crunching landing at Cap Blanc-Nez, near Calais, in France. He had glided 22 miles across the Channel wearing a specially-adapted suit with the carbon fibre wing attached to his back.

via The Scotsman (UK)

Why we fight

Scrappleface says it really was about the oil. I'm so glad that's off our chests once and for all.

Now that the United States has captured the Iraqi oil fields, President George Bush encouraged all Americans to "go get an SUV, or one of them monster pickups, or even a Hummer."

"There's no reason to suffer in a cramped compact car anymore," said the President, who arrived at a Rose Garden ceremony driving a Chevy Silverado SS with six barrels of Iraqi crude in the bed. "This is part of my plan to jump-start the economy. Take your tax cut and use it toward a downpayment on a $45,000 truck. What's good for General Motors is good for the nation."

via Scrappleface

WMD

The Telegraph in London reports that the search for WMD in Iraq may be making quiet but real progress. Naysayers are going to be in a heap of trouble when their doubts are proven false.

The United States has found evidence of an active programme to make weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, including "truly amazing" testimony from Iraqis ordered to dupe United Nations inspectors before the war, the man leading the hunt said yesterday.

David Kay, a former UN inspector and now the CIA's leading consultant who is joint head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), offered an unprecedentedly bullish assessment of the hunt for weapons of mass destruction. Although he called for patience, he predicted that doubters were in for a "surprise" by the time his work was done.

His 1,400-strong team of American, British and Australian experts scouring Iraq has not yet found actual biological or chemical weapons, Mr Kay told private Senate hearings in Washington. But there was mounting evidence of an active WMD programme, he said. That evidence included documents detailing how to conceal arms plants as commercial facilities, and for restarting weapons production once the coast was clear, officials told reporters.

via The Telegraph (UK)

USMC answering machine

The estimable Donald Sensing lets us hear what's on the U.S. Marine Corps answering machine. Fun.

Good rocking tonight

First Bob Hope, now we've lost the great Sam Phillips. This has been a tough week for pop icons. Keep on rockin', Sam.

Sam Phillips, who discovered Elvis Presley and helped usher in the rock 'n' roll revolution, died Wednesday. He was 80.

Phillips founded Sun Records in Memphis in 1952 and helped launch the career of Presley, then a young singer who had moved from Tupelo, Miss. He produced Presley's first record, the 1954 single that featured "That's All Right, Mama" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky."

"God only knows that we didn't know it would have the response that it would have," Phillips said in an interview in 1997. "But I always knew that the rebellion of young people, which is as natural as breathing, would be a part of that breakthrough," he said.

via ABC News

A&E prepared a good film about him a few years ago. The description for the video sums it up pretty well:

From a small storefront on Memphis' Union Avenue, he launched a revolution. Driven by his love of the music he heard as a child in Mississippi, he introduced a parade of powerful new voices to the world, among them a gangly kid named Elvis.

Sam Phillips was a white man with a deep love for black music and a determination to get good songs heard, no matter who made them. From his legendary Sun Studios flowed a succession of hits by a roster of performers that reads like a who's who of musical legends: Jerry Lee Lewis, BB King, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, Bobby Bland and Howlin' Wolf.

via A&E

When will China attack Taiwan?

North Korea is on our strategic radar now, but in the long term China is the real threat.

The U.S. Defense Department says China is increasing the number of missiles aimed at Taiwan.

In a new report released Wednesday, the Pentagon says China has 450 short range ballistic missiles and is expected to increase the number by 75 each year, more than the United States had expected. The report says the main reason for China's military plan is to prepare for a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

The Pentagon says the missiles are more sophisticated and the accuracy has improved. It says the Chinese army has developed longer range missiles capable of reaching Japan.

The report also says China is spending far more on defense than it had admitted. Beijing announced last year that its military budget is $20 billion. But U.S. officials estimate it could be three times that number. The Pentagon report says China's modernization program relies heavily on assistance from Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union.

U.S. defense officials have said China's move to upgrade its military are at odds with its stated goal to achieve reunification with Taiwan peacefully. China considers Taiwan a renegade province and has threatened to re-take the island by force if necessary.

via Voice of America

Full report via Defenselink (pdf)

Un-civil rights

Interest groups plan to exploit another family's tragedy for political gain, despite apparently overwhelming evidence and a public hearing. Most citizens will only hear or see the word "lynching" and then assume the worst. The "Civil Rights" commission, operating under a noble charter, is abusing the truth -- in Florida again.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will review the death of a black man who was found hanging from a tree in this poor, rural farm town because of lingering suspicions that his hands were tied behind his back.

Sevell Brown, the Florida president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, called for the civil rights commission's intervention following a judge's ruling Tuesday that 32-year-old Feraris "Ray" Golden committed suicide and could not have been lynched by a mob, as had been rumored.

Brown told a newspaper that the organization, which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. helped found, found "serious inconsistencies" during testimony. "Historically, (with) hangings of black males, inquests have always found suicide," Brown told The Palm Beach Post for its Wednesday edition. He would not elaborate on the inconsistencies.

Smith and others say they do not trust the state's evidence presented during the hearing, including wall-size pictures of Golden's body and police videotape footage showing him dangling from a noose, his arms swaying at his sides.

Experts testified that Golden was likely depressed and a police officer's statement indicated his grandmother initially said Golden told her, "Nobody loves me. I'm going to kill myself." Golden was an alcoholic, and he had traces of cocaine in his system and a blood-alcohol level of 0.334 percent when he died.

via the Miami Herald

What we might call "the rest of story" will likely not be reported as widely:

Presentation at the inquest of the knotted green bedsheet that police cut from around Mr. Golden's neck surprised some relatives even before the verdict, and led them to change their minds and accept the suicide theory. An Associated Press report on lynching claims as recently as Sunday said Mr. Golden's noose was fashioned from his own shirt and that his hands were bound behind his back.

Shresee Lumpkin, an aunt of Mr. Golden's, recognized the twin-size bedsheet as coming from his room at his grandmother's house. "It changed my view," Miss Lumpkin told reporters. "That means he got it out of his room and used it," said Henry Drummer, Mr. Golden's stepfather. "Today the issue was 'A suicide was committed.' Period," Florida NAACP President Adora Obi Nweze said after hearing the first 14 witnesses.

Chief Miller said the investigation was led by Detective Steve Sawyer, a white officer supervised by Detective Sgt. Jeffers Walker, who is black. He said another black uniformed officer, Kenwood Campbell, was the first to arrive at the scene.

"I understand and respect the Golden family's grief and their right to ask questions and get answers to those questions. But we never found one piece of information. We never got one phone call, one witness, one scintilla of evidence that indicated it was anything but suicide," Chief Miller said.

via The Washington Times

NYT annoints... Howard Dean

The New York Times has bestowed its ultimate blessing on a leftist Democrat political candidate: it has prepared a lengthy profile that carefully shows how the candidate is really just a misunderstood "moderate" and that "labels" don't apply. This time it's Howard Dean (or "Dr. Dean," as the NYT now likes to call him), who has earned the privilege by raising enough money to be a "serious" candidate. What a bunch of hokum.

We really are settling now into the familiar four-year cycle of media cliches and political campaign-by-proxy. It's as repetitive as sunspots or animal migration, and as ritualistic as kabuki theatre. The fact that we are at war makes no difference to those seeking to grasp the levers of power.

In the green, hilly quiet of Vermont, Dr. Dean, a stockbroker's son who grew up on Park Avenue in Manhattan and in Sag Harbor, N.Y., is viewed not as an idealistic maverick, but as a shrewd politician who always kept one ambitious eye on the next step. Even the civil unions bill, sure to cost him among conservatives nationally, was considered a cop-out by some gays and liberals at home who say he did only what was demanded by state courts and signed the bill "in the closet," without a public ceremony.

"In the Vermont political spectrum, he was a moderate or a centrist," said Eric L. Davis, a professor of political science at Middlebury College in Vermont. "In the spectrum of Vermont, he was not someone who was a strong supporter of left or progressive causes."

The difference may be as much a matter of style as substance. In fact, much of Dr. Dean's presidential platform, particularly his plan for universal health insurance, is a outgrowth of his accomplishments in Vermont. He remains a fiscal conservative, he believes gun control should be left to the states and he favors the death penalty for some crimes.

via The New York Times

Swiss perfidy

A danger that has been predicted by opponents of offshore sourcing of key military/industrial materials finally came to pass during the Iraq war. Apparently the Swiss aren't always so "neutral" after all.

A Swiss company's refusal to provide critical parts for the Pentagon's flagship Joint Direct Attack Munition during the Iraq war shows the need for "buy American" laws, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said yesterday.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican, also said Switzerland, a neutral nation, blocked delivery of grenades to British military forces during the conflict because it opposed the war. "The British went into battle in Iraq without a full grenade load," Mr. Hunter said in an interview.

Regarding the JDAM parts, Mr. Hunter said Swatch Group AG, and its Micro Crystal division in Gretchen, Switzerland, refused to send key components used in the bomb guidance equipment used on the JDAM after the Iraq war began.

The Swiss company's president blocked the parts to Honeywell, which was a subcontractor for Boeing Co. in making the tail kits for the satellite-guided bombs, 6,600 of which were dropped with great effect during the period of major conflict in Iraq. The delay forced Boeing to buy the parts from a U.S. manufacturer at nearly twice the cost, a defense official said. The shipments resumed after the Bush administration pressed the Swiss government.

via The Washington Times

France suffers

France is hurting from the grassroots tourism boycott by Americans who have voted with their wallets not to support a country which double-crosses its friends and allies. Maybe this will be an example of economic sanctions that work.

American anger over the French stand against the war in Iraq has led them to boycott France in huge numbers.

The president of the French travel agents’ union has estimated the number of American visitors plunged by up to 80 per cent in the first half of 2003 compared to the same period in 2002, when some four million US tourists came to France.

César Balderacchi’s calculation was far more gloomy than that of the French ministry of tourism, which says numbers fell by 30 per cent in the first three months of 2003. But bookings may have fallen further during the Iraq war itself.

Americans are not even climbing the Eiffel Tower to eat in the monument’s celebrated Jules Verne restaurant, where the number of British visitors has overtaken them.

Fifty-nine years after D-Day, United States veterans are even staying away from Normandy beaches and cemeteries. Le Roosevelt restaurant on Utah Beach said business was down 30 per cent this year, despite its strawberry milkshakes and walls papered with pages from the New York Times. The Hotel de la Mère Poulard at Mont St Michel in Normandy reports losing 50 per cent of its US custom.

via The Scotsman (UK)

Desecrations in Europe

Two more incidents of grotesque vandalism in Europe were reported today. The continent is diseased with hatred in our time.

Vandals in Germany have pasted the walls of a Nazi concentration camp memorial with Third Reich newspapers. The damage was carried out at the former Langenstein-Zwieberge camp in the north-central state of Saxony-Anhalt. Copies of newspapers from 1933 to 1945, the years Hitler ruled Germany, were stuck to the walls of buildings there.

Langenstein-Zwieberge was set up in 1944 as a sub-camp for the Buchenwald concentration camp to provide cheap labour for the construction of an underground aircraft factory nearby. About 5,000 people were held there, and more than half are believed to have died. It was liberated by American forces in 1945.

via Ananova

Vandals knocked over 45 headstones at a military cemetery for British soldiers, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission said Tuesday. Two of the markers were destroyed at the Saint Aubert Cemetery, which is near the northern city of Cambrai and is the burial site of 435 soldiers killed in World War I, most of them British.

The headstones were believed to have been toppled Sunday evening, but police were still investigating, Peter Francis, spokesman for the War Graves Commission, said.

In April, graffiti denouncing the U.S.-led war in Iraq was scrawled on monuments at a World War I cemetery in Etaples, near Calais. This time, however, no political, racial or religious inscriptions were left, the commission said. "It looks like a completely mindless act of vandalism,'' Francis said.

via The Guardian

Saudi reality

The Saudis are being compelled to admit to the realities of fertile Islamic terrorism on their soil, but it's one painful, minute step at a time.

Muslim militants arrested or killed in recent police raids were trained by al-Qaida in Afghanistan and possibly in the Saudi kingdom, the interior minister said in remarks published Tuesday.

The arrests of more than 200 al-Qaida suspects over the last two months - and revelations that al-Qaida may have had training facilities in Saudi Arabia - came after attempts by Saudi officials to play down the presence of the terror network in the kingdom.

More than 200 suspects have been reported arrested and more than a dozen killed in police shootouts in 13 raids throughout the kingdom since the Riyadh attacks, which killed 25 people and nine attackers.

via The Guardian

Where is Osama?

The New Yorker has a 7,000-word roundup on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Seems well-researched, including comments from the insightful Mansoor Ijaz:

The working theory of the C.I.A., and also of foreign intelligence services, is that bin Laden is most likely hiding somewhere along the fifteen-hundred-mile border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. “If he is protected by a big group, I think bin Laden is on the Afghan side of the border,” Musharraf told Le Monde in July. “If his group has less than ten people, he could be on the Pakistan side.” Some people familiar with the region claim that bin Laden’s whereabouts can be narrowed even further. Mansoor Ijaz is an American financier with family members in Pakistan who are connected with intelligence circles there. A New York-based investment company he owns, Crescent Investment Management, has ties to the international intelligence community through James Woolsey, a former director of the C.I.A., who serves on the company’s board. Ijaz recently returned from a trip to Pakistan. In an interview, he contended that bin Laden was “very much alive, and hiding in the tribal areas”—that is, in the borderlands dominated by ethnic Pashtuns. Ijaz said that, during his trip, he spoke with top intelligence figures in the region. “Bin Laden is travelling around within about a hundred-and-fifty-mile diameter,” he said. “He’s essentially being babysat by tribal leaders who have an arm’s-length relationship with the Pakistani government. The tribal leaders have said he can’t move except at night, and he can’t communicate by phone, radio, or walkie-talkie. He knows it is too dangerous. They have constructed a perfect spider’s web of communication.” Ijaz said he had been told that bin Laden communicated via “handwritten notes” transmitted by “a human chain-link fence,” because word of mouth had proved unreliable. “Some of his messages were not being correctly communicated,” he said.

Ijaz said he’d been told that bin Laden was surrounded by concentric circles of security: an outer ring of loyal villagers, a second ring of tribal leaders, and an inner ring of personal aides and bodyguards. “Since he’s surrounded by devout followers, there’s virtually no chance of the U.S. being able to pinpoint him,” he said.

The article also reviews the tricky question of just how hard the Pakistanis are helping in the search. The government of Pakistan holds a fragile grasp on power in a brutal neighborhood, and has nukes sitting in storage for the fanatics who could seize control if Musharraf fails. No easy answers here.

Indeed, the most difficult problem for American officials who are trying to find bin Laden may be determining who his helpers are and how they fit into Pakistan’s power structure. “The reason bin Laden is so hard to get is that people are helping him,” Cofer Black told me. The search has been stymied not so much by tactical or logistical hurdles as by political ones. The tribal regions of Pakistan are impoverished and increasingly fundamentalist, and there is ambivalence within Musharraf’s government about how vigorously to press in the fight against Muslim jihadis. Although Musharraf has been an outspoken ally of the United States, the aggressive pursuit of bin Laden poses political risks for him, since it is sure to incite his regime’s fundamentalist opponents. Some skeptics argue that the capture of bin Laden may not be in Musharraf’s interest for other reasons as well. As long as bin Laden and other top figures in Al Qaeda are believed to be on the lam in Pakistan, they say, Musharraf can be assured of receiving favorable treatment from the United States in exchange for his coöperation.

via The New Yorker

ALA's shame - V

National Review intern Duncan Currie has a good roundup of the American Library Association's sellout of intellectual freedom in Cuba. As noted here before, ALA has declined to defend a Freedom to Read for oppressed Cubans, thereby exposing a deep, deep hypocrisy. Again, shame.

Has the American Library Association (ALA) become Fidel Castro's latest "useful idiot"? On the surface, it seems implausible: Any organization dedicated to the uncensored dissemination of books, journals, and ideas would naturally be critical of a dictator who suppresses liberty with an iron fist. After all, a champion of open expression can't be indifferent to Castro's persecution of free thinkers, right?

Well, according to several top members of the ALA, maybe not. A dispute at the association's annual conference in Toronto last month revealed a troubling obtuseness about the status of human rights in Cuba.

The "controversial" issue at hand was whether the ALA should formally respond to Havana's jailing of 14 independent librarians earlier this year. Two competing resolutions were debated. The first, introduced by a group called Friends of Cuban Libraries, condemned the arrests and demanded the prisoners' release. The second, a somewhat toothless proposal drafted by the association itself, merely noted that the librarians had been imprisoned and asked that the Castro government protect freedom of expression and access to information. Ultimately, the ALA chose to postpone any resolution on Cuba until January, claiming that it didn't yet have sufficient evidence to make a judgment.

Interestingly enough, the association's stance on Cuba has been almost the complete opposite of its stance on South Africa during the late 1980s. Back then, it supported a book boycott as part of its anti-apartheid efforts. At its 1987 convention, for example, the ALA voted down a resolution that would have opposed library restrictions that were making it nearly impossible for American publishers to sell books to South Africa.

Why the double standard when it comes to information access in Cuba?

via National Review Online

Engineering death

Freedom of choice in personal habits is all well and good, but I cannot understand how, after all we know, employees of tobacco companies go home at night. How would you like to explain to your kids that your career is based on selling illness and death, and that you are completely dependent on getting teens addicted? A nasty business.

Some cigarettes have a "kick" containing 35 times more "freebase" nicotine - the most addictive form - than others, researchers have found. The findings could help rate the addictiveness of different brands, they say.

"Free-base" nicotine is a particularly potent form of the naturally-occurring tobacco drug because it is in an extremely volatile, uncombined form. This means it can be much more rapidly absorbed by the lungs and brain than nicotine derivatives such as nornicotine or its salts.

Previous research has shown that a drug's addictiveness is influenced by the speed at which it is delivered to the brain and absorbed into and from the blood stream.

"The study shows that the modern cigarette does to nicotine what crack does to cocaine," says addiction expert Jack Henningfield, at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

via New Scientist

Good humor restored

Chris Muir's Day by Day is back in action. A good thing.

Going after the "knuckleheads"

CENTCOM has put a number to the size of the Iraqi resistance.

High-ranking U.S. Central Command officials told the Pentagon's top general Sunday that about 4,000-5,000 Iraqi fighters are opposing the U.S.-led occupation. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a significant number are unemployed men paid by people loyal to Saddam's deposed Baath Party. The estimate marks the first time officials have tried to quantify the size of the force attacking American soldiers.

via USA Today

And the Washington Post has a Page One story about the Army's offensive operations going on now in Iraq. At last some attention from the mass media to the fact that we're not just sitting ducks.

Over the past six weeks a small but intense war has been conducted in the mud-hut villages and lush palm groves along the Tigris River valley, fought with far different methods than those used in the campaign that toppled president Saddam Hussein.

As Iraqi fighters launched guerrilla strikes, the U.S. Army adopted a more nimble approach against unseen adversaries and found new ways to gather intelligence about them, according to dozens of soldiers and officers interviewed over the last week.

Thousands of suspected Iraqi fighters were detained over the six-week period, many temporarily, in hundreds of U.S. military raids, most of them conducted in the dead of night. In the expansive region north of Baghdad patrolled by the 4th Infantry Division, more than 300 Iraqi fighters were killed in combat operations, the military officials said. In the same period, U.S. forces in all of Iraq have suffered 39 combat deaths. The continuing casualties -- such as the four soldiers killed Saturday -- are the direct result of the intensified U.S. offensive, the military officials added.

...the Army has sought to keep up an unrelenting pace. "The reality is that in this company, we've been doing raids and cordon searches nearly every day" since early June, said Capt. Brian Healey, commander of an infantry company based near Baqubah, 30 miles northeast of Baghdad. Over the past six weeks, he said, sitting on a cot in an old Iraqi military base, his unit alone has detained nearly 100 people.

"I figure you can either sit barricaded in your base camp or take the fight to the enemy," said Lt. Col. Larry "Pepper" Jackson, commander of an Army outpost on the outskirts of Bayji, which is still described as hostile by U.S. military intelligence analysts. "Our key to success is staying on the offense. But you don't do it recklessly, because then you'd lose the people."

via the Washington Post

Music makes us smart

My precocious children are living examples of this effect.

Scientists have found an unexpected benefit of music lessons - they can boost word power.

Children with music training had significantly better verbal memory than others, according to today's study. Plus, the longer the training, the better the verbal memory. These findings underscore how, when experience changes a specific brain region, other skills in the same region may also benefit.

It seems that the more that music training stimulates the brain, the better it can handle other tasks. The team likened it to the way that runners find that stronger legs help them play tennis better

via The Telegraph (UK)

Missing WMDs

Check out the WMD 404 page.

via Stephen Pollard, who also teaches me a new bit of Brit-speak: "chuffed," which apparently has several definitions, some of which are more, well, earthy than others.

Find: Stephen Pollard

A newly-discovered blog: the UK's Stephen Pollard. Witty and tough, his commentaries are well worth reading -- for example, this from earlier in July:

What a star. What a leader. When Tony Blair began his speech to Congress with the line Thank you, Mr President, for your leadership, he wasn't just saying what he knew would produce a warm response from his audience. He meant it.

Because unlike so many of my fellow countrymen - unlike the 'million morons' who marched to keep Saddam in power, for instance, who should live in shame - he knows that, as he put it, There never has been a time when the power of America has been so necessary and so misunderstood.

He gets it. He knows that we are in a fight against an axis of evil, a fight which we will either win or lose: This isn't fantasy. It is 21st century reality, now. And if we lose, all that we value - our freedom and liberty - will be destroyed. If we win, freedom and liberty will be extended and given to many of those who today live in tyranny.

It beggars belief that there are those on the left who want nothing more than to bring down a leader, Tony Blair, whose career is now defined by that fight for freedom.

Thanks to Clive Davis, writing in the Washington Times, for the tip.

Real vs. unreal

No commentary needed. Just compare the two versions of reality.

Version One:

Rep. Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat, sharply criticized the killing of Saddam's two sons. "We have a law on the books that the United States should not be assassinating anybody," Mr. Rangel said Tuesday evening on the Fox News show "Hannity and Colmes."

via the Washington Times

Presidential candidate Howard Dean, a staunch opponent of the US-led war against Iraq, shrugged off the deaths of Saddam Hussein's two sons yesterday, saying that ''the ends do not justify the means.'' He scolded Democratic rivals for backing the conflict.

via the Boston Globe

Version Two:

A chief executioner to one of Saddam’s sons has revealed how he helped drag two victims into a cage to be devoured by lions.

The executioner said that he was ordered to seize two 19-year-old students and take them to a farm of Uday Hussein, Saddam’s oldest son who was killed by American forces last week.

As soon as they arrived the students were dragged to a cage containing the lions and forced inside. “I saw the head of the first student literally come off his body with the first bite,” he said. He then had to stand and watch the animals devour the two young men: “By the time they were finished there was little left but for the bones and bits and pieces of unwanted flesh.”

He was told later that the two young men “had competed with Uday where some young ladies were concerned”.

The 36-year-old executioner, who used the pseudonym of Abu Ahmad, also took part in mass beheadings on the orders of the sadistic Uday. In a single afternoon he supervised the decapitation of 36 people, including a pregnant woman.

He was so distressed at participating in the killing of an unborn child that he “wished for Allah to open up the ground and swallow everyone there including myself”. But he feared that if he disobeyed orders he too would be executed.

He was also involved in barbarous “pyramid” executions in which the victims were split down the middle. Using a special vice to hold the head, a swordsman split victims as they kneeled; another executioner carved the body into two, like a slaughterman in an abattoir.

via The Times (UK)

Waiting for the "biological solution"

The plight of Cuba's dissidents and their "independent libraries" is still in the news, despite ongoing silence by the American Library Association and others who say they defend free speech.

When police came for Gisela's husband, Hector Palacios, in March they blocked off the street and set up floodlights. "It was like a Hollywood film, as though they were coming for a group of terrorists rather than just one man," she said.

They took stacks of documents, computer equipment and several thousand books -- part of a so-called "independent libraries" project which stocked the works of exiled authors such as Guillermo Cabrera Infante and Zoe Valdes. The books were, eventually, returned, but Palacios, who had already spent two shorter periods in jail, never came back.

But do ordinary Cubans care about the dissidents? With the aid of the state-controlled media it has been easy to persuade Cubans, largely obsessed with the dollar and all it can buy, that the dissidents were only in it for cash and the chance of a Miami visa. Some say the dissidents were fools to think they could outplay Castro. "Who is going to be an opposition leader when they put you in jail for 20 years?" asked one disillusioned Havana chemistry student, who admitted he was just waiting for the 76-year-old Mr Castro to die.

The answer to that question is Osvaldo Paya, a dissident leader fired by deeply held Christian beliefs. Paya, who is closer to European countries than to the US, has another explanation for the recent crackdown. Many of those arrested were coordinators of the Varela Project, a referendum petition drawn up by him under the terms of the Cuban constitution and signed by 11 000 people.

It called for reforms to guarantee free elections, freedom of speech, the release of political prisoners and the right to sell labour freely. The Varela project drew the ire of the Cuban authorities and of the exiled fundamentalists in Miami who saw it as too conciliatory. "There is a culture of fear here, but this time thousands of people began asking for change," said Paya.

It is impossible to tell how many Cubans, if they could express themselves freely, would agree with Mr Paya. Few of those who do, however, seem prepared to take the risk. They do not expect change until the "biological solution" -- Fidel Castro's death by natural causes -- happens. And that, they agree, may be a long time coming.

via the Mail and Guardian (South Africa)

While the ALA is silent, leaders of the Czech government, no strangers to oppression, were visibly supportive of the Cuban dissidents during a visit to Miami. Even the EU may act.

''The main reason why we have come is that we cannot simply remain indifferent to the facts, such as 75 people who are inappropriately sent to prison for just having expressed an opinion,'' Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla said, through an interpreter, in an interview with The Herald in his room at the Loew's Hotel in Miami Beach. "We also wanted very much to meet the Cuban-American community. Transformation in Cuba is imminent. And we want that transformation to take place calmly and peacefully.''

The government of the Czech Republic -- a staunch supporter of opposition to Fidel Castro's regime for years -- wants to take advantage of shifting European attitudes in the wake of the recent Cuban government crackdown. It culminated this spring with summary trials and long sentences for 75 independent writers, librarians and human rights activists, and the execution of three men captured after a failed hijack attempt to leave the island.

As early as this week, the European Union may impose economic sanctions on Cuba in response to the crackdown -- and the Czechs are lobbying for yes votes.

Berta Mexidor, one of the founders of Cuba's independent libraries movement, presented Spidla with a book published by the independent libraries called Ojos Abiertos, (Eyes Open) a compilation of essays and pieces by independent writers.

via the Miami Herald

Media study

A non-partisan study of media political coverage debunks some of the conventional wisdom about the mass media's performance, and confirms (again) concerns about bias. Past experience says the media bosses will not comprehend.

There is far less news about the federal government than there used to be on the evening network news broadcasts, as well as on the front pages of national and regional newspapers. In addition, news reporting on the federal government tends to focus largely on the executive branch, to be negative in tone and increasingly judgmental. The use of unnamed sources in television and print news is decreasing.

These are some of the key findings from Government: In and Out of the News - a study released today by the Washington-based Council for Excellence in Government that looks at how news coverage of the federal government has changed in the past 20 years.

Overall, evaluations of the federal government were negative by a 2 to 1 margin, and evaluations of institutions (“the government” or “the White House” for example) were more negative than those directed at individual officials.

Coverage of federal government is becoming more judgmental or opinionated over time, with an overall increase of 20 percent in the number of “evaluations” per story during the years examined from 1981 to 2001. Evaluations on TV news increased by 138 percent and by 14 percent in the regional newspapers, but dropped by 42 percent in the two national newspapers studied.

The study was conducted for the Council for Excellence in Government by S. Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs and Stephen Farnsworth, Associate Professor of Political Science at Mary Washington College. It was funded by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The study used one of the most comprehensive datasets brought to bear on questions of how the news media have covered government. An overall sample of nearly 30,000 news stories (television and print) was examined.

via the Council for Excellence in Government

Kudos to NewsyMustang at SMU for the tip.

Dangerous buffoons

The Weekly Standard's Jonathan V. Last makes a point worth pondering in his weekly e-mail:

George W. Bush has taken a lot of heat for failing to bring Western Europe online for the war on terror. There may be some merit to that charge. But every so often a little window into the soul of Europe opens and it makes me wonder if there was anything that any president could have done to get them to take terrorism seriously.

Take, for example, the latest poll from Die Zeit. According to the German weekly, 20 percent of Germans believe that the U.S. government was behind the September 11 attacks. That's 1 in 5 Germans. If you look at only respondents under 30, the number jumps to 1 in 3.

Even if you think Old Europe is the past, those numbers should scare the beejeezus out of you. We're not talking about Oman or Syria here--Germany is as mainstream, educated, and first world as it gets. And not only do 20 percent of Germans think that U.S. government blew up the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, but among the younger cohort--the people who will be rising to power in the next two decades--33 percent buy into what is as nutty a conspiracy theory as has ever existed in modern times.

I would submit that whatever George W. Bush's diplomatic failings, a people who believe, contra all evidence, what the Germans do, are beyond persuasion. They are beyond evidence. And logic. And reason.

And however buffoonish they may seem to you and me, people like that are dangerous.

Well said.

Cruisin'

New cruise missiles will be much more affordable, which means we can stockpile and use lots more of them when needed. Good news.

The Navy is making progress in developing a new low-cost cruise missile with the nondescript name of the Affordable Weapon. Built completely with off-the-shelf technology, ... the Affordable Weapon costs about $50,000 apiece, compared with the $1.7 million cost of each of the Navy's current Tomahawk missiles. The new missile has a range of up to 600 miles and can deliver a 200-pound warhead with pinpoint accuracy. But one of the most unique features of the Affordable Weapon, ...is its ability to linger over an area for several hours while intelligence agents and military forces locate targets and then direct the missile to its destination.

Another new cruise missile under development is the successor to the Tomahawk known as the Tactical Tomahawk, which at about $600,000 is less expensive than the older Tomahawk. The newest-generation Tactical Tomahawk was test-launched on Sunday from the attack submarine USS Tucson off the coast of Southern California. It was the first live test-firing of the new cruise missile from a submarine. The test demonstrated that the missile's course could be changed in midflight through a new submarine-based combat-control system. The missile could be put on ships and submarines by next year.

via The Washington Times

US professionalism

Jonathan Foreman, film critic for The New York Post, addresses British steroetypes about America's military. Notably, his perspective is entirely consistent with the frontline accounts that are beginning to appear on the Web (not in the mass media) in correspondence coming home from our troops.

Whether the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein were self-inflicted or not, the military operation to capture them was immaculate. There were no American deaths, 10 minutes of warnings were given over loudspeakers, and it was the Iraqis who opened fire. So sensitive was the American approach, they even rang the bell of the house before entering.

The neat operation fits squarely with the tenor of the whole American campaign, contrary to the popular negative depiction of its armed forces: that they are spoilt, well-equipped, steroid-pumped, crudely patriotic yokels who are trigger-happy yet cowardly in their application of overwhelming force.

And, unlike our chaps, none of them is supposed to have the slightest clue about Northern Ireland-style "peacekeeping": never leaving their vehicles to go on foot patrols, never attempting to win hearts and minds by engaging with local communities and, of course, never removing their helmets, sunglasses and body armour to appear more human.

As a British journalist working for an American newspaper, who was embedded with American troops before, during and after the conquest of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, I know this is all way off the mark; a collection of myths coloured by prejudice, fed by Hollywood's tendentious depictions of Vietnam (fought by a very different US Army to today's) and by memories of the Second World War.

The American soldiers I met were disciplined professionals. Many of them had extensive experience of peacekeeping in Kosovo and Bosnia and had worked alongside (or even been trained by) British troops. Thoughtful, mature for their years, and astonishingly racially integrated, they bore little resemblance to the disgruntled draftees in Platoon or Apocalypse Now.

via The Telegraph (UK)

Publishing industry grows a right arm

USA Today looks at the rising success of conservative authors and its impact on the publishing industry:

Now, the largest and less ideologically driven publishers are trying to cash in on the growing number of conservative readers when overall book sales have been flat.

Crown, which is part of Random House, and Penguin have hired editors from Regnery for their new conservative imprints. And Bookspan plans to start an as-yet-unnamed conservative book club early next year to compete with the 39-year-old Conservative Book Club, owned by Regnery's parent company.

"The center of the culture has moved to the right," says Crown vice president Steve Ross, who sees conservatives as "a vast and historically underserved readership. Publishers are catching up."

Polls show that 33% to 42% of adults identify themselves as conservatives; only 16% to 24% call themselves liberals.

Ross says that "most mainstream publishers work in a fairly isolated cultural island in New York and perhaps unconsciously publish for people of a similar mind-set."

Ross's statement falls nicely into the realm of the blindingly obvious, but former Democratic pol Pat Schroeder just can't see it:

Patricia Schroeder, the former Democratic congresswoman and now president of the Association of American Publishers, decries the notion that major publishers are belatedly discovering conservatives.

"What about all the books by Bill Bennett or Pat Buchanan?" she asks. "It's not as if publishers are babies who've just discovered they have a right hand."

via USA Today

Kudos to Townhall's C-Log for the tip.

Le Doom

The French nanny-state is going to offer yet more subsidies for yet another non-competitive industry.

The French government has set aside €4 million this year to fund the development of video games in a move to boost its standing in the world gaming industry.

French companies have until September 1 to submit proposals for games under development, which will be judged for innovation, commercial viability, and other criteria. Those selected will receive up to 40 per cent of the cost of developing their games and bringing them to market, the French Ministry of Culture said in a statement.

The goal is to support an industry that France believes has talent, but which is struggling under tough economic conditions, the ministry said.

via Digit Magazine (UK)

Pondering this, James Lileks muses on possible "French versions of some popular games:"

Half-Life. An interdimensional gateway opens up, and thousands of murderous creatures from another world spill through. Your mission: help them establish their own parallel society in your country.

Doom: An interdimensional gateway opens up, and the minions of Hell itself enter a Martian moonbase. Your mission: nothing! Lucky you, they invaded in August, and that’s your month at the beach.

Grand Theft Auto: You steal Deux Cheveaux and attempt to escape from the police at speeds up to 30 MPH

Medal of Honor: WW2. This was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the Resistance. At its peak it had 400,000 members who logged on and did nothing. Then someone named “Yank44” signed on, and the system crashed when all 400,000 members attempted to remove the picture of Marshal Petain from the wall of their cottage.

via Lileks's Daily Bleat

Cheney

Vice President Cheney gave a tough, eloquent address yesterday. First he spoke about the war on terror:

September 11th signaled the arrival of an entirely different era. We suffered massive civilian casualties on our soil. We awakened to dangers even more lethal - the possibility that terrorists could gain weapons of mass destruction from outlaw regimes and inflict catastrophic harm. And something else is different about this new era: Our response to terrorism has changed, because George W. Bush is President of the United States. For decades, terrorists have waged war against this country. Now, under the leadership of President Bush, America is waging war against them.

Our strategy in the war on terror is based on a clear understanding of the enemy, and a clear assessment of our national interest. Having lost thousands of Americans on a single morning, we are not going to answer further danger by simply issuing diplomatic protests or sharply worded condemnations. We will not wait in false comfort while terrorists plot against innocent Americans. We will not permit outlaw states and terror groups to join forces in a deadly alliance that could threaten the lives of millions of Americans. We will act, and act decisively, before gathering threats can inflict catastrophic harm on the American people.

Then he turned to the subject of Iraq and reminded everyone that the justification for war was based on more than a few words in one presidential speech:

I have watched for more than a year now as President Bush kept the American people constantly informed of the dangers we face, and of his determination to confront those dangers. There was no need for anyone to speculate what the President was thinking; his words were clear, and straightforward, and understood by friend and enemy alike. When the moment arrived to make the tough call - when matters came to the point of choosing, and the safety of the American people was at stake - President Bush acted decisively, with resolve, and with courage.

Now the regime of Saddam Hussein is gone forever. And at a safe remove from the danger, some are now trying to cast doubt upon the decision to liberate Iraq. The ability to criticize is one of the great strengths of our democracy. But those who do so have an obligation to answer this question: How could any responsible leader have ignored the Iraqi threat?

Last October, the Director of Central Intelligence issued a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's Continuing Programs of Weapons of Mass Destruction. That document contained the consensus judgments of the intelligence community, based upon the best information available about the Iraqi threat. The NIE declared -- quote: "We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction program, in defiance of UN Resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons, as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions. If left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade." End quote.

Those charged with the security of this nation could not read such an assessment and pretend that it did not exist. Ignoring such information, or trying to wish it away, would be irresponsible in the extreme. And our President did not ignore that information - he faced it. He sought to eliminate the threat by peaceful, diplomatic means and, when all else failed, he acted forcefully to remove the danger.

There's more. Read the whole thing via The White House.

A free Iraq

The President reiterated the mission in Iraq again today.

As our work continues, we know that our coalition forces are serving under difficult circumstances. Our nation will give those who wear its uniform all the tools and support they need to complete their mission. We are eternally grateful for the bravery of our troops, for their sacrifice and for the sacrifices of their families. The families of our servicemen and women can take comfort in knowing that their sons and daughters and moms and dads are serving a cause that is noble and just and vital to the security of the United States.

A free, democratic, peaceful Iraq will not threaten America or our friends with illegal weapons. A free Iraq will not be a training ground for terrorists, or a funnel of money to terrorists, or provide weapons to terrorists who would willing use them to strike our country or our allies. A free Iraq will not destabilize the Middle East. A free Iraq can set a hopeful example to the entire region and lead other nations to choose freedom. And as the pursuits of freedom replace hatred and resentment and terror in the Middle East, the American people will be more secure.

via The White House

The Godfather?

Another direct report from Iraq, this one via The Braden Files from a commander with the First Armored Division. A great read. Contrast with the deceptions from the mass media.

The soldiers are staying focused and disciplined, and are getting more effective with each passing day. Our snipers have had some success of late - enough said. Even though we are still being shot at daily, the vast majority of the population supports our objectives and they just want to get on with their lives. We are doing some excellent humanitarian work, but it doesn't make the news because all the press wants to talk about is the attacks.

The infrastructure is up and running and the shortfalls in electricity, water, sewage, etc., are being addressed. We have local advisory councils of Iraqi citizens set up in Baghdad and a functioning city council. The people we kicked out of power can't stand our success, however, and will do everything they can to try to make us fail. Thus the ongoing gun battles in the streets.

There is also a lot of organized crime here. I have flashbacks to "The Godfather" all the time. As the military commander of eastern Baghdad, I feel like Don Corleone...or maybe a ward boss on the south side of Chicago. The brigade was trained in high intensity conflict back in Germany, but quickly transitioned into urban combat operations once in Baghdad. We had a visit from a team from the British Army experienced in operations in Northern Ireland, and we were already doing everything they talked to us about. In some cases, such as use of helicopters in conjunction with ground forces, we are ahead of them. Special skills such as military police, civil affairs, psychological operations, EOD, and engineers are needed more in this type of operation.

via The Braden Files

9/11 Report

The full text of the joint House and Senate Select Committee's report on 9/11 has been posted for downloading on the USGPO web site.

Here's a first take by the conventional wisdom:

The report on the congressional investigation represents the fullest examination so far of the U.S. response to the growing threat from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network. Based on an examination of more than 500,000 documents and testimony at nine public hearings and 13 closed sessions last year, the report paints a picture of a poorly organized, understaffed and uncoordinated effort that missed the warning signs and failed to add up the clues.

Committee staff members have wrangled with the administration and intelligence agencies over how much of the classified investigation could be made public. More than 800 pages of findings, recommendations and narrative detail were published at 2 p.m. today. Even so, long passages were deleted, especially those dealing with possible connections between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia.

via the Washington Post

There'll be lots more commentary as this 800 page tome is read and misread over the coming days.

den Beste speaks

Essayist/blogger Steven den Beste is right on target on the question of America's staying power in Iraq and elsewhere in the war on terror. Does America have the guts to prevail? den Beste says "yes" and our history proves it.

Much of the reputation we've gained in the world comes from how we act when we're not challenged. There's steel in us, too, but we don't show it much. It only really comes out in war, and when we've been at peace for several decades there's a tendency to think that we used to have that kind of steel, but that we don't any longer. That's wrong, and every generation the world learns that anew. Going into World War II, many in Europe said that Americans used to be willing to fight back in the days of Lincoln but had become decadent and soft. History proves otherwise, of course.

That steel is still there, it's just that we don't feel any need to show it when it isn't needed. But when the issues are sufficiently important to us, we'll still make major sacrifices.

The memory of 9/11 runs deep. I'm becoming convinced that few in Europe truly understand just what that really meant to us, the anger and the hatred it raised. It's not the kind of thing we get over. We're not going to forget it.

We haven't forgotten Pearl Harbor, either. That doesn't mean we consider Japan an enemy, but it does mean that we did what we needed to in order to make sure Japan would never do anything like that to us again. When we truly decide to solve a problem, we try to solve it permanently.

And we're not going to forget 9/11. On some level or another, it's going to be a major political issue here for the next few decades, until we're convinced that the danger is gone. Arab extremism is no longer something that happens a long ways away and that we can ignore, so we aren't going to. It is their problem, but 9/11 made it ours. Now we'll solve it.

via OpinionJournal

North Korea's moneyline

North Korea's lifelines are under pressure around the world, this time the money channels in Europe. The Wall Street Journal reported a similar story a few days ago, too.

North Korea's only bank in Europe, the Golden Star Bank in Vienna, is being used as a base for North Korean secret services, according to a report by the Austrian authorities.

Rudolf Gollia, a spokesman for the Austrian interior ministry, confirmed that the bank was under scrutiny. However, an Austrian interior ministry report, a copy of which has been obtained by The Telegraph, warns that the Golden Star Bank is still being allowed to trade - even though it is clearly a base for North Korean secret service operatives.

The report says: "There are detectable efforts by the North Korean secret services to place its agents in diplomatic and non-diplomatic positions in Austria. The camouflage for these activities is Europe's only established branch of the North Korean state bank, which is located in Vienna, as well as martial arts clubs established around the country."

It added that the North Koreans are "finding it increasingly difficult to raise the finances to fund the further development of weapons of mass destruction, as well as for the modernisation of middle-range missiles, and are looking increasingly to the West for the needed know-how and technical components, which means it is vital for Austria to make sure it keeps a close eye on North Korean representatives".

The report did not define "detectable efforts", but added that the regime in North Korea was "financing itself by selling weapons and military technology to countries in crisis, as well as Third World countries in the Middle and Far East such as Syria, Iran and Libya." Despite its suspicions that the bank is involved in money laundering, sources said the government had not yet secured enough evidence to shut the operation down.

via The Telegraph (UK)

Posted by Alan at 12:32 AM

Showtime in Iraq

An apparently genuine, great letter from one of our Special Ops guys in Iraq has been posted on Free Republic and a few other sites. Numerous military-style colorful metaphors included, but it's a savvy first-hand report on what's really happening over there, and especially the reality-gap between actual events and the press accounts. Maybe too good to be true, but for now read the whole thing. Here are a couple of excerpts:

I'm no longer baby-sitting the pukes from CNN and the canned hams from the networks, but have a combat mission coordinating a bunch of A teams, seeking, finding and rooting out the mostly non-Iraqis that are well-armed, well-paid (in U.S. dollars) and always waiting to wail for the press and then shoot some GI in the back in the midst of a crowd.

The only reason the GIs are pissed (not demoralized) is that they cannot touch, must less waste, those taunting bags of gas that scream in their faces and riot on cue when they spot a camera man from ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN or NBC. If they did, then they know the next nightly news will be about how chaotic things are and how much the Iraqi people hate us.

Some do. But the vast majority don't and more and more see that the GIs don't start anything, are by-and-large friendly, and very compassionate, especially to kids and old people.

Our search and destroy missions are largely at night, free of reporters and generally terrifying to those brave warriors of Allah. The only thing that frightens them more is hearing the word "Gitmo". The word is out that a trip to Guantanimo Bay is not a Caribbean vacation and they usually start squealing like the little mice they are, when an interrogator mentions "Gitmo".

No wonder the International Red Cross, the National Council of Churches and the French keep protesting about the place. They know it has proven to be very effective in keeping several hundred real fanatical psychopaths in check and very frankly would rather see them cut loose to go kill some more GIs or innocent Americans, just to make W. look bad.

We have about 200 really bad guys in custody now and probably will park them in the desert behind a triple roll of razor wire, backed up by a couple of Bradleys pointed their way, if they decide to riot. Maybe a few will get to Gitmo but most are human garbage that wouldn't take on your five-year old grandson face-to-face. The more we go after them and not vice-versa I think we will see the sniper attacks go down. Yeah, they'll get lucky now and then, but it's showtime, fellows.

via Free Republic

Kudos to Andrew Sullivan for the tip and the link.

Woolsey wisdom

James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence, speaks some tough truths to the UK-based Royal Institute of International Affairs, as published in The Observer. Seems to me that Woolsey would make a good replacement for George Tenet, if he could be talked back from retirement. Woolsey has no illusions about this war.

America and the western world are at war with 'fascist' Middle East governments and totalitarian Islamists. The freedoms we stand for are loathed and our vulnerable systems under attack. Liberty and security will be in conflict as we line up behind the new march of democracy. This is about the war we are in, whom it is with, how we have to fight it inside our own countries and how we have to fight it abroad. The war is, essentially, similar to the Cold War. This is the origin of the phrase World War IV, which Professor Eliot Cohen came up with in America shortly after September 11 2001, to characterise the parallels between this war and what he called World War III - the Cold War.

Those parallels are: that it will last a very long time - decades; that it will sporadically involve the use of military force, as did the Cold War in Korea for example; but that an important component would be ideological. I would add that, just as we eventually won the Cold War - and when I say 'we' here, I always mean Britain, the United States, the democracies, our allies - it was in no small measure because, while containing the Soviet Union and its allies militarily and with nuclear deterrence, we undermined their ideology.

We and you are cordially loathed for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, open economies, equal - or almost equal - treatment of women, and so on. It is not what we have done wrong that is creating the problem; it is what we do right.

If that is true, then this is not a war that will end with an Al Qaeda Gorbachev; it will not end with an arms control agreement. It is a war to the death, like the war with the Nazis, and we should understand that it will have to be fought that way.

via The Observer.

Kudos to Tim Blair for the tip.

Jessica Lynch - A Class Act

Jessica Lynch said some simple but eloquent things today. Seems pretty classy to me.

Hi. Thank you for being here. It's great to be home.

I would like to say thank you to everyone who hoped and prayed for my safe return. For a long time I had no idea so many people knew I had been missing. But I've read thousands of letters, many of them from children who offered messages of hope and faith.

I would like to thank the people in this community, especially those who gave donations to the Lynch fund and volunteered their time and skills to work on my family's house.

Please allow me to thank the doctors, nurses and staff members of Walter Reed Army Medical Center for the excellent care they gave me. I would like to thank the staff of the Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany for their care and support.

I'd like to thank the Fisher Foundation, Gov. Bob Wise, and Senator Jay Rockefeller for the roles they played in helping my family to be with me in Germany and Washington.

I'm also grateful to several Iraqi citizens who helped save my life while I was in their hospital.

And then a unit of our special forces soldiers did save my life. I want to thank Sgt. Ruben Contreras. Ruben you never let me give up. When I wanted to quit P.T., you kept me going. You're my inspiration and I love you.

I'm proud to be a soldier in the Army. I'm proud to have served with the 507th. I'm happy that some of the soldiers I served with made it home alive. And it hurst that some of my company didn't.

But most of all I miss Lori Piestewa. She was my best friend. She fought beside me, and it was an honor to have served with her. Lori will always remain in my heart.

I've read thousands of stories that said when I was captured I said, "I'm an American soldier, too." Those stories were right. Those were my words. I am an American soldier, too.

Thank you for this welcome, and it's great to be home.

via The New York Times

Posted by Alan at 09:20 PM

Great news from Iraq

Super news today from Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition troops in Iraq. Not only is the removal of these uber-thugs a benefit in and of itself, but the act of paying the $15 million (x 2?) reward should go a long way towards loosening some tongues in Iraq and elsewhere in this treacherous part of the world.

Today coalition forces associated with the 101st Airborne Division, Special Forces and Air Force assets conducted an operation against suspected regime members. An Iraqi source informed the 101st Airborne Division today that several suspects, including Qusai and Odai, Nos. 2 and 3 on the U.S. Central Command's most-wanted list, were hiding in a residence near the northern edge of the city (Mosul).

The six-hour operation began when the division's 2nd Brigade combat team approached the house and received small-arms fire. The division subsequently employed multiple weapon systems to subdue the suspects who had barricaded themselves inside the house and continued to resist detention fiercely.

Four persons were killed during that operation and were removed from the building and we have since confirmed that Odai and Qusai Hussein are among the dead.

The site is currently being exploited. Four coalition soldiers were wounded in the operation and I pray for their speedy recovery.

via the San Jose Mercury News

Jessica Lynch

Tuesday is Jessica Lynch Hype Day. Luckily, she got her medals at the hospital away from the media circus. Go home and rest, Jessie.

Former POW Jessica Lynch was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart in Washington Monday as she prepares for her homecoming. Lynch, who returns to the hills of West Virigina Tuesday, also received the Purple Heart and Prisoner of War medals at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. The Bronze Star is given for meritorious combat service, a Purple Heart is most often awarded to those wounded in combat, and the POW for being held captive during wartime.

"The Purple Heart ... was not necessarily about being wounded or injured in action initially, but that's what it has come to symbolize," said Lt. Gen. James B. Peake, the Army Surgeon General, in presenting the medals. "It's a special award and not one you choose to get."

via ABC News

ABC News and others have posted a leaked copy of the US Army's draft report on what happened to her convoy in Iraq. ABC's Nightline has also prepared its own take -- it's shorter reading.

Newsweek published an account with this chilling detail:

But the report avoids the details of the plight of Private Lynch, who’s still undergoing rehabilitation after suffering multiple broken bones and spinal and head injuries. She’s said she has no recollection of the event. The report seems to suggest Lynch was injured after her Humvee was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and crashed into a truck in the convoy. The driver of the Humvee, Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa, died of injuries she sustained, and two other occupants were killed under circumstances still under investigation, the report says.

NEWSWEEK has learned, however, that U.S. military intelligence officers believe Lynch’s injuries were inflicted after she and other survivors surrendered. “This poor girl,” said one Special Forces captain involved in her rescue. He’s among three military intelligence sources who say she was standing when she surrendered, and had minor injuries at most. That was confirmed by Mehdi Kafaji, the Iraqi orthopedic surgeon who was in charge of her treatment at the hospital in An Nasiriya. “She had blunt-force trauma not consistent with what you’d expect from a car accident,” Kafaji says. He adds that there was no sign of bullet wounds on her body, and her injuries appeared to have been inflicted by a severe beating, probably with numerous rifle butts.

via MSNBC

Media fairness at work

This is the lead paragraph in an AP "news" article about the trumped-up crisis over the President's case for war in Iraq. The White House has mostly bungled this from a communications POV, but is this lead-off an example of fair and balanced journalism? Hardly.

The White House defense of President Bush's now-disavowed claim that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa has evolved over the last two weeks: blame others, stonewall, bury questions in irrelevant information and, above all, hope it will go away. So far, none has worked.

via AP and ABC News

Who's who in Iraq

Amir Taheri has an interesting take on the continuing violence in Iraq. First, he notes that Iraq is, overall, rather quiet.

In a country where state authority has ceased to exist while the police presence has been cut to less than 20 percent of its pre-war strength, it is a feat of civic discipline that some measure of law and order is maintained throughout a territory as large as France. One reason for this relative calm is that most Iraqis, tired of decades of despotism and war, have little stomach for further violence. Another reason is the success of religious and tribal elders and leaders to keep their respective constituencies under some control.

Then he details three main categories of violent actors, including remnants of the Saddam regime, "mafia style" organized crime, and ethnic & religious factions. The article is hard to excerpt, so just go read the entire thing. Not too long and worth it.

via the New York Post

NK Nukes

The news from northeast Asia just keeps getting better and better.

North Korea may be operating a secret second nuclear plant that is making plutonium to build nuclear weapons. The likelihood of a secret plant, possibly dug into the mountains, arose when sensors on the border with North Korea detected a gas that is produced when reprocessing spent fuel rods into plutonium. The alarm was raised when it became clear that the gas did not appear to be coming from the known Yongbyon nuclear plant.

United States officials say the evidence of a second nuclear plant is not yet conclusive. But if such a plant is operating, it confirms North Korea is well advanced in building a nuclear arsenal. The possibility of a second, secret plant would seem to rule out a scenario once considered by the Clinton administration - a "surgical" strike by the US against the North's nuclear weapons-producing capability.

Chinese intelligence has reportedly determined that North Korea has reprocessed enough plutonium to make at least one bomb, and has all the components and triggering devices to build a nuclear-tipped missile. The news seemed to explain China's urgent intervention in the crisis last week, and its attempt to host talks between the US and North Korea.

via theSydney Morning Herald

Inching towards war?

The North Koreans are continuing their brinksmanship. Despite past claims by Democrats that this is the true crisis, somehow we seem to be hearing more about supposedly bogus claims concerning Iraq's quest for uranium in Niger. Hello -- does no one on the Left see nuclear conflict in Northeast Asia coming? They would rather take up air time trying to bring down the President's poll numbers.

North Korea has deployed more missiles capable of reaching Japan, South Korea said yesterday, adding to concerns over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions just as the North appears to be edging toward talks. The South's Defence Ministry said the North had also moved more artillery closer to the Demilitarised Zone that bisects the tense peninsula, putting even more firepower within reach of the South's capital, Seoul.

In Washington, officials told a Chinese envoy it was time for others to join China and the United States in nuclear talks with North Korea. Amid the diplomacy, North Korea increased its rhetoric, rejecting an invitation to join an event on July 27 to mark the 50th anniversary of the truce that ended the Korean War and criticising reports about US defence plans.

via the Sydney Morning Herald

Bork on civil liberties

Judge Robert Bork addresses the chicken-littles who are calling the Bush administration's domestic security efforts oppressive and fascistic, and then shouting "McCarthyism" when their criticism is answered. Although the government's tactics always bear watching, we are very, very far from fascism or anything like it. As usual, Bork's analysis is detailed and persuasive. A few excerpts:

The fact that opponents of the Bush administration’s efforts to protect American security have resorted to often shameless misrepresentation and outright scaremongering does not mean those efforts are invulnerable to criticism. They are indeed vulnerable—for not going far enough.

The war we are in, like no other we have ever faced, may last for decades rather than years. The enemy blends into our population and those of other nations around the world, attacks without warning, and consists of men who are quite willing to die in order to kill us and destroy our civilization. Never before has it been possible to imagine one suicidal individual, inspired by the promise of paradise and armed with a nuclear device, able to murder tens or even hundreds of thousands of Americans in a single attack. Those facts justify what the administration has already done, and urgently require more.

It is demonstrably true, moreover, that people who recklessly exaggerate the threat to our liberties in the fight against terrorism do give ammunition, moral and otherwise, to our enemies. Asserting as much does not impugn the loyalty of such people. They are perfectly free to say what they think, and as loudly as they please. But neither should they themselves be immune from criticism, even by a government official.

via Commentary

Reality in Iraq

Andrew Sullivan has posted the text of a letter written by an Iraqi newly returned to the country. This first-hand report offers a refreshing change from the relentless naysaying going on in the Western media right now. Read the entire thing.

What surprised me most was the amount of tolerance that all Iraqis had. They respected each other's thoughts and ideas like never before in Iraq, even when they disagreed. The only exception (of course) were Saddam's boys and the Baathis, who would throw accusations right left and centre, in an attempt to protect themselves and their interests. No Baathi will ever admit to ever being a Baathi. They all claim that they were forced into it. Some Baathis have grown beards and pretend to be Islamists in order to fight against the occupation that has effected their status. These are the people who have been bombing the electricity and water supplies, and oil pipes. They are very dangerous and despised by all that I know. They do not want life to improve for Iraqis and are behind all the existing unrest, including the lack of law and order. Others are more opportunists, and try to infiltrate political movements. People know them one by one, and no one escapes unnoticed.

A lot of sincere hard work has to be done in Iraq, otherwise it might fall once more in the hands of the ignorant and the extremists. The real struggle today is not between Sunnis and Shias, nor Kurds and Arabs. It is between the secularists and centrists one side, and the religious extremists, part of whom are the Baathis who now wear clerical robes. This war, in my opinion, has to be fought now or else Iraq will be lost forever.

As for the occupation forces, whatever you might think of them and their performance so far, every one that I have met wants them to stay for the time being. Much worse will happen should they decide to pack and leave.

Via Andrew Sullivan

Monsters loose

Well, this is just peachy. One more reason not to venture into Florida, already home to exploding trees, cockroaches the size of poodles, and other wonders of nature.

Biologists in southwest Florida have set out to trap a species of giant, carnivorous lizards normally native to Africa that appear to be spreading through the region.

Cape Coral has become a haven for Nile monitor lizards, and their population in the Gulf Coast city has possibly reached the thousands, said Todd Campbell, a University of Tampa assistant professor of biology who has started a project to monitor the monitors. Options being studied include relocating or killing the animals.

The first official report of a monitor lizard in Cape Coral was in 1990. Since then, Cape Coral has received 145 reports.

Nile monitor lizards, which can easily grow to 5 feet, might have become established in Cape Coral in one of two ways, Campbell said. Some may have been released into the wild after being kept as pets, or the roaming lizards might all be descendants of a single pregnant female who was released.

via AP and the Charleston Post-Courier

An A-Team

Next week President Bush will award the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to eleven individuals. What an A-list: Jacques Barzun, Julia Child, Roberto Clemente, Van Cliburn, Václav Havel, Charlton Heston, Edward Teller, Dave Thomas, Byron White, James Q. Wilson, and John Wooden.

via The White House

ABC's challenge

Georgie-boy Stephanopoulos and "This Week" are getting rebuilt by ABC News. Given the quote below, apparently it hasn't occurred to ABC that he is the weak link. Still, the "Nightline" crew are pros; maybe George can prosper as just a newsreader.

ABC News took a bold step Thursday toward reviving George Stephanopoulos' struggling "This Week" by bringing the Sunday show under the wing of "Nightline."

Tom Bettag, executive producer of "Nightline," will take over as behind-the-scenes chief of "This Week" and the two Washington-based programs will merge their staffs, the network said.

Bettag said he wanted to create a new show around Stephanopoulos, emphasizing more produced pieces over the panel discussions that dominate the Sunday morning format. Stephanopoulos' story this week about a day in the life of John Kerry's campaign was a template.

The changes shouldn't be interpreted as putting Stephanopoulos on shaky ground. Bettag said ABC News viewed Stephanopoulos as a key to bringing a younger audience to the Sunday morning shows, where the viewers average 58 years old.

"We see him as one of the bright stars on the horizon," Bettag said. "If you can help him get a dominant position on Sunday morning, he is in a position to be a journalistic leader for the next 30 years."

via AP and The Wichita Eagle

Clintonism redux

The National Education Association has decided to re-enact the halcyon days of Clintonism in the person of a Vermont history teacher. Pathetic but consistent with other NEA actions.

The recent election of a popular Lamoille Union High School history teacher to one of the nation's most powerful education committees became clouded in controversy this week after state education officials learned his teaching license was suspended five months ago for having sex in his classroom.

Wayne Nadeau, who has taught social studies at Lamoille Union for about 20 years, was elected the weekend of July 4 to the National Education Association's Executive Committee, which is the NEA's highest ranking panel.

But several Vermont education leaders this week, upon learning of Nadeau's suspension, questioned whether an educator who recently was punished for poor judgment was fit to serve on the national teacher's union's most powerful committee. Both the chairman of the Vermont House and Senate Education Committee's called for the NEA to conduct a full investigation.

Nadeau's license was suspended in February for 20 working days after the Vermont Department of Education concluded he had consensual sex with a teacher's aid more than once in his classroom during the 2001-2002 school year when students "were and might have been" in the building.

via The (Vermont) Stowe Reporter

Posted by Alan at 08:59 PM

Bush and Blair - II

British PM Tony Blair spoke to the Congress today and stated some important truths eloqently.

In another part of the globe, there is shadow and darkness where not all the world is free, where many millions suffer under brutal dictatorship; where a third of our planet lives in a poverty beyond anything even the poorest in our societies can imagine; and where a fanatical strain of religious extremism has arisen, that is a mutation of the true and peaceful faith of Islam and because in the combination of these afflictions, a new and deadly virus has emerged.

The virus is terrorism, whose intent to inflict destruction is unconstrained by human feeling; and whose capacity to inflict it is enlarged by technology.

This is a battle that can't be fought or won only by armies. We are so much more powerful in all conventional ways than the terrorist. Yet even in all our might, we are taught humility. In the end, it is not our power alone that will defeat this evil. Our ultimate weapon is not our guns but our beliefs.

There is a myth. That though we love freedom, others don't, that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture. That freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values or Western values. That Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban. That Saddam was beloved by his people. That Milosevic was Serbia's saviour.

Ours are not Western values. They are the universal values of the human spirit and anywhere, any time, ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same. Freedom not tyranny. Democracy not dictatorship. The rule of law not the rule of the secret police.

The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defence and our first line of attack. Just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it around an idea and that that idea is liberty. We must find the strength to fight for this idea; and the compassion to make it universal.

Abraham Lincoln said: those that deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves. It is a sense of justice that makes moral the love of liberty.

In some cases, where our security is under direct threat, we will have recourse to arms. In others, it will be by force of reason. But in all cases to the same end: that the liberty we seek is not for some but for all. For that is the only true path to victory.

Can we be sure that terrorism and WMD will join together? Let us say one thing. If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that, at its least is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive.

But if our critics are wrong, if we are right as I believe with every fibre of instinct and conviction I have that we are, and we do not act, then we will have hesitated in face of this menace, when we should have given leadership. That is something history will not forgive.

via 10 Downing Street

Bush and Blair - I

President Bush was unruffled in his remarks to the press today alongside Tony Blair.

In Iraq, as elsewhere, freedom and self-government are hated and opposed by a radical and ruthless few. American, British and other forces are facing remnants of a fallen regime and other extremists. Their attacks follow a pattern. They target progress and success. They strike at Iraqi police officers who have been trained to enforce order. They sabotage Iraqi power grids that we're rebuilding. They are the enemies of the Iraqi people.

Defeating these terrorists is an essential commitment on the war on terror. This is a duty we accept. This is a fight we will win. We are being tested in Iraq. Our enemies are looking for signs of hesitation. They're looking for weakness. They will find none. Instead, our forces in Iraq are finding these killers and bringing them to justice.

And we will finish the task of helping Iraqis make the challenging transition to democracy. Iraq's governing council is now meeting regularly. Soon the council will nominate ministers and propose a budget. After decades of tyranny, the institutions of democracy will take time to create. America and Britain will help the Iraqi people as long as necessary. Prime Minister Blair and I have the same goal -- the government and the future of Iraq will be in the hands of the people of Iraq.

The creation of a strong and stable Iraqi democracy is not easy, but it's an essential part on the war against terror. A free Iraq will be an example to the entire Middle East, and the advance of liberty in the Middle East will undermine the ideologies of terror and hatred. It will help strengthen the security of America and Britain and many other nations.

By helping to build and secure a free Iraq, by accepting the risks and sacrifice, our men and women in uniform are protecting our own countries, and they're giving essential service in the war on terror. This is the work history has given us, and we will complete it.

via The White House

Les intellectuels et sons compatriots

British historian Paul Johnson has written a devastating critique of the anti-Americanism prevalent among European intellectuals. Worth reading the entire article.

The truth is, on the European Continent there is little experience of working democracy. Italy and Germany have had democracy only since the late 1940s; Spain, since the 1960s. France is not a democracy; it is a republic run by bureaucratic and party elites, whose errors are dealt with by strikes, street riots and blockades instead of by votes. Elements of the French system are being imposed throughout the EU, even in countries such as Denmark and Sweden that have long practiced democracy with success. In a French-style pseudodemocracy, intellectuals have considerable influence, at both government and street levels. In a true democracy, intellectuals are no more powerful than their arguments.

Although Americans are seen as highly materialistic consumers, they are also despised and feared for their spiritual interests, their participation in religious worship and their subscription to creeds of morality. Europeans see no inconsistency in their condemnation of the U.S. for being at one and the same time paganly unethical and morally zealous.

The truth is, any accusation that comes to hand is used without scruple by the Old World intelligentsia. Anti-Americanism is factually absurd, contradictory, racist, crude, childish, self-defeating and, at bottom, nonsensical. It is based on the powerful but irrational impulse of envy--an envy of American wealth, power, success and determination. It is an envy made all the more poisonous because of a fearful European conviction that America's strength is rising while Europe's is falling.

via Forbes

MSS

This news from Iraq isn't good, but unfortunately isn't surprising. One can still hope, but the odds don't look so good.

A secret Pentagon report states that once-promising leads in the hunt for Capt. Michael Scott Speicher in Iraq have turned up no evidence of his whereabouts, contradicting public official comments that the search was producing positive results. The classified document also cast serious doubt on the credibility of the Iraqi defector who first raised hopes in the United States that the Navy pilot was alive and a captive in Iraq after his plane was shot down in 1991. The defector claims to have seen Capt. Speicher alive in 1998. But Iraqis interviewed by U.S. investigators say he is lying, according to the report prepared for Gen. Richard B. Myers, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman.

via The Washington Times

Guerrilla war -- oh yeah

The new head of Centcomm stated the obvious today, a departure from prior efforts from the Administration to downplay what's happening in Iraq. What will be interesting to learn as time goes on is to what extent the Baathists pre-planned their strategy and how much was improvised. It's a deadly contest and only the demise of our adversaries will end it.

U.S. and coalition forces are facing organized opposition by Baathist remnants throughout Iraq, U.S. Army Gen. John Abizaid told reporters at the Pentagon July 16. On the eve of his departure to the region, the new commander of Operation Iraqi Freedom and U.S. Central Command joined Larry Di Rita, acting assistant defense secretary for public affairs, at the podium to give an update on the security situation in Iraq.

The general said mid-level Baathist intelligence, Special Security Organization and Special Republican Guard people "have organized at the regional level in cellular structure and are conducting what I would describe as a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us. It's low-intensity conflict in our doctrinal terms, but it's war, however you describe it.

"We're seeing a cellular organization of six to eight people armed with (rocket-propelled grenades), machine guns, etc., attacking us, sometimes at times and places of their choosing, and at other times, we attack them at times and places of our choosing. They are receiving financial help from probably regional-level leaders."

Di Rita pointed out that the coalition's opponents have one objective, and that is to restore the regime of Saddam Hussein. The tactics they use will change, he stressed. At the moment, "they're using the tactics Gen. Abizaid has described."

"And for those who wish to discuss whether it's this type of war or that type of war, it's always better to keep in mind what they're after, and what they're after is to restore Saddam's regime to power," he added.

Although the level of resistance isn't escalating in numbers of incidents, Abizaid said, the resistance is getting more organized. The Iraqis are learning and adapting to coalition tactics, techniques and procedures. "At the tactical level, they're better coordinated," he said. "They're less amateurish, and their ability to use improvised explosive devices and combine the use of these explosive devices with some sort of tactical activity – say for example, attacking the quick reaction forces – is more sophisticated."

Coalition forces are also adapting to the Iraqi opposition's tactics, techniques and procedures. "We can handle the tactical problems that are presented," the general said. U.S. and coalition forces are doing a magnificent job dealing with the current situation, he added.

"War is a struggle of wills," Abizaid noted. "You look at the Arab press (and) they say, 'We drove the Americans out of Beirut. We drove them out of Somalia. We'll drive them out of Baghdad.' That's just not true. They're not driving us out of anywhere."

via DefenseLink

Bush on slavery

As noted here earlier, the Left and their media allies have worked tirelessly to prevent President Bush's outreach to Africa from being recognized either abroad or at home, especially by African-American voters.

However, the president's remarks at Goree Island in Senegal, the primary place where African warlords once put their captives aboard slave ships bound for the Western Hemisphere, should be read by everyone -- black, brown or white; American or not. Here are a few excerpts:

For hundreds of years on this island peoples of different continents met in fear and cruelty. Today we gather in respect and friendship, mindful of past wrongs and dedicated to the advance of human liberty.

At this place, liberty and life were stolen and sold. Human beings were delivered and sorted, and weighed, and branded with the marks of commercial enterprises, and loaded as cargo on a voyage without return. One of the largest migrations of history was also one of the greatest crimes of history.

For 250 years the captives endured an assault on their culture and their dignity. The spirit of Africans in America did not break. Yet the spirit of their captors was corrupted. Small men took on the powers and airs of tyrants and masters. Years of unpunished brutality and bullying and rape produced a dullness and hardness of conscience. Christian men and women became blind to the clearest commands of their faith and added hypocrisy to injustice. A republic founded on equality for all became a prison for millions. And yet in the words of the African proverb, "no fist is big enough to hide the sky." All the generations of oppression under the laws of man could not crush the hope of freedom and defeat the purposes of God.

In America, enslaved Africans learned the story of the exodus from Egypt and set their own hearts on a promised land of freedom. Enslaved Africans discovered a suffering Savior and found he was more like themselves than their masters. Enslaved Africans heard the ringing promises of the Declaration of Independence and asked the self-evident question, then why not me?

By a plan known only to Providence, the stolen sons and daughters of Africa helped to awaken the conscience of America. The very people traded into slavery helped to set America free.

My nation's journey toward justice has not been easy and it is not over. The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times. But however long the journey, our destination is set: liberty and justice for all.

In the struggle of the centuries, America learned that freedom is not the possession of one race. We know with equal certainty that freedom is not the possession of one nation. This belief in the natural rights of man, this conviction that justice should reach wherever the sun passes leads America into the world.

With the power and resources given to us, the United States seeks to bring peace where there is conflict, hope where there is suffering, and liberty where there is tyranny.

via The White House

Note also that these remarks were made by the man who leads the Republican Party -- the party of Abraham Lincoln and of which the following accusations were made at the recent NAACP convention by Julian Bond, who knows better:

Republicans appeal "to the dark underside of American culture, to that minority of Americans who reject democracy and equality," NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said yesterday at the civil rights group's 94th annual convention. "They preach racial neutrality and practice racial division ... their idea of reparations is to give war criminal Jefferson Davis a pardon," Mr. Bond said during his welcoming remarks. "Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and Confederate swastika flying side by side."

As reported by The Washington Times and corroborated via the NAACP (pdf).

Which speaker is sincere and which is posturing? I think I know.

Michael Savage pitched overboard

While catching up on the world, I see that MSNBC fired Michael Savage ("The Savage Nation") last week, ostensibly for virulently anti-gay comments on the air, but probably also for abysmal ratings. Savage is a public nuisance and an embarrassment to the Right; I wish his radio show would also disappear.

China surrenders?

The coming war with China may already have been won while we weren't even looking, thanks to a self-replicating social virus of Yankee commercialism. Go ahead and surrender, China -- it's hopeless.

Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, opened its first outlet in China’s capital Friday, making its inaugural foray into a major Chinese city after setting up 22 stores elsewhere in the country. Thousands of shoppers packed the cavernous Sam’s Club store on the far western edge of Beijing, testing out electronics, puzzling over imported cheese and loading shopping carts full of beer, paper towels and fresh seafood.

via MSNBC

Kim Jong Il's lifeline

The Wall Street Journal gives front page coverage today to a story on what keeps the dictator of North Korea going. Since their normal economy is crippled to the point of starvation, it only makes sense that there is another way for them to survive. The global war on terror has many dimensions; this one of the key areas of the conflict, but we'll hear little about it. Good reporting by the WSJ.

Inside North Korea, it goes by the Orwellian name of Division 39. It is a largely unpublicized trading network and slush fund. The money it generates is, by all accounts, the lifeblood of Kim Jong Il's dictatorship.

According to interviews with high-level defectors, South Korean businessmen and Asian intelligence officials, Division 39 has generated a cash hoard as large as $5 billion that is salted away in places as disparate as Macau, Switzerland and Pyongyang. It produces a steady flow of money that Mr. Kim uses to buy political support and loyalty. Intelligence officials have also tied it to Pyongyang's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

So critical is Division 39 that defectors and North Asian security officials say cutting off its cash flow is the key for those in the U.S. and elsewhere advocating regime change in Pyongyang. By shutting down Division 39's businesses, "you can shut down Kim Jong Il," says Kim Dok Hong, a high-ranking defector who has worked with Division 39 companies.

via The Wall Street Journal (subscribers only)

Saddam and Osama

Nothing really new upon our return from vacation and a quick scan of the organs of mass communications favored by the chatting class. Just the usual coyote pack behavior of the media as they try to find something bad to pin on President Bush, no matter how spurious or meaningless.

I do see one item of interest, courtesy of the omniscient Instapundit: interesting Iraqi evidence of a link between Saddam and Osama, as revealed by Federal appellate Judge Gilbert S. Merritt of Nashville, a noted Democrat from Tennessee.

Through an unusual set of circumstances, I have been given documentary evidence of the names and positions of the 600 closest people in Iraq to Saddam Hussein, as well as his ongoing relationship with Osama bin Laden. I am looking at the document as I write this story from my hotel room overlooking the Tigris River in Baghdad.

The document shows that an Iraqi intelligence officer, Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, assigned to the Iraq embassy in Pakistan, is ''responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group.'' The document shows that it was written over the signature of Uday Saddam Hussein, the son of Saddam Hussein.

via The Tennessean

Vacation - really final report

Home again, home again. 4,450 miles (counting U-turns) and 9 states, including Texas (miles and miles of Texas...). What a great trip. Very useful to see and do things entirely different. This is a great country to travel, and our only regret of the trip is not being able to stop and see the World's Biggest Prairie Dog and the 5-Legged Calf in Kansas, both at one location. Dammit.

Vacation - Final

We're heading home now from our somewhat random tour of the West. Unscheduled stop today at Promontory, Utah to visit the National Historic Site and see where the "golden spike" was laid in 1869, connecting the nation's railroad network from coast to coast. Went by the upper reaches of the Great Salt Lake and the Thiokol plant where shuttle boosters are made. High tech adjacent to engineering's history. All punctuated by tumbleweeds and vultures on the desert road. Coolness.

Normal posting should resume by Sunday. Will be interested to see if we missed anything in the wide world besides our military still taking shots in Iraq and the odd mass murder here and there.

Vacation update

Posting today from a public library in Dubois, Wyoming. Vacation has been mostly unplugged so far. Wyoming is wildly beautiful. Fourth of July was fabulous in tiny Newcastle. Went to Mt. Rushmore on the 5th. Stirring and patriotic. Geology is rampant here, out of every window. Headed now to Idaho via Jackson Hole.

Quite a view

An amazing day today. Up to 12,000 ft in Rocky Mountain National Park and then back again. (The Ford earned new respect.) Walked on glacier snow; saw elk and other wildlife. Magnificent views and very clear air. Just the way God made it.

Hong Kong wants its rights back

People all over the world continue to demand real liberty, not the phony "freedom" offered by dictators and despots of various kinds. The Chinese rulers have been forced to change a bit for the better in recent years, but the rule of the gun is never far away.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Hong Kong yesterday to protest against new anti-subversion laws in the biggest display of discontent anywhere in China since the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. Six years after Britain returned the territory to China, a mass gathering of the former colony's middle classes and professionals called on the government to drop the proposals which many say mark the "real handover", and quit.

Critics say the government has gone further than it needed to, and that there are few common law systems in which the checks and balances of power have been replaced by ultimate loyalty to a Communist dictatorship. There is particular concern about clauses which allow the government to ban groups judged by Beijing to be a threat to national security, and which make it an offence to reveal state secrets - a broad category in China.

The government is almost bound to get its way, as the legislative council has an inbuilt pro-Beijing majority. But it may be shocked by the size of yesterday's protest. Police estimated 350,000, but organisers said as many as 500,000 people took to the narrow streets beneath the city's skyscrapers, far more than the 100,000 predicted.

via The Telegraph (UK)

3-D

The GOP is pulling way out in front in political cash. First portents of a big victory next year for GWB and Karl Rove?

First we learn that cash flows could stymie South Carolina's presidential primary, which is supposed to take place in seven months, because the cash-strapped state Democratic Party doesn't have the money to pay for it. The most recent state filing showed the Democrats had only $288.93 in their bank account, well short of the required $450,000 to hold the primary. Now we've gotten hold of the current Federal Election Commission June quarterly filing for net cash on hand for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, in Washington — $514,677. Compare that sum with that of the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, or NRCC, $5.43 million.

In the previous month of May, the NRCC raised $8 million, compared with the DCCC's $1.5 million. As for a yearly comparison, the NRCC thus far in 2003 has pulled in $39 million in contributions to the DCCC's $10 million. No wonder congressional Republicans are handing their Democratic rivals a new "3-D" theme of alliteration: "disengaged, depressed and destitute."

via the Washington Times

Guerrilla war or not

Donald Rumsfeld insists there is no "guerrilla war" going on in Iraq. Well, OK, maybe so. But the counter-strikes against U.S. forces are consistent with a conscious rope-a-dope strategy by Saddam and others who realized they couldn't win the military confrontation outright but want to fight a low-intensity war to survive and outlast us. Time will tell, but two things are clear: we need to find Saddam and his cadres, and we'll need determination for a drawn-out struggle in this "country" that is one big armed camp. This president has lots of the latter; now we just need a few breaks on catching the Big Guy.

Attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq are more like terrorist attacks being carried out by criminals, foreign terrorists and officials from the ousted government of Saddam Hussein, [Rumsfeld] said. Mr. Rumsfeld said the remnants of Saddam's Ba'ath Party regime and Fedayeen death squads have become a kind of "terrorist network" in the country. "We are dealing with those remnants in a forceful fashion. ... Those battles will go on for some time," he said.

U.S. forces in Iraq launched a major sweep Sunday, arresting suspected terrorists and others who are believed to be behind recent attacks. "No one raid or five raids is going to deal with the entire problem," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "The problem is going to be dealt with over time, as the Iraqis assume more and more responsibility for their own country." The defense secretary identified five types of fighters behind the recent attacks. They include former Saddam regime officials; thousands of Iraqi criminals who were released from prisons before the war; ordinary looters; foreign terrorists who infiltrated Iraq; and fighters "influenced by Iran."

All five groups operate in slightly different ways in opposing U.S. troops, and thus the current conflict is unlike a guerrilla war or organized resistance movement, he said. "It makes it like five different things going on that are functioning much more like terrorists," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

Mr. Rumsfeld compared post-Saddam Iraq to the years after the end of the Revolutionary War, when the newly formed United States went through a period of "chaos and confusion," including protests by demobilized soldiers that forced Congress to temporarily move out of Washington.

via the Washington Times

Korean nukes

The evil overlord-geek in North Korea has our attention. Since the Dems insisted that we focus on this instead of Iraq, I'll be waiting for them to get out front in demands for action.

American intelligence officials now believe that North Korea is developing the technology to make nuclear warheads small enough to fit atop the country's growing arsenal of missiles, potentially putting Tokyo and American troops based in Japan at risk, according to officials who have received the intelligence reports.

In the assessment — which they have shared with Japan, South Korea and other allies in recent weeks — officials at the Central Intelligence Agency said American satellites had identified an advanced nuclear testing site in an area called Youngdoktong. At the site, equipment has been set up to test conventional explosives that, when detonated, could compress a plutonium core and set off a compact nuclear explosion.

Some intelligence officials say they believe that the existence of the testing range is evidence that North Korea intends to manufacture much more sophisticated weapons that would be light enough to put onto its growing arsenal of medium- and long-range missiles.

via The New York Times