Petrified Truth

Israel under Euro-siege?

This news from Europe could be easily dismissed as just more mewlings from comfortable Euro-weenies. But it also coincides neatly with an unsettling report from Israeli source DEBKA (see below).

Over half of Europeans think that Israel now presents the biggest threat to world peace according to a controversial poll requested by the European Commission. According to the same survey, Europeans believe the United States contributes the most to world instability along with Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

The specially commissioned poll which asked citizens 15 questions on "the reconstruction of Iraq, the conflict in the Middle East and World peace", has caused controversy in Brussels.

The European Commission is coming under fire for publishing the results of a number of questions - relating to Iraqi reconstruction - while failing to publish the results which revealed the extent of mistrust of Israel and the United States in Europe, according to Spanish daily El Pais.

According to El Pais, a massive 59 percent of Europeans said they believed that Israel is the biggest obstacle to world peace.

via EUobserver

DEBKA reports that influential Europeans are now working actively to neuter and eventually dissolve the state of Israel, starting with a U.N. or NATO military force to provide international oversight of Israel's decisions about the Palestinians.

Ariel Sharon, the focal point of European discontent, is aware and fighting back. But is European opinion, rife with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic feeling anyway, being prepared for the greatest sellout in history? Keep an eye on this one; American buy-in, probably to some Trojan Horse diplomatic scheme, will be required.

... a DEBKAfile informant dining at a Knightsbridge restaurant with a highly-placed British intelligence official heard him drop this remark: “Some people in the West have come to the conclusion that the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 was a mistake.” When asked to explain whether this meant that the Jews were to be evicted from the Middle East, he replied: “Certainly. Israel has a little more than 5 million Jews. If the United States and NATO were to finance their relocation in other countries, that would solve many Middle East problems.”

This is the scheme lurking behind the recent rush of anti-government political initiatives on the part of Israeli leftwing circles who maintain intimate connections in certain European capitals. The Israeli pilots’ revolt against operations in Palestinian territory was enthusiastically backed by the same group that went on to instigate the “Geneva understandings”. At the core of this draft is a panacea for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: All points at issue will be brought to international arbitration or handed over to international monitors.

Co-author Amram MItzna, the former Labor leader who lost the last general election to Ariel Sharon’s Likud, returned from Europe a few days ago and publicly questioned Sharon’s legitimacy as Israeli prime minister.

The realization of the Brussels plan would satisfy Arafat’s demand for internationalization of his dispute with Israel because it would internationalize the Jewish state.

Israel’s standing as an independent democracy would make way for its subservience to international rule.

China wants more

China is moving confidently to expand its presence in space. Without change in our program, it won't be that long before we'll look up at night and see a Moon with a Chinese lunar base on it.

China's next manned space launch will carry three astronauts into orbit for a week, a newspaper reported Tuesday, citing a space program official.

Plans call for the next launch within two years, the Chengdu Evening Post said, citing Xu Dazhe, deputy general manager of the China Aerospace Technology Group.

China's first manned space launch on October 15 carried astronaut Yang Liwei's Shenzhou V capsule into orbit for a 14-orbit flight that lasted 21 1/2 hours.

Following Yang's return, space officials said the next Shenzhou launch would take place within two years, but they didn't give a date or say how many astronauts it would carry.

The space officials said China eventually wants to send up a permanently manned space station, suggesting they already are at work on supporting space crews for long periods.

via the Peoples' Daily

Please retire

Trent Lott, military strategist and overall deep thinker:

Asked whether he favored any policy changes in Iraq, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) responded: “We need to have a different mix of troops, is the key. We may need to move some troops around.”

Lott suggested moving more troops from the relatively stable south closer to the region around Tikrit, where attacks on U.S. forces have been common. He said there was a need for more trained military police, adding that his comments were not a criticism.

“Honestly, it’s a little tougher than I thought it was going to be,” Lott said. In a sign of frustration, he offered an unorthodox military solution: “If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens. You’re dealing with insane suicide bombers who are killing our people, and we need to be very aggressive in taking them out.”

Republicans fear they could suffer in the polls if the situation does not improve, since the administration’s Iraq policy is so closely associated with Bush.

via The Hill

Baghdad - fair and balanced

Here's a realistic, first-hand, and balanced report from Tish Durkin in Baghdad. Read the whole thing now -- the New York Observer doesn't seem to make its content available longer than the current issue.

... from here, it is disturbing to note the momentum that seems to be gathering behind those who are back home chanting for the U.S. to get out now. It is scarcely less disturbing to contemplate the belief of some leading American politicians that they can go halfsies: keep funding Iraqi reconstruction, for instance, but put the funding in the form of a loan. (Whoever thought of that probably had a cash bar at his wedding.) This is not because the occupation is some sort of triumph. But if this is about the Iraqis, it simply doesn’t matter whether it is in the context of American glory, American gloom or something in between that these people finally get a decent shot at a decent life. It only matters that they do get it, and the only question is how.

Americans, of course, have the right to criticize the occupation. But they also have an obligation to criticize it proportionately, accurately, realistically—and, above all, with the Iraqis constantly in mind.

Of course, I cannot speak for the Iraqis. But after spending four of the past six months talking to Iraqis, I do feel that it is relatively safe to make the following five points:

One, most Iraqis do not want America to leave now or very soon. Two, while it is true that a huge proportion of Iraqis have at least some very negative opinions about the war and life here since, it is also true that a huge proportion of those opinions boil down to anger at the Americans for not being enough of a presence here, not anger at the Americans for being too much of a presence. Three, there is very little to support the notion that Iraqis would be, or feel, notably better off under United Nations occupation than under a United States–led occupation. Four, although the Bush administration should be hung out to dry for whatever it has lied about, it is widely accepted here that various of their pet assertions happen to coincide with the truth. Iraqis do not need Mr. Bush to tell them that most of the troublemakers here are not resistance fighters, but highly paid, often imported thugs; Iraqis have been saying that from the start. Fifth, a steady stream of terrible events has generated a steady stream of legitimately negative news stories about Iraq, the sum effect of which seems to have been to leave the rest of the world with the impression that Iraq now appears in the dictionary next to "unqualified disaster"; that hardly anything is improving here, and that hardly anyone is or feels any better off than he or she did before the war. This impression is false.

via the New York Observer
Tip via the omniscient InstaPundit

Syria's hidden charms

Not such a mystery after all, those missing Iraqi WMDs. It would help things if The New York Times would put this on the front page, not buried deep inside.

The director of a top American spy agency said Tuesday that he believed that material from Iraq's illicit weapons program had been transported into Syria and perhaps other countries as part of an effort by the Iraqis to disperse and destroy evidence immediately before the recent war.

The official, James R. Clapper Jr., a retired lieutenant general, said satellite imagery showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria, just before the American invasion in March, led him to believe that illicit weapons material "unquestionably" had been moved out of Iraq.

"I think people below the Saddam Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," General Clapper, who leads the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, said at a breakfast with reporters.

Interestingly, this strategem was reported earlier, back in May.

Conference time

Well, Internet access from my laptop ain't working, so the only way to update would be this busy cyber-station on the conference exhibit floor. Updates can wait until Tuesday night.

Watched CNN this morning (no Fox News, dammit) and can only feel sorrow for the folks in San Diego who are being burned out. Hope our own familiy members are OK in their neighborhoods.

UPDATE: Family reports severe damage near their homes, but so far they are safe. Some friends and neighbors are homeless. One schoolmate was killed; another burned. What a tragedy -- our prayers are with them all.

Squirrel tagging

It's bad enough to have to get up early on a Sunday to travel, but I do hate realizing that I forgot to reset my clock and am awake at 4:00, not 5:00.

New posts will be even more erratic than usual while I travel to Phoenix and give a talk at a conference on using the Internet in healthcare. In the meanwhile, check out the implications of... squirrel-tagging.

Tip via NRO's The Corner

Reaping the harvest

More big changes in our society show up in the national statistics. Is this because feminism has meant careerism?

About 18 percent of women ages 40 to 44 in 2002 had never had a child, compared with 10 percent in 1976. Women in the same age group, on average, had 1.9 children in 2002, considerably fewer than the 1976 average of 3.1 children, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released today.

According to the report, Fertility of American Women: June 2002, 44 percent of all women of childbearing age (15-to-44 years old) were childless. Seventy-one percent of these childless women participated in the labor force.

via the U.S. Census Bureau

The scruffy travelers

President Bush's actual remarks to the Australian parliament last week were overshadowed by the media's focus on a handful of protesters. As usual, he had a lot to say.

We seek the rise of freedom and self-government in Afghanistan and in Iraq for the benefit of their people, as an example to their neighbors, and for the security of the world. America and Australia are helping the people of both those nations to defend themselves, to build the institutions of law and democracy, and to establish the beginnings of free enterprise.

These are difficult tasks in civil societies wrecked by years of tyranny. And it should surprise no one that the remnants and advocates of tyranny should fight liberty's advance. The advance of liberty will not be halted. The terrorists and the Taliban and Saddam holdouts are desperately trying to stop our progress. They will fail. The people of Afghanistan and Iraq measure progress every day. They are losing the habits of fear, and they are gaining the habits of freedom.

Some are skeptical about the prospects for democracy in the Middle East, and wonder if its culture can support free institutions. In fact, freedom has always had its skeptics. Some doubted that Japan and other Asian countries could ever adopt the ways of self-government. The same doubts have been heard at various times about Germans and Africans. At the time of the Magna Carta, the English were not considered the most promising recruits for democracy. And to be honest, sophisticated observers had serious reservations about the scruffy travelers who founded our two countries. Every milestone of liberty was considered impossible before it was achieved. In our time, we must decide our own belief: Either freedom is the privilege of an elite few, or it is the right and capacity of all humanity.

By serving our ideals, we also serve our interests. If the Middle East remains a place of anger and hopelessness and incitement, this world will tend toward division and chaos and violence. Only the spread of freedom and hope in the Middle East in the long-term will bring peace to that region and beyond. And the liberation of more than 50 million Iraqis and Afghans from tyranny is progress to be proud of.

via the White House

Big attack coming?

Serious terrorism warnings were issued this week.

The U.S. embassy in Riyadh is warning Americans in Saudi Arabia about an increased risk of terrorist attacks. An embassy advisory issued Saturday warns that it "...continues to receive information that terrorist groups within the kingdom are still active and planning future operations."

The embassy statement said that the terrorist groups may focus their operations during the upcoming Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when it said Americans should be particularly vigilant. Ramadan begins either Sunday or Monday, depending on when the new moon appears.

On Friday, the British government warned that terrorists may be in the "final phases" of planning attacks in the kingdom and advised its nationals to avoid all un-essential travel to Saudi Arabia. Australia issued a similar warning to its citizens on Thursday.

via Voice of America

Israeli site DEBKA was even more dire, as it is wont to be.

DEBKAfile counter-terror sources revealed: Specific al Qaeda terror warnings rise to 20. US special forces capture key al Qaeda men in successful raids this week in Yemen, Pakistan, Kashmir and Kazakhstan. Interrogations revealed imminent al Qaeda strikes planned for Saudi Arabia, Gulf emirates and Middle East countries including Israel. Governments warned.

This might well fit al Qaeda's longstanding interest in multiple, simultaneous attacks to achieve maximum PR impact. I am not diabolical enough to yet understand their reasoning for attacks during Ramadan.

Hitch on Twain

Christopher Hitchens evaluates a new biography of Mark Twain, "this enormous and subversive personality," and finds it severely wanting. Along the way he offers his own insights into Twain's life and cultural importance.

Ernest Hemingway's much cited truism—to the effect that Huckleberry Finn hadn't been transcended by any subsequent American writer—understated, if anything, the extent to which Twain was not just a founding author but a founding American. Until his appearance, even writers as adventurous as Hawthorne and Melville would have been gratified to receive the praise of a comparison to Walter Scott. (A boat named the Walter Scott is sunk with some ignominy in Chapter 13 of Huckleberry Finn.)

Twain originated in the riverine, slaveholding heartland; compromised almost as much as Missouri itself when it came to the Civil War; headed out to California ("the Lincoln of our literature" made a name in the state that Lincoln always hoped to see and never did); and conquered the eastern seaboard in his own sweet time. But though he had an unimpeachable claim to be from native ground, there was nothing provincial or crabbed about his declaration of independence for American letters. (His evisceration of Cooper can be read as an assault on any form of pseudo-native authenticity.) More than most of his countrymen, he voyaged around the world and pitted himself against non-American authors of equivalent contemporary weight.

via The Atlantic

Suffering with Hillary

Political observer and admitted conservative Rich Lowry examines just some of the untruths he encountered while researching his new book; 35 out of 36 Hillaryisms were prevarications, actually.

One of the more unpleasant parts of writing Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years was reading Hillary Clinton's Living History. But I had to do it — for the cause! for history's sake! for my sins! — so I might as well make use of it. Herewith is an accounting — just partial, I'm sure — of some of [the] deceptions, distortions, misrepresentations, and general howlers in Hillary's book. Perhaps foolishly, I'm trusting her on things like her assertion on page 363 of Living History that "I'm a pushover for big, stirring ceremonies."

via National Review

VDH rocks

Victor Davis Hanson has a kick-ass essay at National Review. Read the whole thing. Excerpt:

States are like people. They do not question the awful status quo until some dramatic event overturns the conventional and lax way of thinking. The autocracies of Latin America resented Spain and Portugal in theory, but themselves only embraced democratic reform after the demise of the old mother tyrannies in Madrid and Lisbon. A newly democratic Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan have played a role in demonstrating to some Chinese that their own dictatorship is a relic of the past. The tottering Soviet Union was the catalyst for freedom among Eastern Europeans, and its failure convinced them that there was no future in state-imposed Stalinism.

So, too, a successful consensual government in Baghdad will serve as a glimpse of what life can be like amid the economic and political stagnation of the surrounding Arab world. More importantly, it will confront radical Islam with a competing ideology that possesses a far more revolutionary message than the Islamists' tired old culture of death that ruined Afghanistan and Iran, wrecked the economy of the West Bank, tore apart Algeria, ended the tourist industry of Egypt, brought international scorn on Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, turned the president of Malaysia into an international laughingstock, nearly made Pakistan an outlaw regime — and led to the reckoning after 9/11. Holdover Soviet-style Baathism didn't work; Islamic fascism was a failure; tribal dictatorship and monarchies are no better; Pan-Arabism was a cruel joke. The Arab world is running out of alternatives to democratic governments and free markets.

A free Iraq will place a terrible dilemma on the governments and elites of these closed Arab societies who must explain to their own poor and oppressed how satellite pictures of voting Iraqis, Internet cafes, and raucous debates on television are really fabricated images concocted by the American-Zionist international consortium. There is a time bomb ticking in the Middle East, but it is in Cairo and Damascus and Riyadh, where corrupt elites can only pray that things don't calm down in Baghdad and thereby prompt al Jazeera to switch from tailing dead-end Baathists to interviewing Iraqi parliamentarians.

A moment of silence

Houstonians continue to make the ultimate sacrifice for our country in Iraq. They have our respect and gratitude.

Another Houston native has died this month while serving in Iraq, making him the area's seventh war casualty, the Defense Department announced Thursday.

Spc. John P. Johnson, 24, died Oct. 22 in Baghdad of noncombat-related injuries. He was assigned to the Army's 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division in Baumholder, Germany. No other details about the incident were released.

Pfc. Analaura Esparza-Gutierrez, 21, of Houston was killed Oct. 1 by a bomb during an attack on her convoy in Tikrit, Iraq. Gutierrez, a native of Mexico, was the fourth female U.S. soldier to die in combat in the war.

Other casualties include:

· Army 1st Lt. Jonathan D. Rozier, 25, died July 19 when his unit was fired upon by rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire in Baghdad. Rozier, a Dallas native, moved to Katy with his family in 1991.

· Army Cpl. Tomas Sotelo Jr, 20, died June 27 in Baghdad when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle. The Houston native graduated from Reagan High School.

· Marine Cpl. Brian Matthew Kennedy, 25, died along with three other U.S. Marines and eight British Marines when their CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed March 20 about nine miles south of the Iraqi border town of Umm Qasr. Kennedy's stepmother lives here.

· Marine Staff Sgt. Phillip Jordan, 42, who grew up in Houston, Alvin and League City, was one of eight Marines killed on March 23 when ambushed near An Nasiriyah.

· Marine Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Arnold, 30, of Spring was one of three Marines killed at Kut on April 22 when an Iraqi weapon they were test-firing malfunctioned. He graduated from Klein Oak High School in 1990.

via the Houston Chronicle

1990s drag

Manufacturing overcapacity built during the go-go 1990s gets the blame again this week for holding back our weakened economy. Apparently Bill Clinton wasn't the economic genius some would like for us to believe.

Rising imports from China are not to blame for the doldrums at U.S. factories, the Federal Reserve said in a report Thursday that took issue with the standard criticism among manufacturers that China is the source of their woes.

Even as manufacturers accuse China of violating free trade laws and increase pressure on the Bush administration to take action against China, the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank said other issues, like weak export markets, were more important.

Besides economic weakness around the world, it cited a variety of homegrown factors, such as an overhang of investment from the boom years and productivity gains that have stymied new job growth.

via the Houston Chronicle
Full report (pdf) via the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Certainty and uncertainty

George F. Will reviews this week's kerfuffle about a leaked war memo by Donald Rumsfeld and examines the "feigned excitement among the very war critics who have hitherto complained that Rumsfeld is incapable of seeing the dark side of things." Rumsfeld himself remains stalwart.

The remarkable souring of political argument in 2003 continues as some Democrats, with their calculated extravagance, insist there was "no plan" for postwar Iraq. But if that were so, how is it that we have gone, in just six months, from zero to 85,000 Iraqis participating in providing security? And what was all that work done with the World Food Program before the war?

Critics correctly fault the mistaken certitude of some of the administration's prewar pronouncements. But critics indicting the administration not merely for mistakes but for meretriciousness would do well to avoid that in their indictments.

via the Houston Chronicle

Solar storm

This could be interesting.

Set in motion by an eruption of gas on the sun, an enormous space storm—known as a coronal mass ejection, or CME—was headed towards earth Friday afternoon, and it could cause problems with satellites, cell phones, pagers, and other technological equipment. The storm has already interfered with high-frequency airline communications and power grids.

"It's like seeing a hurricane in November rather than August, when you'd typically expect it," says Larry Combs, one of the Space Environment Center forecaster. "The peak of the cycle was in 2000, and here we are 3 and half years later with a dynamic sunspot region that you could put 10 earths inside."

Then, on Wednesday morning, at 3 am EDT, the larger of the two spots produced the CME, which is headed in the direction of earth, achieving speeds of 2 million miles per hour.

According to the NOAA, the sunspot already produced a major solar flare earlier in the week, causing a radio blackout on October 19 at 12:50 pm EDT. Today's CME could cause similar problems.

via PC Magazine
NOAA

Blog war

Estimable Donald Sensing is really, really irritated with James Lileks's take on the leaked Rumsfeld memo. (See the extended discussion in Sensing's comment section, too.) Lileks is often insightful, even more often entertaining, but he was way off base on this one. Also think mebbe Rev. Sensing has used higher-caliber ammo than needed. Oh well; it'll be interesting to see if Lileks has any second thoughts.

Hypocrites

The editorial page of The Wall Street Journal gets it right concerning the two-faced votes in Congress on aid to Iraq. Why the votes and quasi-votes for extorting a "loan" out of a struggling nation where we want to nurture success?

The issue is whether to exploit Iraq's future oil revenues by giving some of the aid not as a grant, as the White House insists, but as a loan. The Senate voted last week to make $10 billion of its $18.4 billion reconstruction package a loan. Though the House voted all the money as a grant, that schizoid chamber passed a non-binding motion Tuesday instructing conferees to adopt the Senate position.

For most Democrats, of course, this is politics pure and simple. They see it as an opportunity to tweak Mr. Bush on Iraq policy, where they believe he's vulnerable. But we're having a much harder time fathoming the motivations of the eight Republicans who voted for the loan provision in the Senate, and the 84 who supported the resolution in the House.

Many are probably assuming the President will get his way in the final bill, and that their votes are a cost-free way to be seen protecting the taxpayer. "It's very hard for me to go home and explain that we have to give $20 billion to a country sitting on $1 trillion worth of oil," says South Carolina's Lindsey Graham.

But Congressmen are fooling themselves if they don't think their actions are also being noticed in, say, Tehran, and wherever Saddam and Osama are hiding. The rap on America in the Middle East is that for all its technical military superiority, the country has no patience and no stomach for body bags. Hit them hard enough or long enough, and they will leave before the job is done. Barely six months into the Iraq mission, the Congressional naysayers are giving hope to all those who want us to fail, including the Baathist and jihadi fighters who are attacking our troops.

Clinton's legacy

"Citizen diplomat" Mansoor Ijaz and others have long recounted the tale of the Clinton administration's historic and short-sighted refusal to accept an offer from Sudan to hand over Osama bin Laden in 1996 -- before the violent deaths of thousands. Now Bill Clinton and his various minions are trying to finesse their way out of the charge. Ijaz, a former Democratic support and FOB, is having none of it.

In detailed confidential memos to Mr. Berger (provided to The [Washington] Times by Mr. Ijaz), Mr. Ijaz sets out the Sudanese offers. In a Sept. 27, 1996, brief, he details the contents of the intelligence files, which he had told Mr. Berger about in a previous August memo. In letters to President Clinton from officials from Islamic governments delivered by Mr. Ijaz, repeated appeals were made for efforts to work on better relations between Washington and Muslim nations. In one letter to Mr. Clinton from Hassan Turabi, chairman of the National Assembly of Sudan, the Sudanese official wrote:

"We are prepared to work with you to usher in a new era of improving the understanding and attitudes of all elements in the Islamic world, whether here in the Sudan or in other Islamic regions of mutual interest and concern." The most significant cause for concern with the Muslim world was then what it still is today: bin Laden. And the Sudanese were in a position to hand him over. The Clinton administration might not have taken the Sudanese seriously, but the Sudanese voluntarily placed all their cards on the table. Mr. Ijaz's correspondence proves the administration knew what was available. The Clinton administration simply chose to snub the offer to work together with the government that harbored the al Qaeda mastermind.

In an interview yesterday with the Washington Times, Mr. Ijaz summarized his view of the Clinton administration's culpability regarding September 11. "I said then as I say now: Bill Clinton's inability to understand what was fueling the rise of bin Laden as a phenomenon — not as an individual — was the greatest U.S. foreign policy failure of the last half-century. It has affected hundreds of millions worldwide. Even if we get him now, who will be the next bin Laden? There are many willing candidates standing in line. Islamic radicalism exists today because Clinton didn't dismantle al Qaeda when he had the chance."

via The Washington Times

Rumsfeld's insight

USA Today and other media outlets stupidly characterized a leaked memo by Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the Global War on Terror as presenting a "grim outlook" and worse.

The reporters, pundits, and politicians who can't see that are apparently too inexperienced, too stupid, or too biased to see the truth. Judge for yourself:

October 16, 2003

TO: Gen. Dick Myers; Paul Wolfowitz; Gen. Pete Pace; Doug Feith

FROM: Donald Rumsfeld

SUBJECT: Global War on Terrorism

The questions I posed to combatant commanders this week were: Are we winning or losing the Global War on Terror? Is DoD changing fast enough to deal with the new 21st century security environment? Can a big institution change fast enough? Is the USG changing fast enough?

DoD has been organized, trained and equipped to fight big armies, navies and air forces. It is not possible to change DoD fast enough to successfully fight the global war on terror; an alternative might be to try to fashion a new institution, either within DoD or elsewhere — one that seamlessly focuses the capabilities of several departments and agencies on this key problem.

With respect to global terrorism, the record since Septermber 11th seems to be:

We are having mixed results with Al Qaida, although we have put considerable pressure on them — nonetheless, a great many remain at large.

USG has made reasonable progress in capturing or killing the top 55 Iraqis.

USG has made somewhat slower progress tracking down the Taliban — Omar, Hekmatyar, etc.

With respect to the Ansar Al-Islam, we are just getting started.

Have we fashioned the right mix of rewards, amnesty, protection and confidence in the US?

Does DoD need to think through new ways to organize, train, equip and focus to deal with the global war on terror?

Are the changes we have and are making too modest and incremental? My impression is that we have not yet made truly bold moves, although we have have made many sensible, logical moves in the right direction, but are they enough?

Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?

Does the US need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists? The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions.

Do we need a new organization?

How do we stop those who are financing the radical madrassa schools?

Is our current situation such that "the harder we work, the behinder we get"?

It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog.

Does CIA need a new finding?

Should we create a private foundation to entice radical madradssas to a more moderate course?

What else should we be considering?

Please be prepared to discuss this at our meeting on Saturday or Monday.

Thanks.

Original now available via DefenseLink
InstaPundit has a mass of links about the leak, the memo, and implications thereof.

Nukes in Saudi Arabia - II

Sure enough.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have concluded a secret agreement on "nuclear cooperation" that will provide the Saudis with nuclear-weapons technology in exchange for cheap oil, according to a ranking Pakistani insider.

The disclosure came at the end of a 26-hour state visit to Islamabad last weekend by Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, who flew across the Arabian Sea with an entourage of 200, including Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal and several Cabinet ministers.
Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, the pro-American defense minister who is next in line to the throne after the crown prince, was not part of the delegation.

"It will be vehemently denied by both countries," said the Pakistani source, whose information has proven reliable for more than a decade, "but future events will confirm that Pakistan has agreed to provide [Saudi Arabia] with the wherewithal for a nuclear deterrent."

"Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia," the Pakistani source said, "see a world that is moving from nonproliferation to proliferation of nuclear weapons."

The Saudi rulers, who are Sunni Muslims, are believed to have concluded that nothing will deter the Shi'ite Muslims who rule Iran from continuing their quest for a nuclear weapons capability.

via the Washington Times

Nukes in Saudi Arabia

Israeli website DEBKA reports tonight on a strategic military escalation in the Middle East:

Pakistan will deploy nuclear missiles and warheads at Saudi bases under military-nuclear accord signed in Islamabad by Crown prince Abdullah. Pakistani security umbrella will replace US troop presence withdrawn from kingdom this summer. Deal flatly defies Bush warning to Abdullah this year not to deploy nuclear weapons on Saudi soil.

Drudge is reporting a similar headline and says it will be front page news in Wednesday's Washington Times. This is potentially very destabilizing.

Maginot Clark

Political gunslinger Dick Morris says Wesley Clark is fighting the last war, and cannot win with that strategy. Howard Dean has a different strategy.

Dean has deeply penetrated the early primary and caucus states with his Internet-era campaign. He can name his supporters in each state, a particularly valuable asset when it comes to a caucus contest as in Iowa. His Internet candidacy is as packed with cyber-roots (formerly grassroots) supporters as Clark's is devoid of real backing.

Dean will probably win in Iowa, and knock out Rep. Dick Gephardt of neighboring Missouri in the process. The momentum from Iowa will swamp Kerry in New Hampshire and the surge from the first two victories will eviscerate Sen. John Edwards in his next-door South Carolina.

The impact of this trifecta of upsets cannot be offset by Clark's national base of amorphous popularity. By the time Wesley Clark shows up to the dance, it will be over.

Dean is using the Internet to develop, brick-by-brick, a massive base of popular support. He faces Clark, who is trying to use the old-style media campaign to propel his way to the nomination.

Clark's managers, veterans of the 1992 Clinton run, are like the generals of France, who enter each war perfectly prepared to win the last one.

via the New York Post

Cyber-war

Hosting Matters, the company that hosts Petrified Truth, is apparently experiencing repeated Denial of Service (DoS) attacks from Internet hackers, so the site has been inaccessible for short or extended periods of time recently. That was the case most of today; only a very few visitors got through.

According to WorldNetDaily, Hosting Matters is being attacked because it hosts an anti-terrorist site that not only annoys the bad guys but also gets real results.

A website devoted to shutting down Internet supporters of terrorism has itself been shut down by denial-of-service attacks directed from Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, according to a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Internet Haganah, an Israeli-based website that works to uncover and shut down terrorist-sponsored Internet entities, was attacked by hackers beginning Thursday.

Supporters of a number of al Qaida-affiliated forums registered to Saudis and running in Malaysia declared "an online jihad against Haganah" after eight such terror-related sites lost their third-party DNS service, according to a spokesman for the organization. The result was that the sites dropped offline, and four of them remain offline.

GeoCities sites have been used to distribute the attack tools, and a site at Everyone's Internet posted graphics that show not just how to use the tools, but specifically how to use them to attack the site.

Hosting Matters has done its best to keep the site online in the face of an increasing level of hostile traffic, but there's only so much one can do unless you can get someone at the backbone level to block the incoming attacks, explained Internet Haganah.

Winds of Change has been following the situation today as well, and has more details if you're interested.

CIA sets 'em up?

Veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh takes on the deeply flawed relationship between the Bush administration and the CIA in the upcoming issue of The New Yorker, with a special focus on the intelligence controversy over reports that Iraq tried to acquire uranium from Niger.

Astonishingly, Hersh cites sources within the CIA who say the forgeries were prepared by CIA insiders for the purpose of striking back at the Bush administration, whom the insiders saw as meddling with the integrity of the intelligence process.

Who produced the fake Niger papers? There is nothing approaching a consensus on this question within the intelligence community. There has been published speculation about the intelligence services of several different countries. One theory, favored by some journalists in Rome, is that SISMI produced the false documents and passed them to Panorama for publication.

Another explanation was provided by a former senior C.I.A. officer. He had begun talking to me about the Niger papers in March, when I first wrote about the forgery, and said, “Somebody deliberately let something false get in there.” He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.

“The agency guys were so pissed at Cheney,” the former officer said. “They said, ‘O.K, we’re going to put the bite on these guys.’” My source said that he was first told of the fabrication late last year, at one of the many holiday gatherings in the Washington area of past and present C.I.A. officials. “Everyone was bragging about it—‘Here’s what we did. It was cool, cool, cool.’” These retirees, he said, had superb contacts among current officers in the agency and were informed in detail of the SISMI intelligence.

“They thought that, with this crowd, it was the only way to go—to nail these guys who were not practicing good tradecraft and vetting intelligence,” my source said. “They thought it’d be bought at lower levels—a big bluff.” The thinking, he said, was that the documents would be endorsed by Iraq hawks at the top of the Bush Administration, who would be unable to resist flaunting them at a press conference or an interagency government meeting. They would then look foolish when intelligence officials pointed out that they were obvious fakes. But the tactic backfired, he said, when the papers won widespread acceptance within the Administration. “It got out of control.”

Like all large institutions, C.I.A. headquarters, in Langley, Virginia, is full of water-cooler gossip, and a retired clandestine officer told me this summer that the story about a former operations officer faking the documents is making the rounds. “What’s telling,” he added, “is that the story, whether it’s true or not, is believed”—an extraordinary commentary on the level of mistrust, bitterness, and demoralization within the C.I.A. under the Bush Administration.

via The New Yorker
Listen to Seymour Hersh discuss his story via National Public Radio

The accuracy and actionability of intelligence is of critical importance and there are currently serious questions about the CIA's level of competence across many dimensions. But the idea that CIA personnel would try to set up their civilian leadership through forged evidence would mean that a vital component of our national security apparatus has gone rogue, and would call into question every piece of intelligence the CIA produces. Is the CIA unravelling? Or is Hersh all wet? Stay tuned on this one.

Pondering economics

Globalization and other economic issues are much on the mind these days. Sunday's newspaper alerts us that CAFTA negotiators are due here in Houston to hammer out a hemispheric trade deal. Houston is a major port and international trade city, so it's easy to see the potential for wider commerce with our neighbors to the south.

Of course, the immediate question is whether or not the anti-globalization protesters planning to show up will get naked like they did in Cancun and elsewhere. (I do suggest they should not step in front of Houston pickup drivers, clothed or not.)

Nearly six weeks after global trade talks collapsed in Cancun, negotiators from the United States and five Central American countries -- along with hundreds of protesters -- will gather in Houston this week to wrestle over a trade deal covering everything from sugar to cell phones.

Working against a self-imposed January deadline to reach an agreement after a year of negotiations, the five-day talks here over the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, may well determine the success or failure of the accord.

If successful, this would be the first regional free trade deal signed by the United States since the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, was adopted more than a decade ago. That trade deal included Canada and Mexico.

But this week's meeting could also prove to be just as confrontational as the World Trade Organization talks in Cancun because some of the same issues are on the table. That meeting pitted rich countries against poor countries over agriculture subsidies and other issues.

Developing nations say that if they eliminate trade protections for farmers, they'll be run over by U.S. growers backed by billions of dollars in government aid. U.S. farmers respond that many of them are struggling, in part because they are shut out of many international markets.

The importance of this gathering isn't lost on protesters. Several hundred demonstrators are expected to hit the streets near the negotiating sessions at the Westin Oaks Galleria hotel.

via the Houston Chronicle

Looking at another aspect of the economic scene, the forecast for employment growth is still uncertain, despite an uptick in September statistics. Already a major issue in the 2004 presidential campaign, employment is a muddle -- both manufacturing and service sectors are experiencing wrenching change in how they get work done, and new domestic jobs are still scarce.

The political implications by next November are unclear, but Leftist demogoguery is a certainty. To be honest, it's hard to see how much a political leader can do to solve outright industrial overcapacity.

Much of the public outcry over America's failure to generate jobs has focused lately on a surge in the outsourcing of work to China and India. But another dynamic closer to home is weighing on job creation the slow process of working through a glut of boom-era investment that continues to litter the economy with underused factories.

"As long as there is extra capacity available in manufacturing, there is going to be room to move work around among companies without having to add workers," said Thomas A. Kochan, a labor and management expert at the Sloan School of Management of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

That is true with a vengeance today. Not since the severe recession of the early 1980's has capacity use in manufacturing stayed so low for so long, government data show. Production as a percentage of total capacity fell precipitously in the aftermath of the last recession, which ended in 2001, and 23 months into the recovery, the upturn has still not come. On average, manufacturers are using less than 73 percent of their capacity.

Struggling to get rid of this costly glut, many companies continue to shut plants and lay off the workers.

New York Times article via The Ledger (Florida)

Government statisticians can't even measure how many jobs are going overseas, but it's plenty.

The Labor Department, in its numerous surveys of employers and employees, has never tried to calculate this trade-off. But the "offshoring" of work has become so noticeable lately that experts in the private sector are now trying to quantify it.

By these initial estimates, at least 15 percent of the 2.81 million jobs lost in America since the decline began have reappeared overseas. Productivity improvements at home — sustaining output with fewer workers — account for the great bulk of the job loss. But the estimates being made suggest that the work sent overseas has been enough to raise the unemployment rate by four-tenths of a percentage point or more, to the present 6.1 percent.

That leakage fuels the political debate.

While most of the lost jobs are in manufacturing or in telephone call centers, lately the work sent abroad has climbed way up the skills ladder to include workers like aeronautical engineers, software designers and stock analysts as China, Russia and India, with big stocks of educated workers, merge rapidly into the global labor market.

New York Times story via The Ledger (Florida)

And now comes a new story about the concerns of white-collar workers facing the "offshoring" of their careers, and their attempts to respond through political action. (I'm not a fan of "nouning" things, but "offshoring" may stick, often with an "anti-" in front of it.)

A new anti-free-trade movement is emerging in the United States, comprising highly skilled workers who once figured they would be big winners in the globalized economy but now see their white-collar jobs moving overseas in growing numbers.

The new opponents to lowering trade barriers are especially vocal, and their complaints already are getting the attention of Congress and the White House.

The new free-trade opponents include design engineers, skilled machinists, information-technology experts, and chief executives of specialized manufacturing concerns, among others. They long believed they were largely protected from foreign competition because of their advanced degrees, English language skills and the supposed necessity of dealing face-to-face with customers. But now they worry their jobs are at risk.

At the focus of their ire are big U.S. companies that have shifted business to China and India, which are becoming increasingly successful at nabbing service, information technology and high-end manufacturing work that until recently have been the preserve of U.S. firms. Companies seeking to lower their costs have either moved operations abroad or have contracted with foreign companies to supply essential services.

via the Contra Costa Times

A recent study, commissioned by the Indian information technology business association NASSCOM and completed by a U.S. research firm, says offshoring is both a net benefit to the U.S. economy and necessary because of the "graying" of the American workforce. (Indian IT firms would sure like to make that part of their business case.)

Evalueserve Inc., a full-service business research firm, interviewed worldwide economists and offshoring experts to produce the 80-page report. Additional information was gathered from statistics and forecasts available with the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"Frankly, the results are compelling," says Marc Vollenweider, CEO, Evalueserve. "The study clearly shows the necessity of offshore activity to support the growth of the US Economy. The report also found that offshoring keeps US businesses competitive, creates new markets for US goods and services, and fills the shortfall in services labor that the US is expected to face in the next seven years."

Over the next decade, the US economy will mirror the growth of the 1990s leading to an increased demand for labor. There will be a domestic labor shortfall of approx. 5.6 million workers by 2010 due to slow population growth and an aging population.

If the labor shortfall is not met, the US economy will lose out on growth opportunities resulting in an estimated cumulative loss of $2 trillion by 2010. Global sourcing in the form of immigration, temporary workers and offshoring can overcome this shortfall.

via NASSCOM

Global consultancy McKinsey & Co. has conducted its own study and also concludes that offshoring is a net gain for the U.S.

Many businesses have turned to offshoring as a way to boost profits while many politicians see the gain only at the unacceptable cost of American jobs. MGI's latest research and analysis offer a new perspective: offshoring is as beneficial to the U.S. as it is to the destination country, probably more so.

The most obvious benefits of offshoring accrue to businesses and English-speaking destination countries. Lower wages in foreign countries translate into significant savings and, often, improved quality. A software developer in the U.S., for example, costs $60 an hour whereas one in India only costs $6 an hour. This and other benefits could translate to a net impact of a 50 percent increase in profits for American businesses.

Destination countries see increased investment and job creation through offshoring. India, for example, gains in net benefit at least 33 cents for every dollar of spend offshored to its country.

While Forrester, a technology research and trend analysis firm, predicts the loss of some 3.3 million jobs to offshoring in the U.S. by 2015, MGI's analysis shows that America has much more to gain.

Offshoring will allow America to capture economic value through multiple channels:

Reduced costs - savings from reduced costs means more savings, which can be passed to consumers or to investors to reinvest.

New revenues - Offshoring creates demand in destination countries for U.S. products, especially for high tech items.

Repatriated earnings - Several providers serving the U.S. market are incorporated in America, which means they repatriate their earnings back into the U.S.

Redeployed labor - U.S. workers who lose their jobs to offshoring will take up other jobs, which will in turn generate additional value for the economy.

Of the $1.45 - $1.47 of value MGI estimates is created globally from every dollar spend a domestic company chooses to divert abroad, the U.S. captures $1.12 - $1.14 while the receiving country captures on average 33 cents. In other words, the U.S. captures 78 percent of the total value.

via McKinsey Global Institute

All I know is that pervasive technological innovation is changing the world of work in dramatic, even radical, ways. Late sci-fi author John Brunner, who was not optimistic, called it "the Shockwave" and we're going to have to find a way to ride it.

"For all the claims one hears about the liberating impact of the data-net, the truth is that it's wished on most of us a brand-new reason for paranoia." --John Brunner, "The Shockwave Rider", 1975.

What's wrong with the CIA?

Herbert E. Meyer, who served as special assistant to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and as vice chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council during the Reagan administration, considers why the CIA is having trouble with its intelligence work. Meyer's short answer: the agency no longer attracts the best minds.

The problem with the CIA lies within its structure and culture. It doesn’t match the task, because the analytic side of intelligence is unlike any other function of government. It is unlike budget-making, diplomacy, or the setting of policy for trade or agriculture. Intelligence is like science, which means that success depends utterly on having the most brilliant people studying a problem. Only they will know how to go about finding the right answer – and how to communicate it clearly and early enough to make a difference.

As geniuses like Albert Einstein and Jonas Salk remind us, in science there is no substitute for sheer intellectual firepower – in other words, for brains. This is why scientific research institutes hire the smartest people they can find, and why they place scientists at the top who are even more brilliant to manage the team and, when necessary, to decide which of their proposed experiments to back and which to stop. That’s why so many leading research institutes are headed by Nobel laureates. And it’s why the big breakthroughs in science come from research institutes rather than government-operated labs.

The most striking feature of the CIA’s analytic culture was its blandness. The secrets were fascinating, of course, but intellectually it was a boring place to work. Most of the analysts simply weren’t as well read as they should have been. For instance, they seemed not to have read much more in history than most college graduates. That may be acceptable for people elsewhere in the government, but not for people on whom the president relies to know what is really going on in the world and to predict the future soon enough so that he can change that future before it happens. They read the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time or Newsweek, perhaps U.S. News & World Report, and occasionally the Economist. I rarely met anyone who read Commentary, National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, or any other cutting-edge publication where the world’s leading thinkers expound their ideas and perceptions about the world. The CIA’s analysts thought that the secret information to which they alone had access made all of that “open-source” insight unimportant.

via Hillsdale College's Imprimis

Al Qaeda and Saddam

New revelations courtesy of the translators at MEMRI about the links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq:

The independent Iraqi weekly Al-Yawm Al-Aakher reveals details on the training of Al-Qa'ida members operating under the orders of Saddam's Presidential Palace two months before the September 11 attacks. The following are excerpts from the article:

Training At Nahrawan and Salman Pak

"An Iraqi officer (L) [only identified by initial] tells us that one day a Land Cruiser belonging to the Personal Security Force (Al-Amn Al-Khass, responsible for the protection of Saddam Hussein) arrived and a senior officer from the Presidential Palace stepped out of it. He was one of those officers who used to stand behind Saddam, which means that he was one of [his] personal bodyguards. After a two-hour meeting with a select group of officers at the Special Forces School, we were informed that we would have dear guests, and that we should train them very well in a high level of secrecy - not to allow anyone to approach them or to talk to them in any way, shape, or form.

"A few days later, about 100 trainees arrived. They were a mixture of Arabs, Arabs from the Peninsula [Saudi Arabia], Muslim Afghans, and other Muslims from various parts of the world. They were divided into two groups, the first one went to Al-Nahrawan and the second to Salman Pak, and this was the group that was trained to hijack airplanes. The training was under the direct supervision of major general (M. DH. L) [only identified by initials] who now serves as a police commander in one of the provinces. Upon the completion of the training most of them left Iraq, while the others stayed in the country through the last battle in Baghdad against the coalition forces."

Al-Qa'ida Group Headed by a Saudi Cleric

"I remember that the leader of the group was a Saudi cleric called [Muhammad], who was a fervent and audacious individual and did not require much training. He was highly skilled, and could fire accurately at a target while riding a motorcycle. Additionally, he used to deliver fiery sermons calling for Jihad and for fighting the Americans anywhere in the world. Surprisingly, this man's picture, alongside the commander of the Special Forces School, was televised several times before the beginning of the war and the fall of the former regime."

Training Supervised by the Fedayeen Command

"...The Fedayeen command [Fedayeen Saddam under Uday's command] supervised the 100 Al-Qa'ida fighters directly, to the extent that senior Fedayeen officers visited them constantly and inspected them almost daily, especially during the final days when they transferred them, late at night in two red trucks that belonged to the Ministry of Transportation, to an undisclosed destination. I witnessed that with my own eyes because on that day I was the duty officer."

Tip via Econopundit

Gallic brakes on the Internet

A French court decision could be a significant speedbump for the burgeoning new industry of search engine marketing. The French just keep helping out in every way, don't they?

A French court has ruled against the internet search engine Google in an intellectual property rights case that may have far reaching technological and financial implications for internet search firms, which process tens of millions of queries a day.

The civil court in Nanterre, near Paris, fined Google €75,000 ($126,000) for allowing advertisers to link text internet advertisements to trademarked search terms and gave the company 30 days to stop the practice, common at internet search services.

The ruling, handed down last week, is believed to be the first in which the owner of a trademarked term successfully sued an internet search service for allowing advertisers to use protected terms in text ads.

If it is upheld on appeal and validated in other countries, the decision could force the search services to pre-screen search terms for trademarks before letting advertisers use them.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, said it would appeal against the decision and declined further comment.

Because the decision is enforceable, Google will have to make the changes while the appeal is under way or face fines of up to €1500 for each infraction.

via the Sydney Morning Herald

Chavez glowers

Venezuela's strongman, self-declared champion of "the people," is continuing on his path to totalitarianism, inch by inch.

President Hugo Chavez issued a warning Saturday to anyone planning to sign a referendum on his presidency, saying their names would be registered and remembered "forever."

Venezuela's elections authority this week said the opposition could gather signatures supporting a recall referendum from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1. The constitution says a referendum request must be backed by signatures from at least 20 percent of the electorate.

But Chavez warned: "Their names will be recorded forever."

"They should know that although they are not going to get (a referendum), their names will be recorded. Unlike in a vote, which is secret, they will sign. They will put their names and surnames, their national ID number and their fingerprint," he said.

via ABC News

Bumpersticker watch

Best bumpersticker seen this week:

Iraq - loans or not?

Both the blogosphere and mainstream pundits are having a hot debate about the Senate vote requiring that half of the proposed $20-billion in reconstruction assistance to Iraq take the form of a loan, not an outright grant.

Lindsey Graham typified the muddled thought-process of the Republican deserters, failing to appreciate the implications of siding with Tom Daschle and friends:

"We've given lives and we've given money, all we're asking is some of that money be paid back when they can afford to pay it back," Mr. Graham said. "I see this as the first step — sort of a wake-up call that we need to tend to the domestic aspects of this more."

Blogger Spoons has a roundup of what might constitute the case against outright grants.

But the estimable Donald Sensing makes a passionate and persuasive case for the idiocy of the loan idea.

We took the place over. We want to establish a non-aggressive, representative government there.

And now our Senate wants to make the Iraqis pay for it.

That is worse than merely miserly. It is punitive. It is effectively equal to making Iraq pay reparations. We didn’t even make Japan and Germany do that after the second world war because the ruinous reparations imposed on Germany after World War I contributed to the rise of Hitlerism there.

It doesn’t matter that Iraq will never actually pay the money back (the debt will be quietly forgotten by the Bush administration and later Congresses). Politics is a realm of symbolism, and the symbolism of the United States Senate is now clear: "Iraq, up yours."

My own take is that we should keep in mind that loan idea was hatched by Democrats who do not support the President and either (a) don't care if we fail in Iraq, (b) want us to fail in Iraq, or (c) don't have the vision to understand how to succeed in Iraq. On that basis alone, loans are Bad.

However, this is a useful reminder of the importance of keeping a decisive edge in political contests. High poll numbers are like big electoral margins: they push opponents back and make it much easier to keep the waverers in line. And there are always waverers, ready to jump when the going gets tough.

"The Good, the Bad, the Ugly"

David Brooks says the Democrats are split into three -- no, make it four -- camps on American strategy towards Iraq. His best take is on the first camp, the "Nancy Pelosi Democrats."

These Democrats voted against Paul Bremer's $87 billion plan for the reconstruction of Iraq. The essence of their case is that the Bush administration is too corrupt and incompetent to reconstruct Iraq. If Bush is for it, they're against it.

Their hatred for Bush is so dense, it's hard for them to see through it to the consequences of their vote. But if Pelosi's arguments had carried the day, our troops in Iraq would be reading this morning about the death of the Bremer plan and the ruination of our efforts to rebuild Iraq.

Saddam Hussein would be jubilant in Pelosi's Iraq. He has long argued that America is a decadent country that will buckle at the first sign of trouble. If the Pelosi Democrats had won yesterday's vote, the Saddam Doctrine would be enshrined in every terrorist cave and dictator's palace around the world: kill some Americans and watch the empire buckle.

A few days ago the Pelosi Democrats came up with a fig leaf alternative to the Bremer plan, which would have reduced U.S. control of reconstruction and shifted power to the World Bank. When that plan went nowhere, the Pelosi Democrats were faced with a choice: trust Americans or choke off the funds. They voted to choke off the funds.

And so in Pelosi's Iraq, there would be little money for children's hospitals, jails, clean water and schools. In Pelosi's Iraq, everyone would begin preparing for the post-U.S. power vacuum. The Kurds would rush to independence, the Sunnis would stock up on weapons, and the Shiites would call in Iran to help them in the coming civil war. The dream of an Iraqi constitution would die in its crib.

For the roster of the Pelosi Democrats, look at those who voted against the Bremer plan. Some names are obvious: Dennis Kucinich, Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer. But there are some names you wouldn't expect to see on that list: John Kerry and John Edwards.

France, Russia and Syria don't oppose the Bremer plan, but the Pelosi Democrats are to the left of Bashar al-Assad.

via The New York Times

Apostrophe vs. Apocalypse

The misuse of the humble but essential apostrophe is getting some much-needed attention in Britain.

Something must be done to protect the correct use of the apostrophe, or civilisation will crumble and anarchy will ensue.... What we need now is militant action.

I propose a new breakaway Apostrophe Action Front which will take direct action to punish and shame absusers of the apostrophe.

via The Thinker
Tip via Stephen Pollard

The Left edge

Last week was pledge time for both National Public Radio affiliates and for the Pacifica network. Local Houston station KUHF raised over $540,000 by appealing to our sense of nobless oblige, and through incentives like an Engines of Our Ingenuity CD-ROM, as well as the usual assortment of books, mugs and t-shirts.

All in all, Conventional Wisdom is easier to tolerate than true Leftist babble.

Dirty nukes?

Jihadist WMDs may be coming our way. Perhaps civil libertarians should be more concerned about the fair and equal distribution of anti-radiation sickness meds than the purported dangers of the USA Patriot Act and John Ashcroft.

A key al Qaeda terrorism suspect was in Canada looking for nuclear material for a "dirty bomb," The Washington Times has learned.

Adnan El Shukrijumah is being sought by the FBI and CIA in connection with a plot to detonate a dirty bomb — a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material.

According to an FBI informant, El Shukrijumah was spotted last year in Hamilton, Ontario, posing as a student at McMaster University, which has a 5-megawatt research reactor. U.S. officials believe El Shukrijumah, whose photograph was posted on the FBI's Web site in March, was in Hamilton trying to obtain radioactive material.

U.S. intelligence officials said earlier this year that al Qaeda planned to detonate a dirty bomb inside the United States, a plot directed by [captured al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh] Mohammed.

According to the officials, the al Qaeda members were sent to North America and assigned with making the bomb from materials acquired there, rather than trying to smuggle conventional explosives and radioactive material into the United States. The terrorists were to buy or steal radioactive material with help from people who had access to research reactors or radioactive medical waste.

via The Washington Times
Federal Bureau of Investigation

Teach your children

Well, this is probably not helpful. What would make them do such a thing? Bad character? Lack of adult supervision? ADHD?

Palestinian children have burned a holy site near the West Bank city of Nablus where Jews believe the biblical Joseph is buried, witnesses and the army said. The children threw several burning tyres into the shrine on Thursday.

The shrine was nearly destroyed by Palestinians three years ago when fighting erupted between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Palestinian fire department rushed to the scene to put out the fire.

Oh, I see -- the Israelis drove them to it.

Some of the children said they set the tomb on fire because the army had placed a curfew on the surrounding area and blocked them from getting to school so that Jewish settlers could pray at the holy site.

via the Sydney Morning Herald

I'm sure the little hoodlums, er, angels, would have been studiously applying themselves at school if it hadn't been for the darned IDF.

Asinine

Stupidity like that being shown by hack politico Haley Barbour is exactly what holds the Republican Party back from becoming the majority party in this nation. Not to mention the moral obtuseness. Gawd.

Republican gubernatorial nominee Haley Barbour said he will not ask the Council of Conservative Citizens to remove his picture from a group Web site that promotes white supremacist and anti-Semitic causes.

Barbour, 55, said some views on the St. Louis-based group's Web site are "indefensible," but he does not want to tell any group it cannot use his picture or statements.

"Once you get into that, you spend your time doing nothing else," Barbour said Thursday. "I don't care who has my picture. My picture's in the public domain. It gets published in newspapers every day."

In the photo on the national CCC Web site, Barbour and several other casually dressed people are shown at a political rally this past summer in rural Carroll County.

The CCC site also features Confederate flags, has links to articles such as "In defense of racism" and offers books on why the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. doesn't deserve a national holiday and why Germany should be cleared of the "blood libel of the 'Holocaust."'

via Fox News

Some fairness and balance

Just by tuning in any traditional news outlet, you can hear all about what's difficult in Iraq and elsewhere (at least during pauses between the latest sordid Kobe Bryant trial developments).

In Afghanistan:

Afghan soldiers backed by U.S. troops and helicopters have killed seven Taliban and captured 12 others during a raid in southern Afghanistan, a police chief said Wednesday.

The raid was launched on the suspected Taliban hideout Monday, sparking a shootout which ended Tuesday. About 500 Afghan soldiers armed with heavy machine guns, AK-47 assault rifles and rocket launchers participated in the operation.

In Yemen:

Yemeni police have arrested two men and seized nine suitcases full of explosives in the southeastern town of Hadramout, a security official said Wednesday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the arrest took place Saturday after a tip. Both men are under investigation, the official said. One of the men is a contractor and the other owns a dry-cleaning shop. No other details were available.

In Iraq:

Behind a shield of American armor, Iraqis began trading in their old money Wednesday, exchanging dinar notes bearing pictures of Saddam Hussein for new bills the U.S. occupation authorities hope will become the currency of a revived economy.

"He's gone and now his picture is gone, too," said Bank of Baghdad worker Raghad Kandala, 28, as businessmen and other customers lined up to hand in their expiring "Saddam'" banknotes.

Although it was the first day for the new bills, the flow of bank customers seemed nearly normal. Iraqis have until Jan. 15 to make the exchange, and many had already deposited old notes in bank accounts in recent weeks. "So there's no need for a stampede," said Mowafaq H. Mahmood, chief executive officer of the private Bank of Baghdad.

Also in Iraq:

U.S. troops killed or captured a "small number" of fighters along the Iraqi-Syrian border after a U.S. helicopter was attacked from the ground, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

The helicopter received ground fire around midnight Tuesday in Qaim, about 6 miles from Syria's border, forcing it to make an emergency landing, a military spokesman said. U.S. troops on the ground reported the incident and returned fire. They secured a landing site with the aid of armored vehicles.

No coalition injuries were reported but "a small number of opposing forces were killed or captured," the spokesman said.

In Washington, D.C.:

Democrat Dick Gephardt, siding with President Bush on his $87 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan, pledged Wednesday to finance the war on terrorism even if that posture undercuts his presidential bid or ensures budget deficits for years to come.

about Japan:

President Bush welcomed Japan's pledge for $1.5 billion for reconstruction projects in Iraq, calling it a bold step that will help build a stable, peaceful and democratic nation. Bush said Japan's commitment would provide aid for immediate reconstruction needs there.

In Pakistan:

One of the men killed in Pakistan's largest-ever offensive against al-Qaida appears to have been a high-ranking member of the terror network, a Pakistani official said Wednesday.

Eight al-Qaida suspects were killed and 18 were captured in the Oct. 2 shootout with army troops in South Waziristan, a tribal region along the border with Afghanistan. Two Pakistani soldiers also died.

"There is a probability which I cannot confirm that a man among those killed was one who has a reward on his head," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said at a news conference in Islamabad. "He was among the top 10 or 15 people in al-Qaida."

About Iraq:

The head of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council said Wednesday his country will "definitely" hold elections next year and that security won't be improved by bringing in more foreign troops.

Ayad Allawi, current holder of the council's rotating presidency, was asked by reporters at a summit of Islamic nations when elections would be held, and he responded: "Definitely 2004."

In Iraq:

American forces in Iraq have captured one of the most senior members of Ansar al-Islam, an extremist group suspected of having ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, U.S. defense officials said Tuesday.

The arrest of Aso Hawleri, also known as Asad Muhammad Hasan, late last week in the northern city of Mosul has not been announced. Larry Di Rita, chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, told reporters, "I'm not in a position to confirm" Hawleri's capture.

Hawleri was taken by soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, said a defense official, who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity.

The capture netted a number of other people besides Hawleri, the official said, adding that there apparently was not a gunfight.

Reports like these aren't the whole story, but they shouldn't be neglected either.

What's good for the goose...

The caring members of the United Nations Security Council say they are very concerned about the "sovereignty of the Iraqi people" and want a firmer, faster deadline for the U.S. to turn over all authority to the locals. It's pure hokum, of course -- the rogue's gallery of despots in the U.N. only wants to hobble U.S. power and try to get a piece of the action for themselves.

However, there is an alternative to just dismissing them out of hand:

By all means let's have a December 15 deadline for an Iraqi democracy timetable. But in the spirit of consistency, let's also require the same deadline for a democracy transition plan from every other U.N. state, in particular those highly principled Security Council members China, Syria, Pakistan, Guinea and Cameroon. We can then move on to Cuba, Vietnam, Libya, Sudan, Egypt, North Korea . . .

The more we think about this, the more we think Mr. Annan may be on to something with this self-government concept. When we argued that a liberated Iraq might set a positive example, we had no idea it would go this far.

via the Wall Street Journal (subscribers only)

Sabine redux

Matt Welch has a new profile of France's libertarian firebrand, Sabine Herold. As noted here in June, she's leading a new counter-revolution in France, and her heroes are F.A. Hayek and Margaret Thatcher. Wish her luck -- she and her compatriots will need it.

Herold laughs easily and often. And, just maybe, the long-silent French minority that shares her views finally has a reason to crack a wary smile of its own: For the first time in memory, they have an influential ally in Prime Minister Raffarin. "He’s a libertarian," Herold insists, in excellent, accented English. "The problem is that in his government he has too many other people more conservative, so he can’t have a real libertarian policy."

Still, by most accounts, Herold’s anti-strike revolt has given Raffarin extra fiber. "The government has stood firm on pension reform," the International Herald-Tribune reported in July, citing Herold’s protests. "Now, analysts say, it may be emboldened to push for further economic changes, such as stepped-up privatization of state-owned companies, and efforts to improve the workings of the labor market. Under discussion are reductions in the social security charges levied on employers, which have already been cut back sharply in recent years for some workers."

Despite these impressive early results, Herold’s long-term task is truly Sisyphean: Chip away at the ossified paternalism in French and European governance, convince a nation that treasures its generous safety net that it can’t last, and confront an entrenched culture that views noisome public sector strikes as the preferred method for conflict resolution.

"It’s annoying," Herold says, "because in France, we start striking, and then we go to negotiate. It would be so much more interesting to go negotiate first, and then if nothing happens, just go on strike. I don’t know, maybe it’s an old love of the Revolution, or that people missed World War II and they want to be in another kind of Resistance."

via Reason

The right stuff

Another hero of WWII died recently. He knew a chap named Ian Fleming, and was reportedly "the real James Bond."

He disapproved of James Bond -"far too dramatic" - stayed faithful to one woman all his life, and would rather watch Pride and Prejudice than secret agent films on TV.

Yet retired Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander Patrick Dalzel-Job, whose death at age 90 was announced in Scotland yesterday, came closer than any other candidate to being the true-life original of Ian Fleming's Bond.

He could ski backwards, navigate a midget submarine, and undertake the riskiest parachute jumps. His second world war exploits are the epitome of derring-do behind enemy lines. And, like Bond, he sometimes defied authority.

Sent to wartime Norway but ordered not to get involved with civilians, Dalzel-Job saved the people of Narvik from a Nazi reprisal bombing raid by evacuating them in fishing boats. He avoided a court martial only by the king of Norway awarding him a Knights Cross of St Olaf First Class.

He commanded one of the teams led by Ian Fleming, who had joined the Royal Navy for the war's duration, in the undercover 30 Assault Unit that raided occupied Europe.

A contemporary in Fleming's unit, Peter Jemmett, told a newspaper that colleagues recognised Dalzel-Job as the Bond prototype immediately the first spy novels appeared in the 1950s. He added: "In contrast to a number of people who have claimed that they were the James Bond, Patrick has never made any fuss about it."

Dalzel-Job did say in one interview that, after the books' success, their author had told him he was a role model for the heroic Bond.

"I prefer the quiet life now," Dalzel-Job went on. "When you have led such an exciting life you don't need to see a fictional account of it."

via The Guardian

Libya nukes

Both Reuters and AFP are reporting that Ariel Sharon has predicted that Libya will possess the first Arab nuke.

Libya is trying to develop nuclear weapons with help from countries such as North Korea and Pakistan, an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has quoted him as saying.

"One would not be surprised if Libya would be the first Arab country (to) have nuclear weapons," the aide quoted Sharon as telling foreign ambassadors in a meeting on Monday.

"Libya is diligently attempting to acquire nuclear know-how with help and support from North Korea and Pakistan," the aide quoted Sharon as saying. "Not help as in buying a bomb but help in acquiring technology and know-how to build a bomb."

Always interesting DEBKA ups the ante with this teaser:

One of largest nuclear sites in world operates under Libya’s al Kufra desert oasis opposite Egypt’s Aswan Dam, staffed with 400 Iraqi scientists and technicians sent by Saddam, 150 North Koreans, funded from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria.

Democracy, Saudi style

Police in the capital of Saudi Arabia vigorously put down a pro-democracy demonstration today, in a revealing coda to an earlier announcement that the country's first elections would be held within a year. Apparently they're not yet ready for any disorderly democracy. Still, maybe these events are a break in the totalitarian ice. If so, credit should go to President Bush and the toppling of Saddam.

Police in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, have broken up a rare demonstration which was calling for political reform. The protest took place close to where the Saudi Government was hosting its first human rights conference.

Reports said police fired shots into the air to disperse a crowd of a few hundred people, who were led by bearded men chanting "God is great". A number of arrests were made after what eyewitnesses describe as minor scuffles with the police.

Eyewitnesses say the protesters of different ages - including women - converged on the building at about 1600 local time (1500 GMT). After anti-riot police armed with batons intervened to break up the rally, the protesters tried to regroup but were chased away.

via BBC

Selective cartography

Almost like a perfect follow-up to Joel Mowbray's report on how the nomenklatura inside the U.S. State Department are in thrall to Saudi Arabia, the blogosphere notices that State has a map on its web site that dares not even label Israel. In the eyes of State's cartographer, Israel has no name. At least it's not labelled "Palestine."

Since the map will be changed as soon as State wakes up, here's a copy:

Rotten from within

TIME Magazine has a report on the secret effort waged by the U.S. to undermine Saddam Hussein's regime from within by recruiting an extensive number of collaborators. Interesting details. TIME has been doing a lot of original reporting from Iraq.

Indeed, the quick and relatively painless U.S. overthrow of Saddam's regime was achieved not just by military means but also by betrayal. Before a shot was fired, the U.S. recruited and dispatched Iraqi collaborators to uncover Saddam's plans and capabilities, and hobble them. Deals were done; psychological warfare was waged; money was paid; and even blackmail was used. While the Bush Administration's post-Saddam planning has proved wanting, in this area of prewar thinking, Washington's strategies paid off. By the time the first U.S. tanks crossed the Kuwaiti border, top Republican Guard officers had been won over, and the secret police had been penetrated. Spies had infiltrated, and spotters had been dispatched to help guide American bombs. "You'd be surprised at what these guys achieved," says a Pentagon official in Iraq, referring to the Iraqi collaborators.

Even if Saddam was the last to know, many of those in his inner circle understood how deeply the Iraqi security services had been penetrated. At a funeral for two junior military officers midway through the war, mourners asked the commanders present how things were going. "They told us we were losing," one mourner remembers, "that there was a kind of treason in the army and the Republican Guard."

A side effect of the mass Iraqi desertions during the war has been that remnants of the regime survived to cause trouble in post-Saddam Iraq. Last week saw a fair share of mayhem. Suicide bombers drove an explosives-packed car into a Baghdad police station, killing eight people, and a Spanish diplomat was shot to death at the gate of his home in the capital. Resistance to the American occupation has been such that 188 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since President Bush declared an end to major hostilities on May 1. Still, the U.S.'s swift dispatch of Saddam undoubtedly saved both U.S. and Iraqi lives. This is the story of America's secret campaign to sabotage the regime from within and of the Iraqis who waged it.

via TIME Magazine
Tip via Outside the Beltway

The Soul of a Nation

Vaclev Havel, author, philosopher and former president of the Czech Republic after its liberation from Soviet oppression, looks at Burma and recognizes both the anxious face of despotism and the steely strength of patriots like Aung San Suu Kyi.

I recall that my friends and I for decades were asked by people visiting from democratic Western countries, "How can you, a mere handful of powerless individuals, change the regime, when the regime has at hand all the tools of power: the army, the police and the media, when it can convene gigantic rallies to reflect its people's 'support' to the world, when pictures of the leaders are everywhere and any effort to resist seems hopeless and quixotic?"

My answer was that it was impossible to see the inside clearly, to witness the true spirit of the society and its potential -- impossible because everything was forged. In such circumstances, no one can perceive the internal, underground movements and processes that are occurring. No one can determine the size of the snowball needed to initiate the avalanche leading to the disintegration of the regime.

In Burma, thousands of human lives have been destroyed, scores of gifted people have been exiled or incarcerated and deep mistrust has been sown among the various ethnic groups. Human society is, however, a mysterious creature, and it serves no good to trust its public face at any one moment. Thousands of people welcomed Suu Kyi on her tours, proving that the Burmese nation is neither subjugated nor pessimistic and faithless. Hidden beneath the mask of apathy, there is an unsuspected energy and a great human, moral and spiritual charge. Detaining and repressing people cannot change the soul of a nation. It may dampen it and disguise the reality outwardly, but history has repeatedly taught us the lesson that change often arrives unexpectedly.

via the Washington Post

The Iron Aunty

The Washington Post published a biographical story about courageous democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi this weekend, who remains under house arrest in Burma. She has given up everything for her people: family, freedom, safety. She is remarkable.

Aunty, run! Run!

The horrified young bodyguards screamed for the slender woman they were escorting through the Burmese night to make a break for it. Hundreds of angry assailants were swarming her motorcade of democracy activists, smashing her truck's window and jabbing sharpened bamboo sticks inside.

But the beloved leader of Burma's democracy movement -- Aung San Suu Kyi, affectionately called "Aunty" -- refused to budge that day, May 30, on what has become known as Black Friday.

The mob, recruited by Burma's military regime, dragged off Suu Kyi's elderly deputy. They jerked women out of the trucks, stripping several naked and bashing one's head on the road. Scores of activists, maybe more than 100, were killed or injured.

"They are killing our mother!" the activists shouted, referring again to Suu Kyi.

"She refused to run," recalls Wunna Maung, a 26-year-old bodyguard. Her driver finally floored the gas pedal and rocketed them out of the fray.

But Suu Kyi was captured less than two miles away. For almost four months, she was held incommunicado in an undisclosed location. She was returned home Sept. 26, to house arrest yet again -- she has spent almost eight of the last 14 years detained.

The international community demands her freedom. The United States has imposed economic sanctions on Burma. This petite, fragile-looking 58-year-old woman with blossoms woven in her hair, a "prettier version of Mahatma Gandhi," one friend calls her, has become the sole repository for the Burmese people's hopes.

She chose this burden, this unimaginable weight. She once had a comfortable intellectual life in Europe, but a remarkable confluence of events, of people, led her back to a harder path.

The best friends money can buy

Joel Mowbray reports in detail that the "humiliating obsequiousness" with which the U.S. State Department acts towards Saudi Arabia is based on history, oil, and some notable personal factors. The phrase "sell-out" comes to mind, and there are significant national security implications.

Perhaps former assistant secretary (the lead position of a bureau) for Near Eastern Affairs Ned Walker said it best when he told the Washington Post, "Let's face it, we got a lot of money out of Saudi Arabia." Mr. Walker meant "we" as in the U.S. government, but he easily could have used it to refer to former Foggy Bottom officials who benefit financially after retirement. Some do it directly--and in public view, because of stringent reporting requirements--while most, including Mr. Walker, choose a less noticeable trough.

The gravy train dates back more than 25 years. In that time, it has created a circle of sympathizers and both direct and indirect lobbyists. But the most important--and most indirect--byproduct of lining the pockets of former State officials is that the Saudi royal family finds itself with passionate supporters inside Foggy Bottom. Which is precisely the intended effect. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, was quoted in the Washington Post: "If the reputation then builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office, you'd be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office." This is not to say that State officials make decisions with visions of dollars dancing in their heads, but at the very least, they probably take a more benign view of the royal family that "takes care of" their friends and former colleagues.

Most of the Saudi money, though, goes indirectly to former State officials, most commonly by means of think tanks. This approach pays dividends in many ways: Foggy Bottom retirees get to have their cake--without the public realizing they're eating it--and the Saudis get to have "indirect" lobbyists, who promote the Saudi agenda under the cover of the think-tank label. Three organizations in particular are the primary beneficiaries of Saudi petrodollars, and all are populated with former State officials: the Meridian International Center, the Middle East Policy Council and the Middle East Institute.

The money, the favors, and State's affinity for Saudi elites over the decades have all helped contribute to the "special relationship" between State and the House of Saud. Notes Hudson Institute senior fellow Laurent Murawiec, "This is a relationship that has been cemented by 40 years of money, power, and political favors that goes much deeper than most people realize."

via WSJ's OpinionJournal

Fair and balanced

Media observer Howard Kurtz, no right-wing sympathizer, is a bit kinder to Rush that his colleagues over at Newsweek.

The tut-tutting is already under way. He's a hypocrite, his detractors say, a motormouth moralizer who was quietly breaking the law. He doesn't deserve our compassion because he shows so little for his opponents.

"There's no question his hypocrisy is relevant to the story," Enquirer Editor David Perel told me.

Well, maybe.

But that would be a mistake. I suspect most people, even those who can't stand the guy, will see a man struggling with his personal demons, and be careful about condemning him for his weakness. Liberals who believe addiction is a disease, who defend coked-up Hollywood stars in rehab -- Rob Lowe, Aaron Sorkin and a host of others -- will look hard-hearted themselves if they use a different standard for their nemesis.

Limbaugh should be hammered the way he hammers others -- but for his political views, not his drug problem.

Newsweek's cover story paints a fairly harsh portrait of the man.

via the Washington Post

The vultures circle

Rush Limbaugh made a heartfelt public statement Friday about his addiction problem, which includes potentially significant criminal/legal issues. Rush is in serious trouble, but he doesn't appear to be looking for special dispensation from the public.

I am not making any excuses. You know, over the years athletes and celebrities have emerged from treatment centers to great fanfare and praise for conquering great demons. They are said to be great role models and examples for others. Well, I am no role model. I refuse to let anyone think I am doing something great here, when there are people you never hear about, who face long odds and never resort to such escapes.

They are the role models. I am no victim and do not portray myself as such. I take full responsibility for my problem. At the present time the authorities are conducting an investigation, and I have been asked to limit my public comments until this investigation is complete. So, I will only say that the stories you have read and heard contain inaccuracies and distortions, which I will clear up when I am free to speak about them. I deeply appreciate all of your support over this last tumultuous week. It has sustained me. I ask now for your prayers.

Rush's own statement is in sharp contrast to the tone of this week's cover story in Newsweek, written by Evan Thomas with the help of no less than eleven named contributors. Thomas is almost gleeful in tone -- he and his colleagues seem to get great satisfaction from Rush's difficulties. In fact, it seems to go well beyond mere schadenfreude, and into some combination of professional envy and ideological antagonism. The latter may be the driver, given the gratuitous swipes at President Bush while supposedly providing an analysis of Rush's personality and psyche. Ugh.

Rush Limbaugh has always had far more followers than friends. Bombastic and clowning on air, shy and bumptious off it, Limbaugh could count on 20 million “Dittoheads” and talk-radio fans to tune in five days a week. But it’s hard to find many people who really know him. He was a lonely object of mass adulation, socially ill at ease, at least occasionally depressed and, for the past several years, living in a private hell of pain and compulsion.

But Limbaugh’s story owes more to the “Wizard of Oz” than “The Scarlet Letter.” The man behind the curtain is not the God of Family Values but a childless, twice-divorced, thrice-married schlub whose idea of a good time is to lie on his couch and watch football endlessly. When Rush Limbaugh declared to his radio audience that he was “your epitome of morality of virtue, a man you could totally trust with your wife, your daughter, and even your son in a Motel 6 overnight,” he was acting. He “regards himself as an entertainer who is very pleased that people pay attention to his political views,” says Wall Street editorial writer John Fund, who collaborated with Limbaugh on one of the radio host’s books (“The Way Things Ought to Be”).

Granted, Limbaugh’s act has won over, or fooled, a lot of people. With his heartland pieties and scorn for “feminazis” and “commie-symps” like “West Wing” president Martin Sheen (“Martin Sheenski” to Limbaugh), he is the darling of Red State, Fly-Over America. Former president George H.W. Bush, always eager to cover his right flank, personally carried Limbaugh’s bags into the White House when Limbaugh stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom in 1992. After the Republicans won control of the House in 1994 for only the second time in 50 years, lawmakers called to personally thank Limbaugh and made him an honorary member of Congress.

Warning

Iran and others inclined to rash behavior should take notice.

Israel has modified American-supplied cruise missiles to carry nuclear warheads on submarines, giving the Middle East's only nuclear power the ability to launch atomic weapons from land, air and beneath the sea, according to senior Bush administration and Israeli officials.

The previously undisclosed submarine capability bolsters Israel's deterrence in the event that Iran -- an avowed enemy -- develops nuclear weapons. It also complicates efforts by the United States and the United Nations to persuade Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program.

Two Bush administration officials described the missile modification and an Israeli official confirmed it. All three spoke on condition their names not be used.

The Americans said they were disclosing the information to caution Israel's enemies at a time of heightened tensions in the region and concern over Iran's alleged ambitions.

LA Times story via the Houston Chronicle

Update: The LA Times report is being denied Sunday various officials and experts. However, I would think the point is still apparent to Israel's adversaries -- Israel has nukes and would be willing to use them in self-defense.

Israeli and foreign defense experts Sunday dismissed a report that Israel had modified submarine-based missiles to carry nuclear warheads, saying such an alteration was technically impossible.

Former Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Efraim Sneh called the assertion that Israel had made the Harpoon nuclear impossible.

"Anyone with even the slightest understanding of missiles knows that the Harpoon can never be used to carry nuclear warheads," Sneh told Army Radio. "Not even (Israel's) extraordinarily talented engineers and its sophisticated defense industries can transform the Harpoon into a missile capable of doing this. It's simply impossible."

Ted Hooton, editor of Jane's Naval Weapon Systems in London, echoed Sneh's assessment, saying problems with payload weight would put the Harpoon out of balance, limiting its range and accuracy.

"It seems to me that a nuclear weapon, which is extremely dense, would make the Harpoon nose heavy and significantly reduce its range -- in any event well below the 90 miles it is designed for," Hooton said.

via Fox News

Wilson-Plame cont.

Nicholas Kristof adds more background to l'affaire Wilson-Plame by revealing that Plame's cover was blown nine years ago (regardless of what Bush administration leakers and reporter Robert Novak may have done recently), as well as other tidbits.

...the C.I.A. suspected that Aldrich Ames had given Mrs. Wilson's name (along with those of other spies) to the Russians before his espionage arrest in 1994. So her undercover security was undermined at that time, and she was brought back to Washington for safety reasons.

Kristof then dishes out equal helpings of approbrium for both Democrats and Republicans.

All in all, I think the Democrats are engaging in hyperbole when they describe the White House as having put Mrs. Wilson's life in danger and destroyed her career; her days skulking along the back alleys of cities like Beirut and Algiers were already mostly over.

Moreover, the Democrats cheapen the debate with calls, at the very beginning of the process, for a special counsel to investigate the White House. Hillary Rodham Clinton knows better than anyone how destructive and distracting a special counsel investigation can be, interfering with the basic task of governing, and it's sad to see her display the same pusillanimous partisanship that Republicans showed just a few years ago.

If Democrats have politicized the scandal and exaggerated it, Republicans have inexcusably tried to whitewash it. The leak risked the security of all operatives who had used Brewster-Jennings as cover, as well as of all assets ever seen with Mrs. Wilson. Unwitting sources will now realize that they were supplying the C.I.A. with information, and even real agents may fear exposure and vanish.

via The New York Times

Tugboats and more

Mansoor Ijaz spoke on Fox News this weekend about the potential threat of seaborne terrorism. Scary stuff and apparently under-addressed.

During the past year, piracy attacks in the South Pacific have become much more sinister in nature. No longer are pirates boarding tankers or other maritime vessels for the purpose of taking cash, kidnapping crews for ransom, or seizing and selling the cargoes. Recent piracy incidents are now occurring because those boarding the vessels only spend a few hours at the helm to develop the necessary skills to navigate them — a bit like the 9-11 hijackers attending flight training schools — and then take the captains and co-captains with them when they abandon the tankers.

Now add to this alarming development the theft of as many as 10 tugboats during the past six months in the South Pacific (which could easily be used to tug a disabled bomb-laden tanker into a busy harbor.) Next add the kidnapping and subsequent release of deep-sea diving experts from prominent resorts in Southeast Asia who authorities have been told were forced to train terrorist operatives how to dive — but curiously not how to resurface — and we have an increasingly serious terrorist threat to maritime security.

Keep in mind that, according to the UN, 80% of the 6 billion tons of the world's traded cargo is transported by ships. Imagine the damage to regional or even large segments of the global economy if a key choke point — the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, or the Straits of Malaca in the South Pacific — were blocked by a chemical or liquified natural gas tanker either set ablaze by terrorists, or worse, laden with radioactive materials and then detonated to create a massive dirty bomb explosion. Recall the October 2002 torpedo attack against the French tanker, the MV Limburg, near Yemen. That, in my judgment, was a calibration run to determine whether external attacks on a tanker were more effective then setting charges directly to the hulls. Clearly, the training for a maritime attack is under way and is intensifying as every day passes.

One of the great tragedies of the post 9-11 period has been the utter complacency of lawmakers in Washington to even understand what the threats are, much less deal with them. There has not been a single hearing, either open or closed, that I know of in Congress to address maritime threats, or to present the data I've presented here, or to make the American people aware of the consequences of an attack on maritime interests far away from our shores.

We are still stuck on airline hijackings and the use of aircraft as terrorist instruments when al-Qaeda leaders, according to my sources, have moved far along in their designs to disrupt the global economy. They've internally handed over airliner attacks to the second and third-tier al-Qaeda operatives who were just trainees when 9-11 happened. The 9-11 attacks were about symbolism, with a secondary emphasis on economic disruption. The next set of attacks will emphasize economic disruption with only an eye to symbolism.

via Fox News (requires registration)

"We will not be found wanting"

General John M. Keane, former Army Vice-Chief of Staff, retired recently. On October 2, he gave a farewell speech in a ceremony at Fort Myer, Virginia. The whole address is worth reading, but these excerpts were notable.

We ask much of our Soldiers and they make many sacrifices each and every day. Our Soldiers do not want to die. But they are willing to and I have been in awe of that remarkable fact for every 1 of my 37 years in the military. They are willing to give up everything they care about in life. Everything: The opportunity to live a full life; the opportunity to be a parent and raise a family; the opportunity to have friends; the opportunity to love and to be loved.

They are willing to give up all of this, for what? They do it for one another and they do it for the simple sake of the duty. This is true honor. You cannot buy this type of devotion and we can never, ever take it for granted. And we never will.

This morning my family and I laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier – a place I believe is the most sacred piece of ground in America. I paid my respect for the last time in uniform to all those wonderful, precious Soldiers and civilians who we buried every single year that I have had the honor to serve. For me, it was always about them and their sacrifice will be with me forever.

We have a magnificent Army. Rebuilt after the Vietnam War, this Army helped to end the Cold War and, during the last 14 years, has deployed around the world to stop thugs from imposing their will on their people or on others.

America and its armed forces stand for what is right and good, and we are willing to take enormous risks to achieve it. Preventing people from being killed, freeing them from repression and horror, and permitting them to have a normal quality of life experience is something I have been so proud to be a part of.

Today, we are a nation at war – a nation forever changed by the attack of 9/11. For the first time in my career – and the first time since WWII – we have deployed our forces directly on behalf of the American people and our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines get it. They understand the war on terrorism is all about protecting the American people. As such, I have never seen such intensity and dogged determination to succeed.

Our troops have performed magnificently in two stunning victories in two years – two vastly different operations that demonstrate our armed forces remarkable capability. But we have more to do.

I want to tell you something about this war against terror we are fighting in Iraq and around the world. The foreign terrorists, the Baath Party sympathizers, the Islamic extremists who wantonly kill Americans and innocent people from many nations, have no idea what they are up against.

Their strategic objective is the political and moral will of the American people. They want to destroy our confidence. They think they know us because they have heard of Lebanon in ‘83, or Somalia in ‘94, or the USS Cole in 2000. They think we are morally weak and we will lose our resolve. But their knowledge is superficial and their understanding is shallow.

To understand America and Americans, they need to understand the Marne in 1918, or Tarawa in ‘43, Omaha Beach in ‘44 or the Chosin Reservoir in 1950. They need to understand that a nation that produces Alvin York and Audie Murphy; John Pershing and George Marshall; Chesty Puller and George Patton; Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon; produces heroes in every generation. They are out there now… performing every day.

Our enemies are cunning, but they are ignorant and their ignorance will be their undoing. They do not know our will, our courage, or our character.

When we say we are going to win this Global War on Terrorism we mean exactly that. We don’t mean a moral victory, or victory in some abstract sense. The reality of more than 3,000 dead in New York, Pennsylvania, and in the Pentagon does not allow for such nuances.

When we say we are going to win this Global War on Terrorism, we mean we are going to destroy those who would destroy us – wherever they are in this world. We mean we are going to go wherever we have to and stay as long as we need to.

This fight will test our perseverance, our stamina, and our resolve, but I assure you, we will not be found wanting. We intend to protect America and our way of life. The people of this nation are counting on us – we will not let them down.

via the U.S. Army
Tip (but no link) via the Washington Times

Getting the story out

Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority has its own website now with news and information about what's going on in Iraq, including both English and Arabic.

The Bush administration seems to be on the move (finally) in terms of communication. They've left the field to opponents for too long.

Our "allies"

Jim Hoagland provides us today with some insights into recent Euro diplomatic moves, and fresh reasons to despise them.

Why the relentless opposition? He has been willing to act, not just talk and dissemble while millions die under foreign despots and while we wait idly at home for the next assault. This attitude challenges decades of compromise, complacency and cowardice. I call it leadership.

The steady attacks on American troops and growing challenges to Bush at home have encouraged many of the war's critics abroad to conclude that they can outlast the Bush administration's emphasis on military preemption and perhaps the administration itself.

Talk to German, French, British and Russian think-tank experts and officials under London's Chatham House rules -- the speaker can't be identified by name -- and the sense you get is that many Europeans are waiting for the Americans to give up on Iraq and come back to their senses, so U.S.-European relations can get back to the intimacy of Cold War days.

Here the blame for friction in U.S.-European relations and at the United Nations is focused narrowly on Bush, Vice President Cheney and the administration's doctrine of preemption. This gives foreign leaders and publics that hold that view every incentive to work to defeat Bush and to aid, indirectly at least, his Democratic challenger in 2004.

To be effective, such political opposition from abroad will have to be subliminal and deniable. The all-out prewar battles at the United Nations will not be repeated. Instead, there will be subtle campaigns of political attrition.

via the Washington Post

Blue vs. Red

Interesting evidence of the ongoing split in the American political/social psyche: today's Non-fiction Bestsellers list at Amazon.com shows a 5-3 advantage for the Right in the top ten but a 5-6 split between Right and Left in the top twenty. And eleven of the top twenty are about politics. Books are the new battleground? Lots of shells being lobbed.

Blue ammo: Stupid, lies, thieves, deception
Red ammo: Persecution, subverting, treason

On the Left:

#1 - Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore
#5 - Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America by Molly Ivins, Lou Dubose
$6 - Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! by Michael Moore
#11 - Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth by Joe Conason
#12 - The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception by David Corn
#13 - Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country--And Its Time to Take It Back by Jim Hightower

#3 - Who's Looking Out for You? by Bill O'Reilly
#4 - Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity by David Limbaugh
#7 - Shut Up and Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the UN are Subverting America by Laura Ingraham
#8 - Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism by Ann H. Coulter
#9 - The Real America: Messages From The Heart and Heartland by Glenn Beck

Lessons from Gitmo

James Robbins writes in National Review about the recent detentions of translators and others working with prisoners at Camp Delta in Guantanamo. Among other things, he considers whether or not al Qaeda may be planning a rescue mission and why giving the detainees copies of the Koran was a bad idea. Robbins also makes two bedrock points, both of which everyone needs to keep in mind. This:

Camp Delta is not simply a detention center; it is an active front in the terror war. It is one of the most important resources the Coalition has for understanding the enemy, his plans, and his motives.

And this:

The recent arrests demonstrate some fundamentals about the war on terrorism. Our enemies are implacable, highly motivated, and will not consider themselves beaten even if they are in shackles. Any place they live, including a detention center, is a theater of conflict. They will seek to extend their influence by any means at their disposal. And the only people who should come in contact with them are those whose will to defeat the enemy is at least as strong as the enemy's desire to destroy our civilization.

Go, Condie

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice had a few questions this week for those who just can't seem to grasp why we're in Iraq.

It is worth reflecting on the alternative to action. Had 1441 -- and the sixteen other resolutions -- not been enforced, the credibility of the United Nations would have been in tatters. The effectiveness of the Security Council as an instrument of enforcing the will of the world, and of keeping the peace, would have been weakened.

Saddam would have remained in power -- with all that entails: More mass graves, more children in prison, and more daily depredations of the Iraqi people.

And Saddam would have remained -- indefinitely -- poised in the heart of the Middle East, sitting atop a potentially deadly arsenal of terrible weapons, threatening his neighbors and the world. For twelve years, Saddam gave every indication that he would never disarm and never comply with the Security Council's just demands. There was no reason to believe that waiting any longer for him to change his mind would yield results.

Those who question the wisdom of removing Saddam Hussein from power, and liberating Iraq, should ask themselves:

- How long should Saddam Hussein have been allowed to torture the Iraqi people?

- How long should Saddam Hussein have been allowed to remain the greatest source of instability in one of the world's most vital regions?

- How long should Saddam Hussein have been allowed to provide support and safe-haven to terrorists?

- How long should Saddam Hussein have been allowed to defy the world's just demand to disarm?

- How long should the world have closed its eyes to the threat that was Saddam Hussein?

Let us be clear: those were the alternatives to action.

via the White House

Savvy voters

According to the LA Weekly, the timing of last week's allegations of boorish misconduct against Arnold Schwarzenegger was well-coordinated with the Gray Davis campaign. This confirms just what the majority of voters in California suspected... and rejected.

Senior Democratic strategists knew the particulars of last Thursday’s L.A. Times exposé on Arnold Schwarzenegger well in advance of the story’s publication, the Weekly has learned from well-informed sources. This knowledge came not only in advance of publication but also before anyone outside a close circle at the Times knew of the story’s timing and particulars.

According to a well-informed source at the paper, the story, which hit the political world with a thunderclap, never appeared on the paper’s internal or external publication schedules. Indeed, project editor Joel Sappell and the three reporters working on what the Times has described as a seven-week-long investigative project were very tight-lipped about both the scheduling of the piece and its contents. They discussed the story only with the paper’s senior editors. Although the story did not appear on the schedule, it was reportedly placed in the "write basket," in which other Times editors and reporters can look at upcoming pieces, after hours last Wednesday night, just a few hours before it appeared on the Times Web site.

Even with utmost secrecy surrounding the piece, senior Democratic strategists with long-standing ties to Davis knew not only when the story was coming but also the particulars of what was in it. These strategists felt that the story held the possibility of tipping the election away from Schwarzenegger and of defeating the governor’s recall.

Taliban redux?

The Taliban may be stirring in Afghanistan.

A Taliban army is mobilizing in Pakistan for an attack into Afghanistan before the start of winter.

Up to 2,500 fighters are in Baluchistan province preparing to cross the border on motorcycles and attack United States and Afghan government forces, according to Western and Afghan intelligence officials.

The Taliban have virtually taken over several suburbs of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, and are being supported by Pakistani religious parties, the drugs mafia and al-Qa'eda. There is also reportedly increasing support from the Pakistani authorities - a claim denied in Islamabad.

via The Telegraph (UK)

Our man in Afghanistan said the same general thing earlier this week.

Speaking on the second anniversary of the start of U.S. bombing of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 that toppled the Taliban, U.S. special envoy and ambassador designate Zalmay Khalilzad said fighting "terrorists" was a long-term struggle.

He welcomed a border operation by Pakistan last week against the Taliban and al Qaeda but said it must do much more. "I think that's really critical. Pakistan cannot become a sanctuary for Taliban and al Qaeda people who want to attack Afghanistan."

Khalilzad said there had been a surge in Taliban activity in recent weeks, but there were signs the response by U.S.-led forces had been effective. However, he added:

"I think that in desperation they may try, there are indications they may try, to do something to get a lot of attention...There are indications that they are planning even larger attacks, more spectacular attacks perhaps."

via Reuters

The American military in Afghanistan seems fairly confident.

"We like them to form in large groups so we can kill more of them at one time," said Col. Rodney Davis, the spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition.

American officials said the Taliban forces were more of an annoyance than a serious military threat.

via the Philadelphia Inquirer

Shoulder-fired danger

Sounds like the military in Iraq is being prudent about this, as well they should.

The United States military has been unable to locate a large number of shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles that were part of the arsenal of Saddam Hussein, officials say, compounding the security risks for airports and airlines in Iraq and around the world.

The lack of accounting for the missiles — officials say there could be hundreds — is the primary reason the occupation authorities have not yet reopened the Baghdad International Airport to commercial traffic, officials said. The terminal has been rebuilt and the runways repaired, and Australian soldiers are running the air traffic control system.

But portable missiles were fired at incoming planes several times in recent weeks, one senior official said. Most of those incidents have not been reported to the public. The missiles missed their targets widely, suggesting that the people who fired them had not been extensively trained.

United States military officers do not know exactly how many of the missiles are unaccounted for, because they do not have precise estimates of how many Iraq once possessed.

"We just don't know," said an allied official, turning up his palms for emphasis.

The American military is pressing the search for the missiles, offering a reward of $500 for each one. The Pentagon has been surprised how many of the weapons, mostly Russian-designed SA-7's, Iraqis have turned in, another coalition official said.

Virtually every day, Iraqis are walking up to United States military posts to hand over portable missiles, and sometimes they have led Americans to small caches.

via The New York Times

It was discussed back in May that Iraq was one huge armed camp and this kind of thing would be a problem.

U.S. Army officials said it could take years to catalogue and destroy the tons of weapons it is finding in thousands of weapons and munitions bunkers across Iraq.

"It will take years and years to clear this stuff," said Sgt. David Donell, who runs a demolition team attached to the 4th Infantry Division, 10th Cavalry.

The SA-7 is the same weapon fired at an Israeli airliner over Mombasa, Kenya and at a U.S. fighter jet in Saudi Arabia last year. al Qaeda jihadists are trained in such use.

Democratic shock

So, the Dems lost really big after all, in a state they should own.

California Democrats have gloated for a decade about Republican infighting and political extremism that fostered GOP self-destruction. But in the just-completed recall campaign, it was Democrats who walked down that suicidal path. It was Democrats who fired on their own and ceded the political middle.

Gov. Gray Davis and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who built their careers as centrists, treated the recall as a partisan primary election, said Ray McNally, a GOP strategist.

"They decided if they could get their base, that's all it would take," McNally said. "So they moved way, way left. It allowed Schwarzenegger to move to the center."

When the counting is done, Arnold Schwarzenegger, bolstered by swing voters, will garner more votes in the recall than Davis received for his 2002 re-election.

Republicans will take back California's top post. And Democrats will reflect on their first state top-of-ticket loss since 1994.

via the Miami Herald

Terry McAuliffe and other Democratic pols are incoherent on the news shows tonight. Quote according to Drudge:

'PEOPLE ARE VERY ANGRY AT THE COURSE OF OUR NATION... PEOPLE ARE WORRIED ABOUT THEIR JOBS, THEIR HEALTH INSURANCE, THEY ARE TAKING IT OUT ON GRAY DAVIS. AND THEY WILL TAKE IT OUT OF GEORGE BUSH, TOO'...

Yeah, right.

Anomalies, anomalies

National Review's Jed Babbin ponders oddities in the strange tale of l'affaire Wilson-Plame. Inquiring minds want to know. Excerpts:

Intelligence analysts — like all detectives — find excitement in anomalies. An anomaly in conduct — action, reaction, and such — may be insignificant, but is often a clue to what is about to happen, or why something already has. In politics, as well as in intelligence, we ignore anomalies at our peril. Right now, the CIA is awash in them, and the president should be asking George Tenet some really tough questions about Joe Wilson.

The leaker may or may not be found. If he is discovered, he should be punished as the law provides. But the leak while titillating, is unimportant. While we occupy ourselves with the Plame name blame game, we are missing the most important elements of the Wilson affair: the anomalies.

Everyone who works for the CIA in everything having to do with intelligence or foreign governments is required to sign a secrecy agreement that provides the Agency the right to approve and censor what the employee may wish to say or write for public consumption.... A senior intelligence-community source told me that no one as vocal as Wilson could possibly be bound to the usual security agreement. So Wilson wasn't required to sign one. Why? The fact that he was paid only his expenses is no explanation. That's Anomaly Number 1.

Anomaly Number 2: Why was Wilson — uncredentialed in the critical areas, and devoted to a political agenda antithetical to the president's policy — chosen for such an apparently controversial mission?

Wilson's "investigation" was patently inadequate. According to his op-ed, he made no effort to talk to the IAEA, Niger military or intelligence authorities.... Anomaly Number 3: Why was Wilson's verbal report apparently taken at face value? No intelligence professional should have relied on it.

via National Review Online

The evil of two lessers

We should see predictions based on exit polls about the outcome of the California recall vote as soon as the polls close tonight -- 10:00pm Central time. Hard to call and hard to even pick sides; I'm glad to be in Texas.

Californians trooped to the polls in record numbers on Tuesday in what might be the start of a political revolution -- the ousting of a sitting governor for the first time in state's history and the election of a novice who promises to return power to the people.

California's unprecedented recall election entered its last act with voters jammed polling stations to decide unpopular Gov. Gray Davis' political future and decide whether Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger should begin a political career -- at the top.

The California Secretary of State's office said that when voting ends at 8 p.m. PDT (11 p.m. EDT) an estimated 10 million people will have voted -- 2.3 million more than the last gubernatorial election and the highest number of voters for any governor's race in state history -- about 65 percent of registered voters.

via Reuters

Certainly Gray Davis doesn't deserve to be governor. On the other hand, California voters re-elected him knowing who and what he is, so why should their buyers' remorse drive events now?

All the possible outcomes of this exercise carry heavy negatives. If Arnold wins, he's going to need something special to accomplish anything.

Spies among us

This report is more evidence of the breadth and depth of the challenge posed by Islamic fundamentalism. Methods for meeting the challenge are going to be very un-politically correct.

U.S. interpreters at the military prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who are under suspicion of espionage, may have sabotaged interviews with detainees by inaccurately translating interrogators' questions and prisoners' answers, senior U.S. officials said Monday.

It is unclear in how many cases, if any, this may have happened, the officials said. But military investigators are taking the issue seriously enough to review taped interrogations involving the Arabic-language interpreters under scrutiny to spot-check their accuracy.

If the investigators' worst fears are realized, officials said, scores of interviews with suspected Al-Qaida or Taliban prisoners at the detention center could be compromised, and military officials could be forced to re-interview many of the camp's 660 detainees.

On one level, each branch of the military is investigating the espionage-related accusations against members of its own service. But a senior defense official said these inquiries were also being coordinated as part of a broader investigation involving numerous government agencies that he would not discuss in further detail.

"The worst fear is that it's all one interrelated network that was inspired by Al-Qaida," said a senior Air Force official. "But we don't have any concrete evidence of that yet."

New York Times story via the Mercury News

The Three-Block War

Stars and Stripes reports that the Americans in Baghdad say they're fighting a "three-block war," and that the soldiers of the 1st Armored Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team are making progress.

On one block in Baghdad, they say, soldiers are meeting with local officials, working basically as civics teachers — disciples of democracy transferring neighborhood and metropolitan governance skills to Iraqis.

On the next block, soldiers are rebuilding infrastructure ignored for decades by former dictator Saddam Hussein, renovating a school, or funding sewer and water projects with money seized from the deposed regime.

On the third block, they are in a firefight.

With little support from allies or the United Nations, policymakers in Washington, D.C., are using the Army to do a complex, interrelated matrix of missions — everything from nurturing local neighborhood and municipal councils to recruiting spy networks and launching raids.

Nukes at risk?

Well, this isn't very reassuring. Both the cited sources are self-described "whistleblowers" and may just have their own personal agendas, but it's a matter of serious concern.

Security at America's nuclear weapons labs is so lax that the facilities have repeatedly failed drills in which mock terrorists captured radioactive material and escaped, according to an article in Vanity Fair magazine.

"Some of the facilities would fail year after year," said Rich Levernier, who spent six years running war games for the US government until he lost his security clearance in 2001.

"In more than 50 per cent of our tests at the Los Alamos facility, we got in, captured the plutonium, got out again, and in some cases didn't fire a shot, because we didn't encounter any guards."

These failures occurred despite the security forces at the Los Alamos National Laboratories and other nuclear facilities knowing the dates of the drills months in advance, according to the story in next month's Vanity Fair.

via News Interactive (Australia)

LA Times' selective outrage

California voters will have to sort out for themselves what they think of the "groping" allegations against candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger. What they may not know, thanks to the editorial process at the Los Angeles Times, is that Gray Davis has a similar, perhaps worse, record of conduct, as noted by writer Jill Stewart. Bias? You decide.

Since at least 1997, the Times has been sitting on information that Gov. Gray Davis is an "office batterer" who has attacked female members of his staff, thrown objects at subservients and launched into red-faced fits, screaming the f-word until staffers cower.

I published a lengthy article on Davis and his bizarre dual personality at the now-defunct New Times Los Angeles on Nov. 27, 1997, as well as several articles with similar information later on.

The Times was onto the story, too, and we crossed paths. My article, headlined "Closet Wacko Vs. Mega Fibber," detailed how Davis flew into a rage one day because female staffers had rearranged framed artwork on the walls of his office.

He so violently shoved his loyal, 62-year-old secretary out of a doorway that she suffered a breakdown and refused to ever work in the same room with him. She worked at home, in an arrangement with state officials, then worked in a separate area where she was promised Davis would not go. She finally transferred to another job, desperate to avoid him.

He left a message on her phone machine. Not an apology. Just a request that she resume work, with the comment, "You know how I am."

Another woman, a policy analyst, had the unhappy chore in the mid-1990s of informing Davis that a fund-raising source had dried up. When she told Davis, she recounted, Davis began screaming the f-word at the top of his lungs.

The woman stood to demand that he stop speaking that way, and, she says, Davis grabbed her by her shoulders and "shook me until my teeth rattled. I was so stunned I said, 'Good God, Gray! Stop and look at what you are doing. Think what you are doing to me!"'

After my story ran, I waited for the Times to publish its story. It never did. When I spoke to a reporter involved, he said editors at the Times were against attacking a major political figure using anonymous sources.

Just what they did last week to Schwarzenegger.

via the Los Angeles Daily News

Pretense about Chechnya?

Chechnya's long agony continues today with an "election" under Russian auspices.

Voting is going on under tight security in the Russian republic of Chechnya today for a new president.

Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov, chief of the region's election commission, said that at as of midday local time, 19 percent of Chechnya's more than 561,000 eligible voters had cast ballots. Turnout must reach at least 30 percent for the vote to be valid. Sunny weather is expected to favour voter participation.

More than 15,000 troops and police are deployed to guard more than 420 polling stations in the war-battered republic.

Akhmed-hadji Kadyrov, the Russian-backed head of the Chechen administration, is widely expected to win the election, as his serious rivals have all been disqualified or withdrew.

via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Hard to square the carefully neutral press reports about this "election" with a bitter commentary by French philosopher Andre Glucksmann over the world's neglect of Chechnyan suffering. We can, however, say this: very little we hear about Vladimir Putin says he should be trusted to stand up for democracy or human rights.

Yes, Sunday's elections make a mockery of democratic rules, but you will all close your eyes. Paris and Berlin compromise, too eager to integrate into their improbable "peace camp" on Iraq a Russia that is carrying out the dirtiest war of the dawn of the 21st century. Thirsty for Russian oil and natural gas, the European Union swallows its principles and rolls over. Washington, partly out of strategy (nuclear balance), partly out of cynicism, forgets the support in arms and in advice that Moscow gave to Saddam Hussein up until the last minute. Mr. Putin's hands are free and he ridicules democracy by holding up his bloody ballot boxes to the world.

The global capitulation to the Caucasian butchery, worse than a crime, is a grave error. The democratic governments and the millions of demonstrators "against war," who take to the streets against George W. Bush and never against Vladimir Putin, are guilty of not helping a people on the verge of extermination. Indifferent, but not ignorant. They know about the four years of massacres, savagery, terror and horror -- but they don't care.

Lies, blindness, indifference pave over the leaden silence. Worse, world opinion, neither under-informed nor unaware of the risks, tacitly adopts the genocidal impulses that drive the Russian military. The world media rids us of our scruples and washes them away -- a good Chechen is a dead Chechen. So we witness a first in the Caucasus: murder with universal premeditation.

via the Wall Street Journal (subscribers only)

Ted's admirer

As noted yesterday, Ted Kennedy is slated to receive the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service. As if this wasn't bad enough, given Kennedy's unscrupulous recent statements about the current President, now we find this in today's Houston Chronicle:

Former President Bush has the sole discretion on who receives the award, said Penrod Thornton, deputy director of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation. Thornton said he doesn't think the award is anything other than a way for Bush to honor Kennedy.

"Knowing President Bush, it was more about personalities and contributions of the individuals and it didn't have anything to do with politics," Thornton told the Bryan-College Station Eagle for its Saturday editions.

The former President has many fine personal qualities, but this willingness to stroke a bitter and uncompromising political opponent exemplifies what was so wrong about his administration.

A mystery

I wonder why Iraqi scientists would be shot for talking about a threat that didn't exist. After all, George W. Bush and Karl Rove made it all up, right?

Two Iraqi scientists were shot in Baghdad after they talked to the U.S.-led team hunting weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and others believe they will be in danger if they collaborate in the search, Washington's chief weapons inspector David Kay said on Friday.

Some Iraqi scientists have sought relocation in the United States out of fear for the safety of their families, and others who want to stay in Iraq seek security guarantees, Kay told reporters on a conference call. "They believe they are in genuine danger ... if they collaborate with us," he said.

One scientist was "assassinated literally hours after meeting" with a member of the WMD-hunting team, killed by a single shot to the back of his head outside his apartment, Kay said. There were no signs of robbery.

Another scientist, who was "really golden for us," was shot six times but survived, he said. Kay declined to name them.

"The scientist who took six bullets was ... key to starting our understanding of the biological weapons program and pointing us in the direction of others," he said. His nephew was also shot in the incident a month and a half ago, Kay said.

via Reuters

Thai cooperation

Given that world leaders will gather soon in Thailand, glad to learn more about how Thai security is working with the CIA.

United States and Thai officials are collaborating closely in a top-secret counterterrorism operation in Thailand that marks a significant return to the kind of intimate regional security alliances forged by the US against communism at the height of the Vietnam War.

Working directly with at least a score of US Central Intelligence Agency operatives, the Counter Terrorism Intelligence Centre combines key personnel from Thailand's three main security agencies: the National Intelligence Agency; the Special Branch of the Thai police and the elite Armed Forces Security Centre.

The centre relied heavily on the CIA for its structure, guidance and funding, sources said. Nowhere else in South-East Asia are US intelligence officials working as closely on the ground with a host government on matters of counterterrorism and intelligence.

The continuing work of the CTIC, which was established in early 2001, suggests the effort to root out elements loyal to al-Qaeda and its South-East Asian confederates in the Jemaah Islamiyah organisation and other militant groups is far from over.

But already, the CTIC has notched up some important successes. The centre was instrumental in the capture in mid-August of Asia's most-wanted terrorist, Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali.

Wall Street Journal story via the Australian Financial Review

Front Line Voices

A new site is up letting us hear Front Line Voices from the folks in Iraq and elsewhere. Check it out.

Since, as the saying goes, perception is nine-tenths of reality, those who control the means by which we learn about the war in Iraq and other conflicts have an immense power. They can spin a victory into a failure, and a perceived failure in the fight against tyranny can only strengthen the resolve of tyrants.

It has increasingly been the complaint of many troops that the picture painted by the media of the progress in the War on Terror is far from reality. The mission of this site is to get out the fuller story by posting first-hand accounts as written by men and women in uniform who have been to Iraq and Afghanistan and other conflicted areas overseas. There is no editing or commentary by those who run this site, and we will print any letter or story submitted by a legitimate source who has served overseas. Our only goal is to offer you the opportunity to read these stories and to find out what the reality is.

Wilson-Plame (cont.)

Odd, but I haven't seen much attention paid to this statement by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson following his reckless and widely ballyhooed accusation that presidential advisor Karl Rove was personally responsible for leaking the secret identity of his wife, CIA employee Valerie Wilson Plame:

He initially suggested that White House political adviser Karl Rove was responsible for, or at least condoned, the leak and wondered publicly in August about the prospect of Mr. Rove being "frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." Now, he acknowledges that he can't link Mr. Rove directly to the initial disclosure.

"I will freely admit I got carried away," Mr. Wilson says. "If I left the impression that Karl Rove was the leaker or approver of the leak, I didn't intend to." Now, he says Mr. Rove "is a name I am prepared to use as a metaphor for the office."

He claims Mr. Rove did talk to reporters about his wife's role, but only in what he terms "the second phase," after her name had appeared in print. Since Mr. Rove talked about it then, he suggests Mr. Rove's office would be a good place for investigators to begin their inquiry.

via the Wall Street Journal (subscribers only)
Excerpted in the Washington Post (scroll way down)

So, what "phase" are we in now and when will it be safe for Karl Rove to talk about it? Oh that's right -- when he's out of the White House.

ALA - Shush!

The nation's librarians, as exemplified by the activist wannabes at the American Library Association (ALA), found themselves held up to a bit of ridicule this week. Seems that some folks have taken offense to a new Archie McPhee "action figure" of a librarian -- one whose arm "will move with amazing 'shushing action!' " An offended librarian was quoted earlier as saying, "We're so not like that anymore."

Well, Mark Laswell says the doll dust-up is all nonsense, but that there are more serious concerns at stake.

What much of the membership of the American Library Association is so like these days is any other organization in such thrall to left-wing politics that it has an ACLU-like ability to identify an absurd position on almost any topic and instantly adopt it. When former collectors of fines spend the better part of a decade rebranding themselves as passionate defenders of free speech, you can't blame them for their fury at being reduced to shush-dolls. But you can scratch your head over what, exactly, they're defending.

The past few months have been especially perplexing for those of us whose perception of librarians is pretty close to Archie McPhee's. A summer that saw a trifecta of loony ALA firefights began in June with a press release from the 64,000-member organization headlined "ALA denounces Supreme Court ruling on Children's Internet Protection Act." It was a bitter admission of defeat in the ALA's battle against efforts to shield children from Internet pornography in public libraries that receive federal support.

The same week that it attacked the Supreme Court's CIPA ruling, the organization was holding its annual conference in Toronto and failing to come up with anything to say about Fidel Castro's jailing of 14 librarians who dared to set up their homes as lending libraries stocked with reading material that they say the government bans.

A rather different sort of prisoner is being detained elsewhere in Cuba, at Guantanamo Bay, as part of a U.S. effort you might have heard about to discourage people from trying to raze the 50 states. The government would like to keep jailing terrorists, and to that end passed the USA Patriot Act in October 2001, expanding law enforcement's investigative powers. The ALA has been sounding alarms about tyrannous intrusion ever since, decrying parts of the act as "a present danger to the constitutional rights and privacy rights of library users," according to the group's official resolution on the subject.

via the WSJ's OpinionJournal

As Laswell points out, ALA has found itself in de facto defense of children's access to pornography in public libraries and Castro's repression of nascent independent libraries in Cuba, as well as proferring a hysterical overreaction to so-far unused provisions of the USA Patriot Act. Just in the last few days ALA went off on former Attorney General Ed Meese:

The American Library Association (ALA) condemned the ad hominem attack on librarians made by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III this morning on The Today Show and reiterated its commitment to ensure the historic protections of privacy and confidentiality of Americans’ reading records.

“Similar to our current Attorney General, Mr. Meese chose to malign librarians rather than address the real and substantive concerns of millions of Americans and members of Congress,” said ALA President Carla Hayden. “Whether or not the government is using the expanded powers provided by the USA PATRIOT Act in libraries, we must ask: Should the government have the power to obtain Americans’ reading and other personal records without showing probable cause?

As noted here and in other posts, this is absurdly untrue. Among other things, the USA Patriot Act specifically requires a court order to access information such as library circulation records. But ALA's leadership wants to vault itself into being a political player like the NEA and sees this as the horse to ride.

As a former practicing librarian myself, I am more than dubious that ALA's doubletalk and hypocrisy truly reflect the sensibilities of the majority of its membership, any more than most frontline teachers support the NEA's full Leftist agenda. But librarians will be held up to more ridicule, not less, if they allow ALA's current crop of leaders to (appear to) speak for them all.

Bush's prospects

Fred Barnes says not to worry too much about the slump in President Bush's poll numbers -- it's normal for the third year of a first term. And prospects look good for re-election.

Mr. Bush has slumped in his third year in office just as most recent presidents have. A slump is the rule, not the exception. For President Bush, the glow from enacting his major initiatives (tax cuts, education reform) has faded. The economy is soft. His foreign policy, especially in postwar Iraq, has become controversial. And complaints about his presidency from Capitol Hill, even from Republicans, have grown.

Still, there's far more reason than not to expect him to recover and win re-election, perhaps easily. His slump, assuming it's hit bottom, has been milder than the slumps other presidents faced, and his prospects are brighter. President Bush is lucky on the economy. His recession came early, giving the economy time to revive before his re-election campaign in 2004. And his foreign policy crisis is hardly as threatening as Vietnam was for Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. The economy is almost certain to look better in 2004 than today and chances are Iraq will too.

The media's problem in assessing a president's future is invariably seeing the future as a straight-line projection of the present. It rarely works out that way.

via the WSJ's OpinionJournal

Aggie folly

I can't believe that this announcement has been made, or that it's going to go down very well here in Texas.

The George Bush Presidential Library Foundation today announced that United States Senator Edward M. Kennedy would receive the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service at a dinner ceremony held at the Bush Library Center on the Texas A&M campus on November 7. Former President Bush will present the award to the Massachusetts Democrat, who will join former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl as Bush Award recipients. The award will be presented in a ceremony at the Library Center following a 5 p.m. address by the Senator at Rudder Auditorium.

They made this decision despite Kennedy's recklessly bitter and untrue statements about our current President and the war in Iraq:

There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud.

This is what the Foundation says the award is meant to accomplish:

The George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service recognizes an individual's or group's dedication to public service at the local, state, national or international levels. The award underscores President Bush's long service and commitment to public service. In 1997, President Bush confirmed this commitment when he said "Public Service is a noble calling and we need men and women of character to believe that they can make a difference in their communities, in their states and in their country."

It was with this in mind that the Board of Directors of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation instituted this award. The outstanding performance and contribution of the recipient not only serve to highlight their achievements and President Bush's legacy, but also serve as an incentive to us all to take on the challenges of service to others.

How an award to liberal dinosaur Ted Kennedy honors "President Bush's legacy" is beyond me. If one were inclined to express an opinion about this oddity, the Foundation web site lists the following contact information:

George Bush Presidential
 Library Foundation
Texas A&M University
1145 TAMU
College Station, Texas 77843-1145
(979) 862-2251
(979) 862-2253 (FAX)
bushfoundation@gbplc.tamu.edu

Take the quiz

Battle "civic illiteracy." Test yourself on the basics of American history and government via the History & Civics Quiz at the Center for Individual Freedom. Thirteen questions -- no waiting!

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