June 30, 2006
Indelicate
Interesting thoughts via Daniel Henninger on liberty and security:
Jim Woolsey, the former CIA director, agrees that American conspiracy law is a big tent and that "a balance needs to be struck." But he thinks it is a mistake to think about the terror threat in traditional, individual-liberty terms. "The tough case," he said "is what to do with groups that have as their explicit objective, as much of the Muslim Brotherhood does, an Islamic state governing North America? It's hard because it involves raising [security] questions around people who purport that these are their religious beliefs. Our constitutional structure has real problems with that."Those difficulties notwithstanding, Mr. Woolsey thinks it would make sense to attempt a legislative carve-out of special, defined status for this threat, similar to what we did for communism during the Cold War. I agree. We are damaging ourselves now by conflating traditional individual-liberty concerns with the reality of a global, anti-American movement. Sen. Arlen Specter is the leading example of trying to plug ancient square pegs into this new round hole in our security.
To clarify the new threat, Mr. Woolsey analogizes the McCarran Act, "which made the commies' lives here miserable, if not illegal." That's an interesting idea. The American left will go screaming into the streets at the word "McCarran," but I'd urge anyone else to look at the law's description of the enemy; pull out "communist movement" and drop in "Islamic jihad" and the current threat achieves defined status.
The tension between the Bush administration and its critics has much to do with the fact that the government's surveillance programs are justified to fight a blob called "terrorism." The conceit is we're all supposed to mumble, sotto voce, that it's really Islamic terrorism; but for reasons of delicacy the government won't quite say that and won't make it official. That gives the administration's critics at least a basis for arguing that its surveillance claims are too broad. In this way the Taliban on Guantanamo reach the status of Everyman, even in the minds of Supreme Court justices. Why not a congressional act defining the threat? So what if it failed? The purpose would now be plain and even the New York Times could no longer pretend it can't distinguish between wiretaps on revolutionary Islamic fanatics and Patrick Henry's descendants.
June 29, 2006
Living in the past
Peggy Noonan on what The New York Times has devolved to:
The Times rarely seems driven by an agenda to get the news first, fast and clear; to get the story and let the chips fall. It often seems driven by a search for information that might support its suppositions. Which, again, gets boring. The Times never knows what's becoming a huge national issue. It's always surprised by what Americans are thinking.In a way the modern Times is playing to a base, the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and the redoubts of the Upper West Side throughout America: affluent urban neighborhoods and suburbs. The paper plays not to a region but a class.
But one senses the people who run the Times now are not so much living as re-enacting. They're lost on the big new playing field of American media, and they're reenacting their great moments--the Pentagon papers, the Watergate days. They're locked in a pose: We speak truth to (bad Republican) power. Frank Rich is running around with his antiwar screeds as if it's 1968 and he's an idealist with a beard, as opposed to what he is, a guy who if he pierced his ears gravy would come out.
Misunderestimation
New and worthy addition to the blogosphere: Misunderestimation. Check it out.
Bad law
Here's more evidence on the importance of putting conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, ones who won't misread the meaning of war with stateless terrorists.
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying in a strong rebuke that the trials were illegal under U.S. and international law.Bush said there might still be a way to work with Congress to sanction military tribunals for detainees and the American people should know the ruling "won't cause killers to be put out on the street."
The court declared 5-3 that the trials for 10 foreign terror suspects violate U.S. law and the Geneva conventions.
The ruling raises major questions about the legal status of the approximately 450 men still being held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba and exactly how, when and where the administration might pursue the charges against them.
Andrew McCarthy nailed it even before the decision was rendered.
Make no mistake: if this happens, the Supreme Court will have dictated that we now have a treaty with al Qaeda — which no President, no Senate, and no vote of the American people would ever countenance... The Constitution consigns treaty-making to the political branches, not the courts, but a conclusion that Geneva protects Hamdan (and, by extension, his fellow savages) would ominously mean that the courts, under the conveniently malleable guise of "customary international law" can rewrite treaties to mean whatever they like them to mean....Anyone want to bet against me that this won't come to mean criminal trials with virtually all the protections required to be given to U.S. citizens under the Constitution?
June 27, 2006
What goes around...
Ideas, and actions, have consequences. Harvard's faculty can't celebrate so smugly about heaving former university president Larry Summers overboard now that software billionaire Larry Ellison has decided to take back his intended donation of $115 million.
Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison has decided not to give Harvard University a planned gift of $115 million, a company spokesman said Tuesday.Ellison canceled the gift because Lawrence H. Summers stepped down as Harvard's president this month after a stormy tenure at the university, Oracle spokesman Bob Wynne said. Summers announced his resignation in February, after being embroiled in controversy throughout 2005. Wynne said Ellison began to reconsider his donation when it appeared that Summers would step down.
Ellison's promise to Harvard last year created a sensation throughout the philanthropic community because it would have been the school's largest single contribution. The gift would have created a global health foundation named after Ellison.
Wynne said Ellison planned to make a donation to another institution, but had no details as to the size of the planned contribution or where it will be made. Wynne said he didn't know if Ellison had notified Harvard of his intentions.
The inside game in Iraq
The latest commentary by Stratfor's George Friedman examines political maneuvering both inside Iraq and with Iran.
Interesting, as always, although perhaps too optimistic about the intentions and skill of the Iranians.
Unless there is insurgency -- read as a Shiite rising against Shia -- in the south, the United States will implement its withdrawal. It is our bet that the Shia will, in due course, reach a political conclusion, sufficient to bring the militias currently operating against the Sunnis to a cease-fire. Following this, the Sunnis will extend their own stand-down, and so on, in a very sloppy and murderous process.At the end of May, we wrote that either we would see a break point by July 4, or that the situation would be unmanageable. We believe al-Zarqawi's death was that break point, and that his death posed a problem to the Shia that they had not fully expected to face. We are in the midst of that crisis. It is our view that the crisis is serious, but that -- given the alignment of forces -- the mainstream Shiite parties will impose their will. We also believe that the Iranians are more disposed to this outcome than any other, for reasons of both national security and economics.
It therefore makes sense that Casey leaked the drawdown of two brigades by September, and hinted against deeper cuts if the situation warrants. Neither the jihadists nor the dissident Shia are in a position to block the political process, although each will do its utmost to make it appear that the process has fallen apart. Their goal will be to create an impression of collapse, despite their inability to bring about actual collapse.
Iraq's Next Issue
By George Friedman
Two weeks ago, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed, and the Iraqi Cabinet was formed. Last week, the U.S. Congress debated whether to set a fixed timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq or to require that forces begin withdrawing, even without a timetable. Both resolutions were defeated -- the first overwhelmingly, the second with a substantial majority. Then, over this past weekend, the White House began to leak top-secret discussions involving Gen. George Casey, commander of coalition forces in Iraq. The secret was that the United States had decided not to replace two brigades that are returning to the United States in September and to substantially cut U.S. combat power in Iraq by the end of 2007, although the fate of U.S. support troops in Iraq was left open.
The key difference between political factions (the Democrats were not united on either resolution) in the United States is no longer whether U.S. forces will leave Iraq. The issue is whether there will be a public, inflexible timetable for that withdrawal, or whether the timing and magnitude of the withdrawal will remain a secret, subject to changing political and military realities. This is obviously not a trivial distinction. The second option leaves the Bush administration free to execute policy as it will, while leaving other players in and around Iraq uncertain as to what the United States will do. Nevertheless, it indicates that there is now consensus that it is time to draw down U.S. combat power in Iraq -- and that is not trivial either.
We now have the question of the circumstances under which the United States would accelerate or slow the withdrawal of forces. Casey mentioned several, but the most important consideration would be whether the Sunni insurgency spreads beyond the six Sunni provinces. Given the fact that the Sunni insurgency has not spread beyond these provinces for three years, it seems odd that Casey would have mentioned this as a key variable. Why would the Sunni insurrection spread now, when Sunni-Shiite tensions are as great as they are? The Shia are hardly going to simply join forces with the Sunnis. Casey obviously knows the factors off which he would key withdrawals, and he is quite reasonably focused on the Shiite areas -- though not because he is concerned about the Sunni insurrection catching on in Shiite country.
Let us review what has happened, from Stratfor's point of view. First, last December, the Sunni leadership decided to participate in the electoral process. The leadership did not abandon or undercut the insurgency, but rather used it as a tool for improving its political leverage. This process continued until a coalition Cabinet was formed, with all positions filled save the most important: the ministries of interior, national security and defense. The final formation of the Cabinet -- and the appointment of a Sunni as defense minister -- was delayed, pending a Sunni demonstration of good faith. There could be no meaningful Iraqi government if the Sunni politicians could not or would not shut down the insurgency. But, 40 minutes after al-Zarqawi's death was announced, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also announced the final formation of a Cabinet, with a Sunni defense minister. The political deal was made.
This disrupted but did not, by itself, shut down al Qaeda's operations, nor did violence by nonjihadist factions cease. What did happen was that the Sunnis demonstrated their willingness and ability to provide intelligence that destroyed the man the Shia hated and feared the most. It was a down-payment by the Sunnis. That meant it was the Shia's turn to reciprocate. Specifically, the Sunnis -- and the Americans -- expected the Shia at that point to start bringing their various armed militias under control, particularly those that had been striking at Sunnis in retaliation for al-Zarqawi's attacks. The question shifted from one of Sunni intentions to one of Shiite intentions.
This turn of events also precipitated a crisis in the Shiite community. Fighting among Shia, which had been simmering since the formation of the partial Cabinet (before al-Zarqawi's death), now broke out in the open. From Basra to Baghdad, Shiite factions clashed over a number of issues involving a range of groups. Behind the disparate clashes there were two questions. First, would the Shia actually accept a strong central government, controlled by a coalition that included Sunnis and Kurds? Second, if this actually was happening, what would be the power structure within the Shiite community?
If there was going to be a government, then the final arrangements within the Shiite community were urgent. The bus was leaving, and everyone was scrambling for the best seats.
The Shiite Factions
Though there are many disagreements and fault lines within the Shiite community, the primary Shiite power struggle is between two factions. The dominant faction consists of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and its ally, Hizb al-Dawah. The other faction is al-Fadhila, which is the fourth-largest party within the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance coalition, but the dominant party in the Basra region. The Basra region is critical to the Shia -- it is where the oil is. Embedded in all of the political arguments is a fundamental question: Who in Iraq will control the southern oil fields and, therefore, the royalties from those fields and the investments that are sure to pour in if some degree of stability is reached?
If the Baghdad government gets the money, then the Shia as a community would benefit only to the extent that Baghdad redirects money toward them. That would mean that Sunnis would get a cut; it also would mean that politicians in Baghdad, not at the regional level, would control oil revenues and investment. If the oil were controlled by a regional Shiite government, as SCIRI leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim has suggested, then the mainstream Shiite leaders grouped around SCIRI would control the oil. And under either of these scenarios, the local Basra politicians, grouped around al-Fadhila, would get little or nothing.
So long as the prospect of an Iraqi government remained an abstract theory, there was no urgency to settle these questions. But as the Cabinet started to become a reality, the tension rose. When al-Zarqawi was killed and the Cabinet was fully formed, the question of who controlled the southern oil fields became absolutely urgent. Al-Fadhila was not fighting to control the fields, but for guarantees that it would be permitted a seat at the table. It needed to make clear that, without those guarantees, it was prepared to resist. Therefore, Shia fought Shia in Basra.
This struggle provided an opening for another Shiite faction. Muqtada al-Sadr, whose name will be recalled from previous battles with the Shiite mainstream in An Najaf and other cities, saw events in Basra as an opportunity to reassert his claims. Al-Sadr wants to position himself as the true leader of the Shiite community; thus, SCIRI's militia (known as the Badr Brigades) and al-Sadr's forces (the Mehdi Army) clashed in Baghdad. In point of fact, the emerging coalition government represents a threat to al-Sadr's long-term survival. If it locks into place, he will lose his room for maneuver, his claim to power and probably, in the long run, his life.
If the Shiite leadership delivers what it must in return for al-Zarqawi's head, it must integrate -- and dissolve -- all militias. Al-Sadr knows this means the Badr Brigades would be integrated into the Iraqi army as distinct units, while the Mehdi Army could be dispersed and even disarmed. Therefore, he views the kind of settlement being contemplated as a threat to his fundamental interests. He had no choice but to roll the dice and -- given events in Basra -- he hoped, and apparently still hopes, that he can at least negotiate a deal to keep the Mehdi Army intact.
Tehran's Perspective
This brings us to the Iranians. They have deep influence among the Shia in Iraq -- but not enough to control their behavior. They do have enough to block any deal that Tehran does not want to see come about. The influence of the Iranians does not lie primarily with what we might call the dissident forces. The Iranians actually are more influential with SCIRI and mainstream Iraqi Shia who have been at the forefront of the political process. Clearly, whatever Iran's rhetoric has been, the leadership in Tehran has not been averse to allowing the process to get this far.
There is a core point of friction between the Iraqi Shia and Iran: oil. There is no question but that the Iranians are thoughtfully contemplating the Basra oil fields. They are valuable as they stand, but will be even more valuable once fully developed. They would make an attractive addition to Iran's holdings. To achieve this, Iran does not have to annex the fields. Rather, Iranian business leaders, all of whom have close ties to Iran's political and religious leaders, would simply have to be in a dominant position to manage that development. While Iran constantly bluffs about an oil cutoff that would wreck Iran's economy, it is far more interested in the future of the Basra oil fields.
When viewed from this angle, we can understand why the Iranians have not blocked the political developments in Baghdad. A strong government in Baghdad, dominated by SCIRI, would be the most likely to give primary consideration to Iranian interests in operating the Basra fields. Second, a strong government in Baghdad, dominated by Shia, is in the interests of Iranian national security, since it would guarantee Iran's western frontiers. Iran cannot achieve this second goal if Iraq fragments, nor does Tehran want to deal with local interests in Basra. Shortly after al-Zarqawi was killed, SCIRI's al-Hakim was in Tehran, talking things over. Though there might be adjustments in the degree of regional autonomy -- read, regionally held oil revenues -- over time, there is no indication that al-Hakim or the Iranians have rejected the basic architecture laid out by the government.
From the standpoint of the Basra leadership and al-Sadr, they needed to act -- and quickly -- if they were not to be completely squeezed out of the play. The death of al-Zarqawi signaled that the political process was going to move forward, and that they should either act now or forever hold their peace. Therefore, they acted. At the very least -- and most -- they hope to guarantee their financial and political futures by posing a challenge sufficiently grave as to undermine Sunni-Shiite understandings. In short, they are holding the political arrangements hostage.
The tendency among Iraqi Shia is to make menacing moves and loud noises while conducting quiet and effective negotiations, particularly when dealing with each other. What appears to be catastrophic breakdown in the Shiite community essentially is positioning in a complex bargaining process. But the fact is that SCIRI holds most of the cards, including the largest Iranian one. Unless SCIRI breaks with the political process, it will hold. And at some point, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani will step forward and dictate the terms to which all of the participants have already agreed.
Back to the Future
This, then, was what Casey was talking about. Unless there is insurgency -- read as a Shiite rising against Shia -- in the south, the United States will implement its withdrawal. It is our bet that the Shia will, in due course, reach a political conclusion, sufficient to bring the militias currently operating against the Sunnis to a cease-fire. Following this, the Sunnis will extend their own stand-down, and so on, in a very sloppy and murderous process.
At the end of May, we wrote that either we would see a break point by July 4, or that the situation would be unmanageable. We believe al-Zarqawi's death was that break point, and that his death posed a problem to the Shia that they had not fully expected to face. We are in the midst of that crisis. It is our view that the crisis is serious, but that -- given the alignment of forces -- the mainstream Shiite parties will impose their will. We also believe that the Iranians are more disposed to this outcome than any other, for reasons of both national security and economics.
It therefore makes sense that Casey leaked the drawdown of two brigades by September, and hinted against deeper cuts if the situation warrants. Neither the jihadists nor the dissident Shia are in a position to block the political process, although each will do its utmost to make it appear that the process has fallen apart. Their goal will be to create an impression of collapse, despite their inability to bring about actual collapse.
The Iranians remain the wild card. They are, as always, keeping their options open. They have a fundamental disagreement with the United States over the long term: They do not want a residual American strike force remaining in Iraq. This is something the Americans have always planned for and want. The Iranians are betting that the Americans will tire and go home; the Americans are betting that the Iranians will not notice when the drawdown ends. This is not a trivial issue for either. At the same time, it is our guess (but not certainty) that neither side cares enough about the issue, or doubts its ability to deal with it in due course, to wreck the political process in Baghdad. The Americans do not want to occupy a chaotic Iraq, and Iran does not want chaos on its western frontier.
This report may be distributed or republished with attribution to Strategic Forecasting, Inc. at www.stratfor.com.
Where not to go
Here's a unauthorized photographic tour, by a Russian visitor, of strange and impoverished North Korea. Very interesting.
The city at night is scary, there is no light on the streets and people use white lights and no curtains.
Click through the subsequent posts on this message board to see both comments and additional photography submitted by other participants in the discussion thread.
Tip via Kim Komando.
June 26, 2006
Blurry no more
Here's another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences in action: how laser eye surgery is both good and bad for the U.S. Navy. (Tip via Amy in N.C.)
Nearly a third of every 1,000-member Naval Academy class now undergoes the procedure, part of a booming trend among military personnel with poor vision. Unlike in the civilian world, where eye surgery is still largely done for convenience or vanity, the procedure's popularity in the armed forces is transforming career choices and daily life in subtle but far-reaching ways.Aging fighter pilots can now remain in the cockpit longer, reducing annual recruiting needs. And recruits whose bad vision once would have disqualified them from the special forces are now eligible, making the competition for these coveted slots even tougher.
But the surgery is also causing the military unexpected difficulties. By shrinking the pool of people who used to be routinely available for jobs that do not require perfect eyesight, it has made it harder to fill some of those assignments with top-notch personnel, officers say....
For generations, Academy graduates with high grades and bad eyes were funneled into the submarine service. But in the five years since the Naval Academy began offering free eye surgery to all midshipmen, it has missed its annual quota for supplying the navy with submarine officers every year.
June 25, 2006
Aussies and Yanks
Charles Krauthammer fully appreciates the rationale behind the alliance between America and Australia.
God, I love Australia....Of course I'm prejudiced, having married an Australian, but how not to like a country, in this age of sniveling grubs worldwide, whose treasurer suggests to any person who "wants to live under sharia law" to try Saudi Arabia and Iran, "but not Australia." He was elaborating on an earlier suggestion that "people who ... don't want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then they can basically clear off."... Australia is the only country that has fought with the United States in every one of its major conflicts since 1914, the good and the bad, the winning and the losing.
Why? Because Australia's geographic and historical isolation has bred a wisdom about the structure of peace — a wisdom that eludes most other countries. Australia has no illusions about the "international community" and its feckless institutions. An island of tranquility in a roiling region, Australia understands that peace and prosperity do not come with the air we breathe, but are maintained by power — once the power of the British Empire, now the power of the United States.
Australia joined the faraway wars of early 20th-century Europe not out of imperial nostalgia, but out of a deep understanding that its fate and the fate of liberty were intimately bound with that of the British Empire as principal underwriter of the international system. Today the underwriter is America, and Australia understands that an American retreat or defeat — a chastening consummation devoutly, if secretly, wished by many a Western ally — would be catastrophic for Australia and for the world.
When Australian ambassadors in Washington express support for the United States, it is heartfelt and unalloyed, never the "yes, but" of the other allies, perfunctory support followed by a list of complaints, slights and sage finger-wagging. Australia understands America's role and is sympathetic to its predicament as reluctant hegemon. That understanding has led it to share foxholes with Americans from Korea to Kabul. They fought with us at Tet and now in Baghdad. Not every engagement has ended well. But every one was strenuous, and many quite friendless. Which is why America has such affection for a country whose prime minister said after 9/11, "This is no time to be an 80 percent ally," and actually meant it.
June 24, 2006
"24" vs. Reality
The Heritage Foundation hosted a program yesterday on the hit show "24" and the reality of counter-terrorism.
Take it from Michael Chertoff: The Homeland Security Department is no "24." Chertoff, the department's secretary, said Friday he doesn't have a way-cool, state-of-the-art Counter Terrorist Unit like the one on the Fox TV show. Bad guys aren't foiled on an hourly basis. And not everybody is romantically involved with co-workers.So by the time the clock stopped on a two-hour panel that included "24" cast members, Washington policy wonks and Rush Limbaugh, some mythical similarities between the show and the government's counterterrorism campaign had been debunked. And that was none too soon for Mary Lynn Rajskub, who plays techno-chick Chloe O'Brian on "24," and clearly had her fill of those who take the show a mite too seriously.
"I got into acting to avoid politics and so I can remain in a fantasy world," said Rajskub, who seemed bewildered at questions about how closely "24" cleaves to reality. "And you guys are kind of bringing me out of it."
Gregory Itzin, who plays the nefarious President Charles Logan, said he has had to defend himself from one or two people "about the fact that the show does have torture issues and how could I live with that."
"It's a show!" he said. "I've done Shakespeare and have killed people with a sword."
Coolness: Heritage has posted a link to the video of the entire program. C-SPAN will air the program Sunday afternoon.
Lonesome and wild
Invest about 25 minutes of your time and take in this Fresh Air interview with singer James Hand. Listen carefully to what he says; it's remarkable in many ways.
I'm adding this CD to my wish list. It's not actually his first recording, just his first "national" release.
At age 53, Texas singer James Hand has just released his debut album, The Truth Will Set You Free. Hand has been singing and playing for nearly four decades, but he's mostly performed in small town dives. Hand is also a horse trainer when he's not singing. His sound has been compared to Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell.
Related:
• James Hand official site
• Austin Chronicle - Where the Shadows are Deepest
June 18, 2006
Take that
So the general convention of the Episcopal Church has decided to thrust yet another stick in the eye of the worldwide Anglican church.
Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori became the first woman elected to lead a church in the global Anglican Communion when she was picked today to be the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.It was another groundbreaking and controversial move for a denomination that consecrated Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop just three years ago.
The choice of Jefferts Schori may worsen — and could even splinter — the already difficult relations between the American denomination and its fellow Anglicans. Episcopalians have been sparring with many in the other 37 Anglican provinces over homosexuality, but a female leader adds a new layer of complexity to the already troubled relationship.
Only two other Anglican provinces — New Zealand and Canada — have female bishops, although a handful of other provinces allow women to serve in the post. Still, there are many Anglican leaders who believe women should not even be priests.
Gasps could be heard throughout the vast convention hall when Jefferts Schori's name was announced.... [S]everal delegates said they feared the global consequences.
"I can't help but consider the peculiar genius our church has for roiling the waters," said the Rev. Eddie Blue of Maryland. "I am shocked, dismayed and saddened by the choice."
Thus do the delegates and their allies in much of the Episcopal heirarchy cast aside, with cavalier disdain, more of an historic institution's long heritage and tradition. They are drunk on their own self-centered sense of purpose.
Father's Day 2006
Here's author Jennifer Roback Morse with a slightly different take on Father's Day:
Father’s Day is a day for honoring fathers. But I would like to take a step back and honor men as husbands. In our enlightened, liberated era, we have a tendency to overlook men as husbands, since the father is so often not the husband of the mother. But without some kind of connection between the man and the woman, there is quite literally, no child.I’d like to make the case that the most important thing fathers can do for their children is to love their mother. And likewise, among the many things mothers do for their children, one of the most important is that mothers love their children’s father.
Indeed. And that thought explains why She and I enjoy the years when Father's Day coincides with our anniversary (28th this time). Thanks again, dear.
June 15, 2006
On the run
Here's the kind of news we want to hear.
Iraq's national security adviser said Thursday a "huge treasure" of documents and computer records seized after the raid on terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's hideout has given the Iraqi government the upper hand in its fight against al-Qaida in Iraq.Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie... said a laptop, flashdrive and other documents were found in the debris after the airstrike that killed the al-Qaida in Iraq leader last week outside Baqouba, and more information has been uncovered in raids of other insurgent hideouts since then.
When asked how he could be sure the information was authentic, al-Rubaie said "there is nothing more authentic than finding a thumbdrive in his pocket."
"We believe that this is the beginning of the end of al-Qaida in Iraq," al-Rubaie said, adding that the documents showed al-Qaida is in "pretty bad shape," politically and in terms of training, weapons and media.
"Now we have the upper hand," he said, speaking in English and Arabic at a news conference in Baghdad. "We feel that we know their locations, the names of their leaders, their whereabouts, their movements, through the documents we found during the last few days."
"They did not anticipate how powerful the Iraqi security forces are and how the government is on the attack now," al-Rubaie said, expressing optimism that the government would be able "to destroy al-Qaida and to finish this terrorist organization in Iraq."
He said the documents, which he promised to release gradually after investigations were finished, would reveal details about the inner workings of the terror group and show how "al-Qaida is using everyone as a pawn to play in this wargame, in this game of killing Iraqi people and destroying this country."
They "will show how their central strategy is to divide and destroy," he said.
June 11, 2006
Ethanol blues
Everyone whines about high prices at the gas pump, but a report in the Houston Chronicle says part of the problem locally is... our government and its allies in the farm lobby.
Gasoline market observers said the biggest factor of the moment driving up the price of gasoline in Houston is high ethanol prices.There are many other factors that go into setting the price of a gallon of gasoline — station operators have different fuel suppliers, competitors, rents and retail operations — which helps explain why there can be a dime's difference in the price of unleaded gas at stations a couple of blocks apart.
Though ultimately gasoline prices react to oil prices, for now there are also concerns about the cost of the ethanol coming from the Midwest.
The Houston area and the Dallas-Fort Worth area share the distinction of having the most expensive gasoline in Texas. In both places service stations are required to sell a gasoline blend with 10 percent ethanol that is designed to reduce emissions in these cities with air pollution problems.
Because of the high level of air pollution in this area and the Dallas-Fort Worth area, gas stations in eight counties throughout the Greater Houston area and four in North Texas use a formula of gasoline mixed with 10 percent ethanol. This has pushed up prices because ethanol is now far more expensive than the additive it replaced: MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, which has been linked to water pollution.
The gasoline sold in Beaumont or Corpus Christi doesn't need to be blended.
Brad Proctor, an analyst with GasPriceWatch.com, said the higher prices reflect the switch by oil refiners to gasoline blends with ethanol in major markets with pollution problems.
As a result of a nationwide changeover to ethanol from MTBE, many of the bio fuel suppliers in the corn belt states have struggled to accommodate increasing demands for ethanol.
"It's now in great demand so the farmers' prices are going up. It's like anything, when demand goes up, the price of a commodity goes up," Proctor said.
The war inside Guantanamo
There's plenty of hand-wringing among the media elites today about the trio of terrorist suicides at Guantanamo Bay on Saturday, but the commander at Guantanamo has the most insightful observation:
"They are smart, they are creative, they are committed," [Rear Adm. Harry] Harris said. "They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."
So these combatants are no different from their suicide bomber brethren, even in terms of the intended impact: world opinion. (At least this time there were no civilian casualties.)
Bad for them: the impact is being muted by the contemporaneous victory over Zarqawi in Iraq. That must be a disappointment to the neck-stretched threesome from their new vantage point in Hades.
June 10, 2006
CENTCOM
CENTCOM wrote earlier this week to point out some of their online resources:
• Videos, including the cockpit video of the Zarqawi strike
• Daily press releases, which include updates about anti-terror activity
Very useful.
For your convenience, this seems to be the same official cockpit video, via Google video:
Pettifoggery
Charles Krauthammer peers through the fog of dimwittery currently prevalent on Capitol Hill and finds something worth pondering.
Since the main business of Congress is to devise ever more ingenious ways (earmarked and non-earmarked) to waste taxpayers' money, any distraction from the main business is welcome. As for dividing Americans, who came up with the idea of radically altering the most ancient of all social institutions in the first place? Until the last few years, every civilization known to man has defined marriage as between people of opposite sex. To charge with "divisiveness" those who would do nothing more than resist a radical overturning of that norm is a sign of either gross partisanship or serious dimwittedness.And that partisanship and dimwittedness obscured the rather interesting substance of the recent Senate debate. It revolved around the two possible grounds for the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment: federalism and popular sovereignty.
Back to the future
John Little has taken the wraps off Blogs of War v5. Check it out.
June 08, 2006
Satisfying day
So, the only thing better than a dead terrorist is a dead terrorist mastermind. Abu Musab Zarqawi, now residing in Hell for, oh, eternity, won't be problem anymore. As one unnamed official said earlier today, "At worst this is really, really good, at best it's ground-breaking."
This thug's nature was revealed clearly in 2004:
It took the masked men almost 20 seconds to decapitate Nicholas Berg, the American civilian who fell into the hands of ruthless assassins in Iraq. A grainy five-minute videotape of Berg's horrifying death is the latest and most shocking image to emerge from a strife-torn occupation--one that brings home all too clearly the threat facing every American in Iraq. A 26-year-old self-employed telecommunications expert from suburban Philadelphia, Berg apparently had no connection to the U.S. occupation government, but the exact circumstances of his disappearance remain something of a mystery.What seems clear is that Berg had the misfortune to run into one of America's most sought-after terrorists. Using sophisticated voice analysis, CIA officials have determined with "high probability" that the man who wielded the knife and later brandished the severed head for the camera is Abu Musab Zarqawi, a feared associate of the al Qaeda terrorist network.
The Iraqi people and Zarqawi's other victims deserve this large piece of justice.
June 07, 2006
Their war against us
Here's Michael Ledeen on Iran and our latest diplomatic gambit.
It is utterly fanciful to think that Iran will negotiate away their nuclear-weapons program, whatever the combination of diplomatic carrots and sticks. They have no interest whatsoever in giving away their bombs, whatever the actual status of their arsenal. For them, the only point of negotiations is to gain more time to pursue their war against us, to kill more Americans and Brits in Iraq, to mobilize more jihadis all over the region, to threaten our regional friends and allies, to enlarge their terror network throughout the world, to stuff their war chest with petrodollars, and to enlarge their arsenal.I do not believe any of the Europeans seriously believes that the mullahs will abandon any of their war plans, whether it is enrichment or terrorism or political subversion or the intimidation of lesser regional players. I think the Europeans view the negotiations as a method of restraining us, not bringing the Iranians to heel. They have long since adopted a policy of total appeasement. To her shame Chancellor Merkel came to Washington a few weeks ago and begged President Bush to play along. And he shamefully agreed.
Shame or mere delusion, the cost will likely be the same one day, perhaps soon: war.
RIP: Billy Preston
World-famous keyboardist Billy Preston has died. He was born in Houston, and Michael D. Clark provides an informative look at his life and times.
For a gifted, influential musician often tagged "the fifth Beatle," Billy Preston never became a household name like John, Paul, George or Ringo. But the Houston-born rock, soul and gospel phenom was an essential musical mover and shaker whose keyboards and vocals can be heard on some of rock 'n' roll's most enduring recordings....[Ray] Charles reportedly once said, "Billy Preston is the man I would like to carry on the work I have started."
But rock 'n' roll, rather than R&B, beckoned.
Preston got to know the Beatles in the early '60s while he was on tour with Little Richard. He signed with the Fab Four's Apple Records in the mid-'60s.
Though Preston recorded several albums for Apple, he drew more attention for his work with the Beatles as the group's session keyboardist. Preston added keys to The Beatles (better known as "The White Album"), Abbey Road and Let It Be. He performed with the band at its famous final rooftop concert. For his work on the song Get Back, Preston became the only non-Beatle to receive a songwriting credit on the group's singles.
The Beatles work made Preston a go-to keyboard player for the next decade. He appeared on Franklin's Live at Fillmore West and Young, Gifted and Black, Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, Eric Clapton's No Reason To Cry and Luther Vandross' The Night I Fell in Love.
He was also a staple on the Rolling Stones' experimental and highly regarded '70s recordings such as Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St. and Goat's Head Soup.
And he was active until the end. Read the whole story.
June 06, 2006
D-Day
62 years ago today, Allied forces led by the United States of America landed on the beaches in Normandy, France, to retake Europe from the cold grip of Nazi tyranny.
The price of freedom? The American cemetary at Normandy, France holds the remains of 9,387 U.S. soldiers killed. 1, 557 soldiers were declared Missing in Action in the vicinity of the cemetery.
June 04, 2006
Not Vietnam
As we suffer through Big Media's newfound obsession with the untypical misconduct of a few Marines in Iraq, keep Mark Steyn's words in mind.
For three years, coalition forces in Iraq behaved so well that a salivating Vietnam culture had to make do with the thinnest of pickings: one depraved jailhouse, a prisoner on a dog leash with a pair of Victoria's Secret panties on his head and an unusually positioned banana. "Just look at the way U.S. army reservist Lynndie England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi," wrote Robert Fisk, the dean of the global media's Middle Eastern correspondents. "No sadistic movie could outdo the damage of this image. In September 2001, the planes smashed into the buildings; today, Lynndie smashes to pieces our entire morality with just one tug on the leash."Down, boy.
But now at last the media have their story. They're off the leash. And, if the worst rumors are true, those 10 Marines will come to symbolize the 99.99 percent of their comrades who every day do great things for the Iraqi and Afghan people. In 2004, in the wake of Abu Ghraib, I wrote that "there is something not just ridiculous but unbecoming about a hyperpower 300 million strong whose elites -- from the deranged former vice president down -- want the outcome of a war, and the fate of a nation, to hinge on one freaky jailhouse; elites who are willing to pay any price, bear any burden, as long as it's pain-free, squeaky-clean and over in a week. The sheer silliness dishonors the memory of all those we're supposed to be remembering this Memorial Day."
Two years on, it's even worse. If you examine the assumptions underlying speeches by professors, media grandees, etc., it's hard not to agree with the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto, that these days America can only fight Vietnam, over and over: Every war is "supposed to become a quagmire, which provokes opposition and leads to American withdrawal.'' That's how the nation demonstrates its "moral virtue" -- i.e., its parochial self-absorption.
Read the whole thing.
Freedom will blossom?
Chinese security forces reacted in their typical fashion on today's anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Chinese police tore up a protester's poster and detained at least two people on Beijing's Tiananmen Square today as the country marked 17 years since local troops crushed a pro-democracy demonstration in the public space.An elderly woman tried to pull out a poster with apparently political material written on it, but police ripped it up and then took her away in a van.
A farmer tried to stage a protest apparently unrelated to the 1989 crackdown, but he also was taken away in a van.
After dawn, a group of tourists tried to open a banner while posing for a photo, catching the attention of police, who quickly forced them to put the nonpolitical material away. They were not detained.
Discussion of the crackdown is still taboo in China outside of the semiautonomous regions of Hong Kong and Macau. Chinese television news and major newspapers did not mention the anniversary.
In Hong Kong, several hundred people holding candles gathered at Victoria Park, creating a sea of lights covering four soccer fields. They observed a brief silence and organizers laid wreaths at a makeshift shrine dedicated to "martyrs of democracy."
The crowd also sang the pro-democracy song, "Freedom Flower," with the lyrics: "No matter how heavy the rain beats, freedom will blossom."
Organizers claimed 44,000 attended the commemoration, but police put the figure at 19,000. The crowd size was likely hurt by rainy weather in recent days and the lack of major political disputes.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, died during those days.
• Wikipedia - Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989
• PBS Frontline - The Tank Man
Deep thinker Thomas Barnett says the Chinese aren't a long-term threat, but I still worry.
June 01, 2006
Remembering
Here's something fascinating: a new online history of one of the great and terrible battles of World War One.
Graphic accounts of the bloodiest single day in the history of the British Army have been given new life online, 90 years after they were written.Vivid letters and diary entries penned in the trenches on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916, have been unearthed from the collection of the Imperial War Museum. They have been put in a new permanent online exhibition ahead of the anniversary of the battle next month.
The original letters and diaries are on show in an exhibition at the museum's London branch alongside items from the battle, including a revolver carried by the Lord of the Rings creator JRR Tolkien and a football kicked across no-man's land.
Tolkien, who served as a 2nd lieutenant with the Lancashire Fusiliers in 1916, is one of 20 individuals whose experiences at the Somme are followed in the online exhibition.
The accounts, many hand-written by men who were die hours later, tell the story of the catastrophic day in which the British Army suffered almost 60,000 casualties, of whom almost 20,000 died. The battle, which lasted until November 1916, cost the nation 420,000 casualties in all.
The war and its violent toll had a profound influence on Tolkien's life and writing.
"One has personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead."
His vivid scenes of Frodo, Samwise, and Gollum inching their way through the haunted Dead Marshes before the Black Gate of Morder seem right out of Tolkien's memories of the trenches and blasted landscapes of the Western front.
In his spare time off duty, in the barracks behind the front, and often disturbed by music from gramophones (as he would later say), Tolkien started writing in a notebook the beginning of a mythology that he initially called The Book of Lost Tales. He would never finish this book, although most of it would eventually be published as The Silmarillon.In those months Death was omnipresent. Bodies of British and German soldiers lay unburied, stinking and rotting, around him in No Mans Land. Writing became for Tolkien a way to deal with this brutality and barbarity around him. He wrote whenever he found an opportunity, "in huts full of blasphemy and smut, or by candle light in bell-tents, even down in dugouts under shell fire".
So perhaps some good came from the carnage after all.
Imperial War Museum - The Battle of the Somme