Father Of The Year

Some men never get the hang of fatherhood; they make the effort but never quite figure out how to parent a child. Others just never give a damn from the start:

A man who was released from jail so that he could donate a kidney to his ailing son was being sought in Mexico yesterday after he went on the run before the organ could be removed.

Byron Perkins from Kentucky was awaiting sentencing for drugs and firearms offences and facing a minimum 25 years in prison. But he was allowed out after tearfully convincing officials that he wanted to help his son, Destin, 15, who has dialysis twice a week.

Perkins was not wearing an electronic ankle bracelet because doctors told the judge who approved his release it would interfere with medical tests.

"He was crying, he was just literally begging the judge," a police spokeswoman told reporters.

"He told the judge, 'My son is going to die if I don't give him this kidney. He's so sick right now'."

Perkins went for hospital tests but vanished before his kidney could be removed. He had been freed on an unsecured bond of $10,000 (£5,800), which did not require him to put up any cash, prompting criticisms that local law enforcement authorities had been lax.

How Perkins managed to convince a court to allow him an unrestricted release is beyond me. It appears that he's done little in life except look out for himself. As sick as his son already is, one's heart has to break at his realization that his father used him to escape from prison, and has left him to possibly die rather than fulfill his promise to save his life. That's worse than the jail break itself.

Hopefully the law catches up with Perkins, and soon.

Milosevic Dead

Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic died last night of apparent natural causes in his cell at a UN detention center in Amsterdam. The AP reports that the subject of the often-delayed war crimes trial died of natural causes:

Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader who orchestrated the Balkan wars of the 1990s and was on trial for war crimes, was found dead in his prison cell near The Hague, the U.N. tribunal said Saturday.

Milosevic, 64, apparently died of natural causes, a tribunal press officer said. He was found dead in his bed at the U.N. detention center.

Milosevic has been on trial since February 2002, defending himself against 66 counts of crimes, including genocide, in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

The trial repeatedly was interrupted by Milosevic's poor health and chronic heart condition. It was recessed last week until Tuesday to await his next defense witness.

His death comes less than a week after the star witness in his trial, former Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic, was found dead in the same prison. Babic, who was serving a 13-year prison sentence, committed suicide. He testified against Milosevic in 2002.

Milosevic's death cheated the Hague, which had hoped to finally convict the former leader of Yugoslavia of various war crimes. The numerous delays in the trial, which had just "celebrated" its fourth year in progress, had been prompted by suspicious health complaints. It looks like either Milosevic and his doctors told the truth, or perhaps the lies just caught up with him.

The strange, chameleon-like Serbian demagogue had managed to survive and even thrive during one of the weirdest political careers in history. He started four wars, and lost them all, but the Serbians simply could not get enough of Milosevic. Even with the evidence of his genocidal tactics coming to the fore, he almost won a final term in office -- and when he briefly attempted to retain his office by force, his popularity did not entirely diminish. After holing up in Serbia for six month, he finally was arrested and placed in UN custody to face criminal charges almost five years ago. The trial itself became a farce, far worse than the oft-criticized Saddam Hussein trial, as Milosevic attempted to subpoena leaders like Bill Clinton for testimony.

In the end, he beat the Hague and the UN in the limited arena left to him. He stalled the trial long enough to die before its completion and made the Hague look like incompetents and fools. Like all sociopaths, he wanted to control as much as possible right to the very end -- and unfortunately, he succeeded.

Why Has McCain Become A Bush Cheerleader?

Chris Matthews reports at MS-NBC that John McCain plans to instruct delegates at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference to vote for George Bush as a write-in candidate instead of voting for him as the preferred nominee for 2008. Matthews says that McCain asks this to show support for the President, presently in a rough patch, and to keep the GOP's focus on 2006:

It's early on at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference down here, but already we've learned some big news.

Sources tell me that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., plans to shock his supporters tonight by asking them to NOT vote for him in the presidential straw poll that will be conducted by The Hotline on Saturday.

Instead, McCain will urge his followers to write in President Bush's name. McCain will tell his supporters that this is not about 2008, but rather about 2006 and supporting the president.

According to McCain's supporters, he'll say: "I think we have bigger things to worry about. So if any friends here are thinking about voting for me, please don't. Just write in President Bush's name."

McCain has supported Bush in elections and on the war, but has not given Bush much support for his legislative agenda. He has also gone out of his way to play the "maverick" during the last six years, often crossing the White House on key issues. His defection on the Byrd option to defeat the obstructionism that Democrats employed against over a third of Bush's nominees to the appellate courts cost Bush a number of his judicial appointments, including Henry Saad and Brett Kavanaugh.

In short, McCain has made a pest out of himself, and seemed to enjoy playing the centrist gadfly that attracts all of the media attention. So why has he suddenly taken on a role as Bush's chief defender?

Two reasons spring to mind. Since the beginning of the year, McCain has tried to patch up his standing with Bush supporters in the party. McCain discovered that while he polls well in the general electorate, his numbers among actual Republicans would prevent him from winning the primaries. Repairing his image as a sell-out and an enemy of free speech will take a huge effort, and this toadying at the SRLC appears to be part of that. It also is unusual enough to ensure that McCain will get his invites to the Sunday-morning talk shows to which he appears addicted.

Matthews picks up on the second reason. McCain does not enjoy a lot of popularity in the South, and he likely would have finished poorly anyway. Matthews thinks that George Allen will score well at the SRLC straw poll, but Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee will be certain to show strength as well. A third-place finish (or worse) might convince the big fundraisers that McCain will not generate the kind of momentum needed early in the effort, and the big power players will flock instead to Allen and Huckabee, and perhaps even Mitt Romney as a dark-horse candidate.

So in order to get attention at a conference that would be inclined to discount him, suck up to the Bush supporters, and appeal to the party stalwarts who feel he stabbed the GOP in the back with his Gang of 14 antics, he plays a little rah-rah for Bush and attempts to shame everyone into making the entire event irrelevant. It's a clever ploy, one that might even work to a limited extent, and will almost certainly steal all the thunder and momentum from this effort to establish some credibility for Republican candidates early in the process.

In other words, if it's true, it's a typical self-centered McCain publicity stunt.

Gray Lady Pushes Guilt By Indirection, Ignores Corruption

The New York Times tries mightily to attach Jack Abramoff to George Bush in today's paper but misses wildly. Despite headlining Philip Shenon's report with "$25,000 to Lobby Group Is Tied to Access to Bush", the money never went to Bush or any funds connected to him, and all it got was an invitation to an event in which George Bush gave a speech:

The chief of an Indian tribe represented by the lobbyist Jack Abramoff was admitted to a meeting with President Bush in 2001 days after the tribe paid a prominent conservative lobbying group $25,000 at Mr. Abramoff's direction, according to documents and interviews.

The payment was made to Americans for Tax Reform, a group run by Grover G. Norquist, one of the Republican Party's most influential policy strategists. Mr. Norquist was a friend and longtime associate of Mr. Abramoff.

The meeting with Mr. Bush took place on May 9, 2001, at a reception organized by Mr. Norquist to marshal support for the president's 2001 tax cuts, which were pending before Congress. About two dozen state legislators attended the session in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds. The meeting was called to thank legislators for support of the tax-cut plan, an issue on which the tribal leader had no direct involvement.

Mr. Norquist attended the meeting, along with Mr. Abramoff and the tribal leader, Raul Garza of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas. It is not clear what role, if any, Mr. Norquist played in getting Chief Garza into the meeting, and there is no suggestion that the White House was aware of the $25,000 payment.

It's this last paragraph that makes the story and the headline a lesson in half-truth and deceptive writing. Abramoff did not direct the money to the White House, but an independent advocacy group for tax relief. The Times can't even connect the payment to any explicit action on the part of Grover Norquist, let alone the Bush administration. And the "meeting" that Chief Garza attended turns out to be a large gathering for a Bush speech, not some policy-setting tete-a-tete where Garza could influence national policy.

Even the Times seems to understand the flimsiness of this attack. Shenon writes that the episode "adds new details" to how Abramoff impressed his clients. It proves more that Abramoff's clients were not terribly sophisticated in politics or in lobbying. The Times shows no government action in return for this very expensive ticket to a speech, but it does mention that Garza managed to get a photograph taken with the President -- along with most of the other people at the event, presumably. That's the one where people had to play "Where's Waldo?" in order to find Abramoff in the background, a picture that people claimed to prove Abramoff's influence at the White House.

In the meantime, the New York Times has yet to cover the much-closer connection between Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, his four interventions on behalf of Abramoff clients, and the donations made directly to Reid. The AP revealed this over a month ago:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid wrote at least four letters helpful to Indian tribes represented by Jack Abramoff, and the senator's staff regularly had contact with the disgraced lobbyist's team about legislation affecting other clients.

The activities _ detailed in billing records and correspondence obtained by The Associated Press _ are far more extensive than previously disclosed. They occurred over three years as Reid collected nearly $68,000 in donations from Abramoff's firm, lobbying partners and clients. ...

Abramoff's records show his lobbying partners billed for nearly two dozen phone contacts or meetings with Reid's office in 2001 alone.

Most were to discuss Democratic legislation that would have applied the U.S. minimum wage to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory and Abramoff client, but would have given the islands a temporary break on the wage rate, the billing records show.

Reid also intervened on government matters at least five times in ways helpful to Abramoff's tribal clients, once opposing legislation on the Senate floor and four times sending letters pressing the Bush administration on tribal issues. Reid collected donations around the time of each action.

Instead of perusing the guest book for people that Grover Norquist invited to a speech, perhaps the Times might be interested in how direct donations bought government action. Its silence on Reid speaks just as loudly as its dishonest and deceptive report here on George Bush.

A Final Round With The Family

This weekend ends the longest hiatus in recent memory for a television series as The Sopranos returns for its sixth and final season on HBO. Having watched the series since its inception -- and maintaining my subscription to HBO largely because of it -- the anticipation of the final season and the resolution of its many story lines has created a strong possibility of creating almost impossible expectations for the creators and cast to meet. According to the New York Sun, however, the last twenty shows deliver in every way on the promise built up over the series' first five seasons:

It's every man for himself in the final season of "The Sopranos." The New Jersey crew of captains, thugs, and murderers, led by its charismatic general, no longer manages its mid-range Mafia business with precision; the money doesn't flow the way it used to, and neither does the blood. Loyalty has given way to doubt. The polluted air they breathe - from those hideous smokestacks and sickening stogies in the background of the show's still-mesmerizing credit sequence - has poisoned them at last. The festering emotional wounds of previous seasons have opened up and bled profusely onto every frame. "You're part of something bigger," Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) tells Paulie Walnuts (Tony Sirico) at the end of Episode 4, a reflective moment that reveals Tony's latest and most powerful obsession yet: the fleeting magic of life itself.

The epic journey of Tony Soprano takes a surprising and heart-wrenching turn this season, in a manner that no critic who loves this show would ever want to ruin with disclosure. But it can be revealed, without stealing its impact, that the cumulative effect of this season's first four episodes is to turn "The Sopranos" on its head, in ways impossible to anticipate. It will be difficult for "Sopranos" fans to view the results without flinching at the painful recognition of mortality on display in every scene, at every turn. The Tony Soprano that emerges from the shambles created by the calamitous events of the first four episodes borrows less from "Goodfellas" than "King Lear." He is a tragic figure who has faced his demons at last, but too late to undo their damage. ...

To call this series the best show on television diminishes its value. "The Sopranos" has achieved a level of artistic achievement that puts the experience of watching these episodes on a list of rare pleasures in life - the kind that might have come from hearing a new Beethoven symphony as he conducted it, or watching the paint dry on a fresh Picasso. No one will watch the show's final season without weeping for Tony Soprano, or mourning his imminent departure from our midst.

That has always been the brilliance of this series. Rather than steep the Mob in its own mythos, The Sopranos strips away the illusions of mobsters even if the characters themselves don't understand that. The hypocrisy of talking about honor while finding ways to cheat, steal, and kill has always been evident, especially when Tony gives speeches about family and then runs around with anyone in a skirt behind his wife's back -- who has her own problem with hypocrisy and illusions. It differs from the Godfather series in that it doesn't give any pretensions to culture, except the culture of theft and extortion.

And yet, people still feel some sympathy for Tony Soprano despite themselves. When that sympathy reaches an apex, the writers always manage to demonstrate why the sympathy is badly misplaced, but some part of the viewer still wants to see him prevail against Johnny Sack and other enemies from his milieu. Even the feds don't get a lot of sympathy here, but they should, and we know it.

David Blum notes that the final season will owe more to King Lear than Goodfellas, a direction also attempted by Francis Ford Coppola in his final entry in the Godfather series. Fans of the show have seen that since the first season, as the writers have brilliantly led viewers through Tony's own machinations that have always threatened to trap himself. Those webs will finally start trapping everyone around him, and Blum promises that Tony will recognize his fate but too late to stop it. We have always known it, but it's too late for us to stop watching it. Will we root for Tony as justice comes to him through the suffering of both of his families? We shouldn't -- but some part of us will.

The final season begins on Sunday, and will air in two groups of episodes, wrapping up next winter.

Madrid Bombings Not Al-Qaeda Operation

The Spanish investigation into the March 11 bombings in Madrid has concluded that the planners and perpetrators were home-grown Islamists and not connected to al-Qaeda, the AP reports tonight. The assignment of this action to AQ came in the days after the bombing, when the terror network supposedly claimed responsibility for the attack. However, the reality is apparently somewhat murkier:

A two-year probe into the Madrid train bombings concludes the Islamic terrorists who carried out the blasts were homegrown radicals acting on their own rather than at the behest of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, two senior intelligence officials said.

Spain still remains home to a web of radical Algerian, Moroccan and Syrian groups bent on carrying out attacks — and aiding the insurgency against U.S. troops in Iraq — a Spanish intelligence chief and a Western official intimately involved in counterterrorism measures in Spain told The Associated Press.

The intelligence chief said there were no phone calls between the Madrid bombers and al-Qaida and no money transfers. The Western official said the plotters had links to other Islamic radicals in Western Europe, but the plan was hatched and organized in Spain. "This was not an al-Qaida operation," he said. "It was homegrown."

This isn't good news for Spain or the wider war on terror. The British had already discovered that their own citizens could find themselves so full of radical rage that they would bomb their own country despite its tolerance towards Islam. The Spaniards will have a somewhat different epiphany about the danger in their openness to outsiders. As the AP reports, Spain has a large number of Muslims from a variety of countries like many other European countries, and like its neighbors, the large and mostly unassimilated subculture gives a breeding ground to radical imams preaching deadly jihad.

It is, however, good news for al-Qaeda. It shows that the notoriety of terrorism becomes a self-perpetuating cycle that can operate with little or no connection or direction from AQ itself. Radical Islamists see the impact that these attacks have on nations like Spain, who reacted by withdrawing from Iraq. Those low-cost victories promote the AQ brand and alow them gains without having to risk their own resources.

Whether the Madrid attacks had direct AQ involvement isn't even the point any more. Radical Islam and murderous jihad is the true enemy and must be fought wherever found.

A Dreadful Interlude For All Involved

With the announcement that Dubai Ports World will sell off its American contracts acquired during the purchase of P&O, the embarrassing episode appears to have drawn to a close. Some people failed to get the message even after John Warner delivered it on the Senate floor, however. Harry Reid, who acted like a petulant child denied his dessert, insisted that a Senate vote be held on a deal that no longer existed so that Senate Democrats could express themselves. Saying that the "devil is in the details", the Senate Minority Leader angrily told a press conference that the Republicans insisted on up-or-down votes on judicial nominees and the Democrats want the same for their legislation -- ignoring that Reid has blocked votes for a dozen nominees, and none of them were as dead as the DPW takeover of American port operations.

Reid is just the latest person to make a fool out of himself in the morass of the DPW/P&O deal. It proves that momentum applies to stupidity as well as objects in motion, and not even the irrelevance of further debate on a deal that doesn't exist is enough to stop it. He and presumptive presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton have done their best to rescue defeat at the threshold of victory, but they are not alone in their embarrassment.

Let's look at all the entities that covered themselves in glory in this episode and try to take it in chronological order:

1. Department of Treasury

Regardless of the banality of this deal and the precedents of state-controlled operators from China and Saudi Arabia at other American ports, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US should have understood the political implications of port security transferring from a British-based public corporation to a state-owned company based in the Middle East. They bypassed rules requiring a 45-day delay for approving such ownership intended to allow a more thorough investigation, and then acted like the American people had forgotten all about the war on Islamist terror. At the very least, they should have prepared their superiors at Treasury of the touchy nature of the deal. And Treasury should have understood it without having it explained to them in small words.

2. The Press and The New Media

The mainstream media had reported this proposed deal between DPW and P&O since last fall, with little analysis of the implications for American port operations. Until a few weeks ago, the story languished as a boring bureaucratic transaction by a boring bureaucracy about a subject few knew much about. Until radio blowhard Michael Savage grabbed onto the story, the media could have cared less. However, Savage managed to fan the deal into a veritable blaze of hysteria -- and instead of informing the public of all the nuances of the story, the initial reporting followed Savage's lead. Reporters and columnists talked about American ports being sold to Arabs and the outsourcing of security to foreign governments. When the actual facts of the deal started coming out, the time for rational discussion of the deal and the status of all American ports had passed, and the hysteria had all the momentum.

3. The White House

We now know that senior members of the administration did not get briefed on this deal due to the assumption by Treasury that the transaction was unexceptional. They have an excuse, then, for not getting ahead of the deal in the first place. However, when the news did break, the White House did nothing to help themselves. Instead of fighting the misinformation with a sustained effort to educate people about American port operations and the nature of the P&O contracts in play, the White House went into what can only be called Harriet Miers mode. They accused critics of being xenophobes and anti-Arab bigots, including a large number of conservatives upset at an apparent lack of focus on national security.

When that approach obviously failed, Bush failed to address the criticisms directly, instead insisting that people should trust his judgment. Most of us do trust Bush but also have seen a lack of effort in securing the southern border (as well as the nomination of Harriet Miers), which has always been a point of contention between Bush and the conservatives. Until the past forty-eight hours, the White House didn't marshal the efforts of the military leaders in the war on terror, whose endorsement of the deal early in this issue may have squelched the controversy before it turned ridiculous.

4. The Blogosphere

Too many of us jumped to the conclusion we saw when the media first reported this deal, myself included. When it became apparent that the facts had been badly misrepresented, some decided that further criticism equated to either xenophobia or bigotry (echoing the White House) or an inability to see past the media's supposed chicanery. Others assumed that those bloggers who dropped their objections either had become Bush toadies or more concerned with money than national security. This name-calling continues to this hour by otherwise respectable and rational bloggers, and both sides ignore that the deal has enough complexities and implications for national security and the war on terror for both sides to make entirely rational arguments for either supporting or opposing the deal. For some reason, online commenters stopped assuming that their friends and colleagues operate from sincere beliefs and honest motivations.

5. Congress

When the White House finally recovered its wits, stopped issuing threats and insults, and negotiated a second and more extensive security review and attempted to involve Congress in the effort, the hysteria got the best of them. After demanding that the White House cooperate with Congress and allow them a voice in the decision and getting agreement, they promptly shifted direction and told the White House that they weren't interested in more information on the transaction. Even as late as last night, we had Congressmen demonstrating an embarrassing level of ignorance of the ports deal. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) promised to ensure that the ports remained in American hands when the deal involved a transaction between the current British operator and the Dubai buyer. Only two weeks into the six-week investigation, the House Appropriations Committee passed legislation forbidding Dubai from operating terminals in the United States -- but had nothing to say about the current Chinese and Saudi operators that have operated terminals in American ports for almost a decade or more. It also didn't address the operation of state-owned foreign airlines in almost every international airport in the US.

It's a rare event indeed that leaves everyone involved diminished in some capacity. This, unfortunately, was one of them, and I'm glad it's almost over.

UPDATE: Fixed the numbering; h/t Monkyboy.

UPDATE II: Doug from Bogus Gold defends the blogosphere by noting that some bloggers did not fall into the trap I described above.

The Smart Move For Everyone

Dubai Ports World has just put an end to the controversy generated over its purchase of P&O and the operations contracts held in six major American ports. They have agreed to sell the American business to a "US entity", allowing all of the hot air to escape this debate:

A Dubai-owned company said Thursday it is giving up its management stake in some U.S. ports, a move made as congressional leaders warned President Bush that both the House and Senate appeared ready to block the takeover. ...

"Because of the strong relationship between the United Arab Emirates and the United States and to preserve that relationship, DP World has decided to transfer fully the U.S. operation of P&O Operations North America to a United States entity," DP World's chief operating officer, Edward H. Bilkey, said in the statement that Warner relayed to other senators. The announcement did not specify which American company would be involved.

The move came as the White House, facing a Republican rebellion in Congress, played down President Bush's veto threat and said he was trying to find a compromise to resolve the uproar over the company's plan to take over significant operations at several U.S. sea ports.

DP World said it will transfer all interest in U.S. port operations to an American-based company, but it was unclear immediately how DP World would manage the divestiture. The company indicated that details of the surprise deal were still being worked out.

It looks like the compromise found the White House instead. This solution has been suggested by many people, including my occasional co-blogger Dafydd at Big Lizards when the issue first arose. It took a fortnight of hysteria, hypocrisy, and rampant misinformation to resolve this dog of a deal, a process which should thoroughly embarrass everyone involved.

The new deal works for the President; he can maintain credibility with a strategic partner in the war on terror, and as more facts come out as the shouting subsides, his position will improve. Congressional Republicans get to claim their independence from the White House. Congressional Democrats get to brag about their insistence on ignoring their own call for a second security review and claim the result as a win. DP World gets to dump the worst part of the P&O deal onto an American company that will get to deal with the political fallout of the controversy.

The only losers appear to be Hillary Clinton and the state-owned foreign firms doing exactly what DP World wanted to do with these terminals. Hillary still has to explain why she so vigorously opposed a deal that her husband actively facilitated, which promises some interesting rhetorical contortions later in the election season. The other firms from China and Saudi Arabia should face the same level of scrutiny as DP World, if Congress actually gives a damn about port security and all the concerns they raised over the DP World deal.

Of course, that's a mighty big if.

From Dafydd: Captain Ed's Gitmo Project, Tribunal Set 28

Posted by Dafydd

Captain Ed has been collecting victims to review -- I'm sorry, requesting volunteers to review the unclassified case files of various detainee tribunal hearings. He wants us to determine if there is good reason in these files to still be holding these people in Guantanamo Bay, or whether it appears as though a miscarriage of military justice has occurred.

This post will be cross-posted to Big Lizards; abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

The first point to make -- and it's a biggie -- is that we only get to see the unclassified information. The tribunals are also given access to classified evidence from the case files. Clearly, the most damning evidence would most likely be present only in the classified evidence, as that is where all the intel from American and Coalition agents, witness identifications, and classified documentary evidence is kept.

So I cannot really answer whether any of these detainees is wrongly held; I can only give a partial answer there. I can, however, state if I think there is good reason, even in the unclassified evidence, to continue to hold that detainee.

So it's a little one-sided, but there's nothing I can do about that.

Set 28 of the tribunal hearings comprises six distinct detainee cases. Some are identified by name, but as this is irrelevant, I'll just refer to them by the order in which they appear in the pdf. Here are my quick summaries and first-impression conclusions (from the 52-page pdf):

1. The first detainee admits he served with the Taliban, but he says they drafted him. Other than this allegation, I found nothing in the unclassified section that would justify continued detention.
2. This detainee admits he obtained a fake Chadian passport with a false name. He is accused of consorting with known al-Qaeda agents and engaging in military operations against the United States and the Coalition. If these charges are well sourced (the evidence would be in the classified section), then certainly he should be held.
3. This one was captured in Pakistan in the company of known al-Qaeda agents. He was wearing a Casio F-91W watch, which is commonly used by al-Qaeda in timing devices used for explosives. He is also accused of taking training at the al-Qaeda run Khalden Camp.
   
   He gave evasive and contradictory answers during questioning. For example, he claims he "flew" from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, but the trip took him a week. He says he went to get medical treatment for his back; he says his back is hurt by cold weather. And he claims to have emigrated from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan because the weather in Pakistan is "warmer." There is ample reason, even in the unclassified section, to hold this detainee.
4. There is nothing even alleged in the unclassified portion that would justify holding this one.
5. This one stayed for months in a camp run by a known al-Qaeda front organization, but he says he didn't notice. He was IDed as an al-Qaeda agent. He gave inconsistent answers during questioning: for example, he said that while in Yemen, he decided he wanted to go to Europe as a political refugee, because of the way North Yemens treated South Yemens... so he toddled off to Pakistan. I am looking at a map of the Middle East, and by golly, Yemen to Pakistan appears to be travel in the opposite direction from Europe.
   
   He admits he illegally entered Iran. There is plenty of reason to hold this detainee.
6. The last case is a detainee accused of being a commander in Hezb-i-Islami, under the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. When the accusation was read to the detainee, he claimed that HIG was fighting on the side of the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. But when I looked them up, it turns out they were actually allied with Mullah Omar and the Taliban, and they are still fighting against American soldiers today. I'm suspicious that this was an attempt at disinformation by the detainee.
   
   He was also IDed as an al-Qaeda member; and he was so evasive during questioning that even I felt like slapping him around some. For example, he couldn't or wouldn't answer the question of whether he was in the Taliban until the fifth time he was asked. He was asked what documents he had with him, and he went into a Vinnie Barbarino routine: where? with you. in my pockets? yes, in your pockets. Where? This guy should absolutely be held; he has something he's hiding, in my opinion.

And that's it. I'm not sure how useful all this will be, but I've done my bit for "the cause." ("Cause" Captain Ed asked me to, that's what cause!)

Murder Indictment Of FBI Agent Could Jeopardize Mob Convictions

The New York Sun reports the stunning news that an FBI agent whose investigations led to the convictions of several key Mafia figures may be indicted on murder charges. R. Lindley DeVecchio faces prosecution for passing information along to his contacts in the mob that fingered other informants, leading to their execution, including one woman:

In a case with stunning implications for both law enforcement and some convicted gangsters, prosecutors have decided to seek murder charges against a former mob-busting FBI agent for involvement in at least three Brooklyn Mafia hits between 1984 and 1992, Gang Land has learned.

The Brooklyn district attorney's office has concluded a six-month probe of the scandalous allegations against R. Lindley DeVecchio and will soon ask a grand jury to vote on murder charges against the retired agent, sources said. The move could come as early as today.

According to evidence before the panel, Mr. DeVecchio had no role in the actual slayings but passed along information to his longtime top echelon informer, Colombo capo Gregory Scarpa, knowing that the murderous mobster would use the details to kill his victims, sources said. ...

Victim no. 1 of the ex-G-man's alleged treachery was a beautiful 5-foot, 2-inch brunette named Mary Bari who often hung out with wiseguys. Bari was killed on September 24, 1984, when, according to court records, Scarpa shot her three times in the head as his son, Gregory Jr., held her down on the floor of a Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, social club.

Sources said Scarpa acted after Mr. DeVecchio alerted him that the "dropdead gorgeous" gun moll, who had once dated a Colombo family consigliere, was also a paid informant for the FBI. Mr. DeVecchio had become Scarpa's control agent four years earlier, in 1980, when the agent renewed the gangster's informer status five years after he had been closed. Before that, according to FBI records, Scarpa was an active paid informer between 1962 and 1975, although sources said he began working as a snitch in the late 1950s. He died in 1994.

If the state can substantiate these charges -- and apparently they have pressed for this indictment -- then the FBI will have a major problem on its hands. DeVecchio worked on several major mob cases against the Colombo family in particular. Any evidence associated with his work could be called into question, as the defense would certainly have used this information to cast doubt on his fairness and objectivity. If he took an accessory role in mob hits, then not only is he a murderer by association, but any defense attorney would argue that he would have been very subjective about who got investigated, which evidence got produced, and how his testimony affected his own interests.

At a minimum, we can expect a new round of federal appeals on all of these cases, and if the charges are substantiated, we can also expect the appellate courts to order new trials for any case in which DeVecchio had a significant role. That would probably force the DoJ to completely re-prosecute the spectacularly successful RICO cases of the 1980s and 1990s. It would also call into question the effective strategy of the FBI in infiltrating the Mafia to get the evidence necessary to shut it down. The corrupting influence of the effort could wind up outweighing its obvious benefits.

Let's hope that DeVecchio stayed clean and that the evidence shows that to be the case. If not, we may wind up with a mob nightmare on our hands once again.

The Memoirs Of The Inscrutable

Alan Greenspan has just received $8.5 million for his memoirs, the second-highest advance for a nonfiction book. Given his record of inscrutability achieved through the dizzying amount of detail he produced as Federal Reserve chair, do you wonder how he would write his autobiography? Comedian and newly-minted country singer Rick Moranis shares his thoughts in the New York Times:

IT was the best of times but it might also have quite possibly led to the worst of times.

One thing was for sure: it was a beautiful day. It felt like, oh, around 63 or 64 degrees Fahrenheit. I estimated, assessing the precise time of day, the mean annualized temperature, all available barometrics (which were hovering at about 30.2 and appeared to be falling), and the constantly changing, though only partial, cloud cover which seemingly would have to have been caused by prevailing winds, that it might get up to 65 degrees by midday. But that didn't stop me from wearing an undershirt.

My father had always insisted that I wear undershirts. He felt that if one were to sweat, the undershirt could absorb the perspiration efficiently, thereby prolonging the immediate look and the overall life of any dress shirt and additionally augmenting outer garments. Based on the relative lower cost of the simpler undergarments, factoring in cotton inventories and rising yields in dry- cleaning revenues, a good suit could last a hell of a lot longer if you didn't stink it up.

It appears to be a book that only King Banaian could truly love. And yes, Rick Moranis has recorded an album of country music titled The Agoraphobic Cowboy. No, I have not listened to it, and I doubt I will. I'd prefer to stick to his humor instead, and this essay gives a great example why.

Thou Shalt Not Eat With Thine Lobbyists

No doubt Congress needs to set ethical standards and hold members accountable to them in regard to their relationships with lobbyists, especially when it comes to gifts, travel, and contributions. The prevailing attitude that our representatives can be bought produces a corrosive cynicism in the American electorate that decreases the enthusiasm for oversight and actually increases the opportunities for corruption. However, it's hard to take this effort seriously when it starts by forcing politicians to pick up the tab for dinner:

Facing accusations that lawmakers are not serious about breaking the tight bond between Capitol Hill and K Street, the Senate voted Wednesday to bar members of Congress and their aides from accepting gifts and meals from lobbyists.

The meals and gifts ban, approved unanimously by voice vote, was the full Senate's first major decision on lobbying law changes in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal. The ban is attached to an underlying bill that originally barred just gifts, but senators decided Wednesday to prohibit meals as well.

The move suggests that, with the November elections looming, lawmakers are intensely concerned with demonstrating they are committed to changing the way Washington does business. But the vote will not put an immediate end to the wining and dining of members of Congress, because the ban still faces several legislative hurdles, including passage by the House, where the Republican leadership is wrestling with the details of its own lobbying bill.

"Banning free meals, while only one of many steps, can go a long way in demonstrating our commitment to reform," said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and the provision's chief author. "The only special interest in Washington should be the public interest."

Congress already had a restriction on meals that limited the value of any freebie to $50 or less. In the spirit of capitalism and free markets, the DC restaurant industry responded with a wide variety and selection of meals priced at $49.99, a move which restores faith in our privately-controlled economic system. Now that lobbyists will no longer be able to even buy a Senator a Big Mac, restaurants inside the Beltway now wonder just how badly their business will suffer.

If this kind of picayune rulemaking represents the kind of effort we can expect from Congress to rehabilitate the lobbyist-politician relationship, be prepared for even more Abramoff-type scandals. No one cares if Abramoff bought people meals. No one will sell out a seat that requires millions to capture and retain and which pays six figures in salary for a $49 steak. What we want is an elimination of the kind of intervention that Harry Reid, for example, provided Abramoff clients four times in connection with thousands of dollars in donations.

Memo to Congress: either get serious or stop insulting our intelligence. The meal ban won't hurt anyone except DC restaraunteurs, but it's about as minor an issue in lobbying and corruption as one could possibly find. Don't expect the American public to applaud this kind of "reform" as any real change in the way Washington conducts business.

Iranian Plutonium Development Started In 1990s

All Things Beautiful points readers to a Ha'aretz report on the Iranian nuclear program that shows Iran has not only used the ostensible effort for domestic nuclear power as a front for its weapons program, but that the Iranians have been developing this weapons program for longer than first thought. Western experts have studied the plutonium that it found during the IAEA inspections and determined that the enrichment occurred years earlier than first thought:

In concurrence with growing diplomatic tension over Iran's nuclear program, on Thursday it emerged that intelligence services in the West are convinced that Iran is taking covert means to develop nuclear weapons, in addition to the nuclear program under the partial supervision of the IAEA. Russian intelligence is believed to agree with this assessment.

According to the IAEA interim report from late February, a document was found that alludes to Iranian attempts to create the components of an atomic bomb. ...

The Iranians admitted about three years ago to separating small quantities of plutonium, which is clearly associated with atomic arms development. (The materials needed to build an atomic bomb can be acquired either by enriching uranium or by producing plutonium.)

Inspectors who examined the plutonium concluded, judging from the amounts found, that the Iranians must have started creating the plutonium in the mid-1990s and not three years ago.

This development creates a completely different outlook on the amount of time it will take Iran to put together a nuclear weapon. Estimates of their progress had been built in part around the relatively short period of time that Iran had produced plutonium. Now, however, the estimates of plutonium production have been extended from three years to over ten. That would appear to undermine the current estimates of ten years until Iranian weapons development reaches fruition. It may well be considerably shorter than that, and given the number of covert facilities for its research that Ha'aretz describes, the Iranians appear to be working on the fastest possible timetable.

That information will undoubtedly figure into the deliberations over the options the US has in forcing an end to Iranian weapons development. The time is getting shorter, perhaps much shorter than the US has estimated. The UNSC has the issue in its hands at the moment. If it fails to take action -- and veto-wielding Russia already has publicly asserted that the IAEA referral was "too hasty" -- then once again the US will have to decide whether to act in its own security interest or whether to stand by while the UN issues proclamations in place of concrete measures to rein Iran in. We cannot afford the twelve-year quagmire we experienced over Iraqi intransigence.

Poles, Apart

When Poland finally freed itself from the grip of Soviet tyranny and brought back democracy to its government, the nation expressed a strong desire to integrate itself into the European Union as a way to strenthen those institutions. Now, however, the Poles have decided that a tight integration no longer serves those purposes but rather the aggregation of power by the larger nations of the EU:

When Poland was negotiating its entry to the European Union, its diplomats indicated that joining a politically integrated Europe was the best way to protect national interests. This belief in the power of community was shared by the other aspiring countries from the former Soviet bloc, which as a group greatly expanded the union in May 2004.

"Poland was a strong supporter of more integration," said Piotr Buras, a European policy specialist at the Willy Brandt Center in Wroclaw, in southern Poland. He said Poles believed that small and medium members would be defended against bigger interests.

But President Lech Kaczynski arrived in Berlin on Wednesday bringing a deeply altered vision of Europe: it is a nationalist, Euroskeptic vision, at odds with the policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and her government.

Mr. Kaczynski has overseen a revision of policy in Warsaw since winning the presidency last October. His conservative government, while supporting European Union enlargement to include Ukraine and Belarus, no longer accepts the idea of a deeper and more integrated Europe.

The Poles have decided that with the largest countries -- France and Germany -- using the union to battle for their own national interests, the best policy is one of distance. The new conservative government has made plain that they work for Polish interests first and foremost. While Angela Merkel works at reviving the EU constitution that France and the Netherlands rejected, the Poles have reversed their earlier acceptance and now say that a new constitution is not necessary, preferring the less-restrictive and still-operational Nice treaty.

What changed, besides the Polish elections that put conservatives in power? It probably started with Jacques Chirac's infamous scolding to the EU nations of Eastern Europe during the debate over the Iraq war, when he told the emerging democracies that supported the US and Britain that they had missed a great opportunity to "shut up". It wasn't long after that when the world discovered that France and Germany had undermined the sanctions regime (along with Russia) that the pair declared kept Saddam in his box.

The change likely accelerated through the debate over the EU constitution. The document, when it finally appeared, was a monument to bloat and overregulation, with the national interests of all 25 nations attempting to find expression in what should have been basic by-laws and expressions of principles. After having this shoved down European throats by France in particular, its defeat in that country for reasons that it forced France to compromise with the rest of Europe had to be the last straw.

The election of Polish conservatives probably came in part from a reaction to the silliness of the EU and the second-class status that Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder implied for the newer members from the East. Now the Poles have made it clear that the EU itself enjoys second-class status among its national priorities. Knowing how hard the Poles has fought for their sovereignty after being more or less abandoned by the nations of Western Europe after World War II, that status is not likely to change soon.

North Korea Wants Attention

With all of the attention that the Iranian nuclear crisis has drawn, its fellow member of the Axis of Evil has apparently gotten jealous. North Korea reminded the world that it has claims on the title of Most Insane Regime by firing a couple of short-range missiles in Japan's general direction:

North Korea launched a pair of short-range missiles Wednesday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Japan's Kyodo News Agency, which quoted "sources knowledgeable about the matter," said the surface-to-air missiles were launched near North Korea's border with China.

"Indications are that North Korea launched two short-range missiles," McClellan said. "The regime has conducted similar tests in the past."

According to Kyodo, there was some confusion over whether the missiles were test-fired or launched by mistake.

The agency quoted a Western military source as saying they were short-range missiles fired to the east from the eastern coast.

At least one of the missiles landed in the sea about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northeast of the launch site, Kyodo said, citing a Japanese defense official.

The Kim regime is irritated that the US has accused it of counterfeiting operations and suspended its participation in the six-nation disarmament talks. Kim must be getting annoyed that the mullahcracy gets so much attention, taking the spotlight off of Pyongyang, which the world considers more of a lost cause. Kim needs to remind everyone that North Korea still hasn't finished playing with fire yet, either. Unfortunately for Kim, all this tells the rest of the nations trying to negotiate an end to Pyongyang's nuclear program is that they don't have much else to test. Kim would surely have used the biggest bang in his stockpile short of causing real damage in order to regain his position as the center of the disarmament universe.

Update On The Gitmo Study

The CQ Blogswarm Study Group have been busy this week, reviewing the source documents on the Guantanamo Bay detainees and filling out the Excel spreadsheets with the data needed. I have already discovered one unsettling fact -- the documents provided by the DoD only include 122 SOEs, not 517. The Denbeaux study appeared to claim that it had 517 SOEs, but unless they received them separately from the DoD (which is certainly possible, since Mark Denbeaux represents two of the detainees), their researchers apparently attempted to reverse-engineer the SOEs from the testimony.

Our study group did not do that. The SOEs will eventually be reviewed by nine volunteers, with each SOE reviewed by three different people. They will count the listings in Paragraph 3 to determine how many hostile acts and connections to terrorism can be found, and I will use the average of all three as the number used. We are also counting mitigating circumstances found in Paragraph 4, which the Denbeaux study noted but did not analyze.

The remainder of the cases will be reviewed by a veritable army of researchers, all listed below. I asked these volunteers to act as jurors, in a way, by determining if the government appeared to have a reasonable case for holding the detainee based on the hearing transcripts. This portion of the study will be much more subjective, but the Denbeaux study did much the same thing in using these transcripts to recreate SOEs.

Many of these volunteers have their own blogs and have written about their experiences in reviewing the materials. Be sure to visit them to get their impressions of the study and of the government case for detention.

The CQ Blogswarm Study Group consists of these volunteers:

ARB Factors, Vol 1: Shawn Beilfuss, Bob L, Laura Curtis (Dummocrats and Gitmo Cookbook)

ARB Factors, Vol 2: Jon from Canada, Dixie68, Slightly Loony at JamulBlog

ARB Factors, Vol 3: Thomas Morrissey (no relation!), Rodney Graves, Freeper Bad Company

ARB Transcripts #1: Russ Emerson
ARB Transcripts #2: Jason
ARB Transcripts #3: Gary Gross
ARB Transcripts #4: CQ reader Ed

CSRTs --

Set 1: Jay
Set 2: CQ reader BD
Set 3: Arthur Kimes
Set 4: Christian Johnson
Set 5: Kaitian
Set 6: Anonymous2
Set 7: KGS59
Set 8: Duke DeLand
Set 9: Stephen St. Onge
Set 10: Texas Cowgirl
Set 11: David Chapelle (MD NG Ret.)
Set 12: Yetanotherjohn
Set 13: GM Roper
Set 14: Antarctic Lemur
Set 15: Robert Byers
Set 16: Anonymous1
Set 17: Richard Campbell
Set 18: Weight of Glory
Set 19: Mary Beth Buckner
Set 20: Ric James
Set 21: Streiff
Set 22: David Zincavage
Set 23: Greg McComas
Set 24: Pete Peterson
Set 25: Nathan Bradford
Set 26: Suitably Flip
Set 27: St. Wendeler
Set 28: Dafydd ab Hugh
Set 29: Thomas Morrissey
Set 30: Levi from Queens
Set 31: Mick Stockinger
Set 32: Gina Cobb
Set 33: Matt Adinaro
Set 34: Allen Thorpe
Set 35: Rodney Graves
Set 36: Rick Calvert
Set 37: David Zincavage
Set 38: Pierre LeGrand
Set 39: Suitably Flip
Set 40: David Zincavage
Set 41: Kane Rogers
Set 42: Crusader Rabbit
Set 43: Fred Fry
Set 44: Commander Salamander
Set 45: Katie Carroll
Set 46: Steve Schippert
Set 47: Rodney Graves
Set 48: Thomas Morrissey & Rodney Graves
Set 49: Thomas Morrissey
Set 50: Thomas Morrissey
Set 51: Chuck Allen
Set 52: Chuck Allen
Set 53: Chuck Allen
Set 54: Streiff

A Spoonful Of Panic Helps The Majority Go Down

House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee abandoned the effort by the White House to give the Dubai Ports World deal a second, more thorough security review and voted 62-2 to amend an emergency appropriation bill with language specifically making any attempt to engage DP World in port operations illegal. The GOP joined all of the committee Democrats in slamming the door on any further negotiations with the UAE port-management firm:

In an election-year repudiation of President Bush, a House panel dominated by Republicans voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to block a Dubai-owned firm from taking control of some U.S port operations.

By 62-2, the Appropriations Committee voted to bar DP World, run by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, from holding leases or contracts at U.S. ports.

Bush has promised to veto any such measure passed by Congress, but there is widespread public opposition to the deal and the GOP fears losing its advantage on the issue of national security in this fall's elections.

"This is a national security issue," said Rep. Jerry Lewis, the chairman of the panel. The California Republican said the legislation would "keep America's ports in American hands."

The merits and demerits of the deal have become irrelevant in the panicked atmosphere that appears to have afflicted Congressional Republicans. Regardless of the merits of the deal -- which I still don't like -- a second review would have allowed the White House to calm the hysteria and at least have an opportunity to get the facts on the table.

The quote above gives a great example of the level of ignorance that has surrounded this issue since its explosion in February. American ports have always been in American hands, regardless of the nationality of the port operators. America owns its ports, and the Coast Guard and Homeland Security have the responsibility of securing them. If Lewis intended to say that port operation would remain in American hands, then he's still demonstrating a high degree of ignorance -- because the ports in question had been under British management up to now. Most American ports have foreign operators, including state-owned/controlled companies from Saudi Arabia and mainland China.

All this hysteria does is make the Republicans look as foolish and uninformed as Democrats. Instead of focusing on the hypocrisy of the opposition party (under whose administration the Chinese and Saudis took over management of American ports, and whose last President has been advising the UAE on the deal) in pushing ethnic profiling for port operators but not for immigration and airport security, the GOP has abandoned its President and a reasonable offer to suspend the deal pending review and oversight by Congress at the end of it. They could have waited for that review and allowed all the facts to come to light, and then made an informed and rational decision to kill it. This measure is the equivalent of putting hands over ears and shouting nonsense to avoid hearing any debate.

'm not convinced that this deal was a good idea under any circumstances. However, properly structured, we could have created an American group under American management that would represent DPW interests and allow for a reasonable compromise that would still satisfy security concerns. With the resources of DPW, that American subsidiary may have grown to the point where it could reasonably compete for other operations, such as those controlled by the Saudis and the Chinese, giving us an even better grip on our ports. Perhaps it would not have been possible, but it certainly won't happen now.

Now what do we do with the ports under the control of Saudi, Chinese, and Singaporean operators? Do we kick them out -- and if we so, who then replaces them and in what kind of time frame? Do we bar any state-owned entity from port management, regardless of nationality? That's my main objection; a state-owned company represents the interests of the state before the interests of business and profit, and we will not have an opportunity to react quickly enough if their state interests suddenly change to hostility towards the US. That seems like a rational prerequisite to securing our ports, and DPW fails in that regard, unless they partner with outside investors to establish an American subsidiary that would find its motivation in ensuring safe and secure business transactions.

A rational debate could have answered these questions. Instead the House GOP has panicked, damaged the administration, and created a liability for their own party rolling into the midterm elections. This doesn't serve the country or the Congress well, even if I agree with the end result. They turned a controversy into an unnecessary debacle.

UPDATE: My two friends at Power Line, John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson, disagree with each other on this development. John agrees with me:

This is a mistake, I think, in both policy and political terms. I've seen no evidence that ownership of port terminals by DP World would create any security issues, or, for that matter, bring about any change in the manner in which the facilities are run, or the identity of the people running them. Politically, it appears that many Republicans are nervous about November's election and anxious to put some distance between themselves and President Bush. This strikes me as a foolish calculation; surely the Republicans will be better off if they stick together. The headlines generated by this kind of party split--the ports issue is almost entirely symbolic, and is all about headlines--will do more to hurt Republican Congressional candidates than help them, I think.

Scott, however, says that the political threat to the GOP is real and required this action:

I think Republican Senators and Congressmen justifiably fear the unpopularity of the DPW deal and the devastating use to which a vote in its favor could be put by their political opponents. I don't have the knowledge necessary to evaluate the deal on the merits, but I think it is politically untenable.

I think that the truth lies somewhere in between. I do think that there are some substantive security issues in allowing a state-owned company to manage ports, and I would have welcomed a rational debate on the topic. Instead, as John wrote to me in an e-mail, the committee's Republicans have formed a circular firing squad.

Congratulations, Mark

Please send your congratulations to The Heritage Foundation's Mark Tapscott, who has been named to the National Freedom of Information Hall of Fame. This honors Mark's commitment to keep information in the public forum, and in fact Mark is one of the few conservatives so named. It's a well-deserved honor for a great blogger and an even better friend.

Dujail's Precedent

The Wall Street Journal discusses the historical precedent to the 1982 Dujail massacre that Saddam ordered after an assassination attempt on his life failed nearby. The unsigned essay discusses the more successful assassination of Reinhard "Hangman" Heydrich, the architect of the Holocaust, and the Nazi revenge taken on the small Czech mining town of Lidice and its similarities to Dujail:

As with Lidice, Dujail was razed and its orchards bulldozed. Also like Lidice, the purpose of the massacre was not to dispense justice but to make an example of the villagers. "You people of Dujail, we have disciplined Iraq through you," Mr. Mohammad recalled one of the torturers saying.

Now come to the present. Last week, Saddam acknowledged in court that he had ordered the summary trial that led to the execution of the villagers and the destruction of their farmland. "Where is the crime?" he asked, claiming that as president of Iraq all his actions were lawful. Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg trial famously adopted a similar defense. ...

We tend to forget that, for all of Iraq's current troubles, the U.S. and its allies deposed a dictator whose methods and purposes were eerily similar to those of the Nazis, even when it came to a comparatively small massacre such as the one in Dujail. That's something in which Americans can take justifiable pride, as much as the World War II generation did in defeating the Nazis. And it's something to which critics of the war, at least those who profess sincere concern with human rights, ought to give some thought.

It's a brilliant analogy, one that those who have studied the rise and fall of the Nazis would understand instantly. In fact, CQ readers would remember when I made the same analogy last year, when two of the apparatchiks responsible for implementing the Dujail revenge were captured:

The attempt came after the Iran-Iraq war provoked by Saddam began to slog into a stalemate in its second year and Saddam's popularity plummeted. Dawa, the banned political opposition group whose leader is likely to be Iraq's next Prime Minister, schemed an ambush to murder Saddam. Saddam outsmarted the ambushers by changing cars in the convoy, a move that saved his life. However, it still took the Iraqi Army two hours to extricate him from the ambush, and the experience affected Saddam deeply. He curtailed his travel in Iraq and started relying on blood relations, concentrating power into his family and the Tikrit syndicate whose loyalty could be counted on.

That wasn't all that Saddam did. In an age-old response of tyrants, Saddam punished the town for the acts of a handful of its residents. Like the Czech village of Lidice after the assassination of Reinhard "Hangman" Heydrich in WWII, the Ba'athists rounded up hundreds, deported the rest and destroyed the town of Dujail. Some of the detained endured months of torture before being released, but at least 147 were killed, on the orders of the Rwayids.

All tyrants wind up employing the same brutal methods to retain power. The surprise should not be that Saddam took a page from Hitler's notebook, but that the same people who wanted to appease Hitler in the 30's now argue that we should have continued to appease Saddam as well. Those are the people who will find the Lidice analogy most uncomfortable.

Libertarian Forum Steps Out From The Pack

Dana Milbank writes about the animosity within the Cato Institute's form on public policy that featured Bruce Bartlett and Andrew Sullivan. Both speakers have long been critics of the Bush administration, with the latter eventually endorsing John Kerry in the last presidential election. Milbank sounds somewhat surprised by the lack of rhetorical defenders on display at Cato:

If the ancient political wisdom is correct that a charge unanswered is a charge agreed to, the Bush White House pleaded guilty yesterday at the Cato Institute to some extraordinary allegations.

"We did ask a few members of the Bush economic team to come," explained David Boaz, the think tank's executive vice president, as he moderated a discussion between two prominent conservatives about President Bush. "We didn't get that."

Now why would the administration pass up such an invitation?

Well, it could have been because of the first speaker, former Reagan aide Bruce Bartlett. Author of the new book "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," Bartlett called the administration "unconscionable," "irresponsible," "vindictive" and "inept."

It might also have had something to do with speaker No. 2, conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan. Author of the forthcoming "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It; How to Get It Back," Sullivan called Bush "reckless" and "a socialist," and accused him of betraying "almost every principle conservatism has ever stood for."

I'm not sure why Milbank expresses such surprise -- nor do I understand why the Post headlines this event as a "conservative forum". The Cato Institute has always focused on a brand of respectable and rational libertarianism rather than a partisan Republican or generic conservatism. Milbank himseld notes that in the seventh paragraph as well as the fact that its constituency has always found itself on the outside looking in during this administration. Six years into the Bush administration, and Milbank is shocked that Cato criticizes the President, and that few of its members offer a defense?

People forget that George Bush has never cast himself as a hardline conservative and especially not as a libertarian. He has shown himself politically tougher than his father, but tough does not equal conservative. He added Dick Cheney to his ticket in order to soothe conservatives in the GOP, who at the time preferred John McCain -- myself among them. He has frustrated conservatives with his profligate spending, without a doubt. However, he has delivered on American security and on federal court appointments, which are the reasons he continues to get support from the hard right.

Now, however, since Bush will not face another election, conservatives have stepped out on their own to remind people about their values and their programs. That is not only natural, but since the GOP has no natural frontrunner in 2008 at this time, it's necessary to get the issues on the table so that the party can decide on its direction before then. The national races this year will give the GOP the opportunity to see what captures the voters' imagination -- old-school conservatism, Cato-style libertarianism, or the centrist outlook that might carry Rudy Giuliani or (ironically) John McCain to the nomination.

After six years of providing big-tent support for the Bush White House, it's time for the party to debate its direction. It is far better to have that debate now than in 2008, and the Cato Institute will be an important forum in that process.

Why We Spy

For those who profess outrage at the use of the NSA's intercept program on international communications, the ABC news report on the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui explains why our intelligence services should not get hamstrung by the law-enforcement mentality when the US is under attack:

The number 050-520-9905 is what several of the 9/11 hijackers dialed to establish contact with Mustafa al Hawsawi, a senior al Qaeda member in the United Arab Emirates.

Prosecutors said today that Hawsawi was one of the key financial contributors and travel coordinators for several of the 9/11 hijackers, and that the 9/11 investigation shows that Mohammed Atta was in regular contact with him in the weeks before the attack.

In laying out for the jury the specifics of how the 9/11 plot was hatched, prosecutors showed the jury a series of money transfer orders and records of calls to Hawsawi from Mohammed Atta, which he made using an AT&T calling card.

Radical Islamists had publicly declared their intention to strike at American interests at home and abroad at least since the mid-1990s. A series of attacks followed afterwards, including the bombings of two of our embassies and a suicide attack on the USS Cole, all of which fall very clearly into the category of "acts of war". Had the US actually adopted a war footing and started tracking international communications that involved countries known to harbor radical Islamists, we may have discovered the actors of the 9/11 plot before the attacks could occur. Combined with the information coming from Able Danger, it would have given counterterrorism intelligence a large jump on Atta and his cohorts.

Instead, to this day, we're still trying to fit counterterrorism intelligence into the law-enforcement mode with FISA and the substitutes offered by Congress today. And thanks to the New York Times, the NSA tracking and intercept program is likely dead as terrorists will choose alternate methods by which to activate their plans and their members.

Iranians Unhappy About Nuclear Standoff

The Washington Post runs an interesting story about the unease felt by many Iranians about their government's increasingly confrontational stance with the world regarding its pursuit of nuclear technology. Iranian civilians question the wisdom of inflaming world opinion against them and potentially working their way into economic sanctions that will only make their lives even more difficult:

Iranians are expressing unease about the international showdown over their country's nuclear program, as broad public support for atomic power is tempered by growing misgivings about the cost. ...

The misgivings emerge as the International Atomic Energy Agency, meeting this week in Vienna, considers reporting Iran to the U.N. Security Council for defying demands to suspend specific nuclear activities. The council could impose sanctions or otherwise penalize the government and, in the process, further isolate Iranians already feeling the chill of international disfavor.

"One thing is obvious: If more foreigners come to this country, it means more money, more jobs," said Ahmad Ashuri, whose business making metal screens has declined in recent months along with Tehran's construction industry. "But this nuclear issue means fewer foreigners are coming to the country. Less money. If something is our right, we need to talk properly to the world."

With an official unemployment rate of 10%, which the Post says may be twice that in reality, Iranians are already struggling to make ends meet in their moribund economy -- and that's with foreign investment and business having no sanctions to keep them out. A sanctions regime could kill whatever economic activity they have now, and despite the drumbeat repetition of official mullahcracy slogans telling Iranians that nuclear power is their birthright, everyone understands that it comes with a high cost.

Most are now wondering why Iran has been so clumsy in its approach to nuclear research. While most support the sovereignty argument, a growing portion have begun asking why Iran provoked the international community by keeping a nuclear energy program secret and hidden from the IAEA. Even politicians who have to face the mullahs of the Governing Council wonder at the strategy taken by the nation's leadership. One has openly question where the mullahs expect to get the uranium for the program once they have angered the international community, since Iran only has enough of the element to power one industrial-capacity (1,000 megawatts) generator for seven years. If Iran cannot get more uranium abroad because of its intransigence, then why start the program at all?

The answers to all of the above are rather obvious -- once one stops thinking that Iran wants a peaceful nuclear-energy program. The mullahs have no concerns about the fuel supply because it wants to develop weapons, not generate power. Iran has all the power it needs in its vast oil reserves. That's why the program had to be hidden away from IAEA inspectors.

Most of the world already understands this, but realization may slowly be dawning in Iran, too. Perhaps that's why the mullahcracy ratcheted up the rhetoric this morning by threatening the US with "harm and pain" if the UN Security Council takes up the case:

Iran said on Wednesday the United States could feel "harm and pain" if the U.N. Security Council took up the issue of Tehran's nuclear research and Tehran vowed to pursue the program come what may.

"The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain but it is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if the United States wishes to choose that path, let the ball roll," it said in a statement obtained by Reuters on the sidelines of a U.N. nuclear watchdog board meeting in Vienna.

That sounds like more than a threat; considering the sponsorship given by Iran to Islamist terrorist groups around the world, it sounds more like a signal to its terror clients to attack US interests when the UNSC addresses Teheran's nuclear ambitions.

It comes after the EU acknowledged that Iran has rejected -- again -- a Russian compromise, this one only postponing Iranian enrichment for seven to nine years. Iran, like Hitler in the 1930s, understands that its unreasonableness and violent rhetoric pays rewards with European appeasers. Teheran calculates that the EU will completely capitulate after a couple of more rounds, given their tactical retreats thus far at the negotiating table. The worst part about that calculation is that it has been deadly accurate so far, and shows no sign of being wrong in the near future.

Are The Democrats Coming Apart?

A coalition of Democrats have begun an effort to wrest control of the Democratic Party away from the train wreck of Howard Dean's chairmanship. This coalition, led by former Clintonista Harold Ickes and funded by George Soros, has selected Ickes to head a data-mining project intended on giving better voter information to key Congressional campaigns:

A group of well-connected Democrats led by a former top aide to Bill Clinton is raising millions of dollars to start a private firm that plans to compile huge amounts of data on Americans to identify Democratic voters and blunt what has been a clear Republican lead in using technology for political advantage.

The effort by Harold Ickes, a deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House and an adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), is prompting intense behind-the-scenes debate in Democratic circles. Officials at the Democratic National Committee think that creating a modern database is their job, and they say that a competing for-profit entity could divert energy and money that should instead be invested with the national party.

Ickes and others involved in the effort acknowledge that their activities are in part a vote of no confidence that the DNC under Chairman Howard Dean is ready to compete with Republicans on the technological front. "The Republicans have developed a cadre of people who appreciate databases and know how to use them, and we are way behind the march," said Ickes, whose political technology venture is being backed by financier George Soros.

"It's unclear what the DNC is doing. Is it going to be kept up to date?" Ickes asked, adding that out-of-date voter information is "worse than having no database at all."

Ickes's effort is drawing particular notice among Washington operatives who know about it because of speculation that he is acting to build a campaign resource for a possible 2008 presidential run by Hillary Clinton. She has long been concerned, advisers say, that Democrats and liberals lack the political infrastructure of Republicans and their conservative allies. Ickes said his new venture, Data Warehouse, will at first seek to sell its targeting information to politically active unions and liberal interest groups, rather than campaigns.

It looks like Soros is playing both sides of the street. His money helped launch MoveOn and keeps it going to this day, and that faction of the party is the same that pushed Dean into the top spot at the DNC. Now Soros has chosen to also finance Ickes and his attempt to bypass Dean's inept leadership and the DNC altogether by building a competing GOTV machine.

This puts Democratic candidates in a real bind; normally they would work with their elected leadership to coordinate voter strategy and outreach. However, now they will have to choose between that official leadership and this shadow elite that wants to use Soros' money to bypass the party's official management. This promises to set up a serious split in the party, with incumbents and challengers forced to choose between the two cliques. Even though Soros has involvement in both factions, it will likely develop into a split between the leftists that insisted on Dean for the chair and the people who believe that the Democrats have to come back to the center to be competitive.

In an election that appears to hold the most promise for Democrats in over a decade, this could not come at a worse time. The immediate blame for this goes to the Clintonistas, who have never been happy with Howard Dean -- and who could blame them? The real problem started with his election and the emergence of the Left in the Democratic Party, and the loss of common sense and electoral intelligence it portended.

I find it deliciously ironic that this split will probably become unavoidable all because of a dispute over the best management of data mining. Too bad the Democrats didn't have this kind of enthusiasm for it when Able Danger and LIWA developed usable intelligence that could have identified the 9/11 terror cell before the deadly attacks.

DeLay Wins Primary

Texas Republicans in CD-22 have sent a message to Ronnie Earle and the media by overwhelmingly selecting Tom DeLay to run for re-election to Congress. The former Majority Leader trounced his three GOP challengers, taking two-thirds of all votes and outpolling the closest candidate by over 35 points:

Rep. Tom DeLay won the GOP nomination to the House on Tuesday, beating three challengers in his first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside as majority leader.

With 14 percent of precincts reporting, DeLay had 10,005 votes, or 64 percent. His closest challenger, environmental attorney Tom Campbell, had 4,049 votes, or 26 percent.

"I have always placed my faith in the voters, and today's vote shows they have placed their full faith in me," DeLay said in a statement. "Not only did they reject the politics of personal destruction, but they strongly rejected the candidates who used those Democrat tactics as their platform."

If the politically motivated grand-jury shopping of Earle had any effect on DeLay's constituents, it didn't show tonight. DeLay cruised to victory even while the national media continued to snipe at him, noting that he spent the evening with lobbyists. Gee, perhaps he even talked to a few contributors, too! I guess CNN must think that lobbyists normally meet with the parking attendants on Capitol Hill. Will they be announcing every visit by a Congressman with a lobbyist as national news on CNN?

Salon Sells Out Troops To Boost Subscriptions

The online magazine Salon has had some tough times making it as a subscriber publication in a medium that prizes open-source sensibilities. It has had to force nonsubscribers to sit through tedious advertising before allowing them to read its nondescript essays, which don't have any more inherent quality than the volumes of essays more readily available at other publications. Even its one innovative nod to the blogosphere, Peter Daou's The Daou Report, violates the free and easily-networked nature of its target audience.

Apparently all of this has left Salon struggling for revenue from its readership. NZ Bear at the Truth Laid Bear, once a subscriber himself, reports on the latest effort at luring former subscribers back to the fold -- by promising to run hundreds of additional photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib:

Dear former Salon Premium member,

Three weeks ago, Salon released 18 photos from Abu Ghraib prison that had never been publicly available, along with documentation of the Army's own investigation into the disturbing images. Reaction was swift and strong; some accused us of undermining American interests, while others took us to task for not publishing every image in our possession. Most feedback praised our decision to highlight a scandal that's been largely underreported by the mainstream media.

We're planning to release hundreds more photos taken inside Abu Ghraib. Using information found in a U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) report and other sources, our news team is cataloging each image so we may provide captions that offer critical context. Our goal is to publish newsworthy pictures that haven't been widely seen before, providing the best information that the CID investigation materials could offer.

I'm contacting you and other former Salon Premium members to make sure these photos reach a large audience. Your expired Premium membership supported our ongoing mission to speak truth to power, but we need your help again now.

I'd like to urge you to renew your Premium membership now through this link to give us the support we need to continue this important work...

As we create an Abu Ghraib archive, we will aim to shed light on what the administration has determined to keep dark. In giving the American electorate the information it needs, we'll try to provide some of the transparency our government has so sorely lacked.

We'll do our job with integrity and diligence. That, of course, takes time. So thanks for your patience, your trust, and your support.

Sincerely,

Joan Walsh
Editor in chief, Salon

I can think of no better reason to avoid Salon like the plague, and no better example of its twisted editorial policy. The Abu Ghraib story is over two years old now. The press on this story gave it hysterical treatment in 2004 when Mary Mapes and 60 Minutes first published the photos and the story, while neglecting to mention that the Army had already launched extensive investigations into the abuse at the prison. The scandal got months of coverage as the media used the abuses as a template for the entire management of the war, even though it involved a small number of undisciplined idiots that received jail sentences for their crimes.

Now, two years later, Salon proposes to run "hundreds" more of the pictures. Why? Certainly not to enlighten its readers; the Abu Ghraib abuses have received an overwhelming amount of attention already. While Salon refuses to publish the Prophet cartoons that might actually clarify and provide context to a story that happened within the last few weeks, it insists that dredging up more pictorial depictions of the actions of a few depraved individuals from over two years ago -- who have all been tried for their offenses -- has actual value.

And that value is the $35 per year per subscriber they hope to capture by dangling this sick porn as an attraction.

And note that while their lengthy essay on their insistence on publishing even more of the same crap we've already seen claims a high-minded motivation to tell the truth about the Bush administration, the editors appear willing to "hide" the truth unless it gets enough subscribers to fund its mission. It recalls the pathetic and widely-scorned efforts of Oral Roberts to garner millions in donations to stave off the Lord's call to bring him home and to fund his new college.

The only value left in these pictures is their ability to inflame, and once again we have the parallel of the Prophet cartoons. Salon's reluctance to publish them supposedly involves their inflammatory and offensive nature. Yet Salon has no problem reminding the Muslim world that a few American soldiers engaged in graphic and sick abuse of their Muslim prisoners, which puts the rest of our troops -- almost all of which have abused no one -- at risk for more retaliations, if it means they can sell a few more subscriptions.

If nothing else, this editorial decision-making shows clearly why Salon's execs have to beg former subscribers to return, to extort cybersurfers to watch ads before accessing its site, and why they have to offer the sick tittilation of abuse photos to gain attention. Salon doesn't need more subscribers. It needs a real editor who understands what "news" means.

A Direct Assault On Judicial Activism

South Dakota apparently set off a trend in state legislatures with its comprehensive abortion ban, signed into law yesterday by Governor Mike Rounds. Since Roe, no legislature has dared to so openly flout the Supreme Court's dictate on abortion rights. Now, however, states have queued up similar legislation in an effort to follow South Dakota into the battle against judicial activism:

Leaders on each side of the abortion debate said South Dakota's law had stirred new support and fervor for their causes. Abortion rights advocates reported a flood of donations, volunteers and membership requests since the abortion bill began drawing national attention last month.

Opponents said they, too, had had a flood of calls, including numerous donations to a defense fund to fight what is expected to be expensive litigation on behalf of South Dakota.

Already, the state's move seems to have emboldened legislators opposed to abortion elsewhere. For months, similar bills had been proposed in the statehouses of at least a half-dozen states, including Ohio, Georgia and Tennessee, but some efforts have gained steam in the weeks since the South Dakota Legislature overwhelmingly passed its ban.

"Legislators feel that now is the time to wrestle back their authority from the courts," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, based in Washington. "The courts have overstepped their bounds on issues like gay marriage, and the legislators are speaking up."

It does seem that the Massachussetts Supreme Court decision to force the state legislature into approving gay marriage has become the final straw in a decades-long battle between the judiciary and the elected representatives of the people. No one these days defends the basic legal framework of Roe, with even Justice Ruth Ginsburg noting its legal flaws. The only argument is an ends-justifying-the-means cri de coeur from abortion advocates, predicting massive deaths and injuries to women if legislatures ban abortions -- despite the fact that these back-alley deaths never amounted to any significant number previous to Roe.

Without a doubt, the Supreme Court will not be able to avoid the reconsideration of Roe, as it has in the past. Legislatures and Congress have nibbled at the edges for thirty-three years, allowing the court to mostly avoid the direct question of judicial overstepping in 1973. These legislatures are betting that a direct challenge will not allow the court to avoid the controversy any longer. However, it remains to be seen whether this court will actually reverse Roe. Even the most optimistic votecounters predict no better than a 5-4 split, and the terms of the South Dakota law -- which makes no exception for rape or incest -- could be enough to tip even this court against the legislatures.

The anti-Roe activists are playing with fire; a loss at the Supreme Court could reinforce the precedent even further. However, it is clear that this battle will have to be fought at some point, and they're betting that this court will at least be open to the argument that Roe has no basis in law or constitution and should be voided. Let's hope the court can at least agree on that much.

UPDATE: La Shawn Barber pleads for a rational discussion on the issue.

Can We Call This Terrorism Yet?

Terrorism, in its most objective definition, is the use of violence or the threat of violence against civilian populations in order to advance a political or religious philosophy. Under this definition, doesn't the admission of Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar make his attempt to murder dozens of people with his rented SUV an act of terrorism? So far, the FBI and prosecutors still won't say:

University of North Carolina graduate from Iran, accused of running down nine people on campus to avenge the treatment of Muslims, said at a hearing Monday that he was "thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah."

Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar was accused of driving a sport-utility vehicle through the Pit, a popular campus gathering spot, injuring nine people Friday. None of the victims was seriously hurt.

University Police Chief Derek Poarch said Taheri-azar told investigators he intentionally hit people to "avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world." In a 911 call after the incident, Taheri-azar said he wanted to "punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world."

Michelle Malkin has followed this case from the beginning. She has noted that UNC students don't seem to have a problem determining that Taheri-azar is a terrorist, as a number of Tarheels protested against political violence yesterday. They wonder why law enforcement can't make the common-sense determination that a man who rented the biggest car he could get in order to inflict the most damage possible on civilian pedestrians in order to make his political statement against the US is indeed a terrorist. If he had a bomb in the car and it injured the same amount of people, no one would dispute the characterization at all.

Will such a designation change much? It would make Taheri-azar vulnerable to federal charges and longer prison sentencing, although North Carolina could probably send him away for the rest of his life as it is. But it's beginning to look like some government officials don't want to have this rampage counted as a terrorist attack on their watch. It's the only explanation for their reluctance to bring the appropriate charges.

GOP Conservatives Take A Stand

After six years of wondering what happened to the GOP's reputation for fiscal sanity, House conservatives have prepared an alternative budget that aims to uphold what brought Republicans to power in the first place -- an insistence on smaller government and significant reductions in federal spending:

With Congress heading into a politically perilous budget season, influential House conservatives plan this week to propose an austere alternative spending plan that would pare more than $650 billion over five years, balance the budget and drastically shrink three cabinet agencies.

The legislation, part of a push by some Republicans to re-establish themselves as champions of fiscal restraint, was taking shape as President Bush struck a similar theme on Monday by asking Congress to grant him line-item veto power to eliminate federal spending that he might judge wasteful. ...

Senior aides say the conservatives' plan would wring about $350 billion from Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs and save $300 billion partly through a major reorganization of the Education, Commerce and Energy Departments.

"We are putting our money where our mouth is," said one of the officials, who would discuss the proposal only without being identified because it was still being prepared for release Wednesday by leaders of the Republican Study Committee.

After watching the effort it took just to cut $40B from the budget last December, conservatives in the GOP have become alarmed that the revolution has become subsumed by the Beltway spending culture. The easiest way to ensure election is to promise government spending targeted at one's constituency, and when politicians turn off the spigots, the ratio of enthusiasm for their re-election appears to directly decrease. After twelve years of mostly Republican majorities and six of controlling the White House, that culture has made fiscal restraint a faint but pleasant memory.

The conservatives, let by Mike Pence and Jeb Hensarling, aim to bring back the old days before the midterm elections. With the president's numbers dropping and with the traditional lack of coattails in the sixth year of any presidency, the Republicans need to remind themselves why a disgusted electorate finally tossed the Democrats out of power after over forty years of controlling the nation's pursestrings. The preliminary information shows that they will approach this along traditional Republican lines -- maintaining a strong defense but going after the biggest entitlement programs and scaling back Washington's bureaucracy.

Let's talk about Medicare first. The program has bloated far past its mission to provide health coverage to the neediest Americans. It provides no means test to determine whether it serves that purpose at all. The scale of its mandate has swollen so badly that it will eat up eight times the amount of federal resources than Social Security in coming years, dwarfing that problem and swamping out the rest of the federal budget. Yet the White House has chosen to focus more on Social Security, assessing with some good cause that its issues can be solved now with less pain and retooling than Medicare. The House conservatives have taken the approach that the biggest problems need resolution first in order to save the most money.

As part of that effort, the alternative budget sharply cuts back on three bureaucracies that have long irritated conservatives: Energy, Commerce, and Education. The latter especially is seen as an incursion into what should be local and state provenance. George Bush has escalated federal education spending in terms that even Ted Kennedy could appreciate, but the real reforms promised have not yet materialized: school choice and real accountability for results. The better approach appears to be putting education issues back into the local communities where they belong and mandating a system that allows for competition between schools to provide the proper motivation for improvement. It's time that we challenged the socialist model of schooling as that seems to have left our most vulnerable children trapped in schools that do not allow them to learn.

The House conservatives offer a return to fiscal sanity on Republican terms -- less government, less bureaucracy, more responsiveness. The GOP should embrace this, because the Democrats will surely grab the mantle for fiscal sanity themselves -- and the cuts they make will not at all look like the cuts needed.

Taliban and AQ Taking A Beating In Pakistan

It looks like President Bush's visit to Pakistan may have paid off, as Musharraf appears to have re-energized his campaign in Waziristan against al-Qaeda and the Taliban remnants that have taken refuge there. In a protracted battle near the Afghanistan border, Pakistani forces have killed scores of the Islamist terrorists:

Pakistani security forces battled pro-Taliban rebels holding out in a town near the Afghan border on Monday, killing 19 of them as the toll from three days of clashes rose to more than 120, the military said.

The rebels launched attacks on government positions in Miran Shah on Saturday as President Bush met Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in the capital. The fighting has raged since. ...

Militants launched attacks and seized government buildings Saturday in Miran Shah in revenge for a government attack Wednesday that killed 45 fighters.

The toll from the first day of fighting rose from 46 to more than 100 militants as more detailed reports arrived, Sultan said. Two militants were killed Sunday.

Five troops were killed and two wounded over the three days, he said.

That ratio shows that the Taliban and AQ cannot defeat anyone militarily; no army could suffer losses at a ratio of 100-5, and Pakistan has a lot more resources than the Islamists do. All they needed was the proper motivation. The rebels helped supply that by staging a rather stupid offensive during Bush's visit to Musharraf, giving Bush all the context he needed to press Musharraf for more decisive action against the holdouts in the border area.

The Afghanis also prodded Musharraf into action, a move they continue to defend today:

A rift between Afghanistan and Pakistan deepened Tuesday as Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said intelligence about Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives allegedly hiding in Pakistan was "very strong and accurate." ...

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan — key allies of Washington in its war on terror — have deteriorated sharply since Karzai gave Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf last month a list of Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives he said were hiding in Pakistan.

Afghan and Pakistani officials told The Associated Press the list included Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar and top associates, and that Afghanistan also shared the locations of alleged terrorist training camps. ..

Pakistan has accused Afghanistan of leaking the list to the media because Kabul did not trust Islamabad to act on it. "The bad-mouthing against Pakistan is a deliberate, articulated conspiracy," Musharraf was quoted as saying Monday by the state-run news agency, Associated Press of Pakistan.

Pakistan has had an uneven approach to fighting the militants in its border regions over the past few years. It presses in engagements such as the active battle we see now, but then relaxes for a while and tries to use the tribes as proxies to flush out the terrorists. That demonstrates the tense relationship that Islamabad has with these tribal leaders. Pakistan has long relied on them to act as a trip-wire defense against threats foreign threats in order to keep its military mobile in the less daunting landscape farther inside its borders. With a number of the tribes at least somewhat sympathetic to the Islamists, the Pakistanis have to tread carefully in order to maintain their traditional security barriers.

However, as Musharraf has seen this past week, as bad as angering and alienating the tribes might be, it's far worse to allow the Islamists to gather in the north and slowly gather into a substantial threat. As soon as they feel strong enough, they will attack Musharraf and the military and exploit the tribes either for support or to act as shields. Their attacks are not limited towards Islamabad either, but at least equally include Afghanistan and its new government. The US made it clear earlier that it would not forever resist the impulse to strike back on its own against the Taliban/AQ remnants using Pakistan as a terror base, and Afghanistan made sure that the world knew it had given Musharraf enough information to act on his own.

Musharraf needs a push now and then to recommit to the war. Bush and Karzai provided it this week, as did the terrorists themselves, and the results have been excellent thus far.

Emily Litella Also Works At The Post

The AP started a major controversy with its report on President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina last week. It supposedly discovered new video and transcripts showing that Bush was warned that the levees surrounding New Orleans would break and that the White House was so disengaged that it didn't even bother to ask any questions during the last pre-landing briefing. After stirring up a firestorm, the AP waited until 7 pm on a Friday night to issue a half-hearted correction acknowledging what anyone who actually watched the video or read the transcripts already knew -- that neither were new at all, and neither contained any warnings at all about breaches.

It turns out that the second part of the AP's mistaken report was also untrue, and today the Washington Post became the next organization to emulate Emily Litella and say, "Never mind!"

In the March 4 editorial "Caught on Tape," on the leaked video of a White House briefing before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, we wrote that there was no evidence President Bush, after being briefed on the predicted damage, had asked follow-up questions. In fact, the full transcript shows that after Mr. Bush left the conference, some of his advisers, including Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, did ask about the involvement of the military and other preparedness issues.

Like the AP, the Post classifies this as a "clarification" rather than a correction, and fails to offer a retraction for their bitter attack on President Bush based on their faulty reporting and fact-checking. Many times the mavens of the Exempt Media discount and disparage bloggers for having no accountability and inferior controls for fact-checking. Yet here the leading newspaper in the United States not only passed along obviously incorrect information without bothering to check the facts, but its editorial board then used that obviously incorrect information to jump on a tar-and-feathering campaign against the President -- for his incurious approach to checking the facts!

The AP took the cowardly way out of the situation with its "clarification", and now the Post has followed suit. A more honest editor would have apologized for the conclusions reached by its own incurious approach to fact-checking and the erroneous conclusion they reached because of it, and they would have issued a retraction on both their reporting and the subsequent editorial. I would have expected this gutless and partisan approach from the New York Times, but it surprises and disappoints me that the Post can't see beyond its biases in this case.

Kirby Puckett, RIP

After suffering what turned out to be a massive stroke yesterday, family members removed Kirby Puckett from life support today and he passed away at 44:

Twins Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett died tonight.

Puckett suffered a massive stroke Sunday morning at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., and underwent surgery. He had been transferred to St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix.

Family members assembled at the hospital Monday to make the decision on life support. The people with knowledge of Puckett’s condition said he was expected to be removed from the life support sometime Monday.

Puckett had two children and was engaged to be married this summer.

Although I have been a Dodgers fan all of my life, Kirby was the kind of player that all baseball fans loved. His joy and enthusiasm for the game and the fans came across wherever he went and whenever he played. We celebrated with Kirby when he won the two World Series; we mourned when glaucoma took him from the game too soon. Now we are all stunned as death has taken him from us far, far too soon, and we pray for the family and loved ones he left behind.

Godspeed, Kirby, and thank you so much.

Iran Gives US A Casus Belli, If We Want It

ABC News reports tonight that Iran has shipped improved explosive devices capable of defeating the body armor employed by US soldiers to the insurgents in Iraq. Brian Ross will tell ABC's World News Tonight that Iran is "knowingly killing US troops", according to former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke:

U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.

They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor.

What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures -- certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.

"The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production," said explosives expert Kevin Berry. "So it's the same make and model."

U.S. officials say roadside bomb attacks against American forces in Iraq have become much more deadly as more and more of the Iran-designed and -produced bombs have been smuggled in from the country since last October.

"I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there," said Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. "I think it's very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops."

If this can be substantiated, it will present the Bush administration with a casus belli that opens up both a can of worms and a wide range of options that may have been out of reach before this.

The bad news is that the US military has a lot on its plate right now, attempting to train the Iraqi army quickly enough to start drawing down troops by the end of the year, when domestic politics demands that some real progress be shown. Attempting to broaden the conflict at this point towards Iran can complicate that effort, especially in regards to Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, with its heavy inclination towards Teheran. The bombing in Samarra made tensions escalate enough in Baghdad; an attack on Sadr's client could either cow him into submission or cause him to erupt in an attempt to draw American fire from Iran.

Also, after the political warfare at home for the past three years, the conclusions of intelligence experts will not likly carry much weight when it comes to another casus belli. The virulent anti-war movement may get stronger with another expedition of American force. That impulse will multiply if the White House lacks allies for the fight, and right now it doesn't look very good for convincing Europe to target Iran for any reason. We may hang onto Britain and Australia and a few Eastern European countries for diplomatic support, but that will probably be the extent.

However, this does open more options, as I said earlier. For one thing, the Democrats have used Iran to attempt a flanking maneuver on the right of the GOP, arguing for tough measure against Iran, up to the use of force. Now that Iran has been revealed as a major supplier of the IEDs that have killed and maimed our soldiers, they will not easily back away from their earlier hawkish positions. Also, Bush does not have to mount a full-scale invasion in order to get the point across. Bush could try a range of military actions in response, from targeted bombings on industrial plants that make the materials used, to a pre-emptive strike wiping out Iran's air defenses. It could -- and should -- include massive strikes against known nuclear-research facilities.

If this turns out to be correct, Bush has to act against Teheran regardless of the EU's position. The US cannot ignore provocations from a nation that directly results in our soldiers being attacked and killed.

The Return Of Dialyblogging

We're just starting to get on the First Mate's regular dialysis schedule at the local DaVita center, where she will spend around four hours three times a week until a new donor can be found. This is an excellent facility with a wonderful staff who have made the FM feel very much a part of the family here. They've even allowed me to use their conference room for blogging business while the FM dialyzes and tries to get some rest. It allows me to be on hand while she's plugged into the machines in case she needs anything while having a chance to relax and feel a little productive. (Her last dialysis center was another DaVita center and they were just as nice.)

I'll be reviewing the news and my e-mail, but if you'd like a little stress relief like me, try paying a visit to INDC Journal, where Bill is ferret-blogging while taking a bit of a breather from regular blogging. Bill has cornered the market on ferret blogging, in fact, and as usual he's been extremely ... creative. Be sure to check out the ferret take on Paris Hilton. Trust me.

Addendum: And when you want to get back on top of the news, start here tomorrow morning.

Gitmo Project Still Under Way

We still have more room for our blogswarm study of the documentation released by the DoD on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. See this post for details!

Turan: Hollywood Isn't Liberal Enough

Kenneth Turan is angry that Oscar didn't anoint Brokeback Mountain as its Best Picture winner, and he's certain he knows why it didn't -- all that latent homophobia running around Hollywood. It couldn't be anything else ... right, Kenneth?

Sometimes you win by losing, and nothing has proved what a powerful, taboo-breaking, necessary film "Brokeback Mountain" was more than its loss Sunday night to "Crash" in the Oscar best picture category.

Despite all the magazine covers it graced, despite all the red-state theaters it made good money in, despite (or maybe because of) all the jokes late-night talk show hosts made about it, you could not take the pulse of the industry without realizing that this film made a number of people distinctly uncomfortable.

More than any other of the nominated films, "Brokeback Mountain" was the one people told me they really didn't feel like seeing, didn't really get, didn't understand the fuss over. Did I really like it, they wanted to know. Yes, I really did.

In the privacy of the voting booth, as many political candidates who've led in polls only to lose elections have found out, people are free to act out the unspoken fears and unconscious prejudices that they would never breathe to another soul, or, likely, acknowledge to themselves. And at least this year, that acting out doomed "Brokeback Mountain."

Now, Hollywood has a lot of faults, but latent homophobia just isn't one of them. The movie business is one of the most gay-friendly industries in the US, and by any reckoning it includes more open gays among its power elite than any other big business. Their products routinely support gay issues and the gay culture, and their representation in the Academy certainly surpasses their demographic standing in the population as a whole.

Why does Turan want to assign the loss of the Oscar to homophobia? Because it was his favorite film of the year, and Turan does not want to consider that others may not share that conviction out of honest opinion and not some hidden bias against gays. And this is exactly why the Academy Awards always turns out to be more about politics than actual film excellence. When a film loses -- a film which, by the way, got nominated as one of the top five films by the same Academy -- its partisans always throw rhetorical and political firebombs at the Academy and its voters. Turan demands that the Academy honor this film because of its subject matter, or else it proves that Oscar voters have a secret bigotry towards gays.

It's rhetorical extortion. Turan argues for political anointment rather than honest opinion. He's a martinet instead of a film critic, and he's not alone.

No doubt Turan is upset that his favorite film lost. Perhaps he should put himself in the position of most Americans, who wondered why the Academy rarely nominates any of their favorites these days, a good question in a year in which all of the nominees had less-than-impressive runs at the box office. (via Mickey Kaus)

EU: Oslo A Singular Commitment -- For Israelis Only

The European Union has never been terribly friendly to Israel, and now they want to push the Israelis into a unilateral commitment to follow Oslo, even while Hamas refuses to commit to the agreement. An EU Commissioner insists that the Israelis continue tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority, even though those transfers only started under the treaty that Hamas refuses to recognize:

Israel should release customs duties of 60 million euros ($72 million) per month to the Palestinian Authority's interim government, the European Union's head of external relations said in an interview on Monday.

"It would be important that the Israelis are paying out what is actually Palestinian money -- the customs duties," the
European Commission's Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in an interview with Austria's daily newspaper Der Standard.

Israel has decided to stop handing over the customs revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority following the victory in parliamentary elections of Islamist group Hamas, which is committed to the destruction of the Jewish state.

What is it about Israel that makes the EU think it should honor treaties that the other signatory has long since abandoned? The tax transfers came as part of the Oslo agreement as a way to boost the economic resources of the Palestinians so that they could move towards a two-state settlement and peacefully exist with Israel. However, two intifadas and an election of Hamas to government later, the Oslo accords are a dead letter, and the tax transfers should have died with them.

It is absolute nonsense to instruct Israel to pay a terrorist organization $50 million a month, when that group's main mission continues to be the destruction of Israel. Why should Israel have to fund its own destruction? The entire notion is ridiculous on its face, destroying the EU's credibility as a partner against terror. The EU even acknowledges that Hamas remains on its own list of terrorist groups, meaning that the EU cannot transfer money to Hamas. Why should Israel treat this any differently?

Israel should put the money in escrow to fund rebuilding projects and compensation for victims of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians. Anything left over can go towards building the wall in the West Bank.

Going To Yale Instead Of To Jail

The news that a former Taliban official has enrolled at Yale had many people scratching their heads, wondering what the Ivy League university's admissions department was thinking when they allowed Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi to attend classes. The former deputy foreign secretary of the brutal regime claimed that he had grown up since the fall of the Taliban and wants to pursue his continuing education. However, as John Fund notes, the 27-year-old Islamist apparatchik has not exactly turned over a new leaf:

He does say that some of his views have changed. "I was very young then," Mr. Rahmatullah, now 27, told the Yale Daily News last week. "At that age, you don't really have the same sensibilities that you may have later." He has told fellow students he now believes in free speech and the right of women to vote. He told the New York Times the Taliban were bad for his country because "the radicals were taking over and doing crazy stuff," implying that the early days of Taliban rule were benign. He says he believes that after graduation, he can serve as a bridge between the Muslim world and the West.

If that's true, it's time that Yale and the State Department, which issued his student visa, realize that there's evidence his views are still pretty unreconstructed and, in fact, would be rejected by most of the world's Muslims. Mr. Rahmatullah isn't giving interviews now, but last Wednesday he did talk with Tim Reid of the Times of London. He acknowledged he had done poorly in his class "Terrorism: Past, Present and Future," something he attributed to his disgust with the textbooks. "They would say the Taliban were the same as al Qaeda," he told the Times. ...

One shouldn't depend on one interview for a full picture of someone's current views. But late last year, Mr. Rahmatullah wrote an essay titled "Ignorance! Not an Option," which appeared on the Web site of the International Education Foundation, the charity headed by CBS contract cameraman-producer Mike Hoover that is sponsoring Mr. Rahmatullah's stay in the U.S. In the essay, Mr. Rahmatullah takes Americans to task for both their "xenophobic" attitudes and ignorance of the Taliban. He claims the Taliban "were too ignorant to know that their guest"--Osama bin Laden--"was harming other people." He concludes that the Taliban "honestly practiced what they had learned in their religious schools. They did what they had been taught to do. Whether what they had been taught was good or bad is another subject." If this is sincere repentance, Yale needs to acknowledge that at the school that fathered literary deconstructionism, the term has lost its meaning.

Why doesn't the connection to CBS surprise me?

In the embarrassment of this revelation, Yale has clammed up about Hashemi's acceptance and recruitment. The former dean of admissions told Fund that he didn't want to lose another high-profile foreign student to Harvard, but now refuses to give Fund a follow-up interview after Fund discovered the rather unreconstructed viewpoint of Hashemi. Another current faculty member told Fund that if he persisted, he would tell other media outlets that Fund was "slimy", a charge that sounds a bit ironic given Yale's red-carpet treatment to an official of one of the most oppressive and anti-liberal regimes of the late 20th century.

And let's remember that while Yale opens its doors and arms to a man who belonged to a government that would chop the fingers off of women who dared to paint their nails and forbade the flying of kites, it still refuses to allow the military to recruit and for the ROTC to train on its campus. Why? Because of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of the US armed forces. Why doesn't Yale ask Hashemi how the Taliban treated homosexuals? The US military just gives gays general discharges -- it doesn't bulldoze brick walls onto their prostrate bodies.

Yale wants to believe that it is showing courage and a commitment to diversity by allowing Hashemi to attend Yale. The diversity that the university worships would never have been tolerated by the government that Hashemi served as a highly-placed official, and rewarding his career as a fascist oppressor with admission to one of the most prestigious universities in the world sends the wrong message for those who believe in freedom and liberty. Yale has shamed itself by not only admitting Hashemi but actively recruiting him for their campus. Yale students should note the hypocrisy and wonder why the university values a Taliban official more than the military that protects the freedoms that Yale supposedly professed with this choice.

To Boldly Stop Going?

Aviation Weekly reports that the US has mothballed an aircraft capable of space flight that has operated secretly for over a decade but now finds itself the victim of shrinking budgets. The unacknowledged plane can, according to sources that AW has worked for years without receiving evidentiary proof, enter space with a two-stage booster system and insert satellites into low orbit (h/t: Jim O):

For 16 years, Aviation Week & Space Technology has investigated myriad sightings of a two-stage-to-orbit system that could place a small military spaceplane in orbit. Considerable evidence supports the existence of such a highly classified system, and top Pentagon officials have hinted that it's "out there," but iron-clad confirmation that meets AW&ST standards has remained elusive. Now facing the possibility that this innovative "Blackstar" system may have been shelved, we elected to share what we've learned about it with our readers, rather than let an intriguing technological breakthrough vanish into "black world" history, known to only a few insiders. U.S. intelligence agencies may have quietly mothballed a highly classified two-stage-to-orbit spaceplane system designed in the 1980s for reconnaissance, satellite-insertion and, possibly, weapons delivery. It could be a victim of shrinking federal budgets strained by war costs, or it may not have met performance or operational goals. ...

A large "mothership," closely resembling the U.S. Air Force's historic XB-70 supersonic bomber, carries the orbital component conformally under its fuselage, accelerating to supersonic speeds at high altitude before dropping the spaceplane. The orbiter's engines fire and boost the vehicle into space. If mission requirements dictate, the spaceplane can either reach low Earth orbit or remain suborbital.

The manned orbiter's primary military advantage would be surprise overflight. There would be no forewarning of its presence, prior to the first orbit, allowing ground targets to be imaged before they could be hidden. In contrast, satellite orbits are predictable enough that activities having intelligence value can be scheduled to avoid overflights. ...

THE SPACEPLANE'S SMALL CARGO or "Q-bay" also could be configured to deliver specialized microsatellites to low Earth orbit or, perhaps, be fitted with no-warhead hypervelocity weapons--what military visionaries have called "rods from god." Launched from the fringes of space, these high-Mach weapons could destroy deeply buried bunkers and weapons facilities.

It's difficult to know whether to take this report seriously. One would think NASA would have shown a lot of interest in this launch concept, especially to move personnel between the International Space Station and Earth after the destruction of Discovery. The space agency has attempted to design new launch platforms for space travel for two decades as the shuttle fleet approaches its design limits and as the nation debates the wisdom and safety of rocket-style launches with little capacity for escape in an emergency.

AW does provide a good circumstantial case for the existence of the program, though, along with the "trust me" aspect of using their anonymous sources within defense circles. The sudden Pentagon acceptance of the end of the SR-71 program and the elimination of the Army anti-satellite program suggested even at the time that the DoD must have found a suitable replacement for both, perhaps on "black box" budgets. AW also has at least one sighting of the plane with its purported "mother ship" from a reliable source, an aviation insider who knows what such a construct would look like.

If this program has been defunded, it would also suggest that the US has a replacement for it, especially during wartime. The possibilities that holds would be almost limitless and could eventually boost the space program when secrecy is no longer such an issue. Read the entire article and decide for yourself.

Islam, Islam Uber Alles

In case anyone still has any illusions about the intent of radical Islamists, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made it clear when meeting with government officials on his state visit to Malaysia. The Russian news agency Itar-Tass reports his remarks:

Islam will soon be the domineering force in the world, placing first in the number of its followers among all other religions. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed this confidence here at the end of his state visit to Malaysia.

Following a meeting with Sultan Jamalullail I, the supreme head of the federation of nine states where Islam was proclaimed the state religion, he pontificated: “The world will be in the hands of Islam over the next few years.”

I wonder what the Iranian equivalent of the "Horst Wessel Song" might be? (hat tip: CQ reader Jim O)

Academy Awards Live Blog

I will be continuing the CQ tradition of live-blogging the Academy Awards tonight, starting at 7 pm CT, or perhaps a little before to catch the pre-event reporting. None of the films competing really engaged me at all last year, and a couple of them -- Munich, especially -- I'll be actively rooting against. This year I'm in it for the cynicism.

Keep checking on this post for live-blog updates!

6:21 PM CT - Okay, I'm watching the pre-show show, which seems like attending pre-meeting meetings at work, except less entertaining. I just saw Keanu Reeves do an interview along with Sandra Bullock and utter all of three syllables. The next interview with three film critics had more energy than Reeves.

6:23 - Some commenters wonder why I should bother live-blogging the Oscars. I've been watching this show for over 25 years, and at least this makes me think I'm doing something constructive. I agree with RBMN that conservatives make a mistake in surrendering the cultural moments entirely to the Left. Basically, I'm here to keep an eye on things. And this way I can understand the context of the quotes that will fill the papers tomorrow.

6:33 - Jennifer Aniston lends a little class to the event. We watched Along Came Polly this afternoon and it was better than I expected. Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillipe also looked pretty charming.

6:36 - Matt Dillon, who played a racist LA cop in Crash, says his character was a archetype of the "kind of LA cop we've all come to see over the years". I'm sure the cops providing security for the event really appreciate that comment.

6:39 - CQ reader Stoo Pid gets it right -- I watch so you don't have to! Oh, the sacrifices I make ...

6:49 - Pajamas Media is also liveblogging tonight! (via Michelle Malkin)

6:53 - Wow, Rechel Weisz got nominated for The Constant Gardener? It's a night full of stinkers! (I like Weisz, but not in this role...)

6:55 - So how many nominations did The Great Raid get? Anyone? Anyone?

7:01 - Interesting opening. Did anyone notice how many of the films they featured in that montage that didn't win Best Picture?

7:05 - Nice bit of self-deprecating humor on the many people who turned down the emcee gig ahead of Jon Stewart. It's funny, but let's remember that all they could dig up was a cable-show host whose best film credit is, as he himself said, the fourth male lead on Death to Smoochy.

7:08 - Wow, he's stinking up the joint.

7:09 - I can only assume he's doing an homage to Crash, because that's what he's doing. The only real laugh he got was after a joke about Dick Cheney shooting Bjork.

7:15 - In response to the meltdown that Jon Stewart just provided, CQ would like to present flashbacks to more entertaining Oscar presentations:

Uma ... Oprah! Oprah ... Uma!

You're welcome. Oscar has a million of them, and none of them as bad as this opening monologue.

7:19 - George Clooney wins the first award for Best Supporting Actor. He applauded the Academy for giving Hattie McDaniel an Oscar when blacks still sat at the backs of theaters. Perhaps he should be asking why they still have trouble getting decent roles and recognition at the Oscars. Talk about being "out of touch"!

7:24 - I guess Jon will be talking about George Clooney's love life all night long ...

7:29 - Ben Stiller just did a parody of most of his résumé, but at least it was somewhat original. Too bad it wasn't really funny.

7:34 - RBMN makes a great point about Clooney's speech. Who in Hollywood marched for civil rights when it wasn't popular or trendy? Charlton Heston, that's who.

7:41 - Kirby Puckett suffered a stroke.

7:42 - Making fun of Scientology doesn't get the audience laughing much. Too bad.

7:47 - ABC has done an excellent technical job on the show so far -- no embarrassing glitches and a nice, classy look to the stage and presentation. Too bad the talent hasn't matched their effort thus far. However, we still have 18.5 hours left for the talent to catch up.

7:55 - It's somewhat telling when the entirety of the Hollywood A-list cannot put together an entertaining show without a script -- or in this case, even with a script. Hollywood has so little stage talent left, people who can make it happen live and on their own.

7:58 - Will Farrell and Steve Carell had a funny bit with bad makeup.

8:05 - I bet Rachel Weisz wins, but I'm rooting for Minnesota's Amy Adams.

8:07 - I knew it. I think she's terrific, but the movie was such a stinker ...

8:10 - Tab is now an energy drink? When did it change from being one of the worst low-calorie drinks ever marketed?

8:12 - Lauren Bacall looks nervous and is having big problems getting through her introduction. That is just so unlike her public persona -- she started looking pretty helpless out there. Hope she's okay.

8:14 - Earlier, Stewart made a tasteless joke about pulling down the big fake statue of Oscar and seeing if it would democratize Hollywood. Maybe they should just pull it down to get over themselves; at least that would be an improvement.

8:16 - Self-realization! Jon Stewart: "I'm a loser".

8:18 - The political ads for Best Actress were original, and worth a couple of laughs.

8:24 - Wow, March of the Penguins beat Enron and Murderball. That surprised me.

8:25 - Thanks for the link, Glenn!

8:27 - Loved the song from Crash, but the dance number was pretty danged strange.

8:33 - Art direction pits Harry Potter's world of fantasy against ... a newsroom. Wanna bet Good Night and Good Luck wins?

8:34 - Neither one; Memoirs of a Geisha instead.

8:36 - Oh, goody; Hollywood pats itself for being enlightened now. How come they don't mention Gone With The Wind and Birth of a Nation?

8:44 - I guess they have to let the boss make a speech. Good thing it didn't interrupt the fabulous level of entertainment we've all experienced so far!

8:48 - Itzhak Perlman is a genius and a joy.

8:56 - Shorter Jake Gyllenhaal: Don't buy DVDs. Do you think that the studio execs are choking on their lattes right now? I guess I can forgo that planned purchase of The Good Girl now ...

9:05 - Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep is doing a pretty good imitation of a Robert Altman film ... and exemplifying why I think Altman's work to be overrated and tedious. But Tomlin and Streep are really nailing it.

9:11 - Is this an "honorary" Oscar or a Lifetime Achievement Award? I thought they had a Thalberg Award for that purpose.

9:12 - "No other filmmaker has had a better shake than I have." That was classy. This may have been the best moment of the entire evening. He also talked about his heart transplant from ten years ago and how the Academy may have honored him a bit too early. Very nice, warm, and personable speech. I wished I liked his films more than I do.

9:19 - From Altman's classy moment to what has to be the nadir of Oscar class: "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp", introduced by Ludacris. They even had to mute a word or two. What a great family moment!

Maybe it's the theme song for the entire movie industry for the last several years of declining box-office attendance. The pimps of Hollywood must think it's pretty hard out here for them, too.

9:22 - Wanna bet it wins the award?

9:25 - Told you. What a joke.

9:27 - Jon Stewart: "Why are they the most excited people here?" Because YOU'RE BORING, Jon. Get it?

9:31 - You know I'm no great fan of George Clooney, but does anyone else get the feeling that he would at least be a classier emcee than Jon Stewart or Chris Rock? And maybe we'd get the show over in three hours?

9:41 - David says "bring back Tom Hanks". Yeah, I could go with that over all of them.

9:42 - Jon Stewart meant it as a joke, but this should shame the entire Academy: Martin Scorcese -- zero Oscars, 3-6 Mafia -- one Oscar (for "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp").

9:47 - Philip Seymour Hoffman won for Capote. I would have guessed that David Strathairn would have won; he's one of my favorite actors. Hoffman would be a close second, however. I loved him in Almost Famous.

9:56 - John Travolta looks good, and turned in a no-nonsense and efficient presenting job. Jamie Foxx unfortunately couldn't follow his example, but looks great.

10:00 - Well, we're into overtime once again, but at least we went there with Reese Witherspoon. I was surprised that Felicity Huffman didn't win for Transamerica. The FM and I will be watching Walk The Line tomorrow evening on DVD. (Don't tell Jake Gyllenhaal!)

10:04 - When David Letterman bombed at the Oscars, he had a multimillion-dollar contract at CBS to cushion his fall. Will Jon Stewart survive this disaster? Should he survive it? To me, this just demonstrates how overrated Stewart is. Remind me again why the Academy had to settle for a cable-talk-show host, considering the talent supposedly represented by the AMPAS.

10:12 - Brokeback Mountain won Best Adapted Screenplay. I'd expect it to win Best Picture now.

10:13 - No, James, USC didn't just score another touchdown against ND, but this feels like a Division III football game in overtime at 0-0.

10:18 - Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

10:20 - Brokeback wins for Best Director. Ang Lee managed to keep the trophy away from George Clooney for the eleventy-seventh film about the blacklist, and Steven Spielberg for the morally atrocious Munich.

10:22 - Thanks, Michelle, for the link and the quote!

10:23 - Crash wins the Best Picture award -- a surprise for both the FM and I. Good! It means that Munich got skunked; in a sane world, it wouldn't have even made the list of nominees. I'm looking forward to seeing it. It looks interesting and perhaps a bit uncomfortable, which I don't mind.

They cut off the speech of the winner, thankfully. I wonder if they'll come back to Jon Stewart for a wrap-up, or if the show's producers understand the concept of quitting while one's behind.

WRAPUP: It's hard to say that this was the worst Oscars ever; I wasn't around in 1934. It's certainly one of the worst I've ever watched, and not just because of the talentless performance by Jon Stewart. Chris Rock wasn't any better last year, either. It shows that the Academy has lost their grip on what entertainment actually means. But what made this awards show perhaps the worst of all time was the selection and staging for "It's Hard To Be A Pimp". Dance lines of pimps and whores on what's supposed to be a celebration of the best that Hollywood has to offer only shows the paucity of real imagination and taste in the town. The fact that the Academy selected this song as its winner shows why their films continue to pull fewer and fewer people into the theaters.

The Academy has a lot more problems than its host, and all the Hollywood glitz cannot cover up the emptiness of their work.

Gitmo Study Project Under Way

Last night, I issued a call for a blogswarm study of the newly-released documentation on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to determine the validity of an analysis done by attorneys representing two of the detainees. So far, we have had a large number of volunteers, and around a third of the documents have been assigned. I'm still getting volunteers, but more are needed, so be sure to send me a note if you're willing to participate. Put "Gitmo project" in the subject line and be sure to include a link to your blog, if you have one.

I've already received one survey back from Slightly Loony at JamulBlog. He included the following note:

After scanning this summary it was obvious that, as I expected, there was not enough information to reach an independent judgment. So I adopted this attitude as I read: I accepted the statements of fact as facts, and I interpreted as best I could any descriptions of what people actually said. I then made my best judgment as to the items you asked us to tabulate, based on the belief I had after reading the whole SOE. Most of these judgments could easily be debated by reasonable people, of course.

I feel like I've just taken a look at an alien (to me) culture from some distance, using a poor telescope. I was struck by the repeated descriptions of "recruitment" into jihad by religious figures. How strange, and frightening, such religious fervor! But these summaries are so shallow (as summaries usually are) that one cannot get any sense of the actual people (the "detainees", I mean) -- though it was easy to see, in some cases, the hostility of the officer writing up the summary, especially in some of the cases where the detainees have exhibited awful behavior in GITMO.

One thing that jumped out at me: the mitigations nearly all fall into one of two categories -- either a simple denial (e.g., "I was not an Al Qaida"), or completely irrelevant (e.g., "If released I will go home to my farm and get married."). The denials are not really informative, as (obviously) either a guilty or an innocent party is likely to deny the crime. To me, this basically complete absence of legitimate mitigating factors is the most compelling argument for bias in the process. If the process was fair, I'd expect to see things like "My good friend Dave is American" or "Here are the other five religious missions I went on before I was accidentally caught up in this mess in Afghanistan". But those are not there at all. Of course, the alternative explanation for the absence of legitimate mitigating factors is that they are genuinely missing -- because the detainees are in fact guilty -- and that the U.S. officers acting on their behalf stretched hard to find the few mitigating factors they did list. I hope like hell its the latter (and the other evidence for guilt inclines me that way), but I don't see a way to prove it from the SOEs...

The point of this exercise is to see just how much subjectivity went into the initial study. If our study supports the conclusions reached by the Denbeauxs, I'll make that very clear. When I reviewed the material myself, however, I had the same reservations that Slightly Looney expresses so well. I was also taken aback by the inclusion of mitigation in the SOEs, a fact not mentioned in the Denbeaux study, and the "reach" that investigators made in including the very entries that SL notes as well.

Let's keep it going. Let me know if you want to participate.

UPDATE: In case anyone wants to see the Excel forms being used, you can see the at these links: SOE tally and CSRT review.

Press Finds Petards Most Uncomfortable, Once Hoisted

The Washington Post uses its front page today to note that the Bush administration has taken a hard line on leaks of classified information, apparently taking the law more seriously than previous administrations. In this lengthy complaint about the aggressiveness of the administration in protecting classified information during wartime -- Nixon gets more than one mention here -- the Post gives hardly any attention to the fact that the press started the entire effort with its hysteria over the Plame leak:

The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.

In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents from the FBI's Washington field office, who are investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the two cases.

Numerous employees at the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and other agencies also have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program, according to sources familiar with the notices. Some GOP lawmakers are also considering whether to approve tougher penalties for leaking.

Most ironically, Dan Eggen includes a statement from Bill Keller, the managing editor of the New York Times, whose paper demanded a thorough investigation and prosecution for the Valerie Plame leak ... at least until its own reporters got caught up in that investigation. After its revelation of the NSA surveillance program, Keller and the Times suddenly believe that investigating and prosecuting the release of classified information is a harbinger of oppression:

"There's a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors," said New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post. "I don't know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad."

I suppose that tone of "gleeful relish" never entered the newsroom of the Times when it revealed the NSA intercepts, or at the Post when it revealed the existence of CIA detention centers in Europe, or when both papers rushed pictures of the Abu Ghraib abuses to their pages even though the Army had already discovered the problem and had already started investigating it. Both papers routinely publish leaks from all sides in Washington, classified or not, which made their outrage over the leak of Valerie Plame's status more than just a tad hypocritical, and Bill Keller gets the award for the highest hypocrisy of all.

At the time, many of us warned the media that its insistence on prosecution would lead to exactly this kind of government action. After all, if the leak of a CIA employee's name could cause a national-security crisis, which is what the Left screeched, then revealing the NSA program amounts to a national-security meltdown. Exposing the methods and facilities used by the CIA to detain and interrogate terrorists in order to prevent attacks not just on the US but also its allies undermines global security. Given the Plame precedent, the government has to investigate these as well, and that means more reporters on the hot seat, either testifying to their sources or facing long stretches for contempt.

The media could not see the forest for the trees, however. They rushed to get a chance to bash the Bush administration by professing to be shocked, shocked! that government officials would leak information to the press in order to benefit their causes. Now they're shocked that the administration has decided to take their advice and prosecute everyone that they can prove assisted in exposing secret programs designed to defend the nation from further terrorist attacks. Color me unimpressed by their outrage at being hoist upon their own petard.

Are We Leaving Iraq?

The London Telegraph reports that the US and British forces in Iraq will be withdrawn within twelve months. Sean Rayment writes that sources within the British government have made it known that both countries will withdraw back to their bases over the coming months in preparation for a full withdrawal in 2007:

All British and United States troops serving in Iraq will be withdrawn within a year in an effort to bring peace and stability to the country.

The news came as defence chiefs admitted privately that the British troop commitment in Afghanistan may last for up to 10 years. The planned pull-out from Iraq follows the acceptance by London and Washington that the presence of the coalition, mainly composed of British and US troops, is now seen as the main obstacle to peace.

According to a senior defence source directly involved in planning the withdrawal, Britain is the driving force behind the scheme. The early spring of next year has been identified as the optimum time for the start of the complex and dangerous operation.

If true, this stunning development will do absolutely nothing for Iraq, the US, or the Bush administration. It would not only violate the trust between the Coalition and the new Iraqi government, but it would also send the message that Washington insisted it would never send -- that Islamist terror pressure could force a withdrawal from the fight.

The Bush administration, if it has decided on this course of action, will receive no bump in popularity for a withdrawal. It will only be seen as weak and retreating in the face of polling numbers not much different for any president in the sixth year of office. Moreover, if the insurgency starts massive attacks that wind up collapsing the democratic institutions that we have helped build, the entire effort will rightly be seen as a failure. That failure will come from a lack of political will, not a lack of effort and progress on the ground in Iraq. That failure will not fall on the Left that undermined the effort, either; it will fall on the Administration that abandoned it.

Hopefully, this report will turn out to be incorrect or misunderstood. If so, it will soon pass from the headlines and into the oblivion of so many other false press reports in this war. If not, the Bush administration needs to start explaining its reversal and retreat.

God Bless Virginia Postrel

Virginia Postrel has decided to donate a kidney to her friend Sally Satel:

Last fall, my friend Sally Satel wrote about the issue in general and her own search for a kidney donor. Between the time she wrote the article and the time it appeared in the NYT, I heard about her situation and volunteered as a donor. Our tissues turned out to be unusually compatible for nonrelatives and, when her Internet donor dropped out, I moved from backup to actual donor. We have our surgeries tomorrow morning.

As surgeries go, the procedure is safe and straightforward--far more so than people think. A donor can live a completely normal life with one kidney. The recipientis not so lucky, since a foreign organ requires a lifetime of immunosuppressant drugs. But that's a lot better than the alternative.

The donor's experience isn't exactly a breeze, either, so don't let Virginia sell her courage short. With arthroscopic surgery, it's a lot easier than it used to be; the previous surgical procedure required an incision almost from navel to spine. Now the recovery time is much shorter and the complications have diminished greatly ... but it still has its risks and a significant amount of time before the donor gets back to 100%.

On behalf of those who themselves or their loved ones need transplants, thank you, Virginia, and our prayers are with you and your friend. (via Instapundit)

Adam Cohen Tries Humor

Adam Cohen tries his hand at ironic farce in today's New York Times op-ed page in previewing tonight's Oscar presentations. He writes that -- wait, I have to wipe the tears from my eyes -- the Academy Awards have a history of avoiding politics!

This year's best picture nominees include a gay cowboy movie, and one about racial conflict in contemporary Los Angeles. There's a movie about the cycle of violence in the Middle East; one about a writer whose homosexuality, if not his journalistic ethics, is treated sympathetically; and one about a crusading TV newsman who took on a right-wing demagogue.

These films have something in common besides small budgets and low box office: left-of-center approaches to some of the day's most controversial issues. Hollywood rallying to the liberal cause may sound like non-news. As a Democratic friend said with a shrug when the nominations were announced, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is "the only branch of government we control."

But the Academy Awards have a history of avoiding politics. There have been a few onstage manifestos over the years, notably Sacheen Littlefeather denouncing the treatment of American Indians while declining Marlon Brando's Oscar for "The Godfather." But academy voters have a consistent record of handing out the top awards to blandly inspirational movies that sell a lot of tickets. This year's lineup is unusual, and it could be a modest sign that the nation's political mood is shifting.

Oh, this guy's a hoot! Just because the Best Film category doesn't always reflect the politics du jour of the Hollywood elite, Cohen thinks that Oscar shades his eyes from politics. As a veteran watcher of the awards show, I can tell you that Cohen is either willfully ignorant or selling something. The show itself usually consists of either politically-charged humor by the emcee or politically-charged speeches by the presenters or winners, especially the winners. Let's not forget the rant that Michael Moore spewed out in 2003, when he won Best Documentary -- for a film (Bowling for Columbine) that contained an egregious amount of falsehoods and fakery, but certainly had the political point of view that Hollywood adored.

In truth, Hollywood has always used their honors to reward political points of view. I dare anyone to go back and watch The Deerhunter, a dreadful and dreary movie that won Best Picture. (What were the alternatives? Coming Home, another angry Viet Nam war movie, Midnight Express, which sympathized for an American drug smuggler, An Unmarried Woman, which celebrated liberation through divorce, and Warren Beatty's Heaven Can Wait, the remake of a better film, Here Comes Mr. Jordan.) The nominations usually find themselves filled with politically correct films, and occasionally win the big prize. And as I mentioned before, I challenge Cohen to find any year in the last 30 when Hollywood's grand evening didn't get used as a platform for left-wing political posturing.

Perhaps Cohen can explain the hostility shown towards Elia Kazan when he received his lifetime achievement awards. A number of Hollywood's elite, notably Ed Harris and Amy Madigan, threatened to stage a protest during the awards for Kazan's cooperation with the House Un-American Activities Committee -- something that happened before they were out of diapers, if born at all. Or for that matter, perhaps Cohen can explain the continuing obsession with the blacklist, an obsession that they will once again drag out of the attic for tonight's show, thanks to the nominee and likely winner tonight, Good Night and Good Luck.

If Cohen thinks the Oscars are apolitical, then he must also consider MoveOn a nonpartisan organization.

Iran Plays EU For Suckers ... Film At 11

To no one's great surprise, except for the EU, Iran now brags about the wool they pulled over European eyes during the nuclear talks that the EU-3 held with the mullahcracy. The Iranians apparently feel secure enough in their weapons project to tell Muslim clerics just how clever they were:

In a speech to a closed meeting of leading Islamic clerics and academics, Hassan Rowhani, who headed talks with the so-called EU3 until last year, revealed how Teheran played for time and tried to dupe the West after its secret nuclear programme was uncovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002.

He boasted that while talks were taking place in Teheran, Iran was able to complete the installation of equipment for conversion of yellowcake - a key stage in the nuclear fuel process - at its Isfahan plant but at the same time convince European diplomats that nothing was afoot.

"From the outset, the Americans kept telling the Europeans, 'The Iranians are lying and deceiving you and they have not told you everything.' The Europeans used to respond, 'We trust them'," he said. ...

In his address to the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, Mr Rowhani appears to have been seeking to rebut criticism from hardliners that he gave too much ground in talks with the European troika. The contents of the speech were published in a regime journal that circulates among the ruling elite.

He told his audience: "When we were negotiating with the Europeans in Teheran we were still installing some of the equipment at the Isfahan site. There was plenty of work to be done to complete the site and finish the work there. In reality, by creating a tame situation, we could finish Isfahan."

Well, we hate to say I told you so -- mainly because it's too depressing to think that anyone would be stupid enough to believe that the Iranians were sincere in their negotiations, let alone professional diplomats. However, thanks to the EU and to the American Left that insisted that the Bush Administration not tackle threats "unilaterally", now we have the Iranians not laughing up their sleeves at us, but openly deriding us for fools. And they're right.

The time for negotiations has come to an end. The Iranians have no intention of giving up their nuclear-weapons program. The UNSC either has to impose a sanctions regime, including massive funding for democratic Iranian reformers to dismantle the mullahcracy in Teheran, or Turtle Bay should be shuttered for good. The UN utterly failed for twelve years to contain and disarm Saddam Hussein. Another failure in Iran will make the UN superfluous, an anachronism in the post-Cold War era, a status which we suspect has always been true.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me every day for two years ... well ...