Feingold Campaigns For Retreat From Iraq -- In Iraq

We used to say that American politics stopped at the water's edge, a reminder that we confine our policy debates within our own borders and project a united front abroad. That splendid tradition died a few years ago, starting with Jimmy Carter's open conflict with Bill Clinton in North Korea and Haiti and escalating during the war on terror. However, American politicians have at least understood that when traveling to the war zone, the troops and the public expect them to stick to supportive statements and not engage in protests against our mission. At least, they used to understand that -- but Wisconsin Senator and 2008 presidential hopeful Russ Feingold decided to make his visit to Iraq a soapbox to bolster his anti-war credentials:

The increasingly rancorous public debate in the United States over the war spilled into Iraq during a news conference Saturday with two visiting lawmakers who are outspoken in their opposing stands on the issue.

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a longtime supporter of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who voted against the invasion and has spoken out against the war ever since, said they had come not to air their divergent views but to urge Iraqi politicians to speed up the process of forming a government. But during questions from reporters, they argued -- cordially and pointedly -- over such issues as the timing of any withdrawal of U.S. troops and whether their continued presence is doing more harm than good.

Feingold said he believed "a large troop presence has a tendency to fuel the insurgency because they can make the incorrect and unfair claim that the U.S. is here to occupy the country."

"I think that it's very possible that the sectarian differences are inflamed by the fact that U.S. troops are here," he continued, adding that their long-term presence "may well be destabilizing, not stabilizing."

John McCain declined to get any further into the argument, telling reporters that the debate belonged on the Senate floor. It certainly didn't belong in Baghdad, where our troops have put their lives at risk to make their mission a success, and where the terrorists could find encouragement in his repetition of their own propaganda. Even Rep. Tom Udall, Feingold's Democratic colleague from New Mexico and a member of the delegation in Baghdad, noted that Feingold had broken the tradition of avoiding disagreements abroad, especially in a war zone.

Wisconsin voters should be ashamed of their Senator. It's bad enough that Feingold is using an extra-Constitutional censure against George Bush in order to bolster his candidacy. Now he has to take his defeatist demands for retreat into the war zone while we're fighting al-Qaeda and attempting to rebuild Iraq into a representative democracy. It's a shameful episode that may not have any equivalent in American history.

The Senate should immediately consider a censure of Russ Feingold for his shocking political exploitation of what should have been a nonpartisan investigatory trip to Baghdad. The Senate needs to set an example of how lawmakers traveling to Baghdad should comport themselves while representing America in Iraq. Using such a trip as a soapbox in this manner should not be tolerated.

UPDATE: Udall may have noted that Feingold broke tradition, but that didn't stop him from chiming in himself. Chris at In The Bullpen notes in an e-mail that Udall also told reporters that the US should abandon Iraq:

"The longer we say, as President Bush did this week, that we're going to be there until 2009, what incentive is there for the Iraqis to step forward?" said Udall, who voted against going to war and who has advocated rapid troop withdrawal for many months.

On Saturday, Udall used the term "redeploy" instead of "withdraw," explaining US forces should be moved to Kuwait and nearby nations to "get the best result for our troops and the Iraqis."

We should censure Udall, too. These arguments could easily have waited until both were back in the US. Instead, the two Democrats decided to grandstand on the backs of our troops.

Incoherence In Belarus

The situation in Europe's last dictatorship appears to have declined into a strange incoherence where both the government forces and the opposition give mixed signals about their intentions. On Friday, Aleksander Lukashenko ordered a roundup of the few hundred protestors still in the streets a week after a rigged election electrified the Belarussians into action. Today the protestors returned for the next scheduled event -- and the government did nothing to stop them. However, while the main body of protestors voluntarily shut down the demonstration in order to consolidate their support, another faction attempted to stage another in front of a police station -- and gave Lukashenko an opportunity to demonstrate his brutality:

Black-clad riot police clubbed demonstrators as government opponents marched Saturday in defiance of a show of force by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko that has drawn U.S. and European Union sanctions.

A week into protests set off by the disputed election that handed Lukashenko a third term, opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich told a crowd of thousands that momentum is growing to bring democracy to Belarus.

"We are starting work against dictatorship, and this work will sooner or later bear its fruit," he said.

But Milinkevich also urged a monthlong recess in protests, apparently hoping to calm tensions and gain time to build opposition forces, which have fallen far short of the huge outpourings that peacefully overturned governments in Ukraine and Georgia.

The day of confrontation and wildly swinging emotions left two big questions for the former Soviet republic of 10 million people, characterized in the West as Europe's last dictatorship: How much dissent are the authorities willing to allow and how much support does the opposition have?

Neither question got an answer today. After perhaps 20,000 people protested without any incident, the main portion supporting Milinkevich went home after the Lukashenko opponent decided not to pursue any more open demonstrations. Instead, he decided that it would be best to shelve the demonstrations for another month, waiting for the anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown in order to take advantage of an emotional event in order to press for more participation. Lukashenko has tried to move people back into the area evacuated after the nuclear-power accident, a policy that has caused widespread anger among Belarussians.

However, another Lukashenko opponent, Alexander Kozulin, decided to step up the pressure today rather than wait, and took a few hundred people to the police station where Minsk police held some of the previous day's protestors. Apparently hoping that the police would join them or stand aside, the Kozulin group surrounded the station and chanted slogans. Unfortunately for Kozulin, the Minsk police did not join them but began to beat and arrest the protestors. One man died and several injured in the melee, and police captured dozens of Kozulin's followers.

Publius Pundit reports:

The protest ended peacefully. He had called on the authorities not to break it up because he would make sure that it didn’t get out of control, and so the police didn’t move in. At no time before has such a large amount of people been able to gather to denounce Lukashenko without being severely beaten. Exactly one year ago even only a couple of hundred people were able to gather before being whacked with police batons. It was definitely a historic day.

But… It didn’t last for long. The other opposition candidate, Alexander Kozulin, marched a few hundred people to a detention center where the October Square demonstrators had been taken to. They faced a SWAT team and the army. Just hours after the peaceful rally, they were all beaten.

The head of the SWAT team beat Kozulin and arrested him. They fired smoke grenades, noise-makers, and tear gas into the crowd. They exploded directly above people. One by one they were stripped away and beaten in the face, back, and legs with batons until they bled. The women, instead, were punched in the face. Then they were taken away in paddywagons to who knows where. At least one person is confirmed dead with a skull injury. Even sicker is that Belarus state television showed up so that they could film a beaten man and say that he was stomped on by his fellow protestors. The protestors are hardly the animals here. All they could do was throw snowballs back at them.

This looks like the beginnings of a split in the opposition at a time when unity is critical in facing down the government. Milinkevich apparently was furious with the action by his ostensible partner in opposition, claiming that Kozulin "spoiled this holiday". Given enough fuel, this could degenerate into a dangerous split between a reformer attempting to use the system to patiently bring down a dictator and a renegade insistent on provoking violent reactions from him. Belarussians do not yet appear ready to revolt against Lukashenko and his pro-Moscow tilt, and having this kind of tension between opposition leaders will not give fence-sitters a warm feeling about jumping into the movement.

Milinkevich may be right not to pursue the demonstrations further if the two leaders cannot coordinate any better than this. The movement has to decide whether it wants to unseat the Lukashenko regime by peaceful rallies or through the exposure of the state-approved brutality seen in Minsk. The latter would give Lukashenko too much latitude to keep applying force in suppressing the opposition. Putting it off for a month seems a long time for the momentum to simmer; Milinkevich may not have much passion left in his movement.

But if the opposition appears confused, so does Lukashenko. Clearly the rallies have him rattled and unsure how to react. Milinkevich forced him into enduring today's more peaceful rally, accepting Milinkevich's word that his opponent would keep the crowd under control. His security forces responded to his orders when Kazulin stole a march on Milinkevich, but he cannot be sure that they will remain loyal if repeatedly asked to beat up unarmed and peaceful protestors. He can't afford to have the demonstrations but cannot afford to keep using force to break them up. So far the threshold seems to depend on the size of the rally.

That's why Milinkevich would be better advised to keep the rallies and demonstrations going instead of having them drop off the radar screen as proposed. Lukashenko is on the ropes and continued pressure would eventually strip him of all his options. Hopefully, Milinkevich and Kazulin can coordinate their strategies and tactics in order to make that day come soon.

ADDENDUM: The AP takes this bleak picture of the demonstration:

Not much joy in this protest, and the woman in the picture looks rather haunting.

Northern Alliance Radio Network Today

The Northern Alliance takes to the airwaves today in two separate locations. Brian, Chad, and John will man the studio for the first two hours (11am - 1pm), debating the topics of the day and talking to one of my favorites, Michael Barone of US News and World Report. For the second half of the show, Mitch, King and I will be live at the White Bear Lake Superstore, hanging out with the cars and talking about the week's events. I can guarantee King and I will be debating the strategy of the Belarussian opposition, and we'll probably be talking about Michael Steele, the meltdown at the Post over Red America, and many other topics.

Be sure to listen to the entire program at AM 1280 The Patriot, on the stream if you're not in the Twin Cities. If you're in the Twin Cities, stop by the WBLSS and say hello. Join in the conversation by calling 651-289-4488 or sending an e-mail to comments -at- northernallianceradio.com. We hope to hear from you!

Will Blogs Eat Themselves?

The entire tempest surrounding the hiring and termination of Ben Domenech as the Washington Post's designated conservative blogger shows that the blogosphere has a lot of growing up to do. Between the hysteria, the personal attacks, the revelation of wrongdoing and the triumphalism that followed, bloggers did tremendous damage to themselves.

We had anticipated a lively debate in the Washington Post once Ben started blogging -- but instead we got a slew of ad hominem attacks from bloggers determined to sabotage the Post's experiment. All one has to do is spend a couple of hours surfing through the various Red America links at Memeorandum to understand just how unhinged the attacks were, especially in the beginning. Charges of racism and bigotry flew mighty quickly and with no substantiation, but the accusations themselves took on their own life as a meme. It interfered with the real revelations of plagiarism discovered by some of the same bloggers who had been throwing dishes at Domenech and the Post from the moment Jim Brady announced the effort.

Domenech has now apologized in a better fashion than his first attacks on the blogosphere (via Protein Wisdom, who has interesting commentary of his own). Instead of owning up to the transgressions that his enemies had discovered, he attacked them back and tried to excuse the inexcusable. The fact that some of his defenders followed that path drains our own credibility as full partners to the professional writers that comprise the media. No one who makes a living by writing will ever consider plagiarism a youthful indiscretion, and to the extent that bloggers use that as an excuse for events that are not even five years in the past, it demeans our efforts as both writers and critics of the media. Why should they take us seriously when we don't respect their copyright?

If anyone wanted to make an argument that the blogosphere is too immature to be considered partners in information dissemination with traditional media outlets, we've provided it in spades this week. We finally had an opportunity to garner a high-profile setting for bloggers at the nation's premiere newspaper, and what did we do? We tore each other to shreds because we didn't like the ideological perspective of the first person chosen for the experiment. We engaged in crude character assassination that greatly overshadowed the actual value of the blogosphere to find and correct real transgressions and deficiencies, as demonstrated by the discovery of Domenech's plagiarism.

Hopefully we can learn from this lesson that our debates should focus on the issues and not on the personalities involved so that when we get our next opportunity, we can avoid this kind of embarrassing debacle. Unfortunately, we may have to wait a very long time before that opportunity comes around.

ADDENDUM: I do want to add that Ben did the right thing in his last apology. I don't know if he will ever gain any of his lost credibility, but this is the right path for him if that's what he wants.

UPDATE: The new writers at Wonkette apparently stopped reading this post at the word "unhinged", because I never said that the investigation of Domenech's writings was unreasonable. In fact, I say it was a good example of why the blogosphere works that got overshadowed by all of the vitriol and ad hominem attacks launched at both Domenech and the Post over his selection. I'm happy that CQ is on their reading list, but I'd be happier if they took the time to actually read what I wrote. Here's a sample of what "unhinged" means in this context.

Stealing Steele Sinks Schumer's Staffer

The low-key saga of Chuckaquiddick continued yesterday with the guilty plea of Laura Weiner, a staffer at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chaired by Chuck Schumer, for impersonating Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele and stealing his credit report by fraud. The Washington Post reports on the extent to which she misrepresented herself in order to gain access to Steele's personal information:

A Democratic researcher pleaded guilty yesterday to misrepresenting herself on a Web site as Michael S. Steele, Maryland's lieutenant governor and a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, and fraudulently obtaining his credit report last summer.

Under a plea agreement reached with prosecutors, the misdemeanor charge against Lauren B. Weiner, a former staff member of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, could be dropped in a year if she completes 150 hours of community service and commits no other offenses. ...

According to the prosecutor's statement, which Weiner said was accurate, she used Steele's Social Security number to access his credit report on a Web site designed to let people view their reports.

Weiner pretended that she was Steele, even creating an e-mail address -- gopsteele@yahoo.com -- needed to obtain the report, the statement said. She also agreed to the "terms of service" on the site, which included a warning "not to impersonate another person."

According to the statement, Weiner's superiors were notified within hours of the episode, and the report was destroyed the next morning before it could be disseminated. Weiner and her boss, the committee's director of research, later resigned.

The DSCC, in a statement released yesterday, said that it had acted in an "exemplary manner" in not using the stolen credit report. If the best we can get for "exemplary" is a promise not to use stolen personal information while continuing to employ the thieves that got it, then the Democrats will really have a tough time running on ethics in November. It took months for Weiner and her superior, Katie Barge to exit the DSCC, whether by resignation or termination. Nor did they disclose the theft to Michael Steele. That kind of reaction puts the DSCC at odds with the public orations of its chair, who co-authored the Schumer-Nelson ID Theft Prevention Bill, which criminalizes precisely the actions Weiner took -- and the DSCC covered up.

Steele may yet file civil charges against Weiner, which will force everyone involved to give depositions about their role in the theft and the cover-up. For instance, Weiner used a DSCC credit card in the transaction. Who gave her authorization to do so? Why wasn't that caught by the DSCC when they reviewed their expenditures, which have to be reported to the FEC in detail? In fact, did that expenditure ever get reported to the FEC at all?

Weiner's plea bargain doesn't close this case at all. It reminds us that we don't yet know the full story, and perhaps only a lawsuit by the victim will reveal the extent of the dirty-tricks operation at the DSCC.

Reports Of Their Demise May Have Been Exaggerated

The opposition movement in Belarus made a comeback today after going out with a whimper less than 24 hours earlier. Thousands of Belarussians defied riot police and gathered for a peaceful demonstration against Aleksander Lukashenko's oppressive regime and the rigged elections that kept him in power:

Thousands of Belarusians defied a massive show of force by the hard-line government Saturday, protesting in streets swarming with riot police and gathering peacefully in a park to denounce President Alexander Lukashenko after a disputed election returned him to power.

Rows of black-clad police blocked a central square where opposition leaders had called for a rally at noon, pushing crowds back in a bid to end a week of unprecedented protests in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic. Demonstrators shouted "Shame!" and "Long live Belarus!"

Tensions mounted swiftly around October Square as police in full riot gear arrived by the busload to shove protesters back. The crowd at a major intersection near the square — where Lenin Street meets Independence Avenue — quickly swelled from a few hundred to some 3,000.

After gathering on the other side of the sprawling square with a crowd of about the same size, opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich led supporters to a nearby park and the group swelled to as many as 5,000 people.

The response does surprise me; I predicted after Friday's debacle that the steam had mostly gone out of the Belarussian opposition. Publius Pundit agreed with me that the failure to stand their ground in October Square last Sunday was a tactical error, while my friend King Banaian at SCSU Scholars strongly disagreed:

The comparisons between Belarus' nascent opposition and the Orange Revolution next door completely misses the history of the Orange Revolution, which took years to create. The Orange Revolution was the culmination of an effort started by mass protests of "Ukraine without Kuchma" (UBK), which came from the grisly murder of journalist Heorhiy Gongadze in September 2000. UBK eventually got protests going in December of that year, which lasted well into 2001. These groups too were relatively small and were attacked repeatedly, though Kuchma was smart enough not to use uniformed police. By the end of 2001, it appeared, Kuchma had solidified power, sent Yushchenko from the prime minister's office into opposition, and was contemplating constitutional changes that would keep him in power indefinitely.

And that's the point: The breakup of protests was not the end of the opposition to Kuchma. It was the beginning of another phase in the development of a real opposition.

However, the 5,000 who gathered in Minsk this morning, while impressive so soon after the mass arrests yesterday, still only comes to half of those who initially started protesting last Sunday. That crowd grew to over 10,000 Belarussians and could have continued to grow, had the Milinkevich supportes not dispersed the demonstrations themselves. As the Ukranians showed, the aftermath of a rigged election is a powerful time to build strength, and part of that strength comes from showing the ultimate impotence of the dictatorship. By reducing the protests in Minsk to a couple of hundred people, it invited Lukashenko to show that he is anything but impotent to shut them down and re-instill fear to keep others from joining the protests.

Now that the opposition has a kernel of strength in Minsk, they need to maintain it and encourage others to join. In Lebanon, the protestors never allowed the Syrian toadies in Beirut to gain the upper hand; when Hizb' Allah rallied in strength to intimidate them, the Lebanese patriots outmarched them. Only by putting people in the streets will Belarussians take their country back from Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin, and they can't do that while they're sending them home.

The FEC Listened

The FEC announced its new regulations last night, the timing of which would normally bode ill for free-speech advocates, but it appears that the regulatory body has avoided regulating blogs at all:

The Federal Election Commission last night released proposed new rules that leave almost all Internet political activity unregulated except for the purchase of campaign ads on Web sites.

"My key goal in this rule-making has been to make sure that the commission establish clear rules to exempt individuals who engage in online politics from campaign finance laws," said Chairman Michael E. Toner, a Republican.

"We tried to craft a regulation that would allow the maximum amount of freedom for people as possible," said Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub, a Democrat.

Most bloggers, individual Web users, and such Web sites as Drudge Report and Salon.com are exempted from regulation and will be free to support and attack federal candidates, much as newspapers are allowed.

That last sentence sounds a bit snarky coming from Thomas Edsall and Zachary Goldfarb. The point of our opposition to encroaching federal regulation of speech isn't to "attack federal candidates," but to exercise the kind of free speech that the founding fathers envisioned when they wrote the First Amendment. That may include attacking federal candidates but also includes suuporting federal candidates that represent our political point of view.

This FEC release is good news for the blogosphere, especially considering the statements from the commissioners about their intentions on drafting the rules. They emphasized their desire to leave the blogosphere unfettered and gave the widest possible definition to the exemption that they could muster, under the guidelines forced on them by the federal judiciary. The only restriction we will have is on our advertising, which must carry a disclaimer of some sort in order to avoid allegations of coordination. This is a silly requirement for television ads, one that reduces the last ten seconds to the kind of speed-freak babbling that we have to hear on car commercials and loan advertisements.

We should not forget that the author of all this silliness, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), still remains in force, and that this exemption exists at the pleasure of the FEC. We still need a solid commitment from Congress that will restrict the actions of later FECs in regulating free speech on the Internet. We need to support House bill 1606, which will make the blog exemption an act of Congress that the FEC cannot reverse. Beyond that, we need to restore sanity to the electoral-campaign process by repealing the BCRA (aka the McCain-Feingold Act), forcing all political contributions to be handled alike and in the open, and quit attempting to stifle speech in a vain attempt to purify politics.

UPDATE: Patterico has his reservations about the beneficence of the FEC:

We’ll have to see the actual regulations before we can breathe easy. Even if they don’t regulate blogger speech now, it should concern us all that the government even claims the authority to regulate our speech — even if it isnt yet exercising that so-called authority.

I agree -- which is why I joined him in calling for an end to the BCRA and all the mischief it spawned.

Now Putin's Really Done It!

It's bad enough that Russia gave crucial war plans to our enemy before and during open hostilities, but now we find out that Vladimir Putin has committed an even graver sin:

Vladimir Putin -- KGB spy, politician, Russian Federation president, 2006 host of the Group of Eight international summit -- can add a new line to his resume: plagiarist.

Large chunks of Mr. Putin's mid-1990s economics dissertation on planning in the natural resources sector were lifted straight out of a management text published by two University of Pittsburgh academics nearly 20 years earlier, Washington researchers insisted yesterday.

Six diagrams and tables from the 218-page dissertation mimic in form and content similar charts in the Russian translation of the Americans' work as well, according to Brookings Institution senior fellow Clifford G. Gaddy.

"It all boils down to plagiarism," he said. "Whether you're talking about a college-level term paper, not to mention a formal dissertation, there's no question in my mind that this would be plagiarism."

I think it's safe to de-list Putin from our blogrolls now ...

The Media As Semaphore

Today's Washington Post coverage of the Russian perfidy in 2003 contains an interesting revelation from the Russians themselves which makes clear the administration's fury over their espionage on behalf of Saddam Hussein during the invasion. The release of the Pentagon study came before the US informed the Russians that they had discovered the smoking guns in the captured Iraqi intelligence:

Russian officials collected intelligence on U.S. troop movements and attack plans from inside the American military command leading the 2003 invasion of Iraq and passed that information to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, according to a U.S. military study released yesterday.

The intelligence reports, which the study said were provided to Hussein through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad at the height of the U.S. assault, warned accurately that American formations intended to bypass Iraqi cities on their thrust toward Baghdad. The reports provided some specific numbers on U.S. troops, units and locations, according to Iraqi documents dated March and April 2003 and later captured by the United States.

"The information that the Russians have collected from their sources inside the American Central Command in Doha is that the United States is convinced that occupying Iraqi cities are impossible, and that they have changed their tactic," said one captured Iraqi document titled "Letter from Russian Official to Presidential Secretary Concerning American Intentions in Iraq" and dated March 25, 2003.

A Russian official at the United Nations strongly rejected the allegations that Russian officials gave information to Baghdad. "This is absolutely nonsense," said Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian mission to the United Nations. She said the allegations were never presented to the Russian government before being issued to the news media. [emphasis mine -- CE]

Under normal circumstances with a country viewed as a diplomatic partner, if not an ally, both nations would engage in discussions about this kind of information before making it public, probably through high-ranking diplomats. The aggrieved nation would at least demand an explanation prior to showing its hand. The failure to do so by the US shows that this development has George Bush mad enough to expose Vladimir Putin and his government to the kind of political damage that could restart the Cold War. That may be because Bush understands that, just as with 9/11 and its precursor attacks, that war has already been declared by our enemy.

Make no mistake about it, this goes far beyond just a little friendly coaching and the protection of Russian assets. Ann Tyson and Josh White point out one specific battle where the Russians supplied excellent intelligence not only about our positions but the strategy we used to isolate Baghdad. The Russians accurately predicted that we would make a dangerous move across the Karbala Gap, where the US expected an attack in force by the supposedly premiere Republican Guard forces. An Iraqi commander took the information to Saddam and his sons, where his counsel was ignored. Had they reacted properly to the Russian data, we could have lost a lot of men in the Karbala Gap.

The Post quotes Michael O'Hanlon from the center-left Brookings Institute:

Michael E. O'Hanlon, a defense expert at the Brookings Institution, said the passing of information on U.S. troop movements during combat, if true, constituted "a stark betrayal." He added: "I think we should be demanding a fairly clear explanation from Moscow."

It's telling that we didn't do so before we made this public. The message we sent the Russians says that we will not trust them in the next international crisis -- the one in Iran. The remote nuclear-fuel processing deal is dead regardless of the Moscow-Teheran talks, and the US will probably push them out of the negotiations altogether from this point forward.

Russia, Unmasked

Thanks to the release of the captured Iraqi Intelligence Service documents, we now know that the former superpower and our supposed partner in the war on terror instead has allied itself with our enemies -- namely, the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. The Pentagon confirmed this evening that intelligence gathered during Operation Iraqi Freedom shows clearly that Russia passed vital intelligence to Saddam before and during the war, including our plans for capturing Baghdad:

Russia had a military intelligence unit operating in Iraq up through the 2003 U.S. invasion and fall of Baghdad, a Russian analyst said Friday as the Pentagon reported Moscow fed Saddam Hussein's government with intelligence on the American military.

Iraqi documents released as part of the Pentagon report asserted that the Russians relayed information to Saddam through their ambassador in Baghdad during the opening days of the war in late March and early April 2003, including a crucial time before the ground assault on Baghdad.

Pavel Felgenhauer, a respected independent Moscow-based military analyst, told The Associated Press the report was "quite plausible."

He said a unit affiliated with the Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Department, known by its abbreviation GRU, was actively working in Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion. The unit apparently was shut down after the fall of Baghdad.

As I wrote yesterday, this betrayal carries some consequences, both for the US-Russian relationship and our current negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program. Moscow deliberately gave Saddam information that, in the hands of a competent military leader, would have resulted in the deaths of many American soldiers and Marines. Vladimir Putin has strong ties to the Russian intelligence community, so this can't be dismissed as a rogue operation, especially given the high profile of the Iraqi situation and the involvement of Putin's diplomatic corps.

Putin allied himself with Saddam and against the US, presumably to protect its commercial interests. However, one cannot discount the motivation Putin has for re-establishing Russia as a power base in the post-Soviet world. He has played at restarting the Great Game for the last several years in Southwest Asia, trying to gain the upper hand over the Anglosphere in the oil-producing regions.

And that brings us to Iran. After finding out that Putin has a habit of supplying tyrannical enemies of the Western nations with military intelligence to use against us, the last country we should trust with Iran's nuclear program is Russia. We can also kiss off the UN; as long as Russia has its veto, that route will lead nowhere. Russia has revealed itself to be a major part of the problem in the Middle East, and we should stop pretending that they are part of the solution.

At least now we know why the CIA and John Negroponte wanted these documents to remain sealed.

An Appropriate Denouement (Updated)

The Washington Post experiment in hosting a conservative political blog has come to at least a momentary halt, as Ben Domenech has resigned in the face of allegations of plagiarism. Jim Brady explains on Post.blog:

In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.

An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.

When we hired Domenech, we were not aware of any allegations that he had plagiarized any of his past writings. In any cases where allegations such as these are made, we will continue to investigate those charges thoroughly in order to maintain our journalistic integrity.

I have had the pleasure of meeting and appearing with Jim at a Heritage Foundation symposium on journalism, as well as trading e-mails occasionally, and his actions speak well of his integrity. The left-wing blogosphere came out in full attack mode from the moment this project was announced, and Jim stuck by his decision to hire Domenech and gave him a fair opportunity to prove himself. When the hysteria gave way to real problems -- and if this list at the Blogometer is representative, Domenech has serious issues -- Brady took the proper action in starting an investigation. If Domenech resigned on his own, or if the Post pushed it, the correct result has been achieved.

Plagiarism is a cardinal sin of writing, regardless of the format. Bloggers have just as much responsibility to credit their sources as any other writer, and the blogosphere rightly holds us all to this standard. All any of us have as writers are our own words, and when those are stolen for someone else's benefit, we lose everything. If Domenech is guilty of this offense, he will not soon regain his credibility, nor should he.

I hope Jim continues his efforts to launch a conservative blog at the Post, albeit under a different title. Hopefully he will find a conscientious blogger from the right side who can engage the blogosphere without making himself the center of scandal; I know too many excellent bloggers to imagine that Jim cannot relaunch this successfully, in a manner that will bring credit to the Washington Post. I wish him well.

UPDATE: A number of bloggers have written about Domenech's end at the Post. La Shawn Barber e-mailed me to express her disappointment in Ben, but adds that she recalls his kindness in inviting her to contribute to RedState. Mark Coffey also agrees with Ben's resignation:

I’m glad Ben did the right thing - I’m sorry for the embarrassment this must cause him, but actions have consequences. Plagiarism is a very, very serious matter for a writer. It was the only decision that could be taken under the circumstances. This need not be embarrassing for other conservatives - as I said, the idea of reaching out to the right by the WaPo was a good one. It will turn into an embarrassment, however, if we pretend this is anything other than what it is. It’s not a leftwing conspiracy - it’s a problem Domenech brought on himself.

Ben himself still doesn't seem to have grasped that. His statement on RedState reviews the history of the work he did as a teenager at his college newspaper, and explains many of the allegations he has faced. Ben still considers this solely a personal attack by the left-wing zealots in the blogosphere:

The hate mail that I have received since the launch of this blog has been overwhelmingly profane and violent. My family has been threatened; my friends have been deluged; my phone has been prank called. The most recent email that showed up while writing this post talked about how the author would like to hack off my head, and wishes my mother had aborted me.

But in the course of accusing me of racism, homophobia, bigotry, and even (on one extensive Atrios thread) of having a sexual relationship with my mother, the leftists shifted their accusations to ones of plagiarism. You can find the major examples here: I link to this source only because I believe it's the only place that hasn't yet written about how they'd like to rape my sister.

I know that charges of plagiarism are serious. While I am not a journalist, I have, myself, written more than one thing that has been plagiarized in the past. But these charges have also served to create an atmosphere where no matter what is said on my Red America blog, leftists will focus on things with my byline from when I was a teenager.

I can rebut several of the alleged incidents here. The most recent accusation, is that I stole a music review from Crosswalk and passed it off at National Review Online. In fact, I wrote both lists myself; I was one of Crosswalk's music review contributors at the time.

The Left has also accused me of foisting Sen. Frist quotes and some descriptive material from the Washington Post for a New York Press article on the Capitol Shooter. But the quotes I used were either properly credited or came from Sen. Frist’s press conference, which I attended along with many other reporters. So it is no surprise that we had similar quotes or similar descriptions of the same event. I have reams of notes and interviews about the events of that day. I also went over the entire piece step by step with NYPress editors to ensure that it was unquestionably solid before it ran.

Virtually every other alleged instance of plagiarism that I’ve seen comes from a single semester’s worth of pieces that were printed under my name at my college paper, The Flat Hat, when I was 17.

Ben doesn't explain everything, and just because the left-wing bloggers were out to get him doesn't make them incorrect. The Daily Kos shows a strange piece of cribbing, as Michelle Malkin wrote, that not only occurred later in Ben's career (2001) but also shows much more intent than just cut-and-paste amnesia:

Ben Domenech wrote:

Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, splaying their tentacles and snapping their jaws, dripping a discomfiting acidic ooze. They're known as the Phantoms, otherworldly beings who, for three decades, have been literally sucking the life out of the earthlings of the human. They are swollen, insectoid, the nightmare descendents of Lovecraftian grotesque — if only the filmmakers had created a plot that was as memorable.

Steve Murray, writing for the Cox News Service, wrote:

Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, wriggling countless tentacles and snapping their jaws. They're known as the Phantoms, alien thingies that, for three decades, have been sucking the life out of the earthlings of “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.” Swollen nightmares from a petri dish, they're the kind of grotesque whatsits horror writer H.P. Lovecraft would have kept as pets in his basement.

Ben was 19 (two years after his entanglement with the editors at his college newspaper) when these two articles appeared, and unless he wants to argue that Murray plagiarized Ben's work, I'd call that pretty damning. It's worse than dropping an unattributed quote into the review; he reworded Murray's imagery just enough to avoid an accusation that he lifted it word for word.

Jay Rosen at PressThink wants an open competition for the next blogger spot:

Now that Ben Domenech has resigned from the washingtonpost.com I hope Jim Brady will do the right thing, the creative thing, the thing that would turn this sorry episode around and allow the post.com to come out with a win for its readers and in the blogosphere.

An open competition on the Web to be the next political blogger at post.com, but instead of hiring one “red state” person and leaving it at that (a strategic error in my opinion) Brady should say that three slots will be filled over the coming year. One from column right, one from column left, and a third voice that is definitely neither of those, which could mean libertarian— or not.

When I say open I mean open: anyone can apply. But experience as a political blogger counts. You have to be an original linker and be able to think for yourself. Finalists and semi-finalists get named. There’s a week’s try-out period for the final few and a big bake off at the end— all with comments enabled. The competition would generate high interest online, and give the winning bloggers a great introduction.

Great! Will Rosen encourage that process for the hiring of columnists and journalists as well? In fact, it sounds like Jay cribbed that himself from the plot of He Said, She Said (I'm just kidding, Jay). I'd love to see the New York Times try it -- they'd have to shut the paper down. The Post does not need to turn this into a silly competition a la The Apprentice. In fact, I think this has been enough of a circus already.

Jim Brady is a newspaper pro with integrity and innovative vision who got victimized by a bad hire. It happens to managers all the time. He needs to pick up the pieces and make a professional decision in hiring Domenech's replacement. The commenters can make their voices heard when the blog starts up again.

UPDATE AGAIN: Jon at QandO is enthused about the sudden concern about "balance" at the Post among the left-wing bloggers:

Imagine what this will mean when they turn their outrage towards the New York Times!

Right-Leaning New York Times Columnists:
1. David Brooks
2. John Tierney

Left-Leaning New York Times Columnists:
1. Nicholas Kristof
2. Maureen Dowd
3. Paul Krugman
4. Thomas Friedman
5. Frank Rich
6. Bob Herbert

Yeah, but two conservatives outthink the six liberals, Jon. Of course, with Dowd, that's a low bar to clear.

Meanwhile, Fishbowl is taking suggestions for the open position, and Dan has some thoughts along the same lines as Jay Rosen. Dan's pushing against the notion of hiring a journalist for the blogging position, but one can understand the attraction of that profile for their next candidate.

ANOTHER UPDATE FOR THE DIE-HARDS STILL READING THIS POST: The Anchoress says that the Post should be knocking on my door next. I think I like Learned Foot's resume better.

Lukashenko Busts Up The Demonstrations

Belarus president Aleksander Lukashenko sent the police to break up the demonstrations that erupted in Minsk after the rigged election that kept Lukashenko in office as Europe's last dictator. The move apparently halted a protest that had lost enough steam to make it vulnerable to such an action:

Police stormed the opposition tent camp in the Belarusian capital Minsk early Friday morning, arresting scores of demonstrators who had spent a fourth night in a central square to protest President Alexander Lukashenko’s victory in a disputed election.

The arrests came after a half dozen large police buses and 75 helmeted riot police with clubs pulled up to Oktyabrskaya Square in central Minsk about 3 a.m.

The police stood around for a few minutes and then barged into the tent camp filled with protesters.

By this time, the protestors had dwindled down to less than 300, according to the AP, all of which found themselves under arrest earlier this morning. The numbers descended to that level thanks to the odd strategy formulated by Lukashenko's opposition, which asked the thousands who had assembled by Sunday in Minsk to go home and wait a week to renew the protest.

The momentum died on the attempt at a "color revolution" akin to Ukraine's effort from a year ago. Ukraine's opposition maintained its demonstrations, and as the entrenched power structure revealed itself incapable of stopping it, the protestors continued to grow in number until a new election was called. The importance of peaceful and consistent protest is important; when enough people assemble to demand change, tyrants have only two choices, neither of which they would select under any other circumstances. The first is to use overwhelming force in front of the cameras of the Western nations, and the other is to accede to the demands of democracy.

The Belarussian opposition let Lukashenko off the hook. By reducing the protests, they killed the enthusiasm for joining them. They also left an opening for Lukashenko to use reasonable force to bring the demonstration to an end without looking like a brutal dictator. Instead of facing tens of thousands of entrenched and joyous demonstrators, they rounded up a couple of hundred isolated and ineffective, though brave, people in a standard raid.

The opposition still plans to hold a rally tomorrow. I don't think they'll pull it off now. They've made it clear that the opposition does not have the stomach for a truly transformative show of popular unrest.

The Revenge Of The Easter Bunny

The city of St. Paul faces some pointed questions from its citizens demanding to know how the Easter Bunny offended the City Council. The council president ordered the removal of decorations hung by employees, including banners with the Easter Bunny and the message, "Happy Easter". St. Paul residents made plenty of angry and perplexed calls wondering whether cultural sensitivity would leave us with any culture at all:

The story of the bunny's eviction from the lobby of the City Council offices was the talk of the town on public airwaves, in skyways and on websites throughout the country on Thursday. Even Fox's Bill O'Reilly asked about it.

Those who agreed with the decision to pull the "Happy Easter" messages kept a relatively low profile; several city employees who applauded the move asked to remain unnamed.

But those on the other side were eager to be heard.

"I'm getting very tired of this trend by some of our elected officials to stifle out everything because just one person thinks it is offensive," said John Krenik, in a posting on a St. Paul E-Democracy online forum. "So I ask, what is next? Do we drop the St. Patrick's Day Parade because it is based on religious traditions?"

By lunchtime, City Council President Kathy Lantry's office had received 50 e-mails, the majority blasting her decision Wednesday to remove a banner, bunnies and eggs that greeted visitors to the City Council offices with the words, "Happy Easter."

Likewise, Human Rights Director Tyrone Terrill's voice mail was full and his office was barely keeping pace with the flood of e-mails, many of them hate-filled. Terrill had sent Lantry an e-mail saying "it would be a good thing" to take down the Easter decorations because they could be offensive to non-Christians.

There we have the two architects of one of the dumbest local-government decisions in recent memory. These two geniuses decided to insult their staff, disrupt city government, and irritate a vast majority of its citizens on the off chance that a gigantic rabbit with brightly-colored eggs would provide offense to some unnamed twits too insecure in their own beliefs to withstand exposure to the beliefs of others. Once again, government officials take it upon themselves to censor any hint of religious celebration, even something as innocuous as "Happy Easter" on a poster of the Easter Bunny.

Even super-lib Dave Thune thinks this is embarrassing -- and he's right.

The effort to strip any mention of religion from public life leads inevitably to these kind of stupid and knee-jerk decisions. When office employees cannot even decorate their work area in case one person could possibly get offended, we have opted for a complete jettisoning of all cultural celebrations. After all, if individual offense is the threshold, then almost no speech can be tolerated at public venues, especially political speech. And even besides that, where does the effort by Lantry and Terrill end? Do they intend on issuing an edict that forbids the mention of Easter in the office? If someone answers the phone by greeting callers with "Happy Easter", does that constitute an offense?

No one has a right to be free from being offended. Free speech and the free exercise of religion not only do not allow for it, they guarantee that all of us will be offended at one time or another. This action shows the leftist mindset that government must dictate all actions in order to impose the "correct" choices on the children which it governs. As my friend Mitch Berg often says about his city, everything that is not mandatory is banned ... apparently including the Easter Bunny, a victim of shrieking, hysterical paranoia that characterizes much of the governing philosophy of the St. Paul City Council.

UPDATE: CQ reader Dale B notes that the city will probably start thinking about changing its name next, given the religious implications of being named Saint Paul. I think he's kidding, but he may not be wrong. The only thing keeping the council from considering that would be the city's former name, Pig's Eye, which would offend the growing Muslim community of Somalian ex-pats. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if someone proposes changing the name to Wellstone.

A Saad Day

The ramifications of the Gang of 14's Memorandum of Understanding continue to impact the lives of those whom President Bush nominated to the federal appellate bench. After his nomination languished for months after the agreement, Henry Saad has withdrawn his nomination, a forgotten victim in a political process gone awry:

Henry W. Saad, one of President Bush's appeals court nominees blocked by Senate Democrats, withdrew his name from consideration, a presidential aide said yesterday.

Democrats have accused Saad, a Michigan appeals court judge, of being hostile to employment-discrimination claims and lawsuits by consumers. ...

Saad's nomination to the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit was submitted to the Senate in January 2003, and he was renominated last year. His nomination was one of 10 blocked by Democrats, who used the filibuster, which allows unlimited debate, to prevent a Senate vote.

This withdrawal should embarrass the United States Senate, the Gang of 14, and especially Harry Reid. Reid attempted a crude smear last year on Saad, claiming that unspecified security issues made it impossible to allow him to the appellate bench -- when he already sat on the federal bench. Without having seen the file himself, because he wasn't cleared for such access, he characterized the file to reporters as problematic.

Republicans, especially those on the Gang, should be especially shamed by Saad's withdrawal. They treated him like a leper almost the entire year, barely lifting a finger in Saad's defense while the Democrats painted him as a radical. Despite holding a majority in the upper chamber and having their own President nominate him -- twice -- the GOP leadership left Saad twisting in the wind. To Saad's credit, he remained on the official list of nominees for months as a reminder of the lack of political courage the GOP showed in this Congress in defending appellate court nominees. They have allowed an appalling rate of confirmations to these seats, the lowest in many years if not ever, despite their control of the Senate and the White House. That demonstrates a leadership deficit that time may camouflage but cannot entirely hide.

Hopefully, Henry Saad will pick himself up and demonstrate his brilliance in the Michigan state appellate court, reminding everyone what we missed on the appellate court.

CORRECTION: Saad is a state appellate court judge, not a federal district court judge; thanks to CQ's readers for that correction.

No Wonder Cell Phones Cause Car Accidents

The Illinois Department of Transportation has some red faces after drivers called their newly-posted traffic information number -- and got blue dialog:

Callers to a state road-construction information line Thursday might have been surprised to hear, "We love nasty talk as much as you do."

The Illinois Department of Transportation intended newly installed signs along the Dan Ryan Expressway, which will undergo major reconstruction starting later this month, to instruct motorists to call a toll-free number for information on alternate routes.

Instead, the initial number posted directed callers wanting "exciting live talk" to another toll-free number, which begins, "Hey there, sexy guy. Welcome to an exciting new way to go live, one on one, with hot, horny girls waiting right now to talk to you."

You know what? It's late, and I'm not even going to touch this one ... fill in your own punch line in the comments section.

More Evidence Of Connections

ABC may not be covering Saddam Hussein's trial very well, but it has provided excellent coverage of the newly-released Iraqi Intelligence Service documents captured by coalition forces after the dictator's fall from power. Earlier today it added two more significant documents to those it had already translated, and the new material shows more evidence of Iraqi cooperation with al-Qaeda:

Two Iraqi documents dated in March 2003 -- on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion -- and addressed to the secretary of Saddam Hussein, describe details of a U.S. plan for war. According to the documents, the plan was disclosed to the Iraqis by the Russian ambassador.

The first document (CMPC-2003-001950) is a handwritten account of a meeting with the Russian ambassador that details his description of the composition, size, location and type of U.S. military forces arrayed in the Gulf and Jordan. The document includes the exact numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, different types of aircraft, missiles, helicopters, aircraft carriers, and other forces, and also includes their exact locations. The ambassador also described the positions of two Special Forces units.

The second document (CMPC-2004-001117) is a typed account, signed by Deputy Foreign Minister Hammam Abdel Khaleq, that states that the Russian ambassador has told the Iraqis that the United States was planning to deploy its force into Iraq from Basra in the South and up the Euphrates, and would avoid entering major cities on the way to Baghdad, which is, in fact what happened. The documents also state "Americans are also planning on taking control of the oil fields in Kirkuk." The information was obtained by the Russians from "sources at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar," according to the document.

This indicates that Centcom had a major mole working in Qatar, hopefully one that has since been discovered. The Russians had somehow penetrated far enough into the command center that it knew the basic war plan weeks before its implementation. Even with that knowledge, the Iraqis proved hopelessly inept in exploiting the information to their advantage -- which also highlights the skill and determination of our armed forces to prevail.

ABC provides excellent context on these articles. In this case, the network points out that the Russian ambassador was Vladimir Teterenko -- the same Teterenko that figured in the Oil-For-Food scandal. Documents uncovered by the Volcker Commission shows that Teterenko received over a million dollars in oil allocations from Saddam Hussein. Now we know how Teterenko earned his cash; he sold out the US after gaining access to our invasion plans.

This shines an entirely new light on the OFF scandal. Not only was the UN complicit in helping to support and sustain Saddam Hussein's grip on power, but it also enabled Saddam to buy enough intelligence from a permanent member of the UN Security Council ... the same one that now wants to block action against Iran.

How many barrels of oil has the Russian ambassador to Teheran received?

The translation of the second document shows that Iraq eagerly sought out contact with al-Qaeda in 1995, attempting to select projects where Iraq and AQ could act in concert against their common enemies. AQ suggested attacking the "foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia: the American armed forces enforcing the sanctions and the 1991 cease-fire. The recap of the translation is interesting, but not as much as the ABC explanation:

Editor's Note: This document is handwritten and has no official seal. Although contacts between bin Laden and the Iraqis have been reported in the 9/11 Commission report and elsewhere (e.g., the 9/11 report states "Bin Ladn himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995) this document indicates the contacts were approved personally by Saddam Hussein.

It also indicates the discussions were substantive, in particular that bin Laden was proposing an operational relationship, and that the Iraqis were, at a minimum, interested in exploring a potential relationship and prepared to show good faith by broadcasting the speeches of al Ouda, the radical cleric who was also a bin Laden mentor.

The document does not establish that the two parties did in fact enter into an operational relationship. Given that the document claims bin Laden was proposing to the Iraqis that they conduct "joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia, it is worth noting that eight months after the meeting -- on November 13, 1995 -- terrorists attacked Saudi National Guard Headquarters in Riyadh, killing 5 U.S. military advisers. The militants later confessed on Saudi TV to having been trained by Osama bin Laden.

Those connections keep getting stronger and stronger, and with them the inevitable conclusion that the war to depose Saddam Hussein was no distraction from the war on terror but a vital part of it. It also shows that his continued survival would bring continued corruption of global politics, directly putting American lives at risk thanks to our so-called partners in Moscow.

UPDATE: Iran, not Iraq (h/t CanForce101)

Media Complicit In Saddam's Trial Strategy

The strategy adopted by Saddam Hussein for his trial on crimes against humanity that stem from his decades-long tyranny over Iraq has always been clear -- he planned on diverting attention from the crimes and the evidence and focus the world on his political rants from the dock. He's playing out the Goering strategy, unmindful of Goering's failure with it. Unfortunately for us, the media has played into Saddam's strategy, according to a study performed by the Media Research Center. After reviewing the coverage provided by the three American broadcast networks, MRC calculated that less than twenty percent of the news coverage reported on evidence, testimony, and the case background ... when they could be bothered to cover the trial at all:

Saddam’s trial has been mentioned in just 64 stories (including brief anchor-read items) over the last 5 months. Total coverage amounted to just under 90 minutes. The CBS Evening News offered the most coverage (21 stories, 34 minutes) followed by ABC’s World News Tonight (23 stories, 30 minutes). NBC Nightly News aired the least: 20 stories amounting to 25½ minutes of coverage, barely five minutes per month.

In contrast, the first six months of O.J. Simpson’s murder trial garnered 431 stories (824 minutes) from those same networks, a 1994 Center for Media and Public Affairs study found. Simpson was accused of killing two people; Saddam is thought responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Of the ninety minutes of total broadcast-network air time dedicated to Saddam's trial over the past six months, only 11.5 minutes focused on actual testimony and evidence. By contrast, the Big Three spent 12 minutes discussing the difficulties of providing the genocidal tyrant a fair trial. Saddam's courtroom disruptions have accounted for a third of the news coverage of his trial, accounting for thirty of the ninety minutes. That means that about half of the coverage (42 of 90 minutes) given by the networks have been devoted to Saddam's strategy of diversion and concern over his treatment by the victims of his oppression.

It isn't that the trial has shown no evidence or produced no testimony to support the charges against Saddam. Saddam even admitted that he had ordered the executions of 148 Dujail residents -- an admission only reported in full by ABC. That confession received 18 seconds of coverage at CBS, which still managed to beat NBC by seven seconds.

The trial of a dictator like Saddam Hussein by his victimized people is history in the making. Cable news shows should have panel discussions every day poring over the evidence presented. The trial gives the world an opportunity to understand the scope and brutality of the Saddam regime. Our media instead talks about Saddam's love of Cheetohs, Ramsey Clark's complaints about Saddam's treatment, and the tyrant's utterly predictable and unremarkable political observations.

No wonder we hold journalists in such low esteem.

The Boss Likes Me

The Real Ugly American interviews Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes at length about his new book on George Bush -- an excellent read, by the way -- and Rick asks him about his favorite blogs. I'm happy to report that CQ is on his list:

UA: How about you do you read any blogs and if so who are your favorites?

FB: Well let’s see I read Real Clear politics, Powerline, Hugh’s blog [Hugh Hewitt] of course. The neat thing about Hugh’s blog is he has these links to other blogs and they are all pretty good. Drudge, you have to read that. Brit Hume that’s the first thing he looks at in the morning. Then Captains Quarters thats a good one. The Kaus Files, Mickey is a smart guy. I don’t do it myself. It would be an overdose for me. I just love the democratic impact of people who blog. I am all for it.

It's always a thrill to find out who reads the blog, but I write for the Daily Standard on a semi-regular basis ... which makes Fred my boss, so it's also a relief ...

Make sure you read the rest of Rick's interview with Fred, and check out Rebel In Chief. It's a brisk and unusual take on George Bush, and very entertaining.

Quick Links

Two must-read posts on the war on terror, which I don't have time to adequately address -- and since the posts themselves are so good, I don't need to do so:

Michelle Malkin discovers the quality of gratitude among the groups whose representatives have been rescued by special-forces teams. Short answer: there is none.

All Things Beautiful asks the question, Who is Mohammad-Ali Ramin and why should we pay very close attention to what he has to say? As Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's philosopher and architect of the coming Caliphate, we may want to get to know him a little better, and Alexandra gives us a good look at the Iranian Angel of Death.

Be sure to read them both.

UPDATE: Michael Ledeen writes about Alexandra's post:

Both Ahmadi-Nezhad and his tutor are Shi'ites, she says at some length that they are Wahabi Sunnis. That's a pretty big mistake.

I'd have to agree.

UPDATE II: Alexandra has already posted a correction and send this note:

I made the correction a long time ago, and explained it in my comment section at the time, which you perhaps did not see. I would really appreciate it if you would point this out, as now the mistake that was on for a short moment, is living on in your post. It’s awful to have that on there, especially as you know this is a subject I know inside out, and have written about the most.

This is what I wrote at the time:

“I actually had something else written there which I had deleted and not corresponded properly. Thanks for the lesson though I obviously know that, as you might gather from dozens of other posts I have written on the subject.”

I owe Alexandra a bit of an apology -- I meant to e-mail her about this after I posted Michael Ledeen's comment and I simply forgot to do so. Alexandra is an excellent blogger and a very sweet person, and she deserved to hear from me right away on this update.

All The News That Fits Our Mindset, Volume II

The New York Times has been suckered again, although this time they manage to avoid blaming everyone else for their mistake. In providing coverage of the victims from Hurricane Katrina, they published a lengthy profile of one refugee, Donna Fenton, a little over two weeks ago. Imagine their surprise when Fenton got arrested for welfare fraud and grand larceny, having never been a Katrina refugee in the first place.

The Times issues the correction today:

An article in The Metro Section on March 8 profiled Donna Fenton, identifying her as a 37-year-old victim of Hurricane Katrina who had fled Biloxi, Miss., and who was frustrated in efforts to get federal aid as she and her children remained as emergency residents of a hotel in Queens.

Yesterday, the New York police arrested Ms. Fenton, charging her with several counts of welfare fraud and grand larceny. Prosecutors in Brooklyn say she was not a Katrina victim, never lived in Biloxi and had improperly received thousands of dollars in government aid. Ms. Fenton has pleaded not guilty.

For its profile, The Times did not conduct adequate interviews or public record checks to verify Ms. Fenton's account, including her claim that she had lived in Biloxi. Such checks would have uncovered a fraud conviction and raised serious questions about the truthfulness of her account.

Why didn't the reporter, Nicholas Confessore, check out Fenton's story before writing his article? Why didn't the editors fact-check the piece before publishing it? Because it fit with their mindset of how Katrina should be portrayed -- as a government bungle-up. If the story fits the mindset, they run it, just as they did with the hoaxer claiming to be the man under the poncho in the infamous Abu Ghraib photo. As Power Line notes, reporters and editors don't find it necessary to engage all those vaunted quality checks that makes the Exempt Media so much better than bloggers if the article sounds true.

And in this case, it's hard to just criticize the Gray Lady when our government apparently couldn't be bothered to do the same thing until her picture got put into the paper. Fenton managed to fleece us pretty well before getting too cocky and allowing Confessore to profile her "plight":

A Red Cross worker placed Ms. Fenton, her husband, and four of her five children — Akreem, 16; Ashley, 14; LaTanya, 10; and Danielle, 9 — at the Ramada, and gave her a debit card with a $1,565 limit. The children were placed in public school, but debit-card money quickly dwindled. "That doesn't go far for six people," she said.

So Ms. Fenton began working the phones. A $2,358 check for rent assistance from FEMA arrived in October. But a second check, for what the agency calls "immediate needs," never materialized. [Don't you think this would have piqued a reporter's curiosity? --CE] ...

FEMA granted her an extension to stay at the hotel, she said, but then forgot to issue an authorization code for the second of the two rooms her family occupied. That meant more time pleading on the phone.

A FEMA spokeswoman, Nicole Andrews, acknowledged last week that the process could be "pretty tough for anyone who has been traumatized like these people have."

It seems that FEMA must have learned its fact-checking from the New York Times. At what point do they finally scratch their heads and check their records on Ms. Fenton? Only when she got her name in the paper, apparently.

That doesn't let Confessore completely off the hook. His article descends into a morass of woe that would have made Charles Dickens envious. As Confessore reports, Fenton wound up hospitalized two weeks for a burst appendix in February -- a burst appendix? If she had a burst appendix in February, how could she be on her feet and shopping for knick-knacks with her friend, as shown in the picture? People die from burst appendixes, and when they survive, they're not out shopping at the five-and-dime a couple of weeks later. But that's not the end of Fenton's tough luck; her son has post-traumatic stress disorder (from a hurricane that he never experienced), her daughter ran away, and a hit-and-run driver demolished the family car.

None of this indicated to Confessore that he had a pathological liar in front of him. None of this tripped the editorial checks that make our media outlets so reliable. The Times never questioned Fenton's story until the feds finally caught up with the fraud.

While the Times managed to avoid blaming everyone else in their correction, they also managed to avoid correcting the original article. They put no note or disclaimer on the March 8th article by Confessore, not even at the bottom as they did with the Abu Ghraib hoaxer. Anyone reading this article from the archives will not know that it has been discredited, along with the editorial reliability of the Times.

Hillary: Immigration Enforcement Would Criminalize Jesus

Senator Hillary Clinton finally weighed in on the immigration debate yesterday by scolding the Republicans for focusing on border enforcement rather than an amnesty program. She told an audience of immigrant leaders in New York that Republicans would have criminalized the Good Samaritan and probably Jesus as well:

Accusing Republicans of betraying family values, Senator Clinton said a House immigration bill would turn "probably even Jesus himself" into a criminal.

A relative latecomer to the charged immigration debate, Mrs. Clinton yesterday spoke passionately to a gathering of a broad spectrum of New York's immigrant leaders. Her comments come amid a local groundswell of activity in preparation for a Senate vote Monday that is expected to determine the nature of immigration reform. ...

Mrs. Clinton, who previously said the bill would move America toward a "police state," also invoked biblical language yesterday. "It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scriptures," Mrs. Clinton said, "because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan."

Hillary has all the chutzpah of her husband and almost none of his deft political touch. This speech sounds exactly as if a marketing firm designed it. One can almost hear the debate around the table: "She needs to reference religion more." "Hillary has to connect with the base." "She needs to be more aggressive in attacking Republicans." At this point, one of the young geniuses would leap to his/her feet and say, "Eureka! Let's have her slam Republicans for turning Biblical figures into criminals with their immigration policy!"

Hillary also has a problem with her "understanding of Scriptures", which her speechwriting committee seems to highlight. The Good Samaritan did not cross international borders to assist the victim in the parable; he came from another community in Israel, albeit one held in low regard by other Israelites. Neither did Jesus, who traveled through what is now the West Bank region and Jerusalem but at the time was all part of Israel. Then, as now, nations enforced borders (especially in wartime) and threw out those who entered illegally -- if the offenders were lucky enough not to be killed. Furthermore, if Jesus wanted to come to the United States and preach, He would find this nation to be among the easiest to enter for that purpose, and I doubt that He would find it necessary to dodge the Border Patrol in New Mexico or Texas to do it.

And just for the rhetorical record, unless someone plans on finding the bones of the Good Samaritan and putting him on trial -- or banning the Bible -- it's impossible to "literally" criminalize him. That's sloppy thinking and speaking, and one would expect a lawyer of Hillary's caliber to know that.

In fact, since illegal immigration is already illegal, the new House bill doesn't "criminalize" anyone that isn't already a criminal. (What does Hillary think the term "illegal immigration" means, anyway?) It sets the violation as a felony instead of a misdemeanor, which seems more appropriate in an age where terrorists seek infiltration into the country. It also allows for easier deportation and doesn't grant amnesty on the basis of America being too lazy to enforce its own laws.

Perhaps a guest worker program would be a good idea; I am not opposed to it in principle. However, implementing such a plan as a way to reward people who have entered illegally sends the wrong message -- and as we found out twenty years ago, it only attracts more illegals. As the descendant of immigrants on all sides of my family (I'm 3rd-generation on my mother's side), I have enormous respect for those who risked everything to build a better life for themselves and their children by coming to America. The difference is that they did so while obeying the laws of the country they admired. Illegal immigrants start off their relationship with America by cheating and breaking our laws, and in doing so reflect poorly on those who followed the law to enter.

Now the Democrats, led by Hillary and Harry Reid (who has threatened to filibuster any immigration reform that doesn't include amnesty for illegals already in the country), want to eliminate border enforcement and controls on immigration by taking away all consequences of breaking our laws. That is a stunningly foolish position to take at any time, but while we fight international terrorists who aim to put terror cells in our communities for future attacks, it's suicidal. We need less of The Gospel According To The Clintons and more sanity in our border enforcement.

Spanish Insurgency Hangs It Up

The decades-long insurgency of Basque separatists has come to a sudden end, with the insurgent group ETA announcing an end to its operations. According to the London Times, the Basque terrorists have quit in the face of Spanish disgust over the tactics used by al-Qaeda as well as being thwarted by Spanish democracy:

AFTER four decades spent purveying death, Eta was finally put out of business by someone else’s act of terrorism: the bombing of Madrid commuter trains by Islamic fanatics in March 2004.

By then the organisation was already a fading force, but those attacks created such revulsion against terrorism in Spain that they destroyed any residual support for Eta’s violent tactics.

The Times draws a comparison to the exhaustion of the ETA and that of the IRA in Northern Ireland, and even has a Gerry Adams quote to toss into the story. However, the exhaustion has come from a world that has seen terrorism for the atrocity it is and not some romantic adventure. In the 60s and 70s, when people around the world formed groups such as the Weathermen, Baader-Meinhof, Red Brigades, ETA, and the PLO, the notion of popular change through violence had a patina of hipness to it, as long as their victims were all the right people -- entrepeneurs, diplomats from decadent Western nations who had the temerity to hold elections to determine national policy, and Jews. As long as they could fly the flag of aggrieved oppression in some lunatic way, they continued to receive support from benighted fools and appeasement from nations that should have known better.

After 9/11, perceptions changed, and it affected how these groups were seen, especially here in the US. That contributed mightily to the IRA's "exhaustion"; Americans quit ponying up money for the IRA when they finally got a taste of what terrorism means. After Madrid's 3/11, the Spaniards came to the same realization after experiencing the scope and damage of that attack. AQ taught many people a harsh lesson on the romance of bombing for political purposes, and it effectively killed ETA, which just took a couple of years to realize it was dead.

Besides, the entire purpose of ETA had long since disappeared. Basque separatists founded ETA almost 50 years ago when a military dictator ruled Spain with an iron hand. Generalissimo Francisco Franco has been dead a long, long time, and Spain adopted democracy decades ago. The Basque regions were granted limited autonomy in the Statute of Guernica years ago, and their right to engage in their language and culture restored. It may have fallen somewhat short of their goals, but no one can claim that Basques are oppressed with a straight face any longer. ETA operations have largely focused on self-sustainment through ransoms and robberies rather than advancing the Basque cause. It ran out of philosophical gas years ago.

I suspect that when historians look back at the political movements of the last four decades, they will shake their heads in wonder that these violent, criminal gangs met with such success merely by mouthing the clanging rhetoric of radical leftist revolution. Having lived through it, the sympathy accorded such nutcases and murderers still amazes me.

Uh ... Chef? It's Going ... Bad

I think Isaac Hayes may regret his decision to leave the show in the manner he chose (or others chose for him). Tonight's South Park episode has cut and pasted previous Chef dialogue to turn him into a paedophile -- one brainwashed by an evil group that got its hands on him.

I think even Scientology will regret taking on Matt Stone and Trey Parker ...

UPDATE: I'm pretty sure that the guys don't want Hayes to return any time soon ... but even in their revenge, they had Kyle deliver a final reminder to remember Chef for all the good times on the show -- and blame the "fruity little club that scrambled his brains" for his betrayal this last week.

Harper Intervenes On Behalf Of Abdul Rahman

Newly-elected Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper continues to impress in his first few weeks on the job. Not only has he declared himself committed to Canada's participation in securing Afghanistan, but he also has shown that he doesn't fear using his leverage to press the Karzai government on fundamental human rights. Harper called Hamid Karzai today to express his "concerns" about Abdul Rahman, the Christian convert facing the death penalty for his abandonment of Islam (via Michelle Malkin):

Prime Minister Stephen Harper phoned Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai Wednesday to express his concerns about an Afghan man facing a death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity.

"President Karzai listened to my concerns and we had a productive and informative exchange of views," Harper said in a written statement.

"Upon the conclusion of the call, he assured me that respect for human and religious rights will be fully upheld in this case."

Meanwhile, The United Church of Canada is suggesting Ottawa use its position in Afghanistan -- with 2,200 troops in the country's south as part of a Canadian-led multinational brigade -- to promote human rights.

These rights include "the rights of Afghans to choose and change religion without fear of losing their lives,'' the letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said.

Harper has proven himself more nimble at international politics than the White House this week. This case provides a clear example of the difficulties in bringing democracy as a guarantor of human rights to the ummah, and it puts the US in the position of criticizing the government it desperately wants to support. Understandably, Washington does not want to give the impression that Karzai lacks our support. It could undermine Karzai and the democratic government we have worked hard to build if we start issuing ultimatums.

However, the same is equally true for Harper, and added to that is Harper's tenuous political position as the largely untested leader of a minority government in a parliamentary system. Harper has taken on considerable risk in deploying the large contingent of Canadian troops to Afghanistan in support of the Coalition effort, especially given the unease north of the 49th about America's military efforts there and in Iraq. However, Harper hasn't let that get in the way of defending the values that matter most to people in the West -- freedom of conscience and freedom of faith. If we are not willing to take a stand and defend those, then we have conceded critical territory.

Too bad the White House could not have done the same thing. Instead, it sent a quiet message via an undersecretary, giving the impression that the US has few concerns about freedom in the region. This follows on the heels of the incoherent response to the Prophet Cartoon riots. Again, the US has given a strange, mixed message about the very values we have set out to defend in this war.

That Wall May Come In Handy After All

According to speculation among security officials from both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, al-Qaeda has begun to infiltrate Gaza and the West Bank in an attempt to open a new front in the war on terror. Both have reason for concern over this development, but while the Palestinians continue to elect terrorists to office, Israel continues to provide an effective defense against them:

Signs are mounting that al-Qaida terrorists are setting their sights on Israel and the Palestinian territories as their next jihad battleground.

Israel has indicted two West Bank militants for al-Qaida membership, Egypt arrested operatives trying to cross into Israel and a Palestinian security official has acknowledged al-Qaida is "organizing cells and gathering supporters." ...

Palestinians in the West Bank, the
Gaza Strip and Lebanon have established contacts with al-Qaida followers linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in
Iraq, according to two Israeli officials.

Al-Zarqawi has established footholds in the countries neighboring Israel — Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan — and is interested in bringing his fight to Israel, too, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because Israel does not want to identify those involved in the issue.

This development could mean a number of things, not all of them bad. If Zarqawi wants to transition to the occupied territories, it may mean that he has given up on the long-term fight in Iraq. The destruction of the Askariya mosque in Samarra may have been his best shot at provoking a real civil war, one which would split the nascent army and security forces and generate all-out warfare. With that event having passed with an increase in body counts but no change in the American presence in Iraq, and with the turf war between native insurgents and his foreign band of terrorists going poorly, he may want to find friendlier ground. What better place than the PA, where voters have already selected Islamist terrorists as their governing body?

If it takes pressure off of the Iraqis, it also takes some pressure off of the Israelis as well. The IDF usually has to fight terrorism while shackled by the reliably ineffective diplomacy of Europe and the US. If AQ starts making itself a major part of the terrorist operations that Islamic Jihad still launches from Palestinian territory, then the US might well join the Israelis in tackling AQ and Zarqawi. It also provides a great excuse to complete the work on the wall; after all, if Hamas can't secure their areas and disarm the terrorists (starting with their own, but especially AQ), then Israel can't be expected to leave the border areas open.

Also, not to wish any more troubles on the Israelis, but they understand how to fight terrorism. They have faced two intifadas for the effort they gave in trying to make Yasser Arafat a negotiating partner, and the combination of targeted strikes on terrorist leaders and the defensive wall they built put an end to them. They have better intelligence in the territories than we get in Iraq (although that's greatly improved), and Zarqawi will find it difficult to maneuver in this much-smaller area.

If the Palestinians were smart, they would take whatever steps necessary to keep AQ out of their territory. However, if the Palestinians were smart, they would have signed off on Ehud Barak's offer and had their own state by now.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike, or at least Dafydd ab Hugh and I do.

Moonbat, Jr.

I see the Left has gotten desperate for credible voices for its paranoid conspiracies about the Bush admnistration:

Actor Charlie Sheen Questions Official 9/11 Story

Calls for truly independent investigation, joins growing ranks of prominent credible whistleblowers

Oh, okay. Does his credibility stem from the fact that he was stupid enough to write personal checks to pay for his hookers, or has he just watched (and acted in) one Oliver Stone film too many? Priceless.

Gallup Dumps CNN

In a move that shows the decline of a once-dominant media empire, CNN has lost Gallup as a partner as the pollster notes the sharp drop in viewership for the cable news service. In a memo to staff, Gallup's CEO explains that they intend on launching their own "e-broadcasts" and will operate independent of any news network:

We have had a great partnership with CNN but it is not the right alignment for our future. The longtime partnership has been very helpful to The Gallup Poll as it put us "back big" fifteen years ago when our famous Gallup Poll had lost most of its national coverage. Our CNN partnership helped us make a great comeback. We had a great run as we just cut our 4000th segment this week. ...

WHY. 1) CNN has far fewer viewers than it did in the past and we feel that our brand was getting lost and diluted combined with the CNN brand. We have only about 200 thousand viewers during our CNN segments.

2) We are creating our own e-broadcasting programs and we don't want to be married to one broadcast network. We don't want to move to another network like CBS or Fox but rather become our own network. We cannot do this while married to CNN.

3) By dissolving our partnership with CNN we believe that Frank and other Gallup analysts will be seen as more independent so they will be more likely to be invited on a wide variety of television shows rather than primarily linked to CNN. We believe with this new found independence, we will get covered by more broadcast media because we are not the poll of their competitor.

In a statement released to Media Bistro, CNN denied that dropping viewership had any effect on Gallup's decision. Claiming that CEO Jim Clifton's statements to his staff were "unprofessional and untrue", they climb into his brain to tell Media Bistro how Clifton made his decision:

Jim Walton actually spoke with Jim Clifton, CEO of The Gallup Poll, and was told by Mr. Clifton that the reason that Gallup wanted to end their partnership was that the CNN brand was so dominant that Gallup wasn't getting the attention for the polls that they wanted.

We want to make it clear that the decision to not renew our polling arrangement had to do with Gallup's desire to produce their own broadcasts and not about CNN viewership figures. In fact, Gallup had negotiated with us for four months in an effort to extend the partnership.

CNN then went on to describe their "monthly reach" as the largest in cable news -- but they combine the viewership of all their ancillary channels to reach that conclusion. Gallup has little interest in CNN Headline News or CNNi or CNN-SI, their sports channel. They want news viewers at the flagship channel, and those numbers have dropped precipitously in the years since Fox News launched its service. This argument is self-defeating. CNN has partnered with Gallup for fourteen years -- and now they want us to believe that Gallup can't count?

CNN also claims that Gallup lept before they were pushed, as they say that CNN has been reevaluating its "polling strategy" for the last few months. This press release sounds like a divorce debate rather than a business decision and shows just how sensitive CNN has become about their domestic performance. The only "unprofessional" performance so far is CNN's hysterical reaction to a perfectly reasonable and professional internal strategy memo that tells more truth than CNN's news service can handle.

Britain Hardening Its Line On Iran

The UK has decided that military action will be necessary to stop Iran from producing nuclear weapons and has now calculated its foreign policy to prepare a diplomatic and legal case for that option, the London Times reports today. It reveals a letter in which British diplomats plan to win Russian and Chinese support for a Security Council resolution demanding an end to Iranian nuclear efforts, which will allow for military response if not heeded:

BRITAIN is pressing for a United Nations resolution that would open the way for punitive sanctions and even the use of force if Iran were to refuse to halt its controversial nuclear programme.

In a confidential letter obtained by The Times, a leading British diplomat outlines a strategy for winning Russian and Chinese support by early summer for a so-called Chapter VII resolution demanding that Iran cease its nuclear activities.

If the Government in Tehran refused to comply with such a resolution, the UN Security Council would be legally compelled to enforce it.

The strategy marks a significant hardening of the Government’s position. It contrasts with public statements by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, this month. On March 13 he insisted that military action was “inconceivable” and that the dispute with Iran “has to be resolved by peaceful democratic means”.

The confidential letter was written only three days later by John Sawers, the political director at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and sent to his American, French and German counterparts.

“They (the Iranians) will need to know that more serious measures are likely,” wrote Mr Sawers, in a letter first leaked to the Associated Press. “This means putting the Iran dossier on to a Chapter VII basis.”

The British, at least, have recognized the folly of further diplomacy with Iran and now have focused those efforts on Russia and China. It seems a bit of folly to think that the UK could convince either nation to agree to a resolution that could provide a "legal" basis for military action against Iran, however. Russia has already balked at any language that could allow even economic sanctions to be imposed against the mullahcracy. Expecting an opening for force just leaves one open to disappointment, or worse.

The British government hopes in this manner to preserve something that never existed -- a UN Security Council willing to act in a significant manner against Islamofascist terror. The UNSC has rarely acted on a security threat with force in the past, and only agreed in the case of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait because the invasion so clearly intended to destabilize world oil markets and Saddam's occupation was so immediately brutal. Otherwise, the UNSC does nothing more than provide a debating society among nations with interests so at odds with one another that any useful proposal is guaranteed at least two vetoes.

The Iraqi quagmire of 1991-2003 proved the uselessness of the UNSC. All they did was issue resolution after resolution, averaging more than one a year, demanding compliance with the cease-fire and earlier resolutions, all the while clearly signaling that at least two permanent members would never allow for enforcement past the point of economic sanctions -- and three of them wound up undermining even those for their own profit. After the US and UK decided to take the resolutions seriously and enforce them militarily, the UNSC won't ever go that far again.

We have reached the point where the Western nations looking to defend themselves from Islamofascist threats need to band together instead of working through a dead process at Turtle Bay. The UN does not preserve peace; it preserves the status quo, and unfortunately that allows rogue nations like Iran the breathing room they need to make those developing threats a reality. We need to recognize that and act on it. The US and the UK are not required to commit suicide in the cause of upholding the credibility of international organizations that have already demonstrated themselves as hopelessly corrupt and demonstrably inert.

Are Belarus Protests Winding Down?

It appears that the revolution may be postponed, according to news reports from Belarus and its capital, Minsk. The number of protestors appearing at the daily rallies against the rigged re-election of perpetual President Aleksander Lukashenko has dropped considerably instead of inspiring fellow Belarussians to join the peaceful demands for change:

The authorities arrested dozens of protesters on Tuesday, including prominent opposition figures, in an effort to squelch public demonstrations over the declared victory of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko in the presidential election on Sunday.

Protesters gathered for a third day in October Square here after a few hundred had defied official warnings and camped out on the square overnight, unmolested by the police.

The arrests, however, appeared to have their intended effect as the size of the protests dwindled considerably after as many as 10,000 assembled on Sunday night in one of the largest public expressions of dissent since Mr. Lukashenko took office in 1994. In contrast, by Tuesday evening, 2,000 to 3,000 appeared, undeterred by snow, wind and subfreezing temperatures.

Anatoly V. Lebedko, an opposition leader and ally of the main opposition challenger, Aleksandr Milinkevich, was arrested early Tuesday near the square. He appeared in court later and was sentenced to 15 days in jail for having organized an unsanctioned protest, his aides said.

Today's AP report states that the number of protestors has dropped even farther today, down to an estimated 600. However, this may have two reasons apart from the arrests that Lukashenko has initiated. One would be the Belarussian weather, where the temperatures make overnight camping an uncomfortable prospect. More likely, the original call for delayed protests by the opposition may have convinced some protestors to save their powder until the weekend.

The original plan was to demonstrate on Sunday and then regather on the following Saturday. Some of those protesting made references to March 25th as the day they would gather in force to demand change. This appears to have been a tactical error on the part of the Milinkevich supporters. In order to face down tyrants like this through "people power", momentum has to build continuously until the force of it can no longer be denied. Starting and stopping these kind of demonstrations make them easier to handle and will fail to convince ordinary Belarussians to flock to their standard.

Hopefully those protesting for fair and open elections and real democracy in the last bastion of European dictatorship can pick up the threads of their peaceful revolution on March 25th. If they do, they should take care to continue the effort until it succeeds instead of waiting for the weekends.

Keep watching Publius Pundit for more information.

Afghan Christian Gets Official US Protest

The case of Abdul Rahman, the Christian convert in Afghanistan on trial for abandoning Islam, finally got the official attention of the United States yesterday, but unlike in Germany and Italy, the American protest came quietly:

The Bush administration yesterday appealed to Afghanistan to spare the life of a man facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity, but said the matter was one for the Afghan government and courts to decide.

In a case that has sparked international outrage, the remarks of Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns were in sharp contrast to condemnations of the trial by lawmakers and by leading European allies.

Briefing reporters with Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah at his side, Mr. Burns said the U.S. government was watching the case of Abdul Rahman closely, but added, "This case is not in the competence of the United States government. It's under the competence of the Afghan authorities."

But the governments of Germany and Italy, which -- like the United States -- have substantial troop deployments in Afghanistan, lodged strong protests at the prospect of Mr. Rahman's execution, with former Italian President Francesco Cossiga saying Italy should withdraw its 1,775 troops in Afghanistan if the death sentence is handed down.

The American low-key approach may intend to preserve some wiggle room for Karzai with Muslim hardliners in his country. After all, many of them already consider Karzai a sellout to Western forces attempting to strip Afghanistan of its Islamic traditions, and murdering Christian converts is a tradition they seem keen on continuing. Unfortunately, with Afghanistan still working on its stability and facing an insurgency from Taliban remnants, Karzai does not seem terribly interested in rocking that particular boat. The judge handling the case is a Taliban appointee and Karzai has shown no effort to remove him from the bench.

All due respect to Karzai's delicate position, allowing a Taliban appointee to murder a man simply for his profession of faith is simply unacceptable, and the US should register that message at a pay grade higher than that of Nicholas Burns. Karzai should hear this directly from George Bush, and he should understand that Karzai will suffer direct consequences if Rahman's persecution continues. The American people will not support efforts to prop up the Afghanistan democracy if it results in the execution of Christians for just being Christian; we will rightly ask whether we achieved anything in replacing the Taliban with Karzai's government. The new Afghan constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and if the Afghans do not adhere to this clause, then the whole document is unreliable.

We performed a marvelous mission in Afghanistan by liberating 24 million people from brutal oppression and dismantling the terrorist network that operated openly under Osama bin Laden. We can consider that much a success and a necessity in the war on terror. We do not need to support a government that wishes to impose another flavor of radical shari'a in order to justify that mission. Karzai needs to know that, and know it now.

WaPo's Positive Review

The Washington Post editorial board gave George Bush a glowing review on his press conference yesterday, showing the extent to which Bush succeeded in the forum he likes the least. The praise comes as a surprise for the normally critical Post, but the clear ease and openness that Bush demonstrated in this last press conference has them asking for more:

PRESIDENT BUSH should hold more news conferences. In his hour-long exchange with reporters at the White House yesterday, he was considerably more effective in explaining and defending his commitment to the war in Iraq than in the three carefully worded speeches he has delivered in the past week. In his sometimes blunt, sometimes joking and sometimes unpolished way, he sounded authentic -- no more so than when he was asked what had become of the "political capital" he claimed after the 2004 election. "I'd say I'm spending that capital on the war," Mr. Bush replied.

And so he is. ...

Mr. Bush, however, hasn't lost sight of the stakes. "The enemy has said that it's just a matter of time before the United States loses its nerve and withdraws from Iraq. That is what they have said," he told reporters. "And their objective for driving us out of Iraq is to have a place from which to launch their campaign to overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East, as well as to continue attacking places like the United States. Now, maybe some discount those words as kind of meaningless propaganda. I don't. I take them really seriously."

As I wrote last night, the nation needs to hear this from the president, and in a manner where his words can carry over the cacaphony of the media environment. Thanks to the splintering of television audiences, the broadcast networks are loathe to carry live political speeches unless under certain special circumstances, such as Katrina or the outbreak of hostilities. However, given the self-love of the press, news conferences such as the one yesterday allow for longer-form media exposure.

Up to now, the media (and the electorate, even his supporters) have gotten the impression that Bush avoided press conferences because he didn't do well at extemporaneous speech. He mangles syntax, of course, but the common wisdom was that he couldn't operate well outside of prepared speeches and sympathetic crowds. Bush disproved that theory yesterday with a masterful performance, even when Helen Thomas provided comic relief by pretending to ask a question in the middle of her paranoid fantasies. And that hasn't just occurred at this press conference; Bush has taken to engaging audiences in Q&A periods at the end of his speeches and faced some pointed questions, and hasn't quailed a bit under the pressure.

All of that makes one wonder why Bush doesn't do more press conferences. Perhaps he gets too irritated with the reporters on the White House beat, an understandable reaction if he watches the daily briefing and the ego-jockeying that regularly victimizes Scott McClellan. Maybe he thinks it's a waste of time, given the hostility of the press corps and the contextless sound bites that arise from these events. However, he needs to put all of that aside and engage the press more often in this manner. He clearly prevailed yesterday in getting his message across, and he needs those kinds of victories on a regular basis.

Strawmen Sure Do Get Around

A few days ago, the AP's Jennifer Loven wrote a strange "news" report on George Bush's supposed predilection for strawmen in his speeches. Loven wrote that the usage of the rhetorical device 'some say' indicates a dishonest approach to argument and debate:

When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.

He typically then says he "strongly disagrees" — conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making.

Of course, this argument is ludicrous. Often in debates, politicians do not want to get specific about the origin of an argument -- and in the examples Loven cites, the arguments have been made by so many people that one could take an entire day trying to recount the specific citations.

If these are strawmen, then apparently the practice isn't limited to Bush. A few of Loven's colleagues use them as well, as evident in the President's press conference this morning:

Q Good morning, sir. Mindful of the frustrations that many Americans are expressing to you, do you believe you need to make any adjustments in how you run the White House? Many of your senior staffers have been with you from the beginning. There are some in Washington who say ...

Q Some say they are tired and even tone-deaf, even within your party who say that maybe you need some changes. Would you benefit from any changes to your staff? ...

Q You said you listen to members of Congress, and there have been growing calls from some of those members for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ...

My, those strawmen sure do get around, don't they? Can we look forward to Loven's next exposé to focus on the dishonest rhetoric and demagoguic attitudes of her brethren in the Exempt Media? I would love to read that analysis.

Speaking of the presser, I didn't get much of a chance to listen to it except for a few excerpts. I think Bush did a fine job in a forum he dislikes. He remained firm while sounding (especially on paper) coherent and relaxed with a hostile press, especially the doddering fool, Helen Thomas. I especially liked her allegation that Iraq never did anything to this country, forgetting that Saddam tried to assassinate George H. W. Bush when he visited Kuwait after his presidency, an act that resulted in Bill Clinton ordering a missile assault on Iraqi intelligence assets in Baghdad. Saddam's security forces repeatedly fixed anti-aircraft missiles on our pilots while they enforced and patrolled the no-fly zone, and the first attack on the World Trade Center involved a man who got a Kuwaiti identity during Saddam's occupation of his neighbor.

Bush hit the target when he talked about the difference between a September 10th point of view and a September 12th point of view:

Our foreign policy up to now was to kind of tolerate what appeared to be calm. And underneath the surface was this swelling sense of anxiety and resentment, out of which came this totalitarian movement that is willing to spread its propaganda through death and destruction, to spread its philosophy. Now, some in this country don't -- I can understand -- don't view the enemy that way. I guess they kind of view it as an isolated group of people that occasionally kill. I just don't see it that way. I see them bound by a philosophy with plans and tactics to impose their will on other countries.

The enemy has said that it's just a matter of time before the United States loses its nerve and withdraws from Iraq. That's what they have said. And their objective for driving us out of Iraq is to have a place from which to launch their campaign to overthrow modern governments -- moderate governments -- in the Middle East, as well as to continue attacking places like the United States. Now, maybe some discount those words as kind of meaningless propaganda. I don't, Jim. I take them really seriously. And I think everybody in government should take them seriously and respond accordingly. And so it's -- I've got to continue to speak as clearly as I possibly can about the consequences of success and the consequences of failure, and why I believe we can succeed.

But he made his best point when the issue of the NSA surveillance program arose:

I did notice that nobody from the Democrat Party has actually stood up and called for getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program. You know, if that's what they believe, if people in the party believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it. They ought to stand up and say the tools we're using to protect the American people shouldn't be used. They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me, I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program. That's what they ought to be doing. That's part of what is an open and honest debate.

I did notice that, at one point in time, they didn't think the Patriot Act ought to be reauthorized -- "they" being at least the Minority Leader in the Senate. He openly said, as I understand -- I don't want to misquote him -- something along the lines that, "We killed the Patriot Act." And if that's what the party believes, they ought to go around the country saying we shouldn't give the people on the front line of protecting us the tools necessary to do so.

Many of us have vented our frustration at the lack of direct communication from this White House on the war, the economy, and other issues. This started to change towards the end of last year, but in January the effort seemed to stop. George Bush needs to hold conferences like this more often; he always manages to outperform expectations when he does, and the American people like his direct manner when interacting spontaneously with the press and with audiences for his speeches.

He needs to continue this effort, and not just to make himself more popular. The war effort hangs on his ability to keep the American electorate from panicking and withdrawing their support. Speaking about the issues of the war and his plans for victory is as necessary for that effort as the Humvees he's sending to Iraq for the new Iraqi Army. Without a much more energetic effort of the kind we saw today, Bush will lose this war by default.

A Blogger Gets His Due

Join me in congratulating Mark Tapscott of The Heritage Foundation and Tapscott's Copy Desk. I spoke with Mark earlier today, and he told me he had accepted a position with the Washington Examiner and on the national editorial board of the Examiner. Mark will be part of the Examiner's efforts to expand into numerous cities as well as creating a significant on-line presence.

Mark has been a tremendous presence at Heritage, especially for bloggers and the effort to bring respect for the work we do. He has also been a good friend to me, and I'm happy to see him get such a wonderful opportunity and interesting challenge. Congratulations to one fine blogger!

Media Bistro announced this earlier

Belarus Teeters On The Edge

Protests have continued to a third day in Belarus despite the bragging of Aleksander Lukashenko that he had defeated reformers in the crooked elections that saw him garner 83% of the vote:

Hundreds of protesters defied Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko for a third day on Tuesday, massing in the capital to protest over his re-election, denounced as flawed by Washington and independent observers.

In a protest unprecedented for the tightly-controlled, ex-Soviet state, opposition demonstrators continued an overnight vigil and camped in driving snow on a Minsk central square to back a call for a re-run of a vote they say was rigged.

Lukashenko, 12 years in power and criticized by the opposition and in the West for authoritarian Soviet-style rule, swept back into office on Monday with an official tally of 82.6 percent.

Nearest rival Alexander Milinkevich, with six percent, called the poll fraudulent, a view shared widely in the West, though the result was never in doubt given Lukashenko's control over much of public life and media.

Last week, Belarus threatened protestors with death for political "terrorism". Now they can't scare them off the streets, and the security forces seem unable to shut down the calls for new and proper elections. Keep watching, because either Belarus is heading for another velvet revolution in the footsteps of Ukraine and Georgia, or it's heading for a Tiananmen Square disaster. Given Lukashenko's location at the eastern end of Europe, and given the problems the Russians already have, I'm betting on the former. I predicted that this would occur within months; it looks more like weeks now, and maybe sooner than that.

Publius has his ear to the ground, as always.

Business As Usual Is No Excuse

After writing about the interesting manner in which political contributors put money into John Doolittle's family bank account on Sunday, Eric Hogue also questioned the practice on his radio show yesterday. SactoDan noted the exchange between Rep. Richard Pombo and Hogue, as well as a call-in from California state senator Dave Cox -- both of whom (unsurprisingly) defended Doolittle and the practice of paying political spouses commissions on fundraising. SactoDan reports:

11th district US Congressman Richard Pombo of Tracy, interviewed on the Eric Hogue Show on KTKZ Radio (1380AM, 105.5 FM) this morning was asked about the practice. Pombo's wife is involved in his campaign. Pombo confirmed that his wife has received a salary, and at times has received commissions based on the amounts raised. He said if she wasn't doing it, he'd have to hire some other fundraising organization to do it, or if she worked somewhere else, there would be questions or criticisms about that.

Hogue asks the question, should wives or immediate family members be allowed to work for pay or commissions on a campaign, or is it a conflict of interest?

State Senator Dave Cox weighs in (called into the show): 10% to 15% commission is standard fare for fundraising commission, and if a spouse has a business that raises funds she should be entitled to compensation.

All this proves is that political officeholders have trouble staying in touch with reality. This isn't a difficult concept: a system which allows political contributors to stick cash into a politician's personal bank account creates at least the appearance of corruption and probably the reality of it as well. We don't send people to Congress or to the state houses so that their spouses can collect 15% of all cash contributions for the community-property account. With electoral campaigns costing millions of dollars, that adds up to a lot of money pouring into the hands of political candidates for their personal aggrandizement.

The need for this brokerage is laughable on its face. Political contributors do not need to access a consultant to give money to John Doolittle's campaigns. They know where to find him whether his wife takes the check or not. Ending these consultancy services from family members will not stop the flow of lobbying money to Doolittle, Pombo, or anyone else -- but it will stop the lobbyists from having a direct channel to the family bank account.

We don't elect legislators so that they can get rich by pulling 15% off the top of all their campaign contributions. For a position that pays around $160,000 a year plus travel and per diem, the salary should be enough; it's three or four times what an average family makes in the US. Staffers come with the position, and no one cares if family members get those salaried jobs as long as they do the work. But allowing politicians to pocket a percentage of these hefty campaign funds for their own personal use while supposedly representing the people should not be acceptable to American voters, and if politicians can't understand that, then we need to replace them as soon as possible.

Vanishing Species: Rockefeller Republicans and Jackson Democrats

One of my favorite columnists, E.J. Dionne, laments the reduction of liberal Republicans in elective office during the past generation. He cites the retirement of Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-NY, as a sign of increasing conservative control over the GOP:

Boehlert chose to retire in the year when National Journal, the political world's answer to Sports Illustrated, featured him as the ultimate "Down the Middle" guy. In its Feb. 25 issue, the magazine published its annual ratings, which showed that Boehlert's votes were more liberal than those of 52.2 percent of House members and more conservative than 47.8 percent. Boehlert's district includes the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, and it's hard to move the ball more to the middle of the plate than he does.

It's been downhill for his brand of Republicanism from the moment he set foot in Washington as a congressional staffer in 1964. That's the year Barry Goldwater won the Republican presidential nomination and the great flight of the Republican liberals began.

After Goldwater's landslide defeat, two Republican progressives who later became conservatives, George Gilder and Bruce Chapman, wrote a brilliant book called "The Party That Lost Its Head," detailing how and why the party's liberal wing responded so anemically to the conservative challenge. But it was too late. The party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt was destined to become an annex of the conservative movement.

Goldwater conservatives among us will find this a rather laughable sentiment, especially in the past six years. The GOP has gone in a different direction than Dionne may like, but most of us would be loath to call it conservatism. George Bush has adopted a Wilsonian foreign policy that is classicly and radically liberal, and would have been recognized as such by Theodore Roosevelt. The Republican Congress, along with the Bush administration, has spent money hand over fist on expanding government reach into education, workplace regulation, health care, and a glut of pork spending. That may be good politics inside the beltway, but an increase of government spending of almost 100% in twelve years and an expansion of discretionary spending of 50% in six years isn't Goldwater conservatism. In fact, it looks a lot like Rockefeller Republicanism.

The only two areas in which the Congress and the White House have broadly supported conservative principles have been in tax reduction and judicial nominations. Even a slam-dunk issue like border control gets short shrift from the government; the 9/11 Commission gave the best political opening in years to get something done to secure our southern border, but this supposedly conservative GOP majority has instead allowed the issue to fester. Even on judicial nominations, the GOP has fumbled what should have been a smooth ride for conservative nominees, allowing the Democrats to continue their obstructionism by rewarding it with a sleazy compromise that put 14 Senators in charge of all nominations.

Conservatives support George Bush because of his leadership and his willingness to fight enemies of the US wherever they are, rather than the appeasement and limp, ineffective sanctions in which previous administrations of both parties indulged. We also support him and the GOP because we understand that the Democrats would be much worse on all counts, especially the Democrats we see today.

If Dionne laments the decline of the Rockefeller Republicans, what about the near-extinction of the Scoop Jackson Democrats? Joe Lieberman is a pariah in his own party for acknowledging that terrorists have declared war on the US and we have to defend ourselves. Sam Nunn retired. Who was the last real expert from the Democrats on military affairs? Even Bill Clinton had to pick a Republican to run the Department of Defense to have any credibility. Instead of moving towards the center, the Democrats have run for the leftmost fringe in politics, chasing after the money that MoveOn and George Soros provides. Now we have leaders such as Russ Feingold, who proposes to censure or impeach a president during wartime for intercepting messages from suspected agents of the enemy attempting to communicate with people inside the country, a program that many liberal legal scholars consider within his authority and similar to actions taken by Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter during peacetime.

When Hillary Clinton is considered the conservative Democratic candidate for president, then the Democrats have moved so far to the left that lamenting the loss of moderation in the GOP looks more like projection.

Dionne's point about the increasing migration of conservatives to the GOP and mine about the leftward migration of the Democrats describes a transition in American politics that has been a long time in coming. In this age of mass communication, we have finally begun to change the political parties from sheer electoral machines to actual ideological havens. It provides a manner for American voters to clearly understand what their vote supports in national terms in a way that perhaps didn't exist thirty years ago. That may not be a bad idea.

What Happens When One Picks The Losing Horse

The Palestinians enjoyed the benificence of Saddam Hussein during the regime's long and brutal rule over the Iraqi people. Perhaps singular among Arab tyrants, Saddam gave the Palestinians privileges denied to Iraqis while funneling money to the suicide bombers that continually attacked Israel during the intifadas. In turn, the Palestinians gave Saddam's Iraq their unquestioning support, publicly siding with him when his tanks overran Kuwait and brutalized that nation for months, and celebrating the 9/11 attacks in street demonstrations of ululating joy -- until a frightened and embarrassed Yasser Arafat told them to shut the hell up.

Their special treatment caused plenty of resentment among Iraqis during Saddam's regime, and now that Saddam has been removed from power, the Palestinians feel a lot less welcome in the new Iraq:

More than 100 Palestinians fleeing violence in Baghdad and seeking refuge in Jordan have been denied entry by Jordanian border officials for not having proper entry permits, the spokesman for the Jordanian government said Monday.

The Palestinians have remained at the border in the hope of crossing, but the Jordanian government has closed it pending a resolution of the matter, the spokesman, Nasser Judeh, said in a telephone interview from the capital, Amman.

In recent weeks, as the country has experienced a surge in sectarian violence, Palestinians have been increasingly singled out by Shiite militias, because they were Sunni Arabs and because they had enjoyed certain privileges under Saddam Hussein. Many Palestinians were members of the Baath Party, and Mr. Hussein granted them free schooling and free housing, among other favors.

Residents of Baladiyat, a Baghdad neighborhood in which Palestinians are concentrated, say that in recent weeks, dozens of people have been kidnapped and many have turned up dead. The residents have accused Shiite militias in the killings.

This shows that the nature of the violence in Iraq has turned into a type of gang warfare similar to that seen on smaller scales in American urban centers, more so in the 80s and early 90s when drug money and turf wars turned cities into shooting galleries. These Palestinians weren't just honored guests or innocent bystanders during Saddam's reign, but actual participants in the oppression. They belonged to the Ba'ath party and benefitted greatly from that membership. Their continued presence raises legitimate questions about their activities on behalf of the Ba'athist insurgents, and assuming -- as this article does -- that they are just innocent refugees requires a significant leap of faith.

Nor is it any surprise that Jordan wants them to stay out of their country. Jordan provided an example for other Arab nations as to why they should never allow the Palestinian refugees to enter someone else's country. No sooner had King Hussein allowed them inside his borders did Yasser Arafat and the PLO begin undermining his authority and working to foment a coup. Hussein finally booted the Palestinians out of Jordan. They wound up in Lebanon and turned the southern end of the country into a war zone when they began using it for attacks on Israel.

The Palestinians have been cursed with the worst leadership imaginable, but the fault is theirs. If they wonder why they are no longer welcome in Iraq, they should recall their enthusiasm for one of the twentieth century's more brutal tyrants and their assistance in keeping him in power. Their choices have led them once again to someone else's border, begging for relief, and their history will keep anyone with an ounce of sense from letting them inside.

South Park's Cooking Revenge For Chef

Last night I watched a rerun of South Park -- my TiVo grabs them automatically and nothing much else was on -- when I noticed that the promos for the new season included a new ad in the rotation. This commercial referenced the "return of one of the most beloved characters," and had the four main characters of the show delightedly greeting Chef at the door. This piqued my curiosity, and the First Mate wondered if Isaac Hayes had returned to the show.

Apparently not, but it looks like Trey Parker and Matt Stone plan on giving him some payback for leaving:

The tenth season of "South Park" will launch on Wednesday with a new episode titled "The Return of Chef!", marking the "triumphant homecoming" of lusty school cafeteria cook James "Chef" McElroy to the show, the network said in a statement. ...

[A] network synopsis said the fictional town of South Park, Colorado, is "jolted out of a case of the doldrums when Chef suddenly reappears," leading to new antics by the group of foul-mouthed fourth graders who are the show's stars.

"While Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman are thrilled to have their old friend back, they notice that something about Chef seems different. When Chef's strange behavior starts getting him in trouble, the boys pull out all the stops to save him."

All of this started when the series ran an episode called "Trapped In The Closet", which added Scientology to a long list of religions and lifestyles lampooned by the series. Although Parker and Stone had exempted Hayes from appearing in that episode because of Hayes' membership in the group, Hayes quit anyway afterwards, claiming that he could not participate in religious "bigotry". That would be news to the Christian and Jewish fans of the show, whose faiths regularly receive satirical lashings, but then again Scientologists have never been known for their capacity to laugh at themselves.

That lack of ability to take what one dishes out arose again when the Comedy Channel abruptly pulled a rerun of the "Trapped" episode last week. Instead of broadcasting the controversial but hilarious episode, CC ran an episode from years ago called "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls" and claimed that it wanted to do a retrospective of Chef's best episodes. That took Parker and Stone by surprise, but many noted that Comedy Channel's parent, Viacom, also owns Paramount Pictures -- and that Paramount's latest big-budget release, Mission Impossible 3, needs Tom Cruise to market the film. People have speculated that Cruise pressured Viacom to pull the episode, although no one has confirmed it.

For fans of the show, the synopsis provided by this season's premier episode sounds like vintage Parker/Stone payback. Their tight turnaround time gives them the flexibility to respond to breaking issues in the news, such as the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003. Based on the statement, it looks like Chef may well have fallen prey to a dangerous cult ... and that should drive the Scientologists right up the wall. That will provide the wages for the hypocrisy Hayes showed in his classless exit.

UPDATE: Mitch Berg points to a Roger Friedman article that questions whether Hayes actually quit on his own or if someone did it for him:

Isaac Hayes did not quit "South Park." My sources say that someone quit it for him.

I can tell you that Hayes is in no position to have quit anything. Contrary to news reports, the great writer, singer and musician suffered a stroke on Jan. 17. At the time it was said that he was hospitalized and suffering from exhaustion. ...

Friends in Memphis tell me that Hayes did not issue any statements on his own about South Park. They are mystified.

“Isaac’s been concentrating on his recuperation for the last two and a half, three months,” a close friend told me.

Hayes did not suffer paralysis, but the mild stroke may have affected his speech and his memory. He’s been having home therapy since it happened.

That certainly begs the question of who issued the statement that Hayes was quitting "South Park" now because it mocked Scientology four months ago. If it wasn’t Hayes, then who would have done such a thing?

Perhaps that will be the plot of a later episode ... or maybe it's the plot of this episode.

The EU Never Learns, And Neither Does The BBC

The European Union has transferred sixty-four million euros to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority after briefly withholding the funds because of Hamas' refusal to accept agreements in place that recognize Israel's right to exist. They gave the money with a warning that the next time it might stop if Hamas doesn't change, a warning that failed to impress Hamas at all:

The European Union has handed over 64m euros (£44m) in aid to help the poorest Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

But it said that future aid depended on the incoming Hamas government showing a commitment to work for peace, saying the group was "at a crossroads".

The EU is due to give another 60m euros to cover official salaries and energy expenses for the Palestinian Authority.

EU commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner underscored the EU's rock-solid stance that they would cut off Hamas ... eventually ... sometime ... just watch us. She actually said that the payment gives Hamas room for positive change but it should be clear that the EU would not "go soft on our principles". Really? Exactly what principles would that be? They can't include the cessation of funds for terrorist organizations, because the EU recognizes Hamas as exactly that.

Hamas was less than impressed. Their spokesman acknowledged that the PA faced economic disaster due to the Hamas policies, but that "we will not go begging to the United States and Europe because we will not be blackmailed over our political positions." In other words, Hamas expects the world to give them money while Hamas gives nothing in return. Apparently they've analyzed the EU very accurately in this regard.

The BBC manages to make itself look silly in this dispatch as well. After noting that Hamas has carried out "dozens" of suicide-bomb terrorist attacks against Israel, the Beeb says that the US and the EU have "branded" Hamas as terrorists. Well, no kidding. I'm not sure why the BBC can't just say that Hamas is a terrorist organization, especially since they take credit for terrorist attacks, but I suppose they wouldn't be the BBC if they did. (They might be an actual news organization, but that wouldn't be the BBC.)

The funniest/most tragic part of this story is how the EU plans on ensuring the money does not get used for terrorism. They will give the money to the UN for distribution. Perhaps the EU might want to revisit that cesspool of corruption and oppression that the UN ran in the Oil-For-Food program before they start allowing the same idiots to funnel money to the Palestinian Authority. That money will go right into Hamas' pockets and we will read story after story about the suffering of the poor Palestinians, thanks to the "exclusion" of Hamas from the cash.

I know history repeats itself, but the EU apparently wants to run it on an endless loop.

Minnesota DFL Endorses Lying

The Minnesota Senate DFL caucus rallied around their beleaguered leader, Dean Johnson, who claimed in a conversation with clergy that three state Supreme Court justices assured Johnson that they would not rule in favor of same-sex marriage. The Majority Leader had tried to convince the ministers to drop a push to put a constitutional amendment banning gender-neutral marriage up for a referendum with this inside information, but was unaware that the conversation had been taped. When the ministers released the tape, Johnson told the press that he may have "embellished" the conversation, but the members of the Court are having none of this:

In a rare conversation with reporters, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Russell Anderson today said flatly that no member of the court -- including former Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz -- ever spoke to Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson about the state's marriage laws.

Anderson's denial came even as the Senate DFL caucus held an impromptu meeting this morning and gave a unanimous vote of confidence in Johnson as their leader.

That puts Johnson in the position of possibly having to defend an outright fabrication rather than what he last week called an "embellishment" of a conversation he said he'd had with a justice. A tape that surfaced last week had Johnson telling a group of pastors in January that he'd talked with at least three justices and received assurances that they would not overturn the state's law and allow same-sex marriage.

As the week wore on, Johnson recanted many of the details on tape, saying ultimately that he had talked with only one justice about the state's marriage law in a chance encounter in the Capitol rotunda late last year. But Johnson never backed off his assertion that a conversation had occured and that the topic of same-sex marriage had come up. ...

Calling from an out-of-state family vacation, Anderson told reporters emphatically that "I have talked with every member of my court, including the former chief justice and we have not had conversations with Sen. Johnson about DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) or how we might decide any matter relating to it. This just never happened. It [the alleged conversation] never occurred."

This puts the DFL in the position of calling the Supreme Court justices dishonest, because someone's lying about this supposed conversation. It's hard to imagine that Anderson would have bothered to call in from vacation just to shoot Johnson down unless he feels very strongly that the reputation of his court has been besmirched. On the other hand, Johnson's story keeps changing, usually a pretty sure sign of dishonesty.

The Minnesota DFL should pat itself on the back. It's given its vote of confidence to a man who lied to ministers in order to gain a political advantage in a fight that already bodes ill for his party. Now he has to explain why the DFL won't allow the voters of Minnesota to decide on this amendment, and he has zero credibility with which to make the case. Thanks to their silly and short-sighted action, his caucus has taken Johnson's credibility deficit and made themselves a part of it. For some reason, the DFL felt it necessary to endorse a man who just got caught lying to his constituents for his political gain -- a position that the GOP will ensure remains in the public debate in the fall elections.

CQ Media Links For Today

Captain's Quarters gets mentioned today in a couple of media outlets ...

* First is today's Star-Tribune, where John Reinan gives me a brief mention regarding the efforts to regulate political speech on the Internet. Reinan interviewed me last week and does a nice job of capsulizing the controversy. The Strib doesn't provide links from its web content but it does mention the blog by name. The article also quotes former FEC commissioner Brad Smith on the pending regulation. I enjoyed speaking with Reinan, who used probably the wittiest thing I was able to say while driving on the 494 Eastbound Highway Of Doom.

* Our old friend from Salem Communications, Eric Hogue, also mentioned me today on his blog and on his regular morning show in Sacramento. Eric often fills in for Hugh Hewitt when Hugh goes into mourning for his Cleveland Browns -- a regular occurrence -- and today reviews the troubling financial arrangements enjoyed by Rep. John Doolittle and his wife, Julie. Eric agrees with me that any system which allows a politician's spouse to pocket commissions for political contributions to the politician's PAC and campaign is a system that needs drastic changes:

I'm a defender of raising as much campaign cash (free speech) as a candidate can collect, but it is somewhat unethical in my eyes - the voters too - to have a novice spouse performing as the professional consultant, just so you can gather 15% commission of off thousands of donated dollars. It may not be illegal, but it doesn't pass the 'smell test' in my opinion.

This is something that the Republicans might want to address as they drive toward campaign finance reform.

Eric also notes the great comment section on this post -- but that could apply to any of the great debates in which CQ readers engage here. Eric also has posted his interview with Rep. Richard Pombo.

* CNN's Situation Room mentions me and links to me from their site regarding Russ Feingold's censure motion. Abbi Tatton, by the way, is a class act and treats bloggers as peers, instead of ... well ... bloggers.

Other media links of note:

* Michelle Malkin and Bryan Preston will have video of their coverage at the UPJ protest at the Pentagon. Be sure to see Michelle's pictures from the event, and watch for her interview of Cindy Sheehan.

* Brian Maloney tries to find out how many affiliates Air America has ... and discovers some inflation in the liberal talk-show network's figures.

* The Washington Post has started a new conservative blog, Red America. It doesn't appear that the blogger, former Regnery editor Ben Domenech, has started posting yet, but the RSS feed link is posted for when he begins. I'm not surprised that the Post has given Domenech the opportunity to balance out their blog efforts -- I've always found the Post to be a pretty classy organization. I'm looking forward to seeing what he has to say.

* Just a reminder that one of the best tools for following the debate on the blogosphere is Memeorandum, which should be open in your browser at all times (easily done in Firefox with its tabs). And William Beutler at the National Journal has a must-read compendium of the hottest topics each weekday with the Blogometer. Be sure to catch up with both on a regular basis.

Were You At The Coup?

Last month I wrote about the barely-veiled call for a coup d'etat sponsored by the group United for Peace and Justice. The march on the White House that was intended to trigger a popular uprising had originally been scheduled for the 15th of this month, but got postponed ... due to temporary sanity, one supposes. UPJ moved the date to today:

The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance is organizing "From Mourning to Resistance," a March to the Pentagon on Monday, March 20, that will culminate in nonviolent direct action. This March on the Pentagon will begin with a gathering at 9 AM on Daniel French Drive, which is near 23rd and Independence. At 10 AM, there will be a march across the Arlington Memorial Bridge to Lady Bird Johnson Grove, near the Pentagon. At both sites, there will be speakers and music. The speakers are as follows: Bruce Gagnon, a Vietnam era veteran and director of the Global Network Against Nuclear Weapons & Power in Space, Fr. Joe Mulligan from Nicaragua, Global Call for Nonviolent Resistance, Laura Costas, Military Families Speak Out, Mike Ferner, Veterans For Peace and Voices for Creative Nonviolence, and Michael Berg whose son was beheaded in Iraq. There will be a ceremony to honor the dead, before a delegation attempts to deliver a coffin to Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld.

That's a bit different from their original rhetoric, which stated:

U.N. SOS - We need your help to end the reign of international criminals.

It is our duty and the duty of the United Nations to rescue the people of the world from the U.S. dictators. Murder for occupation and theft of land is illegal. Murder of journalists is criminal. Remove the traitors who have stolen the U.S. budget and used it to commit international crimes against humanity. ...

We are calling on all Member Nations of the U.N.; All Representatives and Justices in the World Court and International Criminal Courts; All Human Rights Advocates; All Soldiers and CIA agents and government officials who have been blackmailed or are in fear of the dictators to join us in ending this reign of corporate terror in our government. The World Criminal Courts need to incarcerate Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for admitted crimes and known crimes of international scope. The Political Cooperative will put a new, temporary government in place that is comprised of people from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and all the organizations that have finally made us aware of the truth of the savage practices and illegal policies of our government in assassinating our own officials as well as people throughout the world who oppose their criminal activity.

Canadian Liberals Support Afghan Mission

The Grits seem to have finally lived up to their name, standing up to the NDP and declining to debate or vote on the deployment of Canadian troops to Afghanistan. After reports that deployed Canadian troops had become angry at second-guessers back home, the Liberals have now made it clear that they will not play politics with their membership in the coalition assisting Hamid Karzai's new democratic government:

The Liberals appear to be lining up solidly behind the Conservative government over the mission in Afghanistan, rejecting NDP calls for a parliamentary vote on the matter.

"We are against a vote because it's a responsibility of the executive and because we should not second-guess when we have an important mission to succeed," Liberal foreign affairs critic Stéphane Dion said yesterday on CTV's Question Period. ...

Yesterday, both Mr. Dion and Opposition Leader Bill Graham placed themselves foursquare behind the government, with no ambiguity.

"We are in Afghanistan because the Afghans want us in Afghanistan," Mr. Graham said on Question Period. "This is not an invasion or an occupation. This is going to help people."

The Liberal comments yesterday followed remarks last week by Mr. Dion in which he discounted a vote but called for a debate. That was in response to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's warning to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, during his surprise visit to Afghanistan, that there was dissent in Parliament about the mission.

The Harper government has to be happy with this kind of support, belated though it may be. The NDP thought it might steal a march on Harper by exploiting anti-Americanism and the natural unease of a nation that sends its soldiers into a foreign combat zone. That effort appears to have blown up in Jack Layton's face, at least for the moment, and created a rare sense of unity between the Tories and the leaderless Liberals.

Speaking of leaderless, the G&M reports that the job of party leader has attracted no serious applicants so far:

A lack of interest in succeeding Paul Martin has been the most noteworthy aspect of the Liberal contest so far. One high-profile Liberal after another — Frank McKenna, John Manley, Brian Tobin and Alan Rock — chose not to enter the race.

The reduced entry fee of $50,000 — down from $75,000 the last time around — shouldn't be a major barrier to the long list of potential candidates.

However, the spending cap for each candidate of $3.4-million could be a burden for some, even though that's down from the $4-million in the previous race that elected Mr. Martin.

Potential candidates, from MPs Scott Brison and Belinda Stronach to newcomer Michael Ignatieff and former Ontario NDP premier Bob Rae, have been waiting for the rules to be set before they formally declare their intentions.

What if they held a party (election) and no one came?

One has to marvel at the inclusion of Belinda Stronach as a serious potential candidate for the post, an indication of some desperation among the Grits. Less than three years ago, she challenged Stephen Harper for the Tory leadership post after winning a grand total of one election. Strollin' Stronach defected last year in order to save Paul Martin's bacon, and that only worked temporarily. Now she wants to lead the other party, a revealing llook at a politician that might be more self-centered than even Bill Clinton, one of her advisors.

Saddam Personally Ordered Chemical Attack On Kurds

The Scotsman reports on a key piece of evidence that ties Saddam Hussein directly to the disgusting genocide of Kurds in Halabja almost twenty years ago. Memos from his personal secretary to military leaders make clear that Saddam wanted to use chemical weapons on Kurdish positions in 1987:

SADDAM Hussein ordered plans to be drawn up for a chemical weapons attack on Kurdish guerrilla bases in northern Iraq in 1987, according to a letter signed by his personal secretary. ...

The planned attack appears to have been part of the 1987-88 campaign that left more than 180,000 Kurds dead and demolished hundreds of Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. In the most notorious incident, the town of Halabja was bombed with mustard and nerve gas in 1988, killing 5,000 residents.

In the papers released by the US, a report from Iraq's military intelligence details the bases of Kurdish rebels, led by Ibrahim Barzani, and Iranian troops.

Saddam's secretary replies, saying, "The leader Mr President has ordered that your department study with experts a surprise attack with special ammunition in the areas of Barzani's gangs and the [former Iranian leader Ayatollah] Khomeini Guards."

"Special ammunition" is the phrase used throughout Saddam's regime for chemical weapons. Later documents mention specifically the nerve agent sarin and mustard gas.

One wonders how Saddam would respond to this. Regarding Dujail, he has claimed that the processes used to massacre the residents of the small town as a reprisal for an assassination attempt were legal under Iraqi law, a claim that has done little to slow his prosecution. For Halabja, observers widely predicted that his defense would claim ignorance of the attack until after it had already taken place -- a sort of reverse Nazi defense of "I didn't give the orders". This new evidence clearly shows that he gave those orders before, and probably on many other occasions, against the Iranians during their eight-year war as well as against his own people.

It's fashionable these days to claim that the Iraqis were better off under Saddam than after his liberation, given the civilian death toll from the fight against the insurgents. Some claim that over 100,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion, although the methodology for those calculations has been highly suspect. In two years, Saddam killed over 180,000 Kurds just for being Kurds, and destroyed their homes, forcing them to live in the hills to survive -- and that doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of Marsh Arabs, Shi'a, and even Sunnis who died either in droves in reprisals for suspected disloyalty or individually as Saddam and his henchmen desired. This letter reminds us that Iraqis and the world have all benefitted from the removal of this sick, twisted dictator.

Why, He's Almost As Popular As Saddam Hussein!

Earlier I noted the elections in Belarus and the unrest that accompanied the campaign as the "last dictator in Europe", Aleksander Lukashenko, appeared to have the election sewn up in every possible manner. The ruling regime had threatened death to the protestors in a move that appeared to signal desperation on the part of the Lukashenko government, and I predicted that a popular uprising would take over Belarus within months. That prediction appears to be closer to reality as a wave of protest has built after a ridiculous election resulted in 88% of all votes going to Lukashenko:

An expected landslide for President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko drew several thousand Belarussians into the streets on Sunday, as protesters ignored swirling snow and official threats of arrest to denounce the election as a clumsily orchestrated sham.

With 32 percent of ballots counted shortly before midnight on Sunday, Mr. Lukashenko, a former collective farm boss who has been in office 12 years, had won 88 percent of the total, said the secretary of the central election commission, Nikolai I. Lozovik. That figure exceeded even the state's own surveys of voters leaving the polls and hardened assertions by Mr. Lukashenko's opponents that the results were fraudulent.

"They say we want a revolution," the leading opposition candidate, Aleksandr Milinkevich, told thousands of protesters who gathered peacefully in October Square, the central square in Minsk, as the polls closed at 8 p.m. "No. We want only free and fair elections. What happened here was a farce. We do not recognize this election."

According to the announced results, Mr. Milinkevich distantly trailed in second place, with 4 percent — far below the level American-financed polls had recently indicated he could receive. [With most of the ballots counted later Monday morning, The Associated Press reported, Mr. Lukashenko had 82.6 percent and Mr. Milinkevich had 6 percent.]

Lukashenko made the same mistake as Viktor Yanukovich in Ukraine -- he staged a phony election instead of just passing laws which kept him in power. Elections give hope to the electorate that their efforts can bring real change to government. When those elections reveal themselves to be utter frauds, as this laughable result clearly shows, the people that participated in that hoax get disillusioned -- and that disillusionment breeds embarrassment and anger. When enough people feel embarrassed and angered over getting duped, they band together to take action.

It was precisely that engine that forced Yanukovich to restage the national elections that had denied Viktor Yuschenko a fair shot at the presidency, and eventually toppled the clan rule that had held power in the former Soviet republic since the collapse of Communism in Russia. Yanukovich and his patron, Leonid Kuchma, found out too late that elections inspire people, and if they get thwarted, that inspiration does not disappear.

Perhaps Lukashenko will avoid the soft coup d'etat that other people-power democratic revolutions have created, but if so, he may well regret it. After issuing death threats last week for protestors, the Belorussians have discovered in yesterday's protests that Lukashenko simply doesn't have that kind of power. If the unrest continues to build, he may wind up fleeing Belarus to save his own life, a fate that Yanukovich avoided by relenting to demands for a truly free election -- and remaining a part of the political scene in Kyiv.

Publius Pundit has much more on this developing situation.

The New Martyrs

I missed this story yesterday, but Michelle Malkin rightly noted it and it has been picked up around the blogosphere. An Afghan man faces the death penalty for the "crime" of conversion to Christianity in a case that underscores the difficulty of preaching tolerance among the intolerant:

An Afghan man is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death on a charge of converting from Islam to Christianity, a crime under the country's Islamic laws, a judge said yesterday.

Abdul Rahman, 41, was arrested last month after his family accused him of becoming a Christian, Judge Ansarullah Mawlavezada said. Mr. Rahman was charged with rejecting Islam, and his trial was held Thursday.

During the one-day hearing, the defendant confessed that he converted from Islam to Christianity 16 years ago while working as a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, Judge Mawlavezada said.

"We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law," the judge said. "It is an attack on Islam."

Rahman has shown courage in his stance; most defendants in this kind of prosecution would either deny their Christianity (a number of these accusations turn out to be false, anyway) or would have taken the offer given Rahman to renounce his new faith and embrace Islam once more. Rahman has refused, acknowledging his conversion while traveling overseas, and intends on remaining a Christian the rest of his life ... which may be shorter than he first thought, thanks to the draconian Shari'a that Afghanistan uses as a basis for its penal code.

This shows the difficulty of introducing liberty to a region which has never had that tradition and underscores the generational effort it will take to reduce the theocratic influence on government in Southwest Asia. We rightly celebrate the deposing of the Taliban because of their brutal oppression of the Afghan people and their support of terror. It doesn't mean that the Taliban didn't have some support among the people for their slavish dedication to Shari'a as public law, especially in the area of religious conformity. Muslims have always been singular in their use of violence to both convert and to keep their own from converting, and this case is just the latest demonstration.

The West should do whatever it can to assist Rahman, but it treads on dangerous ground. If the Coalition is seen to interfere with the case, it may provide a propaganda bonanza for the Taliban, which has warned that the effort to liberate Afghanistan amounted to nothing more than a Fifth Crusade to destroy Islam. It might be easier to ask for Rahman's extradition rather than demanding an end to his persecution. It wouldn't make much of a precedent, considering the number of native Christians in the country number only in the hundreds, or possibly less than that.

However, this case requires that we at least speak out against the prosecution of Rahman and express our own conviction that religious freedom is a birthright to all people wherever they may live. If pressing for action would be counterproductive to Rahman's fate, then at least our government should be holding this case up as an injustice to the natural rights on which we base our own sense of justice. If we do not stand up for Rahman even in this manner, we perpetuate the myth that religious freedom only belongs in Europe and the Americas.

American Death Rate In Iraq Lowest In Two Years

Handwringers in the press have turned Iraq into Viet Nam, calling it a quagmire so often that the repetition has become numbing. However, according to a study done by USA Today of military data, the casualty rate for US troops has dropped to its lowest level in two years, while the Iraqi forces show increasing engagement against the terrorists:

U.S. military deaths during the past month have dropped to an average of about one a day, approaching the lowest level since the insurgency began two years ago, according to a USA TODAY analysis of U.S. military data.

The decline in U.S. deaths comes as Iraqi casualties are the highest since the U.S. military began tracking them in 2004.

In the past month, nearly five times as many Iraqi forces and civilians were killed as troops in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, U.S. military data show.

The shift from spring 2004, when U.S. and Iraqi casualty rates were comparable, reflects an insurgency that increasingly targets Iraqis and the growing presence of Iraqi forces on the front lines.

"The Iraqi army is far bigger in number, far higher in training capability and far more willing to go where the fight is and take casualties," British Defense Secretary John Reid said in an interview.

The Iraqi Army now fields more than 240,000 and has taken operations over from the US and other Coalition forces in many areas throughout the country. The Sunni Triangle still largely operates under American patrols, but those are joined by Iraqi troops for training purposes. Operation Swarmer allowed the US to conduct real missions while training the Iraqis to perform air assaults and do cordon-and-search missions necessary to trap and capure insurgents and their materiel. In six months, the number of Level 2 Iraqi units has increased from 37 to 63, showing that the training not only continues but has become more effective, and recruitment has remained strong.

The drop in the rate of American casualties also comes from an increasing ability to stop IEDs before they kill and maim. Our patrols now disable 40% of all IEDs before explosion, an increase of a third over the last six months. We have killed or captured scores of their bombmakers in operations like Swarmer.

As long as terrorists and Ba'athist dead-enders remain in Iraq, the capacity for violence and mayhem remains significant. However, we continue to make progress in establishing an army that fights for the new Iraqi government and has not cut and run from the fight against terrorism, especially against Zarqawi's al-Qaeda foreigners. It will not be a short effort, but the data show that we are going in the right direction.

How Innocuous Were Those Tapes, Anyway?

Not long ago, ABC News broadcast a number of tapes that recorded meetings of Iraqi officials before the American invasion, including Saddam Hussein and his inner circle. After the tapes aired, the general opinion was that the tapes had some historical and contextual interest but provided no smoking guns on Saddam's instransigence. The DoD and DNI have now posted transcripts of all the tapes, and the information contained within them may change that evaluation.

Ray Robison has begun a blogswarm to highlight the review of the documents. Be sure to read his ongoing commentary on the transcripts. For instance, page 6 of this document shows that Saddam was kept informed of the status of three German scientists working in the employ of Saddam:

We still have two issues Sir (Saddam-RR). Very simple. What the doctor said about the experts. There held in Germany. They have detailed knowledge of our weaponry. So we should go and give the information that they gave already.

The three scientists in question were Karl Schaab, Dietrich Hinze, and Bruno Stemmler, and Ray links back to more information on their detention. In fact, Schaab admitted in an interview the work he had done for Saddam, and even late in his regime still worried about what Schaab would reveal to inspectors if captured. That doesn't sound like a man who had discarded his nuclear program.

Keep an eye out for further developments.

My Psycho Sons

Fathers usually beam with pride when their sons decide to go into the family business and follow in their footsteps. Saddam Hussein must have positively burst with joy when his son Qusai helped devise the defense of Baghdad in the last days of his regime. One of the documents found among the cache captured when Baghdad fell reports an order from Qusai to put Kuwaiti POWs -- apparently from the 1990 invasion that prompted the first Gulf War -- around critical military facilities in order to use them as human shields:

Presidential Office/ Special Office The Secretary: Re / Kuwaiti POW’s

Regarding the execution of Mr. President, Commander Saddam Hussein’s (God protect him) orders, according to the decision of the Revolutionary Command Council on Friday, March 4, 2003.

Transfer all Kuwaiti POW’s / a total of 448 captured Kuwaitis who are located at the Al-Nida Al-Agher Prison and the Intelligence / General Center and Kazema Prison in Al-Kazema, to make them human shields at all locations that are expected to be attacked by the American aggressors. Put them in communication locations and essential ministries, radio and television, Military Industrial Commissions, and all other locations expected to be attacked by the criminal Anglo-American aggressors.

Transporting them should be in coordination with:
Intelligence Services Directorate
Republican Guard Chief of Staff

Under direct supervision of the Special Security Organization / Organization Security

[Signature]
Qusai Saddam Hussein
Supervisor of the Republican Guard Secretariat
March 14, 2003

The first question that needs answering is why Iraq continued to hold 448 Kuwaitis as POWs after the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Twelve years later, the Husseins still had them in custody -- an act that constitutes a critical breach of the cease-fire that preserved Saddam's reign over the Iraqis. Now we also have proof that the Iraqis not only failed to live up to their initial commitments under the agreement, but also committed a war crime that should bring the death penalty to Saddam Hussein, in whose name and under whose orders Qusai demanded this action.

The Kuwaitis will want to know what happened to these POWs, and their fate should result in further war-crimes trials against those who may have carried out Qusai's orders.

The Sopranos: Whack-A-Poll, Episode 2 (Bumped and Updated)

For those of us who watched the first episode of the new season of The Sopranos, we got a number of surprises to start off. After a rather strange but compelling opening montage accompanied by William Burroughs' 'Seven Souls', the storylines took into account the time gap between this season and the previous one. Uncle Junior has almost completely succumbed to dementia, Janice and Bobby had a baby, Johnny Sack sits in a prison going broke, and Vito Spatafore lost about a hundred pounds. Oddly enough, no one got whacked, although one character (Gene) committed suicide, Ray died of a heart attack in an FBI car, and Uncle Junior shot Tony at the end of the episode, thinking in his senility that Tony was an old nemesis from years back.

The New York Times editorial board notes the surprisingly low numbers for the episodes and wonders whether fans of the show want to avoid seeing Tony die:

This season's opener attracted 9.5 million viewers, down from the 12.1 million who watched the previous one. That may be due to the show's unusually long hiatus, and to competition from ABC's "Desperate Housewives." But some viewers are no doubt turning away because they suspect that Tony's life story is not going to end happily, and they may be reluctant to watch the narrative arc of a character they have come to care about start pointing relentlessly downward. Tony could still have breakthroughs, in therapy and in life. But starting the season lying in a pool of his own blood, not knowing if help will arrive, he is certainly off to a bad start.

I'd chalk it up to improved competition on Sunday evenings as well as the two-year gap between this season and last. Fans of The Sopranos understand that bad things happen to bad people (and good people) on the show, and that the last season means that no one is safe. In fact, we would be disappointed to have the boss of the family escape all the ruin and destruction he has brought to himself and both of his families. The undeniable thrust of this series has been that Tony would one day reap the harvest of evil that he has sown.

Last week I asked CQ readers to guess who would get rubbed out in Episode 1. All of us were wrong, but I doubt that all of the characters will avoid their fate in Episode 2. Who gets it? Last week Finn Di Trolio won the most guesses and we wound up only seeing him in the opening montage. I've adjusted the list a little from last week, so let me know who you think is the most likely target.

UPDATE & BUMP: Okay, so far it looks like a plurality says that someone not on this list will get the early exit. Maybe Janice, or perhaps Angie Bompansiero? We only have a couple of hours until we find out ...

All (Corruption) In The Family

The San Diego Union-Tribune continues its reporting on the bribery scandal that finally derailed -- and jailed -- Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham for corruption. The testimony from Cunningham that he had plenty of company for his malfeasances has led U-T reporter Dean Calbreath to dig deeper, and he has found more evidence of lobbying money ending up in the personal accounts of a lawmaker:

A week before former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham was sentenced to prison, he stressed to the court that a number of other lawmakers also helped arrange federal funding for the defense contractors who bribed him.

None of the lawmakers Cunningham mentioned by name – Reps. Katherine Harris of Florida, Virgil Goode of Virginia and John Doolittle from the Sacramento suburb of Granite Bay – has been accused of criminal wrongdoing. But each has admitted assisting either Mitchell Wade or Brent Wilkes, co-conspirators in the Cunningham case, at a time when the two businessmen were giving them tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions.

And at least one of the lawmakers, Doolittle, received a direct monetary benefit from those contributions through commissions paid to his wife, Julie.

Doolittle received $118,000 in contributions from Wilkes either through his PAC or directly to his campaign over three years. At the same time, Doolittle used the earmark process to approve $37 million in contracts for a Wilkes business that eliminated extraneous noise from electronic communications. The personal benefit accrued to Doolittle when Wilkes channeled the contributions through Doolittle's wife's marketing and fundraising consultancy, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions. Julie Doolittle received $14,400 for handling the financial transactions between Wilkes and her husband's PAC and campaign -- meaning that, in California's community-property state, both Doolittles received personal compensation from Wilkes for his "support".

These transactions appear of a piece with similar transactions between Doolittle and the Jack Abramoff lobbying firm, Greenbriar Traurig. In fact, the U-T could only find three clients of Sierra Dominion (apart from her husband) through a search of public records: GT, the Abramoff-owned restaurant Signatures which figured closely in the lobbyist's efforts to influence politicians, and the Korea-US Exchange Council, which has ties to Tom DeLay. Apart from the money she received from Wilkes, Julie Doolittle has received over $160,000 in commissions relating to her representation of Rep. Doolittle and the management of his contributions.

I don't really care whether a politician has a D or an R after their name when this kind of nonsense occurs; all I know is that this stinks to high heaven. Perhaps the law and the ethics rules of Congress allow this kind of arrangement, but if they do, they need changing -- and damned fast. There should be no way for a politician to put money in his own pocket from contributions made to his/her PAC or political campaign, and setting up a questionable consultancy firm (Julie Doolittle went into this business two months after her husband got named to Appropriations) to channel commissions from donations to one's wife or children is nothing more than a cheap dodge. It's one thing to pay them a salary for work done, but to actually pay "commissions" on contributions is nothing more than putting up a sign that says, "Bribe Me Here".

This is the kind of petty (and not so petty) corruption that resulted in Porkbusters and the demand for a reformer as Majority Leader earlier this year. I think this clearly demonstrates why pork has such a corrosive effect on our government and the trust necessary for it to run effectively. John Boehner has a big problem on his hands, and the entire Congress as well. The American public has to speak with one voice to demand change, and demand it now.

NOTE: I'm going to anticipate a couple of arguments here. One will be that Democrats do this too, and that's probably very true. When I see it, I will post about it. Another will be that the U-T is biased and can't be trusted. That's not been my experience with the paper, but if that's the case, then I will post the explanation provided by Doolittle on the vast clientele of Sierra Dominion and how commissions on campaign and PAC contributions didn't wind up in the family bank account.

I'm a conservative and I support the GOP, but I'm an American first -- and I don't cotton to politicians who stuff money in their pockets by giving away millions of our hard-earned money to crooks with a willingness to pay for the privelege. It's too damned expensive and it makes it harder for honest politicians to serve the public, regardless of which political party is involved.

The Karni Crossroads

A vital trade route for Gaza has taken center stage this morning in the media as both the AP and the Washington Post focus on the passage as a microcosm of the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate. The Karni trade route has been closed for months despite the work of Condoleezza Rice to broker an agreement between the PA and Israel to maintain the flow of goods and money, an example of the catch-22 that the Palestinians have inflicted on themselves in this conflict. The AP reports:

With Palestinians facing a dire shortage of bread, milk and other essentials, U.S. officials summoned Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to an emergency meeting Sunday to resolve a standoff over Gaza's main cargo crossing.

But the Palestinian's economic misery was liable to deepen as Hamas militants sworn to Israel's destruction prepared to formally present their new Cabinet to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas later in the day. The group's failure to bring moderate forces into its government is likely to strengthen Western resolve to cut off desperately needed aid.

Palestinian officials have accused Israel of closing the vital Karni cargo crossing for most of the past two months as retribution for Hamas' sweep of parliamentary elections in January.

Israeli officials deny the accusation, saying they have received numerous warnings that Palestinian militants are preparing to attack the site. Israeli also has offered an alternative crossing that the Palestinians reject.

What the AP's Ibrahim Barzak takes out of his reporting is that the Palestinians still have not halted attacks on Israel from Gaza, leaving the Israelis with little choice but to either retake Gaza or close it off entirely. The Post's Scott Wilson includes it in a larger look at the economic consequences of the showdown over Karni:

As those sources dry up in Gaza, an economy dependent on public salaries, agriculture and foreign aid to sustain its 1.3 million people is already lifeless. Regular rocket fire into southern Israel, carried out by the radical group Islamic Jihad, has turned the northern strip into an artillery range. Prices have soared in stores as the supply of flour, sugar and dairy products that come from Israel is constantly interrupted.

The Palestinian economy relies on the goodwill of Israel and the sympathy of the Quartet, especially the US. When the Palestinians continue attacking the hands that literally feed them, it should provide no surprise that the flow of food, money, and economic stability comes to a standstill.

Israel faces tremendous pressure to knuckle under to demands from the Palestinians and the Quartet to allow at least "humanitarian" aid through Karni, but while it remains under attack and while the PA refuses to do anything to stop it, all this does is ask Israel to be complicit in its own destruction. Israel certainly understands the history of Western democracies hell-bent on appeasement of terrorists. All anyone has to do is read about the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1938-9 by Britain and France in its zeal to appease Nazi Germany to comprehend why Israel has thus far resisted the pressure to open Karni again while the rockets fly.

Israel has offered another checkpoint, Kerem Shalom, as an alternative. A look at the map of the region shows why Israel wants to relocate the traffic in this southernmost section of the Gaza Strip. The Karni checkpoint sits in the northeastern section of Gaza where the attacks have occurred, positioned just a few miles outside of Gaza City and its large and restive population. The security forces would have a hell of a time trying to hold back a determined charge through Karni, and while the PA continues to allow Islamic Jihad to rain artillery into Israel, that consideration has to be taken into account.

Kerem Shalom, on the other hand, sits on the Israeli-Egyptian border and just south of the PA-Egyptian border crossing of Rafah. It pushes the security risk much farther away from israeli strategic sites and population centers, and its proximity to the border allows the IDF to contain the threat by pressing it against Egypt. The Palestinians complain that Kerem Shalom does not have the capacity for transport, but the maps show established roads leading from the checkpoint to the major centers of Kiryat Ga and Be'er Sheva. The Palestinians' objections appear to be the longer route necessary, but probably more that the distance negates any possible exploitation of economic trade as a cover for a broad-based attack.

The Israelis have a right to be concerned about their security. Not only have the Palestinians refused to disarm Islamic Jihad and stop their attacks, their electorate just voted another terrorist group into power, one that refuses to recognize Israel's existence at all and which still proclaims their goal of Israel's destruction. Would we negotiate trade agreements with Iran and send them food, money, and jobs while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad holds conferences on how to rid the world of America? Of course not, and it's ludicrous to force Israel to do the same with the Palestinians while they remain determined for war.

I agree that the closure of Karni and the end of the Olso-based tax transfers will bring economic ruin to the Palestinians. They should have included that in their calculations when they chose Hamas and their radical-Islamist terror platform as their government. The Palestinians faced their own Karni crossroad, and it appears they chose the wrong path.

Returning To Camp Nama And Abu Ghraib, Again And Again

The New York Times never misses an opportunity to re-tell a story if it makes the American military or the current administration look bad, and today it rehashes an oft-told story of prisoner abuse in Iraq that attempts to do both. Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall build a strawman or two along the way as well:

The Black Room was part of a temporary detention site at Camp Nama, the secret headquarters of a shadowy military unit known as Task Force 6-26. Located at Baghdad International Airport, the camp was the first stop for many insurgents on their way to the Abu Ghraib prison a few miles away.

Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL." The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it." According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges. "The reality is, there were no rules there," another Pentagon official said.

The story of detainee abuse in Iraq is a familiar one. But the following account of Task Force 6-26, based on documents and interviews with more than a dozen people, offers the first detailed description of how the military's most highly trained counterterrorism unit committed serious abuses.

It's a familiar story, all right. As the two reporters note, this story has appeared several times in the American media over the past two years since the abuses came to light. The Washington Post published an article about the allegations over a year ago, when the ACLU actually received the information that the Times gets around to reporting now.

Furthermore, the Times reports that the allegations have resulted in investigations -- and that those investigations have resulted in disciplinary action:

It is difficult to compare the conditions at the camp with those at Abu Ghraib because so little is known about the secret compound, which was off limits even to the Red Cross. The abuses appeared to have been unsanctioned, but some of them seemed to have been well known throughout the camp.

For an elite unit with roughly 1,000 people at any given time, Task Force 6-26 seems to have had a large number of troops punished for detainee abuse. Since 2003, 34 task force members have been disciplined in some form for mistreating prisoners, and at least 11 members have been removed from the unit, according to new figures the Special Operations Command provided in response to questions from The New York Times. Five Army Rangers in the unit were convicted three months ago for kicking and punching three detainees in September 2005.

Not only did the abuse "seem" unsanctioned, but the Times has a note from Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Cambone to one of his direct reports telling him to "get to the bottom" of the reported misconduct. Thirty-four soldiers have been disciplined, including almost a dozen who have been transferred out of the unit, and five Rangers have been convicted on criminal charges. To the extent that the military hesitated to act on the problem, the ACLU did the heavy lifting to correct it last year.

So why is this news now? The Times says it has "new details" on the old charges. In fact, the camp itself no longer exists, and all of the allegations it prints are from 2004, and all of them have been the subject of military investigations already. When evidence and testimony substantiated charges, the military appears to have taken corrective action.

None of this excuses abuse by anyone, including American soldiers. But it's important to remember that the abuses do not constitute an official policy of the American military. Considering the nature of the war, which relies so heavily on intelligence work to flush out the enemy, one might expect soldiers in interrogation units to break the rules more often. No one in their right mind is going to claim that individual soldiers never commit abuses or that abusers never band together in groups to protect themselves. However, like with Abu Ghraib, the media uses these isolated cases to paint a picture of the overall military as inhumane and brutal towards Iraqis, and that's unfair to the 99% of our troops that conduct themselves honorably and lawfully in their service in Iraq.

Where these charges can be substantiated, I support disciplinary action. If evidence arises that the officers in charge ordered abuses, then they should get prosecuted to the full extent of the UCMJ. So far, it appears that the Pentagon agrees and has taken the proper steps to investigate credible allegations when they arise. No one has yet provided any such evidence, and instead we get rehashes of old stories with "new details" as a means of pressing a political point.