The Humanitarian Argument For Border Closure

While conservatives argue for closing the southern border and enforcing the law to deport illegal immigrants, our opposition argues for a supposedly more humane approach of either completely open borders or the granting of amnesty to the twelve million who have already come to the US. That argument wins on the basis of understandable sympathy for poor people who want to escape crushing poverty in their native land, primarily Mexico; it makes the conservative argument sound heartless and cruel.

But is it really? An e-mail I received this evening from Eusebia Flores at Artcamp Artesanas Campesinas in Guerrero, Mexico argues the exact opposite -- that the lure of American dollars literally subsidizes the abandonment of Mexico and families by the men who could otherwise have helped transform the destitute Mexican economy:

Dear friends in the United States....

We are Mexican women from villages in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero.

Our brothers and husbands have left us for work in the US.

We strongly support closing the US-Mexico border to illegal entry.

We did not want our men to leave and we want them to return to us.

As we struggle as women, against the difficulty of our situation, we focus all effort on building a business to sustain ourselves and our children.

But we need the help of our husbands and our brothers to re-unite our families and to help us develop economic opportunity in the traditional fashion jewelry production industry that is the heritage of our parents.

Please close the US Border to illegal migration and send our men home to us. Thank you.

Best wishes from Mexico to all persons of good will.

We should continue to be friends and respect each other.

Atentamente,

Eusebia Flores
Artcamp Artesanas Campesinas
Tecalpulco, Municipio de Taxco de Alarcon; Guerrero, Mexico

I assume that this message is legitimate; it came with contact numbers that match the communal business in Mexico, and a follow-up e-mail got a prompt response from the organization. They have posted their own protest against the normalization of border crossers on their site, demanding that the US send their men home in a humane manner. This page comes from the same server as their e-commerce site. The artisan community certainly exists; the Texas Women's University School of Management toured the facility recently. Take a look at the site for yourself to see whether you find this legitimate.

This should remind us that the draw of the illicit money offered by American businesses to the poor workers of Mexico and Central America not only takes potential work away from Americans and legal immigrants but also creates a cultural and productivity drain from those areas abandoned by the able men who cross the border. It has the potential to cause social damage for generations in Mexico and other nations. The businesses who offer the work for the men and women draw them from the opportunity to improve their own communities. The men who leave often do so for years, leaving the women behind to fend for themselves and their children.

As the women of Artcamp Artesanas Campesinas say on their site, they remain proud artisans who do not want anyone's charity but want their men back to help rebuild their community. American exploitation of Mexican poverty keeps the people of that country from investing their effort into transforming their nation economically so that they can sustain themselves without breaking American immigration laws. Shame on us for not providing a credible deterrent and for turning a blind eye to a practice that has created a modern serfdom while stripping Mexico of what could be the roots of a genuine middle class.

Movie Review: Thank You For Smoking

We decided to go out to see a movie this evening, and instead of going for some cheap escapism, we chose the political satire Thank You For Smoking, a viciously hilarious and twisted look at lobbying and the tobacco industry. This movie has been out for quite a while, and while most of those who are inclined to see it probably already have, the rest should consider it.

Aaron Eckhart plays Nick Naylor, a ruthless tobacco industry flack who tells himself that he argues for the defenseless. The movie starts out with a skin-crawling sequence where his character appears on a Joan Lunden talk show along with a teenager dying of cancer and manages to charm the kid into shaking hands with him while the audience shifts from visibile hostility to acceptance. Needless to say, this kind of talent allows Naylor to make a very comfortable living. Unfortunately, a desire to connect with his son and a very attractive and equally ruthless Washington reporter is about to undo all the work he has ever done -- and give him an opportunity for a world-class comeback.

The movie doesn't have a single mediocrity in it. Maria Bello plays a supporting role as an equally cynical alcohol-industry flack. William H. Macy brilliantly plays a Birkenstock-wearing, egotistical, and pseudointellectual Vermont senator determined to best Naylor and undermine the tobacco industry. Katie Holmes has a small but significant role as the reporter who screws Naylor in more ways than one. Sam Elliott plays an aging Marlboro Man dying of his association with tobacco who allows Naylor to manipulate him. But the main reason the movie works is the performance of Cameron Bright, who appears a bit too open to his father's role modeling.

The movie, based on a widely acclaimed novel by Christopher Buckley (the son of conservative icon William F. Buckley), delivers a joyful sort of cynicism that makes us laugh at the worst instincts of human nature. The movie makes it possible to sympathize with a man who has an irredeemable job and actually believe that he may have a point. In its way, it argues for Naylor in the same way that Naylor argues for tobacco -- and damned if you won't start thinking about smoking in Naylor's terms of libertarian politics even while you see it for the manipulation it is. That comes to a glorious climax in the committee hearing scene that all political movies must include ... and it demands an answer to the hypocrisy of the politics surrounding the issue while providing an epiphany for Naylor.

If you haven't yet seen this movie -- and I admit I may be among the last -- be sure to see it soon, before it disappears altogether.

Addendum: I have to note that the end credits are accompanied by one of my favorite folk songs, "Greenback Dollar", sung by the Kingston Trio. The First Mate was surprised when I sung the entire song almost word for word along with the credits, but I have a Hoyt Axton version of the song as well as a recording of Jim Croce and his college band performing it that I've had for years.

UPDATE: The title of this post had the movie name incorrect; thanks to reader David H for pointing it out -- and he also recommends the movie.

Northern Alliance Radio Today

The Northern Alliance Radio Network takes to the airwaves and the Internet stream again today. The first two hours will feature Brian and Chad from Fraters Libertas and John Hinderaker from Power Line debating the issues of the day. Right now they're discussing the staging of the Vagina Monologues at Notre Dame, and next hour they'll be hosting Vox Day.

In the second two hours, starting at 1 pm CT, Mitch Berg and I will broadcast live from Saint Paul's Rivercenter at the Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators conference (MACHE). We should have some interesting debate on the benefits of home schooling in today's educational environment. We will also discuss the outing of Mary McCarthy as a CIA leaker and the Russian developments. Join us at 651-289-4488!

Starting To Get The Message

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist pens a column for today's National Review that demonstrated that GOP leadership has heard the conservative base on immigration. It falls short in several respects, but Frist's article shows that the message has finally started sinking into the stubborn heads of legislators:

Democrat obstruction torpedoed comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate earlier this month. At the same time, concerns about getting our border under control came into clear relief with news this week of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to crack down on egregious violations of immigration law. It is time to both secure our borders and reform our immigration system. So next week, the Senate will act to increase funding for border security-first. And then, before the end of May, the Senate must again take up-and finish-comprehensive immigration system reform.

When it takes up the immigration reform, the Senate must address border security, worksite enforcement, and the status of the 12 million people who are currently here illegally. But to build confidence among Americans and Congress that the government takes border security seriously, we have to act to help get the border under control right now.

By Memorial Day, the president plans to sign an emergency-spending measure, which we will use to fund this next step in border security. ... Last year, Judd Gregg and others lead an effort to hire 1,500 new border patrol agents and build 1,800 new detention beds. The proposal we will consider next week provides nearly $2 billion to build a border fence in high-traffic areas, add new border-patrol aircraft to help police lower traffic areas, and support training for additional Customs and Border Protection Agents.

There isn't a tremendous amount to love in this proposal. First, why do we need emergency spending bills to take care of the chronic problem of immigration. Congress has fallen in love with this method of budgeting; three years into the Iraq War, they are still funding operations through emergency spending legislation. Immigration has been a problem for decades now. It's no longer an emergency, it's just an embarrassment.

More substantially, the proposal to build security barriers in "high-traffic areas" has some serious and common-sense holes, literally and figuratively. For one thing, if we only build barriers in places with high traffic, what does anyone outside of Congress think will happen? The illegal immigrants will flock to the places where no barrier exists. When the US Army builds fortifications, do they only build them on the one spot where the enemy attacked before? Of course not -- they secure their entire perimeter. Otherwise, it's a waste of time.

On the plus side, at least Frist is finally addressing security as a prerequisite to resolving the problem of the illegals already here. That represents a leap forward in GOP thinking, and the conservative base can pat themselves on the back for that much progress. Frist has finally heard the message that any "reform" that does not credibly secure the border will be viewed as Simpson-Mazzoli Part Deux, with the force-multiplying effect that its predecessor had on illegal immigration. The conservatives have not put up with the budget-busting antics of this Congress and this administration to once again grant amnesty to illegals and put out an even larger welcome mat than before for the rest.

Until we credibly secure the border and end the flood over the Rio Grande, then no reform package will do anything except encourage more people to break our laws and bust our borders. Fifty-five months after 9/11, we still cannot convince Congress that national security demands tough border enforcement. Now that we have made it clear that re-election requires tough border enforcement, we seem to have their attention.

Build the wall all the way across the border. Stop the acute issue of illegal and uncontrolled entry into the US by foreign nationals, whatever their motivation. Once we have that accomplished, then we can debate the full range of possible solutions to those already here.

Russia And Iran Reach Enrichment Agreement

The Ap reports breaking news that Russia and Iran have reached some sort of agreement on uranium enrichment. However, Iranian TV gave few details about the arrangement:

Iran's envoy to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Saturday the Islamic republic had reached a "basic deal" with the Kremlin to form a joint uranium enrichment venture on Russian territory, state-run television reported.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, "spoke of a basic agreement between Iran and Russia to set up a joint uranium enrichment firm on Russian soil," Iranian state television reported.

It remained unclear, though, whether Iran would entirely give up enrichment at home, a top demand of the West, or whether the joint venture would complement Iran's existing enrichment program. Enriched uranium can be used to fuel nuclear reactors that generate electricity or to make atomic bombs.

"Only issues regarding technical, legal and financial matters remain to be resolved which need more deliberation and exchange of views," the television quoted Soltanieh as saying Saturday in Moscow.

Immediate questions:

1. Did Iran give up their domestic enrichment program? After the gala celebration that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threw when their scientists announced the successful enrichment in their 164-centrifuge cascade, it would seem difficult for him to suddenly announce that the program had ended.

2. Even if they did agree to stop enriching uranium on their own, what kind of verification regime has Iran endorsed in this agreement? Does the IAEA get to conduct snap inspections of all suspected nuclear facilities in the Islamic Republic? One would presume that Russia would have required this within the framework of any agreement it wanted the West to accept, but that assumes that Russia cares about the West's reaction any more.

3. Given the recent history of Russian appeasement of terrorists and their enablers, who monitors the Russian facilities and output to ensure that they don't just ship Iran weapons-grade material?

This agreement, if on the level, could help defuse the tense situation and allow Iran enough nuclear technology for domestic energy purposes while denying them the bomb. That requires a faith in Moscow that long ago should have been abandoned. Three years ago or even two, I might have applauded this development. Now it appears more like a Locarno Treaty -- an agreement that binds Iran only to the extent that Iranian capabilities do not currently exceed the limits of the agreement. Absent the key details, it looks more like a dangerous panacea that will Iran to continue its enrichment program relatively unfettered, under the protective wing of the Russian autocracy.

Milblogger Conference Under Way

The first Milblogger's Conference has opened this morning, led by the inestimable Col. Austin Bay and including such luminaries as Smash, Op-For, BlackFive, and several others. La Shawn Barber will live-blog the event, and an audio/video feed is available. Be sure to tune in!

Russians Insist On Sale Of Missile System To Iran

Russia will not back away from its planned sale of air-defense missile systems to Iran, the Washington Post reports this morning, as Vladimir Putin continues his march against the West and his determination to restart the Cold War. In response, the US hinted that Russian intransigence on Iran will push the issue away from the United Nations and into a new multilateral coalition that will impose its own response to the Iranian nuclear program:

At a news conference in Washington yesterday, the State Department's third-highest-ranking officer, R. Nicholas Burns, said the time has come for countries "to use their leverage with Iran" and halt exports of weapons and nuclear-related technologies. He singled out the sale of 29 Tor-M1 air-defense missile systems to Iran under a $700 million contract announced by Russia in December.

"We hope and we trust that that deal will not go forward, because this is not time for business as usual with the Iranian government," said Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs. ...

"There are no circumstances that would obstruct fulfillment of our obligations in military-technical cooperation with Iran," said Nikolai Spassky, the deputy head of the Kremlin's Security Council. "This goes for all the obligations we have made, including the commitment to provide Iran with Tor-M1 air defense systems." ...

But given the potential for continued stalemate, Burns raised the possibility that some nations might act against Iran without waiting for a Security Council agreement.

"It's not beyond the realm of the possible that at some point in the future, a group of countries could get together, if the Security Council is not able to act, to take collective economic action or collective action on sanctions," he said. "That's important, because those that might prevent the Security Council from acting effectively need to understand that the international community has to find a way, and will find a way, to express our displeasure with the Iranians."

The Russians appear intent on eclipsing France's efforts to position themselves as the countervaling force against the United States, in this case militarily as well as diplomatically. To that end, they have continually enabled the mullahcracy of Iran to develop their nuclear ambitions as well as supporting the Islamofascist protostate of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. This follows on the revelations of their intelligence support for Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. They have taken the side of terrorists and terrorist enablers, and the time has come for even the State Department to recognize that Russia is not our ally.

What can be done? The first action we must take is to follow through on Burns' threat and bypass the UN on Iran. If Russia (and China) do not wish to be part of the solution, we can keep them from being part of the problem. A coordinated effort by Europe and the US will have a large impact on Iran's economy; China might help but the Russian economy is so bad that it can't help itself, let alone buffer Iran from an economic boycott.

The second action: pull out of the G-8 conference scheduled for July. Putin wants to use it to convince his people that despite his progressively autocratic and dictatorial changes, Russia still has the imprimatur of the West. Take it away from him. Refuse to attend any economic summit hosted by Russia. We have the power to humiliate Putin, and we should start using it. The Russians need to know that we will not stand quietly while they undermine us diplomatically or militarily, and if Putin wants to play that game, we can play it better.

This is not the Russia we imagined when Boris Yeltsin stared down a Communist putsch, or even the Russia of six years ago. Putin wants a Cold War, and eventually we will have to provide it.

Iraq Forms The Unity Government

The Iraqi National Assembly has wasted no time after the Shi'ite compromise on Ibrahim al-Jafaari's withdrawal and has begun forming the national-unity executive for which America has pressed since the December elections. The division of power among the top slots remains as it did before, with the Kurds holding the presidency and the Sunnis and Shi'a taking the two vice-presidential positions:

After months of political deadlock, Iraq's parliament convened Saturday to select top leadership posts, launching the process of putting together a new government aimed at pulling the country out of its sectarian strife.

Before the session, Shiite lawmaker Ridha Jawad Taqi said all sides agreed on a package deal for the top spots: Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, would remain as president for a second term, with Sunni Arab Tariq al-Hashimi and Shiite Adil Abdul-Mahdi holding the two vice-president spots.

In its first vote, lawmakers elected Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni, parliament speaker.

This last position hold special import for the Sunnis, who presumably have the most influence with the native insurgents. The key to ending that part of the terrorist activity in Iraq will be to establish credible access to the political process for the Sunni minority in the central region of Iraq, where oil is scarce and their economic prospects look less engaging than in the Kurdish and Shi'ite regions. The Sunnis need Iraq to hold together to avoid having control of a rum consisting mostly of Baghdad and its environs, a development that likely would leave them destitute and stuck between two protostates that would recall Sunni domination in very unpleasant terms.

For this reason, I believe most Sunnis will grasp this opportunity to work within the system to maintain Iraqi unity. They know that a civil war and fracture of the nation impacts them most, and they need to find a way to keep the Kurds and the Shi'a from spinning away and taking the mineral resources of Iraq with them. The Shi'ites knew this as well, which is why they stuck with the highly unpopular Jafaari for so long. When the Kurds backed the Sunnis on Jafaari, the Shi'ites finally realized that they could not win the battle, but waited as long as possible to get as many concessions as they could. It took Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's rhetorical kick in the fanny to get the majority Shi'ite coalition to finally recognize reality.

One assumes that the parliamentary action this morning indicates that the Cabinet issues have been resolved and that portfolio assignments are set. If so, it delivers a long-delayed blow to both the foreign and native insurgencies in Iraq. The first permanent constitutional government in Iraq has shown that democracy can survive in a polarized Arab state, although it seemed a close-run thing. It also shows that the Sunnis can win a political battle when needed, a lesson that should encourage them to support the political process more enthusiastically than before. With those developments, the insurgents will find themselves ever more isolated and ineffective. The battle for Iraq has been lost by the insurgents.

Hitting Them In The Wallet

It turns out that the man killed by Pakistani forces near Khaar two days ago had a key role in what is left of al-Qaeda, and also had information that more clearly shows the connection between the bin Laden network and the Iraqi foreign insurgency:

Documents found on an operative for Al Qaeda who was killed by Pakistani forces showed that he was an explosives expert and a money carrier who appeared to be distributing cash to the families of Qaeda members, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the organization's leader in Iraq, a senior Pakistani intelligence official said Friday.

The operative, Marwan Hadid al-Suri, 38, also known as Abu Marwan, was shot to death on Thursday during a gunfight outside Khaar, a tribal area close to the Afghan border, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao said.

A notebook found on Mr. Suri contained details and diagrams of bomb circuits and chemicals used to manufacture explosives, including TNT and C-4, said the intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. "This is a big achievement because he was Al Qaeda's explosives expert," Mr. Sherpao said.

A diary written in Arabic contained a list of families of senior Qaeda operatives who received regular cash payments from the organization, including relatives of Mr. Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The list did not give the whereabouts of the families, but it described paying $2,500 per family every three months. According to the list, each family was also paid $500 per child every three months.

One interesting aspect of the Marwan case is his assignment to two very distinct tasks, which indicates that AQ may have some trouble getting higher-level competency. Normally an organization like AQ would not use one of its explosives experts as a bagman; the risk of exposure heightens dramatically when someone has to interface so often with others in the network and at banking institutions. Ideally the terrorists would want someone with specialized operational knowledge to remain hidden as much as possible. The fact that one of their explosives experts had to double as the paymaster tends to imply that they do not have enough reliable people to handle each task separately.

The notes on cash disbursements puts an end to the speculation that the leader of the Iraqi foreign insurgency, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, assumed the role of an AQ leader as a public pose. The regular payment of $2500 per quarter to his family indicates that AQ indeed accepts him as a leader and in fact pays him a salary commensurate with his assignment. That kind of money goes a long way in Jordan, Iraq, and other places in the Middle East. This gives yet another indication that the fight against the Zarqawi network in Iraq is no distraction from the war on terrorism but instead gives us another front on which to fight al-Qaeda.

The final irony in this story is that Marwan didn't get killed as a result of a raid, although his home was the target of the earlier American attack on Bajaur that initially generated reports of Ayman al-Zawahiri's death, which later was shown as a near-miss. His bus in Khaar got stopped at a regular security checkpoint, and Marwan shot a soldier trying to get away. He knew the value of the information he carried with him -- the pay receipts, plans for explosives, and four grenades for good measure -- and apparently panicked. The other soldiers at the checkpoint shot him while he tried to run away, providing an ignominious end to this Islamofascist lunatic.

A Sting Operation?

Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse wonders if the story on CIA detention centers might not have been a sting operation to unmask leakers at Langley. The possibility comes up because on the same day that the CIA terminated Mary McCarthy for her communications to the press, the New York Times reports that European investigators cannot find any evidence that the detention centers ever existed:

The European Union's antiterrorism chief told a hearing on Thursday that he had not been able to prove that secret C.I.A. prisons existed in Europe.

"We've heard all kinds of allegations," the official, Gijs de Vries, said before a committee of the European Parliament. "It does not appear to be proven beyond reasonable doubt." ...

Mr. de Vries said the European Parliament investigation had not uncovered rights abuses despite more than 50 hours of testimony by rights advocates and people who say they were abducted by C.I.A. agents. A similar investigation by the Council of Europe, the European human rights agency, came to the same conclusion in January — though the leader of that inquiry, Dick Marty, a Swiss senator, said then that there were enough "indications" to justify continuing the investigation.

A number of legislators on Thursday challenged Mr. de Vries for not taking seriously earlier testimony before the committee of a German and a Canadian who gave accounts of being kidnapped and kept imprisoned by foreign agents.

The committee also heard Thursday from a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who said: "I can attest to the willingness of the U.S. and the U.K. to obtain intelligence that was got under torture in Uzbekistan. If they were not willing, then rendition prisons could not have existed." But Mr. Murray, who was recalled from his job in 2004 after condemning the Uzbek authorities and criticizing the British and American governments, told the committee that he had no proof that detention centers existed within Europe.

He said he had witnessed such rendition programs in Uzbekistan, but he seemed to back up Mr. de Vries's assertion when he said he was not aware of anyone being taken to Uzbekistan from Europe. "As far as I know, that never happened," he said.

How do intel agencies find leakers and spies? They pass around carefully designed misinformation to selected individuals considered likely suspects, and see what winds up exposed as a result. It's possible that after Porter Goss took over as DCI when George Tenet left, he began mole hunting in a big way. It's certain that the administration would have demanded some action on leaks, and Goss would have been of a similar mind. It appears that the story she gave Dana Priest has a lot less substance than first thought. Two separate investigations by Europe turned up nothing. They have reported on both occasions that no evidence exists to substantiate the story, either of the detention centers or of European cooperation.

McCarthy would have been a classic candidate for this kind of mole hunt. A favorite of the previous administration, having reached the National Security Council, her loss of influence in the new administration could have prompted bitterness and antagonism. The New York Times in a new report says she contributed to John Kerry's campaign, perhaps on the basis of her past work with Kerry advisors Richard Clark and Sandy Berger:

Ms. McCarthy has been a well-known figure in intelligence circles. She began her career at the agency as an analyst and then was a manager in the intelligence directorate, working at the African and Latin America desks, according to a biography by the strategic studies center. With an advanced degree from the University of Minnesota, she has taught, written a book on the Gold Coast and was director of the social science data archive at Yale University.

Public records show that Ms. McCarthy contributed $2,000 [the maximum -- CE] in 2004 to the presidential campaign of John Kerry, the Democratic nominee.

We may never know if the entire story about detention centers turned out to be a smoke screen intended to reveal a leak. We certainly have no evidence beyond the McCarthy leak and Priest's story. If it does turn out to be nothing more than misinformation for a leak probe, the Washington Post and the Pulitzer Committee will look very foolish indeed.

Addendum: AJ Strata is all over this story as well.

Plugging The Leak

The CIA has terminated an intelligence officer after discovering his communications with the media that resulted in leaking classified information. The agency has not identified the officer or the project from which information was leaked but characterized the disclosures as "damaging":

A CIA officer has been relieved of his duty after being caught leaking classified information to the media.

Citing the Privacy Act, the CIA would not provide any details about the officer's identity or assignments. It was not immediately clear if the person would face prosecution. The firing is a highly unusual move, although there has been an ongoing investigation into leaks in the CIA.

"The officer has acknowledged unauthorized discussions with the media and the unauthorized sharing of classified information," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. "That is a violation of the secrecy agreement that everyone signs as a condition of employment with the CIA." ...

The CIA officer was not in the public affairs office, nor was he someone authorized to talk to the media. The investigation was launched in January by the CIA's security center. It was directed to look at employees who had been exposed to certain intelligence programs. In the course of the investigation, the fired officer admitted discussing classified information including information about classified operations.

This becomes the first major instance of outing a leaker within the intelligence community since Porter Goss took over at Langley with a mandate to clean house. The CIA has had several leaks during the war on terror, including a particularly damaging one that revealed CIA detention centers in Europe for interrogating captured terrorists. Not only did this cause political damage among our European allies regarding their support of our war efforts, it also apparently caused the program's termination, at least delaying the acquisition of intel from detainees that could have impacted American and Western security. Worst of all, other intel agencies had to rethink their cooperation with American agencies in light of the fact that people within them couldn't keep their mouths shut.

The Department of Justice needs to prosecute these leakers to the full extent of the law. We already have the precedent of a two-year special prosecutor who spent millions of dollars investigating a leak of minimal import that resulted from what looks like a deliberate misinformation campaign quarterbacked by the CIA's non-proliferation desk. Those within the agency that attempt to leak classified information to the press to serve their own political ends deserve a long vacation at Club Fed as a lesson to others who might consider trying their own rogue operations later.

UPDATE: MS-NBC says that the fired agent was the source for Dana Priest's story on the detention centers:

The leak pertained to stories on the CIA’s rumored secret prisons in Eastern Europe, sources told NBC. The information was allegedly provided to Dana Priest of the Washington Post, who wrote about CIA prisons in November and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for her reporting.

Sources said the CIA believes the officer had more than a dozen unauthorized contacts with Priest. Information about subjects other than the prisons may have been leaked as well.

Heritage Resource Bank: Slowing The Growth Of Government

The morning's second session here at the Broadmoor Hotel featured a discussion on the subject of slowing government growth and returning to limited government. Former attorney general Edwin Meese moderated the panel, which included John Caldara, John Fund, Tracie Sharp, Mark Hillman, and Greg Lindsay. The topic brought out some divergent opinions from the panelists, especially when Caldara said that limited-government conservatives should quit accommodating the GOP and start attacking them. He said that the Harriet Miers appointment proved how out of touch the Republicans have become after twelve years of majority and five years in the White House, and how going on offense can succeed in making necessary changes.

John Fund was more sanguine, noting that while conservatives might be getting pessimistic about the upcoming midterms, liberals have been positively morose about what they see is the tide of history turning against big government and socialist approaches to problems. He quipped that the Republican pessimism comes from the fact that "we send politicians to drain the swamp of Washington DC, and they decide it makes a great hot tub." One reason Fund remains more optimistic comes from the decision of the New York court to cut off automatic payment of union dues for the transit union that held an illegal strike. Fund thinks that more states will enact this as policy, requiring separate collection of dues, and that the low compliance rate (it's about 15% for the transit union right now) will bankrupt the union's use of dues for politicking.

Mark Hillman, who had been Colorado's Senate majority leader, disagrees with fighting the GOP. The key for him is to encourage primary fights for those incumbents who refuse to limit the growth of government. He wants to use the structure of the existing party to pull it back towards its philosophical roots.

I tend to agree with Hillman, although I'm not as optimistic as Fund about the state of the political balance. We need to identify Republicans like Lincoln Chafee and promote better candidates for their positions in the primaries. Settling for the Chafees of Congress just because they self-label as Republicans gets us nothing but more of the same big-spending, bureaucratic impulses that has made Katrina rebuilding such a nightmare.

Later, I'll talk more about the unions and the new transparency at the Department of Labor that will threaten their political power.

Terrorists, Inc. (Updated)

The Hamas government of the Palestinian Authority underscored its terrorist nature by placing one of the more notorious terrorists in charge of its new Islamist security forces. Jamal Abu Samhadana, whose track record includes the murder of US Marines in Gaza during a diplomatic mission, will create and command the new force:

The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority on Thursday named a guerrilla leader whose group has attacked Israel, and has been blamed for bombing a U.S. convoy, to head a new security force made up of Islamic militants.

Interior Minister Saed Siyam issued a decree appointing Jamal Abu Samhadana, head of the Popular Resistance Committees, as director general of his ministry. Abu Samhadana, a former security officer who was dismissed for refusing to report for duty during the uprising against Israel, was given the rank of colonel.

His group is responsible for many of the homemade rockets launched at Israel in recent weeks. It also is suspected by some of involvement in the attack on a U.S. Embassy convoy in Gaza that killed three Marine security guards in October 2003.

In case anyone doubted the nature of this regime, Hamas has just made it clear. They will recast the Palestinian protostate into an Islamist rogue nation, complete with Islamofascist terrorists as an arm of government oppression and aggression. The selection of Samhadana has to be seen as a deliberate slap at the West, especially the US. However, the Hamas embrace for Islamist terror confirms everything that the US has claimed about the new Palestinian government. It also provides yet another diplomatic embarrassment for Russia, if they even have the capability of experiencing shame any longer.

The US should immediately challenge Qatar and Saudi Arabia for their support of this regime and their funding of its operations. We need to make clear that those people who participated in the murder of our Marines while on a mission of peace -- remember that the diplomatic mission was to help the Palestinians in Gaza! -- will never comprise any government with which we will engage. Those Marines and their families deserve that much for their sacrifice. We should point out that nations who pay the salaries of those murderers will not be viewed as friends by the US.

Addendum: I find it interesting that the Washington Post put this report on page A16. Doesn't the creation of an Islamist terrorist force by the PA, headed by a man responsible for the murders of three Marines, justify a little more visibility than that? I do have to commend the Post for at least reporting the development; so far the LA Times couldn't be bothered, and the New York Times puts the issue of the murdered Marines below the "friction" Samhadana's appointment and the Islamist force will create with Mahmoud Abbas. Also, the NYT never quite gets around to mentioning that the force will comprise Islamist terrorists -- instead, it calls them "militants". All the news that fits our mindset, eh?

UPDATE: Abbas has issued a veto in no uncertain terms:

In their sharpest power dispute yet, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday blocked Hamas' plans to set up a shadow security force, which was to be made up of militants and to be headed by the No. 2 on Israel's wanted list.

Abbas issued a presidential decree vetoing the decisions made a day earlier by Interior Minister Said Siyam of Hamas. As president, Abbas wields considerable power and has the right to approve or reject key appointments. ...

In a letter to Haniyeh on Friday, Abbas wrote that "we have learned through the media that the interior minister issued decisions violating the law. "

"All the officers, soldiers and security personnel are asked not to abide by these decisions and to consider them non-existent," Abbas said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

That may solve the surface problem, but it doesn't negate the fact that the Palestinians voted into power an Islamofascist terror operation that will use the organs of the PA to expand its holy war on Israel and the West.

Polygamy Is Rather Taxing

A band of polygamists face prosecution from the state of Utah not for their unusual marital arrangements but because they refuse to pay property taxes. In a dispute that resulted from the collapse of their commune, the individual members of the LDS separatists have refused to pay the taxes due and may lose their homes. They have responded by fortifying defenses around the houses and community:

Thousands of polygamists are engaged in a highly unusual standoff here over property taxes that could ultimately cost them their houses or thrust them into a mainstream America they fear and despise.

In one corner is a group of 8,000 or so adherents of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of the Mormon Church that had long paid the property taxes of its members, sometimes even rolling a wheelbarrow through meetings to collect the needed cash. ...

The church hierarchy is in chaos. Its former leader is on the run, facing criminal charges of arranging sex between a minor and an adult in a polygamous marriage, leaving the old tax-collection system in shambles. Now the property taxes for hundreds of houses — around $1.3 million — are overdue and mounting.

This is not the first time in the spotlight for this group. Their prophet, Warren Jeffs, took off with a lot of the group's money last year. He has continued to collect tithes from the people in the FLDS community in Hildale while fleeing prosecution for arranging marriages between underage girls and older members of the sect. That money could be used to pay the back taxes, but the Prophet uses it to pad his fugitive lifestyle instead.

In that sense, the entire community could be prosecuting for aiding and abetting a fugitive, but the payments get handled by cash and are difficult to trace. Jeff's brother Seth got caught muling the tithes and special assessments that the Prophet has demanded. He now faces an indictment for concealment (hiding his brother).

This could turn out very badly, and authorities will have to proceed with caution. Fringe groups such as the FLDS often stockpile weapons, both to keep their own people in line and to hold off state law enforcement if necessary. A measure of their ruthlessness can be found in their abandonment of adolescent boys in large cities, attempting to whittle down the competition for the young girls of the group. So far, no one has been charged with these crimes, but it shows that they have little regard for law or for humanity in their zeal to promote their lifestyle. If it comes down to a shooting war, they wouldn't mind sacrificing a few of those same boys if it meant buying enough time to escape. And if Utah actually tries to evict them without an overwhelming presence of the law, they might just try it.

By the way, the FLDS and Hildale serve as an inspiration for HBO's new series, Big Love. It's not a representation of this specific group, but it is an intriguing dramatization of the same components of the issue. I'd recommend it to viewers; it does not in any way glamourize polygamy. In fact, it makes it look like one gigantic pain in the rear end even to those who profess to believe in it. Bill Paxton does an excellent job in the lead role, but Harry Dean Stanton is nothing short of bone-chilling in his portrayal of the group's prophet.

Immigration Takes A Turn Towards The Law

The roundup of over 1100 illegal immigrants working for a Houston pallet supply company signals the start of a new effort by the Department of Homeland Security to focus enforcement efforts on the companies that hire illegals. The managers of IFCO face up to ten years in prison after being arrested during the roundup for defying immigration and workplace laws against hiring illegals:

The apprehension on Wednesday of more than 1,100 illegal immigrants employed by a pallet supply company based in Houston, as well as the arrest of seven of its managers, represented the start of a more aggressive federal crackdown on employers, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.

Describing the hiring of millions of illegal workers, in some cases, as a form of organized crime, Mr. Chertoff said the government would try to combat the practice with techniques similar to those used to shut down the mob.

"We target those organizations, we use intelligence to define the scope of the organization, and then we use all of the tools we have — whether it's criminal enforcement or the immigration laws — to make sure we come down as hard as possible and break the back of those organizations," Mr. Chertoff said at a news conference. ...

In the action on Wednesday, federal officials detained 1,187 illegal immigrants working in 26 states for IFCO Systems North America, a subsidiary of a company based in the Netherlands that supplies plastic containers and wood pallets used to ship a variety of goods, from fruit to computers.

Of the 1,187 detained workers, 275 have already been deported to Mexico. The rest are being processed for deportation, although many may be released on bond.

Many already have been bailed out by relatives, but over a quarter of them have been deported and the rest will likely follow. Television news, including Nightline, showed tearful reunions along with the usual "they're not breaking our laws" soundbites from the activists working on their behalf. Of course this isn't true -- they broke the law when they entered our country illegally, and they broke the law again when they took work without proper documentation. Many of them have false documentation, and if they do, they've broken the law again.

Will this arrest stop people from immigrating illegally into the US? Not at all, but that wasn't the intent of the raids that DHS staged yesterday. For the first time in a while, the government has decided to enforce the laws against the employers, and in a big way. It exposed the complicity of employers in gaining those false documents; DHS had an undercover agent fulfill their request for forged paperwork that enabled IFCO to employ these illegals. Not that paperwork mattered much to IFCO, as over half of the Social Security numbers used by its employees turned out to be either completely invalid, assigned to someone else entirely, or belonged to dead people.

IFCO, apparently, has a lot in common with Chicago elections of old.

Last year, Wal-Mart paid a fine of $11 million for its employment of illegals, but this case looks different. The managers involved in the conspiracy to defraud the DHS have been charged with felonies, and if convicted they will face serious prison time. IFCO executives have so far avoided being charged, but that may change when the attorneys for these managers start playing Let's Make A Deal. With the extent of the fraud as deep as it appears at IFCO, it would be difficult to believe that company executives did not know about the illegals, if not ordered the managers to get it done.

By cracking down on the professional class that participates in the hiring of illegals, the DHS provides a powerful disincentive for others to pursue them. It will take a lot more than one raid and a few convictions to make the point, as even Michael Chertoff acknowledges. However, if a few more executives wind up in the dock facing a few years at Club Fed, the business community will get the message and rethink their fraudulent practices.

This does not preclude any particular resolution to the status of the illegals in this country. Even without work, they have a better life here in the US than in their countries of origin. It won't push them back across the border in large numbers. The new effort will make a resolution from Congress more urgent and perhaps renew the focus on border security and enforcement, now that the DHS has finally started to act as though it wants to enforce existing laws.

Jafaari Blinks

Late word out of Iraq has Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari ending his bid for re-election to the position, paving the way for a national unity government that would signal stability to the Iraqi people:

Under intense domestic and American pressure, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari dropped his bid to retain his job on Thursday, removing a major obstacle to forming a new government during a time of rising sectarian violence.

Leaders from each of Iraq's main factions — Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurd — called the decision a breakthrough.

"I believe that we will succeed in forming the national unity government the people are waiting for," Adnan Pachachi, the acting speaker of Parliament, said at a news conference at the Convention Center inside the fortified Green Zone.

But while Mr. Jaafari's capitulation after two months of resistance could indeed resolve the stalemate, daunting political challenges lie ahead. Leaders are battling over high-level posts, and a new government will need to revive a moribund civil sector and inspire confidence in public leadership.

Moreover, the likely candidates to replace Mr. Jaafari lack political stature, raising questions about whether they will be any more effective than he in leading a struggling government at a time of widening violence.

The candidate itself will not matter as much as the consensus that puts him into office. The leader of the Kurds has already stated that they will not oppose anyone else nominated by the Shi'ite caucus. That will probably be echoed in less dramatic terms by the Sunnis, meaning that the new PM will at least have a unified assembly as a start.

The New York Times report stresses the importance of American pressure on Jafaari's decision. That cuts both ways; it shows that the Bush administration has worked overtime to resolve the impasse, but it also means that the Iraqi insurgents will still use that as an excuse to claim American control of a supposed puppet regime in Baghdad. However, what this appears to be is an intervention by the ever-present Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who has repeatedly intervened with recalcitrant Shi'ites to push them into negotiated agreements rather than the diktats which have snarled political processes in Iraq.

In any event, Jafaari's capitulation is good news, and hopefully it will break the logjam that has left Iraq without an executive since the January elections.

Heritage Foundation Resource Bank Event

Posting has been light as I have been attending the Heritage Foundation's annual Resource Bank event. Bridgett Wagner invited me to speak on a forum about the lessons of Hurricane Katrina and its implications for big-government solutions. Joining me on the panel was Ron Utt of Heritage as moderator, Louisiana state representative Steve Scalise, and Forest Thigpen of the Mississippi Center for public policy. Steve started by reviewing in detail the ways that FEMA has mismanaged the funds allocated to long-term recovery in New Orleans. Steve promised me a copy of his presentation, and I hope to collect it tomorrow; he did a wonderful job in relating how the government procurement process has sabotaged the clean-up and rebuilding of New Orleans while the money goes everywhere but where it's needed.

I'll give you one example that I recall from my notes. After almost eight months, much of the debris left behind by the hurricane and massive flooding has still not been removed -- which must happen before rebuilding can begin. One of Steve's constituents hired a private contractor to get the job done at $15 per cubic foot, but was warned repeatedly by FEMA officials that they would not reimburse him for the work since it had not gone through proper channels. After debating the point with FEMA for a while, the Louisianan gave up and applied for removal through FEMA. Instead of spending $15 per cubic foot, FEMA paid the new contractor $35 per cubic foot. Given that New Orleans has millions of cubic feet of debris to remove, the extra $20/cf will explode the costs of the cleanup.

Oh, and one other point about this anecdote: the contractor FEMA hired subbed the job to the original contractor hired by the constituent -- who got the same $15/cf that the constituent negotiated.

In a related issue, much of the debris could be recycled, such as steel and other materials. However, to the extent that anything has been cleaned up, 100% of it is going into landfills, a diminishing resource in the hurricane areas. The contractors hired by FEMA do not get paid any money for material that cannot be documented as ending up in the landfill, where it can be measured. Also, any money that the contractor receives for the recyclable material has to be given to FEMA in full. Without any incentive to spend time separating recyclable material to salvage the raw materials that could be used in rebuilding, it's all going into the trashheap instead.

Tell me that isn't a government program.

I spoke about the ability of blogs to report the actual facts and to combat the urban legends that arise, and gave several examples of Katrina myths exploded by the blogosphere. Without accurate information, people cannot arrive at rational policy decisions, and blogs can play a critical role in providing the facts. I also spoke about Porkbusters and the lack of sympathy towards it by entrenched politicos of both parties. That got a lot of attention, and hopefully the main Porkbusters sites will see a bit more traffic in the days ahead.

The Q&A session afterwards brought some interesting questions. One person challenged me about the inefficacy of bureaucracies, maintaining that they performed some tasks quite well, as long as it involved non-time-critical functions with clear mandates; he gave the IRS as an example. I pointed out that bureaucracies exist to stop things from happening, and in some cases that can be useful. Bureaucracies can keep people from enacting hasty policies and procedures that could do damage. More often than not, however, it snarls efforts and bloats costs while almost intending that no real work gets accomplished.

In the above example, the FEMA bureaucracy could have been bypassed and block grants given directly to the residents for clearing debris and buying their own trailers, and it would have avoided all the subcontracting and middlemen that have escalated costs beyond belief. In doing so, the money could have been misused or fraudulently obtained without the FEMA bureaucracy to stop con men from exploiting the emergency relief efforts. However, we would also have seen a lot more work for people in the area for clean-up tasks and they probably would have finished it long ago. Bureaucracies don't work for emergency response efforts, and FEMA isn't unique among government agencies either. Solving the problem requires a different model, one that puts more of the decision-making power into local hands while assisting them financially.

I'll post more about this tomorrow. Posting will be light until Saturday, but I will still have a few items for CQ readers.

The Difference Between Anonymity And Deception

The Los Angeles Times columnist and blogger Michael Hiltzik has been suspended from his latter role after he admitted posting comments at other blog sites under names other than his own. Hiltzik has used more than one persona to defend himself from criticism at Patterico's Pontifications, the blog that regularly critiques the LA Times and its reporters. Patrick wrote that he suspected Hiltzik of using the varying identities to create an impression of a larger support for his work than truly existed:

In an early post on his L.A. Times-sponsored Golden State blog, Times columnist Michael Hiltzik was criticized by a couple of commenters calling themselves “Chad” and “Booker.” These commenters left juvenile comments mocking Hiltzik for explaining blogs to his readers. A commenter named “Mikekoshi” rose to Hiltzik’s defense, scolding the commenters for criticizing Hiltzik’s column ...

If Mikekoshi sounds a lot like Michael Hiltzik, that’s no coincidence. Because “Mikekoshi” is, in fact, Michael Hiltzik.

Since at least 2004, Hiltzik has left comments on the Internet under an invented pseudonym, at times explicitly pretending to be someone other than Michael Hiltzik. Actually, as we shall see below, the evidence is overwhelming that he has used more than one pseudonym. Hiltzik and his pseudonymous selves have echoed each other’s arguments, praised one another, and mocked each other’s enemies. All the while, Hiltzik’s readers have been unaware that (at a minimum) the acid-tongued “Mikekoshi,” who pops up from time to time at Hiltzik’s favorite blogs (including his own) defending Hiltzik and his newspaper, is in fact Hiltzik himself.

Hiltzik offered this defense in his penultimate posting at the Golden State Blog:

The right-wing blogger Patterico has apparently worked himself into a four-star ragegasm (Tbogg’s inimitable coinage) at the notion of anonymous or pseudonymous postings on his website by me. This is amusing, because most of the comments posted on his website are anonymous or pseudonymous. "Patterico" is itself a pseudonym for an Assistant Los Angeles District Attorney named Patrick Frey. Anonymity for commenters is a feature of his blog, as it is of mine. It’s a feature that he can withdraw from his public any time he wishes. He has chosen to do that in one case only, and we might properly ask why. The answer is that he’s ticked off that someone would disagree with him.

Set alight by my recent post tweaking Hugh Hewitt for his numbskulled method of analyzing newspaper economics and newspaper circulation, two subjects about which Hewitt claims omniscience and knows nothing, Frey evidently pored through the IP addresses of comments on his blog to discover that sometimes I commented under my own name, and sometimes under a pseudonym. ...

He seems to think that pseudonymous posting is deceptive, though he can’t articulate why that should be, given the abundance of pseudonyms and anonymity on his own blog starting with the name on the banner.

Anonymity in itself isn't deceptive, and Patterico would agree. I tried it for a while, but then included my name in e-mails, and so my anonymity didn't last long. Most of us do so just to keep our politics out of our professional lives; it doesn't amount to deception, just caution, as the recent contretemps with Bill Hobbs demonstrated. If Hiltzik wanted to comment anonymously, under one consistent pseudonym, no one would really care.

However -- and this is where Hiltzik gets intellectually dishonest -- he used multiple pseudonyms in order to set up phony interactions between comments that he had written himself. For CQ readers, think if Monkyboy, Vinceman, and Bayam all turned out to be the same person. (They're not, and this is only a hypothetical and no disrespect is intended.) Considering that they often disagree with my posts and other commenters and sometimes reference each other's arguments, it creates a phony concordance when in reality it would be the same person posting over and over again. It's dishonest, and it certainly appears intended for rhetorical intimidation.

Is that a journalistic/blogospheric mortal sin, on par with plagiarism? Of course not. But it does reveal the person to be somewhat dishonest, and also very immature. Who needs to make up imaginary friends on the Internet? It's not a blogofelony, but it's pretty pathetic.

Almost all of my commenters from all sides remain anonymous, and their anonymity is a choice they have made for their own reasons, probably very good ones. Pseudonyms have a long and glorious tradition in literature and journalism, and they provide certain rational benefits to honest people. What Hiltzik did is to abuse that tradition, and for that the Los Angeles Times has rightly suspended him. They should make that permanent and have one of their other columnists take over the site.

UPDATE: Fixed my mispelling of Hiltzik and a bad HTML tag, as well as cleaned up a grammatical error.

The Saddam Files: Why Make IEDs In 2000?

Joseph Shahda has translated yet another interesting document from the captured Iraqi files, although this one prompts more questions than it provides answers. The memo dictates goals for the year 2000 that involve the development and improvement of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that have been the mainstay of the insurgencies in Iraq after the fall of Saddam (via Power Line):

In the Name of God the Most Merciful the Most Compassionate The Presidency of the Republic The Intelligence Apparatus Mr: The Respected Director

Subject: Projects of a Plan

Below are projects of the plan for the year 2000 and according to the budget suggested for it in the spending budget of the year 2000 and as follow:

1. Prepare an armored brief case to protect the VIPs 180 days.

2. Study on the Epoxy used currently in preparing the IEDs and the possibility of finding another type that will not affect the explosive.

3. Studies and researches of the materials that increase the intensity of the explosive.

4. Prepare theoretical and applied lessons on the popular explosives 120 days.

5. Training of the Arab Fedayeens- within the plan of the year 2000.

Establish tournaments specialized in the explosives 30 days.

Please review and your command with regards.

Signature…

Khaled Ibrahim Ismail
Senior Chemist
22/11/99

Nothing in this memo speaks to WMD, at least not explicitly, nor of any notable breach of the cease-fire agreements or UNSC resolutions. It does raise some questions. Why would the Iraqi military have spent so much time and effort in IED development in 2000? After all, the Americans had not attacked Iraq in force since 1991. Almost exactly one year prior to the memo from this senior chemist in the IIS, Bill Clinton had retaliated for the expulsion of the UN inspectors by firing a fusillade of missiles at Baghdad, but no hint of an invasion or even a sustained military effort had come from the US since the Gulf War.

IEDs have no military use; the shells used for their construction have much better effect if fired normally at an enemy. And yet, not only do we have Iraqi intelligence investigating these explosive devices, this memo even proposes "tournaments", presumably for competing designs. It also mentions "Arab fedayeens", a term that Americans might remember from the irregular Ba'athist forces called the Saddam Fedayeen which formed the core of the native insurgency as Baghdad fell. (They also preyed upon the regular Iraqi Army to prevent desertions and surrenders during the conflict.) In this context, "Arab fedayeen" obviously refers to non-native forces, and irregulars rather than soldiers from another allied country -- in other words, Arab terrorists.

Given all of this information, it seems clear that Iraq had planned to train and equip Arab terrorists on the manufacture and use of IEDs. They intended on doing research on making these terrorist weapons even deadlier and more effective, and they wanted it all done before the end of 2000. They may not have realized their own need for the technology in 1999, but they certainly considered the program so urgent at that time that they pushed to get it completed within a year.

It looks like those ties between Saddam and terrorism keep getting stronger every day.

UPDATE and BUMP: Some have questioned the translation for IED and the significance of the term "Arab fedayeen". Joseph Shahda responded through a CQ commenter:

From jveritas | 04/20/2006 5:18:45 AM PDT new

Thanks for the update.

The Iraqi used the word "IBWAT" which mean "EXPLOSIVE DEVICES" used in cars, roads, and other places. That is what we call IED. Moreover the Synopsis posed by the Pentagon website for the particular document used the word IED, unfortunately the Pentagon translator did not include or missed in his/her synopsis the important part of this memo, which is the "Training of Arab Feedayeens" by the Iraqi Intelligence, i.e. the training of non Iraqi Foreign Arab Terrorists.

If they wanted to train Iraqi Army soldiers in the construction and use of IEDs, why would they refer to them as "Arab fedayeen" in a secret memo? They would have referred to them by their unit designation or their deployment, or in the case of the Saddam Fedayeen, by that specific name.

Boycott Losing Momentum (Updated)

The planned walkout of illegal immigrants for May 1 has lost steam according to a report by the Washington Post. Two weeks after the call for the boycott and one-day strike, a panel of immigration activists announced yesterday that they would encourage people to stay at work but to sign petitions and join protests on May 1:

A panel of immigration activists said yesterday that it will not encourage workers and families to walk off the job and keep their children from school as part of a May 1 boycott, but will hold voter-recruitment and petition drives instead.

The announcement by activists from the District, Chicago and Los Angeles at a news conference in Washington underlined the split among the mostly Latino activist groups that led huge demonstrations in more than 140 cities in recent weeks, and shows that the grass-roots movement is operating at cross purposes toward the same end -- immigration reform and legal status for illegal immigrants.

"We are going to have several meetings; we are going to have thousands and thousands of people sign petitions. . . . We will register people to vote and send thousands of e-mails to legislators," said Gustavo Torres, executive director of Casa de Maryland in Silver Spring.

Torres was joined on the panel by representatives from several immigration organizations, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium, both based in Los Angeles, and the National Capital Immigration Coalition in the District.

Other groups plan to push the strike, making the split a potentially bitter one if the crowds do not turn out as planned. A representative of Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, one of the groups pressing for the walkout, says that their plans have not changed. This should surprise no one, as HML has partnered with International ANSWER, the last of the Stalinist apologist groups, to select the old Communist holiday to highlight their open-borders philosophy.

The panel in DC wants to avoid the train wreck for illegal immigrants that this walkout will create. While the rallies have increased the visibility of the immigration debate, it has also polarized American opinion and created a significant and politically difficult backlash. The sea of Mexican flags and antagonistic sloganeering has made it more difficult for Congress to pass any measure that allows illegals to normalize for citizenship. A walkout, especially on a date most Americans will associate with socialist propaganda, will further erode moderate positions and make it more difficult to reach any solution other than a widespread crackdown on illegals.

These activists want to rechannel the debate into more positive approaches, but it's unclear how much influence they have. Right now, the illegals have cast their lot with the socialists, and until they realize that the alliance will do tremendous damage to their cause, they will continue to strengthen the hardliners who oppose them.

UPDATE: The Houston Chronicle reports that some immigration groups have explicitly tried to distance themselves from I-ANSWER:

The boycott idea emerged in early April from activists of Latino Movement USA, and the anti-war ANSWER Coalition.

Immigration leaders at Thursday's briefing and elsewhere said those organizations were no longer part of the national immigration reform movement.

ANSWER spokesman Carlos Alvarez said no group or coalition owns the issue of immigration reform.

Don't bet that I-ANSWER plans on taking their leave from this issue.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Mark Tapscott, in his role as editorial page editor, weighs in on the immigration debate by calling out the reconquista movement:

The first thing to understand about Reconquista is that while it is perhaps not the official policy of Mexico, it might as well be. Current and former top Mexican government officials and advisers, for example, along with leaders of U.S. groups like the National Council of La Raza, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, routinely co-host seminars of the Foundation for Solidarity of Mexico and America, according to Hector Carreon of the Aztlan Communications Network. The basic aim of FSMA, which is a key convergence point of open-borders advocacy in both countries, is uninterrupted immigration from Mexico to the U.S. ...

President Bush should call upon President Vicente Fox and other Mexican political leaders to disavow the Reconquista movement explicitly and to adopt much-needed reforms to expand economic opportunity and spread the wealth more widely in their nation. And Congress should reiterate in law and regulation that, while we will always welcome the world’s huddled masses, those who immigrate to America are expected to become Americans.

And, I would add, they are expected to do so while obeying all of our laws, including those regulating immigration.

Taliban, The Sequel

The hardline government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ratcheted up the pressure on their already-restive population by initiating a crackdown on men and women who do not comport themselves to the strict code of Islam. Iran has authorized police to make arrests when women fail to secure their hijab or men wear unusual hair styles, orders that could result in jail time even for walking a dog in public:

Iran's Islamic authorities are preparing a crackdown on women flouting the stringent dress code in the clearest sign yet of social and political repression under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

From today police in Tehran will be under orders to arrest women failing to conform to the regime's definition of Islamic morals by wearing loose-fitting hijab, or headscarves, tight jackets and shortened trousers exposing skin.

Offenders could be punished with £30 fines or two months in jail. Officers will also be authorised to confront men with outlandish hairstyles and people walking pet dogs, an activity long denounced as un-Islamic by the religious rulers.

This breaks a campaign promise by Ahmadinejad, who told Iranians that he had more important matters on which to focus besides enforcing Islamic dress codes. His ally on the Teheran city council has insisted on this clampdown in the nation's capital. Nader Shariatmaderi said that Iran is "looking for a social utopia", and that providing strict conformity to the orthodoxy is necessary, given the "international situation".

This crackdown will likely complicate that "international situation", not provide clarity or unity of support for the mullahcracy. Already, Iranians feel uneasy about the manner in which the mullahs and Ahmadinejad have pursued nuclear power and stirred up trouble with the West. So far, they have accepted the official explanation that the Iranian nuclear cycle is intended for domestic energy production and that Teheran has no aggressive intent towards the West. However, this crackdown will underscore the hostility that the mullahcracy has towards modernization and will re-stir the dissent within Iranian society.

Given the unstable nature of their support at home, one has to wonder at the judgment of the mullahcracy and Ahmadinejad at this juncture. Their efforts to create a sequel to the disastrous example of the Taliban in Afghanistan, especially on an Iranian population that is much more cosmopolitan than the Afghans, underscores the messianic and almost schizophrenic tone that seems to increase each week from Teheran. They almost appear to be daring their opposition to rise up and create a populist revolt to pull down the mullahcracy. If so, then let's hope they get what they wish.

The Opening Gambit

The new White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten made two moves today in his new assignment to bring change to the West Wing and a fresh set of faces to national policy. Neither of the two moves came as much of a surprise, as Scott McClellan left and Karl Rove left his policy post as deputy chief of staff to focus on the midterm elections:

Karl Rove, the president's most influential adviser and a dominant force in the Bush administration since its beginning, surrendered key policy responsibilities today while press secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation.

Both moves were part of the makeover promised earlier this week by a White House seeking to reverse sagging public opinion ratings.

Rove will remain deputy chief of staff to President Bush, but he will drop his portfolio as policy coordinator -- a job he assumed a year ago -- and once again concentrate his focus on broader strategy and politics as the 2006 mid-term elections approach, the White House announced.

McClellan's exit comes as no shock to anyone. He performed well enough, but lately has seemed either overmatched by the hostility of the White House press corps or just out of gas. The exchanges between McClellan and the gaggle have become increasingly personal, and the tension has not helped with getting the president's message out to the electorate. When the press secretary becomes the story for weeks on end, the communication process is broken.

The bigger news to most people will be the announcement that Karl Rove will leave the policy portfolio behind and work exclusively on the upcoming elections. That hardly qualifies as a surprise, either. Rove formally took on policy only after the 2004 elections gave George Bush the last electoral victory of his political career. Most of us expected Rove to informally drop the policy-wonk persona once the 2006 primaries came close. This only makes that reassignment official. The GOP needs a fully-engaged Karl Rove in the election, especially since the polling has looked somewhat grim for the Republicans, at least nationally. With the party squabbling and a testy debate about to break out about the direction of the party, Rove can lend his formidable talents to bringing political unity among the factions.

Neither announcement really indicates much change at all. McClellan's departure will put a visible facade on Bolten's mandate, and the new press secretary could create some fresh buzz for the White House. For changes of more significance, we will have to wait a little longer.

UPDATE: Corrected spelling of Scott McClellan's last name -- no 'D' -- thanks to Monkyboy.

More On Able Providence

Mike Kasper has done a remarkable job in delving into the Able Providence story. Be sure to read his latest analysis here.

NIMBYs, BANANAs, And Applebaum

Anne Applebaum writes a must-read column in today's Washington Post about modern-day Luddites and the impact they have on energy production in the US. As gasoline nears $3 per gallon again just in time for the summer driving season, one would expect environmentalists and proponents of renewable energy to take advantage of the economics and push for new power production facilities to demonstrate their worth. However, as Applebaum notes, a more sinister force than NIMBYism has throttled the entire field for decades:

The problem plaguing new energy developments is no longer NIMBYism, the "Not-In-My-Back-Yard" movement. The problem now, as one wind-power executive puts it, is BANANAism: "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything." The anti-wind brigade, fierce though it is, pales beside the opposition to liquid natural gas terminals, and would fade entirely beside the mass movement that will oppose a new nuclear power plant. Indeed, the founders of Cape Wind say they embarked on the project in part because public antipathy prevents most other utility investments in New England.

Still, energy projects don't even have to be viable to spark opposition: Already, there are activists gearing up to fight the nascent biofuel industry, on the grounds that fields of switch grass or cornstalks needed to produce ethanol will replace rainforests and bucolic country landscapes. Soon the nonexistent "hydrogen economy" will doubtless be under attack as well. There's a lot of earnest, even bipartisan talk nowadays about the need for clean, emissions-free energy. But are we really ready, politically, to build any new energy sources at all?

Applebaum asks this question after a series of windmill projects have been torpedoed by the same environmental activists that decry carbon-based emissions, global warming, and the reliance on foreign oil. The Cape Windmill project, which would take advantage of the only possible area on the New England coastline for wind energy production, has come under attack from wealthy Nantucket residents and politicos such as Ted Kennedy. In West Virginia, activists saved a strip mine from being disfigured by the sight of windmills, a rare multilayered irony born of hypocrisy.

Applebaum has pegged the environmental lobby beautifully in the BANANA acronym. They have come up with excuses to throttle energy production for decades, and we now face an across-the-board energy crisis because of them. We have not built a new oil refinery in this nation in 30 years, relying on peak capacity at all existing refineries to keep up with demand. Katrina and Rita showed us the folly of that strategy, and the next refinery disaster might just bring on rationing instead of mere high prices. Nuclear energy has been mothballed since Three Mile Island. Even the supposedly environmentally safe methods will probably never see full-scale production while the EPA impact reports can get gamed by the environmental lobby and local real-estate interests.

If we want energy independence, then we need to have a system which allows for increased domestic production of all energy sources. It should start by removing the handcuffs from domestic oil production to lower the price of energy and to reduce our immediate dependence on foreign sources, along with increased refining capacity through federal licensing of a number of new refineries. The second phase should see the construction of renewable-energy production facilities, including windmill farms like Cape Wind. We have spent the last three decades in paralysis due to the attention paid to Luddites who have no interest in any kind of energy production. Let's stop this insanity and start focusing on providing for the energy resources we need.

Hamas: Winning Friends In The Middle East

Hamas has certainly built an impressive track record at the helm of the Palestinian Authority. Just when no one thought they could possibly do worse than the kleptocrats of Fatah that robbed the Palestinians blind for a decade, Hamas has created a nostalgia for the previous government in less than two months. After having their aid cut off and impoverishing their people through diplomatic isolation with the West, Hamas has busied itself by alienating their closest Arab neighbor:

Palestinian officials have criticised Jordan's decision to cancel a visit to Amman by Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahhar of the Hamas militant group.

Amman announced it had postponed the trip indefinitely after discovering arms and explosives it said were smuggled into Jordan by Hamas members.

It said this was proof that Hamas had been saying one thing and doing another in its dealings with Jordan. ...

Jordanian officials said the weapons were seized in the last couple of days and included "missiles, explosives and automatic weapons".

Jordan expelled Hamas seven years ago after discovering plots against their government by the Islamist terror group. The exiled leadership initially went to Qatar but then later moved to Damascus at the invitation of the Assad regime. Seven years later, they have attempted to rebuild their credibility with their eastern neighbor and had succeeded in gaining diplomatic recognition from Amman -- until they decided to continue their efforts against the US ally by shipping weapons and bombs into the Hashemite Kingdom.

Now with financial bankruptcy looming and holding nothing more than pledges from Arab states for emergency cash, the Hamas-led PA reminds every Gulf nation why putting money into the pockets of Hamas runs counter to their own security and survival. Jordan's door slam humiliates Hamas just when they had begun to pick up diplomatic momentum in the region. Even the hate-besotted Palestinian electorate might wonder why their new government busies itself with terrorist activity across the river when the PA can't pay their own employees, and especially why it picked now to antagonize a potential benefactor.

As terrorists, Hamas was moderately successful. As politicians, they're hopelessly inept, even by Palestinian standards.

UN Chief Blames Iran For Meddling In Lebanon

Kofi Annan has publicly scolded Iran for its financing and involvement with Hezbollah and their interference with the new democratic government of Lebanon. Benny Avni reports for the New York Sun on a rare outing by the UN of Iran's terror network ties and their efforts to undermine secular movements within Southwest Asia:

Secretary-General Annan for the first time has accused the mullahs of Iran of interfering in the affairs of the sovereign state Lebanon and asked that they heed the 2004 Security Council resolution urging the country's complete independence.

Mr. Annan last night also expressed his deep concern about the actions of Iran's surrogate militia - the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which operates in Lebanon - and its repeated defiance of the council's call for the disarming of all factions in Lebanon.

The language of the report, finalized late yesterday afternoon by the secretary-general's envoy in Lebanon, Terje Roed-Larsen, took a blunt tone for the usually mild-mannered Mr. Annan. ...

Past analyses of the implementation of the Security Council's Lebanon resolutions focused on Syrian cooperation, and omitted mention of Iran's influence there and its connection to Hezbollah, a Shiite organization founded by Tehran that is still commanded by Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Hezbollah "maintains close ties, with frequent contacts and regular communication, with the Syrian Arab Republic and the Islamic Republic of Iran," yesterday's report, which was prepared by Mr. Larsen, who frequently travels to the Middle East on Mr. Annan's behalf, said in a clarifying footnote.

This clarification by the normally supine UN leadership reveals an increasing impatience with the mullahcracy's defiance of the UN over its nuclear program. Turtle Bay prepared this report only due to Syrian interference with the Cedar Revolution and the undeniable role it played in assassinating Lebanese politicians, especially the murder of Rafik Hariri which set off the populist revolt. France and the US have demanded an accounting for Syrian actions in the former French colony, but the inclusion of Iranian skullduggery has to be considered by Western nations as a bonus.

The report doesn't stop with Iranian involvement with Hezbollah, either. It also ties Iran to Hamas in Lebanon and Syria, a point underscored by US ambassador John Bolton. Now that they have openly pledged to support Hamas in Palestinian territories, their support of Islamist terrorism has become one of the worst-kept secrets of the region. The recognition of this obvious truth still comes as a surprise from the United Nations, which has gone out of its way to avoid taking any meaningful stand on Islamist terrorism

Iran should consider it a warning. After the celebratory antics of their president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announcing the success of their (presumably) first enrichment cycle, even their allies have backed away, at least rhetorically. Russia issued a statement last night condemning Iran for its lack of cooperation in resolving the nuclear standoff and demanded an end to the enrichment program. Moscow has thus far refused to support economic sanctions, but the diplomatic pressure from the West and now the UN to stop Iranian efforts at destabilization and terrorism has ratcheted up a notch or two. Russia at some point may reconsider their support for a nuclear-armed Islamist government sitting on their southern border.

If Teheran loses the UN's benificence, then they have truly miscalculated and gone too far. The mullahcracy may have done what the West couldn't quite accomplish: motivate the UN to actually take significant action against Iranian intransigence.

Israel Mulling Over Responses

Israel has decided not to launch a lightning-strike attack on the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority despite holding it responsible for the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed nine people and wounded dozens. Thus far, it appears that Ehud Olmert has decided to bide his time and look for ways to undermine Hamas:

Israel said Tuesday that it would increase political pressure on the Palestinian government in response to a suicide bombing the day before, but gave no hint of planning a major military response or singling out members of the Hamas-dominated government for arrest or assassination. ...

Israel's prime minister-designate, Ehud Olmert, huddled with senior aides and top security officials on Tuesday and chose to emphasize diplomatic and political pressure rather than a large military response, officials said.

The Israeli approach is intended to maintain Western and other international support for boycotting the new Palestinian government, which is struggling with a financial crisis and political isolation.

I'm not sure how well that will work. After all, other Gulf nations have pledged millions of dollars in replacement funding for the Palestinian Authority now that the US and EU have cut them off. It seems as though the incentive/disincentive system, at least via funding and diplomacy, will not have much effect as long as states sconomically allied with the US such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia put cash back in Palestinian coffers.

Of course, this assumes that the Arab states actually fund their pledges; they don't have a sterling track record on follow-through. The Times reports that the money has not yet arrived, and even if it does, it hardly makes a dent in their financial picture. Between Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, the Palestinians might get as much as $192 million. However, its monthly cost just to cover government salaries is $150 million, and they have yet to fund their March payroll. If the money arrived today, it would just postpone for one more month the inevitable collapse of the Hamas-led PA. They cannot live without the West's money.

One might expect, under the circumstances, that Hamas would temper their rhetoric. Not so -- after waiting no more than hours, Hamas issued a statement supporting the terrorist attack on that menacing falafel stand as "self defense". That brought another round of condemnation from diplomats around the world, especially the former paymasters of the West. Did that faze the Palestinian people? Unfortunately, no. When Mahmoud Abbas attempted to undo some of the damage done by Hamas, his own Fatah armed wing of the Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades issued a demand that he apologize for the damage he has done to the Palestinians.

In this looking-glass world, Israel's restraint will hardly be viewed as thoughtful or an opening for dialogue. Israel didn't intend it as a message to the Palestinians; they intended it as a message to the West. Don't think that the Olmert government won't find some way to make Hamas squirm, but it won't be through massive military responses that would rally support for Hamas. Expect them to follow up on the expulsion of Hamas legislators from Jerusalem to a renewed effort to complete the wall around the desired capital of both peoples. That development will damage hamas among the Palestinians more than a few missing paychecks and now can be completely justified by the Islamic Jihad terrorist attack and the official Palestinian government response of support for it.

UPDATE: Now Hamas has pledged to appeal the one direct consequence of their support for the terrorist attack -- the expulsion of three Hamas legislators and a Cabinet member from Jerusalem:

Israel decided Tuesday to strip three Hamas legislators and a Cabinet minister of their Israeli-issued identity cards, which grant them permanent residency in Jerusalem and freedom of movement in Israel.

The decision was an unprecedented punishment for the Hamas-led Palestinian government's refusal to denounce a suicide bombing by another militant group, Islamic Jihad. The bombing outside a Tel Aviv restaurant Monday killed nine civilians and wounded dozens.

Palestinian Justice Minister Ahmed Khaldi said the Hamas government would back the lawmakers' appeal to Israel's Supreme Court, in part because of Palestinian concerns that Israel was trying to establish a precedent to strip more Jerusalem Palestinians of their residency rights.

That sounds impressive, but Hamas tried to set a precedent stripping Israeli citizens of their breathing rights near falafel stands, and I think that takes precedence over Israel's attempt to get Hamas out of their country.

Someone's DREAMing

See if we can sort this out together. Our governor, Tim Pawlenty, has threatened to veto any funding for the Minnesota college system that includes DREAM, new legislation that allows the children of illegal immigrants to take advantage of state-resident tuition fees instead of the rate charged to students from outside Minnesota. This is similar to the DREAM Act that Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has attempted to work into the Senate version of immigration reform. The Star Tribune reports on the standoff between the Minnesota legislature and the governor:

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has asked a House committee to reject a proposal that would allow some illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition to state colleges and universities.

An identical measure died last year when Pawlenty threatened to veto funding bills for the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system (MnSCU) if the provision was included.

And this year, Pawlenty, a Republican, has proposed clamping down on illegal immigrants, a stance the DFL-dominated Senate has resisted.

The DREAM proposal does not apply to all illegals. Students would have to have graduated from a Minnesota high school after attending for at least three years and would have to demonstrate an effort to normalize their status. Proponents cast this as a fairness issue, since these students would be part of the community already and a higher education would make them better able to contribute positively to society and the economy. Detractors point out that illegals would get a better deal than those who graduate from Iowa or Wisconsin high schools, who would have to pay the full tuition rate.

Or do they? The Strib includes a strange assertion from the state agency that runs the state colleges and universities, MnSCU, that makes the entire point of DREAM moot:

MnSCU spokeswoman Melinda Voss said, "Undocumented students are not eligible to pay in-state tuition unless they attend a college that does not charge a different rate for out-of-state students."

Eleven of MnSCU's 32 colleges and universities charge a flat rate for all in-state and outstate students, she said. Generally, MnSCU colleges and universities charge outstate students twice as much in tuition and fees as Minnesota students.

So we already have colleges and universities that don't have multitiered tuition fee structures -- in fact, we have eleven of them, including two higher-level University of Minnesota campuses (Morris and Crookston). The other 21 facilities do have higher fees for out-of-state students, regardless of whether they come from Iowa or Iceland. Nor does the state penalize non-citizens for unlawful presence in the US; non-citizens pay the higher fee at those schools which charge it.

The DREAM legislation then proposes that we solve a problem for which the market has already provided a solution. Illegals wishing to attend a university at the same tuition rates as Minnesota residents can simply apply at UM Morris or UM Crookston, or one of the other nine colleges with single-tier fees. The alternative offered by the Minnesota legislature would create a discount for an illegal immigrant for which a legal immigrant would not be eligible. Does this sound reasonable to anyone?

This is the kind of nonsense that gets proposed when we refuse to actually produce a solution for a larger problem; instead, the government comes up with silly patchwork compromises that wind up discriminating against someone in the interest of "fairness", and usually winds up costing taxpayers even more money. Instead of solving non-existent problems, the Minnesota legislature should concentrate on saving our tax dollars rather than finding new ways to spend them.

Congress Shocked To Find Out Schools Can't Add

After the AP reported that as many as two million students, primarily minority children, had their test scores hidden by schools and states in order to avoid the accountability provided by the No Child Left Behind, Congress expressed shock that educators apparently can't add properly -- or thought Congress couldn't. Key House and Senate members have stated that they will review actions by states to exempt themselves from the reporting provisions of NCLB and possibly mandate reporting levels in the future:

Congressional leaders and a former Bush Cabinet member said Tuesday that schools should stop excluding large numbers of minority students' test scores when they report progress under the No Child Left Behind law.

The Associated Press reported Monday that schools have gotten federal permission to deliberately not count the test scores of nearly 2 million students when they report academic progress by race as required by the law. The scores excluded were overwhelmingly from minorities, the AP found.

Some leaders said Congress may need to intervene. The Education Department and others owe the public an explanation, said the Republican House Education Committee chairman's office.

If Congress intends on making education an area of federal responsibility -- which I still think is a mistake -- then it should have made reporting exemptions clear in the original legislation. Once again we see the effect of poorly written regulation and its impact on the goals intended by Congress and the White House. The Department of Education should never have granted so many different exemptions, regardless of the effort to help promote compliance. Given that this was the centerpiece of the Bush administration's domestic program despite conservative opposition to both the spending and the federal encroachment on local control, the White House should have taken more care that the people it claimed to serve were not getting ... er ... left behind.

We could have fixed this entire problem with school vouchers and saved the taxpayers a whole lot of money. Competition breeds accountability; government programs breed cheats and dodges. This latest restaging of government incompetence is brought to you by the bureaucratic impulse that appears to have infected both political parties of late.

Blogswarm For Mark Kennedy

Congressman Mark Kennedy from Minnesota's Sixth District has started campaigning in earnest for the open seat vacated by the retiring (or retreating) Senator Mark Dayton. This seat represents one of two good opportunities for the GOP to pick up a Democratic seat in the Senate for these midterms; Maryland's Michael Steele also has a good shot at Paul Sarbane's seat.

If the Republicans intend on staying in the majority next year, this seat has to be a key for the national party. We face some tough races around the country, and Mark faces a tough one here against Minneapolis DA Amy Klobuchar. Kennedy Vs The Machine has a link for contributions to the Kennedy campaign, and the Savage Republican has already done his part. I'm going there now to do mine.

If you want to protect the GOP majority in the Senate for the last two years of the Bush administration, Kennedy's campaign is the front line of that effort. Dig deep. (via Hugh Hewitt)

Lieberman: Iran Strikes A Possibility

Senator Joe Lieberman told the Jerusalem Post in an interview to be released on Friday that he considers military strikes on nuclear sites in Iran a possibility and an option that must remain on the table. David Horovitz reports that the sole member of the Scoop Jackson wing of the Senate says that Congress holds little hope that the UN will do anything to stop Iran's drive for nuclear weapons:

The US is probably incapable of completely destroying the Iranian nuclear program, but as a last resort it could attempt to knock out "some of the components" in order to "delay and deter it," Senator Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential candidate and a serving member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has told The Jerusalem Post.

Speaking at a time of almost daily declarations from Teheran concerning both progress in the nuclear program and hostility to Israel, Lieberman said he knew of no "set war plans" being drawn up by the Bush Administration and, "I don't think anyone's yearning for military action against Iran."

Nonetheless, he said, there was skepticism in Congress about the likelihood of the UN Security Council taking "economic or diplomatic action." As a next step, that left the option of an "economic coalition of the willing," outside the UN framework, to try and deter the Iranians. And failing that, the only two remaining courses of action were intensified efforts "to encourage the reformist and opposition elements in Iran" to the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a resort to military force, he said.

Military action was "probably the last choice, but it has to be there," stressed Lieberman, who has been visiting Israel over the Pessah festival. He said there was now "active discussion" of the options for such action.

So far, Lieberman has expressed the most rational description of the options and their desirability yet expressed from Congress. The military option should be a last resort after all other choices have failed, but in order to put pressure on Iran, it does have to remain in play. Lieberman is also correct when he says that the US military cannot knock out the entire nuclear program pursued by Teheran, at least not short of an Iraq-style invasion. That would prove entirely impractical for the reasons listed by John Aravosis at Americablog: Iran covers an area three times the size of Iraq and has about 2 1/2 times Iraq's population.

However, the complete destruction of the program really isn't necessary, especially since Iran outsourced so much of its development. A strike on the site holding the centrifuge cascades would set their program back at least a decade, and without an AQ Khan to provide new models, perhaps even longer than that. It can't hide its development program as it did during the 1990s, not after the revelations of the past two years. The destruction of a few key sites might put an end to the issue.

Do I really want to attack Iran? No, for two reasons. One, I would prefer we consolidate the situation in Iraq before pursuing any further military ventures. Our presence there puts significant pressure on Teheran anyway, and we can always maneuver our troops in a manner which underscores our ability to exploit their borders. Second, military attacks would most likely alienate the moderate Iranians that would much prefer to see the mullahcracy fade into history. We can't afford to throw the goodwill of everyday Iranians away lightly. Lastly, the action would probably fatally damage the political fortunes of key allies in Britain and possibly Australia as well, which could wind up doing as much damage to our military posture as anything that Iran could do in the short run.

The best of all possible outcomes would have the world come together to isolate Iran diplomatically and economically until they buckled under the pressure and disarmed in the same manner as Libya. Unfortunately, that won't happen while Russia and China insist on the carrot-and-carrot approach. Both nations have not just opposed military action but also have said they will not support economic sanctions at all. That means that the UN offers no deterrent to Iranian nuclear ambitions other than a wagging finger and a strongly worded memo. Without any assistance from Britain and no diplomatic initiative from the UN, the Iranians know that any military effort on our part would likely never materialize. I find Lieberman's revelation of Turtle Bay skepticism in Congress the most optimistic development in the entire story.

Does that mean we have no options? Not really; like Lieberman says, if no other strategy can stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, we may have to go it alone -- truly, this time -- and protect our interests. However, a better option would be to increase the funding and support for pro-democracy dissidents in Iran, including the Pejak regardless of our agreements with Turkey regarding their association with the PKK. In truth, the most reliable manner of stopping nuclear proliferation and the funding of terrorists by Teheran will be the removal by popular revolt against the mullahcracy and their messianic puppet, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It also will play into the yearning that Iranians have for better relations with the US and the West, rather than damage or kill that impulse.

Lieberman's interview shows that the US remains resolute in its intent to stop the Iranian nuclear program. We must communicate that resolve in order to make the mullahcracy -- and their subjects -- understand that we are serious. Hopefully, with our help, the Iranians themselves can resolve the nuclear standoff without a shot being fired or a bunker buster ever getting dropped.

The FM Plays A New Medical Game

It's been a tough 24 hours over here since the First Mate inadvertently wound up playing a new medical game called, "Where The Hell Did That Come From?" Last night at the end of her dialysis run, when she stood up to get her blood pressure measured, her chest access just plopped out onto the floor. Since this had just previously been plugged into a pulmonary artery, the dropped shunt caused quite the commotion in the dialysis center. Two nurses pushed her back into the recliner and laid her out flat while one of them started pressing a bandage into her chest.

We thought she'd have to get transported immediately to the hospital, but the bleeding turned out to be minimal. However, she still had a hole in her chest and no access for dialysis, so today we had to get her to the hospital to have a new shunt installed. That wound up taking all day; we just got home a few minutes ago. Needless to say, neither one of us got much sleep last night and perkiness is not the order of the day.

It's kind of a shame, because the shunt had been operating so well and the overall medical news is actually pretty good. The polyoma virus count has come down from 5 million to 29,000 as of last month, and next week we'll find out if it's still improving. We need to boost her T-cell counts, but she's looking much better for a transplant than before.

Hopefully she doesn't try dribbling it downcourt like she did last night with the shunt ....

Next Month's New Flavor Will Be ... Crow. (Update)

For a company that prides itself on political awareness, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream sure doesn't know much about research. The manufacturer of the gourmet desserts introduced a new flavor named after a bar drink, but failed to reckon with Irish memories:

Ben & Jerry's, the socially aware ice-cream maker, has apologised to Irish consumers for launching a new flavour evoking the worst days of British military oppression.

Tubs of Black and Tan ice-cream have gone on sale this month and prompted complaints that the phrase is not just the name for mixing stout with pale ale.

Black and Tans, irate customers explained, was the term for an irregular force of British ex-servicemen recruited during the Irish war of independence and renowned for their brutality, including the 1920 massacre of 12 people at a Dublin football match. The new flavour is only available in the US at present.

Back when I could eat ice cream, I loved Ben & Jerry's, despite the politics. They proved very inventive in their flavors and made it fun. When Ben & Jerry actually owned the company, it was a cutting-edge outfit. Now it looks like no one there knows how to Google.

Addendum: Obviously Ben & Jerry's meant no ill will and probably never heard of the Black and Tans before this controversy erupted, but for heaven's sake, isn't that what a Marketing department is supposed to find out?

UPDATE and bumped down: On further review .... this was pretty lame. I agree with the commenters. As Emily Litella says, "Never mind." And pass the Berried Treasure Sorbet!

So why not just delete the post? Too much like rewriting history for my taste. When I post a stinker, I just have to live with it. Berried Treasure Sorbet takes the edge off, of course ...

Clearing The Decks?

It appears that incoming White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten has a strong mandate from George Bush to make sweeping changes to staff and Cabinet, according to reports by the New York Times and Washington Post this morning. At least for now, it looks as though no one's job is secure among Bush advisors, as the polls continue to show a slide in confidence in the approach to the midterm elections:

The new White House chief of staff put the West Wing and official Washington on notice on Monday about potentially substantial changes in the way the White House is staffed and operates.

Meeting first thing Monday with senior White House aides, the new chief, Joshua B. Bolten, said it was time to "refresh and re-energize" President Bush's team, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said. Mr. Bolten also said anybody who was considering leaving within the year should step forward now, according to Mr. McClellan's account of the meeting. ...

Senior White House officials had spent months playing down the need for any substantial overhaul of administration personnel. Mr. Bolten's message seemed to suggest that Mr. Bush had now come around to the idea that his presidency needed some fresh faces, if not a fresh start. But it is not yet clear how wide and deep any changes will be, and whether they will portend new policy approaches or be limited to bringing in new voices to sell existing policies.

My first guess at the effect of the changes will be to keep the major goals of the administration intact but to offer new policies in achieving them. First and foremost among the efforts should be to reconnect Bush to the GOP base, whose confidence in his leadership has eroded due to the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, the appointment of Julie Myers to head ICE, the poor handling of the Dubai ports deal that led to unaccountable hysteria, and the continued bloating of the federal budget. The most serious erosion in Bush's approval has come from his own base, and fixing that alienation has to be at the top of Bolten's goals.

The largest worry for the administration has to be the collapse of support in the fight against terrorism. The normally reliable Rasmussen polls show that only 55% of Republicans believe that the Iraq War will be seen as a success in the long run. A plurality of people believe that the US and its allies are winning the war on terror despite the four and a half years that the Bush administration has kept the homeland safe from attack. These numbers indicate a dangerous disaffection with the forward strategy against terrorists, and if allowed to continue could result in the election of an isolationist President and Congress that would return the US to a law-enforcement posture in the fight against terrorists -- where we only pursue them after they have attacked us.

The continuation of the status quo is unacceptable, and that means personnel changes and fresh thinking. No one person is indispensable in the fight against terrorists, and we need to ensure that the new faces in the administration help to rebuild support for the war. Hopefully, this new staff will do better at communicating the victories and successes we have achieved in our fight and the consequences of abandoning it. Even better, having more outside-the-box thinking can help realign policies and efforts to more directly support the overall goals of the administration and the legislative majority.

The Bush White House needed to acknowledge the public crisis in confidence in the administration. I see the Bolten mandate as a positive step towards reversing that.

Russia and China Protect Genocidists -- Again

A resolution which would have held Sudanese officials publicly and individually responsible for the ongoing genocide in Darfur got blocked by China and Russia at the United Nations yesterday, leading to a public escalation by Ambassador John Bolton. The so-called silence process would have approved sanctions against four Sudanese government officials without requiring a Security Council vote if the member nations had not objected to the resolution. When China objected and Russia supported the objection, Bolton decided to force the proposal into the open:

John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador, said Monday that he intended to offer a Security Council resolution on Tuesday that would publicly identify four Sudanese individuals responsible for atrocities in Darfur and possibly force a vote on whether the panel would impose sanctions on them. ...

He said he decided on the move after learning that China and Russia had objected to action against the four individuals. Their names were circulated among Council members last Thursday under a so-called silence procedure that would have applied the sanctions unless they met opposition.

On Monday, China said it opposed the sanctions, and Russia said it backed China's view. Wang Guangya, the Chinese ambassador, said that taking action now would complicate African Union-sponsored peace talks on the conflicted Darfur region under way in Abuja, Nigeria. "At this sensitive moment, to publish the list of names will have a negative effect on the negotiations there," he said.

The four — including a member of government, as well as fighters from pro- and anti-government militias — are charged with committing atrocities and undermining peace efforts in Darfur. The sanctions include travel bans and freezes on assets.

The sanctions proferred by the US would have avoided sanctioning the entire Sudanese government. Instead, the UN would have meted punishment individually, allowing the government itself to conduct the negotiations without the stigma it richly deserves in an effort to prod them into ending the genocide against Christians, animists, and non-Arab ethnics. China and Russia could not even bring themselves to offer even the mild consequences offered in this resolution to those who have caused and/or allowed genocide to occur in the African nation. Instead, as it did for Saddam Hussein throughout the twelve years of Turtle Bay quagmire, both nations have stood between genocidists and whatever measure of justice the world wishes to impose.

Bolton should be congratulated for his attempt to work quietly and modestly in his quest to hold these Sudanese officials responsible for the tragic and horrific events in Darfur. Now Bolton has made the right decision to escalate the issue into a full-scale political battle at the UNSC so that the world can recognize that China and Russia have yet to meet genocidists they won't defend. The US should force the two nations to use their veto to protect murderers and thugs yet again in order to demonstrate Turtle Bay's uselessness to their dwindling circle of supporters.

We castigated ourselves for not intervening in the Rwandan massacre before it turned into the horrid genocide that left hundreds of thousands dead. Now we find out that even had we wanted to get action in the UNSC, the genocide enablers would likely never have allowed any action at all. Perhaps someone can craft a rationale for the continued existence of the United Nations, but the pursuit of peace and justice can't possibly be one of the components for such an argument.

LA Times: Isolate Hamas

The Los Angeles Times editorial board can sometimes provide a pleasant surprise, and today it demonstrates this when reviewing the Bush administration's Palestinian policy in light of the latest suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. The LAT utterly rejects Hamas' attempt at moral equivalence and gives a strong endorsement of the isolation policy pushed by the US:

THE HORROR OF MONDAY'S SUICIDE bombing in Tel Aviv, which killed the bomber and nine other people and wounded scores more, presented Hamas with an opportunity to break from its history as a supporter of terrorism. Instead, a spokesman for Hamas, which formed a Palestinian parliamentary government last month, described the attack carried out by another group, Islamic Jihad, as an act of self-defense.

If there was any lingering doubt that the U.S. and Europe were right to ostracize the Hamas government and cut off economic aid, it has been dramatically dispelled. It remains part of the problem, not part of any Arab-Israeli solution.

That doesn't mean Israel should respond to the attack with self-defeating actions, such as a wholesale reoccupation of the Gaza Strip. It does mean that Israel has cause to crack down anew on Islamic Jihad and institute stronger security measures along the "Green Line" separating Israel and the West Bank — even if that means injuring and inconveniencing innocent Palestinians. As always, they are hostages to the extremists.

No one wants Israel to re-occupy Gaza, least of all Israel itself. They may have split on the withdrawal from the strip when Ariel Sharon proposed and then executed the plan, but the force needed to reoccupy Gaza and the destruction it would wreak can only be exceeded by the long-term costs of holding the ground afterwards. Their withdrawal from Gaza has given the world an excellent view of the kind of state the Palestinians will create when left to their own devices -- a gangland that resembles Somalia more than any other state, where warlords rule and the nonexistent central government remains powerless to protect itself or its people.

The Times also endorses the security barrier, although it issues the standard concern about the Palestinian innocents that will suffer as a result of the extremists. They neglect to mention that the Palestinians voted for the extremists, the very people who now celebrate the suicide bombing of that oh-so-threatening falafel stand as an act of "self-defense". The Hamas position reveals the triangle-offense strategy about which I wrote yesterday, where at least one of the three powers in the territories remains free to conduct these attacks while providing political cover for the other two as they cluck their tongues but do nothing to disarm the radicals in all three movements. In this case, Hamas can't even bring itself to cluck its tongue, and the Times notes that this bodes ill for the entire notion of the cease-fire that Hamas supposedly respects. This is the leadership that the Palestinian "innocents" selected, and they now will have to deal with the consequences of that choice.

Overall, though, the Times manages to get this one right. They even acknowledge the need for Israel to take action that will remind the Palestinians that targeting unarmed civilians for murder has its consequences, especially when the government endorses such attacks. The loss of access to Jerusalem sounds like a good starting point, and even the LA Times appears to agree.

Left Behind

The centerpiece of the Bush administration's domestic policy in the first term was the No Child Left Behind Act, which headlined a large-scale budget increase for the Department of Education and drew Ted Kennedy into a coalition with George Bush. The program aimed to ensure accountabilty from schools based on student performance and forced a testing regime that would uncover poorly-performing districts and target them for improvement or serious change. The AP reported last night that this system has been undermined by deliberate underreporting of tests taken by the very students it meant to protect:

States are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting the No Child Left Behind law's requirement that students of all races must show annual academic progress.

With the federal government's permission, schools deliberately aren't counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students when they report progress by racial groups, an Associated Press computer analysis found.

Minorities — who historically haven't fared as well as whites in testing — make up the vast majority of students whose scores are being excluded, AP found. And the numbers have been rising. ...

To calculate a nationwide estimate, AP analyzed the 2003-04 enrollment figures the government collected — the latest on record — and applied the current racial category exemptions the states use.

Overall, AP found that about 1.9 million students — or about 1 in every 14 test scores — aren't being counted under the law's racial categories. Minorities are seven times as likely to have their scores excluded as whites, the analysis showed.

The exemptions started from a concern that schools with very small numbers of students in minority categories would have problems when calculating the statistical failure rate for those groups. One failure in a group of five, for example, would give a school a 20% failure rate in a system that assigns the lowest category rating as the school's ultimate measurement. For those students, their test scores count in the general population but the schools are not required to report in the underrepresented categories.

This makes sense -- to a point. However, schools and states have taken advantage of this leeway, unofficially granted by the Department of Education, to eliminate reporting for a large number of students in order to save their schools from being held accountable for their poor performance. Oklahoma sets the threshold per school for minority reporting at 52 students per category, a ridiculously high number. One failing student in a group of fifty-two would not present an undue statistical anomaly, and it effectively keeps Oklahoma schools from reporting on almost all minority performance in education. Missouri set its threshold at thirty students per category. Most states have readjusted their category thresholds higher each year since the inception of the program.

What has been the result? Huge swaths of student tests never get reported in demographic categories, evading the entire intent of NCLB. Missouri gets to omit 24,000 students. Texas has no reporting statewide for Asians -- 65,000 of them -- or native Americans, leading to over a quarter-million students left off the rolls; neither does Arkansas. California has 400,000 students exempted from the demographic reporting process.

The schools and their administrators benefit from gaming the system in this manner. They avoid getting labeled as a failing school, even though the intent of Congress and the President clearly had the performance of minority students in mind when the system was passed and signed into law. Bush had made the "soft bigotry of low expectations" a rallying cry for accountability for these students, and the entire concept of not leaving any students behind supposedly focused on ensuring that minority students received the kind of education that would lift their socioeconomic potential.

The DoE needs to crack down on the self-assigned exemptions that states and school districts use as a dodge from accountability. We absorbed a huge expansion of the federal reach into education and a 57% increase in federal spending on the promise that schools would have to show better performance in all categories or face sanctions. When states can simply wipe hundreds of thousands of children off the books in this manner, accountability is the concept that gets left behind.

A Shortsighted Policy

The efforts by anti-war protestors at UC Santa Cruz to run military recruiters off campus, while successful, portends a dangerous trend for the Left. For a generation, universities around the country have kept the ROTC and recruiters off campus, ostensibly due to the ban on homosexuals serving in the military but more clearly due to an anti-military point of view. After the Supreme Court upheld the Solomon Amendment that gives the federal government the ability to cut off federal funding to colleges who block access to military recruiters, the students themselves have escalated the battle by driving them off campus through intimidation, as they did at the home of the Banana Slugs.

This represents a short-sighted policy by those on the Left, which comes as a piece from their reflexive dislike for all things military (the Left, as opposed to liberals). When they organize to force the military from their campuses, they deny access for their fellow students to the kind of opportunities that can eventually give them access to leadership roles in the armed services. Programs like the ROTC produce officers that often make the military their career, and while the Pentagon prefers academy graduates for promotion to the highest ranks, ROTC-trained officers have also risen to influential leadership positions. They certainly have had brilliant careers in the armed forces over the decades, and their contributions and influence have been remarkable.

The ROTC program allows for the widest possible sampling of the nation's best and brightest, ensuring that the officer corps reflects the nation as a whole, politically, ethnically, and geographically. However, the pressure from the most liberal universities to obstruct their students from entering the military has created an interesting dynamic: only the more conservative or moderate schools now contribute to the ROTC pool. The Solomon Amendment may have corrected that, but as the Banana Slugs have shown, the radicals will not allow it.

What kind of military leadership will this produce? We will have an increasingly conservative officer corps, one whose politics will not accurately reflect the nation's political spectrum. Even as a conservative, this worries me. The natural balance of viewpoints allow for the best decision-making. Moreover, it threatens to politicize the officer corps of the military in a manner which could eventually challenge civilian leadership, especially if a more liberal president gets elected. It sets up a potential conflict that could threaten the Constitution in a manner never seen before in the US. The open slots for officers will get filled, and if the Banana Slugs don't want to help fill them, then candidates will come from somewhere.

Chasing military recruiters off of the most liberal of campuses might give some kooks a thrill, but in the end it is self-defeating. It does not surprise me at all that these leftist radicals don't have the foresight to see this, but it does surprise me that the universities themselves fail to recognize it.

UPDATE: CQ reader Jack notes that this ROTC graduate had a pretty decent career:

George Catlett Marshall (December 31, 1880-October 16, 1959), America's foremost soldier during World War II, served as chief of staff from 1939 to 1945, building and directing the largest army in history. A diplomat, he acted as secretary of state from 1947 to 1949, formulating the «Marshall Plan», an unprecedented program of economic and military aid to foreign nations.

Marshall's father owned a prosperous coal business in Pennsylvania, but the boy, deciding to become a soldier, enrolled at the Virginia Military Institute from which he was graduated in 1901 as senior first captain of the Corps of Cadets.

Not that Marshall turned out to be influential ...

The Fever Swamp Strikes Again!

Michelle Malkin linked to a thuggish effort on the campus of UC Santa Cruz to push military recruiters off campus through physical intimidation last week. Their attempt worked, but now the organizers of this effort have cried foul over Michelle's decision to post their contact information from their own press release on her blog. As usual, the idiots who cannot read a press release blame Michelle for revealing their private numbers and have started the usual racist and sexist insults and threats against her. (None of them are terribly original, and some of them hurl epithets referencing Chinese ethnicity, apparently believing all Asians must be alike.)

Even better, leading MS-NBC nutcase Keith Olbermann picked the day when a suicide bomber killed nine people at a falafel stand to choose Michelle as his World's Worst Person of the Day -- for reprinting the information organizers proudly publicized themselves. Even the Daily Kos crowd figured that much out.

The Washington Post appears to have merely scratched the surface ...

UPDATE: For those who want to excoriate Michelle for taking advantage of those poor inexperienced college students, I hope they save some of their vitriol for the "wingnuts" at Indymedia, Indymedia again, Infoshop News, and the Oread Daily. All of these posted the same information to the same Internet as did Michelle Malkin, and they did it for the same reason those poor benighted students did -- to encourage more protofascists to physically intimidate those military recruiters with enough chutzpah to offer a career choice to college students.

UPDATE: Michelle posts that none of the three whose names and contact numbers were in the press release has e-mailed any request to her to remove the information from her website (in an update to her post, linked above). So much for "asking her politely". And the info is still up on the websites linked above.

Hamas: Blowing Up Civilians Eating Falafel Is Self-Defense

The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority underscored the nature of their regime when they praised the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, calling the murder of at least nine civilians and the maiming of dozens "self defense":

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas -- whose Fatah Party was ousted in January parliamentary elections -- condemned the Tel Aviv terrorist attack. But Hamas -- the group that came to power -- called the bombing justified. ...

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the Palestinian people "are in a state of self-defense."

"We assure our Palestinian people of the right to defend themselves, and this operation is surely a natural reaction to the continued Zionist crimes carried out against our Palestinian people," said Zuhri.

Mahmoud Abbas rejected the argument and condemned the bombing, but the Palestinians under Fatah management never lifted a finger to disarm the terrorist groups or to stop suicide bombers from targeting Israeli civilians. They issued meaningless promises to increase security, but the only effort that has had any effect at all on suicide attack has come from Israel's construction of their security barrier. Hamas has the dubious distinction of avoiding hypocrisy in their celebration of this abhorrent crime.

The IDF assumes at this point that the bomber came through the unfinished portions around Jerusalem. People expect the Olmert government to attack the PA in response to this bombing, but they might just accelerate the barrier construction around Jerusalem as an answer. In fact, one possibility for Israeli retaliation may be to encraoch further on the territory claimed by the Palestinians, especially around Jerusalem. The annexation of this disputed territory would signal that Israel has dismissed Palestinian promises and will commence to imposing its solution on the West Bank for good. After all, if the elected representatives of the PA continue to endorse suicide bombing, then negotiations have no rational basis at all.

Here are a few of the people that Hamas feels constitute a threat that required "self defense":

Interestingly, and despicably, the Yahoo! News photo slideshow has more than a dozen pictures of the suicide bomber and his family ahead of any of the victims. I gave up on the slideshow at picture 28 after at least half of them were of the dead terrorist or dead-terrorist wannabes signing up for jihad operations, presumably against more of those menacing falafel stands and pizzerias.

See Michelle Malkin for even more pictures of the threatening civilians that dare to eat fast food in Tel Aviv and in so doing create an existential threat to those manly Palestinians ....

Moving The 'Special Ammunition' To Baghdad

Joseph Shahda has dedicated himself to the arduous task of reviewing the documents captured in Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom and left untranslated by the US military. Joseph has posted these translations at Free Republic and his translations have been confirmed as accurate by independent translators abroad. Today, Joseph posted a translation of military orders commanding the transfer of "special ammunition" from Najaf to Baghdad in the week before the American invasion of Iraq:

Document ISGP-2003-0001498 ISGP-2003-0001498 contains a 9 pages TOP SECRET memo (pages 87-96 in the pdf document) dated March 16 2003 that talks about transferring “SPECIAL AMMUNITION” from one ammunition depot in Najaf to other ammunition depots near Baghdad. As we know by now the term SPECIAL AMMUNITION was used by Saddam Regime to designate CHEMICAL WEAPONS as another translated document has already shown. For example in document CMPC 2004-002219 where Saddam regime decided to use “CHEMICAL WEAPONS against the Kurds” they used the term “SPECIAL AMMUNITION” for chemical weapon http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1601810/posts. What is also interesting is that these “SPECIAL AMMUNITION” were listed as 122 mm, 130 mm, and 155 mm caliber shells which are not by itself SPECIAL unless it contain CHEMICAL WEAPONS. In fact the Iraqi have always used 122 mm, 130 mm, and 155 mm caliber shell as a main delivery tool for Chemical Weapons Agents by filling these type of shells with Nerve Gas, Sarin, Racin, Mustard gas and other Chemical Agents.

Beginning of partial translation of Pages 85-96 in document ISGP-2003-0001498

In the Name of God the Merciful The Compassionate

Top Secret

Ministry Of Defense

Chairmanship of the Army Staff

Al Mira Department

No. 4/17/ammunition/249

Date 16 March 2003

To: The Command of the Western Region

Subject: Transfer of Ammunitions

The secret and immediate letter of the Chairmanship of the Army Staff 4/17/308 on 10 March 2003

1. The approval of the Army Chief of Staff was obtained to transfer THE SPECIAL AMMUNITIONS in the ammunition depots group of Najaf and according to the following priorities:

A. The first priority

First. Ammunition (122 mm)

Second. Ammunition (130 mm)

Third. Ammunition (155 mm)

To the depots and storage of the Second Corp and the two ammunition depot groups Dijla/2/3

B. Second priority.

First. Ammunition (23 mm)

Second. Ammunition (14.5 mm)

To the ammunition depots of the air defense and distributed to the ammunition depot groups in (Al Mussayeb- Al Sobra- Saad).

2. To execute the order of the Chief Army Staff indicated in section (1) above, we relate the following:

A. Duty

Transfer of the ammunitions shown in sections (A) and (B) from the ammunitions depots of Najaf to the ammunition depots in (Dijla 2/3, and Al Mansor, and Saad, and Al Mussayeb, and Sobra and Blad Roz and Amar Weys from March 16 till April 14 2003.

Signature…

General Rasheed Abdallah Sultan

Assistant to the Army Chief of Staff- Al Mira

March 2003

End of Partial translation

The remaining pages of this 9 pages top secret memo talk about getting the special vehicles to transfer the SPECIAL AMMUNITION and the people assigned to supervise and execute the transfer and they were top Iraqi Army and Military Intelligence officers.

As Joseph explained, the designation "special" usually meant prohibited materiel -- the chemical and biological weapons that Saddam insisted the Iraqis did not possess. This shows that not only did Saddam believe these weapons to be in his possession, but also that his subordinates also believed it. This conflicts with the oft-argued notion that Saddam's underlings only told him what he wanted to hear, afraid to tell him that the weapons were nothing more than vaporware. In the midst of preparing the Iraqi Army to fight the Americans they knew would be coming, General Sultan tasked valuable resources to move munitions of some "special" type closer to the capital, where the Iraqis expected to make their stand against the invading forces.

The timing should alert people to the nature of the revelation. This isn't a document from 2002 or 2001, when George Bush had not yet committed to action in Iraq. The author of this memo didn't copy Saddam Hussein or his inner circle to extend some elaborate illusion. Instead, this order came from the Army chief of staff to the Western Command -- the opposite direction one would assume if it would serve as a deception to Iraqi leadership -- and diverted badly-needed resources just days before the invasion that US and UN diplomacy had telegraphed.

What could be more important than manning defenses and establishing attack zones? And why would Iraq need to transfer conventional ammunition to Baghdad, where procurement assumably would be centered? Normally, one would expect a nation about to be invaded to send munitions to the outer defenses, not strip them to recall munitions away from the perimeter. This would be akin to the Germans removing the ammunition from the French coastline the week before D-Day in order to send it to Paris or Berlin.

These strange orders underscore the "special" nature of the ammunition in question. It also shows that the supposed deception of Saddam Hussein doesn't account for all of the references to WMD in the Iraqi record. These orders specifically names depots where the materiel had been stored and the type of ordnance which it comprised.

We are getting a much better picture of prewar Iraqi involvement in WMD and terrorism from these documents, and all of it contradicts the conventional wisdom that the media has fed us since Baghdad fell. See Power Line for even more thoughts on this memo.

The Company I Kept

When The Week Magazine honored me two weeks ago, I had no idea that the two other honorees from that evening were just warming up. The Pulitzer committee has awarded their prestigious Pulitzer Prize to Nick Kristof for his series of reports from Darfur and to Mike Luckovich for his editorial cartoons.

I had the opportunity to speak to both the evening of the awards dinner. Nick Kristof and I shared a ride from the hotel to the dinner, and he spoke at length about his experiences in Darfur and his prognosis of the conflict. It was an enlightening ride, but far too short; I would have been happy to have been stuck in traffic for a while longer. Mike and I spoke after the affair, when I had an opportunity to tell him how much I have enjoyed his work over the years. Mike and his wife are charming people, and they may have reason to scout out Minnesota in the near future. Hopefully they'll give me a chance to show them around the city and spend a few more hours with them.

Congratulations to both for their fine work and the deserved recognition.

Another Example Of The Triangle Offense

Tel Aviv got hit by a suicide bomber this morning, an attack claimed by Islamic Jihad that killed at least six people in a fast-food restaurant. The terrorist group that had sent rockets into Israel from Gaza pledged a "non-stop" offensive against Israelis in the latest example of the Hamas-Fatah-IJ triangle strategy:

A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up near a fast-food restaurant in a bustling commercial area of Tel Aviv during the Passover holiday Monday, killing six people and wounding at least 35. ...

The Islamic Jihad militant group claimed responsibility in a telephone call to The Associated Press. The attack came a day after the group had pledged to carry out more attacks.

Hamas and other militant groups have been observing a ceasefire with Israel for more than a year, though the new Hamas-led Palestinian leadership has refused to condemn attacks against Israelis. Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for all six of the previous suicide attacks inside Israel since the ceasefire was declared.

The bomber struck a falafel restaurant targeted in an attack on Jan. 19. In that attack, 20 people were wounded. The restaurant is in the bustling Neve Shaanan neighborhood near Tel Aviv's central bus station, which was crowded with holiday travelers.

The Palestinian Authority has done nothing to disarm or restrain terrorists in their areas, regardless of who ran the autonomous government. Fatah promised to do so in negotiations but refused to disarm terrorists later. Hamas will not even consider doing so. Instead, they both point to the cease-fire their organizations have supposedly observed while doing nothing about the continuous attacks from Islamic Jihad.

As I have written before, this triangle offense allows the supposedly moderate Fatah and the political Hamas to deny any responsibility for attacks while the radical IJ carries them out. Later, if Hamas falls from power, IJ may claim to honor a cease-fire while Hamas attacks Israel, and so on. This strategy gives at least one and usually two factions deniability that is transparent to everyone except European diplomats, Russian autocrats, and the Middle Eastern kleptocrats that just pledged millions of dollars to keep the Palestinians in business against the Israelis:

Iran said Sunday it would give the Palestinian Authority $50 million in aid, moving in for the first time with money after the United States and Europe cut off funding to the Hamas-led government. ...

Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called for other Islamic nations to give money as he met with Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal.

"Muslim governments and nations should provide comprehensive support to the Palestinian government to liberate Jerusalem," Ahmadinejad said.

The Palestinians will never disarm under their present political structure. They have proven over and over again to have Israel's annihilation as their national goal. The only hope that the world has in ending this conflict is either to allow Israel to complete its withdrawal and border wall to seal off the Palestinians altogether, or to allow both sides to fight an open war with the entire area as a winner-take-all. The Palestinians have voted for this approach twice. They will not change until they understand that they still have something to lose in the process. Until the impulse for peace and rational co-existence comes into being in the West Bank and Gaza, we have to acknowledge the reality that the Palestinians do not want either.

The Immigration Backlash

The massive demonstrations of the past few weeks of illegal immigrants and their supporters waving Mexican flags and supporting "la Raza" may have inspired some politicians, like Ted Kennedy, to maneuver themselves to the forefront of the movement for amnesty, attempting to pander to the show of force that the protestors intended. However, it appears from electoral polling that the same demonstrations have propelled hard-line border-security politicians to greater popularity as the protests and their demands for benefits repelled a large segment of the existing electorate:

As lawmakers set aside the debate on immigration legislation for their spring recess, the protests by millions around the nation have escalated the policy debate into a much broader battle over the status of the country's 11 million illegal immigrants. While the marches have galvanized Hispanic voters, they have also energized those who support a crackdown on illegal immigration.

"The size and magnitude of the demonstrations had some kind of backfire effect," said John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who said he was working for 26 House members and seven senators seeking re-election. "The Republicans that are tough on immigration are doing well right now."

The organizers of these demonstrations have learned a lesson from the first days of the organized protest. In the initial demonstrations, protestors hauled the Mexican flag over the American flag and carried signs with slogans associated with the reconquista movement, such as "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us!" The rhetoric and the signage of the first days reflected a direct challenge to American sovereignty, scolding the US for even forcing them to emigrate to an area that had been Mexican -- about six generations before any of them were born.

Since then, protestors have been instructed to carry only American flags and tone down the allusions to Aztlan, the Mecha/La Raza goal of an independent Latino nation in what is currently the American southwest. That has not fooled many of those who watch these rallies, in which people who broke the law entering the country demand to get special processing for residency and citizenship ahead of others who obeyed the law and have waited patiently for their opportunity. When politicians such as Kennedy stand in front of these crowds and demand their normalization, the people who followed the law wonder why they will have to wait even longer while border-jumpers get preferential treatment.

That is what causes the backlash -- the fundamental unfairness of the demands coming from these protestors and the politicians pandering to them. Americans feel that their laws should be obeyed and those who break them should be held accountable. Having parades of lawbreakers marching down the street demanding that they in essence benefit from their lawbreaking sticks in the craws of many Americans, even those who might otherwise be sympathetic to guest-worker programs. It has polarized the debate, and now more people offer all-or-nothing solutions.

The only strategy for dealing with this problem is to lower the temperature of the debate. The bottom line for American hard-liners is border security. If Congress could pass a tough border-security program that includes building an effective wall on the southern border and funding to enforce it, the main need of the anti-illegal coalition will have been met. Once that is accomplished, the temper of the issue can return to normal and we can have a rational debate on what to do with the 12 million illegals presently in the country. We can reach a broad consensus on a fair program for those who came to work if we can be assured that we will not have the same problem in another twenty years, only this time with 50 million illegals.

Americans want fairness for all sides on this issue. We have tried the amnesty approach and in a generation saw the problem quadruple as a result. Fairness dictates that border security comes first this time, and afterwards the solution for the people who remain inside strengthened borders.

It's Not Going To Be Ten Years

After running an oft-cited article last week that claimed Iran was ten years away from a nuclear weapon, the New York Times shifts course this morning and reports that the Islamic Republic has a few shortcuts up its sleeve. William Broad and David Sanger explain how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intends to shave significant time off of their development cycle:

Of all the claims that Iran made last week about its nuclear program, a one-sentence assertion by its president has provoked such surprise and concern among international nuclear inspectors they are planning to confront Tehran about it this week.

The assertion involves Iran's claim that even while it begins to enrich small amounts of uranium, it is pursuing a far more sophisticated way of making atomic fuel that American officials and inspectors say could speed Iran's path to developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran has consistently maintained that it abandoned work on this advanced technology, called the P-2 centrifuge, three years ago. Western analysts long suspected that Iran had a second, secret program — based on the black market offerings of the renegade Pakistani nuclear engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan — separate from the activity at its main nuclear facility at Natanz. But they had no proof.

Then on Thursday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Tehran was "presently conducting research" on the P-2 centrifuge, boasting that it would quadruple Iran's enrichment powers. The centrifuges are tall, thin machines that spin very fast to enrich, or concentrate, uranium's rare component, uranium 235, which can fuel nuclear reactors or atom bombs. ...

"This is a much better machine," a European diplomat said of the advanced centrifuge, which was a centerpiece of Pakistan's efforts to build its nuclear weapons and was found in 2004 in Libya, when that country gave up its nuclear program. The diplomat added that the Iranians, among other questions, will now have to explain whether Mr. Ahmadinejad was right, and if so, whether they recently restarted the abandoned program or have been pursuing it in secret for years.

If Iran moved beyond research and actually began running the machines, it could force American intelligence agencies to revise their estimates of how long it would take for Iran to build an atom bomb — an event they now put somewhere between 2010 and 2015.

The P-2 has the capability of enriching uranium exponentially faster than the P-1 centrifuges that Iran acquired from the Khan network in the 1990s. Prior to this, Iran had only been thought to have the first-generation centrifuge, which accounted for the long estimates of Iran's development cycle. Now, however, Pakistan believes that Khan may have worked with Iran on actual development of the P-2 rather than just giving them the plans, as Iran claimed two years ago. Khan was arrested just before attempting to travel to Iran in 2001 on a secret mission that he has still left unclarified with Pakistani officials, and the Pakistanis have re-opened the investigation into his dealings with Teheran.

When Libya surrendered its nuclear program in 2004, Gaddafi's program had P-2 centrifuges from Khan, as did North Korea. Khan's lieutenant, B.S.A. Tahir, has told investigators from prison that the Iranians got much more P-2 technology than Teheran has admitted. Khan also sold Libya a complete Chinese nuclear bomb, and admitted to supplying Iran with instructions on how to make a perfect uranium sphere. The Iranians will not comment on whether those plans came along with a working model as they did with the Libyans. The Iranians deny receiving actual P-2 centrifuges from Khan, but it would appear that they would have been Khan's only clients to have struck out on that score. And, as Condoleezza Rice reminds us, Khan did not sell technology for nuclear reactors and the peaceful generation of civilian energy.

All of this points toward a faster development cycle for Iran than anyone has predicted. If they develop a P-2 centrifuge cascade and have plans and a working model on which to build a design, the Iranians only need the fissile material itself in order to produce nuclear weapons. Their existing cascade has been assumed to be P-1 technology, but the Iranians have busied themselves with secret work at Ishfahan and Natanz to fortify and expand both facilities while refusing to answer IAEA questions about their work on the P-2.

If the Iranians have the P-2 technology, they can create fissile material much faster and in greater quantities than has been reported previously. When they have enough, they will move directly into weapons production, and that will not be in 2015. That could well be next year.

Easter With The Family

No, that doesn't mean that I spent Easter with The Sopranos and Big Love. Okay, well, I did do that, but most of the day I spent with the Little Admiral and the extended family we received with our wonderful daughter-in-law. In fact, Sean from Everything I Know Is Wrong and his wife Karen hosted the family celebration as they often do at Easter, and we had a grand time with a delicious dinner and an egg hunt that amused everyone.

Here's the Little Admiral in her new Easter dress:

Her aunt also celebrated her birthday, and the combined events gave me a new excuse to haul out the new Fuji FinePix S5200 digital camera that I bought to replace the Canon A70 I lost in South Bend. This has better resolution than the Canon (5.1 Mp vs 3.2 Mp), and the feel more closely resembles a camera rather than the flat-box design of the A70. I haven't done enough with this camera to really learn its functions yet, but the snapshot procedures are pretty similar to the A70. I'm hoping to play around more with it later at the Little Admiral's birthday, if not before for some blogging events coming up in the near future.

A Postponed Eulogy And Misplaced Blame

George Will writes a powerful eulogy to the Republican claim on protection for Constitutional originalism in today's Washington Post. Unfortunately, he writes it about four years too late and on the wrong effort and applies it to a too-narrow group -- but at least he's fighting the right fight:

If in November Republicans lose control of the House of Representatives, April 5 should be remembered as the day they demonstrated that they earned defeat. Traducing the Constitution and disgracing conservatism, they used their power for their only remaining purpose -- to cling to power. Their vote to restrict freedom of speech came just as the GOP's conservative base is coming to the conclusion that House Republicans are not worth working for in October or venturing out to vote for in November.

The "problem" Republicans addressed is that in 2004 Democrats were more successful than Republicans in using so-called 527 organizations -- advocacy groups named after the tax code provision governing them. In 2002 Congress passed the McCain-Feingold legislation banning large "soft money" contributions for parties -- money for issue-advocacy and organizational activities, not for candidates. In 2004, to the surprise of no sensible person and most McCain-Feingold supporters, much of the money -- especially huge contributions from rich liberals -- was diverted to 527s. So on April 5, House Republicans, easily jettisoning what little remains of their ballast of belief in freedom and limited government, voted to severely limit the amounts that can be given to 527s. ...

McCain-Feingold restrictions on the amount, timing and content of political speech were ratified by the Supreme Court, which embraces this perverse idea: Because elected officials are experts about politics, they deserve vast deference when they write rules governing speech about, and campaigns against, elected officials. When the court gave its imprimatur to McCain-Feingold's premise -- that big government should have big power to regulate speech about itself -- it guaranteed that what happened April 5 will happen incessantly: The First Amendment is now permanently in play, its protections to be truncated whenever congressional majorities envision short-term partisan advantages.

The Post, exemplifying the media's hostility to speech rights other than their own, eagerly anticipates the next fiddling. As it crouches behind its media exemption from the restrictions it favors for rival sources of political speech, The Post eggs on the speech regulators and hopes for "future legislation" if money diverted from 527s flows, as surely it will, into other political uses. And so the regulatory regime metastasizes, nibbling away at what McCain-Feingold enthusiasts evidently consider the ultimate "loophole" -- the First Amendment.

Will puts the blame on Republicans for attempting to fix a broken system so that it works less badly, and does so unfairly. After the BCRA slapped restrictions on speech and extended our Byzantine system of classifying money in manners that only lawyers could love, Congress left open a large loophole through which cash could pour into supposedly independent organizations with no accountability whatsoever. The legislation had literally handcuffed the candidates and the political parties, who have direct accountability to the voters, and licensed all sorts of mischief for individuals and organizations that never stand for election. In the insane world of the BCRA, or even in a sane world, this loophole had to be plugged, and the latest Congressional effort did that ... at least for this loophole.

However, the main thrust of Will's piece certainly makes sense. Congress would not have had to address 527s at all if it had not egregiously restricted free speech in the first place when it passed the BCRA. In fact, 527s wouldn't even exist if we hadn't passed all sorts of silly categorizations for cash in an attempt to separate political activity from its funding. All the BCRA and the three decades of legislation that came before it have done is to criminalize speech and politics while removing responsible campaigning from elections.

John McCain's infliction of his strained morality has pushed the responsibility for messages and advertisements away from the candidates by cutting off their financing while allowing unfettered contributions to supposedly uncoordinated tax-exempt organizations. People like George Soros and Richard Mellon Scaife can dump millions of dollars into these groups, which then can turn out the most vile and despicable allegations and advertisements -- and none of it (until April 5th) came under campaign-finance control. All this Congress did in restricting 527s is to say that these front groups should be treated like political parties.

The real issue isn't the restrictions placed on the 527 artifacts of the horrendous BCRA. It's the BCRA itself. This Congress and the GOP haven't forfeited their claim to oppose big government because of the increased regulation on 527s; they gave up that claim in the budgeting process over the past three years. The GOP didn't support the BCRA; most of the 40 votes that opposed it when it passed the Senate on March 20, 2002 came from Republicans. In fact, only eleven Republicans voted for the bill:

Chafee
Cochran
Collins
Domenici
Fitzgerald
Lugar
McCain
Snowe
Specter
Thompson
Warner

Only two Democrats voted against it, John Breaux of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. The House voted similarly, with 176 Republicans voting against the BCRA and only 41 supporting it. Democrats, on the other hand, voted to enact the worst First Amendment restrictions since World War I by an overwhelming 198-12 vote.

Let's focus on the real threat to free political speech instead of those rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The Democrats gave us this monstrosity, and all the Republicans did was to attempt to make its application more consistent, which probably was a waste of time -- but not the major infringement on speech that Will claims. That came four years ago, and it didn't come courtesy of the Republicans that Will unfortunately targets for his misdirected ire.

Factionalism Undermining Iranian Government

The London Telegraph notes the unrest among Iranian minority groups and the tactics that the hard-line Teheran government have taken to address it. James Brandon and Colin Freeman report that the messianic Ahmadinejad approach has further alienated the diverse populace of Iran, and the decades-old imposition of shari'a has resulted in a growing rebellion that could undermine the mullahcracy:

"The Iranian government's plan to create a global Islamic state is destroying our people's culture and -values," said Akif Zagros, 28, a Persian literature graduate who serves on Pejak's seven-strong ruling council. "But we want all nations to be democratic, to live together and learn from each other." Pejak, the Party for Freedom and Life in Kurdistan, is fast becoming a threat to Teheran. The group, founded in 1998, claims to have hundreds of thousands of followers among Iran's estimated four million Kurds, and has been denounced as a terrorist organisation by Teheran for carrying out attacks within the borders of the Islamic republic.

The Iranian regime has also accused the group of receiving American funding, a claim dismissed by the US. Pejak is believed to be linked to Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK), which has been branded a terrorist organisation by Washington and the European Union. That would make funding illegal.

But according to reports last week, America is courting opposition movements among the numerous ethnic minority groups concentrated in Iran's border regions, many of which claim their languages and culture have been -systematically repressed by Teheran. ...

The grievances of Iran's ethnic minorities are said to have deepened since the ultra-conservative Mr Ahmadinejad won power from Iran's more Western-leaning, reformist government in last June's elections. While his predecessors were more open to granting minority rights, he has re-imposed stronger central controls in line with strict Islamic laws.

As well as the Kurds, Iran's minorities include Azeris, whose homeland of Azerbaijan lies to the north-west, ethnic Baluchis, who straddle the east of Iran and Pakistan's Baluchistan region, and Ah-wazi Arabs, who inhabit the south-west corner, near Iraq.

Iran, almost alone among nations in the Middle East, did not come into creation by the hand of European diplomats at the end of World War I. The Persian nation has existed for thousands of years within roughly the same borders it currently enjoys. Where Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the emirates in Southwest Asia sprang into existence as distinct nations for the first time when the Ottoman Empire collapsed, Iran has always had its own culture and national identity. However, it does share the common issue of minority conflict because of the nomadic nature of the various ethnic groups in the region, and not all of them share the same zealous application of Islam in their lives.

In fact, Pejak supports the secular, Western model of democratic government. Their ranks include women, who receive the same responsibilities and compensation as the men, although neither receive much compensation at all. The entire operation runs on a shoestring; because of their association with the PKK and the West's alliance with PKK enemy Turkey, they have no access to formal Western funding. The Kurdish resistance has had some effect; they recently attacked an Iranian military base and killed 24 soldiers, which in Iraq would qualify as civil war for some media commentators. It's not a civil war yet, and Pejak doesn't necessarily want one; they want a transition to secular democracy, regardless of how it comes about.

The Kurds are only one of several minorities that feel oppressed by the dogmatic and reactionary Ahmadinjad regime, along with plenty of ethnic Iranians who do not want to live under shari'a. If these groups could form a united effort, they could distract Iran from its sabre-rattling and nuclear extortion abroad. We have to find a way to work with those who want to see the end of the mullahcracy and its replacement with true democracy.

Palestinian Choices Bring Tough Consequences

The Gaza Palestinians have begun to experience the consequences of electing terrorists to govern their territories, as the Guardian (UK) reports this morning. Hamas has refused to renounce violence, recognize Israel, or agree to abide by previous agreements, and so the Western nations on which the Palestinians rely for economic aid have responded by cutting off the money that pays their bills, including salaries. This has caused the Palestinians to grumble about their new leadership and to openly defy the government Hamas leads:

Karni is officially closed because the Israeli army has declared a security alert for the Jewish Passover holiday. Yet it has barely been open this year. The effect is a paralysis of Gaza's commerce and severe shortages of basic foods. Not that the locals are in a position to buy what food there is. There is little money because the European Union, Canada and the United States have stopped funding the aid-dependent Palestinian Authority, which can no longer pay its staff's wages.

The result is that families are existing on tiny amounts of money and businesses are facing collapse. Palestinian areas in the West Bank face similar difficulties, but the situation in Gaza is much more severe. John Ging, the Gaza director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, said that, while he did not expect people to starve, 'the clock is ticking towards a crisis'.

To add further misery, in retaliation for militants firing home-made Qassam rockets at Israel, the Israel Defence Force has bombarded the north of Gaza with thousands of artillery shells. Gazans fear external pressures will lead to domestic unrest in which the situation is used as a weapon against Hamas by supporters of Fatah who have not accepted January's electoral defeat. ...

At the root of Gaza's problems is Israel's determination to force Hamas to recognise the state of Israel and renounce violence. Israel has been joined in its efforts by Britain, the EU and the US. Hamas militants have been on a ceasefire for 16 months but they are determined to withhold recognition of Israel at least until it withdraws from occupied Palestinian territory.

That last paragraph is a bit of a dodge by the Guardian. The root of the problem lies in the Islamist terrorist group the Palestinians elected to replace the supposedly reformed secular terrorists of the PLO. Islamist Hamas has never renounced terror operations nor its charter mission of annihilating Israel. The Palestinians never adhered to the series of agreements that started with Oslo and gave them their autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza, but at least they recognized them as a framework for further negotiations. Hamas won't even do that, insisting that everything preceding their election no longer applied.

Well, if that is true, then that also applies to the money we stuffed in Palestinian pockets for supposedly engaging the Israelis. The cash has kept Palestinian kleptocrats afloat for years; a significant chunk of it wound up in Arafat's pockets, and since then funded other more petty corruptions. Hamas certainly looked forward to getting their hands on that money, and for reasons other than corruption.

We made it clear over the years that we would not deal with Islamist terrorists who refused to disarm, reform, and join the peace process. The Palestinians didn't listen or didn't care and elected them anyway. Now they want to be sheltered from the consequences of their choices, as the Guardian quotes one such voter:

Ahab is quick to blame Hamas for the current predicament. 'Hamas used to give out charity coupons, but now they have to give out wages and they find out it is not so easy,' he said. Adib, like many non-Hamas supporters, also blames the West. 'They ask for democracy and then they do not like the result,' he said.

Au contraire! You, sir, wanted freedom but do not like the responsibility that comes with it. The Palestinians have the freedom to choose their leadership, and if the two existing parties did not represent their political will, they could form another that does. The fact that Palestinians have only two political choices, one of which are Islamist terrorists and the other secular terrorists and thieves, reflects the Palestinian desire for continued conflict instead of negotiated peace. As long as the Palestinians continue to choose these kind of leaders, they can expect the West to wash their hands of Gaza and the West Bank.

That much, it appears, has finally been made clear to the Palestinians. Even the promise of Russian aid won't save them from their own infliction of economic disaster that comes from biting the hands that fed them.

Will We Trade Pollard For A Terrorist's Release?

The Jerusalem Post reports that the Israel will open negotiations with with the US to release convicted spy Jonathan Pollard in exchange for the release of convicted Palestinian terrorist and Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti:

Officials in Jerusalem claimed on Saturday that the US would free imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in exchange for Israel releasing jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti.

According to Army Radio, Israel is set to offer the proposed prisoner swap deal in the next few months, following the unfolding anarchy in the Palestinian Authority. Seemingly, Israel intends to use Barghouti's release to strengthen the Fatah movement against the background of the much criticized rule of the new Hamas-led Palestinian government.

In 2004 Israel suggested a similar move but the initiative was rejected by the US government. Jerusalem officials predict that on this occasion the White House will accept the proposal.

This may be one of the dumber proposals regarding the Israelis in recent memory. Jonathan Pollard stole highly classified intelligence on threat analysis, some of the most sensitive information available. He richly deserved his sentence regardless of the cause for which he stole the information. The ongoing Israeli efforts to bargain for his release are nothing more than an occasional embarrassment for both sides.

If the Israelis think that we want to see another Fatah terrorist released that badly, I suspect that George Bush will make that misapprehension understood quickly and unequivocally. Bill Clinton at one time considered issuing a presidential pardon or at least deporting Pollard to Israel, but a near-mutiny in the intel community finally dissuaded him from doing so. (Seymour Hersch reported on that and the background of the Pollard case in 1999, now posted at Free Republic.) Bush is not likely to desire a reputation for being less protective about intel and classified information than Bill Clinton, especially with the recent headlines on the Libby case.

Besides, if the Israelis want to release Barghouti, why don't they just let him go? They don't need Pollard to act in their own best interests with the Palestinians, if they really believe that such a release qualifies as such. They need Pollard because they know the Israeli electorate will erupt with anger if the Ohlmert government lets Barghouti walk after leading the intifadas that killed so many Israelis. Ohlmert's career might not survive such a move, and so he wants to claim that Barghouti's release is the only way the Americans would release Pollard.

Nice try, friends, but we're not interested, or at least we shouldn't be.

He Is Risen

From the Gospel according to John, chapter 20 (NIV):

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"

So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"

"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

Jesus said to her, "Mary."

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"

But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may[a] believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Happy Easter and a blessed day to all of my friends here at CQ.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a lovely Easter post and a good roundup. And I forgot to also wish my Jewish friends a happy Passover.