Podcast With Norm Coleman

I've podcasted the interview Mitch and I conducted with Senator Norm Coleman about his opposition to the Bush administration's surge strategy. As always, Senator Coleman made his point with eloquence and careful thought -- but I'm still in disagreement with him. Listen to both portions and decide for yourself, but be sure to read his speech and more of what went into his decision at his website.

Coleman Interview - Part I

Coleman Interview - Part II

Coleman Opposes The Surge

Senator Norm Coleman, one of our friends at the Northern Alliance, gave a speech in the Senate that announced his opposition to the Bush administration's plans for a troop surge in Baghdad and Anbar. As with most of Coleman's speeches, it is a must read -- nuanced and effective, even if people disagree with his conclusions.

Coleman insists that he supports the war on terror, and agrees with the White House about the growing use of the insurgencies by Iran as proxies in a war against the United States. However, he believes that the sectarian strife is ultimately a political problem and cannot be solved through military action:

It is for this reason that I oppose the proposal for a troop surge in Baghdad, where the violence can only be defined as sectarian. A troop surge proposal basically ignores the conditions on the ground, both as I saw on my most recent trip, and in reports I've been receiving regularly since my return. My consultations with both military and Iraqi political leaders confirm that an increase of troops in areas plagued by sectarian violence will not solve the problem of sectarian hatred.

A troop surge in Baghdad would put more American troops at risk to address a problem that is not a military problem. It will put more American soldiers in the cross hairs of sectarian violence, create more targets. I just don't believe that makes sense, Mr. President. Again, I oppose the troop surge in Baghdad because I don't believe it is a path to victory or a strategy to victory in Iraq. I recognize that there are those who think otherwise. The Iraqi Study Group and their report said that we could however support a short term redeployment, or a surge in American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, speed up training and equipment mission if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective. I sat with the President, with Democratic colleagues and Republican colleagues; I know that he has weighed this heavily. I know he has looked at this issue for a long time and apparently will come to a conclusion that in fact a troop surge would be helpful. I believe that his comments will contain, will hopefully contain, discussions about benchmarks containing commitments to do those things to rebuild an economy, to grow jobs, that we get rid of some of the underlying causes, the frustration that feeds an insurgency. But the bottom line again at this point in time, it is sectarian violence that I believe is the major issue we face, and more troops in Baghdad is not going to solve that problem Mr. President.

As one of the final conclusions to share from my experience in Iraq, I would also like to emphasize the significant role of Iran in fomenting instability. Across the board, my meetings with Iraqi officials revealed that the Iranians are driving instability in Iraq by all means at their disposal. In a hearing today in Foreign Relations Committee, one of the speakers, one of the experts said maybe and probably clearly Iranians have a stake in American failure in Iraq and instability in the region, and they feed that. There are credible reports that Iran has supplied money and weapons to both its traditional Shiite allies and its historic Sunni rivals -- all for the purpose of ensuring a daily death toll of Iraq citizens. Clearly the Iranians have concluded that chaos in Iraq is in their direct interest. Iran's role thus far, not to mention its pursuit of nuclear weapons, makes it hard to believe they might suddenly become a constructive partner in the stabilization of Iraq.

If that is true, however, then it makes it even more incumbent for us to kneecap the Iranian proxies in the near term so that a political solution can be found. While the Iraqis will have to determine a method to settle their sectarian differences, they need the breathing space to start to build the necessary relationships between the sects to do so. That cannot happen while the Shi'ite and Sunni insurgents enjoy a power imbalance in their favor over the Iraqi government, and it cannot happen while Iran fuels both sides in order to destroy the center.

The troop surge cannot "solve" the sectarian violence, but it can shift the power back from the Iranian clients causing all the trouble. We also cannot act against the Iranian agents in Iraq without loosening the rules of engagement and aggressively attacking them, a mission the surge will support.

Senator Coleman will join us on the Northern Alliance Radio Network this afternoon between 1-3 pm CT. Please be sure to listen on AM 1280 The Patriot or on its Internet stream. Listeners can join the conversation by calling 651-289-4488. I've put the Senator's entire speech in the extended entry of this post so that CQ readers can understand the entire context of his position.

UPDATE: You can read more of Senator Coleman's thoughts at his website.

UPDATE II: I hope you're listening to the interview -- Coleman made some good points about the status on the ground in Baghdad. He insists that he's not joining Chuck Hagel and Ted Kennedy, but truly believes that the situation speciic to Baghdad does not lend itself to an expanded military approach. I'll podcast the entire interview later today.

Text of Coleman's Iraq speech

Mr. President, having recently returned from another visit to Iraq and serving as a Member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I come to the floor this afternoon to express my views on the most pressing issue facing our country today -- our path to success in Iraq. As the Iraqi Study Group recently stated, the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. Our current path isn't working. You have to be flexible and you have to shift, you have to make change, and clearly in Iraq today we have to make a change. I was with the President of the United States on Friday, and he said the same thing. In December, I met with Iraqi political leaders, U.S. troops and their leaders, as well as our diplomats on the ground. My conversations with this broad range of individuals helped me draw various conclusions that are key to evaluating the proposals currently being debated. In light of the President's upcoming announcement of his strategy for Iraq, I think it is important to share these conclusions.

It is easy to lose sight of the fact that we are in Iraq as part of a global war on terror. There is no question that Iraq has become the key battleground of this war. Failure cannot be an option in either the overall war on terror, or in Iraq. The President has correctly stated that this is the battle of this generation. With menacing regimes in Iran and Syria, we cannot dismiss the fact that a failed state in Iraq would lead to much more than chaos and collapse in that nation. It would destabilize a critical region of the world, and most alarmingly, would create a breeding ground for terrorists whose ambitions do not stop at Iraq's borders. Americans, all Americans have a direct stake in winning this war.

We know the U.S. will be involved in the war on terror for the foreseeable future. The question is, how do we move forward in Iraq? How do we fight this war? And where do we put our troops?

From my experience in Iraq, I know now, as I believe, that we are fighting essentially on two fronts. First is the war we intended to fight, a war against terrorists - primarily Sunni extremists and foreign jihadists linked to Al Qaeda, foreign terrorists.

The other war is the war between Iraqis themselves - Shiite against Sunni, in a seemingly endless cycle of grisly violence. Our military must continue the battle against extremists and terrorists, but we have no business being caught in the cross fires of an Iraqi sectarian conflict. The good news is that we have had great success in fighting the war on terror, imposing crippling losses on the international jihadist network which today operates in Iraq. Indeed, during my visit in December with Marines, many Minnesotans by the way, stationed in Anbar Provence, they reported that they were making great headway against the insurgency and the foreign terrorists. I am proud of these accomplishments and firmly believe that these military victories directly enhance our security at home. But to secure the ground that these Marines have cleared, in places like Fallujah, they need Sunni police officers. They need Sunni members of the Iraqi army. They need reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite.

So, as we continue to fight the first war, the war against terrorists, we need also to address the second war, that of Iraqi against Iraqi. The overall consensus I found in Iraq is that we will be unable to hold onto the ground we've gained on the first front without addressing the second front - Iraqi sectarian violence. This violence is spiraling rapidly and is undermining the success we've made against the terrorists.

If the Iraqi Security Forces, both army and police, are to someday soon take over the fighting of the insurgency from U.S. troops, it's clear that inter-group violence must be brought under control. The Iraqi security forces must include all Iraqis -- Sunni, Shiite, Kurd and others. To be certain, our efforts cannot succeed if sectarian hatred is not addressed at the highest level of the Iraqi government immediately.

The only long-term solution for bringing stability to Iraq must be centered on national reconciliation. It is true, that after decades of Sunni violence led by Saddam Hussein and his regime, the Shiites still have unaddressed grievances. But this does not call for, nor permit, neighborhood by neighborhood ethnic cleansing, nor a refusal to work together for the future of all Iraqis. Shiites may be able to win short-term victories through the use of violence, but in the long-term they will not have a unified country if they continue to do so. Iraqi leaders should focus on reining in all sectarian groups under the umbrella of a national, inclusive political process. This is a solution that can only be led by the Iraqis themselves.

With no doubt, this sectarian violence was left to grow unchecked far too long. Even so, it is not too late to get Iraq back to stable footing. But it will come from dialogue and political compromise enforced by a central government prepared to take on militias under the control of religious sects, clans, and even common criminals. We must get to the point where Iraqi citizens express their views through political channels instead of through violence. The Iraqis are the masters of their own destiny, and it is important that our strategy regard them as such.

Since my trip to Iraq in December, I have been calling for the Iraqi government to establish a series of benchmarks that will defuse the sectarian violence and stabilize the country politically and economically. These benchmarks would include an oil revenue-sharing agreement and economic assistance to areas that have been neglected in the past. The reality, Mr. President, is [that the Iraqi government is not putting] resources in Anbar Provence because it's a Sunni [stronghold]. The result is a fueling of the insurgency in response to the actions of a government that has not been prepared to address the issue of sectarian violence. We will be a better supporter of the Iraqi government if we pressure them to create and adhere to these benchmarks, rather than assuming that this fractured government will take this on by themselves.

I fear that up to this point the Iraqi leadership has not stepped up to the plate to make the difficult decisions that are necessary to pave the way for a political solution. When I was in Iraq with Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, we met with the Iraqi national security advisor to Prime Minister Maliki, Dr. Rubaie, who contended that sectarian violence wasn't the main problem. The problem was the foreign terrorists, it was the Sunni insurgency. That's not the case, Mr. President. As a Senator responsible for looking after the best interests of my constituents and all Americans, I take seriously the responsibility of Iraqi political leaders to honor the sacrifices that are being made by American soldiers. I refuse to put more American lives on the line in Baghdad without being assured that the Iraqis themselves are willing to do what they need to do to end the violence of Iraqi against Iraqi. If Iraq is to fulfill its role as a sovereign and democratic state, it must start acting like one.

It is for this reason that I oppose the proposal for a troop surge in Baghdad, where the violence can only be defined as sectarian. A troop surge proposal basically ignores the conditions on the ground, both as I saw on my most recent trip, and in reports I've been receiving regularly since my return. My consultations with both military and Iraqi political leaders confirm that an increase of troops in areas plagued by sectarian violence will not solve the problem of sectarian hatred.

A troop surge in Baghdad would put more American troops at risk to address a problem that is not a military problem. It will put more American soldiers in the cross hairs of sectarian violence, create more targets. I just don't believe that makes sense, Mr. President. Again, I oppose the troop surge in Baghdad because I don't believe it is a path to victory or a strategy to victory in Iraq. I recognize that there are those who think otherwise. The Iraqi Study Group and their report said that we could however support a short term redeployment, or a surge in American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad, speed up training and equipment mission if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective. I sat with the President, with Democratic colleagues and Republican colleagues; I know that he has weighed this heavily. I know he has looked at this issue for a long time and apparently will come to a conclusion that in fact a troop surge would be helpful. I believe that his comments will contain, will hopefully contain, discussions about benchmarks containing commitments to do those things to rebuild an economy, to grow jobs, that we get rid of some of the underlying causes, the frustration that feeds an insurgency. But the bottom line again at this point in time, it is sectarian violence that I believe is the major issue we face, and more troops in Baghdad is not going to solve that problem Mr. President.

As one of the final conclusions to share from my experience in Iraq, I would also like to emphasize the significant role of Iran in fomenting instability. Across the board, my meetings with Iraqi officials revealed that the Iranians are driving instability in Iraq by all means at their disposal. In a hearing today in Foreign Relations Committee, one of the speakers, one of the experts said maybe and probably clearly Iranians have a stake in American failure in Iraq and instability in the region, and they feed that. There are credible reports that Iran has supplied money and weapons to both its traditional Shiite allies and its historic Sunni rivals -- all for the purpose of ensuring a daily death toll of Iraq citizens. Clearly the Iranians have concluded that chaos in Iraq is in their direct interest. Iran's role thus far, not to mention its pursuit of nuclear weapons, makes it hard to believe they might suddenly become a constructive partner in the stabilization of Iraq.

I want to point out that my commitment to success in Iraq has not changed, nor my willingness to consider options that would realistically contribute towards our goals there. In my trips to Iraq, I've gone with an open mind as to what next steps can be taken as we work with the Iraqis to stabilize their country. I have said all along that the stakes of our mission in Iraq are such that failure is simply not an option, and I will only support proposals that will steer the United States towards victory. Abandoning Iraq today would precipitate an even greater surge of ethnic cleansing and would, as I indicated before, precipitate an instability and chaos in the region that would be in no one's interest. But my most recent trip to Iraq also reaffirmed to me that it is the Iraqis who must play the biggest role to play in any strategy for success. Our investment there must be tied to their willingness to make the tough choices needed to pave the way to stability, and for them to act on them. Mr. President, I represent Minnesota, but if I represented Missouri, I think I'd simply say to Maliki, show me. Show me your resolve, show me your commitment, show me that you can in fact do the things that have to be done to deal with the sectarian violence, and then we can talk about enhancing and increasing the American effort. I haven't seen it, I don't see it today. As such, I'm certainly not going to put more American troops at risk.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Doolittle Fires His Wife

Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) has terminated his relationship with his wife's consulting business for fundraising after having barely retained his seat in the midterm elections. Julie Doolittle took commissions from the contributions made to the Congressman's re-election campaigns, essentially allowing 15% of all political donations to end up in the Doolittle family checking account:

Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) said yesterday that he will no longer employ his wife as his campaign fundraiser, an arrangement that allowed her to collect a 15 percent cut of donations to his campaign and political action committees -- more than $100,000 since 2003.

Doolittle, who has drawn criticism for links to disgraced lobbyist Jack A. Abramoff, said he will hire an outside fundraiser. He made the announcement in a commentary article he distributed to newspapers in his Northern California district, noting his tough battle for reelection. ...

The change was one of 10 steps that Doolittle pledged to take after a campaign clouded by questions about Julie Doolittle's fundraising and his ties to Abramoff.

He's lucky to have held his office, considering the slimy method he used to back-channel political contributions into his own pocket. I wrote about this last March, after the San Diego Union-Tribune reported on it as part of the Duke Cunningham/Jack Abramoff scandals. Doolittle admitted assisting Mitchell Wade and Brent Wilkes, two co-consiprators in the Cunningham case, after they routed thousands of dollars through Julie Doolittle's consultancy into both the campaign coffers and the Doolittle's personal accounts:

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

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

I'm happy that Rep. Doolittle has ended this particular shell game, but I'd be wary of trusting Doolittle with Appropriations in the future. His actions should disqualify him from any assignment where he could earmark funds for any purposes. His constituents returned him to Congress, but that doesn't mean he should have access to power that he has sold in the past.

That Didn't Take Long

Yesterday I wrote about Hillary Clinton's troubles in the 2008 presidential campaign and how she has lost ground to the populists in Iowa and New Hampshire. Her deliberate centrism has undermined enthusiasm for her run at becoming the nation's first female President, and nothing touches off the MoveOn faction more than her support for the war in Iraq. It didn't take long for Hillary to start trying to turn that around, apparently:

In an exclusive interview with ABC News in Baghdad, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., called the situation in Iraq "heartbreaking" and said she doubts Congress and the American people believe the mission here can succeed.

"I don't know that the American people or the Congress at this point believe this mission can work," she said. "And in the absence of a commitment that is backed up by actions from the Iraqi government, why should we believe it?"

Clinton spoke with ABC News after meeting with Gen. George Casey and Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top American commanders here. She is one a one-day visit to Iraq as part of congressional delegation that includes Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y. ...

Instead of sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, as President Bush plan, Clinton said it is time to start re-deploying U.S. troops out of Iraq.

"That would really demonstrate to the Iraqis that we don't have an open-ended commitment," she said. "We are not going to be here providing protection for their leaders, which we do. We are not going to be here standing by and trying to be called in from time to time as they see fit. That is not in the cards."

This comes as no surprise from the politically pliable Clintons. Both of them have an instinct for sticking a finger in the air and finding which way the wind blows. The difference between Bill and Hillary is that Bill could detect these trends before they matured, while Hillary always seems to be on the trailing edge. Bill can also sell it better than Hillary, who has spent the last six years in office tapdancing with little enthusiasm for centrist positions.

I wrote yesterday that Hillary might be at risk for becoming the new John Kerry. Now, instead, she's the new Russ Feingold, who notoriously demanded an exit from Iraq on a visit to the troops there last March. Feingold made the same essential argument as Hillary, which is that the American troops should leave in order to facilitate the assumption of responsibility for security by the Iraqis. Hillary did not go quite as far as Feingold, who also said that the American presence was fueling the insurgencies, but neither one of them apparently thought twice about criticizing American policy from a war zone, instead of back home as was customary before Feingold's visit.

Hillary has gotten a bit desperate. These antics might get embraced by the activist Left, but they won't vote for Hillary in the primaries unless Barack Obama and John Edwards withdraw. Others will see this as yet another example of political opportunism, and this of a particularly egregious sort.

Nifong Wants A Forfeit?

Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong, under fire for a series of unethical acts in his pursuit of a rape and sexual assault case against three Duke University students, asked to have the state replace his office on the case. Nifong's own legal troubles with the state Bar over his actions has made it impossible for him to continue as prosecutor:

Durham, N.C., District Attorney Mike Nifong has requested that he have himself removed from prosecuting the Duke lacrosse rape investigation. ABC News broke the story, first reporting Nifong's recusal Friday afternoon.

Three Duke lacrosse players, Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans, were indicted in 2006 on charges of rape, sexual assault, and kidnapping after a lacrosse team party on the night of March 13. Rape charges were dropped in December after the accuser could not recall key details of the alleged attack.

A source close to the investigation said Nifong sent a letter to North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper asking his office to assume responsibility of the case. A press spokeswoman for Cooper confirmed to ABC News that his office has received a request for a special prosecutor on the case.

Last week, that spokeswoman said the attorney general would take on the Duke lacrosse case only if requested by Nifong, consistent with North Carolina law.

The end is near for this legal debacle. No one in their right mind would put the accuser on the stand after the changing stories she has told since the charges were filed in March. Absent the accuser, the prosecution has no case -- no physical match for the DNA found on the accuser, no witnesses, and a gibbered timeline that now has the rape occurring before the dancing at the party. Add in the obvious prosecutorial misconduct of conspiring to hide the DNA results from the defense, and we have the textbook example of a travesty.

Or, perhaps, a forfeit. The New York Times covers the story this morning, but for some reason, they ran it in the Sports section. They add some interesting background to the story:

Mr. Nifong made the decision following lengthy conversations with the accuser in his courthouse office Thursday and again today, according to the official involved in the case.

Mr. Nifong had planned to recuse himself since shortly after the North Carolina State Bar filed an ethics complaint against him on Dec. 26, because that put him in a conflict of interest between defending his actions and prosecuting the case, the official said. But he had not been able to talk with the accuser about that because she had been in precarious health at the end of a pregnancy, the official said. The woman gave birth Jan. 3.

The official said the attorney general’s office was expected to accept the referral. But the fate of the case is uncertain: Many experts wonder if the attorney general or another prosecutor will quickly drop the charges after assessing weaknesses in the credibility of the accuser, an African-American stripper who said she was sexually assaulted by three white lacrosse players at a team party last March 13. Defense motions have attacked her credibility and mental health.

So he wanted to recuse himself, but not until he spoke with the accuser. What does that mean? Did he want to see if he could construct another timeline for the accusation that would hold up against the defense alibis that had been publicly presented? He wasn't dropping the case, after all -- he was just asking the state AG to take over its prosecution, and the accuser shouldn't have a veto on that request.

If Nifong wanted to see justice done, he would have dropped the charges and then resigned his office. Instead, he's ducking the problem entirely by quitting before the case collapses in its February 5th preliminary hearing. Given the misconduct that surrounds this case, no one can argue that the three defendants can receive a fair trial in any event, and the ridiculous record of this case strongly suggests that the entire accusation is bogus. No judge worth his robes would allow this case to proceed, especially given Nifong's actions -- and Nifong knows it.

The AG should drop the case against the students and open an investigation of Mike Nifong for criminal actions in his handling of this case.

UPDATE: Could Nifong face criminal prosecution? If Brian Meehan's story to CBS holds up, the state AG could have grounds for perjury, or at least knowingly filing misrepresentations of evidence in a criminal court (via Memeorandum):

Meehan has stated that he told the prosecutor, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, about the other DNA [that excluded the Duke team members] for the first time in mid-April. Later that same month, Nifong indicted three Duke lacrosse players. Meehan has also said in court proceedings that he and Nifong agreed before the evidence tests were completed that his report should be limited to positive matches between the accuser and the players at the team party where she says she was sexually assaulted last March. ...

Nifong took six months to tell the players' defense attorneys about the other DNA, as required by law — and during that time, Nifong filed a court motion that stated he was not aware of any potentially exculpatory evidence.

So now we have Nifong and Meehan agreeing to hold back exculpatory DNA evidence that indicated that the woman had sexual contact with more than one man, none of whom were Duke lacrosse players, and then filing a motion denying he knew of any exculpatory evidence. That sounds like perjury to me, although perjury is a technical charge that may not apply to court officers filing motions. If it isn't perjury, it should be a criminal offense for prosecutors to knowingly mislead the court in an attempt to pervert justice.

How could Nifong file charges after he knew the DNA evidence would exonerate the students? Did he hope to pressure the boys into pleading out in order for Nifong to save a little face after all of the incendiary comments he made to the media? It certainly seems that way -- and maybe the state AG should start investigating Nifong's previous cases to see if this is a pattern. In fact, the Department of Justice should start looking into the potential that the Durham DA's office serially violates civil rights in this manner.

Final Islamist Collapse In Somalia (Updated)

The final organized base of the Union of Islamic Courts fell to Ethiopian and Somali forces last night, completing the lightning rout of what had been an ascendant radical Islamist force. Ras Kamboni had been the last organized redoubt for the UIC, and now they have fled into to forests on the Kenyan border:

Somali government troops backed by Ethiopian soldiers have captured the last stronghold of the Union of Islamic Courts, the defence minister says.

Col Barre Aden Shire said the town of Ras Kamboni, in south-eastern Somalia, fell after several days of fighting. Remnants of the militia are now reported to be hiding in dense forest along Somalia's border with Kenya.

Ethiopia has led a military campaign against the Islamists, who controlled much of Somalia for six months.

For those six months, people pointed to their tightening grip on power and determined that nothing could stop the wave of radical Islam from recapturing the old ummah, stretching from Southwest Asia all the way across North Africa. The terrorists' willingness to die as martyrs made them invincible, or nearly so, and military force simply couldn't match up to the asymmetrical threat.

Ethiopia didn't believe it. They showed what happens when a nation commits to actual war against asymmetrical threats: they destroy them. Military forces go after the terrorists where they organize, and then surround them and destroy them. They don't wait for the terrorists to come to them. And when the terrorists are on the run, you don't get squeamish about stamping them out while they're exposed and vulnerable.

It's the only winning strategy against Islamist terrorism. Ethiopia knows it. and the West had better remember it.

UPDATE: CQ reader Roger H sends this trip down memory lane, courtesy of the New York Times news division from December 9th:

Analysts are unanimous that a full-scale conflict between the Islamists and Ethiopia, a country with a strong Christian identity, would be disastrous for Somalia, which is already suffering from severe flooding and years of neglect, and for the region as a whole, because neighboring countries may jump in.

Gen. John P. Abizaid of United States Central Command — or Centcom — which has responsibility for American military interests in the region, recently flew to Ethiopia to meet with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who had told American officials that he could cripple the Islamist forces “in one to two weeks.”

And here's an interesting passage:

A growing number of Democrats in Congress are urging the Bush administration to change course and deal with the Islamists for what they are: the power on the ground.

“The Islamists aren’t going away, so the sooner we talk to them, the better,” said Representative Donald M. Payne, the New Jersey Democrat who is expected to become the chairman of the House subcommittee on Africa when his party takes control of Congress in January.

It certainly looks like they're going away now, Rep. Payne.

NARN Today: Senator Norm Coleman

The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be on the air today, with our six-hour-long broadcast schedule starting at 11 am CT. The first two hours features Power Line's John Hinderaker and Chad and Brian from Fraters Libertas. Mitch and I hit the airwaves for the second shift from 1-3 pm CT, and Michael Broadkorb and Andy Apliowski (filling in for King Banaian) have The Final Word from 3-5. If you're in the Twin Cities, you can hear us on AM 1280 The Patriot, or on the station's Internet stream if you're outside of the broadcast area.

Today Mitch and I welcome Senator Norm Coleman, Republican moderate and one of the sharpest people I've met in politics. It's always a pleasure to hear from Senator Coleman, and we'll get a good perspective on the follies at the beginning of the 110th Congress.

Be sure to join us as we discuss the stories of the week. Call 651-289-4488 to add your own voice to the debate!

Is Hillary The New Kerry?

The Washington Times reports that Hillary Clinton is slipping in polls for the first states in next year's presidential primaries, and that populists such as John Edwards and Barack Obama appear to be eclipsing her. One pollster draws comparisons between Hillary and the previous Democratic nominee that hardly intend to flatter her:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's popularity in Democratic presidential-preference polls has fallen in the nation's first caucus and primary states in the face of increasing support for her chief rivals for the 2008 nomination.

Pollsters said her weaknesses in Iowa and New Hampshire were the result of the growing popularity of two major opponents -- former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama -- and their populist economic messages, as well as a deepening antipathy toward her among Democratic-leaning independents who dislike her support for the war in Iraq and who question her electability.

"I think Hillary strikes these voters the same way Senator John Kerry did in 2004. They would really like to vote for someone they really like this time. Hillary doesn't fit that characterization right now," said pollster Del Ali of Research 2000, who conducted polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

His findings mirror more recent polling showing a similar national decline in support. "There's been erosion," said pollster John Zogby. "She's polling in the low- to mid-40s nationally."

The New York Democrat, who has been her party's clear front-runner, came in a distant fourth in an Iowa presidential poll of 600 likely voters conducted Dec. 18 to 20, drawing 10 percent in a crowded field of contenders. Mr. Edwards, the Democrats' 2004 vice-presidential nominee, and Mr. Obama were tied in first place with 22 percent each, followed by outgoing Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack with 12 percent.

The most remarkable point about those polls are that the top two candidates barely have a single term of national office combined. Obama has only served two years of his first Senate term, and Edwards only served four years before essentially withdrawing from his duties to campaign for President in 2003 and 2004. Edwards declined to run for re-election, as polls showed that he would lose to Richard Burr handily.

Now, however, the neophytes have overtaken the most feted and Establishment candidate the Democrats have. That demonstrates the power of the activist base in the Democratic Party to directly influence national politics. After all, Hillary has Bill Clinton, easily the most talented politician in the party, supporting her bid for another Clinton term in office, and Bill still enjoys tremendous popularity in the party. He plays well in Iowa, but Hillary apparently does not.

Iowa has a history of supporting populists, so perhaps it's not the best state on which to rely for predictive indicators. Unfortunately for Hillary, the news only gets marginally better in New Hampshire, the state where Bill earned the nickname The Comeback Kid. Hillary will need a dose of that if the polls have it right. She's dropped into a dead heat with Barack Obama in New Hampshire, erasing a 23-point lead over him from just a month ago. Why? Just like John Kerry, people neither trust nor like her; the negatives are too strong to allow her to succeed against other candidates, once they've shown viability.

Hillary will have to find a way to reconnect with the netroots and the MoveOn crowd, who ironically formed originally to demand an end to the impeachment of her husband. The trouble for Hillary is that she cannot afford to abandon the centrism she has pursued strategically to reduce her negatives among centrists and independents, especially because of her likability problems. She gets too strident even as a centrist -- and once she runs to the left, no one will trust her and no one will find any enthusiasm for a Hillary presidency, except to put Bill back in the White House with her doing the heavy lifting.

UPDATE: Richard Burr, not Jim DeMint, as several CQ readers noted ...

Somalian Warlords Join Government

Somalian warlords that turned the Horn of Africa nation into an easy example of a failed state have agreed to disband their militias and join the transitional government. The agreement, produced at a summit meeting of the major factions of the nation, clears the path for the new government to end street violence that threatened to extend the Somali nightmare:

Somalia's warlords have agreed to disarm their militia and join a new national army, a government official said Friday.

The announcement followed a meeting between President Abdullahi Yusuf and clan warlords that proceeded even as, just outside, clan gunmen fired a rocket-propelled grenade and briefly exchanged gunfire with government troops. The violence left at least six dead and 10 wounded.

"The warlords and the government have agreed to collaborate for the restoration of peace in Somalia," said government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari.

By disbanding the militias and joining the national army, the warlords and clans can end the need for the violence in Mogadishu and around the country that spiked up in the wake of the Islamist withdrawal. The presence of the Ethiopian Army on the side of Yusuf's transitional government undoubtedly help convince the warlords that their days of chaos should and could come to an end. The experience of having the UIC and its Arab partners seize power in Somalia also must have helped them to realize how dangerous a prostrate Somalia has been for everyone.

If the warlords and clans honor the agreement, that would leave the Islamist remnants as the only groups bearing arms against the transitional government. They had operated only sporadically since the collapse of the UIC over the last few weeks, but their leadership had threatened an insurgent war in the near future. With the Yusuf government gaining strength and the clans and warlords disarmed, the prospects for success through insurgency have shrunk greatly, even if the UIC and the Islamists could organize in the aftermath of their ignominious defeat.

This is the best possible outcome from a set that included some very bleak conclusions, and it only became possible with the intervention and the determination of the Ethiopians to rid the Horn of the Islamist threat. The West needs to provide plenty of support to make sure the incentives for the warlords and clans is to remain disarmed and part of a representative government, in order to avoid giving the Islamists a second chance at Somalia.

NATO Scores Big Against Taliban In Ambush

NATO forces surprised Taliban remnants in an overnight raid, killing 150 and putting a major dent in an expected offensive from the Islamist forces. For the first time since Pervez Musharraf signed a peace deal with Waziristani tribal leaders, Pakistan took part in the attack:

Nato Forces in Afghanistan claimed yesterday to have thwarted a major Taliban border incursion from Pakistan by killing up to 150 insurgents in a night-time operation.

As part of what was thought to be a precursor to a Taliban spring offensive, Nato officials said that two columns totalling some 200 insurgents crossed into the Afghan border province of Paktika on Wednesday night.

Pakistani forces were informed of the movement of Taliban fighters and the Pakistani military claimed that it bombed and destroyed trucks used by the Taliban on its side of the border.

If so, it was the first military action by the Pakistani military since the government signed a peace deal with militants last year. US military commanders say border incursions have increased threefold since the deal.

That comes as no surprise. Many wondered whether Musharraf had decided to withdraw from the anti-terror coalition after his peace deal. Obviously, the Taliban and its allies took the deal to mean that Pakistan would give them a free hand to operate in the region, and now Afghanistan and NATO have a much harder task in securing the border. If Pakistan really did attack the retreating columns, one has to wonder how the Waziristani leaders will react.

Not that much exists of the two columns that attempted their own invasion. American spotters discovered the units while apparently still in Pakistan but heading towards the border. They waited until the columns had crossed over into Afghanistan and let rip with Apache gunships and bombers. The estimated strength of the columns was 200 men, and the US counted 130 dead on the scene. Blood trails pointed the way back across the border where the survivors fled, and supposedly Pakistan attacked the routed Taliban.

US and NATO officials insist that this cooperative attitude from the Pakistanis is not new. They point out that the numbers show a steep decline in Taliban activity since the summer and credit Pakistan for helping to make the difference. However, the Taliban does not usually expose itself during the early winter; since losing Afghanistan, they have usually waited for late winter and early spring to launch their new offensive campaigns. It hardly seems like the correct metric to use.

However, this demonstrates that Pakistan is still engaged in the region against the radical Islamists, even if a bit sporadically, and that's better than nothing at all. The Taliban should now understand that larger missions will get spotted before they start, and unless they enjoy taking 75% casualties on the march to their planned attacks, they don't really stand much of a chance as a military force.

UPDATE: John Negroponte says it's sporadic, too:

The head of US spying operations says the leaders of al-Qaeda have found a secure hideout in Pakistan from where they are rebuilding their strength.

National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said al-Qaeda was strengthening itself across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.

Pakistan rejected the comments, which are the most specific on the issue yet.

Negroponte also called Pakistan an ally in the global war on terrorism, but their deal in Waziristan has created a haven for the terrorists. Unfortunately, the US and NATO have little choice but to honor Musharraf's demands and not cross over themselves to chase down the Taliban to their hideouts, because if Musharraf either flipped or got deposed, the situation would get exponentially worse. In this case and for now, we have to take what we can get.

Terrorist Attack On US Embassy In Greece

The American embassy in Athens got hit by an RPG fired from across the street. Instead of the usual Islamist sources, this attack came from a Golden Oldie of terror -- the rabid European Marxist type:

Suspected leftist guerrillas fired a rocket at the U.S. embassy in Athens on Friday but no one was hurt in the blast, police and government officials said.

In the most serious attack against the mission in 10 years, the small rocket launched from across the street shattered windows and woke up nearby residents in the central Athens area at 5:58 AM (0358 GMT).

"There are one or two anonymous phone calls which claim that the Revolutionary Struggle was behind the attack," Public Order Minister Byron Polydoras told reporters outside the embassy. "Most likely, it is an act by local perpetrators."

The leftist guerrilla group has emerged as the most serious domestic threat since the dismantling of the deadly November 17 group in 2002. It claimed an assassination attempt against Greece's culture minister in May and a bomb at the Economy Ministry which wounded two people and damaged buildings 13 months ago.

Regardless of the source, it points out the vulnerability of fixed assets in an age of terrorism. The US has heavy security around our embassy in Greece, the result of a terrorist attack by November 17 in 1996 and the overall security issues from al-Qaeda attacks in 1998 and on 9/11. In this case, the shot came from a bathroom on the third floor of a building facing the embassy, a point that exists outside of any security protocols -- although one would hope that anyone watching a person drag an RPG and a launcher into a building might get curious enough to call the police.

This event has more to do with Greek politics than with the global war on terror, but the US had better remain engaged in getting to the bottom of this attack. More will follow if these perpetrators get away with it.

Democrats Made A Good Decision

The Democrats selected Denver as their host city for their 2008 national convention, bypassing New York City in order to bolster their Western credentials. The move reflects shifting fortunes for both parties and follows Howard Dean's efforts to build national credibility for the Democrats:

The Democratic Party chose Denver over New York on Thursday as the site for its next national convention, capping months of debate about which city had better logistics, deeper pockets and a more compelling backdrop to frame the party’s message.

“If we’re going to have a national party, we’re going to have to have Westerners vote for us on a consistent basis,” the Democratic national chairman, Howard Dean, said in a telephone news conference. “At the end of the day,” Mr. Dean added, “that’s what tipped it to Denver.”

Denver economic development officials said that by one important measure, the convention, to be held Aug. 25-28, 2008, would be the biggest gathering in the city’s history, with 35,000 people spending hundreds of millions of dollars on food, drink and places to sleep.

No national political convention has been held in Denver in nearly a century, since Democrats gathered here in 1908 and bestowed their presidential nomination on William Jennings Bryan, who went on to lose the election to William Howard Taft. But Western Democrats — led by Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado, Mayor John W. Hickenlooper of Denver and the new Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada — argued throughout their party’s selection process that the shifting demographics of the region, where Democrats have made big gains, was a strong suit in Denver’s bid.

The selection has its drawbacks. As the Times notes, the recent Democratic gains in the West have mostly come from nontraditional Democrats. In order to win west of the Plains, Democrats have to find candidates who can appeal to more conservative, independent-minded people wary of big government solutions. They also find themselves far from Big Labor's stomping grounds in the Rust Belt and the Northeast. In fact, the fact that they selected the non-union Pepsi Center for their venue may still derail the entire bid.

New York would have eliminated most of those issues. Democrats in New York fit the Nancy Pelosi/Hillary Clinton model quite nicely. The media center of the Big Apple would have amplified the messages of the convention, and the facilities are second to none. I attended the Republican convention in 2004, and I can attest to New York's ability to stage an impressive event, and to provide equally impressive security.

However, the Democrats hardly need to woo New York. The Democrats have a lock on the entire state and certainly the city. With a new Congressional majority to protect and to expand, the Democrats need to engage on the frontier of their popularity, and Colorado makes perfect sense for that effort. They captured one of the Senate seats of the state in a mild 2004 surprise, so Colorado certainly seems in play for a possible takeaway for the Democrats. They have the chance now to stage a Western variety show, making the case for their "big tent" by celebrating their Western Congressional freshmen and helping them to get re-elected.

The move is similar to the GOP's decision to hold their convention in the Twin Cities. Both parties want to reach out to smaller cities in an attempt to poach on the other's turf. Frankly, the Democrats have the opportunity to score more in Denver than the Republicans might in Minneapolis and Saint Paul.. It's a smart move, and it shows that the GOP has to work on its election strategies quickly -- because we're not going to be able to count on many missteps from the Democrats.

Payback From Wayback

So I presume that the Bush administration meant what they said when they rejected the Iraq Study Group's recommendation for diplomacy with Iran. Or perhaps they decided to apply the kind of armed diplomacy that would get Iran's attention yesterday when they raided an Iranian consular office in Irbil and detained six of its employees in a cordon-and-knock operation:

American troops backed by attack helicopters and armored vehicles raided an Iranian diplomatic office in the dead of night early Thursday and detained as many as six of the Iranians working inside.

The raid was the second surprise seizure of Iranians by the American military in Iraq in recent weeks and came a day after President Bush bluntly warned Iran to quit meddling in Iraqi affairs.

There was a tense standoff later in the day between the American soldiers and about 100 Kurdish troops, who surrounded the American armored vehicles for about two hours in this northern Iraqi city.

The attack was denounced by senior Kurdish officials, who are normally America’s closest allies in Iraq but regarded the action as an affront to their sovereignty in this highly tribal swath of the country. Iran’s Foreign Ministry reacted in Tehran with a harsh denunciation that threatened to escalate tensions with the Bush administration.

Let's get the negative issues on the table first. If this was a true consular office, then the US just committed an act of war against the Iranians. The Iranian flag flew over the building, and apparently they conducted some consular services for people wanting to travel to Iran for medical purposes. If the Iranians use it for intelligence work, then that would mean they operate their consulates in the same manner as every other country.

Nor is it particularly smart to alienate the Kurds, who obviously objected to this operation, since they're the best friends we have in Iraq and perhaps increasingly the only ones on whom we can rely. The Kurds have no reasons to love the Iranians. The Kurds are Sunni, not Shi'ite, and the Iranians oppress the minority Kurds in Iran. However, they do not want to have the Americans dictate the terms of their engagement with their neighbor, and understandably so.

Having said all of that, Iranian proclamations of outrage should be met with as much laughter as possible. After all, this is the same regime that sacked our embassy in 1979 and held dozens of Americans hostage for 444 days. Their president is rumored to have been one of the organizers of the seizure. The Iranians have never paid for that affront, and they have not stopped from sending weapons and experts into Iraq to kill American soldiers. They have conducted a low-level war against America for 30 years, and they should expect that we will fight back on the same terms.

Next time, however, let's coordinate better with our true friends in Iraq. We will need them in the months ahead.

Arab Nations Support The Surge

Not everyone opposes the Bush administration's surge plan for Iraq, not even in the Middle East. Arab nations that do business with the US have quietly pressed the White House to find ways to stay engaged in Iraq, fearful of both the collapse of the keystone nation in the region and the rise of Iran:

Arab allies have quietly put serious pressure on President Bush to remain in Iraq, fearing premature evacuation will turn the country over to Iranian-backed militia, sources said Wednesday.

"What concerns us is the instability and uncertainty in the area," Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Fahmy told the New York Daily News. "We need to stabilize the situation before the next step, otherwise it will become complete chaos."

Several other Sunni Arab nations that are valuable U.S. allies - including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, the Emirates - are concerned about Iran's influence and the growing power of Iraq's Shiite majority. The Israelis, an unlikely ally, agree.

As Iran secretly backs Shiite groups in Iraq, wealthy Saudis already have begun to finance Sunni militias in Iraq, a source privy to Israeli intelligence said.

If the U.S. were to leave, the Saudi government would likely openly finance Sunni fighters, the source said. A senior U.S. official confirmed the mostly unseen Arab pressure on Bush to stay the course in Iraq.

These nations understand what will happen in the event of a precipitous American withdrawal. The Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias will either topple the elected government or infiltrate it to the point of farce. After that point, the Sunnis will face the decades of wrath they sowed while oppressing the Shi'a, and while some of that may well be their just desserts, the bloodbath and genocide that erupts will force the other Sunni nations to lend assistance to their outnumbered brethren.

It isn't just a sectarian division that keeps the other Arabs worried. The Iraqi Shi'ites are mostly Arabs, but their sponsors are the Iranians, and the Arab nations fear the expansion of Persian power throughout the region. The Iranians have tried to use Islam as a unifying string to gather the ummah together, but their efforts against the Sunnis in Baghdad bely their pan-Islamism. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the smaller Sunni Arab states all understand what Iran will have in mind for them if Teheran succeeds in their plans, and it isn't a Muslim paradise on Earth.

If Iraq collapses, we would likely see two layers of conflict in the region, with Islamic sectarianism as one divide and ethnicity as another. Such triggers could set the entire region ablaze, and not in a way that would create an impulse for democratic activism. The Arab nations would prefer not to have to fight that war, and the best way to keep it from happening is to build Iraq into a strong enough entity that Iran could not manipulate it for their own ends.

In other words, the Arabs want us on that wall -- in fact, they need us on that wall.

My Evening With NPR

After I left work this evening, I drove to AM 1280 The Patriot to do an interview with Brooke Gladstone of NPR. I received a request to do a short interview on credibility issues in the media and the blogosphere, touching on but not limited to the Jamil Hussein story. NPR wanted to ensure that the sound quality remained high, and the folks at The Patriot -- where we broadcast our Northern Alliance radio shows on Saturday -- kindly agreed to provide the facilities.

NPR really only wanted a five-minute segment, but Brooke and I wound up going for more than thirty minutes, challenging each other from our different perspectives. I have no idea how they will edit that down to five minutes, and we shared a laugh about that when we finally finished our conversation. I hope at some point the entire half-hour gets published, because I found it fascinating and fun, perhaps the most fun I've had in an interview with the mainstream media. Brooke and I see things differently, but she is a worthy debater. Maybe I can convince her to appear on our show sometime in the near future.

When it appears, I will link back to it.

UPDATE and BUMP: I appreciate the concern from CQ readers, but please, give me some credit. I do want to see how the piece is edited, and of course there's plenty of opportunity for mischief. However, I did an earlier interview with Mara Liasson for NPR and they edited it fairly and in a way that captured the context of the conversation. It will be tough for Brooke to do that, given the nature of our chat, but I expect she will make every effort to succeed at it. If it comes out in some other manner, Brooke will expect me to criticize it -- which in fact was very much in keeping with our conversation.

I've been burned before. In an interview with a major news organization about the CNN bloggers' event for the midterm elections, I spoke with an engaging reporter for over 20 minutes about the nature of the event and my decision to attend. I talked about what I thought the event meant for both bloggers and the mainstream media, why I thought CNN would treat us fairly, and how my attendance sat with CQ readers. We discussed the relationship between bloggers and the media and how the lines kept getting blurrier and blurrier.

At one point, I made a joke. She asked me why I decided to attend, and I flippantly said, "I want to see myself on television," laughing and then giving a much more detailed explanation.

A couple of days later, this newspaper published a four-paragraph blurb on the event. Guess which line they chose to use as their sole quote about my decision to attend. Was it accurate? I said it. It certainly didn't reflect the lengthy conversation I had with the reporter, and it reminded me that accuracy is not the same as truth. (Here's the link. I didn't link it at the time because I didn't want to give it any more publicity than it deserved. I'll never agree to another interview with Ashley Parker again.)

Believe me, I will be checking to see how Brooke and her team edits it. However, I'm also here to tell you that it will be a difficult job no matter what. My only regret is that I didn't use the anecdote above in making one of my points ...

If This Was A Fight, They Would Have Called It

The case of the Duke non-rape has gotten even stranger, if such a thing could be possible. The lawyers defending the Duke University students accused of the sexual assault have filed a motion that outlines all of the ways in which the accuser has changed her story since her allegations made national headlines:

The statement layers new and contradictory accounts over the woman's previous statements:

* In her latest statement she said the attack ended at midnight.

In previous accounts, the woman said the gang-rape ended shortly before she left in the car driven by Kim Roberts, the second dancer. Roberts called 911 as she was driving away at 12:53 a.m., according to police records. This new account leaves 50 minutes unaccounted between the end of the rape and the departure from the party.

The new statement runs contrary to time stamped photos of the party, which show the two women dancing between 12:00 and 12:04 a.m. in the living room of the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd.

* In the latest statement, the woman says she arrived at the party at 11:10 p.m. on March 13 and that the rape began at 11:40 p.m. Her cell phone records show that she was on phone with her father and others up to one minute before the rape allegedly started.

* The woman now said her alleged assailants used multiple names.

Nor is that the last of the changes. She has now changed her description of at least one of the assailants. She claimed that Evans had a moustache. After pictures immediately before and after the party showed a clean-shaven young man, she then said he had a "five o'clock shadow". She also exchanged two of the accused during one part of the attack months after her initial statements.

The big question is what Mike Nifong thinks he can do with the accuser as a witness. She has destroyed her own credibility by offering so many different versions of the story. Not only has she changed her testimony, but the changes seem tailored to address exculpatory evidence unearthed by the defense. Seligmann had evidence that showed he had left the house by the time the attack supposedly occurred. Presto! The story changes so he can fit within the timeline -- even though the district attorney has pictures of the accuser still dancing at the party after the time of the attack, under the new timeline.

District attorneys have the responsibility to determine the validity of a case before filing charges. They are not attorneys representing complainants as if in a civil court; they represent the People, which includes the defendants as well as the accuser. They have a role to seek justice, not just a splashy conviction. Nifong has connived to cheat the system and has allowed a laughable case to proceed that has absolutely no chance of succeeding.

The people of Durham need to put an end to this circus. A recall effort to remove Nifong from office should at least be considered, if the state Bar will do nothing about this travesty.

GOP Bloggers Straw Poll For January '07

Each month, the GOP Bloggers blog conducts a straw poll to take the temperature of the blogosphere for the upcoming Republican presidential primaries. They generally update the list each time to capture any new potential candidates; for instance, Jim Gilmore. the former Governor of Virginia, is included this time. The poll allows bloggers to conduct a survey of their own readership, which always produces some intriguing results.

Keep checking back to see the results, and I will probably review them in the next 24 hours.

Maliki To Militias: You're On Your Own

In another indication that the Iraqi government may have less problems with the surge than the New York Times predicts, Nouri al-Maliki has told the Shi'ite militias to disarm now or deal with the Americans by themselves. This includes Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army despite the influence the radical cleric has on the current government:

Iraq's prime minister has told Shiite militiamen to surrender their weapons or face an all-out assault, part of a commitment U.S. President George W. Bush outlined to bring violence under control with a more aggressive Iraqi Army and 21,500 additional American troops.

Senior Iraqi officials said Wednesday that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, under pressure from the U.S., has agreed to crack down on the fighters even though they are loyal to his most powerful political ally, the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Previously, al-Maliki had resisted the move.

The Iraqis still want to have overall command of the effort in Baghdad, but they have named a commander with whom the Americans feel comfortable. General Aboud Gambar spent time involuntarily with the American Army in the Gulf War, as a prisoner of war, and the Shi'ite general will report directly to Maliki. He will have operational control over the Iraqi army and the police, removing the latter from the control of the Sadr-influence Ministry of the Interior.

Gambar has already selected the units he will use for the Baghdad: Kurds. The Iraqi Army consists of 80% Shi'ite troops, and the US and Iraq worry that they will hesitate to carry out orders against members of their own sect. Instead, the Kurds will conduct the mission in Baghdad, which again demonstrates a new level of commitment from the Maliki government. The Shi'ites of Baghdad will certainly get that message when they see the Kurds marching through their neighborhoods.

Even with Maliki's acquiescence, it will not be easy to dislodge the militias in Baghdad. The new tactics proposed by Bush and used before by Petraeus envisions a long-term commitment to the "hold" part of clear-and-hold, which may make the difference now. If the strategy has not changed much, the supporting tactics have, perhaps enough to give the Iraqi government enough breathing room to stabilize the rest of the nation.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has her first post from her embed mission in Baghdad.

Attorney For War-Crimes Suspect Busted For Pimping

The case of PFC Corey Clagett took a bizarre turn yesterday when his attorney found himself under arrest for money laundering and running a prostitution ring out of a nightclub. The former federal prosecutor and Abu Ghraib defense attorney could face decades of prison time:

Paul Bergrin, who spent seven years as a New Jersey local and federal prosecutor, allegedly took over the NY Confidential escort service when the self-described "king of all pimps" Jason Itzler was arrested in 2005.

Mr. Bergrin helped launder more than $800,000 in credit card payments for "escorts" who often cost $1,000 an hour, the district attorney of Manhattan, Robert Morgenthau, said. ...

Prosecutors also said Mr. Bergrin falsely told New Jersey parole officers that Itzler — a former client on parole from a 2001 ecstasy-smuggling conviction — was a paralegal in the Abu Ghraib defense case so Itzler could receive a more lenient curfew. In fact, prosecutors allege, Itzler was helping to manage the brothel until late in the morning, not doing legal work.

Bergrin got arrested by New Jersey police and has apparently waived extradition, which will shorten the time for his arraignment. The arrest had to have occurred after Monday, when Bergrin appeared in court on Clagett's behalf.

Obviously, Clagett will need new representation, but it sounded as though his case would have a tough time regardless. Clagett now claims that the Army ordered him to shoot all military-age Iraqi men regardless of combatant status during a raid on an island in Salahuddin province. The "just following orders" defense has long been discredited as a mitigation towards war crimes, so Clagett might benefit from a new lawyer anyway.

Do Iraqis Want The Extra Troops?

The New York Times filed a story at 1:37 am this morning (the time on the RSS feed timestamp) from John Burns and Sabrina Tavernise that paints the Iraqi government as leery of the proposed increase of troops in Baghdad. According to the Times, the Maliki government doesn't want more troops, as it will force them to deal with Shi'ite bad actors:

As President Bush challenges public opinion at home by committing more American troops, he is confronted by a paradox: an Iraqi government that does not really want them.

The Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has not publicly opposed the American troop increase, but aides to Mr. Maliki have been saying for weeks that the government is wary of the proposal. They fear that an increased American troop presence, particularly in Baghdad, will be accompanied by a more assertive American role that will conflict with the Shiite government’s haste to cut back on American authority and run the war the way it wants. American troops, Shiite leaders say, should stay out of Shiite neighborhoods and focus on fighting Sunni insurgents.

“The government believes there is no need for extra troops from the American side,” Haidar al-Abadi, a Parliament member and close associate of Mr. Maliki, said Wednesday. “The existing troops can do the job.”

It is an opinion that is broadly held among a Shiite political elite that is increasingly impatient, after nearly two years heading the government here, to exercise power without the constraining supervision of the United States. As a long-oppressed majority, the Shiites have a deep-seated fear that the power they won at the polls, after centuries of subjugation by the Sunni minority, will be progressively whittled away as the Americans seek deals with the Sunnis that will help bring American troops home.

Oddly enough, the Iraqis responded after the Times story went up on their site. Their response seems a little different than that painted by Burns and Tavernise:

Iraq's government welcomed President Bush's new strategy and promised it was committed to making sure it succeeds. But ordinary Iraqis gave it mixed reviews, with many expressing skepticism that an increase in U.S. troops would quell the violence ransacking their country. ...

In a speech broadcast live on Iraqi state television, Bush said he was increasing U.S. troops by 21,500 — 17,500 to Baghdad, where much of the sectarian violence has been blamed on predominantly Shiite militias. The plan also envisions 10,000 to 12,000 Iraqi troops to secure Baghdad's neighborhoods.

"The failure in Iraq will not only affect this country only but the rest of the region and the world, including the United States," said Sadiq al-Rikabi, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.

"The current situation is not acceptable — not only for the American people but also for the Iraqis and their government. As Iraqis and as an elected government we welcome the American commitment for success," he added. "The Iraqi government also is committed to succeed."

It appears that reporters get different stories dependent on which "close associate" of Maliki's they chat up. Certainly, dissent exists within the Iraqi government on the deployment of more American troops to Baghdad, but despite what the Times reported, the official position of the Iraqi government welcomes the extra deployments and the new mission and its rules of engagement.

Maliki had the perfect opportunity to kneecap the entire exercise by criticizing it this morning, which would have all but ended the mission and probably the entire American involvement in Iraq. The analysis by Burns and Tavernise makes it clear that the Shi'ites want the Americans out so that they can exercise their new powers without the constraining hand of the US military. If so, the Maliki government -- which supposedly represents those interests -- could have been rid of us in a heartbeat. Instead, they acted to continue and deepen the frustration that the Times says exists from the presence of American troops.

Bush and his team let it be known that the plan either came from Maliki or had his blessings during the leakfest that preceded last night's speech. The Maliki government could have left Bush twisting in the wind, but did not. That strongly indicates that they have an interest in getting more help to end the sectarian violence that has racked their capital. Burns, who really has provided more reliable reporting than most of the mainstream media from Iraq, seems to have missed the boat on this one.

The Softly-Softly General

President Bush selected General David Petraeus as his new commander in Iraq in part because of his success in pacifying his sector of the Iraq theater in 2003. Petraeus learned the tactics as a student of British experience in imperial military counterinsurgency operations, a point that the Times of London believes will make a significant difference:

The new US ground commander picked by President Bush to direct the military “surge” into Iraq believes that the war can be won with a radical change of tactics: those used by the British in Malaya and Ulster.

Lieutenant-General David Petraeus, handed perhaps the toughest US military assignment since the Vietnam War — to stabilise Iraq and defeat its militias — is one of the Army’s premier intellectuals and a devoted student of counter-insurgency techniques used by the British and French during the last century.

General Petraeus, who has spent 2½ of the past 4 years in Iraq, has been one of the few officers advocating a troop surge into Baghdad. He believes that a new approach, based on soldiers living and patrolling amid the population and co-opting local leaders, can halt the slide into chaos. ...

A key lesson General Petraeus draws from Vietnam, compared to Malaya, is that the US Army is historically unprepared to fight insurgencies. The American military has overwhelming force for conventional combat but, without the British experience of empire, is intellectually unequipped to deal with the subtleties of guerrilla war.

The British, with their colonial history, are far better at combining local diplomacy with military force, a model General Petraeus wants to emulate.

The intellectual pursuits of Petraeus seem uniquely suited for the task ahead -- and perhaps the best indication that the situation in Iraq can still be solved through victory. As a student of counterinsurgencies, Petraeus would have a clear vision of all the difficulties ahead. He would not have taken a command doomed to failure, and one that he could easily have avoided.

Petraeus famously pacified the Mosul area in 2003-4 by adapting the softer approach of the British Empire in the northern hotbed. Instead of massively violent raids, he adopted a more relaxed approach of surrounding houses with force and then politely knocking before entering. He worked closely with the local imams to build confidence in the American administration of his sector, and left Mosul a calm oasis in a restive nation.

Can he repeat the act on a broader basis in Baghdad? Perhaps, but it seems that he may be the only man who could make the new "surge" strategy play to our benefit. He will deploy forces in a more community-based policing strategy to rebuild the confidence of the Iraqis and, perhaps most importantly, will focus on using reconstruction funds to directly benefit the neighborhoods in which the Americans find themselves stationed. In conjunction with the increase in troops, Petraeus' experience offers a good opportunity for the US to find our way to victory.

Reality-Based Hamas

The global leader of Hamas finally admitted that a nation calling itself Israel exists, even if he's not happy about it. Khaled Mashaal says that he wants a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, an implicit acknowledgement of the fact that Israel exists on the other side of the line:

The hardline leader of Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, accepted the existence of Israel yesterday and acknowledged that the Jewish state was likely to remain a reality. In a clear softening of his position, Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader based in Damascus, even held out the possibility that he would one day recognise Israel formally, once Palestinians had a state of their own.

“There will remain a state called Israel. This is a matter of fact,” he said. “The problem is not that there is an entity called Israel,” Mr Meshaal said. “The problem is that the Palestinian state is non-existent.”

He went on to endorse the idea of a two-state solution with the Palestinian state made up of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

“As a Palestinian today I speak of a Palestinian and Arab demand for a state on 1967 borders. It is true that in reality there will be an entity or state called Israel on the rest of Palestinian land,” he said. “This is a reality but I won’t deal with it in terms of recognising or admitting it,” the Hamas leader said.

If this is true, it's quite a shift for Mashaal. As late as last year, Mashaal insisted that Hamas would never accept the "Zionists" on Palestinian land. Hamas has blocked Mahmoud Abbas' attempts to engage the Israelis on a two-state solution, which makes this statement an even more striking development.

Can we expect a softening of the Hamas position in the Palestinian Authority as a result? It seems doubtful. Mashaal will probably find a way to retreat at light speed from these remarks. The Israelis aren't taking it seriously, with their Foreign Ministry saying that Mashaal was just "playing with words".

Condoleezza Rice starts off her latest tour through the Middle East, hoping to restart peace talks by meeting with both sides in Jerusalem and Ramallah. At the end of the week-long visit, she'll go to London to meet with our Quartet partners. I doubt that she will have much new to report, even with the new "reality-based" Hamas leadership style.

Romney Uses Podcast To Respond To YouTube

The upcoming presidential election will hinge on the use of technology and the rapid response to potentially damaging imagery. When a video clip from Mitt Romney's debate with Ted Kennedy in 1994 got YouTubed, opening another question about his pro-life credentials, Romney turned to Glenn Reynolds and a Podcast to set the record straight. Be sure to check out the Glenn & Helen Show.

Bush Speech Live Blog

I will live-blog the President's speech, which starts as 8 pm CT, at this link.

7:32 PM CT - I will appear on CHQR's The World Tonight with Rob Breakenridge at 8:40 pm CT. We'll be discussing the speech and its implications. CHQR broadcasts on 770 AM in Calgary, but CQ readers can listen to the station's Internet stream.

7:34 - The Anchoress sends a link to this Newsweek item showing a Democratic flip-flop on the surge. I agree with her that the Democrats seem to use the automatic-gainsay strategy with Bush about Iraq, but I do recall this article -- and it was remarkable because Silvestre Reyes came out so strongly opposed to the Democrats' policy of defeat and retreat. Has Reyes repudiated his support for the surge today? I haven't heard. Also, Sister Toldjah has more thoughts along these lines ...

7:45 - Drudge has the speech up on his site now.

7:50 - Wesley Clark was just on O'Reilly, and he showed why he flopped in the 2004 primaries. John Podhoretz caught it too, and he posted an excellent riposte at The Corner. O'Reilly has Dick Morris on the show in this segment, and Morris points out the obvious: Iran is not the Soviet Union, and mutually-assured destruction will not stop them from pressing forward with a new Holocaust in the Middle East. Clark seemed completely confused; on one hand, he was saying that we need to talk with Iran to get their cooperation, and in the next breath he talked about how he stuck a finger in Milosevic's chest and told him that the US would bomb him ... which is exactly what we did, with Clark at the helm. So why aren't we sticking our finger in Ahmadinejad's chest in the same manner?

7:59 - The coming surge? It's already landed, at least to start.

8:01 - Fox News cut over late, but the speech has already started. He's covering some of the successes first.

8:03 - "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility lies with me." Is that enough for Bush's critics? No way.

8:04 - A failure in Iraq would be a catastrophe. Bush outlines a few reasons why:

The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.

8:05 - He's working up to the two key issues of the surge -- there weren't enough American troops to hold after clearing, and the rules of engagement were too restrictive. Bush says both of these will change in the new strategy.

8:07 - Why will this effort be different from earlier efforts? Nancy Pelosi asked that in her press conference today. Bush has an answer, which boils down to this: either we take on all of the militias, or we'll pack up and leave Maliki to their tender mercies. I guess Maliki chose Door #1.

8:11 - He's going to do the fruit-salad thing with the ISG. I guess James Baker will have to live with that. Bush is using the best of the ISG's recommendations and ignoring the rest. The Iraqi government has committed $10 billion in jobs programs and infrastructure work, which I noted was key to success.

8:12 - We're going to stay on the offense in Anbar; Bush says we're making headway against the terrorists there, so 4,000 Marines will expand the effort.

8: 14 - "We will expand intelligence sharing, and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies." Or to send a message to our enemies that their missile systems may do them little good.

8:16 - "They will make the year ahead bloody and violent." Well, that's what terrorists do, which is why we're fighting them now. They've been making the world bloody and violent for decades, and the vacillations and appeasement offered by the West during that time didn't convince them to stop.

8:19 - Bush challenged his opposition to explain in their criticisms how they will succeed in Iraq using a different strategy, couched in gracious terms. In effect, he's saying that failure and defeat should not be options, and he's right.

8:21 - A nice finish to the speech, and a journeyman effort in delivering it tonight. Will it change minds? I don't think it will have that much effect.

POST SPEECH ANALYSIS: Bush and his team spent quite a bit of time on the address. They included several elements to bridge political differences. His assumption of responsibility for the failure to quell the violence in Baghdad is the one element that had been missing until now, and it may help take the edge off of some of the criticism.

Durbin is speaking now, and he's making an impassioned address to give Iraq back to the Iraqis. He's doing a good job in delivering the speech, but he is avoiding the question of what happens when we leave. He argues on one hand that the Iraqis are in the middle of a "civil war", but then says that the Iraqis will suddenly unite to govern themselves when we leave. That implies that the only dispute in Iraq is the presence of American troops, a ludicrous suggestion.

8:33 - General Bob Scales on Fox says that Bush may have won a small window in which to achieve enough success to gain a slightly larger window. If Bush cannot show enough success early on, American patience will run out.

8:34 - John McCain is appearing with Chris Wallace, and he's saying that failure will be a catastrophe for the region. He thinks that this strategy will improve the situation. McCain also says that Maliki would be the key, and that while Maliki keeps saying the right things, up to now he hasn't done the right things. "The Maliki government will have to be very different than it is now."

8:41 - Waiting for my call from CHQR, but Fox is announcing that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will propose an expansion of the active-duty military.

8:44 - Going on the air in one minute -- just enough time to click on the link at the top of this post and listen in ...

8:57 - I had a great conversation with Rob Breakenridge. Hope you had a chance to listen!

9:27 - Family phone calls put an end to the live blog, but be sure to catch Jay Reding's.

Hitting Reverse A Little Early

With just a few hours left before George Bush delivers his speech on the shift in Iraq war policy, politicians have already queued up to declare themselves in support or opposition to the plan. Unsurprisingly, most Democrats oppose it, but a few Republicans have joined them. Senator Sam Brownback, who has made it clear that he wants to run for the 2008 nomination as a staunch conservative, made the biggest splash among GOP naysayers:

Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback came out against President Bush's expected call tonight for a surge of 22,000 more troops into Iraq.

"I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer," Brownback said while traveling in Iraq. "Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution."

Brownback had previously supported a short-term surge of troops if it could help achieve long-term political stability, which the Bush Administration has said it hopes a troop surge will help achieve.

But Brownback rejected that argument after meeting this week with several Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and U.S. military commanders.

"I came away from these meetings convinced that the United States should not increase its involvement until Sunnis and Shi'a are more willing to cooperate with each other instead of shooting at each other," Brownback said.

In fact, that support came less than four weeks ago, when Brownback endorsed the so-called "surge" after the release of the ISG report:

The military should get additional, temporary troops in Baghdad if it asks for them, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback said Friday.

But the potential presidential candidate also said America’s military posture in the country has to be “substantially different” before the 2008 election.

“We can’t be in the middle of a sectarian battle,” he said. “That’s not our role. … We have to get Iraq to some sort of political equilibrium.”

It hardly enhances Brownback's reputation to flip-flop this quickly. Other bloggers have pointed out where Democrats shifted their objections to the war strategy from a lack of troops to a demand for fewer of them, but one can also show that those differing statements came rather far apart in time. The situation may have changed on the ground since then, or at least that argument can be made.

However, Brownback cannot possibly expect us to believe that to be the reason for his change of heart. Either he spoke out in favor of an escalation without studying the problem, or he abandoned it for political reasons. There really isn't a third choice, and neither option shows him as a serious candidate for Commander in Chief. Had he been President, he would have sent thousands of troops to Iraq on December 16th and recalled them on January 10th -- not exactly a confidence builder.

I favor an increase in personnel if they have a specific mission to dismantle the sectarian militias and the rules of engagement to do it effectively. If they lack either, then I would oppose a surge or escalation, whichever term anyone wants to apply. What I oppose more than anything else is poll-driven war strategy -- which is what the Democrats have offered all along, and Brownback appears to endorse as well. (via CQ readers and Hugh Hewitt)

Somalia: Target Destroyed

The US airstrikes have scored a success against one of their intended targets. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who planned the attacks on American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed over 200 people (mostly Africans), died in the US attack on Islamists fleeing Somalia in the wake of their collapse against the Ethiopians:

The suspected al-Qaeda militant who planned the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in east Africa was killed in an American airstrike in Somalia, an official said Wednesday.

"I have received a report from the American side chronicling the targets and list of damage," Abdirizak Hassan, the Somali president's chief of staff, told The Associated Press. "One of the items they were claiming was that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is dead." ...

Mohammed allegedly planned the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 225 people.

He is also suspected of planning the car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and the near simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed in the blast at the hotel, 12 miles north of Mombasa. The missiles missed the airliner.

Mohammed is thought to have been the main target of an American helicopter attack Monday afternoon on Badmadow island off southern Somalia.

Apparently, the American intelligence had this target identified rather clearly. The attacks have continued now into their third day as the US wants to take advantage of the rout of Islamists from Mogadishu and Kismayo. We are making a point about the patience and tenacity of American counterterrorist efforts, one that even al-Qaeda won't be able to ignore.

We've taken down one mastermind responsible for attacks on America. Hopefully, more will be forthcoming.

The Last Best Chance

President Bush will take to the airwaves tonight to unveil his new strategy in Iraq, attempting to build enough support to shift more troops for at least a limited engagement against sectarian militias that threaten to undermine the Iraqi government. In preparation, Bush spent hours polishing his speech and meeting with lawmakers of both parties to ensure he strikes the right tone:

President Bush spent hours Tuesday practicing in front of cameras, preparing to make his case for increasing the U.S. military commitment in Iraq in a prime-time address to the nation tonight, even as congressional Democrats readied legislation to block any increase in the number of troops.

Members of Congress who met with Bush said he appeared to understand that, after years of upbeat rhetoric and positive assessments that belied a lack of progress inside the country, his credibility was on the line.

"He told us what he planned to say tomorrow," said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), one of about a dozen House members who met with the president and his top advisors for more than an hour Tuesday afternoon. "In terms of tough moments in his presidency, this is it." ...

In the White House meeting, Bush gave a rundown of the speech to House Democrats, who gave him a tepid response. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said no lawmaker in his meeting supported the new policy. "We were more in a question-and-answer mode, but a fair amount of skepticism was voiced," Smith said.

"It was not a confrontational meeting," said Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Alamo), who said she emphasized the importance of the Iraqi government making political progress. "I think he understands that, at some level, this is the last best chance."

To no one's surprise, the strategy envisions sending 20,000 more troops, probably primarily in the Baghdad and Anbar areas. In exchange, Nouri al-Maliki has agreed to meet benchmarks for political progress, likely focusing on reducing Moqtada al-Sadr's grip on the Ministry of the Interior and other key agencies. He has already replaced the generals who insisted that no troop increase would be necessary to accomplish the mission, and the new commander, General David Petraeus, supports this new policy. The Los Angeles Times does not mention it, but the speech will almost certainly also unveil a new jobs program to help rebuild Iraqi infrastructure, a key component of any plan to reduce violence in Iraq as well as to raise the standard of living.

Also to no one's surprise, the Democrats wasted no time in opposing Bush's new strategy even before he has a chance to announce it. Democrats debated methods of blocking troop transfers in Congress, a move that even their own people warned would be an unconstitutional infringement on the powers of the commander-in-chief. Once authorized to conduct a war, Congress has no authority to dictate troop movements or even an end to hostilities. Ted Kennedy practically twisted an ankle in his rush to the podium to declare Iraq as Bush's Vietnam.

I'd like to hear the strategy before passing final judgment on the idea. While I'm not sold on the use of "surge" to describe a sustained increase of 20,000 troops, it's ridiculous to compare that to the massive escalations of the Johnson administration in Vietnam. If the mission has explicit definitions and targets and the rules of engagement allow the troops to accomplish it, then it makes sense. It is in our interests and those of Iraq to put an end to the sectarian violence in Baghdad and Anbar. A concentrated clear-and-hold that relies on American troops in a primary position could give enough of an opportunity for calmer heads to prevail, and for serious rebuilding and jobs efforts to have a soothing effect on the divide.

I do agree that this may be Bush's last, best chance to change directions in support of victory in Iraq. If it doesn't succeed, then the Democrats will likely force his hand towards defeat and retreat.

NOTE: I will live-blog the speech this evening in a new post.

UPDATE: Mitt Romney joins John McCain in supporting the surge.

The Engagement Of Fallujans

Bill Ardolino files another of his embed reports from Iraq, the second of a series for The Examiner, and this focuses on the challenges of creating a stable society in Fallujah. An IED attack on an Abrams tank demonstrates the challenges for the American effort to engage the civilians of the city in an environment of terrorist attacks:

The political situation is at another key turning point. Insurgents currently maintain the ability to disrupt the government because they are willing and able to pursue aggressively the two respected currencies in Iraq: money and violence.

In contrast, U.S. and Iraqi government forces are limited in their efforts to establish a competing center of power, and many locals are caught in the middle. Americans don’t have the support of — but aren’t necessarily opposed by — many locals, don’t know the language or area and lack the backing from our political leaders to meet insurgent violence with a competitive level of violence.

The Iraqi army in Fallujah is willing and able to use requisite force, but is generally mistrusted and disliked by the locals; being primarily Shiite outsiders in a notoriously insular Sunni enclave hampers their effectiveness and ability to work with the police.

Thus, the best case relies on Fallujans to take the lead in securing their city. And challenges to their effectiveness include a lack of initiative, a scarcity of strong leadership and the omnipresent fear of the insurgents, who target officials and their families with a campaign of murderous intimidation.

It's not the most encouraging of reports, but it shows that the Americans have the potential to succeed in Fallujah and elsewhere, if we can find ways to compete against the terrorists in both money and violence. For too long, we've allowed them to take the initiative on both counts. We should have kept working with smaller and direct funding for native rebuilding projects rather than impose an American bureaucratic (in other words, slow) approach to the effort. In the immediate wake of the Iraqi collapse, the Pentagon made those funds available to commanders in the field, and they were very successful in sparking positive reconstruction efforts and creating jobs for Iraqis with nothing else to do.

Now that the problems of unemployment, violence, and mistrust have gotten deeper, the US seems to be returning to that strategy once again. Part of the speech by President Bush tonight will talk not just about the "surge" strategy but also new funds for a jobs program in Iraq that will help rebuild the infrastructure in a country that has seen precious little investment over the last few decades -- unless presidential palaces qualify. Properly managed and quickly implemented, such a program could accomplish two tasks: get Iraqis off the streets and into jobs, and fulfill the promise of a better life that so many Iraqis believed would come with the American invasion.

Bill also posts an interview with a politically-connected Fallujan at INDC Journal that helps round out his Examiner dispatch. Most significant for our involvement is this passage at the end, in which the Sunni describes his shift in attitude towards the Americans:

Yusef: "Through my [experience as an enemy], the way I look at Americans, I look at them and feel like they are occupiers, occupying my country when the invasion happened. But when other parties showed up - especially the radicals and the Iranian militias, both who are not Iraqis - now I prefer the Americans. I've met [various Americans working for Fallujah]. It is my feeling that [they are] working hard, and (before I knew) you (Americans) I had a different image. Now that I know the Americans, I have a different impression. Now I deal honestly with them and feel they are really working for the benefit of my side."

"I think the Americans are more for Iraq than the Iraqis themselves."

If you can, be sure to contribute a few dollars to Bill's tip jar in order to help support his embed mission in Iraq.

Mugabe Arrests Miners, Aims For Gold

Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe has conducted a massive campaign of theft against gold panners in his nation, arresting as many as 20,000 of them over the last few weeks. Mugabe wants to seize control of gold supplies from people that have already been dislocated once, from the farms that used to produce both food and labor opportunities:

As many as 20,000 miners have been arrested in police raids across Zimbabwe.

Their detention, in one of the largest police actions in the country's recent history, has left thousands of family members without any support at a time of rampant inflation and a desperate shortage of maize meal, the staple food.

Many of those arrested are legally registered as miners with the mines ministry. The government has claimed it is detaining illegal gold panners selling ore on the black market and causing massive environmental damage.

Mugabe's government forces the miners to sell the ore they capture at the fixed currency rate, a policy which means that they can only get a tenth of the real value of the gold. Many do sell on the black market, and others have to mine and pan more agressively in order to make enough money to survive. As a result of these raids, families on the edge of survival even with the panning will probably not live very much longer.

Who are the panners? They are the people who worked the farms of Zimbabwe when they were under white ownership. After Mugabe seized most of the farms, the farming system fell apart, and most of the workers had no opportunities for jobs in Zimbabwe's collapsing economy. They took to gold mining and panning, not the safest of professions, by the hundreds of thousands. It's a subsistence job, regulated by Zimbabwe, but it puts the gold in the hands of the people -- and like any dictator, Mugabe cannot allow power to remain in the hands of those who might threaten his rule.

These raids and mass arrests come as no surprise. Mugabe threatened to nationalize the mining operations, at one point in 2006 insisting that he would take controlling interest in all mines without compensating the owners. He bragged at the time that those who opposed these plans would hear "Goodbye, and good luck" from his minions, and it looks like Mugabe may have been true to his word -- except that the "goodbye" comes in the form of sending people into what sounds like concentration camps, or worse. One witness talks about 1,000 detainees being left handcuffed together for days in a small fenced field for days, exposed to the rain and sun and unable to care for their basic human needs. Others have simply been shot resisting arrest, the favorite gambit of any dictator.

If the world needs to address the woes of Africa, Zimbabwe has to be one of the first places that gets attention. The real tragedies of Africa can be found in dictatorships like Mugabe's, which cause so much unnecessary famine and death. At some point, the West will have to get over being embarrassed by its colonial history and deal with the damage done by the monsters that filled the vacuum of their departures. All of the Live Aids in the world will not touch the underlying causes of famine and misery in such a fertile land.

A Dictator Only Cindy Sheehan Could Love

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez threatened yesterday to nationalize key industries and demanded dictatorial powers, accelerating the OPEC member's move towards Castroism. Global investors reacted by beginning to bail out of corporations at risk from Chavez' attempts to seize assets:

Verizon Communications had been looking to lighten its exposure to Latin America for some time when it struck a deal in April to sell investments in three properties in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

Now, it probably wishes it had disconnected its Latin lines even sooner.

The company could possibly lose up to several hundred million dollars, thanks to President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who threatened to nationalize the country’s main telephone and electricity companies.

Investors reacted with alarm here and in markets in the United States and throughout Latin America on Tuesday as they measured the impact of the plan by Mr. Chávez to nationalize crucial areas of the economy. Memories of past nationalizations during another turbulent era, in places like Cuba and Chile, helped drive down the Caracas stock exchange’s main index by almost 19 percent.

Chavez did not slake his thirst for power on just nationalization of the telecom and and energy industries. He also demanded enhanced executive powers that would allow him to impose laws by edict for one year before the Venezuelan assembly could attempt to reverse them. Chavez also proposed ending the autonomy of Venezuela's central bank, putting Chavez firmly in control of monetary policy. He will likely face little dissent on either point from the rubber-stamp legislature, which contains nothing but Chavez allies now.

Verizon and AES face hundreds of millions in losses if Chavez nationalizes these industries. Some analysts claim that Chavez has too much exposure here in the US. Venezuela owns Citgo, and American courts could seize the fuel company's assets to reimburse those losses if Venezuela does not pay market value for the assets Chavez seizes. That implies a rational thought process that Chavez has not always demonstrated, however, and in his zeal to create a Cuba with oil reserves, he may not care about any short-term losses here in the US. With control of monetary policy, he could simply divert more resources from the central bank, if necessary.

In order to gain the hard currency necessary for all his changes, however, Chavez will have to pump oil more vigorously than ever before. That makes it difficult for him to use oil as an economic weapon against the US. Venezuela is our fourth-largest source of foreign oil, but given the market's fungibility, even if they sold less of their production to us, we would still find more oil on the market from elsewhere. Chavez cannot afford to sell less oil after nationalizing these key industries, at least not if he hopes to succeed in his efforts.

The Venezuelans will not stand for much more of this. Chavez nearly lost out in a coup attempt a few years ago. If he continues to create this tinpot dictatorship for himself, the next one will succeed.

China Has Its Islamists Problems ... Maybe

China usually works hard to avoid admitting internal conflicts in their workers' paradise, so when they go public with operations against any kind of dissidents, it's significant. Beijing announced today that they had conducted a military operation against a terrorist training camp in its Xinjiang province, close to Central Asian republics struggling with al-Qaeda and other Islamists. However, as with all pronouncements by China, not all is as it seems:

China revealed the depth of its fear of Islamic-linked violence yesterday when police disclosed that they had killed 18 terrorists and captured another 17 after a fierce battle at a secret training camp in a remote northwestern region.

It was the first time that China had announced the discovery of such a camp in its territory. Officials said that they had uncovered links between the activists and international terrorist groups, hinting at connections to al-Qaeda.

The clash in the Pamir mountains on Friday was one of the deadliest for years in the restive Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region, where 8.5 million Muslims make up most of the population. One policeman was killed and a second wounded.

Police said that the camp, in Akto county, was run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (Etim). It is listed as a terrorist group by the US, at China’s insistence, despite concerns among Beijing-based diplomats over lack of evidence.

Firearms and 22 grenades, plus materials to produce another 1,500 such devices, were seized at the camp, Xinjiang police said. Officials declined to reveal other details, saying that they would release information only as part of a manhunt for fugitives.

The raid took place in the westernmost part of China, just north of Tibet and adjacent to Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan. The region has produced the most virulent of the radical Islamists, and the tribal associations in the area would lend credence to China's assertion that the Uighers have allied with AQ and set up a training camp there. Some reports have the Uighers setting up mining operations in the remote mountains to finance their terrorist network.

However, some experts have thrown a little cold water on the Chinese assertions of links to al-Qaeda. The specific area in which the camp was found is mostly populated by Tajiks, not Uighers. The ethnic Tajiks have not supported the Uigher movement to create an independent state in the imposing hill country. Furthermore, the ETIM have mostly disbanded, according to the Times' intel sources, after the death of their leader three years ago. The Uighers have primarily wanted an independent state not for religious reasons, but economic; the Han have taken most of the jobs in Xinjiang with the apparent support of Beijing, displacing the native Uighers.

Undoubtedly, Islamists have stirred the pot in Xinjiang, given their proximity in the neighboring nations. With 8.5 million Muslims living in the province, the Islamists would want to peel the area away from Chinese control and create a transit point for terrorists and supplies that would allow them to bypass military opposition, especially in Afghanistan and even in Pakistan. It would also make an excellent hiding place for certain high-value targets, who know very well that the Americans would not dare invade China to find them.

Even granting all of that, China's record inspires little confidence that they are telling the truth about their operations in Xinjiang. It would be very easy for China to conduct a harsh military crackdown on an ethnic minority and claim it as a counterterrorism mission.

A Message To Steroid Users

The Baseball Writers Association of America has a message for today's baseball players: steroids may keep them out of the Hall of Fame. Mark McGwire, whose home-run chase reignited fan support of the national pastime and whose lifetime total easily outstrips many other Hall members, only mustered less than a quarter of the ballots for his first year of eligibility:

Mark McGwire's Hall of Fame bid was met with a rejection as emphatic as his upper-deck home runs. While the door to Cooperstown swung open for Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn on Tuesday, McGwire was picked by less than a quarter of voters — a result that raises doubts about whether Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa or other sluggers from baseball's Steroids Era will ever gain entry.

McGwire, whose 583 home runs rank seventh on the career list, appeared on 128 of a record 545 ballots in voting released Tuesday by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

"I hope that as time goes on, that number will increase," Gwynn said. "I hope that one day he will get into the Hall of Fame, because I really believe he deserves it."

The 23.5 percent vote McGwire received represented the first referendum on how history will judge an age when bulked-up players came under suspicion of using performance-enhancing drugs. Baseball didn't ban steroids until after the 2002 season.

If any of the steroid-era players could have expected a pass from the BBWA, it would have been McGwire. After a disastrous lockout and the first cancellation of the World Series in ninety years, major-league baseball looked as though it had lost its fan base for good. McGwire and his smashing of Roger Maris' 37-year-old single-season record captured the imagination of the nation, and his good-hearted inclusion of Maris' family in the celebration as well as his friendly competition with Sammy Sosa created a lot of goodwill -- and it showed at the turnstiles.

However, allegations of better living through chemicals had always followed McGwire during his career, and even during his record 1998 season people wondered aloud as to whether it should matter. When Barry Bonds broke his record three years later, fans grumbled that the record books should carry asterisks for steroid use. McGwire further alienated fans with an evasive performance at a Congressional hearing about steroid abuse in sports, convincing even more fans that McGwire had essentially cheated his way to the record.

In contrast, the BBWA focused their votes on two of the classier acts in baseball, Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn. Both were assured a first-ballot selection, but in this case the writers may have intended to send a particular message. Neither player made their names through bulking up and setting power records; instead, both brought an unforgettable artistry to baseball. As a Dodger fan, I can attest to the fact that Gwynn always seemed to get on base through some magic in his bat. I hated seeing him coming to bat against us, but no one who loves the game could fail to appreciate his talent and the joy he took in playing the game. Ripken, of course, broke Lou Gehrig's cherished consecutive-games streak and did it in a quiet, modest manner that gave us a refreshing break from the bulked-up egos of modern athletes.

McGwire, by the way, also comported himself with class during his career, and perhaps the BBWA just wants to sent a temporary message. (One might imagine that Barry Bonds will not get treated even this kindly by the writers he despised.) When baseball needed a hero, McGwire took the stage, and it should be recalled that baseball did not have a rule against using steroids at the time, although its unprescribed use was illegal. He may well have to pay for the refusal of baseball owners and players to recognize the damage steroids have done to fan loyalty and to the record books held sacred by those enthusiasts, particularly in this sport.

Jordan Foils Terrorist Plot

Jordanian forces have killed one al-Qaeda operative and captured another in an operation that foiled a pending terrorist attack against the Hashemite Kingdom:

Police killed one suspected al-Qaida member and detained a second in a crackdown Tuesday that foiled a terrorist plot against Jordan, the state news agency and officials said. ...

A unit comprised of elite police and intelligence forces stormed the cell's hideout because of "information on plans by al-Qaida targeting the Jordanian arena," Petra said, quoting an unidentified security official. It did not elaborate.

Security officials told The Associated Press that the two men opened fire at the special security forces that came to arrest them.

Police shot one man dead, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the operation was under way. The other man is in police custody, they said.

The dead man is presumed to be a Palestinian, as he entered Jordan on a temporary passport, which is usually used for Palestinians. He was one of the most wanted AQ operatives in the region. Suleiman Ghayad al-Anjadi had attempted a prison break that would have freed AQ ringleader Azmi al-Jayousi in April 2006. Instead, they convicted Anjadi in absentia, and effectively closed their case this morning. Jayousi awaits his execution after his 2004 conviction for the planned gas attack in Amman.

It seems to be a bad week for al-Qaeda. They've watched their remnants get shredded in Somalia by US forces, and now the Jordanians have thwarted another operation and killed one of their ringleaders. 2007 has gotten off to a good start for counterterrorism efforts.

Still Delaying The Inevitable

I'm not sure how many more of these stories the American media can produce, but the Boston Globe seems intent on telling us -- again -- that John Kerry still has not decided to run for President in 2008:

After sending strong signals for two years about a second run for the presidency, Senator John F. Kerry has held no public political events in more than two months, even as his potential rivals ramp up their own campaigns.

Behind the scenes, Kerry has been more active, hiring several top operatives and hosting several major fund-raisers with Democratic activists, including a breakfast yesterday in New York City and a birthday event at his Beacon Hill home last month, where he raised $250,000.

Aides to the Massachusetts Democrat said he is still mulling whether he should run again for president in 2008. A decision is likely to be made before the end of the month.

But Kerry's low public profile in recent weeks has fueled some speculation in political circles that the 2004 presidential nominee will forgo another run, in recognition of the difficult task he probably would have in persuading primary voters to turn to him a second time. "I wouldn't be surprised if he sees the handwriting on the wall," said Alan Wolfe , a political science professor at Boston College. "I don't see any chance of him getting the nomination. The only question is, does he think he has a chance?"

Most people are already surprised that he didn't see the handwriting on the wall after 2004. Al Gore has more of a chance for a comeback than John Kerry. However, the last Democratic nominee has remained a specter in the 2008 campaign, albeit a minor one. No one calculates a Kerry run in a race where Hillary Clinton has all but announced her candidacy and those disaffected from Clinton yearn for an Obama challenge.

Kerry/s time has passed, and the last person to realize it is Kerry, or maybe it's the media who haven't figured it out. Kerry's low profile for the last two months indicates that he can indeed read that handwriting after all.

Will Russian Standoff Help Belarussian Dictator?

The dispute between Russia and its former satellite republic Belarus escalated again yesterday, and now Europe will pay part of the price for the standoff. After Belarus slapped a high duty on oil as a reaction to a massive hike in energy prices from their Russian suppliers, Russia cut off all deliveries through the pipeline to Poland and Germany:

Russia halted oil exports to Europe via Belarus yesterday as a bitter trade dispute escalated, renewing concerns that Moscow is bent on pursuing aggressive energy diplomacy.

Taps were turned off on pipelines to Poland and Germany but the European Commission said there was no immediate risk of shortages in either country because of ample stocks in refineries.

The commission was also investigating whether the supply was cut on another branch of the 2,500-mile pipeline feeding Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

This has now escalated into something much larger than a price dispute. Vladimir Putin has played games with oil prices in the past, especially last year when he attempted to quadruple the price to Ukraine, which had left the Russian political orbit after the Orange Revolution. The surprise here has been that Putin has launched an economic attack on the one European former republic that still remained close to the Kremlin.

However, Alexander Lukashenko has started talking about national sovereignty, which points towards what might be the heart of the dispute. It has been rumored that Putin wants Belarus to commit to an anschluss of sorts, annexing itself to Russia proper and accepting provincial status. Lukashenko has balked at this suggestion despite his former closeness to Putin, and this price war appears to be Putin's punishment for Lukashenko's nationalism.

This could just be an attempt by Lukashenko to rally his people around his rather unpopular government in a crisis. However, it fits with Putin's plan to expand Russian influence in the region, and the two men signed an agreement years ago to have Belarus give the pipeline to Putin and accept provincial status in exchange for assistance from Russia. Now that the bill has come due, Lukashenko has suddenly discovered his nationalism, and he wants to inspire a groundswell of support for his sudden Russophobia.

It might even work. Lukashenko has little popularity among the Belarussians, but defending the homeland will certainly help improve his standing, even among those who want close ties to Moscow. Putin may find that his plans to recreate the Greater Russia of the Soviet Union will be dashed -- again -- on the nationalism of it former component parts. And in this case, Putin may have created a nationalist nemesis out of what he had considered a lackey.

The Healthinator?

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed mandatory universal health-care coverage for all Californians, a plan that will get its funding from taxes on small businesses and medical-industry professionals. California would become the third state to require all residents to carry health insurance, and Schwarzenegger plans on enforcing it through wage garnishments if necessary:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) on Monday proposed a system of universal health insurance for Californians that would make the nation's most populous state the third to guarantee medical coverage for all its residents.

"Prices for health care and insurance are rising twice as fast as inflation, twice as fast as wages. That is a terrible drain on everyone, and it is a drain on our economy," Schwarzenegger said. "My solution is that everyone in California must have insurance. If you can't afford it, the state will help you buy it, but you must be insured." ...

Schwarzenegger's plan would require everyone living in California -- even illegal immigrants -- to have health insurance, at an estimated cost of $12 billion. Individuals who refuse to carry insurance could face reductions in their state income tax refunds or the garnishment of their wages. All businesses with 10 or more employees would have to offer coverage or pay a fee of 4 percent of their payroll into a fund to help the uninsured buy health insurance.

Schwarzenegger also recommended expanding the state's existing program for children's health insurance to families that earn less than three times the poverty level, or about $60,000 for a family of four.

The plan appears to be a populist's dream. While not a single-payor system on the surface, the new regulation would dictate the terms for insurers in such a way that government will effectively take over most of the decision-making for medical coverage and payouts. It takes the bill out of the hands of the consumer and puts it onto both businesses large and small as well as the people who actually provide the medical care.

If California had a reputation for efficiency and good management of insurance programs, this might almost make sense. However, the state has a disastrous workers-comp program that has already provided a large incentive for businesses to look eastward for relocation. It costs employers a fortune and leaves them vulnerable for abuse. Schwarzenegger promised to overhaul the system, but reform has been slow in coming.

Now my native state has decided that it will manage the health-care system, and that it will force Californians to support some very questionable goals. Chief among these is the mandate to provide coverage for illegal aliens. This should begin an uproar that Arnold will find difficult to control. While I understand his economic reasoning -- he figures that they're getting free emergency-room treatment and wants to reduce the cost of their treatment -- there are many Californians who will oppose giving illegal immigrants another free ride, after education. It will start a political firestorm and may re-energize the anti-illegal movement in California.

One needs only look at the incentives to see what will happen with his proposal. Health care providers will decline, since taxes provide a disincentive to the market; doctors will find other venues in which to practice, and the best will capture the most lucrative economic positions, none of which will now be in California. Small businesses, which will have to start paying an additional 4% of their payroll if they employ 10 or more people, will simply work hard to avoid that cap -- perhaps by outsourcing some of their functions to services in other states, which will expand to meet the market demand. Otherwise, small businesses will have to raise prices to cover the additional cost, which will make them less competitive than larger businesses and force more of them out of business altogether. That will result in inflationary pressure and a drop in employment, which will force taxpayers to spend even more money to insure the uninsured.

And that's not the end of the bad news. In order to manage all of these new mandates, Schwarzenegger will have to expand the state government. Otherwise, who keeps track of the insurance status of Californians? Who makes sure that resident A has his wages garnished if he doesn't buy health insurance when he can afford it, and who makes sure they know who can pay the bill? It will require a more intrusive governmental structure and a whopping bureaucracy to keep track of all these markers. All of this will take even more money out of the pockets of Californians than the health insurance costs now mandated by Arnold.

For a state that has made deficit spending an art form and expansion of power a chronic addiction, this seems par for the course. We can now write off California's economy for the next few decades. Perhaps socialism sells in the Golden State -- I think it probably does, unfortunately -- but at some time they will have to pay the bills, and maybe that will finally convince them of their folly in creating the Nanny State.

UPDATE: Free To Choose? Apparently, not any longer.

The Addiction Remains Strong

The new Democratic majority in Congress has made ethics reform one of their centerpiece issues for the 110th session, and they have some good ideas about how to clean up the legislative branch. One of their proposals contains a ban against the use of corporate jets at commercial rates, a huge discount on charter rates. Unfortunately, Democrats in the Senate have exhibited less enthusiasm for this reform:

Senators are ready to relinquish lobbyist-paid steak dinners and skybox seats at sports arenas. But giving up the use of corporate jets at bargain prices might be one reform too many for them.

While a ban on using corporate jets flew through the House last week, it faces strong political headwinds in the Senate, which began debate Monday on its own ethics reforms. ...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who as the new Senate Rules Committee chairwoman will play a central role in the debate on ethics legislation, favors "full disclosure" of senators' use of corporate jets, including the names of lobbyists on the flights. "To prohibit their use or make the cost prohibitive would make it very difficult for many members to get to, and around their states on a timely basis," she said.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, said, "Senators, especially from the West or from large states, sometimes have to deal with the need to travel to far-flung destinations in short periods of time and schedules that are subject to change until the last minute."

He said Reid is open to "considering new ideas on this issue as the bill progresses on the floor."

This is no sideshow for reform. Politicians at the national level used corporate jets over 2,300 times for their flights between 2001-2005. The practice allows them to save a great deal of money, and it allows them a convenience not found even for first-class passengers in commercial travel. Corporate jets wait for their passengers and offer personal service. It also allows de facto lobbyists hours of unfettered access to national politicians in order to plead for their pet causes while they serve the best of food and liquor.

After campaigning on the promise to clean up Congress, some Democrats apparently expect the help to do most of the heavy lifting. The reform packages offered by the Democrats focus significantly on the staffers and aides in their offices. This one piece of reform is one of the few that would almost entirely apply to the politicians themselves.

While the Democrats may pat themselves on the back for eliminating the free steaks, the rest of us wonder why they opted to keep the perk that has the greatest value. If commercial travel is good enough for the constituents, it should be good enough for the politicians. If not, isn't it their job to figure out ways to improve it?

Romney Launch Surprises

Governor Mitt Romney conducted the first big fund-raiser of the 2008 Presidential campaign, and the Romneyites surprised even themselves with a spectacular success. They collected $6.5 million from their Boston Convention event, far surpassing their goal:

White House hopeful Mitt Romney and 400 of his backers raised more than $6.5 million on Monday in a glitzy fundraising blitz that will force all Republican rivals to take notice.

"They've come together and blown us away today, and humbled us at the same time," said the former Massachusetts governor as he clutched the hand of his wife, Ann.

The figure dwarfed the $2 million that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., raised and the $1 million collected by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Like Romney, the two have created committees exploring bids for the GOP's presidential nomination.

While Romney said he was not trying to send a message to anyone but his supporters, one of his national fundraising co-chairman disagreed.

"I think it's going to be a very strong message today - to everybody," said Tom Tellefsen, a classmate of Romney's at Harvard Business School and a top fundraiser for President Bush. "I think it's going to be a strong message to McCain as well as Giuliani, and I think it's going to be a strong message to those that are considering or haven't really yet laid the groundwork that maybe they should have."

The Romney campaign may have sandbagged just a little with their $1 million goal, but even so, the final numbers on this show a surprising level of early support for the outgoing Massachusetts governor. With the season just starting, Romney has apparently found the attention of the GOP donors. The early start will do a lot to build the credibility of the man who just a few weeks ago seemed almost a second-tier candidate against McCain and Giuliani.

However, the real benefit of this big score will come from its deterrent value. Until now, the field had appeared to have a wide opening for a dark-horse candidate. With Romney arriving with such a splash, the less known candidates will have to consider whether the race will have enough room for a surprise from the sidelines. Candidates such as Mike Huckabee and Duncan Hunter have to consider whether the ante might force them out of the game before they hit the table.

Expect to see Romney maintain a high profile in the coming weeks. He will want to remain in the news, riding the momentum of today's event in an early attempt to swamp out the field. McCain has worked more behind the scenes than in high-profile events -- excepting the coin flip at last night's Fiesta Bowl -- and Giuliani has all but disappeared since the election. Romney may vault to the front of the pack by default, but last night's effort was no gimme.

Note: Just for full disclosure, Romney's campaign has purchased a blog ad for the sidebar. However, CQ will remain neutral until the primaries arrive, and of course I hope to speak to all Republican candidates for President in 2007. Right now, I'm very interested in how the candidates conduct themselves during the coming year in order to determine the best candidate to win in the general election.

Free Speech Does Not Include Terrorism

Yesterday, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from seven men charged with supporting terrorism through fund-raising for terrorist-linked organizations. The appeal came after the 9th Circuit had rejected the defense argument that their contributions to the MEK represented free speech:

The Supreme Court refused Monday to block the trial of seven Los Angeles residents charged with raising money for an Iranian opposition group that was designated a "foreign terrorist organization" by the U.S. government.

Lawyers for the seven had argued the charges were unconstitutional because they had a free-speech right to raise money for a political group.

That claim was rejected by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which noted the Iranian opposition group -- the People's Mujahedeen, also known as the MEK -- had a record of supporting assassinations and bombings.

"Sometimes money serves as a proxy for speech, and sometimes it buys goods and services that are not speech. Guns and bombs are not speech," said Judge Andrew Kleinfeld for the appeals court.

This case is not over. Another defense argument, challenging the status of the MEK as a terrorist group, will get a hearing in the actual criminal trial. The MEK opposes the mullahcracy in Teheran, which makes the defense seem more sympathetic than they would otherwise be in a post-9/11 world. However, the MEK (also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq) has been on the State Department watchlist since November 2001. It will be hard to plead ignorance in this case.

Nor will it be that easy to find sympathy for the MEK, its opposition to Teheran notwithstanding. The MEK started out as a Marxist group dedicating to overthrowing the Shah, but Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini got there first. Afterwards, it has acted against the mullahcracy but also against American interests. The MEK was one of the terrorist organizations allied with Saddam Hussein, and worked with Saddam to oppress the Iraqis. It hasn't attacked Americans since before the Shah fell, but it hardly qualifies as a freedom-fighting force in synch with our aspirations for liberty in Iraq and Iran.

The defense has good reason for its disappointment. If this goes to a jury trial, the defendants will have a very difficult time trying to win an acquittal.

The ruling represents a limit on the definition of speech that seems quite welcome after two generations of practically unlimited applications. Nude dancing, flag burning, and a variety of other behaviors have at one time or another found favor with the Supreme Court as "speech". Perhaps the Court has found a limit even for their own predilection for protecting the cornucopia of human actions through the First Amendment.

UPDATE: Forgot the link to the LA Times report.

What About Boise State?

Ohio State went into tonight's national championship game favored to beat Florida in a wipeout. Some people questioned whether the Gators even belonged in the game at all. They proved it by reversing expectations and blowing out Ohio State, 41-14:

Not even close.

Florida -- yes Florida -- owned the field it wasn't supposed to be on, embarrassing Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith and No. 1 Ohio State 41-14 on Monday night to run away with the national championship.

Chris Leak and Tim Tebow showed off coach Urban Meyer's twin quarterback system to perfection as the No. 2 Gators became the first Division I school to hold football and basketball titles at the same time.

I managed to watch the whole game, even though little doubt remained about the outcome after halftime. Ohio State scored on the opening kickoff and managed one decent drive, but otherwise the Gators dominated the supposed #1 team in the country. Troy Smith, who won the Heisman Trophy last month, looked like a rookie under the pressure of the underrated Florida defense. The Buckeye defense, on the other hand, looked confused and slow all night long.

And now we do have to ask about the Boise State Broncos. BSU went 13-0, the highest-ranked team to go undefeated this season. Florida and Ohio State both had a loss this year. Florida may have beaten Ohio State, but no one beat the Broncos -- and they knocked off a tough Oklahoma squad in a game that may have been one of the best in college football history. Sports writers will have to ask themselves how they can support a once-defeated Florida team against the undefeated Broncos, and strength of schedule will not be a very convincing argument in favor of Florida.

Once again, we have a perfect example of why the "national championship" promoted by the NCAA and the BCS is little more than a marketing ploy. Unfortunately, we won't even get a chance at a playoff system until 2010, even though the NCAA's other football divisions all employ one to determine their champion. The Boise State Broncos will have to console themselves with the knowledge that being the only unbeaten team doesn't count nearly as much as the money towards a national championship.

You Can Run But You Can't Hide, The Extended Dance Mix

Perhaps al-Qaeda figured that the US had focused so much on the 9/11 attacks that it had forgotten about one of its earlier attacks on American assets. If so, the terrorists have just discovered that both elephants and donkeys have long memories in America. The US Air Force has attacked the UIC remnants fleeing the Ethiopian Army in southern Somalia, targeting at least two AQ leaders that masterminded two suicide-bombing attacks on American embassies in 1998:

A U.S. Air Force gunship has conducted a strike against suspected members of al Qaeda in Somalia, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports exclusively.

The targets included the senior al Qaeda leader in East Africa and an al Qaeda operative wanted for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa, Martin reports. Those terror attacks killed more than 200 people.

The AC-130 gunship is capable of firing thousands of rounds per second, and sources say a lot of bodies were seen on the ground after the strike, but there is as yet, no confirmation of the identities.

The gunship flew from its base in Dijibouti down to the southern tip of Somalia, Martin reports, where the al Qaeda operatives had fled after being chased out of the capital of Mogadishu by Ethiopian troops backed by the United States.

The Ethiopians did us a big favor by dislodging the Islamists from Mogadishu. Once on the run, the US could bring all of its technological assets on line to track them, and the Air Force waited long enough for all of them to run into the trap. The Navy positioned the USS Eisenhower in the waters nearby Somalia just in case it finds even more targets to strike.

That hasn't stopped the Ethiopians, either. Their forces have surrounded an al-Qaeda base and may have overrun it by the time you read this post. Between the three forces, including those loyal to the Somalian transitional government, AQ in Africa is about to take a huge blow, perhaps even a fatal defeat.

It may have taken us a long time, but we do not forget. Let's hope that our attack took out these high-value targets and plenty of their followers to boot. (via Hot Air)

Muslim Taxi Showdown In Twin Cities

The showdown between Muslim taxi-drivers and their passengers gets more out-of-state attention this morning from the New York Sun's Youssef Ibrahim. The refusal of a large number of Islamic cabbies to transport passengers with alcohol in their luggage or service dogs for the blind and handicapped, and the local fatwa on which they rely for their position, has led to a showdown with the Metropolitan Airport Commission:

At a meeting Wednesday of the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), airport staff members asked the commission to give the go-ahead for public hearings on a tougher policy that would suspend the licenses of drivers who refuse service for any reason other than safety concerns.

Drivers who refuse to accept passengers transporting alcohol or service dogs would have their airport licenses suspended 30 days for the first offense and revoked two years for the second offense, according to a proposed taxi ordinance revision. ...

But Hassan Mohamud, imam at Al-Taqwa Mosque of St. Paul, and director of the Islamic Law Institute at the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, one of the largest Islamic organizations in the state, said that asking Muslims to transport alcohol "is a violation of their faith" as well as of the spirit of the First Amendment.

Mohamud, an attorney who teaches Islamic law at William Mitchell Law School in St. Paul, said, "Muslims do not consume, carry, sell or buy alcohol." Islam also considers the saliva of dogs to be unclean, he said.

Mohamud said he would ask airport officials to reconsider, adding that he hoped that a compromise could be worked out that would serve as a bridge between the American legal system and the cultural and religious values of the immigrants.

Ibrahim wants nothing of this supposed compromise:

It is not possible to massage this into further outrage, but there is plenty of need to wonder about wider meanings and consequences, not to mention why such a situation was allowed to drag on with no decisive action to date.

Even if one could dismiss such shenanigans as a humorous episode that escaped nationwide attention until recently and will soon go away, what of the next challenge?

What if Islamic drivers deny the right of transportation to women wearing short skirts, robed priests and rabbis, or homosexual couples, as indeed has happened in Minneapolis?

And what to do should conductors, pilots, and stewards on trains and planes insist they should not transport unveiled women or serve alcohol. How far off is the day when emboldened imams in neighborhoods where American Muslims are in the majority, such Dearborn, Mich., demand the broadcasting of the calls to prayer over loudspeakers at dawn and at other times.

Ibrahim has the right perspective on this issue. The Muslims who relocated to Minneapolis did not get forced into the position of driving cabs, a dangerous task at times as I can personally attest (I briefly drove a cab in Orange County, California eighteen years ago). They chose the job on their own, and by all accounts, have done rather well through their hard work. Part of the responsibility of taking those jobs is to follow the laws that apply to them, and free access to service dogs and people without prejudice are chief among those laws.

This fatwa, issued by the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim Society, exists as an attempt to foist Islam onto Americans who have not chosen it. It will not end with service dogs and alcohol; as Ibrahim notes, it has already gone beyond both. They will eventually refuse service to vast swaths of the traveling public, which will render MSP's cabstands a huge bottleneck for those who must use the airport.

It also goes beyond the airport cabs, as the First Mate discovered on more than one occasion where she used taxis for normal travel when she still used Cory as her guide dog. She had to threaten one cabdriver with a complaint to get him to allow the dog, and on other occasions had to explain the open access laws for service dogs in America.

Why have we heard so few complaints about this attempt to impose Islam on cab customers? Because of oversensitivity to multicultural issues. The MSA and its apologists want us to consider the religious and cultural sensitivities of the cabdrivers, but again, no one forced them to take jobs where they could come in contact with people who have service dogs or bottles of wine. Should a restaurant end its alcohol sales if it hires a Muslim waiter? Should supermarkets ban service dogs if it hires a Muslim cashier? No. It is the responsibility of the immigrant to assimilate into our culture and to obey our laws, not the other way around.

Most immigrants already know this. Most Muslim immigrants, I'd wager, believe it. It's organizations like the Muslim Society of America that insists on silly edicts and their weak-minded followers that cause all of the problem, and it's the failure of Americans to insist on assimilation that perpetuates it.

What's Next For Somalia?

After the expulsion of the Islamist government in Mogadishu and their flight through Kismayo into dissipation, the question remains as to how to rebuild Somalia into a viable state. The clan rule that has led to fifteen years of chaos will return unless the transitional government can take control of the streets without appearing to be an Ethiopian puppet state. Meanwhile, the Islamists still want a piece of Somalia's future:

The road ahead for Somalia begins in places like Kismayo, dusty, chaotic, forlorn wrecks of cities where the list of dire needs like food, water, shelter, a fire department, law, order — and hope — is so overwhelming that people just shake their heads and smile when asked where they would begin.

In just two weeks, the Somali political world has been turned upside down, bringing ambitious governance and reconstruction issues into focus for the first time in 16 years. The Islamist forces that ruled much of the country for the past six months are out. The transitional federal government, which had been considered totally feckless by those both at home and abroad, is in. The surprising reversal is because of thousands of Ethiopian troops still in Somalia who routed the Islamists after Ethiopian officials declared the growing movement a regional threat.

Kismayo is an old Arab port town of 700,000 people, Somalia’s third most populous city, after Mogadishu, the capital, and Hargeysa, in the north. But town elders in all three places are struggling with the same questions: how to provide security; what to do with the remaining Islamists; how to determine the proper role for religion, an important theme in Somali society; and how to unify rival clans, rebuild infrastructure and live with the Ethiopians. Many Somalis say they are starting at less than zero.

“After nearly two decades of anarchy,” said Abdi Artan Adan, a retired diplomat in Kismayo, “people just don’t want to be ruled.”

One might consider that a starting point for democratic reform, using clans as models for political parties. When a people have decided that they do not want to be "ruled", it could present an opportunity for them to try self-government instead. If the Somalians could find a way to secure private property rights and establish a non-Islamist court system that would adhere to a constitution, the development of a parliamentary form of government could allow the multiple clans to act politically as they do now militarily and judicially.

However, the first task for the transitional government will have to be the elimination of the use of force by the clans. The government wants to collect weapons, and even the clans agree that disarmament will have to take place -- but no clan wants to go first. Even here, the transformation of clans into poltical parties could assist in this process by forcing the clans to compromise on a schedule of disarmament in order to gain access to the ballots.

The Islamists, meanwhile, have landed in Yemen and want to join the political process again:

Leaders of Somalia's defeated Islamic movement said yesterday that they were committed to peace talks which could cut the threat of an Iraq-style insurgency across the Horn of Africa.

Several senior figures from the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) slipped past both Ethiopian troops and US warships, and found refuge across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen.

And during talks yesterday in Aden, the Islamic delegation, which included the movement's influential foreign affairs chief Ibrahim Adow, said they were ready to talk peace.

Yemen has supported the transitional government against the ICU, but now apparently wants to act as power broker for the Horn of Africa. The Islamists, who got ignominiously routed, wants to regain its toehold in Somalia through negotiation rather than war, for which the latest fighting showed them particularly inept. The Somalian transitional government will probably resist this entreaty, and the Ethiopians will never allow it. The Islamists have been discredited as both an army and a government, and even though the Telegraph says negotiations might "cut the threat of an Iraq-style insurgency," no one believes they can reach accommodation with absolutists.

The next step will be the replacement of the Ethiopians with a pan-African force. The Ethiopians do not want to stay long in Somalia, and the Somalians don't want them there any longer than necessary. After they leave, the Somalians have to find their way to a government that absorbs the millenia-old clan model rather than force a replacement of it.

The Louvre As Bordello?

Jacques Chirac, who recently began talking as though he might run again for a third term as president of France, may have effectively killed any small chance of viability for continuing in office with a scheme to rent out the masterpieces of the Louvre. French artistic circles accuse Chirac of prostituting the nation's cultural heritage, but Chirac has his eyes on a billion-dollar deal from the Arabs:

Leading figures from the French art world have accused the Louvre of cultural prostitution for signing a multimillion-pound deal to exhibit works in Atlanta and negotiating a second deal to build a branch of the museum in Abu Dhabi.

Critics say that the Louvre is being turned into a vulgar brand name to fill state coffers.

The row pits purists, who believe that art must stand high above politics or business, against modernisers, who say that globalisation requires a new approach to cultural values. In the latest salvo, senior curators and art critics have launched a petition denouncing the Government of President Chirac for authorising France’s museums to rent out their collections.

“One can only be shocked by the commercial and promotional use of masterpieces of our national heritage,” said a text written by Françoise Cachin, honorary director of Les Musées de France, the body that oversees French museums, Jean Clair, a former director of the Picasso Museum, and Roland Recht, an art historian. “Cultural objects are not consumer goods.”

The petition, signed by almost 1,000 people, came after the announcement that Paris was negotiating with the United Arab Emirates to establish an outpost of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi.

The deal with the Americans has critics steamed already, but the proposal from the UAE really does seem quite strange, and more than a little self-serving. The UAE has offered one billion dollars for the use of the Louvre's name -- and the right to display 300,000 of the Louvre's pieces. To put this into a little perspective, the Louvre itself only displays around 35,000 pieces at any one time, which would make the Louvre of the Sands -- as some are calling it -- much more significant in terms of exhibition than its namesake.

Chirac points out that the Guggenheim does much the same with its name and artwork, and that globalization requires a more flexible outlook on the nature of museums. Museums have conducted global traveling tours for decades now; the King Tut exhibit comes immediately to mind. However, licensing the name of famous museums for other facilities and renting out its collections is a fairly new concept, and the French have to wonder why Chirac would want to dilute the importance of France's most significant museum.

One reason might be airplanes and defense work. UAE is one of France's better customers for its defence industry. They have spent $10 billion over the last ten years, and in a country with a struggling economy, that kind of manufacturing revenue is not small potatoes. It employs a lot of people, and for that matter, so does Airbus, which just got an order from the UAE for 43 jumbo civilian aircraft.

It may not be art after all, but Chirac knows what he likes -- and he likes the money. Given the economic problems facing the French, perhaps they should reconsider the market approach in more areas than just art exhibits.

Can Bush Cut EU Ag Tariffs?

The Doha Round of trade talks is scheduled to restart today, and according to the Times of London, George Bush could either usher in a new era of freer agricultural markets or allow the WTO to essentially fail on globalizing agriculture. The effects of a collapse could mean a further retreat into poverty for developing nations, and Bush is running out of time to make them a success:

Global trade talks that are intended to improve the lives of billions of poor people stand on the brink of failure, Peter Mandelson, the European Trade Commissioner, has told The Times.

At a meeting today, Mr Bush can either breathe new life into trade negotiations that were suspended last July because of international disagreement over cutting tariffs and farm subsidies, or he can effectively kill the five-year process, said Mr Mandelson.

The financial consequences of failing to liberalise World Trade Organisation rules through the so-called Doha Round of talks will be huge, with the World Bank estimating that a deal could generate an extra $287 billion (£150 billion) by 2015.

The political impact could be even greater. The talks, that were convened in Doha two months after 9/11, are sometimes known as the Development Round to emphasise the goal of helping the world’s poorest people to escape poverty and also to remove a key motivation for terrorism.

“We are on a knife-edge,” Mr Mandelson said, before his meetings today with President Bush and Susan Schwab, the US Trade Representative. “We have to engage President Bush personally, because this deal can only be done with his authority.” Mr Mandelson will meet Mr Bush alongside José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President.

This sounds somewhat overwrought. The US has offered in the past to reduce farm subsidies, but only if the EU agrees to do the same. The EU spends a lot more money, relatively speaking, to protect its own agricultural producers, and the European Trade Commission should spend more of its time getting its member states, especially France, to end or greatly curtail their own subsidies.

It may be too late in any case. If Bush would have had trouble convincing the Republican-led Congress in the last session to drop trade barriers, he'll have no chance at all getting Democrats and their partners in labor to agree. We will start hearing about American farmers losing their land because of price and production pressures. Besides, the farm bills carry too much temptation for pork-minded politicians. Bush also was only a few months left on his fast-track authority on trade, and Democrats will not likely renew it.

If Bush cannot or will not reach agreement with the EU in the Doha round this year, it will be effectively his last opportunity to make it happen. The EU will have to wait until America elects another president to rebuild the effort to lower agricultural trade barriers, allowing poor nations to enter these markets and earn hard currency for their food. That could mean a delay of two to four years for any progress at all to be made -- which may cause the entire effort to miss its political window altogether. If Bush cannot cut this deal, it's unclear than any successor would even come close.

A New Source For Stem Cells?

The controversy over stem cells has now thrown its shadow over three national elections. While adult and umbilical stem cells have contributed to actual therapies, embryonic stem cells have not -- and yet their flexibility has presented a tantalizing subject for medical researchers for several years. The leadership of the Democratic Congress is widely expected to propose federal funding for human embryonic stem-cell (hEsc) research, setting up a showdown with the Bush administration.

Now, however, researchers at Harvard have found stem cells with the same flexibility as hEsc, but without the need to damage embryos in any way:

Scientists say they have discovered a new source of stem cells that could one day repair damaged human organs. The Harvard University team say they have recovered functioning stem cells from amniotic fluid - the liquid that surrounds the baby in the womb. ...

The Harvard scientists say the stem cells they found in amniotic fluid seem to have many of the qualities of embryonic stem cells. The scientists, from Wake Forest University School of Medicine, were writing in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

They say they have managed to turn the stem cells into functioning muscle, fat, blood vessel, nerve and liver cells. In tests, these newly made cells seemed to restore some function in brain-damaged mice.

This could solve the entire political standoff over the research methods involved in retrieving hEsc for study. Five months ago, another research group discovered a method of extracting a single cell from an embryo without killing it. Now it turns out that stem cells can be isolated in amniotic fluid, and could therefore be isolated without any injury or even contact with an embryo or fetus.

If Harvard has this correct, it should end the controversy. Researchers wanting federal funding for their hEsc research would simply use this source rather than the embryos themselves. The Harvard study has already produced results, and others could use their work as a springboard for even more promising developments.

Columbia Journalism Lecturer Al Gore Bans The Press At Event

Al Gore has banned coverage of an event again, this time in our neighboring South Dakota. Gore joined the Columbia School of Journalism as a lecturer in 2001 after his loss to George Bush and placed a gag order on his students, an ironic twist for students steeped in First Amendment principles. Now Gore has excluded journalists and TV cameras from his appearance at Augustana College for his latest lecture on the environment (via TMV):

Reporters and TV news cameras will be banned from almost all of former Vice President Al Gore's appearance Jan. 23 in Sioux Falls.

Gore is the Boe Forum speaker at Augustana College and plans a talk called "Thinking Green: Economic Strategy for the 21st Century."

Kalee Kreider, a Gore staffer in Nashville, confirmed by e-mail that news media will be asked to leave his talk after the introduction and that Gore will not hold a press conference.

Gore has agreed to meet with college and high school students before the speech, said Arthur Huseboe, executive director of Augustana's Center for Western Studies, which sponsors the forum.

One would think that anyone lecturing on "inconvenient truths" would want that message to receive the widest possible dissemination. However, apparently Gore plans on saying something for which he does not want to be held accountable, especially since the former VP is rumored to be considering another run at the Presidency. Supposedly the objection has to do with copyright concerns, but even a speech to a closed hall would violate copyrights if Gore did not have permission to use such material.

How many other Boe Forum speakers have barred press coverage of their appearances? According to Augustana, only Queen Noor of Jordan refused to allow the media to cover the event. Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush both allowed it, putting Gore in a position to have the same accessibility to the media as the wife of a Middle Eastern king -- not exactly the most flattering company to keep.

My friend Joe Gandelman at TMV -- which everyone should have on their blogroll and in their feedreader, by the way -- says that Gore has taken a page from George W Bush in this decision. That seems a little unfair ... to Bush. I don't recall ever hearing of Bush refusing to allow media coverage of a public event, and Gore has now done it twice. I do agree with Joe that it confirms the tone-deafness of the former Vice-President and again demonstrates why no one but the most ardent activists will take him seriously for another presidential run.

John Burns And The Run-Up To Saddam's Execution

While many of us distrust the New York Times and its reporting on Iraq, John Burns has consistently provided the most objective and fascinating accounts of the war throughout most of the American media establishment. He has written a narrative of the process that led to the execution of Saddam Hussein that exemplifies his skill and insight:

In interviews with dozens of American and Iraqi officials involved in the hanging, a picture has emerged of a clash of cultures and political interests, reflecting the widening gulf between Americans here and the Iraqi exiles who rode to power behind American tanks. Even before a smuggled cellphone camera recording revealed the derision Mr. Hussein faced on the gallows, the hanging had become a metaphor, among Mr. Maliki’s critics, for how the “new Iraq” is starting to resemble the repressive, vengeful place it was under Mr. Hussein, albeit in a paler shade.

The hanging spread wide dismay among the Americans. Aides said American commanders were deeply upset by the way they were forced to hand Mr. Hussein over, a sequence commanders saw as motivated less by a concern for justice than for revenge. In the days following the hanging, recriminations flowed between the military command and the United States Embassy, accused by some officers of abandoning American interests at midnight Friday in favor of placating Mr. Maliki and hard-line Shiites.

But for Mr. Maliki’s inner circle, the hanging was a moment to avenge decades of brutal repression by Mr. Hussein, as well as a moment to drive home to Iraq’s five million Sunnis that after centuries of subjugation, Shiites were in power to stay. At the “White House,” as his officials now describe Mr. Maliki’s headquarters in the Green Zone, a celebratory dinner began Friday night even before the Americans withdrew their threat not to hand over Mr. Hussein.

An Iraqi who attended the hanging said the government saw the Americans as wasting time with their demands for a delay until after the four-day Id al-Adha holiday, and for whatever time beyond that required to obtain the legal authorizations they considered necessary. For the Americans to claim the moral high ground afterward by disavowing the hanging, the Iraqi said, was disingenuous.

“They cannot wash their hands, this is a joint responsibility,” he said. “They had the physical custody, and we had the legal custody. At one point, I asked, ‘Is it our call or is it your call?’ They said, ‘It’s your call.’ I said, ‘If it’s our call, we’ve made the decision.’ ” Legal niceties could not save Mr. Hussein, he said, concluding, “The man has to go.”

It's difficult to know where to place one's sympathies. After all, the American insistence on ensuring that all of the legal niceties took place seems second nature to our culture, where we attempt to avoid any possible criticism through the emphasis on process. The Iraqis, naturally, did not see the value in adhering to processes intended to protect those whose guilt had more possibility of being debatable, and saw little value in delaying the inevitable. Burns' narrative tells the story of a culture clash as well as power plays, and it's rather gripping even for those of us who have followed the story closely.

In the end, though, one has to wonder why Nouri al-Maliki was so insistent on executing him before Eid and in the triumphalist manner in which the execution was conducted, rather than just wait a few days more to avoid the religious issues. Saddam had sat in his cell for 1100 days and was not going anywhere but to the gallows. The Iraqi tribunal, having hit its stride, was in the process of displaying the evidence for the genocide of the Kurds, a trial that would have enlightened at least a few Iraqis who harbored residual affection for the monster who ruled them for decades. A spring execution would not have seemed completely unreasonable.

However, Maliki no doubt wanted to end speculation of Saddam's return to power if the sectarian conflicts worsened, speculation that Saddam himself provoked. As I wrote earlier, the existence of a deposed tyrant acts as a destabilizing force to the successor government, no matter what form it takes. As long as Saddam remained alive, he existed as a symbol of Restoration to Ba'athist hard-liners. And without a doubt, the crimes Saddam committed personally against the members of the new government had an effect on their decision-making. Saddam had attempted to assassinate Maliki at one point, and given the American push to replace Maliki, the Prime Minister may have wanted to make sure he got Saddam while he still had the chance.

Read the whole article; Burns, as always, is a must-read.

Mark Danelo, RIP

As CQ readers know, I am a rabid Notre Dame fan and have a lot of fun taking shots at our nemesis, USC. However, we know that this is all in the fun of a classic rivalry and that the game brings us together more than anything else. When tragedy strikes, no one remembers the rivalry, but we all mourn the loss of those far too young to leave us. Yesterday, USC's reliable place kicker Mark Danelo was found dead, apparently after having fallen off of a cliff in San Pedro:

Southern California kicker Mario Danelo was found dead Saturday about 120 feet down a rocky cliff near Point Fermin lighthouse in the city's San Pedro section.

The body was reported by a passer-by at about 4:30 p.m., said Martha Garcia of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Danelo, the 21-year-old son of former NFL kicker Joe Danelo, appeared to have suffered traumatic injuries, Garcia said.

Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said investigators didn't find a surf board, scuba-diving tanks or anything else at the scene to indicate Danelo might have been down there for any recreational activities common to the area.

Humphrey said a handful of people had fallen from the cliff over the years.

"It's entirely possible that he fell," he said.

Danelo played a key role in USC's success this year. He scored 89 points, highest on the team, by going 15-for-16 on field goal attempts and 44-of-48 for extra points. He kicked two field goals to help USC beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl, and had another year of eligibility to help his team vie for yet another national championship in 2007. Amazingly, Danelo made the team as a walk-on in 2003 and only won a full scholarship in 2005. He holds the NCAA record for PATs in a season, a mark he set last year by going 83-of-86.

What a blow for the Danelo family, USC, and all of college football. Our prayers go to his family and friends. I'm sure someone will be burning a candle for Mark at the grotto in South Bend by the time today's over.

Lifestyles Of The Rich And Subsidized, Take 2

Last February, I wrote about the expensive tastes of Daniel Sassou-Nguesso, the ruler of the desperately poor African nation of Congo and the president of the African Union. In a September 2005 stay in New York, the man who keeps demanding Western aid also demanded a lot of room service. He dropped over $190,000 in cash as a down payment on a $326,000 bill for a week's stay during a UN session for Sassou-Nguesso and his entourage. Now the Times of London reports that Sassou-Nguesso ran up another bill in 2006 which belies the abject poverty of his subjects:

IN two short visits to New York last year the leader of one of Africa’s poorest countries spent $400,000 (£207,000) on hotel bills as members of his entourage drank Cristal champagne and charged tens of thousands of dollars of room service to accounts paid by the Republic of Congo’s mission to the United Nations.

Detailed hotel bills obtained by The Sunday Times showed that a Waldorf Astoria suite occupied by Congo President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, chairman of the African Union, recorded £12,000 of room service charges during a five-night stay last April that cost his country £73,000.

When he returned to the same hotel during the UN general assembly meeting last September, almost £14,000 of room service was added to his bill during another five-night stay. His entourage, including several members of his family, occupied 44 rooms which together ran up a bill of £130,000 — comfortably more than the £106,000 that Britain gave the country in humanitarian aid last year.

The latest revelations about Sassou-Nguesso’s lavish travel habits have appalled anti-corruption campaigners and embarrassed the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Last year they agreed to a large debt relief package on the grounds that the country — known as Congo-Brazzaville to distinguish it from its neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo — was too poor to meet its financial commitments.

At least Sessou-Nguesso is consistent. He continually runs up bills higher than the foreign aid that the West has granted his nation. I suppose we could just ask the World Bank and the IMF to just simply transfer the aid directly to the Waldorf-Astoria, and cut out the middleman.

In a five-night stay in April, the entourage ran up $23,000 in room-service charges, or around $4,600 per night. That amounts to over three times the GDP per capita of his nation. In September on another visit, the room-service bill ran to $27,000 for a trip that lasted five days and included 44 people. And bear in mind that this just calculates what Sessou-Nguesso spent at the hotel. Who knows how much cash he dropped in New York restaurants and other entertainment destinations?

The Western industrial nations have been pressured to forgive debts of African nations, including Congo. France pressured the World Bank to implement its debt-relief package for Sessou-Nguesso after the revelations of his earlier stay in New York caused Paul Wolfowitz to suspend the deal. Now we see how that aid gets used -- to entertain a Marxist dictator while 70% of his citizens live off of one dollar a day or less.

It behooves us to give struggling nations in Africa a helping hand, if not for humanitarian reasons, then at least to keep al-Qaeda and other terrorists from exploiting the people and resources of nations struggling to survive. George Bush rightly limits that assistance to nations which have reformed their political systems in order to ensure that the aid does not prop up dictators and kleptocrats. Sessou-Nguesso provides a brilliant example of why we need to follow that wise policy.

Catholic Collaborator Resigns As Archbishop At Installation Mass

Stanislaw Wielgus had planned to take office today as the new Archbishop of Warsaw, replacing the legendary Jozef Glemp. Instead, he transformed his installation Mass into a resignation ceremony after evidence arose that he collaborated with the Communist secret police, informing on priests within the church in the years before Poland's Solidarity movement liberated the nation:

The newly-appointed archbishop of Warsaw resigned on Sunday after admitting he spied for Poland's former communist regime, in a major embarrassment for the Vatican and the powerful Polish Catholic Church.

Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus read out his resignation, which came at the request of
Pope Benedict who appointed him just a month ago, at a special mass in Warsaw Cathedral replacing a formal ceremony that was to have sworn him in.

"In accordance with (Canon law) I submit to your Holiness my resignation as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Warsaw," said Wielgus, who on Friday backed down from repeated denials that he collaborated with the secret services during the communist era.

The Vatican later released a statement that they had requested Wielgus' resignation. Glemp will temporarily replace Wielgus until a more suitable candidate can be found. That may prove a divisive effort, as Polish Catholics have been stunned by this turn of events. Some of them still support Wielgus, including a few hundred outside of the cathedral this morning that protested his resignation.

National reconciliation after the end of a tyranny takes a long time. The impulse exists to sweep everything under the rug in an orgy of celebration when the tyrants have fled or died. South Africa mostly avoided that in an orderly transfer to majority rule that allowed for the creation of a truth commission to both expose the abuses of the previous regime and to publicly pardon them so the nation could move forward. The Poles have not yet come to grips with its Communist era in a similar fashion, even almost twenty years after their liberation.

However, even if all sides had forgiven themselves for their transgressions, it would still be difficult to see how a collaborator that acted as a spy within the Church could ever hope to lead it, even twenty years later. Those who openly served the Communist regime could eventually be forgiven their misguided judgment, but those who informed in secret against their friends and colleagues in a church that actively pursued the nation's liberation could hardly find trust among its members and leaders afterward.

The Vatican appears to have trusted Wielgus a little too much in his initial denials. They made the right decision when further evidence arose that, as during his period as a collaborator, Wielgus proved unworthy of the church's trust. It may cause them some discomfort now, but better a little embarrassment over a forced resignation than an exposure of a cover-up to avoid it. (h/t: Carol Herman)

Will Israel Nuke Iranian Nukes?

The Israelis have plans to conduct lightning strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities that include the use of low-yield tactical nuclear weapons, the Times of London reports this morning. The revelation has many predicting a bloodbath in the Middle East, but the Times leaves it unclear whether this is an actual plan or merely a training exercise:

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.

Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.

The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.

Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnels” into the targets. “Mini-nukes” would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.

“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the sources.

This sounds more like the script to Star Wars IV & VI than a military plan being readied for imminent use. It presumes that the Israelis could travel unimpeded to Iran, refueling along the lengthy flight while avoiding hostile airspace, which would force them to take a circuitous route. They would then drop bunker-busters on all Iranian nuclear facilities close to simultaneously, while fending off the weak but still extant Iranian air force. Their pilots would then drop low-yield nukes directly into the holes made by the first bombs while the targets will likely be obscured by smoke and dust in order to destroy their underground facilities.

Even more unlikely is the notion, floated by the Times, that the revelation of these plans will force the Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons. The difficulties in such a mission would be more likely to convince the Iranians that the US has completely given up on the military option for ourselves. After all, we could run the same mission but use carrier task forces to do it, which would make the flights almost impossible to detect in time. We could also use surface-ship missiles to conduct the second phase of the missiles, assuming we could detect the holes made by the bunker-busters in real time. If the Israelis are the only nation willing to do this, the Iranians could pretty easily defend against it, which will make them more arrogant and not less.

The Israelis have denied the entire story this morning (via It Shines For All):

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said it would not respond to the claim. "We don't respond to publications in the Sunday Times," said Miri Eisin, Olmert's spokeswoman.

Israeli Minister of Strategic Threats Avigdor Lieberman also declined to comment on the report.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev denied the report and said that "the focus of the Israeli activity today is to give full support to diplomatic actions" and the implementation of a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt enrichment.

Of course they would deny this, even if true; it would be an attack on a sovereign nation and just the plans could present Iran with a casus belli. Does anyone see Ehud Olmert as the man most likely to launch such a war?

More likely this is a training exercise to determine the feasibility of such an attack. Perhaps the difficulties could be overcome, but they seem near insurmountable. Any attack by air will show up on the radars of several nations very unfriendly to Israel well before the bombers cross over into Iranian airspace. Those nations would consider the overflight a hostile act in itself, and would likely respond militarily even before Israeli pilots could lock onto their targets. The low-percentage nature of the plan's final stage would convince most that the entire mission would best remain a curious academic exercise and not a serious strategy for handling Iranian nuclear ambitions.

UPDATE: Thanks to Andy McCarthy for The Corner link!