The nation's largest veterans organization, The American Legion, released the following statement a short time ago:

American Legion to Sen. Kerry: Apologize Now

INDIANAPOLIS, October 31, 2006 - The National Commander of The American Legion called on Sen. John Kerry to apologize for suggesting that American troops in Iraq are uneducated.

“As a constituent of Senator Kerry’s I am disappointed. As leader of The American Legion, I am outraged,” said National Commander Paul A. Morin. “A generation ago, Sen. Kerry slandered his comrades in Vietnam by saying that they were rapists and murderers. It wasn’t true then and his warped view of today’s heroes isn’t true now.”

While addressing a group of college students at a campaign rally in Pasadena, CA., Monday, Kerry suggested that they receive an education or “if you don’t, you’ll get stuck in Iraq.”

“While The American Legion shares the senator’s appreciation for education, the troops in Iraq represent the most sophisticated, technologically superior military that the world has ever seen,” Morin said. “I think there is a thing or two that they could teach most college professors and campus elitists about the way the world works.

“And while we are on the topic of education, why doesn’t the senator and his comrades in Congress improve the GI Bill so all of today’s military members – reserves and guard included – can achieve the educational aspirations that the senator so highly values?” Morin said. “The senator’s false and outrageous attack was over-the-top and he should apologize now.”

Vets for Freedom has also released a statement on Kerry's remarks.

Sen. McCain released the following statement today in response to Sen. John Kerry's patronizing remarks on Monday:

Senator Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country's call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education.

Americans from all backgrounds, well off and less fortunate, with high school diplomas and graduate degrees, take seriously their duty to our country, and risk their lives today to defend the rest of us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

They all deserve our respect and deepest gratitude for their service. The suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq, is an insult to every soldier serving in combat, and should deeply offend any American with an ounce of appreciation for what they suffer and risk so that the rest of us can sleep more comfortably at night.

Without them, we wouldn't live in a country where people securely possess all their God-given rights, including the right to express insensitive, ill-considered and uninformed remarks.

Kerry’s remarks are a disgrace, but not surprising. Though ineptly delivered, Kerry’s line on the uneducated, poor soldier is a myth routinely pushed by the Left. From the March 12, 2006 New York Times:

The American military does not depend on poor recruits to sustain itself, argues Tim Cavanaugh in ''Middle-Class Warfare: Military Recruits and Poverty'' in Reason magazine.

In different ways, Democrats and Republicans both subscribe to the notion that recruits are poor kids driven to enlist by desperate financial conditions. Most recently, it's been an argument for the draft: Impose conscription, the idea goes, and it won't just be poor kids going to war.

Now the conservative Heritage Foundation has analyzed enlistee demographics by looking at household incomes in the zip codes recruits come from. The results indicate a pool of recruits drawn mainly from the middle class. The largest group of new recruits in 2003 -- 18 percent -- came from neighborhoods with average annual household incomes of $35,000 to $40,000, compared to a median household income of $43,318. In all, the top two-income quintiles (comprising households with incomes starting at $41,688) produced 45 percent of all recruits in 2003. A mere 5 percent came from neighborhoods with average incomes below $20,000 per household.

The Heritage findings make sense: While the military offers some attractions in terms of education, training and life experience, the effort and commitment required are so great that service in the enlisted ranks will always lose a cost/benefit comparison with even the most humble minimum-wage job. Noneconomic, nonrational motivations such as patriotism, self-esteem building, or just the desire to change one's life are more compelling factors in the decision to join up.

Good for McCain for nailing Kerry on it.

Given the Security Council's routine dithering, it's good to see the Bush administration steadily building a parallel and flexible structure to deal with threats rather than just debate them at Turtle Bay. On Monday, the New York Times reports,

more than two dozen countries, including three gulf states, practiced intercepting and searching vessels suspected of trafficking in unconventional weapons in major military maneuvers on Monday that emphasized their coordination and willingness to aggressively block the spread of arms.

The daylong exercise, about 20 miles outside Iranian territorial waters, seemed to signal to Iran, too, that a coalition of Western powers and neighboring states was intent on denying it access to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, even on its doorstep….

“This is ultimately important because of where it’s happening, when it’s happening and why it’s happening,” said a diplomat observing the exercise, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. “Iran and Korea are two main targets, but there are many others of interest to this effort.”

It was also notable for the involvement of Bahrain, and support by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which sent observers.

The operation began last week with war games to practice intelligence cooperation, then moved to the exercise at sea, which included Australian, British, French and Italian warships and three Bahraini frigates.

The exercise was part of the administration’s Proliferation Security Initiative -- a program created in 2003 to track and intercept illicit wmd trafficking by rogue nations.

It's no secret that a Giuliani presidential run would complicate McCain's primary strategy just as a Gingrich candidacy would complicate Romney’s. Giuliani has obvious strength with independent voters, and he can be very tough on the Democrats. Because he’s not a fan of the liberal media establishment, I suspect Giuliani would pick some fights with them to score points with conservative Republicans turned off by his social views. As mayor, Giuliani frequently battled The New York Times and its editors over his policies. Getting in a fight with the Times and other liberal icons won’t lose him votes in the GOP, and it would put pressure on McCain to do much the same or risk hemorrhaging too many conservative votes to Giuliani.

If Gingrich takes the plunge, Romney’s strategy of becoming the sole conservative alternative to McCain would probably take much longer to achieve. The former speaker would presumably seek to be anti-McCain (with a populist twist) candidate, and I can envision the extremely articulate Gingrich staying on the debate stage for some time. To swing anti-McCain voters to his side, Gingrich would likely portray Romney’s record as governor as far less conservative and innovative than meets the eye and also contrast Romney’s more liberal statements as a candidate for office in Massachusetts with what he is saying today to win the GOP presidential nod.

Though I have trouble seeing candidates Giuliani or Gingrich ultimately capturing the GOP nod, they would surely make the race fun to watch. Stay tuned…

(Did some checking. It won't happen.)

The Washington Post's Kathleen Parker told NBC's Chris Matthews on Sunday that RNC Chair Ken Mehlman “is going to be leaving the National Republican Committee, possibly heading over to the Giuliani camp.” That would be big news.

Sen. John Kerry recently claimed on ABC's This Week:

"Our own generals tell us the solution in Iraq is not military. If it's not military, don't talk as John McCain does, about putting more troops in…. Talk about how you resolve the political and diplomatic dilemma and sectarian dilemma between Shia and Sunni and the region."

Is this the same Kerry who’s been running around the nation calling the current strategy – one devised by “our own generals” – a huge failure? He then turns around and trumpets their counsel on troop levels. Of course, these generals have also been telling us that that Kerry’s rapid troop withdrawal plan for Iraq would be a disaster. He didn’t mention that on ABC.

But is it true that “our own generals” oppose more troops? Well, the retired generals who spoke before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee in late September certainly believe Kerry is wrong – and remember, the Democrats invited these generals because they’ve been harshly critical of Sec. Rumsfeld’s handling of Iraq. From the Washington Post:

But Democrats, while celebrating Batiste's criticism of the administration, exercised some selective listening at the hearing when Batiste and his colleagues offered their solution: more troops, more money and more time in Iraq.

"We must mobilize our country for a protracted challenge," Batiste warned.

"We better be planning for at least a minimum of a decade or longer," contributed retired Marine Col. Thomas Hammes.

"We are, conservatively, 60,000 soldiers short," added retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of building the Iraqi Security Forces.

People may disagree on troop levels, but John Kerry has his own credibility problems on Iraq.

The Kremlin hasn't been too interested in slapping stiff sanctions on Iran over its rogue nuclear program. On the Security Council, Russia, with an assist from China, has acted more like defense counsel for Tehran than a responsible member of the international community seeking to stem nuclear proliferation. While Beijing invests in Iran’s (and Sudan’s for that matter) energy industry, the Russians have opened the arms spigot to Tehran. Today's New York Times reports on a new Congressional Research Service study of international arms sales:

The [Russian] sales to improve Iran’s air-defense system are particularly troubling to the United States because they would complicate the task of Pentagon planners should the president order airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities.

The Bush administration has vowed a diplomatic solution in dealing with Iran. But as United Nations diplomats argue over potential sanctions against Iran for its nuclear ambitions, Russian officials have expressed reluctance to vote for the most stringent economic sanctions, partly owing to Moscow’s extensive trade relations with Tehran….

The Russian sales in 2005 included 29 of the SA-15 Gauntlet surface-to-air missile systems for Iran; Russia also signed deals to upgrade Iran’s Su-24 bombers and MIG-29 fighter aircraft, as well as its T-72 battle tanks.

Politicalmoneyline.com reports that Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont has tapped his trust fund again and donated another “$2 million … to his campaign committee, raising his General Election contributions to $8,750,000. This is in addition to the $4,001,500 he contributed to his primary election campaign.” Considering Lamont’s weak poll numbers, he may be better off cutting personal checks to each Connecticut voter with a note begging for their vote.

Don't be surprised to see former Majority Leader Dick Armey on the debate stage, perhaps in South Carolina this May. Armey knows full well he won’t win the nomination. But, as one knowledgeable source told me, he is seriously considering jumping in for the national exposure and for the chance to duke it out with Newt Gingrich. It’s no secret that Gingrich may run and that Armey isn’t a big admirer of the former speaker. The libertarian Armey, never a fan of the Iraq War which Gingrich supports, has reserved his strongest criticism for “enforcement-only” Republicans, along with the Christian Coalition and evangelical leader James Dobson. Armey strongly supports the president’s call for comprehensive immigration reform and a guest-worker program; Gingrich is steadfast against it. After Armey recently criticized the GOP for having “pandered to Christian evangelical conservatives,” Gingrich fired back on Fox News: “When Dick Armey looks at Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Rangel and huge tax increases he's going to love those evangelicals.”

So, buckle up. If Gingrich (who I believe is more likely to run than Giuliani) and Armey enter the fray, the GOP debates should be just as entertaining as those on the other side of the aisle. Stay tuned…

A few weeks back, Senator Clinton and Senator McCain got in a tussle over the Clinton administration’s 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea. Sen. Clinton said the Framework was a policy success and a lesson for how to deal with Pyongyang. McCain called it a “failure” and something we shouldn’t repeat. Back in 1994, he forcefully argued against the deal with the “crumbling regime” because it was all carrots and no sticks. He also noted: “We will reach a moment when it is apparent to all” that the Framework was a failure. “That will be when North Korea begins reprocessing the fuel now in cooling ponds into weapons-grade plutonium.”

All this brings me to this piece, “In ’97, U.S. Panel Predicted a North Korea Collapse in 5 Years,” in today’s New York Times. The Times reports:

A team of government and outside experts convened by the Central Intelligence Agency concluded in 1997 that North Korea’s economy was deteriorating so rapidly that the government of Kim Jong-il was likely to collapse within five years, according to declassified documents made public on Thursday.

The panel described the isolated and impoverished country as being on the brink of economic ruin and said that “political implosion stemming from irreversible economic degradation seems the most plausible endgame for North Korea.” The majority among the group argued that the North’s government “cannot remain viable for the long term” and could fall within five years….

“Conventional wisdom was completely wrong,” said Ambassador Wendy Sherman, who during the late 1990s was the Clinton administration’s coordinator for North Korea policy. “People constantly underestimated the staying power of the North Korean regime.”

The belief that the North Korean economy was collapsing helped shaped White House thinking in 1994 when it promised to deliver light-water nuclear reactors to North Korea by 2003 in exchange for Pyongyang’s halting its covert nuclear weapons program. Senior Clinton administration officials said privately at the time that they did not expect Mr. Kim’s government to be in power by the time the United States had to make good on its pledge….

So did all those carrots – from the U.S. and Pyongyang’s neighbors over the years – sustain a regime that was on the verge of collapse? Did all those carrots give Pyongyang the time it needed to advance its missile and nuclear programs? On thing is for sure: The Clinton-McCain North Korea debate hasn’t ended.

The Henry Jackson Society has released an open letter “on the crisis in Darfur, signed by fifty-five politicians, opinion formers, academics and journalists, to both raise awareness of this pressing moral and strategic issue, and call on the international community to end ethnic cleansing in Darfur.”

From the AP:

A Danish court rejected a lawsuit Thursday against the newspaper that first printed the controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoons. Arab politicians and intellectuals warned the verdict would widen the gap between Westerners and Muslims, but said mass protests were unlikely….

The court conceded that some Muslims saw the drawings as offensive, but found there was no basis to assume that "the purpose of the drawings was to present opinions that can belittle Muslims."

"The dismissal of the lawsuit against the newspaper, which was expected, confirms the ongoing intention to harm our religion and our prophet," said Mahmoud al-Kharabsheh, an independent legislator who heads the Jordanian parliament's legal committee.

The plaintiffs plan to appeal the verdict, spokesman Kasem Ahmad told Danish radio, adding that he feared Muslims around the world would be upset by the ruling.

Jyllands-Posten's editor in chief hailed the court's decision as a victory for freedom of speech.

"Everything but a pure acquittal would have been a disaster for press freedom and the media's ability to fulfill its duties in a democratic society," Carsten Juste said.

The newspaper has apologized for offending Muslims, but stands by its decision to print the cartoons in September 2005 as a challenge to a perceived self-censorship among artists afraid to offend Islam....

I’d say the odds are pretty good that the violent intimidation tactics used against Denmark will be employed again against those exercising their freedom of speech in a democratic nation.

Today's New York Times reports: "The United States and three European allies have given Russia and China a draft text for a Security Council resolution against Iran’s nuclear program. The proposal includes the extraordinary step of preventing Iranian students from studying nuclear physics at foreign universities and colleges.” The Times continues:

It was unclear just how far-reaching the proposed ban against nuclear education for Iranian students abroad would be, and the diplomats involved in the negotiations did not seem to have resolved that issue.

The prohibition would ban any training and education of Iranian citizens if it could eventually contribute to nuclear and ballistic missile programs. But whether such a ban would extend to all physics courses, or even to mathematics and other courses, remained undetermined.

In fact, recent history suggests the U.S. and our allies have good reason to be concerned about such contributions to Iran’s weapons programs. Saddam, as I have noted before, tapped foreign universities to boost his nuclear program – a program that “was only 12 to 18 months from producing its first bomb,” the Washington Post reported in August 1991, “not five to 10 years as previously thought.”

In a 1995 Washington Quarterly article, “Denial and Deception Practices WMD Proliferators: Iraq and Beyond,” former weapons inspector David Kay wrote that Iraq hid its nuclear weapons program by keeping it “heavily compartmentalized” and employing a variety of deception techniques. For example, Iraq created a network of front companies to import nuclear-related materials “in quantities that were below the size that triggered controls.”

Kay continued:

The Iraqi nuclear program involved at least 20,000 personnel, many of whom had training and contacts abroad. This was a potentially large source of leakage of information on the aims and direction of these activities. Iraq faced this problem and adopted a series of deception practices designed to limit any such loss. First, Iraq managed its flow of personnel to ensure that students were not all sent to the same universities and countries. This had several advantages. Training in most scientific disciplines follows somewhat different approaches in different countries and provides access to multiple networks of information. This is particularly true in the various engineering and science disciplines that most concern a nuclear weapons program. For example, information concerning the ability and techniques involved in focusing X-rays was classified in the United States long after it was part of the general physics literature in Japan, Germany, and Britain.

Also, by dispersing students, Iraq made it more difficult for any one country to fully appreciate the breadth of technical skills being built up in Iraq. And this dispersal of students certainly made it more difficult to track individual Iraqi scientists. Concerns with privacy and academic freedom as well as a low collection priority have meant that systematic data on foreign students are collected in few countries and seldom shared with other countries.

So the American effort to diminish Iran’s ability to do the same thing is not “extraordinary.” It’s common sense.

From the Los Angeles Times (sub. req'd):

U.S. officials, apparently caught off guard by the Saudi government's recent release of more than two dozen former Guantanamo Bay prisoners, are voicing fears that the men will join the camp of violent extremist groups.

The Saudis released the 29 men from jail for observance of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting and atonement, with instructions to return to custody by the end of this month.

Saudi officials said that although the men were still under investigation for possible terrorist ties, they were not considered serious threats. "Throwing people in jail and letting them rot is not the answer," said Nail Jubeir, spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

But the commander at the sprawling camp here for suspected terrorists is skeptical.

"I'm interested in if they go back to the fight," said Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr. He contends that about 50 of 300 men released since Guantanamo became a prison in 2002 for terrorism suspects have resumed plotting against U.S. interests worldwide, but could identify only one confirmed example….

The former Democratic senator from Nebraska, Bob Kerrey, understands why the John Kerry-endorsed Ned Lamont must be defeated. He is campaigning with Joe Lieberman today in Connecticut. Kerrey is a member of “Dems for Joe,” a band of Democrats who haven’t bailed on Joe. The group includes former Sens. David Boren (OK), John Breaux (LA), Bryan (NV), DeConcini (AZ), and Johnston (LA).

The American Enterprise Institute's Frederick Kagan on...

our responsibility in Iraq:

Both honor and our vital national interest require establishing conditions in Iraq that will allow the government to consolidate and maintain civil peace and good governance. It doesn't matter how many "trained and ready" Iraqi soldiers there are, nor how many provinces are nominally under Iraqi control. If America withdraws its forces before setting the conditions for the success of the Iraqi government, we will have failed in our mission and been defeated in the eyes of our enemies.

and why we need a larger Army/Marine Corps:

The strain on the soldiers and Marines must be eased. Recruiting and training takes time, of course, and many will argue that it is too late: We'll be out of Iraq before they take the field. That same argument was made in 2003, 2001, 1999, and 1997. If we'd started at any of those times to increase the size of the ground forces, new soldiers would be on the ground today where they are badly needed. How many times are we going to repeat this mistake?

Australian Prime Minister John Howard hasn't shied away from speaking out on the global intimation campaign against free speech. He’s also not about to run away from Iraq, and he understands the consequences of defeat.

Prime Minister John Howard said Wednesday the Iraq mission was not easy, "but we have to ask ourselves is Australia's security enhanced by Western defeat in Iraq."

"I ask people to contemplate the impact on the authority of the United State, the impact on the West of a defeat in Iraq," Howard told television's Nine Network.

"If people think that is going to strengthen the West, is going to strengthen America and strengthen Australia, I think they have taken leave of their senses."

… "America will only leave Iraq when she is satisfied that the Iraqis can look after the situation themselves, and that is our position," he said.

Contrast Howard’s position with that of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a supporter of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq, who had this exchange with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes:

STAHL: Do you not think that the war in Iraq now, today, is the war on terror?

Rep. PELOSI: No. The war on terror is the war in Afghanistan. That is what...

STAHL: But you don't think that the terrorists have moved into Iraq now?

Rep. PELOSI: (Unintelligible). They have.

STAHL: Well...

Rep. PELOSI: The jihadists in Iraq. But that doesn't mean we stay there. That means--they'll stay there as long as we're there. They're there because we're there.

So the “war on terror is the war in Afghanistan” but not in Iraq, even though, by her own admission, terrorists have moved into Iraq. The terrorists in Iraq, Pelosi says, will “stay there as long as we’ve there.” Pelosi didn’t say where the terrorists would go once we exited. Some may stay in Iraq; others may go to Afghanistan, South Asia, Somalia, Europe, or the Pacific Rim. In this regard, Pelosi joins the other Howard who also believes the only "fight on terror" is in Afghanistan.

Phillip Carter, who served with the 101st Airborne in Iraq, has an interesting piece, “The Thin Green Line,” in Slate. He argues precisely against the kind of "over-the-horizon" troop redeployment advocated by many senior Democrats. Some highlights:

Despite having 140,000 troops in Iraq, our military is still forced to play a game of whack-a-mole with the insurgency and militias, because it cannot dominate the country enough to secure every city and hamlet. The U.S. military constitutes a thin green line capable of containing the insurgency when deployed, but it cannot be everywhere. The inability of Iraqi police and army units to retake Balad on their own demonstrates the continuing problem with the U.S. exit strategy of "standing up" Iraqi security forces so we can "stand down." Without a radical change of strategy, the mission in Iraq will fail….

Although the United States has nearly 30,000 troops near Balad, it does not have any troops in the city on a full-time basis….When a massive flare-up happens in places like Balad, Tikrit, or Kirkuk, all cities without a permanent U.S. presence, our military must respond from afar, its effectiveness and responsiveness limited by distance.

Of course, this presumes that U.S. forces are able to respond at a moment's notice. Nothing could be further from the truth. The American battalion responsible for Balad is stretched over hundreds of square miles and is responsible for partnering with Iraqi forces, engaging local government officials, overseeing reconstruction projects, securing its bases, and providing security throughout the area. Covering all these missions presents a difficult tactical problem, one that forces commanders to spread their troops thinly. A medium-sized city like Balad, with 100,000 residents, might be patrolled only by a company—100 to 150 men—at any given time.

From AFP:

Fear of the spread of Islam in non-Muslim countries motivates attacks on Muslims in the West, the imam of Islam's holiest shrine has told worshippers celebrating Eid al-Fitr feast.

"Did you wonder why this issue is raised every now and then?" Sheikh Saleh bin Humaid, who also heads the Saudi-appointed Shura (consultative) Council, asked at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, western Saudi Arabia.

He was referring to controversial remarks by Pope Benedict XVI last month in which he cited a 14th-century Christian emperor who said Islam's Prophet Mohammed had brought the world "evil and inhuman" practices "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

The issue "was raised only because the hearts of observers among the adversaries are filled with resentment over the spread of this faith and its overcoming of all borders, barriers and blocks in all eras and under all circumstances," bin Humaid said.

Bin Humaid was delivering the feast sermon to throngs of worshippers led by King Abdullah and other Saudi dignitaries on the first day of Eid al-Fitr that marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan….

For all her talk about changing the tone in Washington, Rep. Pelosi evidently wants to inject more partisanship into the House Intelligence Committee. Today’s New York Times reports that a Speaker Pelosi would not appoint Rep. Jane Harman to chair the committee. Why? It isn’t because Harmon isn’t qualified. She’s one of the most articulate and thoughtful Democrats on national security. No, Pelosi won’t appoint Harmon because she isn’t partisan enough.

Representative Jane Harman has gained national prominence as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, but even her supporters now concede that she is unlikely to become chairman if her party wins control of the House.

Standing in her way is another California lawmaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats’ speaker-in-waiting, who would have the power to pick the leader of each committee. The relationship between the two has soured in recent years over political rivalries and policy disputes, and Congressional officials on both sides of the divide say Ms. Pelosi would most likely look elsewhere to fill the Intelligence Committee’s top job….

“Ms. Harman, a moderate from Southern California, has been one of the party’s most outspoken voices on national security matters since the Sept. 11 attacks. But she has also drawn sharp criticism from more liberal Democrats, including Ms. Pelosi, who have privately said that she has not sufficiently used her position to attack the Bush administration for its prewar intelligence failures on Iraq and for its use of secret programs like the domestic eavesdropping carried out without warrants by the National Security Agency….

The anti-Harman campaign has gotten so nasty that someone leaked to Time magazine that Harman was the focus of an F.B.I. "inquiry."

Ms. Pelosi’s allies say that she is infuriated by the lobbying effort and that the outside pressure has made her even less likely to consider Ms. Harman.

Ms. Harman’s efforts to claim the post have even attracted the attention of investigators. Federal officials said Monday that she was the focus of a year-old F.B.I. inquiry related to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group. The officials, confirming a Time magazine report, said the bureau had been looking into whether she had made improper promises to the group in exchange for its efforts to lobby Ms. Pelosi on her behalf.

But the officials also said that the accusations had not been proved and that although the inquiry remained open, it was no longer being actively pursued.

“Congresswoman Harman does not know what this is all about,” said her lawyer, Theodore B. Olson. “She has no information from the government that she is under an investigation of any sort, and the idea that she should be investigated for being a supporter of Aipac is frightening.”

In a Pelosi-run House, the White House would be wise to cultivate closer relations with moderate Democrats like Harman. The combination of a unified GOP and a core group of Democrats uneasy with its leadership could score the administration some surprising legislative victories.

Senator Clinton is a very shrewd politician. She's trying to pull off the nearly impossible: be tough on national security while not alienating too many Democratic primary voters. Her latest two-step is on the terror detainee bill. She opposed the bill and drew wild applause from the Left with this speech she delivered on the Senate floor:

The deliberative process is being broken under the pressure of partisanship and the policy that results is a travesty….

Once again, there are those who are willing to stay a course that is not working, giving the Bush-Cheney Administration a blank check – a blank check to torture, to create secret courts using secret evidence, to detain people, including Americans, to be free of judicial oversight and accountability, to put our troops in greater danger.

Now, after the bill is off the front pages and the media focus back on Iraq, Clinton says that she’s ok with torture if there’s "an imminent threat to millions of Americans." She adds: "That very, very narrow exception within very, very limited circumstances is better than blasting a big hole in our entire law."

But why didn’t she offer such an amendment – one that gave “a blank check to torture” only under “ticking time bomb” scenarios -- when the bill was on the Senate floor and the Democratic grass roots fully engaged? I checked. She didn’t. In fact, had her argument won the day our interrogation program, which has yielded solid intelligence, would have been shut down. Senator Clinton is trying to have it both ways and, judging from the press coverage of her latest torture remarks, she’s succeeding.

Rather than engage in this nonsense, the RNC should take the advice of former Clintonite Dick Morris in today’s New York Post:

Here's one possible ad: We see and hear a wiretapped conversation, with a terrorist revealing his worst plans to his associate - and, inadvertently, to government eavesdroppers, too. Then, when he's about to spill the beans on when and where the next attack is going to come, the line should go dead, with a dial tone, with a machine voice saying "This wiretap terminated in the name of privacy rights by the Democratic U.S. Congress."

The announcer can then say, "If the Democrats win, the National Security Agency will never be able to listen in as the terrorists are plotting to attack us.

Connecticut’s Nancy Johnson has run a similar campaign ad. For more on the terrorist surveillance program, see Democratic Center, R.I.P.

("Iran is expanding its uranium enrichment program," reports the AP, "even as the U.N. Security Council focuses on possible sanctions for its defiance of a demand to give up the activity and ease fears it seeks nuclear weapons….”)

USA Today has a good editorial on Russian complicity in Iran’s nuclear program.

It took the explosion of a nuclear bomb by North Korea — fortunately just a test — for China to start enforcing sanctions and applying pressure in a way that suggests it finally grasps the proliferation dangers, to itself, the region and the world, that its erratic neighbor represents.

It might take a nuclear bomb in Iran to wake Russia up in the same way — and then it could be too late.

Moscow is to Iran what Beijing is to North Korea: a great power neighbor with so much economic and political influence that it could, almost single-handedly, close the rogue regime's nuclear weapons program.

On Saturday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went to Moscow hoping to turn the "momentum" of sanctions against North Korea into similar action against Iran. Russia was having none of it. "We won't be able to support and will oppose any attempts to use the Security Council to punish Iran" to promote regime change, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

What's happening is that Russian President Vladimir Putin's agenda is driven by a single obsession: to regain as much of the former Soviet Union's superpower status (and territory) as possible. Iran holds a key to restoring Russia's once-considerable influence in the Middle East. The two have strong trade ties, and Moscow is helping Iran build a nuclear power plant. So other priorities have shrunk to invisibility, including Russia's once-intense interest in deterring the spread of nuclear weapons….

Of course, Russia isn’t alone in coddling Iran. Beijing has done its share. Moreover, China could put much more economic and political pressure on Pyongyang. There’s also the question of how vigilant Beijing will be in enforcing the sanctions regime against the North. Still, some progress is better than none.

The Associated Press reports:

43 French bag handlers denied clearance

Authorities rescinded the security clearance of 43 baggage handlers at France's main international airport due to suspicions they were connected with radical organizations, a top government minister said Saturday….

"I cannot accept that people with radical practices" work in an airport, the minister said, adding that it was his "duty to ensure that (workers) do not have any kind of links with radical organizations."

Sarkozy also said 18 imams preaching a radical brand of Islam had been expelled from France since January. It was the first official figure on the number of expulsions of imams suspected of passing a radical message to the faithful.

Lawyers have said the baggage handlers, who worked for subcontractors at the airport, were likely to lose their jobs because such work depends on security clearances. Four of them filed a joint complaint in the past week, alleging they had been unfairly associated with terrorism because they are Muslims, attorney Eric Moutet said Friday….

Jacques Lebrot, an official who oversees Charles de Gaulle airport, told The Associated Press on Friday the cases were "linked to terrorism" and that the decision to deny clearance followed recommendations by France's anti-terrorism coordination unit, UCLAT, as part of an 18-month investigation.

(From today's LA Times: "The option of regionalizing the effort -- with the help of Iran and Syria -- appears to have the support of former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, the Iraq Study Group co-chairman. The senior U.S. official said that such an approach would require Washington to set aside other goals regarding Syria and Iran -- including its push to keep Tehran from gaining a nuclear weapon. ‘The question is, are they willing to throw out their Iran and Syria policies to help their Iraq policy?’ he said. ‘That's hard for me to conceive.’" Me too. See here for more on the Baker-Hamilton Commission.)

Posted on October 17, 2006:

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times reports:

The former secretary of State, who was a longtime aide to former President George H.W. Bush, also said he favored reaching out to Iran and Syria.

"I personally believe in talking to your enemies," [Secretary James Baker] said. "Neither the Syrians nor the Iranians want a chaotic Iraq … so maybe there is some potential for getting something other than opposition from those countries."

But what do we do in the face of continued Iranian defiance over its nuclear program? Engagement hasn’t worked so far, and I suspect Tehran will demand that in exchange for its “cooperation” in Iraq we must stop pushing for punitive action against them and end our support for democrats inside in Iran. It will be interesting to see if the Baker-Hamilton Iraq commission discusses any of this.

Here's the latest RNC campaign ad and the DNC's response.

From the Associated Press:

A controversial U.S. military propaganda program used in the Iraq war was legal, a Pentagon investigation has found.

The Defense Department inspector general's report said laws on psychological operations were followed when the military planted and paid for favorable stories in Iraqi newspapers, defense officials said Thursday. The report has been completed, but not yet released.

"Based on the available information ... the report found that (commanders in Iraq) complied with applicable psychological operations laws and regulations in their use of a contractor to conduct psy-ops and their use of newspapers as a way to disseminate information," said Col. Gary L. Keck, a Pentagon spokesman.

The inspector general looked at three contracts awarded to the Washington-based Lincoln Group. The report was forwarded to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who had asked for the review, another official said. Kennedy was not immediately available for comment.

To refresh some memories, here is what Sen. Kennedy said about the above program last December:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to the Defense Department's inspector general asking for an investigation into the program and the Lincoln Group contract. Kennedy called it "a devious scheme to place favorable propaganda in Iraqi newspapers."

Here's a taste of what Chris Matthews had to say the other night to a college audience at Iowa State:

MATTHEWS: How many in this room believe in the war in Iraq from beginning to now, support the war in its full reality? The senator is one of those. Who else agrees with him? Stand up.

Stand up, stay up. Everybody now stay up who intends or would consider participating in this war. Participating in the war.

MCCAIN: Thank you.

MATTHEWS: All you people standing up are planning to participate in the war in some way? Really? Everybody here.

MCCAIN: Thank you very much, my friends.

MATTHEWS: Because I asked a minute ago how many were going to join the military. I wonder what your participation would involve.

MCCAIN: Chris, your bias is starting to show.

MATTHEWS: No, I’m just trying to get an answer now. Wait a minute -- I want the people that are standing up. Somebody yell out why are you standing if you’re not joining the military.

OK, you were one of those. Keep going, anybody else? Of course, look at all the people in the back. I asked before if anybody was joining the military. And now you’re standing up in support of the war but not in terms of a plan to actually participate in a war. I don’t get the connection. Would somebody explain it?

Does Chris Matthews support the war in Afghanistan? If so, has he prodded the military to let him serve there in some capacity? How about working for an NGO in Kabul? They’re also a part of the war effort in Afghanistan.

Does Matthews support the use of force in the Darfur region? If so, will he urge the military to let him participate in some way in that operation? Will he join one of the NGOs that will likely flood into Darfur once some security is established?

How about Kosovo? Did Matthews support President Clinton’s policy? Did he push the military to let him serve in some capacity in the operation? How about after the bombing stopped? Did he offer to help out KFOR, the peacekeeping force that went in? How about lending a hand to the NGOs still working in Pristina and other parts of Kosovo?

Perhaps a student at the next stop on the Hardball College Tour can asked Matthews about all this.

Via Hotline blog:

Entertainment Weekly: So is there any conceivable possibility in the modern world for the assertion of conventional heroism?

EASTWOOD: I don't see it right now. I certainly don't see any politician that's a hero in any party anywhere. I think John McCain did something that I don't know if I could do and I don't think many men can look in the mirror and say they'd do: give up a chance to get out of prison because his dad was an admiral and the Vietnamese were going to let him go. I mean that took cojones....

Today's New York Times has an interesting piece on North Korea's history of proliferating weapons and related material by registering its ships under foreign flags. It also shows how critical it is that Beijing aggressively inspect North Korean shipments coming across the Chinese border. Beijing’s lackadaisical attitude on this point is not encouraging.

The incidents illustrated North Korea’s adroit use of so-called flags of convenience to camouflage the movement of its cargo vessels as they engage in tasks that sometimes violate international laws.

The North Korean ploy could both simplify and complicate the efforts to carry out the United Nations Security Council’s resolution authorizing countries to inspect cargo entering or leaving North Korea to see if it includes illicit weapons, say shipping executives, lawyers and security experts….

But Mr. Pollack and other experts said that flags of convenience could still prove useful to North Korea in maintaining its arms trade despite the Security Council resolution.

One possibility would be for North Korea to try to smuggle out weapons or weapons components across its land borders with China or Russia, and then to a Chinese or Russian port. The weapons could then be loaded on a vessel secretly owned by North Korea but flying another country’s flag — and perhaps not be closely watched by Western intelligence services as a result.

Or weapons could be loaded on a North Korean ship flying its own flag, and the registration of the ship could be altered after it left port. “In the middle of the night, they could change the name and change the flag,” said Gary Wolfe, a maritime lawyer at Seward & Kissel, a New York law firm.

Still another possibility, shipping and security experts said, would be for a North Korean-flagged ship to transfer cargo to a North Korean ship carrying another flag, either in port or in midocean if it were a calm day and the cargo small enough.

In July, I noted the following:

If the world flinches and the Iranian regime is allowed to move forward with its nuclear weapons plans, does anyone honestly believe the Israelis won’t act at some point to stop or degrade Tehran’s ability to produce a bomb – even if it takes weeks to do it? I doubt they want to go down this road and would prefer a Security Council-imposed solution. But I also doubt the Israeli government will be convinced by op-ed writers making the case for a policy of containment of a nuclear-armed Iran. After experiencing the result of the Iranian-supplied Hezbollah arms buildup and dodging a bullet with the capture of the ship the Karine A (in 2002 the Iranians sought to consolidate another beachhead against Israel by smuggling 50 tons of weapons, including Katyusha rockets, into Gaza), it’s unlikely they’ll sit idly by as Iran goes nuclear while most of the world shrugs its shoulders. All of this is why a failure of the UN Security Council to act forcefully in the face of Tehran’s continued defiance will likely set the stage for a far larger conflict down the road. Unfortunately, the Iranian regime is banking on the continued protection of Russia and China from UN-imposed sanctions – sanctions that would likely wreck havoc with Iran’s economy and put pressure on the government to forgo its nuclear weapons plans.

Yesterday, Jennifer Griffin of Fox News reported:

GRIFFIN: Israeli leaders have long painted Iran and its nuclear program as the world's problem. No longer. Ehud Olmert, on his first visit to Moscow since becoming prime minister, sounded defiant. "The Iranians need to be afraid that something will happen to them," he said, "if they continue pursuing their nuclear program."

EHUD OLMERT, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We have no choice but to prepare for a response. We must prevent this.

GRIFFIN: But the Israeli leader's request for solidarity fell on deaf ears. Russian President Vladimir Putin offered no public assurances that Russia would block Iran's nuclear ambitions. Olmert went one step further in off-camera remarks, issuing this veiled threat: "We don't have the privilege to allow a situation where Iran will possess a non-conventional capability."

Russia has defied Israel and American requests to halt the building of an $800 million nuclear power plant in the Iranian city of Busher, Iran's first atomic plant. Just last month, Russia caved to Iranian pressure, agreeing to ship fuel for the nuclear reactor by March.

The U.S. Israel and others worried that fuel could be diverted to make nuclear bombs.

The Israeli prime minister did not just focus on non-conventional weapons. He pressed for an arms embargo against Iran and Syria in the wake of the Lebanon War so that Russian-made weapons don't end up in the hands of Hezbollah.

Russia rejected the request.

It recently signed a contract to supply the Iranian military with the Tour 1M (ph) anti-aircraft missile system.

It's not clear whether Israel could carry out the kind of devastating blow to Iran's nuclear program that it did back in 1981, secretly bombing Saddam Hussein's only nuclear power plant at Osirak. Iran's program is spread out, and, for the most part, underground.

Russia is likely to continue resisting international attempts to impose sanctions on Iran's nuclear program. Putin would only go so far as to say that Russia would back moderate and measured steps against Iran. That's not what Israel has in mind.

Putin's efforts to destabilize the Republic of Georgia, a pro-Western democracy, continue. The Associated Press reports that Russian sanctions

have effectively severed the Caucasus nation from its biggest market and supplier. Transport and postal links are suspended. Russian canned foods, cooking oil, and sausage are disappearing from store shelves; Newsstands report a run on popular Russian-language magazines, especially women's journals that don't appear in Georgian translation.

Georgian businesses say millions of dollars worth of orders are stuck at Russian checkpoints. Georgian Airlines, banned from flying into Russia, predicts its losses will exceed $600,000 by month's end.

Hundreds of Georgians have been deported as allegedly illegal migrants, and more are rumored to be on the way, putting at risk the estimated $2 billion that Georgians in Russia send home annually to feed their families. Some analysts predict the blockade could shave a percentage point off the country's GDP growth rate of around 6 percent….

Georgians say they have learned to cope with hardships. Power cuts are routine, so they stock candles. They maneuver their cars over axle-busting potholes. Some apartment blocks get running water only two hours a day…. The official unemployment rate is 13 percent and thought to be unrealistically low. The average salary is about $75 a month.

Where is the West’s condemnation of all this? Is anything being done to help our friends in Tbilisi? Will Russia, a G8 member, succeed in breaking the Georgians?

Secretary of State Rice told a news conference held today in Seoul:

I hope it (China) has been successful in saying to North Korea that there is really only one path, which is denuclearization and dismantlement of its programs.

But there’s another path Pyongyang may be eyeing: pop off a few more nukes, wait a few months for the international uproar to subside, then engage its neighbors and the rest of the world as a nuclear power and leader of the Third World.

The media have been waiting for an Iraqi "Tet" for a while. In October 2004, dozens of news stories talked about the enemy’s Tet strategy in Iraq. Attacks did spike before the presidential election, but not enough to derail Bush’s victory. Now, the Tet talk is back with the president's latest interview on ABC News. But what if the enemy does execute synchronized major attacks around Iraq, especially hitting targets inside the Green Zone, before or even after the election? Democrats will use the images, which the media will widely broadcast, to press for the large-scale withdrawal of US troops. But what will Republicans do?

President Clinton said during his tirade on Fox News that some Republicans wanted him to withdraw US troops immediately after the Mogadishu ambush. That’s true. Too many did call for their immediate withdrawal, something Clinton rightly refused to do. U.S. troops were pulled out a few months later -- a withdrawal bin Ladin would later use as a recruiting tool for al Qaeda. Today, should substantial “let’s get out fast” panic set in among Republicans following an Iraqi Tet, they will deserve to be a minority party.

From AFP:

Islamic extremists "viewed 7/7 (the July 7, 2005 suicide attacks on London's transport network) as just the beginning," an unnamed senior source said….

Britain is seen as an easier threat for Al-Qaeda than many other countries because of its historic links with Pakistan, with tens of thousands of travelers between the two countries each year, the newspaper reported.

"It's all about building up these recruits to consider themselves as Muslim 'patriots' and encouraging them to make the leap and ask themselves 'This is how the west treats Muslims, what are we going to do about it?'", another unnamed source told The Guardian.

Here are two pieces on Khartoum's support for the Arab militias that are brutalizing the people of Darfur. A defector tells the BBC that the Janjaweed take orders directly from the Sudanese government.

"The Janjaweed don't make decisions. The orders always come from the government," he said.

"They gave us orders, and they say that after we are trained they will give us guns and ammunition."

"Ali" - who is now seeking asylum in Britain - said the men who had trained them were wearing the uniforms of the Sudanese military, adding that Interior Minister Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hussein was a "regular visitor".

The former fighter said the majority of the victims were civilians, mostly women, and also talked of "many rapes" committed by the Janjaweed.

"Whenever we go into a village and find resistance we kill everyone," he said, but denied that he personally killed or raped civilians.

The International Herald Tribune also reports on Khartoum’s use of the Arab militias to do its dirty work:

The attitudes and general despondency of the Sudanese troops held here underscore why Sudan, despite its large military, well supplied by arms bought from China with Sudan's growing oil wealth, has relied primarily on brutal Arab militias to carry out its grim counterinsurgency campaign against the rebels in Darfur. It was a strategy Sudan perfected in its 20-year civil war in the south, where it used Arab tribal militias as a paramilitary force. The militias terrorized Southern Sudan, razing villages, raping women and kidnapping children. The militias in Darfur, known as the janjaweed, have carried out a similar campaign.

Remember the Afghan man who faced execution because he converted to Christianity? Well, radical Islamists what him back presumably so they can kill him. And if the Italian government doesn’t hand him over, the group says they'll murder the Italian journalist they’ve kidnapped. Disgusting. From AFP:

The kidnappers of an Italian photojournalist in Afghanistan have demanded the return of an Afghan Christian convert living in Italy in exchange for keeping the reporter alive, an Italian online newspaper reported….

Earlier this year Italy granted political asylum to 41-year-old Afghan Abdul Rahman, who faced possible execution under Islamic Sharia law in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity. Rahman was freed in secret in late March after the Afghan Supreme Court said it had doubts about his mental capacity to stand trial.

That decision reassured Kabul's Western allies, who had put unprecedented pressure on the new democratic government to honour freedom of religion. But it caused outcry among hardliners in Afghanistan, who are now demanding that Rahman be extradited.

On Tuesday the abductors of photojournalist Torsello demanded Rahman's return in a phone call to a security official at a hospital run by Emergency in Lashkar Gah, provincial capital of the volatile southern province of Helmand.

Torsello, an independent reporter who has converted to Islam, was allowed to exchange a few words with the official and told him he was "so-so". On Monday night he had phoned the same official to say he was all right.

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo d'Alema said on Monday the government had activated "all its contacts" to secure the release of the reporter, who was kidnapped on October 12….

Max Boot, author of War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today, writes in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd):

OF THE MANY failures that have bedeviled the American military effort in Iraq, few are as inexplicable and costly as the failure to commit more resources to the Iraqi security forces. The only way U.S. troops will be able to go home without having failed in their mission is if Iraqis are capable of establishing order on their own. Yet U.S. efforts to train and equip the Iraqis got off to a laughable start in 2003 and have only slightly improved since….

Many of these shortcomings, of course, are because of the Iraqis' own inadequacies, particularly in the higher echelons and at the Ministry of Defense. But part of the blame falls on us for not doing more to bring the Iraqis along faster.

It's not only a matter of money. We have more than 140,000 troops in Iraq, but fewer than 4,000 of them act as advisors. There are barely enough to go around for higher-level Iraqi headquarters; there are no "embeds" available to consistently operate at the company and platoon level, where most of the action occurs. The Iraqi police forces are even more neglected….

But just because the program is better doesn't mean it's adequate. There is still a need for many more first-rate U.S. advisors to work with Iraqi army and police units down to the platoon level. T. X. Hammes, a retired Marine colonel, believes that 20,000 to 30,000 advisors are needed and that we should be sending officers who have successfully led American battalions and brigades. "We're at least an order of magnitude off," Hammes told me. "If our main effort is advisory, why aren't our best people going to become advisors?"

Perhaps because this would force a shake-up in the U.S. armed forces, with officers having to be pulled out of plum staff billets and field assignments. That's a tough change to make, but it may be necessary. A country of 26 million can't be controlled by 140,000 troops. If we're not going to send a lot more soldiers, it might make sense to draw down to about 40,000 to 50,000 troops so that we could free up officers and NCOs for advisor duty. Iraq may be too far down the road to civil war for this step to make any difference, but we need to try something different to salvage a situation spinning out of control.

Following today's signing ceremony for the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a close friend and top-notch lawyer emails:

Any challenge to this law will be forum shopped--most likely in San Francisco or perhaps in Michigan somewhere. It will likely be overturned at the District Court level and then go to the Court of Appeals. The best shot for these plaintiffs will be the 9th Circuit, so expect a challenge to be filed in California somewhere in the next day or two.

Of course, all this legal wrangling will also play out on the presidential campaign trail. Sen. Clinton has harshly attacked the McCain-endorsed bill for giving the administration “a blank check to torture, to create secret courts using secret evidence, to detain people, including Americans, to be free of judicial oversight and accountability, to put our troops in greater danger.” McCain has called the legislation “very, very critical for the future security of this nation.” The bottom line: expect more Hillary v. McCain to come.

Today's Los Angeles Times reports:

The former secretary of State, who was a longtime aide to former President George H.W. Bush, also said he favored reaching out to Iran and Syria.

"I personally believe in talking to your enemies," [Secretary James Baker] said. "Neither the Syrians nor the Iranians want a chaotic Iraq … so maybe there is some potential for getting something other than opposition from those countries."

But what do we do in the face of continued Iranian defiance over its nuclear program? Engagement hasn’t worked so far, and I suspect Tehran will demand that in exchange for its “cooperation” in Iraq we must stop pushing for punitive action against them and end our support for democrats inside in Iran. It will be interesting to see if the Baker-Hamilton Iraq commission discusses any of this.

In a debate yesterday, Sen. Lieberman urged Senate confirmation of John Bolton to be the permanent UN ambassador. "I see no reason not to be for Bolton,” said Lieberman. This is another reason to admire the senator from Connecticut who will soon cruise to reelection on November 7.

Going back to the early 1990s, Africa has been a target for al Qaeda. Two letters, dated September 30, 1993 and May 24, 1994, captured during US military operations in Afghanistan related directly to al Qaeda “African Corps” operations in Somalia before and after the U.S. withdrawal in early 1994. Sudan provided a safe harbor for bin Laden before he fled to Afghanistan in 1996, and our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in 1998. Since September 11, the Algerian terrorist group GSPC has formally aligned with al Qaeda. And in Somalia, a burgeoning Taliban has emerged that has engaged in an assassination campaign against moderate Muslim scholars, introduced suicide bombing as weapon against their enemies, and closed the doors on media outlets that don’t follow the fundamentalist line. At the same time, the US military has been engaged throughout the continent, so much so that some in the Pentagon believe a separate command for Africa should be created.

Reuters reports:

The U.S. military is sharpening its focus on counterterrorism in Africa, a top general says, as it faces challenges including a newly announced alliance between a regional militant group and al Qaeda.

General William ’Kip’ Ward also hinted it would make sense to establish a U.S. military command on African soil, instead of running operations on the continent from hundreds or even thousands of km away, as has been the case until now.

"I think ... having the unified command located in the area in which it has responsibility is the preferable solution set," Ward, number two at the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), told Reuters.

The Pentagon said in August it was considering creating a new military command for Africa. Responsibility for the continent is currently split between three separate U.S. centres, including Stuttgart-based EUCOM.

A single command, advocates argue, would help Washington focus better on its goal of denying sanctuary to militants who might otherwise find African havens in the same way that al Qaeda cultivated bases in Sudan and Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The stakes were underlined when al Qaeda announced last month, on the 5th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, that it was forging an alliance with one of the leading Islamist movements in the region: the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC….

Ward, in an interview, declined to go into detail about the mode of operation of the GSPC and other militant groups.

"It’s a thinking enemy. They are constantly attempting to change their tactics," he said.

"As our (African) partners get better at intervening, interdicting, capturing, they are constantly adapting what they do as well."

(The AP reports some good news: "Guatemala, whose candidacy had been backed by the United States, received 109 votes, 15 short of the necessary 124 and triggering a second round. Venezuela trailed with 76 votes." Russia and China reportedly backed Chavez.)

Posted on August 9, 2006:

This fall the UN will vote to replace the current non-permanent members of the Security Council with new nations. Though little reported in the media, for many weeks Hugo Chavez has been traveling the globe trolling for enough votes from regimes opposed to the U.S. to get on the Council. He’s been offering cut-rate oil deals and has signed agreements to buy weapons. His latest campaign swing brought him to Tehran, where he lavished praise on the regime for standing up to the Americans. Now, he’s taken up the cause of Hezbollah and has accused Israel of perpetrating a “new Holocaust” in Lebanon. On Monday, Israel withdrew its ambassador to Venezuela. Earlier, Chavez recalled Venezuela’s charge d’affaires to Israel. In a recent televised speech, the BBC reports, Chavez said that he had

no interest in maintaining diplomatic relations, or offices, or businesses, or anything with a state like Israel….

Israel has gone mad. It's attacking, doing the same thing to the Palestinian and Lebanese people that they have criticised - and with reason - the Holocaust. But this is a new Holocaust.

At least one very senior Republican I know of believes the Bush administration must make denying Chavez a seat on the Council a top priority. Specifically, all U.S. ambassadors should let their host country know that the U.S. government would view a vote for Chavez as an unfriendly act. The administration should also encourage a friendlier nation in Latin America to seek a Security Council seat.

One thing is for sure: If Chavez succeeds, it would be very bad news for the U.S.

The Army's top brass have been privately telling folks around D.C. that they could use another 60-80,000 troops. Last week, Senator McCain argued that our ground forces are “overstretched at a time of widespread and very serious challenges” and that we need to “increase substantially the troop strength of the Army and Marine Corps by at least 100,000.” Even Sen. Hillary Clinton has joined the “more troops” chorus. Along with Senators Lieberman, Nelson (NE), and Reed, she has co-sponsored “The United States Army Relief Act,” which calls for an increase in end strength of 20,000 “per year over the next four years, giving the Army the breathing room to reduce the overburden on our active duty troops as well as our Guard and Reserve and rebuild our capacity to respond to future threats.” Of course, such increases should have been undertaken years ago.

This Kerry interview from today's Washington Post suggests that post 9/11 he wouldn’t have overthrown the Taliban regime as part of his strategy to go after bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda leaders:

KERRY: …For instance, in response to 9/11, there's clarity. We've got to go kill al-Qaeda.... In fact, I would have thought about starting that war differently.

BOB WOODWARD: In what way?

KERRY: I believe that during that particular period of time you knew that they [the Taliban and al-Qaeda] had bad habits. They didn't believe that we would necessarily invade. . . . That is an enormous advantage with which to begin any planning. So they are running around in caravans, which we can see from technical means. They're talking on cellphones, which we can follow with technical means. It gave us time to put assets on the ground.

There are all kinds of things that we could have done with respect to pinpointing their whereabouts.

WOODWARD: This is after 9/11?

KERRY: Absolutely. And my instincts would have been much more inclined to have used feint as subterfuge to indicate you might be doing one thing when you're really doing another. . . . I would have been inclined to have used a greater covert effort to put the pressure on Osama bin Laden, at which point I would have been prepared to move major track divisions into position, whether it's the 101st, the 10th Mountain Division, 82nd Airborne, etc.

...Now, I know we had SEALs at Tora Bora. And they wanted to go. I mean, who wouldn't have wanted to go get Osama bin Laden?

[T]he bottom line is there wasn't even a sufficient strategy to do that. I would have guaranteed there was. Period.

From The Australian:

An elite Australian Special Air Service team of about 20 soldiers has been involved in a joint military operation in the southern Philippines to hunt down Asia's most wanted terrorists, including two of the 2002 Bali bombers.

The SAS has been participating in a US-Philippines military campaign to eradicate the Abu Sayyaf terror outfit, which is believed to have been sheltering senior Indonesian Jemaah Islamiah terrorists Dulmatin and Umar Patek.

The campaign, centred on the Abu Sayyaf stronghold of Jolo island in Mindanao, has been running for more than two months.

Sources told The Weekend Australian it involved about 100 US special forces, including Green Berets, Navy SEALs and CIA counter-terrorism specialists, as well as the armed forces of The Philippines.

Of all the presidential camps to use Vietnam against McCain, the Clinton folks should be the last one. This is from Maureen Dowd’s column in today’s New York Times:

Privately, Hillary's camp was not overly upset by the McCain swipe because it suspected he was doing the bidding of the White House and that he ended up, as one adviser put it, "looking similar to the way he did on those captive tapes from Hanoi, where he recited the names of his crew mates."

The McCain camp has fired back. Asked for a response, John Weaver told the New York Daily News:

I never expected the Clintons or their allies to know much about Vietnam. But is disappointing to see one of her spokespeople purposefully lie about John's war record and time in a Hanoi prison camp. There was no such tape recording; though he did once give up the starting lineup of the Green Bay Packers while under extreme duress. Senator Clinton's spokesperson does a disservice to all who were there and served so bravely and honorably.

Also, Jay Ambrose has a good piece, “Rewards that Failed,” on the Clinton administration’s deeply flawed 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea.

InsideDefense.com's Elaine Grossman tackles that question here.

The International Crisis Group has released its latest report on Darfur. They write:

Unless concerted action is taken against the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), Khartoum will continue its military campaign, with deadly consequences for civilians, while paying only lip service to its many promises to disarm its Janjaweed militias and otherwise cooperate. No one can guarantee what will work with a regime as tough-minded and inscrutable as Sudan’s, but patient diplomacy and trust in Khartoum’s good faith has been a patent failure. The international community has accepted the responsibility to protect civilians from atrocity crimes when their own government is unable or unwilling to do so. This now requires tough new measures to concentrate minds and change policies in Khartoum.

To “concentrate minds,” the ICC report offers some suggestions that I'm sure many on Capitol Hill would support:

On 31 August, Security Council Resolution 1706 authorised a UN mission of at least 20,600 troops and police to deploy to Darfur with a Chapter VII mandate allowing the protective use of force. Sudan’s consent for this deployment, which would replace the over-stretched African Union (AU) force, is only “invited” not required, but troop contributing countries are unwilling to take part if Khartoum does not agree.

Getting Khartoum to agree means upping the international pressure with four measures:

* applying targeted sanctions, such as asset freezes and travel bans, to key NCP leaders who have already been identified by UN-sponsored investigations as responsible for atrocities in Darfur, and encouraging divestment campaigns;

* authorising through the Security Council a forensic accounting firm or a panel of experts to investigate the offshore accounts of the NCP and NCP-affiliated businesses so as to pave the way for economic sanctions against the regime’s commercial entities;

* exploring sanctions on aspects of Sudan’s petroleum sector, to include at least bars on investment and provision of technical equipment and expertise ; and

* planning to enforce a no-fly zone over Darfur by French and U.S. assets in the region, with NATO support; obtaining Chad’s consent to a rapid-reaction force on its Sudan border; and, if everything else fails to change government policies and the situation worsens, contingency planning for non-consensual deployment of 40,000 to 50,000 peace enforcers to Darfur.

The U.S., UN, AU and European Union, should act together to the greatest extent possible but as necessary in smaller constellations and even unilaterally.

Did anyone else notice that in Jimmy Carter's history of North Korea’s nuclear program he failed to mention even once that after 1995 Pyongyang had been running a secret uranium enrichment program, a program that violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (which the North was still a party to at the time) and the 1994 Agreed Framework? Consider this from Carter’s New York Times piece:

But beginning in 2002, the United States branded North Korea as part of an axis of evil, threatened military action, ended the shipments of fuel oil and the construction of nuclear power plants and refused to consider further bilateral talks. In their discussions with me at this time, North Korean spokesmen seemed convinced that the American positions posed a serious danger to their country and to its political regime.

Responding in its ill-advised but predictable way, Pyongyang withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, expelled atomic energy agency inspectors, resumed processing fuel rods (see here for more on the fuel rods and the '94 deal) and began developing nuclear explosive devices.

Here’s one key fact Carter left out: In October 2002, North Korea confirmed it had a secret uranium enrichment program after the Bush administration confronted the regime about the program. That December, Pyongyang kicked the IAEA inspectors out of the country. Evidently, these facts didn’t fit into Carter’s storyline.

I'm sorry to hear that former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner has bowed out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. If you’re a JFK-Scoop Jackson Democrat, where do you turn? Hillary? Gore? Kerry? Edwards? All four have now positioned themselves to the left on major national security issues, and Bayh and Vilsack won’t last beyond Iowa, if that. With Warner’s departure, Lieberman’s pending victory, the DLC's passiveness in challenging the left, and the recent national security votes on Capitol Hill, the Scoop wing of the Democratic Party is nearly extinct today. In the old days, Scoop Democrats challenged Nixionian realism and détente with the Soviets and backed Reagan against their own party’s liberals on key security issues. Those days are long gone -- for now at least -- and that's a shame.

Here's more evidence from the AP:

The U.N. said Thursday it has temporarily pulled international staff out of parts of Somalia controlled by Islamic radicals after receiving written threats.

The U.N. said the threats came shortly after the Sept. 17 shooting deaths of an Italian nun and her bodyguard in the capital, Mogadishu, which was seized by an Islamic militia in June. Somalia's president narrowly escaped a suicide car bombing a day later in Baidoa, the seat of the weak U.N.-backed government….

The Islamic movement controls much of Somalia's south. Its strict interpretation of Islam has raised fears of rule like that of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime.

The United States has accused the group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Bin Laden has said Somalia is a battleground in his war on the West.

Many Americans probably view Sen. McCain's statement that the Clinton administration's 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea was a “failure” as an obvious point. McCain’s comment came after Sen. Hillary Clinton and other senior Democrats were all over the media touting the ’94 agreement as a model for how to deal with the North Korean dictatorship. McCain’s point is a simple one: if we are going to effectively deal with the North’s nuclear weapons program, we have to acknowledge how we got to this point and not make the same mistakes again.

But senior Democrats -- Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Bill Richardson, Madeleine Albright, and John Kerry, etc. – won’t admit the ’94 deal was a mistake. Quite the contrary, as Bill Richardson argued last night on CNN: “The reality is, had we not had the agreed framework with North Korea on nuclear weapons, they would maybe have 50 nuclear weapons today. For eight years they didn't enrich uranium.” Richardson is arguing as if the administration had no other policy options. But that isn’t true. The Clinton administration chose the path of meeting the North’s hostile behavior and violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with further concessions – a path McCain and others vigorously argued against at the time.

In May 1994, McCain catalogued all the North Korean threats and treaty violations, along with the US concessions, that led to the Agreed Framework -- an agreement advertised as freezing Pyongyang’s nuclear program. It didn’t. The North began a secret uranium enrichment program after 1995 and never gave up working on nuclear weapons. Democrats now argue that at least the deal put the fuel rods under the eye of international inspectors before they were kicked out in 2002 on Bush’s watch. Of course, they fail to note that this happened just after the North confirmed U.S. intelligence reports that it had a clandestine enrichment program – one that violated the NPT (they later withdrew from the treaty) and the Agreed Framework. In any event, the failure to demand the speedy removal of the rods from the North was a major strategic flaw in the ’94 deal. Back then, McCain argued that leaving them in place would allow the dictatorship to kick the inspectors out and reprocess the rods at a time of its choosing. Here’s what he wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 1994:

Using sticks such as their threatened expulsion of IAEA inspectors, North Korea has consistently intimidated Administration diplomacy. To divert the United States from punishing his violations of the NPT, Kim Il Sung has raised, then withdrawn his stick, masking his forbearance in the disguise of a carrot….

In fact, North Korea has offered no real concession. The fuel rods that it would use to make weapons-grade plutonium cannot be used until they are less radioactive. The reactor cannot be refueled until the rods have cooled. North Korea's nuclear program is, of physical necessity, frozen….

Although the Administration may attempt to obscure a failure, we will reach a moment when it is apparent to all. That will be when North Korea begins reprocessing the fuel now in cooling ponds into weapons-grade plutonium.

And here we are today. Despite the apparent nuclear test, the missile launches, the proliferation, the secret enrichment program, and all the other history going back over a decade, many Democrats still embrace the '94 deal and still argue for more carrots.

From today's Wall Street Journal editorial:

Are Messrs. Reid, Dean, Menendez et al. concerned about nuclear weapons getting into terrorist hands and U.S. ports? They tell us they are. Then perhaps they might publicly call on China and Russia to join the Proliferation Security Initiative, the most successful effort yet to interdict the transfer of illicit weapons.

Are they seriously interested in bringing about North Korea's internal collapse? It would be good to see the kind of rhetorical energy the Democrats invested in Darfur go into publicizing the plight of North Korean refugees. Would they like to see the U.N. contribute positively to managing the crisis? Then send a message of solidarity to our adversaries by confirming as U.N. ambassador John Bolton, one of the world's leading experts on proliferation.

Since Sen. Clinton is fond of her administration's 1994 deal with North Korea, I wonder if she feels the same about the deal the Clinton administration cut with the Russians a year later -- a deal that “emboldened Moscow to ignore other agreements, particularly on sales of missile and nuclear technology to Iran, according to Gordon C. Oehler, who directed the Nonproliferation Center of the Central Intelligence Agency until he retired in 1998." The deal also led to the sale of “highly threatening military equipment such as modern submarines, fighter planes, and wake-homing torpedoes" to Iran, according to this October 2000 letter:

Statement by Former Secretaries of State, Defense, Directors of Central Intelligence and National Security Advisors on the Sale of Russian Weapons to Iran, October 24, 2000

The following individuals, who include supporters of both Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Gore, believe strongly that:

The President's most important job is safeguarding our nation's security and our ability to protect our interests, our citizens and our allies and friends. The military balance in regions of vital interest to America and her allies--including the Persian Gulf, which is a critical source of the world's energy supplies--is the essential underpinning for a strong foreign policy.

This is why we are deeply disturbed by the agreement made between Vice President Gore and then Russian Premier Chernomyrdin in which America acquiesced in the sale by Russia to Iran of highly threatening military equipment such as modern submarines, fighter planes, and wake-homing torpedoes.

We also find incomprehensible that this agreement was not fully disclosed even to those committees of Congress charged with receiving highly classified briefings--apparently at the request of the Russian Premier. But agreement to this request is even more disturbing since the Russian sales could have brought about sanctions against Russia in accordance with a 1992 U.S. law sponsored by Senator John McCain and then Senator Al Gore.''

George P. Shultz, former Secretary of State.
James A. Baker, III, former Secretary of State.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
Frank C. Carlucci, former Secretary of Defense and former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
Lawrence S. Eagleburger, former Secretary of State.
Henry A. Kissinger, former Secretary of State and former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
Donald H. Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense.
James R. Schlesinger, former Secretary of Defense and former Director of Central Intelligence.
Brent Scowcroft, former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
Caspar W. Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense.
R. James Woolsey, Attorney and former Director of Central Intelligence.

By 2000, Iran’s nuclear program appeared to be gathering steam:

CIA Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Related to Weapons of Mass Destruction, 1 January through 30 June 2000:

Russia also remained a key supplier for civilian nuclear programs in Iran, primarily focused on the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant project. With respect to Iran's nuclear infrastructure, Russian assistance enhances Iran's ability to support a nuclear weapons development effort. By its very nature, even the transfer of civilian technology may be of use in Iran's nuclear weapons program. We remain concerned that Tehran is seeking more than a buildup of its civilian infrastructure, and the Intelligence Community will be closely monitoring the relationship with Moscow for any direct assistance in support of a military program.

Testimony of John A. Lauder, Director of the CIA's Nonproliferation Center, to Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 5, 2000:

Mr. Chairman, I would like to begin with a few comments on Russian aid to Iran's nuclear power and nuclear weapons program. The Intelligence Community judges that Iran is actively pursuing the acquisition of fissile material and the expertise and technology necessary to form the material into nuclear weapons. As part of this process, Iran is attempting to develop the capability to produce both plutonium and highly-enriched uranium.

As part of this effort, Iran is seeking nuclear-related equipment, material, and technical expertise from a variety of foreign sources, most notably in Russia. Tehran claims that it seeks foreign assistance to master nuclear technology for civilian research and nuclear energy programs. However, the expertise and technology gained-along with the contacts established-could be used to advance Iran's nuclear weapons effort.

The senator's office just released the following statement:

McCAIN CALLS FOR TOUGH SANCTIONS BY U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL, REBUTS SEN. CLINTON’S CRITICSM, CITING FAILURE OF CLINTON ADMINISTRATION POLICIES ON NORTH KOREA

Washington D.C. -– U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today expressed support for President George W. Bush’s resolve in dealing with North Korea and the need to strengthen America’s national defense, in the wake of North Korea’s reported test of a nuclear device.

“Korea doubts the world’s resolve,” said Senator McCain. “It is testing South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and the United States. They have been criticized by the U.N. Security Council, but suffered no serious sanctions. We have talked and talked about punishing their bad behavior. They don’t believe we have the resolve to do it. We must prove them wrong.”

Sen. McCain strongly supports President Bush’s call for the following actions by the U.N. Security Council:

- Impose Chapter 7 sanctions on North Korea
- Impose a military embargo
- Impose financial trade sanctions
- The right to interdict and inspect all cargo in and out of North Korea

Senator McCain also condemned the failed policies of the Clinton Administration in dealing with North Korea’s emerging nuclear threat.

“I would remind Senator Clinton and other critics of the Bush Administration policies that the framework agreement of the Clinton Administration was a failure. The Koreans received millions of dollars in energy assistance. They diverted millions in food assistance to the military. And what did the Koreans do? They secretly enriched uranium,” said Senator McCain. “We had a carrots and no sticks policy that only encouraged bad behavior. When one carrot didn’t work, we offered another.”

In addition, Sen. McCain called on Sen. Hillary Clinton (see her NK statement here) and her allies to immediately support accelerating missile defense, as opposed to blocking it, as has been the case in the past.

Finally, Sen. McCain said due to the challenges we are facing today in Iraq and Afghanistan, “It is obvious that the United States must, starting now, invest in a larger active duty Army and Marine Corps.” He said this is not a call for immediate military action against North Korea; rather it is a recognition that the U.S. military is currently stretched too thin and we are asking too much from our National Guard and Reserve.

Back in 1994, Sen. McCain was a leading opponent of the deal President Clinton struck with North Korea. He told PBS's Robert MacNeil that the US would come to "regret [the deal] very, very much" and noted that even though North Korea has "violated the nonproliferation treaty egregiously time and time again, ... we are now rewarding them.... And not only are we saying it's okay to Korea, but we'll be saying that it's okay to Iran and other countries who will demand a similar deal."

In today's New York Post, Ralph Peters calls for a larger Army and Marine Corps and also notes: “Had the same voices demanded another 100,000-plus troops in 2003 or even 2004, it would have made a profound, positive difference. Now it's too late.” But there were voices back then worried that we didn’t have nearly enough troops to conduct an effective counterinsurgency. For example, in a speech early November of 2003, Sen. McCain called for more troops as he would many times in the months to follow:

To win in Iraq, we should increase the number of forces in-country, including Marines and Special Forces, to conduct offensive operations. I believe we must deploy at least another full division, giving us the necessary manpower to conduct a focused counterinsurgency campaign across the Sunni Triangle that seals off enemy operating areas, conducts search and destroy missions, and holds territory.

Security is the precondition for everything else we want to accomplish in Iraq. We will not get good intelligence until we provide a level of public safety and a commitment to stay that encourages Iraqis to cast their lot with us, rather than wait to see whether we or the Baathists prevail. Local Iraqis need to have enough confidence in our strength and staying power to collaborate with us. Absent improved security, acts of sabotage will hold back economic progress. Without better security, political progress will be difficult because the Iraqi people will not trust an Iraqi political authority that cannot protect them. By all means increase the number of Iraqis involved in security…. But given the time it will take to train and deploy sufficient numbers of Iraqi forces and the competence required to root out a hardened foe, for the foreseeable future, Iraqi forces aren't a substitute for adequate levels of American troops.

And then there’s this Weekly Standard editorial from November 17, 2003 – one of many on inadequate troops levels in Iraq.

That is what the Bush Doctrine of "regime change" means, or should mean: Not blowing out the bad regime and then leaving others to pick up the pieces, but staying long enough to ensure that a good regime can take its place.

But for that to happen, we need to defeat the increasingly dangerous Baathist and international terrorist groups operating in Iraq. There aren't enough American troops there today to conduct the kind of counterterrorist and counterinsurgency strategy that is needed. In an effort to compensate, the administration has pursued one illusory quick fix after another. First there was the illusion--now dispelled--that international troops would come in and substitute for American forces. With U.S. troops scheduled to rotate out of Iraq in March, Pentagon planners counted on the introduction of two new international divisions. This expectation was fanciful, as we pointed out two months ago. It was unlikely that many foreign forces were ever going to participate in the aftermath of a war their governments did not favor.

The second, more current and more dangerous illusion is that Iraqi forces can substitute for American forces during the dangerous and critical months ahead. Under the guise of transferring sovereignty to the Iraqi people, a necessary goal in political terms, the Pentagon is looking to reduce significantly the military burden on the United States and shift it onto the Iraqis, and the sooner the better. "It's their country," Rumsfeld says, as if the United States had only fleeting responsibilities in Iraq after invading it. But of course the reason Rumsfeld wants to pass the responsibility to Iraqis has nothing to do with whether they are ready or able to take on that responsibility. It is simply that he wants to bring the level of U.S. forces down.

The Pentagon's consistent denial that we need more troops in Iraq has become absurd.

Since 2003, there haven't been nearly enough U.S. troops in Iraq (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). And today this from AP:

For months, soldiers from the 172nd Stryker Brigade fought in riverside towns of western Iraq, trying to clamp off the flow of foreign fighters and suicide bombers that commanders said were terrorizing Baghdad. Now hundreds of these same U.S. soldiers have been sent to deal with what U.S. officials say is an even greater threat — rising attacks between Sunnis and Shiites in the capital itself.

Left behind in the dusty towns along the Euphrates River in Anbar province are fewer U.S. troops — and fears that hard-won gains could be in jeopardy from a Sunni Arab insurgency that is far from defeated.

"Seeing the fruits of your labor lost is frustrating," said Capt. David Ramirez of the 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, who was sent to Baghdad from western Iraq.

The shift from Anbar to Baghdad underscores the problems facing the overstretched, 140,000-strong U.S. military force in Iraq.

This isn't just about North Korea. You can bet that Tehran is watching the world’s reaction to Pyongyang’s defiance very closely. If confirmed, will North Korea pay a price for exploding a nuclear weapon or will the world community huff and puff and sweep all this unpleasantness under the rug? Will the Security Council impose Chapter 7 sanctions and enforce them or go wobbly? If the major capitals of the world fail to act decisively, Ahmadinejad’s hand will be further strengthened against the few inside the regime who may be arguing that the scale and pace of Iran’s nuclear weapons program isn’t worth the price. We may also have to face the reality that no amount of diplomacy – and we’ve had lots of it -- will convince either regime to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.

Three months ago Pyongyang fired off a missile, but the Security Council didn’t do much about it. Today they reportedly conducted a nuclear test, and some commentators are already saying we can’t do much about it except engage in “direct talks” with the North. Not so, says the AEI’s Dan Blumenthal, former senior director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia in the Secretary of Defense's Office of International Security Affairs, who offers some policy advice in the current Weekly Standard. He writes:

We also have other means of deterring the Dear Leader, mitigating his threats, and working toward his eventual demise. Unrelenting pressure can be put on the trade in illicit goods that keeps Kim's regime alive. We can adopt a more robust nuclear posture in Asia. We can mitigate the artillery threat to Seoul through counter-battery weaponry. We can intensify our Proliferation Security Initiative activities, and place a quarantine and inspection regime on ships moving to and from North Korea. We can also accelerate the deployment of missile defenses to our regional allies. We can launch an international campaign to ameliorate human rights abuses and absorb refugees, and so on.

But a continued policy of conference diplomacy and empty threats will give us the worst of all worlds: more nuclear weapons in North Korea and more alliance problems with South Korea and Japan. The lesson we should be teaching Pyongyang is that breaking your commitment to non-nuclearization leads not to concession after concession, but to isolation, pressure, and the uncomfortable position of having a nuclear arsenal pointed at you.

(Are seeing-eye dogs next? A faithful reader from Australia emails this from the Herald Sun.)

(The Australian weighs in with this editorial: “It is a situation which both demonstrates the global nature of the debate on values and which presents a textbook case of how not to deal with Islamic fundamentalists in the West. Rather than threatening such cabbies with fines or loss of licence for refusing to carry fares, the Metropolitan Airports Commission has proposed special colour-coded lights to indicate which taxis are driven by non-Muslims and those willing to tote alcohol and those where sharia applies bumper to bumper. This is exactly the wrong solution. It opens moderate Muslim taxi drivers who are willing to carry passengers possessing alcohol open to harassment from their more radical co-religionists. It violates the long-enshrined legal principle that taxis are a public conveyance open to all….”

I suspect the airport commission believed it had no choice: either give in or face chaos on the sidewalk. I also doubt this will end at the airport curbside. Some of these same cabbies may decide to keep the special colored light on while in the queue to pick up fares at area hotels, for example. What about if you call for a cab? In some places, will we reach the point where the dispatcher has to ask if you will be carrying liquor? I hope not. In any event, having the government’s imprimatur on such an airport policy raises many other questions that I'm sure will be debated. Stay tuned.)

Posted on October 1, 2006:

I suspect this issue will surface at other airports in the U.S. From the AP:

Muslim Cabdrivers May Have to Signify Alcohol-Free Cars

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 30 (AP) — Hundreds of Muslim cabdrivers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport may soon be required to put different colored lights atop their vehicles after refusing to take customers they know are carrying alcohol.

The proposal, which would allow airport workers to direct travelers to cabs more efficiently, needs approval from the airport’s taxicab advisory committee, and airport officials hope to have the lights ready by year’s end.

If the proposal is adopted, cabdrivers without the light who refuse a fare will be sent to the back of the line, which often means a three-hour wait.

Some said they would rather wait for another fare than carry a passenger with alcohol. “It is forbidden in Islam to carry alcohol,” said Muhamed Mursal, a cabdriver.

Pat Hogan, an airport spokesman, said a handful of drivers began refusing to carry alcohol 10 years ago. Now he estimates that three-quarters of the 900 airport cabdrivers are Somali, most of them Muslim.

Mr. Hogan said drunken passengers have not had trouble getting a cab, just the ones who mention that they are carrying a bottle. He said, “It’s slowly grown over the years to the point that it’s become a significant customer service issue for us.”

Some travelers are taken aback by the idea that they might be refused a ride.

“They’re really kind of imparting their religious views on the public,” said Katie Patterson of McKinney, Tex. “I can understand if somebody’s drunk; that’s a whole different issue. But to just bring in a closed container, maybe you should look for other work.”

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered last night in Moscow, reports Reuters:

Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead on Saturday at her apartment block in central Moscow, police said.

"According to initial information she was killed by two shots when leaving the lift. Neighbors found her body," a police source told Reuters. Police found a pistol and four rounds in the lift.

Politkovskaya, a 48-year-old mother of two, won international fame and numerous prizes for her dogged pursuit of rights abuses by Putin's government, particularly in the violent southern province of Chechnya.

"The first thing that comes to mind is that Anna was killed for her professional activities. We don't see any other motive for this terrible crime," said Vitaly Yaroshevsky, a deputy editor of the newspaper where Politkovskaya worked.

I’m told that Politkovskaya had written an article on Russian atrocities in Chechnya due to be published on Monday.

(The Wall Street Journal has an excellent editorial (sub req’d) this morning on standing with Georgia. They write: “The world needs to watch Russia’s current pressure on Georgia. Its decision this week to ban trade, travel and postal links to neighboring Georgia isn’t the first time Moscow has tangled with the former Soviet republic. But it is a fresh reminder of just how paranoid and bullying the Kremlin’s foreign policy has become in the hands of President Vladimir Putin…. The world should not let the Russians bring Georgia to heel.”)

(The Russian screw tightens, reports The Independent in Britain.)

(Moscow has never fully accepted Georgia's independence and continues its intimidation campaign against this struggling democracy. Last January, the Kremlin cut off gas supplies to the Ukraine to punish Kiev. Is Tbilisi next? Will the E.U. and the U.S. stand firmly against another Russian power play?)

Posted September 20, 2006:

Since the Georgian democratic revolution in 2003, U.S.-Georgia relations have warmed considerably. The U.S. military recently signed another military assistance accord with the former Soviet republic, and Radio Free Europe reports that NATO will announce tomorrow that formal talks will begin with Tbilisi that could eventually lead to full NATO membership. As you can see, Georgia sits in a strategically significant region of the world and, so far, has been a success story for American diplomacy.

(Source: UN)

From the AP:

McCain spoke to a crowd of more than 120 Army, Marine, Navy and Air Force veterans and their families [in South Carolina] at a monument to dead service members. One wing of the monument had a handful of names of people killed in the first Gulf War and during the past two years in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The unfinished wall will have more names for this "conflict that we're in today against people who have taken an honorable religion and perverted it into the greatest force for evil perhaps we have ever faced," McCain said.

"We will never surrender. They will," McCain said.

McCain told reporters afterward that the Army and Marines need to expand their forces by at least 100,000 to give National Guard units a break.

"It is my conviction we have to have a larger Army and Marine Corps. It is absolutely essential because we are asking the Guard to do things that we have never asked them to do before," McCain said.

Reuters reports:

PRAGUE, Oct 6 - Islamic extremists planned to kidnap dozens of Jews in Prague and hold them hostage before murdering them, the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes reported on Friday.

The Czech Republic's leading newspaper quoted unidentified sources close to intelligence agencies as saying the captives would have been held in a Prague synagogue while the captors made broad demands that they knew could not be fulfilled….

On Sept. 23 the government deployed armed guards around dozens of buildings and on the streets in the Czech capital after security services issued a warning that an unspecified attack was imminent.

Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and government officials have since refused to divulge details of what kind of attack they feared in Prague….

Though I'm a rabid Red Sox fan, I have to say that the New York Yankees are a class act when it comes to helping our injured men and women in the armed forces. I am on the board of the Wounded Warrior Project, and the Yankees have helped our Wounded Warriors in many ways. Without their generosity and that of many others, our Project could not survive. The latest Yankee contribution comes from Johnny Damon, the son of a career Army NCO.

PRESS RELEASE

09/29/2006

Johnny Damon joins the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP)

Yankees' center fielder to serve as official spokesperson for wounded soldiers

NEW YORK -- In a pre-game ceremony tonight at Yankee Stadium, New York Yankees outfielder Johnny Damon will announce his commitment to the Wounded Warrior Project, a not-for-profit organization aimed at assisting those men and women of the United States armed forces who have been severely injured during the war on terrorism. Joining Johnny on the field will be Wounded Warriors Robert Loria, Aaron Whitley, Garth Stewart, James O'Leary and Ryan Donnelly.

Johnny's father, Jimmy Damon, was a career Army NCO and Vietnam Veteran and instilled in his son a profound respect for the United States military.

"l have deep gratitude for the men and women that have been severely wounded while fighting for our freedoms and way of life," said Damon. "I have visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center and witnessed first-hand the enduring spirits of those recovering. My goal is to ensure their challenges and sacrifices are recognized."

Beginning at the bedside of the severely wounded, the Wounded Warrior Project provides programs and services designated to ease the burdens of these heroes and their families, aid in the recovery process and smooth the transition back to civilian life. Services provided by WWP include benefits counseling, rehabilitation, adaptive sports opportunities and advocacy initiatives....

The Foley mess has thrown Republicans back on their heels, and the Democrats would like to keep them off balance. But through it all, one poll number has remained relatively constant: the GOP still has a sizable edge on the security issue in many surveys. Today’s Wall Street Journal notes (see here for more security-related poll data):

Security remains Democrats’ vulnerability. Among independents, just 29 percent express high confidence that Democratic Party policies will keep America safe from terrorists….

Republican Nancy Johnson, who represents Connecticut’s 5th district, had been in a tight race until she began pounding away on the security issue by running this campaign ad. Nancy Pelosi says this election “shouldn't be about national security,” and I can understand why. Republicans should follow Johnson’s lead.

The NYT's Michael Gordon reports on the military's new counterinsurgency doctrine. Some highlights:

[The doctrine] draws on the hard-learned lessons from Iraq and makes the welfare and protection of civilians a bedrock element of military strategy….

The current military leadership in Iraq has already embraced many of the ideas in the doctrine. But some military experts question whether the Army and the Marines have sufficient troops to carry out the doctrine effectively while also preparing for other threats….

The limited number of forces was also a constraint. To mass enough troops to storm Falluja, an insurgent stronghold, in 2004, American commanders drew troops from Haditha, another town in western Iraq. Insurgents took advantage of the Americans’ limited numbers to attack the police there. Iraqi policemen were executed, dealing a severe setback to efforts to build a local force.

Frank G. Hoffman, a retired Marine infantry officer who works as a research fellow at an agency at the Marine base at Quantico, Va., said that in 2005, the Marines sometimes lacked sufficient forces to safeguard civilians. As a result, while these forces were often effective “in neutralizing an identifiable foe, they could not stay and work with the population the way the classical counterinsurgency would suggest.”

… Dennis Tighe, a training program manager for the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, said the rehearsals were vital for preparing troops for their new counterinsurgency mission. But the Army is stretched so thin and so many units are focused on rehearsing for Iraq and Afghanistan at the training center that concerns have grown that the Army may be raising a new group of young officers with little experience in high-intensity warfare against heavily equipped armies like North Korea….

While the counterinsurgency doctrine attempts to look beyond Iraq, it cites as a positive example the experience in 2005 of the Army’s Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, which worked with Iraqi security forces to clear Tal Afar of insurgents, to hold the town with Iraqi and American troops, then to encourage reconstruction there, an approach known as “clear, hold, build.”

One military officer who served in Iraq said American units there generally carried out the tenets of the emerging doctrine when they had sufficient forces. But protecting civilians is a troop-intensive task. He noted that there were areas in which there were not enough American and Iraqi troops to protect Iraqis adequately against intimidation, a central element of the counterinsurgency strategy (see here for some examples).

“The units that have sufficient forces are applying the doctrine with good effect,” said the officer, who is not authorized to speak on military policy. “Those units without sufficient forces can only conduct raids to disrupt the enemy while protecting themselves. They can’t do enough to protect the population effectively and partner with Iraqi forces.”

All this suggests the need for a larger ground force.

(Today's Washington Post has a lengthy piece on the GSPC. A couple of points: The Post suggests that since 2003 the GSPC “has planted deep roots in Europe [and] in the past year, authorities have broken up cells in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland…” But there’s evidence (see below) that the GSPC had its European network up and running by 2000 with the help of al Qaeda-linked Abu Doha. Also, were any GSPC terrorists trained in Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion? It would be nice to get a conclusive answer one way or the other. The Senate Intelligence Committee doesn’t mention the GSPC in its recent report on Iraq.)

Posted on September 14, 2006:

The BBC reports on Zawahiri's latest claim "that a radical Algerian Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France.” In the video that aired on a website on September 11, Zawahiri stated: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda." He called on the Algerian-based terror group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders.” The GSPC has since released a statement: “We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes.”

How did the GSPC come about?

In 1997, a splinter group emerged from Algeria’s GIA (Armed Islamic Group) called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC. Stanley Bedlington, who worked counterterrorism for the CIA from 1986 to 1994, told USA Today in December 2001 that "we traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq." But how close a relationship the GSPC had with al Qaeda before this recent pledge has been difficult to nail down. Some say there wasn’t much of one; others believe the GSPC had close ties to bin Laden. A January 2004 analysis from the Center for Defense Information noted this on the relationship between the GSPC and bin Laden:

The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) has emerged in recent years as a major source of recruiting and other support for al Qaeda operations in Europe. A splinter faction of the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the GSPC is engaged simultaneously in efforts to topple Algeria's secular government and to organize high-profile attacks against Western interests on the continent....

Yet more alarming to U.S. and European observers, by 2000, according to Italian investigators, the GSPC had taken over the GIA's external networks across Europe and North Africa and were moving to establish an 'Islamic International' under the aegis of Osama bin Laden. Haydar Abu Doha, a London-based Algerian known as "the Doctor," was instrumental in this reorganization. Abu Doha moved to the UK in 1999 after serving as a senior official in a Qaeda Afghan terrorist camp.

Doha was one of the first to encourage the GSPC to split from the GIA and he helped recruit new terrorists from the large base of disenfranchised Algerian youth in Europe's cities, especially in France. (Algerians to have been among the most numerous militants at al Qaeda's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan before the war.) Many of these new adherents were involved in petty crimes such as car theft, credit-card fraud, and document forgery; and their earnings were now channeled to finance terrorist operations.

Another Algerian, Mohamed Bensakhria, who was based in Germany, and a Tunisian, Tarek Maaroufi, based in Italy, helped Doha establish and coordinate these cells across Europe. They expanded upon the Algerian base of recruits by incorporating radical militants who had left behind dormant conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. Bensakhria and Maaroufi also created a vast support network that provided newcomers with false documents, lodgings, and incidental spending money.

In recent years, authorities have foiled an alarming number of terrorist plots across Europe and uncovered cells — many linked in one way or another to the GSPC — in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain. Some of the high profile operations planned included a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassies in Paris and Rome, and attacks on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France and the G-8 summit in Genoa.

Bensakhria was arrested in Spain in June 2002. Maaroufi is wanted in Italy but remains free because of his Belgian citizenship, which prevents his extradition to Italy. Meanwhile, Abu Doha has been connected to Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian convicted for trying to attack Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium changeover, and is currently in British custody fighting extradition to the United States.

Although European and allied authorities have now begun to unearth the myriad connections between these groups and expose their plots, the struggle continues. Most recently French officials arrested four people, two Algerians and two Moroccans, on Dec. 16, 2002, in possession of chemicals and a military personal-protection suit. French authorities say they appear to have been planning a chemical attack. The four were later linked to the GSPC Frankfurt cell.

The group's possible contact with Saddam’s regime was touched on in the January 2006 Weekly Standard cover piece, "Saddam's Terror Training Camps." Regarding the training of Algerian terrorists, in particular, Stephen Hayes wrote:

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army.

Hundreds of thousands of non-Arabs have been killed in Darfur, with more killed and displaced every day, and this is the cheap politics being played by Arab governments. From the Associated Press:

Maamoun Fandy of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London said the Arab League is unlikely to push Khartoum on Washington's behalf unless the U.S. changes its policy toward Israel.

"Darfur is horrific, but also what is taking place in Palestine ... is horrific, so unless the menu includes movement on the Palestinian issue, the Arabs will not bite on that Darfur issue," said Fandy.

(The Australian weighs in with this editorial: “It is a situation which both demonstrates the global nature of the debate on values and which presents a textbook case of how not to deal with Islamic fundamentalists in the West. Rather than threatening such cabbies with fines or loss of licence for refusing to carry fares, the Metropolitan Airports Commission has proposed special colour-coded lights to indicate which taxis are driven by non-Muslims and those willing to tote alcohol and those where sharia applies bumper to bumper. This is exactly the wrong solution. It opens moderate Muslim taxi drivers who are willing to carry passengers possessing alcohol open to harassment from their more radical co-religionists. It violates the long-enshrined legal principle that taxis are a public conveyance open to all….”

I suspect the airport commission believed it had no choice: either give in or face chaos on the sidewalk. I also doubt this will end at the airport curbside. Some of these same cabbies may decide to keep the special colored light on while in the queue to pick up fares at area hotels, for example. What about if you call for a cab? In some places, will we reach the point where the dispatcher has to ask if you will be carrying liquor? I hope not. In any event, having the government’s imprimatur on such an airport policy raises many other questions that I'm sure will be debated. Stay tuned.)

Posted on October 1, 2006:

I suspect this issue will surface at other airports in the U.S. From the AP:

Muslim Cabdrivers May Have to Signify Alcohol-Free Cars

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 30 (AP) — Hundreds of Muslim cabdrivers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport may soon be required to put different colored lights atop their vehicles after refusing to take customers they know are carrying alcohol.

The proposal, which would allow airport workers to direct travelers to cabs more efficiently, needs approval from the airport’s taxicab advisory committee, and airport officials hope to have the lights ready by year’s end.

If the proposal is adopted, cabdrivers without the light who refuse a fare will be sent to the back of the line, which often means a three-hour wait.

Some said they would rather wait for another fare than carry a passenger with alcohol. “It is forbidden in Islam to carry alcohol,” said Muhamed Mursal, a cabdriver.

Pat Hogan, an airport spokesman, said a handful of drivers began refusing to carry alcohol 10 years ago. Now he estimates that three-quarters of the 900 airport cabdrivers are Somali, most of them Muslim.

Mr. Hogan said drunken passengers have not had trouble getting a cab, just the ones who mention that they are carrying a bottle. He said, “It’s slowly grown over the years to the point that it’s become a significant customer service issue for us.”

Some travelers are taken aback by the idea that they might be refused a ride.

“They’re really kind of imparting their religious views on the public,” said Katie Patterson of McKinney, Tex. “I can understand if somebody’s drunk; that’s a whole different issue. But to just bring in a closed container, maybe you should look for other work.”

Germany's Spiegel has a provocative interview with Bassam Tibi, the Syrian-born Islam expert who became a German citizen in 1967.

SPIEGEL: The administrator of one of Berlin's opera houses, the Deutsche Oper, has cancelled the Mozart Opera "Idomeneo" out of fear of an Islamist reaction. Is this the first sign of Germany bowing down to Islam?

Tibi: It's not the first sign, but rather a repeated one. Recently we have been seeing more and more acts of submission, the most recent case being the Pope's apology. When it comes to Islam, there is no freedom of the press nor freedom of opinion in Germany. Organized groups in Islamic communities want to decide what is said and done here. I myself have been dropped from numerous events because of threats.

SPIEGEL: You are trying to say that critics of Islam are systematically silenced in Germany?

Tibi: Yes. Even the comparatively moderate Turkish organization DITIB says there are no Islamists, only Islam and Muslims -- anything else is racism. That means that you can no longer criticize the religion. Accusing somebody of racism is a very effective weapon in Germany. Islamists know this: As soon as you accuse someone of demonizing Islam, then the European side backs down. I have also been accused of such nonsense, even though my family can trace its roots right back to Muhammad and I myself know the Koran by heart….

Read the entire interview here.

(Will Sen. Clinton et al. file an amicus brief in this case? According to Reuters, "attorneys for 25 men being held in Afghanistan launched a pre-emptive strike Monday against President Bush's plan to prosecute and interrogate terror suspects. Court documents filed Monday demand that the men be released or charged and allowed to meet with attorneys. Such a filing, known as a habeas corpus petition, is prohibited under the legislation approved by Congress last week.")

Posted on September 28, 2006:

The Senate passed the terrorist detainee bill tonight, 65 to 34. The minority leader opposed final passage, as did all the prospective Democratic presidential candidates – Bayh, Biden, Kerry, Feingold, and Hillary Clinton. Here’s Sen. Clinton’s statement opposing the bill:

The Senate, under the authority of the Republican Majority and with the blessing and encouragement of the Bush-Cheney Administration, is doing a great disservice to our history, our principles, our citizens, and our soldiers. The deliberative process is being broken under the pressure of partisanship and the policy that results is a travesty….

Once again, there are those who are willing to stay a course that is not working, giving the Bush-Cheney Administration a blank check – a blank check to torture, to create secret courts using secret evidence, to detain people, including Americans, to be free of judicial oversight and accountability, to put our troops in greater danger.

And here is McCain’s urging its passage:

This legislation will allow the CIA to continue interrogating prisoners within the boundaries established in the bill. Let me state this flatly: it was never our purpose to prevent the CIA from detaining and interrogating terrorists. On the contrary, it is important to the war on terror that the CIA have the ability to do so. At the same time, the CIA’s interrogation program has to abide by the rules, including the standards of the Detainee Treatment Act….

Finally, I would note that there has been opposition to this legislation from some quarters, including the New York Times editorial page. Without getting into a point-by-point rebuttal here on the floor, I would simply say that I have been reading the Congressional Record trying to find the bill that page so vociferously denounced. The hyperbolic attack is aimed not at any bill this body is today debating, nor even at the Administration’s original position. I can only presume that some would prefer that Congress simply ignore the Hamdan decision, and pass no legislation at all. That, I suggest to my colleagues, would be a travesty.

Radio Free Europe reports:

There was a time when teachers in Iran's schools used to give students golden paper stars to encourage them.

Nowadays it seems that stars are being given for punishment: the term "students with stars" is used to describe students who have been expelled or suspended from a university.

The term became prevalent after several students said university officials had refused to register them for the new academic year and told them that they have "two or three stars."

Student groups and activists say more than 100 students have been affected.

Ali Nekunesbati is a spokesman for Iran's main reformist student group, Daftar Tahkim Vahdat (the Office To Foster Unity). He says many student activists and members of his group have been marked with stars.

"Beside the names that were announced to the universities for enrollment, there was another list in which individuals are marked with either one star, two stars, or three stars," he said. "Who grants these 'stars'? As the head of the admission committee has said the Intelligence Ministry -is involved. We reiterate again that these 'stars' exist."

…In recent months dozens of liberal university professors have been forced into early retirement. Many student activists have been summoned to court and several have been arrested.

George Will, a supporter of the Iraq invasion, writes approvingly about this nugget from Bob Woodward’s State of Denial:

The book actually includes one heartening story that should enhance Rumsfeld's reputation. On Veterans Day, 2005, the president traveled to a Pennsylvania Army depot to deliver a speech announcing the new military policy for Iraq, the policy of "clear, hold and build.'' Woodward says Rumsfeld, having read the speech, called Andy Card, the White House chief of staff, a half-hour before Bush was to deliver it, and said, "Take that out.'' Card replied that the three words were the centerpiece of the speech, not to mention the war strategy. Rumsfeld replied, "Clear, we're doing. It's up to the Iraqis to hold. And the State Department's got to work with somebody on the build.''

Astonishing. The commander-in-chief is announcing a new war strategy for Iraq and his defense secretary stonewalls it. If Secretary Rumsfeld didn’t agree with the “clear, hold and build” strategy, fine. He should have stepped aside and handed over the keys to the Pentagon to someone who supported the new strategy. Instead, the new strategy was implemented without sufficient forces, a critical problem going back to 2003 (see here, here, here, here, here, and here) and noted again today in this piece by a 101st soldier. This Washington Post piece, “Rice's Rebuilding Plan Hits Snag," is a good example of how the stonewalling worked:

On Nov. 11, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced trip into Mosul, Iraq, to grandly inaugurate a new concept for rebuilding the country that she said "will marry our economic, military, and political people in teams to help these local and provincial governments get the job done."

The idea centered on establishing Provincial Reconstruction Teams, or PRTs, a tactic promoted in Iraq by the new U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, who had built similar operations when he was ambassador to Afghanistan. He declared in November that extending a coordinated U.S. presence into the provinces was "a new addition to our strategy for success in Iraq."

Three teams were rapidly established in Mosul, Kirkuk and Hilla, largely because the functional equivalent of consulates -- known in Iraq as regional embassy offices -- were simply relabeled PRTs. But the rollout of the rest of the plan appears uncertain as State and Defense Department officials haggle over a series of tough questions, including how to fund them, how to staff them, how to provide security -- and even whether they help or hinder plans to reduce the U.S. troop presence....

Other officials said, however, that the PRTs have become caught in a crossfire of different priorities. Rice and her aides have felt strongly that civilian officials need to pay greater attention to the provinces, a view that is seconded by military officials in those areas. Establishing the PRTs thus would be part of a counterinsurgency campaign, State Department officials said.

At the same time, the Pentagon is eager to reduce its military footprint in Iraq, making officials wary of a project that could require the deployment of troops on yet another new mission when they are trying to reduce the visibility of U.S. forces and turn over more areas to the Iraqis....

And during all this, Woodward writes, Henry Kissinger is visiting the White House advising the administration against “even entertaining the idea of withdrawing any troops [which] could create momentum for an exit that was less than victory.” But that’s exactly the message that was coming out of the defense secretary’s office. And so it goes.

A couple of things from this interview with former Reagan Navy Secretary John Lehman:

"We're building only five ships a year; we're on the way to a 150-ship Navy" he says. In his view, that is courting disaster. "That is not enough to cover our security requirements," he says. "Seventy-percent of the world is covered by water. We no longer have basing rights around the world. If you have combat operations going on you need air cover and support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and that comes from the Navy. To fly one ton of cargo into Iraq takes 14 tons of fuel. That's not cheap. It's got to go by sea, so you have to protect it. The Iranians, for instance, have very good submarines." The ultimate threat, he says, is China, which "is now building their 600-ship Navy, to fill the vacuum, and they're very good ships."

The New York Sun also reports that Lehman is “a fan of Senator McCain, and will be working for his presidential campaign.”

(The Russian screw tightens, reports The Independent in Britain.)

(Moscow has never fully accepted Georgia's independence and continues its intimidation campaign against this struggling democracy. Last January, the Kremlin cut off gas supplies to the Ukraine to punish Kiev. Is Tbilisi next? Will the E.U. and the U.S. stand firmly against another Russian power play?)

Posted September 20, 2006:

Since the Georgian democratic revolution in 2003, U.S.-Georgia relations have warmed considerably. The U.S. military recently signed another military assistance accord with the former Soviet republic, and Radio Free Europe reports that NATO will announce tomorrow that formal talks will begin with Tbilisi that could eventually lead to full NATO membership. As you can see, Georgia sits in a strategically significant region of the world and, so far, has been a success story for American diplomacy.

(Source: UN)

The war is a big issue in an extremely competitive eastern Iowa Congressional race. Democratic Bruce Braley wants to runaway from Iraq (see here for more on Dem withdrawal plans), while his opponent, Mike Whalen, doesn’t. Braley has been warmly embraced by the very liberal Sen. Tom Harkin and is so far left on the war that his Democratic primary opponent, Rick Dickinson, ran this ad in June:

(Courtesy of Hotline)

ANNCR: "No matter how you feel about the Iraq war, everyone agrees we must do everything to protect our troops. Everyone it seems, but Bruce Braley. When asked by Des Moines Register reporter David Yepsen to define his stance on the war, Braley declared he would vote to cut off the funds supporting our troops on the ground. Is that a position you support?"

RUNDY: "This Ken Rundy (ph). I'm a former marine. I served my country during the Vietnam war years. Anyone who's been in uniform knows that cutting funds to our men and women in Iraq is irresponsible. There is no doubt this will put them in greater danger.

BRAIDBOCH: "This is Liz Braidboch (ph). My son David is now in Iraq for the third time. I want him to come home soon, but I'm afraid cutting the funds would only make getting all our soldiers home safely more difficult. The situation is bad enough now. I oppose Bruce Braley's plan to cut troop funding and I hope you will, too, because after all they have been through, we can't abandon them now"

Braley’s Iraq position, the Des Moines Register reports, has also pitted two U.S. senators against each other:

Two senior U.S. senators Friday leaped into the increasingly nasty fight for a U.S. House seat in eastern Iowa, trading charges over the conduct of the war in Iraq.

The back-and-forth between Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., ensued after McCain, in a conference call with reporters, attacked Democrat Bruce Braley, saying the 1st Congressional District candidate wants to cut off funds for troops.

I suspect this issue will surface at other airports in the U.S. From the AP:

Muslim Cabdrivers May Have to Signify Alcohol-Free Cars

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 30 (AP) — Hundreds of Muslim cabdrivers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport may soon be required to put different colored lights atop their vehicles after refusing to take customers they know are carrying alcohol.

The proposal, which would allow airport workers to direct travelers to cabs more efficiently, needs approval from the airport’s taxicab advisory committee, and airport officials hope to have the lights ready by year’s end.

If the proposal is adopted, cabdrivers without the light who refuse a fare will be sent to the back of the line, which often means a three-hour wait.

Some said they would rather wait for another fare than carry a passenger with alcohol. “It is forbidden in Islam to carry alcohol,” said Muhamed Mursal, a cabdriver.

Pat Hogan, an airport spokesman, said a handful of drivers began refusing to carry alcohol 10 years ago. Now he estimates that three-quarters of the 900 airport cabdrivers are Somali, most of them Muslim.

Mr. Hogan said drunken passengers have not had trouble getting a cab, just the ones who mention that they are carrying a bottle. He said, “It’s slowly grown over the years to the point that it’s become a significant customer service issue for us.”

Some travelers are taken aback by the idea that they might be refused a ride.

“They’re really kind of imparting their religious views on the public,” said Katie Patterson of McKinney, Tex. “I can understand if somebody’s drunk; that’s a whole different issue. But to just bring in a closed container, maybe you should look for other work.”

Yesterday's Washington Post reports:

Senate and House conferees also agreed yesterday on $463 billion in overall defense spending for fiscal 2007, a 3.6 percent increase over 2006. To ease the strain on U.S. ground forces, the conference report called for an increase of 30,000 soldiers and 5,000 Marines in 2007, with additional increases authorized through 2009.

See this Weekly Standard editorial for more on why we need a larger force.