I'll be really busy today, but I did want to link this WaPo op-ed by none other than Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser. It contains information that should please all political stripes, and is definitely worth reading.

I was perplexed by this cryptic passage.

While Iraq is trying to gain its independence from the United States and the coalition, in terms of taking greater responsibility for its actions, particularly in terms of security, there are still some influential foreign figures trying to spoon-feed our government and take a very proactive role in many key decisions. Though this may provide some benefits in the short term, in the long run it will only serve to make the Iraqi government a weaker one and eventually lead to a culture of dependency.

h/t Michelle Malkin.

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Today we mourn the loss of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, Texas and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Oregon.

Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Massachussetts was also killed during the initial battle near Yousifiya last Friday.

All were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Ky.

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On Sunday, in response to a Tim Russert question, Representative Murtha actually suggested that we could have run the Zarqawi operation out of Okinawa.

What an idiot. Froggy at Blackfive does a beautiful job explaining why.

Apparently Murtha also believes that Somalia and Beirut are good models for the proper use of American military power. Or non-use, I should say. Murtha said, "in Beirut President Reagan changed direction, in Somalia President Clinton changed direction, and yet here, with the troops out there every day, suffering from these explosive devices, and being looked at as occupiers [blah blah blah]"

Let's follow that logic a bit. Murtha would have advised Washington to withdraw after Valley Forge; Madison to give up after the burning of the White House; Lincoln to throw in the towel after Bull Run, both of them; FDR to redeploy all troops to San Diego after Bataan; etc. etc. you get the picture.

How long must we wait until Murtha takes MacArthur's advice and just faaades away. Not soon enough, I say.

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Reading some of what passes for journalistic analysis regarding today's Supreme Court decision in Hudson v. Michigan, only reinforces my opinion that 90% of all reporters are idiots.

Check the AP reportage for example:

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police armed with a warrant can barge into homes and seize evidence even if they don't knock, a huge government victory that was decided by President Bush's new justices.

The 5-4 ruling signals the court's conservative shift following the departure of moderate Sandra Day O'Connor.

Dissenting justices predicted that police will now feel free to ignore previous court rulings that officers with search warrants must knock and announce themselves or run afoul of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said Detroit police acknowledge violating that rule when they called out their presence at a man's door, failed to knock, then went inside* three seconds to five seconds later. The court has endorsed longer waits, of 15 seconds to 20 seconds.**

On the contrary, the Court upheld the knock rule. The Fourth Amendment still requires police executing a search warrant to knock first, announce their presence and provide the occupants a reasonable opportunity to open the door voluntarily. Today's ruling did not change that rule.

What the Court did do is apply the brakes to an out of control "exclusionary rule." Hudson v. Michigan is a quite sensible decision, and not even particularly conservative, in my opinion. I wonder if the AP reporter even read it.

Proponents of an expansive exclusionary rule want it to apply to any evidence obtained in the prosecution of a suspect, whenever the police fail to follow a procedural rule. In other words, some people believe that a judge should throw out all evidence against a defendant whenever the police fuck up, no matter what kind of fuck up it was. As Scalia noted, that would mean a "get-out-of-jail-free card" in many cases. This is what is known in the popular culture as "getting off on a technicality."

So, wouldn't it have been more accurate for the AP to describe today's decision as the Court limiting the ability of criminals to "go free" on "technicalities?"

The Hudson case does not overturn the exclusionary rule. It simply says that if police screw up on their constitutional requirement to knock before serving a search warrant, and the search later turns up a bunch of evidence that proves the dude was guilty as sin, the judge does not have to throw out all the evidence and let the guy go. I think that's totally reasonable. The exclusionary rule still applies when the cops commit more serious constitutional violations, like searching a house without a warrant.

Critics of the Hudson decision will say that without the exclusionary rule police might simply ignore the knock and enter requirement. Maybe so, maybe not. The Court pointed to other means available to punish cops for failing to knock, civil lawsuits and disciplinary measures for instance. Also, the Court pointed out that the knock requirement isn't even a hard and fast rule. Police can legally enter without knocking if they have reason to believe that evidence might be destroyed were they to knock first.

But the main point is that the cure would be much worse than the disease. If we were to let criminals go free just because the police failed to knock even though they had a valid search warrant, there would undoubtedly be crooks walking around who should be behind bars. The Hudson decision prevents this potential miscarriage of justice and restores balance to a small part of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Or to put it in Johnny Cochran-ese:

Just 'cuz the cop didn't knock,
don't mean we let the perp walk.

I give the New York Times opinion writer more slack for his wrongheaded piece, because at least that's an editorial. I would be disappointed if I didn't find wrongheadedness in a NYT editorial.

To be fair, some reporters seem to understand the Hudson case better. Two examples of more balanced articles can be found at CNN's site and at The Christian Science Monitor. Although I do have a semantic nit to pick about the Monitor's assertion that the decision is a setback to "privacy rights." While the right to privacy is related to Fourth Amendment freedoms, the two are not identical. As everyone should know by now, the right to privacy is not enumerated in the Constitution, whereas protection from unreasonable searches and seizures is.
_______________

* Again, the AP reporter "forgot" to mention that the criminal's door was unlocked.

** Here the AP reporter "forgot" to mention that the standard for deciding how long to wait is based on how long it would take a suspect to flush the evidence. Therefore, a reasonable wait time might be only a couple of seconds, depending on the particular evidence in the case.

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Today is Valdemar's day, which, as longtime visitors of this blog well know, is Denmark's version of flag day. It's when Danish people celebrate God's gift of the Dannebrog to them in the year 1219. I've retold the legend before, but you can read another humorous version at The Moron's Euroblog.

I got an email this morning from visitor Drake, who loves my blog by the way. (I actually encourage anyone and everyone to e-mail me for the purpose of telling me how much you love my blog.) Anyways, Drake alerted me to the following bit of information, Danish exports are UP!

As reported by The American Thinker:

The MSM in Denmark yesterday cited a brand-new report from the Danish ‘Institut for Konjunktur-Analyse’ that unambiguously shows that the “cartoon crisis” has had a positive impact on Danish exports. The export business is literally booming and the result for the first half of 2006 is expected to be the best in the last 4 years.

Here’s an article from Denmarks largest financial newspaper. Unfortunately it’s in Danish (you might be able to extract the essentials from the headline nevertheless.) The article basically says that while the export to Islamic countries has gone down, this is more than compensated for by an increase in export to other countries, especially the USA! Senior analyst Joern Thulstrup is quoted as saying: (translated) “It’s an overlooked fact in the Danish debate that Denmark is held in very high regard in the USA, and this is really paying off in regard to business.”

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Does it even need to be said that if this questionable rumor is true, I hope our boys took a few extra hard swings just for me?

Update: AQ feelin the heat just a little? Via Preston, whom all the girls dig.

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Here's two articles from the anti-war, often anti-American Associated Press, that give cause for optimism to those of us who want victory.

Ignore the predictably negative headline and check out some key quotes from this article:

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's death doesn't mean an end to the insurgency in Iraq — but it could mean a change in strategy.

"What Iraqi Sunnis want in Iraq is different from what al-Zarqawi wants," said Sadeq al-Musawi, who until February was President Jalal Talabani's political adviser. "Sunnis want to push out foreign forces from Iraq. Al-Zarqawi ... wanted Islamic rule and wanted to instigate civil war between Sunnis and Shiites."

The death on Wednesday of the al-Qaida in Iraq leader could also provide an opening for the Iraqi government to try to woo Sunni insurgents.

Deputy Prime Minister Salam Zikam Ali al-Zubaie, a Sunni, said the national unity government of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was open to contacts with armed groups except those involved in the killing of civilians or opposed to the U.S.-backed political process.

There have been contacts in the past between envoys of the U.S. and Iraqi governments and various insurgent groups, but none is known to have produced any deals or progressed beyond the preliminary stages.

"Al-Qaida in Iraq and its supporters must be shaken by al-Zarqawi's death," al-Zubaie said Friday. "It has given security forces a boost," al-Zubaie said.

A 2004 Associated Press analysis named a dozen young terror suspects as front-line leaders, their hands stained with the blood of attacks from Bali to Baghdad, Casablanca to Madrid.

Al-Zarqawi, who sat atop the 2004 list as the biggest threat after bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, died Wednesday when U.S. forces dropped two 500-pound bombs on his hideout northeast of Baghdad.

. . .

Globally, security forces have also had considerable success. Another four of the top 12 young militants in the 2004 list have met violent ends — in shootouts in Saudi Arabia, under U.S. bombardment in Iraq, or in an Algerian terror sweep. The seven who remain at large are on the run, and none has been able to match al-Zarqawi's success at launching large-scale attacks since mid-2004.

. . .

Joining al-Zarqawi in the list of dead militant leaders is Nabil Sahraoui, who took over the North African Salafist Group for Call and Combat in 2004 and announced that he was merging it with al-Qaida. Sahraoui did not have much time to savor his power play. The militant, who was in his 30s, was gunned down by Algerian troops that same year east of Algiers.

Habib Akdas, the accused ringleader of the 2003 bombings in Istanbul, Turkey, and another member of the class of 2004, died during the U.S. bombardment of the Iraqi city of Fallujah in November of that year, according to the testimony of an al-Qaida suspect in U.S. custody. Turkish security forces believe the account and say Akdas, who was also in his 30s, is dead.

Syrian-born Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, who has emerged as an even more senior leader of the Istanbul bombings, but who was not included in the 2004 list of top terror suspects, is in a Turkish jail awaiting trial on terror charges.

Two other men who were on the 2004 list met their ends at the hands of security forces in Saudi Arabia.

Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, 30, who rose from high school dropout to become al-Qaida's leader in the kingdom, was cornered and killed by security forces in Riyadh in 2004, shortly after he masterminded the kidnapping and beheading of American engineer Paul M. Johnson.

In 2005, Saudi forces shot and killed Abdelkrim Mejjati, a Moroccan in his late 30s who was believed to have played a leading role in the May 2003 bombings in Casablanca that killed more than 30 people. Mejjati came from a privileged background, attending an exclusive French school in Morocco before turning to terrorism. He was sent to Saudi Arabia on bin Laden's orders, becoming one of the kingdom's most wanted men.

For most of those at large, life is anything but easy.

I've always been an optimist on Iraq and the War on Terror. I remained so even during the darkest days when the temptation to jump sides became too much to resist for better conservatives than I.

Still, I've never been one who, on this blog, was quick to announce certain "victories" as "turning points" or signs of "light at the end of the tunnel." I know that in war, as in life, the road to victory is often tortuous (definition 1). For every bit of good news, there's some bad news that the opposition will trumpet, so it's hard being an optimist when no one knows the ultimate outcome with certainty. But I'm a lot more hopeful today than I was a week ago. Maybe, just maybe, we've crested a hill over there.

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This is rich. I wonder if Kerry was wearing a flight suit when he wrote this.

Statement by John Kerry on the Death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a brutal terrorist and his death strikes a blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq. This ruthless thug who abused the true meaning of Islam was an intruder on Iraqi soil and itÂ’s good news that heÂ’s dead. Our troops did an incredible job hunting him down and destroying him, and all of America is proud of their skill and commitment.

“With the end of al-Zarqawi and the confirmation of the final vital cabinet ministries in IraqÂ’s new government, itÂ’s another sign that itÂ’s time for Iraqis to stand up for Iraq, bring the factions together, end the insurgency, and run their own country. Our troops have done their job in Iraq, and theyÂ’ve done it valiantly. ItÂ’s time to work with the new Iraqi government to bring our combat troops home by the end of this year.” [emphasis added]

Posted by: annika at 06:38 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 When was Kerry elected President of the united States? Hell, I must have totally missed that election.

Posted by: shelly at June 09, 2006 12:50 AM (4gHqM)

2 I'm John Kerry and I am bringing this message directly to the troops. Why wait? Just get three flesh wounds, put yourself in for Purple Hearts and come home. The senate seats from Mass are already full, but I know others where you can run as a war hero. There are still other rich women out there, even though I bagged two. Sincerely, The other JFK

Posted by: MarkD at June 09, 2006 04:24 AM (oQofX)

3 In 2004, Shelly, at least according to Robert Kennedy Jr?

Posted by: annika at June 09, 2006 06:53 AM (fxTDF)

4 Once again... Bush Jr. wore the infamous flight suit because of regulations... Serve a few years in the military. I knew an E-6 (as in enlisted member who has gained the rank of technical sergeant... sergeant) tell a 4 star, USAFE commanding general he couldn't proceed to fly to the middle east because he hadn't gone to one para-rescue class. Chain of command is not 100% solid. Bush had good reason to wear that damn flight suit the left likes to taunt and mock all too often. Perhaps if they knew the pride and satisfaction one feels while wearing such a distinguished garment they would back off. Oh wait, they're too busy free loving and passing the bong . Nice blog Annika.

Posted by: trisa at June 10, 2006 03:17 PM (Rhuwm)

5 I knew Rpbert Kennedy; in fact,I worked for him in Washington D.C in my first job. The gravel thoated little wimp is not Robert Kennedy; he is his son (maybe). Lord save us from sons of famous men. Patrick Kennedy, Jerry Brown, Robert Kennedy Jr., et al. A bunch on non-achievers who need to be euthanized.

Posted by: shelly at June 10, 2006 11:06 PM (BJYNn)

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Now that Al Zarqawi is getting fucked in the ass by his cellmates Pol Pot and Beria, I think we should celebrate the heroes who dropped the two 500 lb. JDAMs that killed him. Their victory is as historic at the one that occurred on April 17, 1943, also heralded as great news:

[A]s the mountains of Bougainville came into view [it was] 0934 when sharp-eyed Doug Canning called out "Bogeys, eleven o'clock. High." Mitchell couldn't believe it; there they were, right on schedule, exactly as planned. The Japanese planes appeared bright and new-looking to the pilots of the 339th. They jettisoned their drop tanks and bored in for the attack. Holmes and Hine had trouble with their tanks, only Barber and Lanphier of the killer group went after the Japanese bombers. All the other P-38s followed their instructions to fly cover.

. . . The Lightnings had waded into the Japanese flight, pouring forth their deadly streams of lead. In the manner of all aerial combat, the fight was brief, high-speed, and confused. . . .

. . . Both Lanphier and Barber claimed one bomber shot down over the jungles of Bougainville. Frank Holmes claimed another shot down over the water a few minutes later. From Japanese records and survivors, among them Admiral Ugaki, the following facts are certain. Only two Betty bombers were involved; Yamamoto's was shot down over Bougainville with no survivors; the second went into the ocean and Ugaki lived to tell about it. Shortly after the attack, a Japanese search party located the wreckage, including the Admiral's body, which they ceremonially cremated.

. . .

The pilots uneventfully flew back to Guadalcanal, where upon landing, the ground personnel greeted them gleefully, like a winning football team. While Lanphier and Barber briefly disagreed about the air battle, all was subsumed in the generally celebratory atmosphere. Lanphier later recalled enjoying his best meal of the war that night.

Posted by: annika at 07:37 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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1 Here's some interesting analysis from Hewitt on Al Zarqawi's death: "Here's the key analysis you won't hear on MSM today: Had we not invaded Iraq, Zarqawi would not be dead today, but rather ensconced in some Baghdad safe house or larger encampment plotting more savagery. Had we not invaded Iraq, Saddam's decision menu today would be how much or little assistance to give Zarqawi, followed by the allocation of bribes to his various U.N. oil-for-food stooges, followed by succession planning with his mad-as-hatter sons." It's a great day every time one of these people goes to meet their virgins.

Posted by: Blu at June 08, 2006 07:56 AM (RZ8UN)

2 I'm not sure, but it sounded like they made two passes each on Fox News. That would be four, not two JDAMS. My guess is that they were sitting down to dinner, based on the time and dishes shown on all the clips. Too bad; it would have been better to show them on the prayer rugs. I hope he enjoys the 72 Janet Reno clones.

Posted by: shelly at June 08, 2006 08:38 AM (BJYNn)

3 It's bigger than just the death of Z being wiped from the face of the earth. Gen Caldwell briefed that we simultaneously hit 17 other sites. That means that we've developed this intel for a long time, and when we struck, it was at a moment of our choosing, and we rolled up his whole network at one time. That's incredible! The missing story here is the story of how the intel was developed over time. These are the guys who put the firepower and the trigger puller in that piece of air at the right time for Yamamoto and Zarqawi to meet their maker. I wish that I could buy them a drunk tonight!

Posted by: Casca at June 08, 2006 08:42 AM (rEC2k)

4 We joke about the 72 ugly virgins, but in all seriousness, there are no virgins. He went straight to hell.

Posted by: annika at June 08, 2006 09:25 AM (zAOEU)

5 I bet you are the only blogger in the world with the smarts to link Yamamoto with Zarqawi. The death of Yamamoto was a tremendous blow to the Japanese. Maybe the crazy man in Iran will have second thoughts about his quest to rule the world.

Posted by: Jake at June 08, 2006 09:28 AM (sDM7g)

6 I dunno... I see something wrong with the way Z-man died last night: It wasn't slow and painful enough... f***'er deserved a painful handful of last moments as payback for what he's done to his Iraqi victims, not just a bright flash and whoop, it's over. But, you take what you get. Good riddance. I don't normally have anything positive to say about the fact that someone died -- normally, that's a tragedy -- but frankly, this was less a human dying and more a tumor getting excised. Good f***in riddance.

Posted by: elmondohummus at June 08, 2006 10:31 AM (Sf/1c)

7 I think the greater thanks go to the SOF troops that were there on the ground, guiding the CAP in. They are the ones that went in immediately after to do a BDA (bomb damage assessment). Maybe they should bury old a-Z in the nearest pig-pen.

Posted by: Mike at June 08, 2006 11:21 AM (BJYNn)

8 These are the guys who put the firepower and the trigger puller in that piece of air at the right time for Yamamoto and Zarqawi to meet their maker.

Posted by: Thomas Greene at June 08, 2006 11:51 AM (b7Tng)

9 Hey Blu, I must agree and not the least bit grudgingly, a great day this sick misguided Islamist piece of shit is dead. Of course, it remains to be seen what affect it will have on the course of events as they are unfolding or one might say unravelling in Iraq. I will not however agree that his death is justification for destroying Iraq, but you already knew that.

Posted by: strawman at June 08, 2006 03:14 PM (G2Zzw)

10 One small correction, the AirForce office who was on Fox this AM said the lead F-16 attacked with a 500 lb LGB. F-16 #2 dropped a JDAM.

Posted by: wayne at June 09, 2006 07:00 AM (y6dNe)

11 "We joke about the 72 ugly virgins, but in all seriousness, there are no virgins. He went straight to hell." No Annika, You're wrong. The virgins ARE there. It's just that they STAY virgins. THAT's why it's called Hell!!

Posted by: Bat Guano at June 09, 2006 08:17 AM (mkw7u)

12 Thanks for mentioning Yamamoto--it's interesting to imagine how the shootdown would have been covered by today's media (see my post here.) Although he certainly merited killing, I don't think Yamamoto was on the same level of evil as Zarqawi. He orchestrated an aggressive war, and fought for a government that committed many atrocities. But I don't think there is any evidence that he was a personal sadist in the Zarqawi mold.

Posted by: David Foster at June 09, 2006 08:42 AM (/Z304)

13 Everyone, I gotta go with David Foster on this one. Zarqawi was a human cancer with no honor. Yamamoto was western educated, and if I remember my history correctly, was one of the few opposing war with the US. Remember, he was the one who spoke the words about America being the "sleeping giant" that was awakened by the Pearl Harbor attack. And, according to one biography (this one, I think), he spent the remainder of the day of the attack rather depressed. In short, he sounded alarms about the impossibility of success (there was another quote attributed to him, trying to remember from where (historians, help me out please!) where he promises that he can run the tables on the US for around 6 months, but after that, he had "no expectations of success", or something like that) and basically only fought out of duty and honor, not bloodthirsty destructiveness or delusional nihilisim like Z-man. In short, everything I remember reading about him was that he was a clear headed, non-delusional, honarable enemy, a legitimate and neccessary target, but orders of magnitude removed from a human stain like Zarqawi. Not to condone or forgive his part in Pearl Harbor, an unpardonable act in the overall view of history; I say the above to underline that he was nowhere near being the subhuman thug that Zarqawi was.

Posted by: elmondohummus at June 09, 2006 11:20 AM (xHyDY)

14 Here's my shameless self-promotion... all that predator feed... I'm responsible for that communications link here in Ramstein, DE . Theoretically I've been responsible for the deaths of thousands . JK. Peace out Annika.

Posted by: trisa at June 10, 2006 03:24 PM (Rhuwm)

15 True to another readers comments... Yamamoto wore his uniform and didn't try and hide amongst Japanese civilians to try and gain leverage. But then again terrorists aren't exactly known for their honor. After all... what, WHAT religion condones and promotes such unabashed killing of people? Perhaps they should look a little deeper at what such a benign, loving deity might request. My only hope for Zarqawi was that he had actually lived. To be taken into custody by 'infidels' is far greater shame to Muslims than the shame that ancient Samurai felt when compelled to impale themselves over swords... Now his status has raised to 'martyr' whereas if we'd imprisoned him he would have been 'impotent.' BUT considering the freakin US of good ol' A let the 20th hijacker of 9/11 (the greatest tragedy since Pearl Harbor) off for life in prison; perhaps a swift and certain death of Zarqawi was the best route indeed. Again... peace out my friend Annika!

Posted by: trisa at June 10, 2006 03:51 PM (Rhuwm)

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From AP:

VIENNA, Austria - A package of incentives presented Tuesday to Iran includes a provision for the United States to supply Tehran with some nuclear technology if it stops enriching uranium — a major concession by Washington, diplomats said.

The offer was part of a series of rewards offered to Tehran by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, according to the diplomats, who were familiar with the proposals and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were disclosing confidential details of the offer.

The package was agreed on last week by the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia — the five veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany, in a bid to resolve the nuclear standoff with Iran.

Meanwhile, the Iranians are sending out positive signals.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana met Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Tehran to present the package, agreed by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

"The proposals had some positive steps in them and some ambiguities which should be removed," Larijani said after receiving the proposals. He did not elaborate on the "ambiguities".

"We hope, after we study the proposal in detail, we will have another round of talks and negotiations to achieve a balanced and logical conclusion," he said.

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Much as I hate to link to the New York Times, occasionally they print something that's worth a recommendation. Here's a background story on the internal White House discussions that preceded our latest overture to Iran. It's most notable for illustrating the incredible regard President Bush has for Condoleezza Rice's advice.

[T]he story of how a president who rarely changes his mind did so in this case — after refusing similar proposals on Iran four years ago — illustrates the changed dynamic between the State Department and the White House in Mr. Bush's second term. When Colin L. Powell was secretary of state, the two buildings often seemed at war. But 18 months after Ms. Rice took over, her relationship with Mr. Bush has led to policies that one former adviser to Ms. Rice and Mr. Bush said "he never would have allowed Colin to pursue."

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In case you've been in a cave, here's the latest news on a terrorist cell arrested by the anti-terrorism squad of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

A counterterrorism sweep Friday resulted in the largest arrest ever made by the nation's anti-terrorism forces and raised, for the first time, the spectre of homegrown terrorists striking Canadians from within our borders.

RCMP Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell announced the arrest of 12 Ontario men who were to appear in court later Saturday in Brampton, west of Toronto. The men ranged in age from 19 to 43, and are residents of Toronto, Mississauga and Kingston.

. . .

Media reports Saturday alleged that the suspects engaged in terror training camps north of Toronto. It was further alleged that the group was plotting to attack targets in Toronto, including the headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

. . .

Police have recovered three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in the raids. Commissioner McDonell noted that this amount was three times the amount used by Timothy McVeigh to destroy the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

Certainly the most disturbing aspect of this story, and one that will probably be ignored by the evil right wing bloggers, is that the Canadian intelligence services were apparently snooping on these suspected terrorists' private websites!

The chain of events began two years ago, sparked by local teenagers roving through Internet sites, reading and espousing anti-Western sentiments and vowing to attack at home, in the name of oppressed Muslims here and abroad.

Their words were sometimes encrypted, the Internet sites where they communicated allegedly restricted by passwords, but Canadian spies back in 2004 were reading them. And as the youths' words turned into actions, they began watching them.

Who will step up in Canada to protect terrorist rights? Where is Canada's Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid? More proof, I guess, of how backward them Canadians are.

h/t Dr. Rusty.

More from Canadians Skippy Debbye and RightGirl.

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See, somebody agrees with me! I wrote yesterday that some media pundits completely misunderstood Condoleeza Rice's latest Iran statement. ThreatsWatch totally concurs, only in better prose.

Update: It's hard to imagine any editorial getting it more wrong than the Wall Street Journal's, surprisingly.

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A reporter for L.A. radio station KABC was the victim of an attempted murder today. Someone tried to run him over with a station wagon. What did the reporter do? It appears someone didn't like the questions he was asking about a certain all-latino public school. Story here.

More on the principal of the public school and his extremist agenda here. He sounds like a commie to me.

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I'm amazed at the naivety of some media pundits regarding Condoleeza Rice's proposal to the Iranians. It's being trumpeted as a major change in U.S. foreign policy. It is not that at all. Here is what she said:

The positive and constructive choice is for the Iranian regime to alter its present course and cooperate in resolving the nuclear issue, beginning by immediately resuming suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, as well as full cooperation with the IAEA and returning to implementation of the Additional Protocol which would provide greater access for the IAEA. This path would lead to the real benefit and longer-term security of the Iranian people, the region, and the world as a whole.

. . .

Thus, to underscore our commitment to a diplomatic solution and to enhance the prospects for success, as soon as Iran fully and verifiably suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the United States will come to the table with our EU-3 colleagues and meet with IranÂ’s representatives.

The Iranian news agency said Iran accepts only proposals and conditions that are in the nation's interest. "Halting enrichment definitely doesn't meet such interests[.]"

Well, of course, it is.

You see, Rice's proposal contains a poison pill -- a condition designed to be unacceptable to the Iranians. Upon Iran's rejection of the offer, we can re-claim the rhetorical high ground we lost when Ahmadi-Nejad sent that stupid letter. We are attempting to regain the "initiative," which is a military analogy that means that we're trying to control the game by placing our opponent on the defensive.

Iran either accepts the conditions or they don't. Either way it's a win-win for us. If they accept the conditions, we gain time to promote regime change from within (assuming the Bush administration takes my advice). If they reject the offer, we gain leverage with our allies and public opinion (assuming we spin it right). Or, you can look at it another way: if the Iranians agree to stop enrichment, they would look really bad if they started it up again for any reason.

Look, regime change is the ultimate goal here and everyone should know this. Ahmadi-Nejad is a bigger nutcase than Saddam ever was, and infinitely more dangerous. We cannot be safe as long as Iran is controlled by religious extremists who hate us. Democracy in Iran is the necessary next step in any permanent solution to the problem of Islamic terrorism.

If you look at what we did to set up Saddam Hussein, you'll see we used the same poison pill method. On the eve of war, we proposed a multi-layered ultimatum which Saddam could not possibly have satisfied. He tried submitting a 12,000 page Declaration of Compliance, but of course that hastily prepared document never had a chance. And the ultimate result is that Saddam is now in prison instead of ruling Iraq.

Now, in the case of Iran, we need to manuever them into a position where we can take out the regime without using the military option. At least I hope that's the plan, because attacking Iran's nuclear facilities in the near future would be politically disastrous, if not technically unfeasible.

But the Iranians have a poison pill of their own, which they haven't yet trotted out. It's called the "security gaurantee" card. When the time is right, they will play it, don't worry. Iran will demand that we give them the same assurance we once gave to Castro: that we won't try to overthrow the current government. As I pointed out above, regime change should be our ultimate goal, and therefore we must never agree to that condition. If Iran plays the security guarantee card effectively, they may regain the rhetorical advantage unless we are ready to counter it.

Posted by: annika at 06:48 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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From AP:

Iran's foreign minister said Tuesday that Tehran is ready to restart negotiations with the European Union on its nuclear program, but he ruled out direct talks with the United States.

"I announce that Iran is ready to respond positively to the call" made by the Nonaligned Movement "for resuming the negotiations on Iran's nuclear issue without any preconditions," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters.

"Accordingly, I would announce our readiness to restart immediately the negotiations with the EU Three to resolve the issues," he said, referring to Britain, France and Germany.

The announcement raised hopes that Iran would react positively to a planned package of incentives meant to convince it to abandon uranium enrichment. The package has been put together by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.

You wait. Negotiations will start again, then in a few months the Iranians will either break it off or do something that will cause us to stop talking and spend another five months ramping up for a security council meeting. This cycle can go on as long as they need it to. Diplomacy alone cannot succeed here. If the goal is to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, only regime change can solve the problem.

Here is the real reason why the Iranians want to talk now. They have run into some technical problems that they need to sort out.

Diplomats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the topic's political delicacy, say that Iranian engineers stopped pouring a raw form of uranium, called UF6, into arrays of centrifuges after just 12 days, even as the nation erupted in celebrations of the enrichment feat. The reports, which have now been widely circulated, say the Iranians kept the empty centrifuges spinning, as is standard practice because slowing the delicate machines can cause them to wobble and crash.

. . .

[O]n April 11 . . . the Iranians announced that they had enriched uranium to the low levels needed to fuel a nuclear reactor. They depicted the achievement as just the start of a sprint. "Our young scientists are working day and night," Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who is in charge of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, told an Iranian television interviewer the next day. "People are shocked and surprised that this has happened so quickly."

Then, on April 28 in Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that the Iranians were assembling two more cascades, or strings of centrifuges, each consisting of 164 machines. On May 17, David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a research group in Washington that tracks the Iranian program, told Congress that those cascades were expected to start operating in May and June, respectively.

But in an interview last week, a diplomat close to the international watchdog agencies disclosed that the atomic agency would report soon that the Iranians had made little progress on the new cascades.

That would be a setback, at least as measured by Iran's declared intentions. It has said the pilot plant is to hold a total of six cascades made up of 984 centrifuges — a goal nuclear analysts expected Iran to achieve later this year. They see that as roughly the minimum number of centrifuges Iran would need to enrich enough uranium to make a single bomb. Analysts say that if the complicated plant worked reliably and efficiently, and if Tehran decided to throw out the inspectors and abandon its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, using the cascades to make fuel for a nuclear weapon would take a little more than two years.

And here's the quote of the day, from a German:

"They've cracked the code," one senior German official said last week. "We're kidding ourselves if we think we are going to deny them the knowledge" of how to produce nuclear fuel.

Iran is clear on one thing. They will not stop enrichment, even if the negotiations begin anew, and even if the EU offers the incentive package that's been floated.

"They say that they want to give us incentives. They think that they can take away our gold and give us some nuts and chocolate in exchange," hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said earlier this month.

"We don't need incentives. There is no need to give us incentives, just don't try to wrong us," he said.

Update: Tod Lindberg of the Washington Times makes the case for negotiation. The central focus of any negotiation with Iran is to answer to these questions:

Is there anything Iran wants more than a nuclear weapon? If so, is what Iran wants instead in any sense reasonable? If what Iran wants is not reasonable, is there anything reasonable that Iran would accept in exchange for a verifiable end to its nuclear program? The answer to those questions may be "no," "no" and "no." But we would be better served by demonstrating that the answers are "no" than simply by assuming and asserting they are.

So I say yeah, negotiate. Put on a good show, but we sure as hell better be doing something else too while we still have options. I worry that the Bush administration is not able or willing to multi-task like the Reagan administration was. A linear strategy like: "First try diplomacy, then if that doesn't work try sanctions, then if that doesn't work..." is a losing strategy. Reagan's offensive was multi-faceted and complex. We don't think of it that way because we only remember the brouhaha over the missiles. But the Bush administration really ought to be studying the Reagan model more closely.

Posted by: annika at 06:53 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Readers of annika's journal don't need to be reminded about Memorial Day, or what it stands for. But here's another way to honor those who died to preserve our freedom. Make your voice heard to save the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial Cross.

The Thomas More Law Center, which does such great pro bono public interest work, has prepared a letter asking the president to help preserve the Memorial Cross from efforts to destroy it by secular zealots.

I'm not exactly sure why a tiny group of chronic complainers feel so threatened by this cross and other symbols meant to honor our nation's heritage. But they won't stop until all traces of religious faith are erased from public sight. And then they'll find something else to destroy. They only reason they are succeeding is because they complain so loudly while we who disagree stay silent.

Posted by: annika at 10:49 AM | Comments (36) | Add Comment
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Newsweek has more background on the internal feud that led to Porter Goss's surprise resignation. It's an interesting story that involves a Clinton era fuck-up in Belgrade. Well, Goss thought it was a fuck-up, but CIA thought it wasn't. Goss was chair of the House Intelligence Committee at the time, and the dispute carried over into his short lived DCI term. It sounds like Goss was doomed from the start. When he was appointed to head the CIA, he inherited the same enemies he made as Intelligence Committee chairman. It was just a matter of time before he left or got kicked out.

One wonders why Bush would select Goss to a head an agency where the top guys already had an axe to grind against him. That couldn't have been the plan, since Hayden is now planning to re-hire a guy who quit because of Goss -- as Hayden's new deputy! What a mess.

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I like how critics say, "well when the Taliban were in power at least there wasn't any opium trade." Of course there wasn't, the Taliban system of law and order was extremely effective because it was extremely brutal. But if you were to suggest that the allied forces use the same brutal methods to stop the resurgence of opium growing, you'd hear, "but that's the only way these poor farmers can earn a living."

So which is it?

Posted by: annika at 02:16 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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Here's an example of media trickery in the choice of headlines. MSNBC (home of the Bush-hatin' tag team: Matthews and Olbermann) chose the following headline for their story on the president's immigration speech last night:

Bush talk of immigrant amnesty divides GOP

[W]e must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are already here. They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it. Amnesty would be unfair to those who are here lawfully and it would invite further waves of illegal immigration.

That's another reason why I never watch that channel.

Posted by: annika at 09:13 AM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
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