Exhibit A.

Please pray for those injured or killed as a result of this crash, their respective families, and the people of New York.

In the latest in the totally irrational response to the Pope’s “remarks,” a large group of Muslim clerics has recently demanded the Pope’s removal. Obviously, this group does not understand the nature of the Papacy, the Church or its governance. The group says:

Benedict “should be removed from his position immediately for encouraging war and fanning hostility between various faiths” and “making insulting remarks” against Islam, said a joint statement issued by the clerics and scholars at the end of their one-day convention.

The “pope, and all infidels, should know that no Muslim, under any circumstances, can tolerate an insult to the Prophet (Muhammad). … If the West does not change its stance regarding Islam, it will face severe consequences,” it said. (more…)

Here (on The Corner) is a letter from Treasury Secretary Snow to NYT editor Bill Keller regarding their recent story on American tracking of financial data.  If the letter accurately portrays what went on pre-publication, the NYT did everyone an awful disservice.  Imagine, though, how powerful Mr. Keller and the rest of the crew at the Times must feel - they had a Cabinet secretary, members of Congress, White House officials groveling at their feet trying to convince them not to publish the story.  And then, with nary a sniff, off the story went.

I really don’t think the government ought to prosecute the NYT.  They’re doing what the press has always done - print things that will increase their circulation and win Pulitzers.  (Spare me the “public right to know” nonsense - they’re not somehow more noble than the rest of us).  But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t prosecute the stinkers who first leaked the thing - they took an oath not to let that sort of information out and they know better.  The justice department, if they’re not already, ought to be front and center demanding to know who it is whispered think the NYT’s proverbial ear.  March ‘em all into a grand jury and let ‘em rot in some nasty prison cell if they won’t tell.  And when they do tell - who wants to miss “the season” at Martha’s Vineyard? - put the leakers in jail, for a long, long time.  You can’t stop the leaks at the press level, but you can stop the bureaucracy.

So an Army LT doesn’t want to go to Iraq because he would be participating in “the wholesale slaughter of the Iraqi people” and thus in war crimes.  Huh.  He wouldn’t seem to qualify for conscientious objector status, since there are (presumably) some people he’s willing to fight.  So I say let him feel the consequences of his “conscience” and court-martial him.  Joel, could we send him to Leavenworth?

A New York Sun editorial points out that the recent arrest of 17 Canadian terror suspects flies in the face of the theory that Islamic fundamentalists target America primarily for our support of Israel and our involvement in Iraq.  The editorial points out that:

“Canada sent no troops to liberate Iraq. Our neighbor to the North so opposed the Iraq War that at least one American deserter fled there for safe harbor, as draftdodgers did during the Vietnam War.  And while Canada is mildly pro-Israel, and more so under its new conservative government, its arms sales to the Jewish state are peanuts compared to America’s, and at the United Nations on key votes it’s likely to abstain rather than join the America, Micronesia, and Palau in voting with Israel.” 

ME:  So why did these radicals want to target a liberal country like Canada?  The fact is that Islamic extremists hate us (the West) for our freedom, prosperity, and religious diversity.  They will always hate us and there is nothing we can do about it other than to hunt down those that commit acts of terrorism against us and to punish severely those nations that support such terrorists.  Hat tip to James Taranto at Best of the Web.

This morning, NPR gave Stansfield Turner a microphone in an effort to hose down Michael Hayden’s nomination as CIA director.  Remember Turner? I’ve posted on this boob before as well as the FISA nonsense.  As former CIA director under Carter he presided over the destruction of the agency’s human intelligence service.  Turner began his radio commentary allaying public fear over Hayden being a military man heading up the civilian CIA.  After all, Turner himself was an active duty Admiral when he took the helm at the agency.  I was not fooled as I listened to him because I knew he would launch a scud at Hayden before he finished.  I was not disappointed.  He concluded by playing the fear card. In a nutshell,  if Hayden is going to spy on Americans at CIA like he is doing at NSA, we can’t have that. 

National security is beginning to sound like the immigration debate.  Turner and his ilk advocating half-measures when we’re supposed to be on a war footing.  CIA is long overdue for an emema…lefty leakers flushed out and the agency staffed with loyal mission-driven professionals. Then, at the right time they sould be given domestic intel responsibility. (Save any goofy comments you might have about Gestapo, KGB and the like).

If we truly care about national security, specifically borders and intelligence gathering, we had better adapt to the current realities or we’re simply…..screwed.

UPDATE: I wanted to include Robert Baer’s input from the recent Time.  He’s a former CIA field officer and I respect his opinion… (more…)

Mexico, a country with a strict immigration policy, is threatening America with a lawsuit if the National Guard engages in active detainment of illegal immigrants.

  “If there is a real wave of rights abuses, if we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people … we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates,” Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez told a Mexico City radio station. He did not offer further details.

Okay, someone pinch me so I can wakeup from this dream.  Mexico, a country that believes in shooting first and then asking questions when a person appears illegal, is threatening to sue the US if we use the military for its rightful purpose - securing our borders.  However, the most worrisome is

Some Mexican newspapers criticized President Vicente Fox for not taking a stronger stand against the measure, even though Fox called Bush to express his concerns.

A political cartoon in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma depicted Bush as a gorilla carrying a club with a flattened Fox stuck to it.

Fox’s spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, said Tuesday that Mexico accepted Bush’s statement that the sending in the National Guard didn’t mean militarizing the area. He also said Mexico remained “optimistic” that the U.S. Senate would approve an immigration reform “in the interests of both countries.”

While I support legal immigration, I am concerned a national security issue is being compromised on a variety of levels.  Why are we trying to pacify another nation regarding immigrants coming from an oppressive country?  A country these people are fleeing from at all costs:

Juan Canche, 36, traveled more than 1,200 miles to the border from the southern town of Izamal and said nothing would stop him from trying to cross.

“Even with a lot of guards and soldiers in place, we have to jump that puddle,” said Canche, referring to the drought-stricken Rio Grande dividing Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. “My family is hungry and there is no work in my land. I have to risk it.”

Provided our borders are secure, I support an increase in legal immigration and a temporary guest worker program.    However, Mexico and other countries that force their citizens to flee their borders and often encourage illegal immigration must be held accountable for resulting crisis.  As a result, Mexico should have not have any input or influence in the American immigration policy.

Lower the cone of silence and let’s talk domestic spying. Over the years I’ve been exposed to FBI capabilities and when it comes to covert operations they fall short. It is, indeed, a federal law enforcement culture that I’ve found to be uncomfortable with drug operations as well as cloak and dagger stuff. The Robert Hanssen debacle was embarrassing for sure and made the bureau look really goofy. As far as cooperating with other agencies, generally it has been a one-way street…..the FBI simply doesn’t have a reputation for working and playing well with others. That said, even prior to 9/11, I thought our domestic intelligence apparatus was weak. The revelation in the Moussaoui trial that the FBI brass dropped the ball did not surprise me. This brings me to the recent Opinion Journal piece by Richard Posner advocating that the CIA take on a domestic intelligence component. I’m comfortable with the concept but doubt our nation can come to a consenus on it. Here’s an excerpt from the article…

The picture may be brightening as far as foreign intelligence is concerned, but it remains dark with respect to domestic intelligence. In my forthcoming book, I explain why burying our principal assets for detecting terrorist plots that unfold within the U.S. in a criminal-investigation agency–the FBI–is unsound. We are the only major country that does this. The U.K.’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, works closely with Scotland Yard, Britain’s counterpart to the FBI. But it is not part of Scotland Yard. …

…Changing an institutional culture is difficult at best; in this case it may be impossible. Almost five years after 9/11, the horses of change at the FBI have left the paddock but are still short of the starting gate. At least $100 million spent on trying to equip the bureau with modern information technology adequate to its intelligence tasks has been squandered. Just eight months after the president forced a fiercely recalcitrant bureau to combine its intelligence-related divisions into a single unit (the “National Security Branch”), the unit’s first and only director has resigned to become the security director of a cruise-ship line. The FBI’s primary mission is and will remain fighting crime; and just as crime-fighters don’t make good intelligence operatives, intelligence operatives don’t make good crime-fighters. The FBI fears compromising its main mission by embracing its secondary one.

But the man uses a stand-up desk all day long; and you gotta give him props for that.

From City Journal….

….U.S. counterterrorism officials have known for several years that al-Qaida views the U.S. prison population as a fertile source for recruiting homegrown terrorists—the kind that slip through security measures designed to catch foreign jihadi. Would-be “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla, for instance, was a former Chicago gangbanger who converted to radical Islam in prison and traveled to Afghanistan for jihad training. Many observers believe Islam to be the fastest-growing religion behind bars, particularly among black convicts; Muslim prison gangs are proliferating. On some estimates, as much as 20 percent of the New York state prison population may be Muslim. ….

Oh, goody. Just what we need. After reading the complete article, you’ll wonder….can this stuff be going on in my local slammer?

Check out the Opinion Journal interview with George Shultz. I think he makes some good points. Pretty impressive guy at 85. Here’s part of it…

……George Shultz is an intellectual, an MIT economist who in his career held two other cabinet posts, labor and Treasury, under Richard Nixon. And clearly he is awed by Ronald Reagan, the “actor” President, and the years he spent serving as Reagan’s minister to the world. But I had come to San Francisco because I wanted to talk about the here and now. So did he. Above all, the Revolt of the Generals and the leaks out of the CIA. He’s upset.

“I always had a good experience dealing with the career people in government,” Mr. Shultz said. “But I have to say it’s almost as if there is an insurrection taking place. Particularly what is going on in the military is astonishing and fundamentally intolerable. There has to be a sense of discipline. This is something new, and for everybody’s good it has to be dealt with.”

I asked about the place of dissent in government. “Look,” the former secretary said, “in our system some people get elected and what you get out of that is the right to call the shots, and the full-time career people are entitled to have their views listened to. But it is very important to see that what is going on now is a problem that goes beyond whether someone likes Don Rumsfeld or not.”……

A sense of discipline indeed. I’ve not seen much of that in government. As we continue our evolution into a Mad Max tribal culture, I don’t expect to see it get any better. We may be on the way to becoming our own worse enemy.

Today at 11, Justice Stevens will preside over oral argument in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.  This is a case that I have been watching develop for over a year and has the potential to provide the final judgment on the legality of the military commissions to try those detained at GTMO.  For those interested, literally all of the documents relevant to the case are here.  Audio of oral argument should be available starting around 12:30pm (ht: SCOTUSblog).  I predict Scalia won’t recuse and a  5-3 decision overturning the circuit court, but Lyle Denniston has an interesting post playing out what a 4-4 split would mean.

I don’t believe that the commissions are legal.  Both IHL (the laws of war) and the UCMJ have changed drastically since we last used them.  According to Ex Parte Quirin and Article 21 of the UCMJ, military commissions can obtain jurisdiction over offenses and offenders either by statute or common law of war.  Here, the government is claiming authorization under the latter.  The problem is, however, that Article 85 of the Third Geneva Convention was added specifically to deny military commissions any jurisdiction over POWs for violations of the laws of war.  To deny that this applies because the detainees have violated the laws of war would be to find them guilty (of violating the laws of war) before any trial. Another interesting issue is whether conspiracy is part of the common law of war at all, although I think this argument can be overcome by citing Dynes v. Hoover and arguing conspiracy as a lesser included offense (though this is another close issue).  While the President is granted the authority to ‘prescribe’ the rules of evidence and procedure of both courts-martial and military commissions, he may do so only in a manner not inconsistent with the rest of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  The lack of a pretrial hearing, the limitations on right to counsel, the panel’s authority to judge questions of both law and fact, the evidentiary standard, the two-thirds requirement for guilty verdicts, and the lack or any formal review process are all violations of the current requirements of the UCMJ.  Stuart Taylor has an excellent extended editorial available for a week.

The link on Drudge caught my eye this morning……Albright:  There’s no axis of evil;  Good versus evil isn’t a strategy. 

No, Madeleine, it’s not a strategy but it sure as hell helps for us to discern the difference.  Doing so gives us the moral clarity to take a stand against tyrants, terrorists and criminals.  Albright’s relativistic and nuanced worldview, like that of Europe, paralyzes nations and invites destruction. 

So, go ahead…..visualize whirled peas.

Newly released pre-war documents reveal that the connection between Saddam and Bin Laden were more substantial than many previously thought.  One of the interesting tid bits in the document is that Saddam agreed to broadcast the lectures of Suleiman al Ouda, a radical Saudi preacher and mentor of Bin Laden, over Iraqi radio.  I guess this throws a wrench into the theory that a so-called secularist like Saddam would never work with a radical Islamist like Bin Laden.  Read the article here.  Hat tip to the Corner. 

About DPW:

Whether it’s anti-Arab Islamophobia or anti-Mexican Hispanophobia, the fear-mongers in the conservative ranks do not truly believe in economic opportunity. Nor do they believe in Ronald Reagan’s “City on a Hill�? vision of America, where it is our charge to lead the world toward free-market prosperity, political democratization, and true freedom for all peoples.

Yes, there is a rift in the conservative ranks. Opposing President Bush are those with a vision of pessimism, defeatism, and fear. Supporting the president are those with a Reaganite vision that brims with opportunity, victory, and success in the spread of freedom and democratization. Can there be any serious question that the resounding conservative Republican ascendancy and success of the past 25 years launched by Ronald Reagan and advanced by George W. Bush is built on optimism — and positive results? I think not.

Me: I can’t wait to read the conservative reaction to this one.

I’m just gonna have to say it: I think I’m more on the Kudlow/Goldberg side of the ports issue, than the Chuck Schumer/Ann Coulter side. I don’t think this is even close to being another “Harriet Miers incident” and I think it’s a bit silly that many, if not most, of Bush’s most ardent supporters are starting to mindlessly turn their backs on him over this issue….and side with Hillary and Chucky? I agree with Kudlow in saying that the president has made some “political marketing” mistakes here - but I can hardly see how all of a sudden he’s become weak and inept on matters of national security.

…Oh, and I also think it strange that guys like Frist (presidential hopeful) and Santorum (”re-elected Senator” hopeful) are all of a sudden righteously indignant on this issue. Seems like a pretty good time to separate yourself from a lame-duck president, don’t you think?

Various Editorials: WaPo, NYTimes, LaTimes, NYPost, etc.(via RCP)

A fine post by Michelle Malkin, cutting through the Bush Administration’s bs re: the UAE port deal.

as I posted earlier, here, but now it seems that others are pointing it out too, as Bush did recently on Air Force One:

One of my concerns, however, is mixed messages. And the message is, it’s okay for a British company, but a Middle Eastern company — maybe we ought not to deal the same way. It’s a mixed message. 

I’ll be interested to hear how those politicians who pontificate moral outrage at any consideration of race or religion in national security matters, explain themselves when confronted with their hypocracy. 

I am just curious as to whether the enlightened blue-state voters who live in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland have a problem with this deal.

Texans, generally being solid law and order people, also have a healthy understanding of the negative economic impact that can result from a Berlin Wall approach with our southern neighbor. The Senate will be taking this issue up soon. I’m interested in what you nonborder state folks think. I share this Dallas Morning News editorial…… (more…)

NPR reports on a vexing problem.  Listen to it online when you get a moment.

“GOP Senator Arlen Specter is saying he wants to write legislation putting even more power in the hands of FISA judges. This isn’t merely unconstitutional. As the Post story shows, in a world of WMD and fast-moving transnational terrorists, it’s dangerous.”–quoted from Verity’s OpinionJournal.com article link

Amen and amen.  This FISA nonsense is a percolated liberal brew from the 1970’s.  Its chefs were the likes of Senators Ted Kennedy and Frank Church. And there to help stir up this mess were Jimmy Carter and his CIA Director, Stansfield Turner. Turner did his part in decimating the CIA’s human intelligence capability. I know many conservatives share with liberals a concern for eroded civil liberties absent FISA.  However, when it comes to national security the executive branch is entrusted with (and should be trusted with) Article 2 powers to provide necessary protection to our nation (and, yes, without crawling hat in hand to Congress or a silly FISA court).  This 70’s brew has been warmed over and now Specter’s drinking it.

This 2002 OpinionJournal.com article is still fresh and worth reading… Uncuff the FBI.

You know, I’ve actually tried over the years to get a handle on Islamic culture. I’ve read Karen Armstrong and recently Reza Aslan’s No God But God. Aslan does a great job explaining Islam to Mississippi rednecks like me but I see little hope that the world I live in can reconcile with the Muslim mobs that are dominating the news. I tend to think Ann Coulter has it right in this recent piece, Calvin and Hobbes — And Muhammad.

As always, I’m rarely disappointed when checking out the Volokh Conspiracy, to wit, Prof. Orin Kerr’s post re: AG Gonzales’s testimony yesterday. During the testimony, Gonzales, responding to a question from Sen. Feinstein, “argued that FISA’s exceptions should be read broadly under the canon of construction of avoiding constitutional doubt.” In doing so, this exchange took place:

FEINSTEIN: What in FISA specifically, then, allows you to conduct electronic surveillance within America, on Americans?

GONZALES: I believe that it’s Section 109, which talks about persons not engaged in electronic surveillance under cover of law except as authorized by statute. And I may not have it exactly right. We believe that that is the provision in the statute which allows us to rely upon the authorization to use military force.

Now, you may say, “Well, that — I disagree with that construction.” That may be so. There may be other constructions that may be fairly possible. We believe this is a fairly possible reading of FISA. And as the Supreme Court has said under the canon of constitutional avoidance, if you have two possible constructions of a statute and one would result in raising a constitutional issue, if the other interpretation is one that is fairly possible, that is the interpretation that must be applied.

And if you reject our interpretation of FISA, Senator, then you have a situation where you’ve got an act of Congress intention with the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief. And the Supreme Court has said when that happens you go with another interpretation if it’s a fair application. And that’s what we’ve done here.

Prof. Kerr responds:One difficulty with Gonzalez’s argument, it seems to me, is that the Supreme Court didn’t rely on this argument when DOJ tried it before.  Check out the whole post for his thoughtful response.

One doomsday scenario on offer from Frank Gaffney, in yesterday’s Washington Times and on a short video.

On NRO today, Michael Ledeen urges greatly stepped-up US help to Iranian dissidents.  For perhaps the hundreth time.

In this post, NationalReview.com’s Media Play connects the dots between Risen’s December 16 disclosure in the N.Y. Times of NSA’s program intercepting communications between Al Qaeda and others present in the U.S., and the December 18 and December 31 purchases and attempts to purchase large quantities of disposable cell phone. I haven’t heard or read of this connection elsewhere, but it is one that should be made.