] A new book by the senior Central Intelligence Agency
] officer who headed a special office to track Osama bin
] Laden and his followers warns that the United States is
] losing the war against radical Islam and that the
] invasion of Iraq has only played into the enemy's hands.

The New York Times - Intelligence Insider: Book by C.I.A. Officer Says U.S. Is Losing Fight Against Terror

] Last night Mr. Cheney, who was the administration's most
] forceful advocate of the Qaeda-Hussein links, was more
] pointed, repeating in detail his case for those ties and
] saying that The New York Times's coverage yesterday of
] the commission's findings "was outrageous."
]
] "They do a lot of outrageous things," Mr. Cheney,
] appearing on "Capital Report" on CNBC, said of the
] Times, referring specifically to a four-column front page
] headline that read "Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie." Mr.
] Cheney added: "The press wants to run out and say there's
] a fundamental split here now between what the president
] said and what the commission said."
]
] He said that newspapers, including the Times, had
] confused the question of whether there was evidence of
] Iraqi participation in Sept. 11 with the issue of whether
] a relationship existed between Al Qaeda and Mr. Hussein's
] regime.

The New York Times - Bush and Cheney Talk Strongly of Qaeda Links With Hussein

This is not just a matter of the president's diminishing credibility, although that's disturbing enough.

This article is the focus of the top story on every news site this morning. It seems the Bush team feels there is a link between Al'Q and Iraq, and that the commission established as much, but not between Iraq and 9/11, and they say they never said Iraq was connected to 9/11. Quite a debate has ensued...

The Plain Truth (?)

] American intelligence officials have said that Mr.
] Chalabi informed Iran that the United States had broken
] the secret codes used by Iranian intelligence to
] transmit confidential messages to posts around the
] world.

Very interesting. Get your bullshit detector warmed up because maybe he did, or maybe they want you to think that he did, or maybe they want you to think that they want you to think that they did, or maybe....

I wonder what Iranian encryption is like. I wonder how easy it is for them to deploy a new cipher. I wonder how hard it will be for us to break their new cipher. If they've got one waiting in the wings, then maybe we also have a crack waiting in the wings...

Chalabi told Iran U.S. broke their codes?

] The project will use the latest technology, including
] biometrics, to identify people coming into the United
] States. The contract was awarded to Accenture, formerly
] Andersen Consulting, over two competing contractors,
] Lockheed Martin and Computer Sciences. Several industry
] executives and analysts said that the award surprised
] them and that Accenture had widely been considered the
] outside candidate.

I have to say I have some sympathy with the outrage here. They award this huge homeland security contract with significant civil liberties implications to a company that was at the heart of the Enron scandal and is based out of the Caribbean for tax reasons. This is too important to trust to a company with such a culture of shadyness.

Virtual Security Fence?

A friend of mine sent me this link:
http://www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/gadahn.htm

] Adam Yahiye Gadahn is being sought in connection with possible terrorist
] threats against the United States.

He thought it was entertaining because the guy looks like a typical suburban stoner. A web search on his name brings up an essay, linked here, that he wrote about becoming muslim:

] Having been around Muslims in my formative years, I knew
] well that they were not the bloodthirsty, barbaric
] terrorists that the news media and the televangelists
] paint them to be.

Dude, you're wanted by the FBI for connections to terrorism! Muslims aren't the bloodthirsty, barbaric terrorists that the news media and the televangelists talk about, you are!*

*Fine Print: All suspects apprehended on Cops are innocent until proven guilty in a court of laaauwww.

FBI searches for Stoner - Metal Head - Islamic Terrorist

] Presented with such a stark choice, voters appeared
] likely to support the ruling conservative party,
] notwithstanding its Iraq policy, just as they did last
] year in local and regional elections. In those elections,
] held days after the suicide attacks in Casablanca, which
] included the bombing of the Casa de España, the war in
] Iraq played as big a role as, if not a bigger role than,
] it did in the national elections of March 14. Indeed José
] Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Socialist leader and now
] incoming prime minister, tried to make those elections a
] referendum on José María Aznar's policies on
] international and domestic terrorism, but voters sided
] with the government.

I collected a bunch of essays in response to Oaknet's post that the bombings on 3/11 had no impact on the election in Spain.

I don't like this essay, per say. It attempts to argue that the government in Spain didn't mislead people in the wake of the attack about who was responsible. It did. You were there. I was arguing against the ETA hypothesis on MemeStreams long before it was widely accepted that the ETA wasn't responsible, and I don't even live on the same side of the Atlantic.

But, this essay did make me think. Spain is libertarian.

Spain has two main parties. The republicans (essentially) and the socialists. Most Spaniards don't agree with the position of the conservatives on Iraq. But they consistently vote for them anyway. The reason is that they support the conservatives successful economic programs, and they care more about the economy then they do about the war.

The bombing didn't shift their opinions so much as it shifted their PRIORITIES. They concluded that Iraq was more important then the economy. So they voted for the guy who was going to give them the Iraq policy that they wanted, despite giving them an economic policy that they don't want, rather then the guy who was giving them the Iraq policy that they didn't want and the economic policy they liked.

Spain is libertarian. If a candidate appeared on the scene there who was opposed to the Iraq war but ran a capitalist economy, he'd win.

Also, Al'Q likely knew this. All Spain needed was a priority shift. A terrorist attack will do that. Spain was low hanging fruit for Al'Q. Their minds were already made up.

Al'Q will not touch Spain again now that it has withdrawn from Iraq. Doing so would let the spanish people know that in or out of Iraq, Al'Q is still a threat to them. Al'Q would rather they believe its America's problem. I don't think that Spain, France, Germany, or Canada is in the firing line. The UK is. Russia is, but for unrelated reasons. Al'Q would rather everyone believe that they are America's problem. At least for the medium term.

It was a win for Al'Q. There is no doubting that. But it wasn't the bombing that really did it, ultimately. It was our failure to properly communicate the threat the Al'Q represents to the European street. Our failure to coherently explain what the hell we are doing in Iraq (in this context the we is required. Bush represents you.). Our failure to be diplomatic.

BTW, Bush's approval rating has dropped below 40%. He has a big problem. Al'Q might help him out a bit with it. An attack will drive the U.S. right.... like clockwork...

Who Misled Whom in Spain?

] In "Fahrenheit 9/11," we see the actual dying, of
] American troops and Iraqi civilians alike, with all the
] ripped flesh and spilled guts that the violence of war
] entails. We also see some of the 4,000-plus
] American casualties: those troops hidden away in clinics
] at Walter Reed and at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital
] in Fort Campbell, Ky., where they try to cope with nerve
] damage and multiple severed limbs.

Most detailed review I've read...

Michael Moore's Candid Camera

] Analysts say the intelligence chatter about an attack on
] the United States has shown up in open Internet forums
] and is similar to message traffic that preceded the
] Madrid bombings. "It's not just the official [terrorist]
] websites but also the chat rooms and Web forums," says
] Gabriel Weimann, a scholar in residence at the U.S.
] Institute for Peace. "The picture is not looking very
] good." Messages posted before the attacks in Madrid,
] Weimann says, described the Spanish government as "the
] first domino."

The correct incantation into google will present the discourse of the people who are trying to kill you.

USNews.com: Suspicions about a new terrorist attack have U.S. spies scrambling (5/31/04)

] Mobile phones fitted with digital cameras have been
] banned in US army installations in Iraq on orders from
] Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Britain's The Business
] newspaper reported yeterday.

And I would've gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those miserable cellphones!

Rumsfeld bans camera phones in Iraq