] Prime Minister Jean Chretien on Wednesday protested the
] U.S. treatment of a Canadian citizen who was detained in
] New York and deported to Syria last year on suspicion of
] having links to terrorists.

Overzealous officials had an (apparently innocent) Canadian man deported to Syria, where he was tortured for 10 months, because another man suspected of being connected to Al'Q co-signed a rental lease with him in 1997. This person is a Canadian citizen. I cannot comprehend why the U.S. Government felt it was more appropriate to turn him over to Syria, a state that is one of the U.S.'s declared enemies, then Canada, a trusted ally. All of the motives that I can imagine are inappropriate. If you prefer to send suspects to countries that don't have civil liberties and due process then you basically don't support civil liberties and due process. If that is the case you shouldn't be working in the United States Government.

(BTW, the British press used the word "condemns" where the Post says "protests." Chretien's exact words were "unacceptable and deplorable.")

Chretien Protests Deportation of Canadian (washingtonpost.com)

] In an e-mail to ABCNEWS today, the commander of the
] battalion, Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo, said the
] "letter-writing initiative" was all his idea.

Spin, spin, spin....

Army Lt. Col. takes credit for astroturf

] His research shows that not only are suicide terrorists
] significantly more educated than their peers, they are
] also significantly better off. According to Krueger,
] although one-third of Palestinians live in poverty, only
] 13 percent of Palestinian suicide bombers do; 57 percent
] of bombers have education beyond high school versus 15
] percent of the population of comparable age.
]
] The Defense Intelligence Agency also gave me profiles
] of all these people they were interrogating at Guantánamo
] Bay in Cuba. They divide them into Yemenis and Saudis.
] The Yemenis are sort of the foot soldiers. And they found
] that the Saudis, their leaders especially, are from
] high-status families. A surprising number have graduate
] degrees. And they are willing to give up everything. They
] give up well-paying jobs, they give up their families,
] whom they really adore, to sacrifice themselves because
] they really believe that it's the only way they're going
] to change the world.

These people are not stupid, nor poor, nor desperate. While there are reasons to focus on education and poverty in places like West Bank/Gaza, the idea that its going to prevent people from deciding to become suicide terrorists is apparently wrongheaded.

An interested oped on Religion in this article too...

Everything you know about terrorists is wrong.

] Letters from hometown soldiers describing their successes
] rebuilding Iraq have been appearing in newspapers in
] Montana and across the country as U.S. public opinion on
] the mission sours.
]
] And all the letters are the same.

I am recommending this version of the story because it is more complete. The Army ran an astroturf campaign. They somehow managed to not get everyone's permission before submitting letters to the editors of their hometown papers on their behalf.

Form letter signed by U.S. troops a mystery - greatfallstribune.com

] Since the Riyadh bombings, Saudi authorities have
] arrested more than 200 suspects. More than a dozen
] militants and at least 10 security men have also died in
] gunbattles with extremists.

In a classic case of, excuse the language here, but, shitting where you sleep, Al'Q manages to do what years of aggressive US "diplomacy" has failed to do. They got the Saudi government to crack down. They have also sent a clear message to Libya, Iran, Malaysia, and other countries that have been afraid to crack down that they are unlikely to be safe. Thus, proving, once again, something that anyone who has worked as a security professional is quite aware of, but can never assume:

Bad guys are usually stupid.
Stupid people always fuck up.

ABCNEWS.com : Saudi Raids Uncover Network of Extremists

] A software engineer from Oregon pleaded guilty Wednesday
] to aiding the Taleban and now faces the likelihood of
] seven to 10 years in jail.
]
] The Justice Department says Maher Hawash, a naturalized
] American citizen of Palestinian descent, pleaded guilty
] to a charge of conspiring to supply services to the
] Taleban following the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York
] and Washington.

Hawash was guilty

] Stop and think, if in 2001, or in 2000, or in 1999, we
] had gone to war in Afghanistan to deal with Osama bin
] Laden, and we had tried to say it's because he's planning
] to kill 3,000 people in New York, people would have said,
] you don't have any proof of that," he said.
]
] "I think the lesson of Sept. 11 is that you can't wait
] until prrof after the fact.

Paul Wolfowitz on pre-crime

] "When Iraq broadcast photos of dead American soldiers,
] the U.S. considered that against human rights," Jordanian
] political analyst Sahar al-Qassem said. "So, why are they
] violating that now by showing such inhumane pictures?"

I strongly agree with this position. Although I am sympathetic to the position that hiding the public from the realities of war has as much to do with desensitizing them as it does with respecting the families of the dead, if we are to take the position that it is morally inappropriate to show pictures like this, and we absolutely have taken this position, then to turn around and do so is an abomination. We are obviously violating our own moral platitudes. I am extremely disappointed.

Don't be fooled by explanations that there are "strategic" reasons for this; that people in Iraq need evidence that the "tyrants have been deposed." The Iraqi military had "strategic" reasons for showing the pictures that they showed: that people in Iraq need evidence that American soldiers can be defeated. The POINT of a moral platitude is that it overshadows strategic interests.

If they wanted to prove that these men were dead they could have found another way. Publish the dental xrays. It would be just as open to scepticism as these pictures have been.

Yesterday, if speaking honestly, I'd have told you I was on the fence about the administration. I don't like the way they've been going about things, but I understand the strategy, and it does appear to be working, and you have to give them credit for that.

However, this kind of blatent moral hyprocracy is beyond the pale. If you don't stand behind your own moral platitudes, then what IS it that separates you from the terrorists? Nothing at all.

I'm going to vote for the most promising opposing candidate in the election.

U.S. violates is own moral platitude

] The new commander of U.S. forces in Iraq labeled the
] conflict there a guerrilla war for the first time
] yesterday, and said replacement troops to be sent there
] should expect year-long deployments of the type used
] during the Vietnam War.

See my post from two weeks ago on the matter.

Newsday.com - Iraqi Conflict a Guerrilla War

] In a new dispute over interpreting intelligence data, the
] CIA and other agencies objected vigorously to a Bush
] administration assessment of the threat of Syria's
] weapons of mass destruction that was to be presented
] Tuesday on Capitol Hill.

CIA Bitch Slaps White House on Syria Intel