... The unpublicized meetings provide a rare glimpse at the influential but largely unreported role General Wayne A. Downing, former commander of all U.S. Special Operations forces, has assumed since he joined the White House after Sept. 11 to head its counterterrorism efforts. ... A possible invasion of Iraq could involve several roles for the Iraqi opposition ... Also exploring the option of encouraging elements of the Iraqi military to mutiny against Hussein ...

Talks With Iraqi Opposition Intensify

Summary from Virtual Acquisition Shelf: "The Charlie Rose Show airs nightly on public television. Rose conducts interviews with newsmakers, business leaders, authors, educators, politicians, and entertainers. This archive (audio only) provides streaming coverage of content back to October 29, 2001."

Available interviews include: Former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, Former Disney President Mike Ovitz, Filmmaker Ridley Scott, Author Lawrence Lessig, Film Director Ron Howard, NY Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Columnist William Safire, AOL Time Warner's Stephen Case, Intel's Andrew Grove, Iranian President Khatami, Vivendi CEO Jean-Marie Messier, Robert Altman, Julian Fellowes, Palestinian Ambassador Rahman, Microsoft's Bill Gates, Former GE CEO Jack Welch, N.Y. Times Columnist Thomas Friedman, Sandy Berger, Hillary Clinton, and many more.

The Charlie Rose Show | Online Streaming Audio Archive

Interesting. Very interesting. Follow this link!

Does anyone know how long "CNN Arabic" has been in operation? Is there a cable/broadcast television component, as with CNN en Español? It looks like they're going head-to-head with al-Jazeera, although I suspect that Ted Turner and Steve Case put CNN at a nontrivial disadvantage in this market.

CNN arabic.com

David Farber has a brief column in IEEE Internet Computing online. It appears to be generally available -- no subscription required.

"The United States has gone through a rollercoaster in the balance between individual freedoms and national safety throughout its history. As usual in a capitalistic democracy, profits, immigration, and other societal pressures have all factored in to the challenge. After the tragic attack on September the 11th, the Bush administration has called for, and received, increased powers to listen to our conversations, look at our e-mail, and see who and where we visit in cyberspace -- all with the stated intentions of protecting us from terrorists. Even prior to 9/11, repeated calls for increased powers for law enforcement resulted in ill-thought-out or rushed ideas such as Clipper -- the key escrow proposals of not many years ago -- and hastily adopted, potentially destabilizing schemes such as the Carnivore e-mail monitoring system. Now more than ever, the technical community has a vital role in maintaining the balance."

Balancing Security and Liberty, by David Farber

This special publication, which we have called the Thanksgiving 2001 issue, consists of nine essays and an extended conversation about the problems and choices before us. We make no claim to cover every aspect of those present circumstances that occupy our thoughts, only to touch on some of the most immediate questions and to offer a few particularly time-sensitive analyses about the initial theater of war and near Afghanistan.

Read excerpts from the issue online, and pick up the print edition in stores this week.

The National Interest, Thanksgiving 2001 Special Issue

"To win the war against terrorism, we have to think like a street gang, swarm like a soccer team, and communicate like Wal-Mart. The latest thinking from the military's greatest minds: It takes a network to beat a network." [...]

Business 2.0 talks to RAND consultant and Naval Postgraduate School professor John Arquilla about the "netwar" concept. Also talks with Peter Schwartz of the Global Business Network, as well as people from the International Network for Social Network Analysis.

America's Secret Weapon | Business 2.0

"Early on the morning of Saturday, October 20th, more than a hundred Army Rangers parachuted into a Taliban-held airbase sixty miles southwest of Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan. A military cameraman videotaped the action with the aid of a night-vision lens, and his grainy, green-tinted footage of determined commandos and billowing parachutes dominated the television news that night. The same morning, a second Special Operations unit, made up largely of Rangers and a reinforced Delta Force squadron, struck at a complex outside Kandahar which included a house used by Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader." [...]

A short piece by Seymour Hersh to appear in the upcoming issue of The New Yorker.

What happened when the Special Forces landed in Afghanistan? | The New Yorker

Anthrax, Afghanistan, al-Qaida, Ashcroft and anti-terrorism legislation. We aren't even through the first letter of the geopolitical alphabet before jumping all the way to "S" as in "screwed" as in what's happening to civil liberties in the online world."

Brock Meeks: First, brand all the children

The letters arrived Friday at the Iraqi mission to the United Nations on East 79th Street in New York and the Iraqi interest section on P Street NW in Washington, said an Iraqi official, who requested anonymity."

Wondering aloud: ... nothing like a couple of self-inflicted hoaxes to deflate rising suspicions and finger-pointing... could it be?

Iraqis May Be Latest Victims of Anthrax Attacks

(Iraqi) Foreign Minister Naji Sabri last week denied any link to the U.S. anthrax cases, telling reporters: "It's bullshit."

Tom asked: How often do you get a "Foreign Minister" to start cursing at you? :)

Iraq Is Not the Source of the Anthrax