] National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice says the
] United States needs to work harder at reaching out to
] Muslims if it is to win the war on terrorism. President
] Bush's top security adviser admitted Thursday that the
] United States has not done enough to counteract
] widespread anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world.

Rice urges dialog with Islam

] Radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced
] Wednesday his militia would leave the Imam Ali Shrine in
] Najaf, following a threat by the Iraqi government to
] "liberate" the holy site.
]
] In a letter issued by al-Sadr's office in Baghdad and
] read to the Iraqi National Conference, the cleric said he
] agreed to demands made Tuesday night by a delegation from
] the conference that he and his forces leave the mosque,
] disband his Mehdi Army and "enter into the mainstream
] political process."

!!! Thats great news! Why is it when I go to CNN the top story is some bull shit about Scott Peterson and this is on the sidebar?!

[ Dude, worrying about Iraq is *so* yesterday. Today it's all about big public trials. -k]

CNN.com - Al-Sadr says militia will leave Najaf mosque - Aug 18, 2004

This is where the most recent terror alerts came from.

] The figure, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, was described by a
] Pakistani intelligence official as a 25-year-old computer
] engineer, arrested July 13, who had used and helped to
] operate a secret Qaeda communications system where
] information was transferred via coded messages.

Al Queda has a new job opening for a sysadmin with a bad attitude. You must also be able to use Photoshop and make banners.

] The Pakistani official said Mr. Khan told investigators that
] he had received 25 days of training at a militant camp in
] Afghanistan in June 1998. By the time Mr. Khan had risen
] to his current position, the official said, Qaeda figures had
] arranged his marriage and were paying him $170 a month
] for rent for his house in Lahore and $90 for expenses.

] Mr. Khan was in contact with the brother of the Indonesian
] Qaeda leader Hambali, who was studying in a religious
] school in Karachi, and who was deported in December
] 2003. Mr. Khan has told interrogators that his Qaeda
] handler was a Pakistani he knew as Adil or Imran, who
] assigned him tasks related to computer work, Web design
] and managing the handler's messages. His correspondents
] included a Saudi-based Yemeni, Egyptian and Palestinian
] nationals and Arabs in unknown locations, and someone
] described as the "in-charge" in the city of Khost in eastern Afghanistan.

The New York Times | Intelligence: Captured Qaeda Figure Led Way to Information Behind Warning

] 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

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

The Plain Truth

] 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.

[ Did you expect anything else from our current group in charge? Nepotism, baby. Being at the heart of the Enron thing was probably a plus. -k]

Virtual Security Fence?

] 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)

The issue at hand is that clearly the press does not make choices about what footage to air and what footage not to air on the basis of the nature of the footage alone. The press makes these decisions on a political basis. While this author's reference to footage of "partial birth abortions" is partisan and oversimplified, the general point must be considered. The press makes political decisions about what to air. In that sense they cannot be seen as objective. Once we've reached that conclusion we must ask what the political motives of the press actually are, and whether we feel like those motives are in line with our interests.

[ I've spoken and written about this from time to time as well, usually in the context of bloggers' impact on the balance of media bias. In all, I still feel that if the press is going to be biased, which I think is a fact difficult to refute, I'd rather know it, and let them be honest and straightforward about their leanings. For a news outlet to claim neutrality while spinning to one side or another undermines their credibility, and ultimately damages the entire institution. If Fox News' tag line was "We're right..." i'd have a lot less enmity than I do... but they hold up this flag of idealistic journalism "FAIR AND BALANCED" while being irrefutably right-leaning on a consistent basis. Let's can the doublespeak, I say. -k]

Jonah Goldberg on Abu Ghraib on National Review Online

] Michael Berg said he blamed the U.S. government for
] creating circumstances that led to his son's death. He
] said if his son hadn't been detained for so long, he
] might have been able to leave the country before the
] violence worsened.
]
] "I think a lot of people are fed up with the lack of
] civil rights this thing has caused," he said. "I don't
] think this administration is committed to democracy."

[ Idealistic young man goes to Iraq to help rebuild telecom infrastructure, gets detained at an Iraqi checkpoint, handed over to the US, then detained for a few weeks by the US for unknown reasons, then relased, only to be captured, and publicly executed by al Qaida linked terrorists. Doesn't get much worse than that.

I don't know if I blame the US for this one though, until more details come to light. Still, fuel for the fire, home and abroad. -k]

Newsday.com - World News

Second Clip - "Abuse is different from torture." - Rumsfeld

[ Oi. -k]

COMEDY CENTRAL: Daily Show on Abu Ghraib - 2