Last week I met with a leading military officer stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, whose observations dovetailed remarkably with the 9/11 commissioners. He said the experience of the last few years is misleading; only 10 percent of our efforts from now on will be military. The rest will be ideological.

MemeStreams is a weapons system in the war of ideas.

War of Ideology

This is life.... This is life on Fox News.

] The plane landed. My husband and I gathered our bags and
] quickly, very quickly, walked up the jetway. As we exited
] the jetway and entered the airport, we saw many, many men
] in dark suits. - A few yards further out into the
] terminal, LAPD agents ran past us, heading for the
] gate. -  I have since learned that the representatives of
] the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Los
] Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the Federal Air
] Marshals (FAM), and the Transportation Security
] Association (TSA) met our plane as it landed. -  Several
] men -- who I presume were the federal air marshals on
] board -- hurried off the plane and directed the 14 men
] over to the side.

Flight screening drops a major ball. Either Syrian artisans don't know how to behave on American planes these days, or Capital-T Terrorists are testing bomb assembly techniques. Much intrigue. Read in the dark. If you happen to have an MP3 of airline cabin sounds, play it. Perhaps Young's Let's Roll..

How would you react? What drink would have you gotten when the cart came around?

Warning: Author is the type of person who would quote Ann Coultier.

Terror in the Skies, Again? - WomensWallStreet

] In April 2003, John Ashcroft's Justice Department
] disrupted what appears to have been a horrifying
] terrorist plot. In the small town of Noonday, Tex.,
] F.B.I. agents discovered a weapons cache containing fully
] automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive
] devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a
] chemical weapon "a cyanide bomb" big enough to kill
] everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building.

] Incidentally, if Mr. Ashcroft's intention was to keep the
] case low-profile, the media have been highly cooperative.
] To this day, the Noonday conspiracy has received little
] national coverage.

I posted about this after it happened. I do find it very strange that is has still not gotten more attention. Apparently it is necessary to be an Islamist to qualify as a terrorist. Being a southern white supremacist isn't good enough. Last I checked, public opinion was clear about Tim McVeigh being a "terrorist", even if there was a "domestic" stuck in the front..

The New York Times | Op-Ed Columnist: Noonday in the Shade

The epic battle launched by bin Laden is not over. If anything, al Qaeda’s commitment and sense of purpose today are arguably greater than ever.

The Terrorist Leader as CEO

Government sources said Berg gave the man his password, which was later used by Moussaoui, the sources said.

Its a small small world?

CNN.com - Berg's encounter with 'terrorist' revealed - May 13, 2004

"My name is Nick Berg, my father's name is Michael, my mother's name is Suzanne," the man said on the video before being killed. "I have a brother and sister, David and Sara. I live in ... Philadelphia."

"Hi Nick, my name is also Nick. My middle name is Michael, and it comes from my father's side of the family. I'm from the Jersey Shore."

Berg had traveled several times to Third World countries to help spread technology, his family said. He had previously traveled to Kenya and Ghana, where they said he had purchased a $900 brick-making press for a poor village, the family said.

"He had this idea that he could help rebuild the infrastructure," she said.

According to his father, he was caught only after US officials detained him without charging him or allowing access to a lawyer. I'm guessing he was being "discouraged" from leaving at a point when officials didn't want the appearance of contractors and the like all leaving? shrug.

Newsday.com - World News

This Meme is currently on the 3rd page of Google results for "abu ghraib prison photos".

This whole prison photo situation makes me sick.

[U: For the record, I don't think Rumsfeld should resign or anything like that. We are in the middle of a war. This situation appears to have been addressed before the public heard about it as is. ]

The Abu Ghraib Prison Photos

Bob Kerrey offers his thoughts in the Sunday New York Times.

Anyone who was in Congress, as I was during the critical years leading up to Sept. 11, 2001, must accept some of the blame for the catastrophe. It was a collective failure.

It has been difficult for all of us to understand and accept the idea that a non-state actor like Osama bin Laden, in conjunction with Al Qaeda, could be a more serious strategic threat to us than the nation-states we grew up fearing.

Time is not on our side in Iraq. We do not need a little more of the same thing. We need a lot more of something completely different.

Fighting the Wrong War

] In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available
] Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban
] on providing "expert advice or assistance" is
] impermissibly vague, in violation of the First and Fifth
] Amendments.

Nothing but good news here..

The court system, at the very least, is responding to attacks on itself. And yes, that provision was an attack on the courts.

] [David] Cole declared the ruling "a victory for everyone
] who believes the war on terrorism ought to be fought
] consistent with constitutional principles."

Those principles being the foundation of the open and free society.. Law, order, due process, etc.

Federal Judge Rules Part of Patriot Act Unconstitutional (washingtonpost.com)

The region stretching from Morocco to the border of India had almost no lights.

War of Ideas, Part 6