YouGov sought to gauge the character of the Muslim community's response to the events of July 7.

As the figures in the chart show, 88 per cent of British Muslims clearly have no intention of trying to justify the bus and Tube murders. However, six per cent insist that the bombings were, on the contrary, fully justified.

Six per cent may seem a small proportion but in absolute numbers it amounts to about 100,000 individuals who, if not prepared to carry out terrorist acts, are ready to support those who do.

Moreover, the proportion of YouGov's respondents who, while not condoning the London attacks, have some sympathy with the feelings and motives of those who carried them out is considerably larger - 24 per cent.

A substantial majority, 56 per cent, say that, whether or not they sympathise with the bombers, they can at least understand why some people might want to behave in this way.

I really hope this study was flawed. There needs to be more. The actual POV of that community needs to be directly discussed. I would like to see surveys like this done in the US as well.

Telegraph | News | One in four Muslims sympathises with motives of terrorists

Police officials... have also said that anyone found to be carrying illegal drugs or weapons will be subject to arrest, a provision that lawyers have found troubling.

One has to be sympathetic to the idea of performing some searches. However, one of the basic ideas behind the notion that random searches at airports are legal is the idea that they are specifically limited to AT and do not target other crimes. There is a bit of a legal grey area here about whether they have the right to prosecute for other crimes if they discover them in the course of one of these searches. That grey area needs to be resolved now. The NYPD have clearly expressed their opinion on the matter.

If we establish a policy that says we can do random searches where ever because of terrorism and we will prosecute any crime we discover in the process of performing these searches then essentially we're saying that we can perform random searches where ever. If the police think you're up to no good they can stop and search you and just put you down on their quota of "daily anti-terror searches." The connection with terrorism eventually becomes irrelevant other then as a loophole that popped the whole thing wide open.

This is really going to push the 4th amendment. If its ok to do it at airports, can we do it at the subway? If its ok to do it at the subway can we do it on the street? If its ok to do it on the street, then when is it not ok to do it? Is it ok to search random houses for bomb labs. You might discover some that way...

This is the slippery slope that concerns people with the rise of searches at airports, schools, and border crossings. We're slipping down that slope. The subway is so pervasive in NYC that this will have a significant effect on the culture of the city. If you live there you ride the subway. If you ride the subway you may be searched. So, if you live there you may be searched. NYC suddenly seems more prickley then Singapore.

The government there should have presented this as a temporary measure. They should have performed the searches with teams that are firewalled from the regular police and have no authority to prosecute anything except terrorism. Declaring it an "indefinite" fixture of the city, and doing it with regular police, was a mistake.

You want to have a free and open society, but that society requires cooperation. Mutual respect. When people begin to seriously abuse the society you have to respond. Its really hard to figure out how to do that without sacrificing openness, but this announcement doesn't reflect a genuine effort to try. This is the image of terrorism changing our way of life.

Look for the spin to be that anyone who raises questions about the way this is being handled is either opposed to the searches in totality or is simply helping the enemy.

Privacy Rights Are at Issue in New Policy on Searches - New York Times

Centrist liberal Milblogger (yeah, there are some) Alexander the Average has done a lot of good stuff. His 2-part set of posts exploring the aftermath of nuclear terrorism is highly recommended.

Some MemeStreamers will find this up their alley. I'm memeing a blog posting of this series because its two parts and they've provided one convenient permalink for it.

Winds of Change.NET: Exploring the Impact of Nuclear Terrorism

] If you want to appreciate how corrosive Guantánamo has
] become for America's standing abroad, don't read the Arab
] press. Don't read the Pakistani press. Don't read the
] Afghan press. Hop over here to London or go online and
] just read the British press! See what our closest allies
] are saying about Gitmo. And when you get done with that,
] read the Australian press and the Canadian press and the
] German press.

] Husain Haqqani, a thoughtful Pakistani scholar now
] teaching at Boston University, remarked to me: "When
] people like myself say American values must be emulated
] and America is a bastion of freedom, we get Guantánamo
] Bay thrown in our faces. When we talk about the America
] of Jefferson and Hamilton, people back home say to us:
] 'That is not the America we are dealing with. We are
] dealing with the America of imprisonment without trial.'"

Friedman is pissed about Guantánamo Bay. Enjoy your NYT Op-Ed while you still can..

Just Shut It Down - New York Times

The 30 minute video here is not to be missed.

America's Secret War - George Friedman - Author interviews

In this article for The National Interest, Francis Fukuyama rips into the viewpoints of Charles Krauthammer, which have acquired strong influence inside the Bush Administration foreign policy team and beyond. The primary subject is nation building in Iraq, the larger context is America's relations with our allies and the Middle East, our position as the only superpower, and the war on terror.

Suggested reading. Fukuyama is a very clear thinker. All his points here are valid, relevant, and well supported.

Fukuyama: The Neoconservative Moment

] The UN imposes all sorts of penalties on all those who
] contradict its religion. It issues documents and
] statements that openly contradict Islamic belief, such as
] the International Declaration for Human Rights,
] considering all religions are equal, and considering that
] the destruction of the statues constitutes a crime...

This is long but its interesting. Someone extracted emails from a computer stolen from Al'Q and posted them in The Atlantic. Details about some of Al'Q's codes are discussed, as well as an interesting inside look at their operation. (The statues were the buddhist monuments destroyed by the Taliban in the late nineties.)

Emails from Bin Lauden

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

] 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