BRUSSELS, Feb. 22 -- President Bush said Tuesday that concern about possible U.S. military action against Iran "is simply ridiculous," but he added at a news conference that "all options are on the table" in dealing with suspected Iranian attempts to acquire nuclear weapons.... "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous," Bush said. "And having said that, all options are on the table."
I love this mixed message. Bomb Iran? That's ridiculous... buuuut we're going to leave it on the table.

Meanwhile, the Europeans - who seem to forget that the nuclear pursuing Iranians already have missiles capable of reaching their lands - seemed more interested in lifting arms embargoes to China than checking Iran.

European nations would like the United States to join talks with Iran -- now involving Germany, France and Britain -- by offering Tehran security and economic guarantees in exchange for abandoning its nuclear ambitions. The Bush administration has refused to participate in the talks. The Iranian government has said its nuclear program is intended only for peaceful purposes.
Well if the Iranian government, with a 25-year history of sponsoring Islamic militancy, says so who are we to doubt that? But I seem to recall Iran signing a previous nuclear nonproliferation agreement and hiding a nuclear program for 18 years...

On China, Bush said he was deeply concerned that an E.U. proposal to lift a 15-year ban on arms sales would "change the balance of relations between China and Taiwan." European officials dispute that, saying they could build in safeguards to allay U.S. concerns.
Like the safeguards the Europeans built into their technological dealings during the 1990s with Saddam Hussein? Those were French and Russian missiles and guns used against American soldiers. Those were European technologies adapted by Iraq to create their radars and roadside bombs. No thanks.

It's highly possible that China will become almost capitalistically unrecognizable from Taiwan in the decades to come. But then again, maybe not. Either way it's clear that once again Europeans don't give a flying squirrels laurels about keeping Taiwan, a liberal democracy, free from Chinese strongarming so long as they can tap into China's huge marketplace.

I found the meeting between Bush and Russian Prez Vladimir Putin in Slovakia pretty ironic, considering the topic was preventing nuclear terrorism. According to reports Bush is coming close to finalizing a 1998 agreement to prevent Russian nuclear material from falling into terrorist hands. That deal has long faltered due to a technicality over who will pay and how we'll dispose of 68 tons of plutonium.

From a political aspect it's good for Bush because it gets Democrats off his back. The Democrats have always had a fetish for this topic, probably because it provides them a safe way to look and talk tough about security and terrorism while they denounce those very things - Iraq, the Patriot Act, tougher borders and so on.

But to me this has been a bit of a red herring. Any loose nuclear material from Russia is far more likely to be used in Chechnya than Washington DC. I'm not saying we shouldn't do this, but I am saying it's ironic that Bush and Putin are talking security while Russia is providing Iran with billions in nuclear technology. Iran, in turn, funds terrorists from Hezbollah. What's more likely: A team of crack terrorists with a line of trucks in the dead of night will infiltrate Russian borders, battle their way into a Russian base, load up the trucks with tons of plutonium, using on-sight forklifts one supposes, and then drive away and cross the border without being stopped or tracked? Or that in a few years a nuclear powered Iran, thanks in part to Russia, will provide some highly refined nuclear material to one of the half dozen terror groups they support?

I'd wager the latter.

No matter how well things go in Iraq, count on fresh predictions of catastrophe. First, the war was going to be a bloodbath. Next, the occupation was bound to fail. Then, Iraq's first free elections were going to be a disaster.

Held on schedule, the elections were remarkably successful. Iraqis risked their lives to cast ballots. Now the voices that have been wrong about everything else insist Iraq will become "another Iran."

That's dead wrong. Part of the problem is ignorance by some in the news media. Columnists write about the topic of the moment, whether they understand the subject or not. News shows fill segments with talking heads, few of whom have firsthand experience. Far more disheartening are partisans who would rather see Iraq fail miserably than allow the Bush administration a success. But Iraq will not become a second Iran.

...Iraq's key clerics understand that the Iranian model has failed. Far from inaugurating a perfect society, the tyranny of the mullahs alienated the young from religion and generated cynicism toward the clergy. Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution brutalized Islam.

From the revered Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani on down, Iraq's top clerics are determined not to repeat Iran's errors, if only to protect the faith they love. They'll exercise power through elected officials. Iraq's mullahs likely will press for greater social strictures than we would like to see, but they're not going to bind themselves to an Iranian government that they view as living on borrowed time.

There's a greater likelihood that Iraq's free elections will inspire the people of Iran. About 70% of Iran's population is younger than 30, and disenchanted. Iraqi democracy may prove the downfall of Iran's mullahs, not the other way around.
-- Ralph Peters. Read the rest.

Amir Taheri comments on a point similar to Peters -- an election of Iraq's top Shiite to the presidency does not morph Iraq into a tool of the Iranian mullahs.

To be sure, even the freest and fairest elections can produce dangerous results — witness Hitler's rise to power. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to see [Ibrahim] Jaafari's nomination as the first major setback for Iraq's nascent democracy.

The fact that Jaafari was chosen as a compromise candidate shows that the largely secular leadership of the United Iraqi Alliance did not see him as a threat to the process of democratization. And the fact that Grand Ayatollah Ali-Muhammad Sistani, the primus inter pares of Shiite clerics, has not opposed the nomination is a sure sign that Jaafari has distanced himself from his party's most questionable positions.

Sistani refused persistent demands by the victorious alliance for him to pick the next prime minister. His message was clear: You are now answerable to your electorate, not to me. Nevertheless, it is certain that Sistani, who regards the Iranian regime as an abomination, would not have remained so circumspect had there been any real danger of a drift towards Iranian-style mullahrchy in Iraq.

So, why did the Shiites pick Jaafari? At least three reasons:

* Jaafari's presence at the head of a new interim government could deprive both Shiite and Sunni fundamentalists of their main claim that the new Iraqi leadership consists of a bunch of anti-religious personalities determined to reduce the role of Islam in Iraqi society. Jaafari's "designer stubble" appeals to the more religious elements, while his Jermyn Street suits are reassuring to the secular middle classes.

Since the main task of the next interim government is to write a new permanent constitution and submit it to a referendum, it is important that the fundamentalists be deprived of their key arguments.

* He is in good standing among Arab Sunnis who stayed away from the elections in large numbers. Jaafari appeals to the more religious elements among the Shiites, and this could help the new government to isolate the secularist Sunnis, mostly remnants of the Saddamite regime.

Jaafari also has the added advantage of having consistently opposed the policy of de-Ba'athification, so ardently advocated by Chalabi. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civil servants, businessmen and military personnel, who had carried Ba'ath Party membership cards to remain in the game or even to stay alive, regard Jaafari as the only Shiite leader capable of preventing a witch-hunt against them.

* Jaafari's choice should also be seen as a signal that the new Iraqi leadership wishes to reassure its Arab neighbors. Of the four candidates in the race for the premiership, Jaafari was regarded with the least suspicion by the Sunni-ruled Arab states.

Jaafari's rivals in the race all insist that fears about his supposedly "hidden agenda" are misplaced. "The era of hidden agendas in Iraq is over," says Adel Abdul-Mahdi. "We have entered a new chapter in our history in which power emanates from the will of the people as expressed through free elections. The world should give us a chance before rushing to judge us."

Iraq's emerging democratic system has no room for any one-man show. Jaafari will be one player among many in a system based on power-sharing, coalition-building and compromise.
Underscoring Tahari's point today was Ayad Allawi, Iraq's Kurdish interim prime minister, who promised that Iraq would remain committed to civil liberties and federalism. The Kurds won a strong 25 percent of the government block on election day.

What's wrong with Americans today? Practically everything, according to Justin Webb, the debonair Washington correspondent for Bush Bash Central — whoops, I mean, the BBC — who shared his views of us last Saturday on Radio 4 on the eve of the President Bush's arrival in Europe.

For starters, we are "strait-laced and earnest." Our "heads are in the clouds." And, worst of all, we tend "to hold firm to a principle even when practicalities get in the way." So that, one might assume, is not the virtue that an Englishman named Churchill once so nobly displayed, but nowadays is a very naïve, very American flaw.

He tells us he made his observations of American attitudes "in a skiing gondola" "suspended high above the Colorado Rockies" where he and a group made polite conversation about the British royal family. Now, one could say that four or five Americans on their way up a mountain at a posh ski resort are not exactly representative of our countrymen at large. But, hey, for decades British journalists have produced features purportedly reflecting the attitudes of a foreign nation when they did no more on an overseas assignment than chat up their taxi drivers on their way from the airport to their hotel. (My husband was a British foreign correspondent for years and, trust me, using a taxicab driver as a primary source is typical.)

...But what really bothers Webb most is "the vision thing." We, darn it, think it is important and Europeans just don't. That, according to Webb, is what divides us most of all. "While Europeans fret about what they regard as real life, about poverty and social justice and about combating AIDS, Americans find it easier to rally round a vision, however unworldly that might be." This has been going on for years, he avers, illustrating his complaint with such past "vision-based" misdeeds as "President Reagan's arms build up in the 1980s, which helped destroy the Soviet Union, or the first President Bush's decision to press for German reunification, whenever Mrs. Thatcher was nervous." So are we to believe President Reagan's defeat of Communism wasn't a good idea because it was based on holding fast to a principle, which remains such a grave American failing?

He also declared, "The fact is that Americans have long regarded Europeans as weak-willed, lily livered, morally degenerate moaners, incapable of clear thinking or resolute action." That is obviously a sweeping generality that I don't think is true — but commentaries like this one on the Beeb certainly don't help. Then Webb concluded his moan with the same lament Brit journalists have been using about Americans since the 1960s: the size of our gas-guzzling cars. (Believe me, my husband through the years used it time after time.) He moaned, "At the end of my skiing holiday, I drove my family home in a hired car larger than most tanks and as fuel efficient as the Queen Mary. On the journey to Denver airport, dozens of similar vehicles passed us." Oh, dear. Well, Justin, if it bothered you so much, "at the very moment that the Kyoto treaty was coming into force, to the sound of great European fanfare" why didn't you do the right thing and go to the airport in the hotel's shuttle? But that, I guess, would have been acting like an American and holding firm to a principle even when practicalities got in the way.
-- Myrna Blyth

BALAD, Iraq -- When the Iraqi troops arrived that morning, three American servicemen lay dead at the bottom of the Isaki Canal. The body of a fourth, Sgt. Rene Knox Jr., 22, had been recovered from a submerged Humvee. Patrolling without headlights around 4:30 a.m., Knox had overshot a right turn. His vehicle tumbled down a concrete embankment and settled upside down in the frigid water.

During the harrowing day-long mission to recover the bodies of the Humvee's three occupants on Feb. 13, an Air Force firefighter also drowned. Five U.S. soldiers were treated for hypothermia. For five hours, three Navy SEAL divers searched the canal before their tanks ran out of oxygen.

What happened then, however, has transformed the relationship between the Iraqi soldiers and the skeptical Americans who train them. Using a tool they welded themselves that day at a cost of about $40, the Iraqis dredged the canal through the cold afternoon until the tan boot of Spec. Dakotah Gooding, 21, of Des Moines, appeared at the surface. The Iraqis then jumped into the water to pull him out, and went back again and again until they had recovered the last American. Then they stood atop the canal, shivering in the dark.

"When I saw those Iraqis in the water, fighting to save their American brothers, I saw a glimpse of the future of this country," said Col. Mark McKnight, commander of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, which had overall responsibility for the unit in the accident, his eyes tearing.

The dramatic events offer a counterpoint to the prevailing wisdom about the nascent Iraqi security forces -- the key to the Bush administration's strategy to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. U.S. commanders have said repeatedly that when the Iraqi troops are ready to stand and fight, American forces will pull out.

To date, the reputation of the Iraqis among American soldiers has been one of sloppiness, disloyalty and cowardice, even though thousands of Iraqi soldiers, policemen and recruits have been killed by insurgents.

Many U.S. soldiers say they fear even standing near the Iraqis because of their propensity to fire their weapons randomly. At Camp Paliwoda in Balad, where Americans from the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment are training a new Iraqi army battalion, the soldiers work at adjacent bases but are separated by a locked gate, razor wire and a 50-foot-tall chain-link fence.

Pfc. Russell Nahvi, 23, of Arlington, Tex., a medic whose platoon was involved in the accident, said he arrived in Iraq this month with preconceptions about the Iraqi forces. "You always heard never to trust them, to never turn your back on them," he said.

The actions of the Iraqis that Sunday "changed my mind for how I felt about these guys," he said. "I have a totally different perspective now. They were just so into it. They were crying for us. They were saying we were their brothers, too."
A great and encouraging story, but also a lesson in the media-led defeatist coverage that has plagued this war since it began.

Yes, it is true that there have been many setbacks in training the Iraqi forces. But it is also true that it was never as bad as the media would have us belive.

Indeed, where does this "prevailing wisdom" (paragraph 5) about Iraqi troops originate? From Col. Mark McKnight or senior military figures? Of course not. It comes from the Western media, always eager to spin steady progress into tragic failure. Pfc. Nahvi himself alludes to that, admitting his prejudices about the Iraqis were formed before he got to Iraq. Nahvi, it seems, watches the same television newscasts that poison the minds of many Americans and Westerners. (Which reminds me of a funny story. I had this friend to whom I was bitching about biased coverage of the war. He agreed, and then said because of that he only gets his news from NPR or the BBC. I thought he was kidding. He gave me a quizzical expression after I had a good vocal belly laugh.)

Iraqis are dying in droves protecting their country. Isn't it time the mass media cut them some slack? But I guess that would undermine their long-running "prevailing wisdom" that the insurgency is a nationalist movement, and that we're just oil-hungry occupiers.

The always comical Mark Steyn reflects on NATO, it's role and reason, in the coming years ahead. Curiously, Steyn predicted on a column written one day after 9-11 that the even would ruin forever the transatlantic alliance, primarily because European NATO, most of whom are members without relevant militaries to begin with, would not have the stomach for future conflicts, Afghanistan included.

Here's the best part:

Remember last year's much trumpeted Nato summit in Turkey? This was the one at which everyone was excited at how the "alliance" had agreed to expand its role in Afghanistan beyond Kabul to the country's somewhat overly autonomous "autonomous regions".

What this turned out to mean on closer examination was that, after the secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, put the squeeze on Nato's 26 members, they reluctantly put up an extra 600 troops and three helicopters for Afghanistan. That averages out at 23.08 troops per country, plus almost a ninth of a helicopter apiece. As it transpired, the three Black Hawks all came from one country - Turkey - and they've already gone back. And Afghanistan is supposed to be the good war, the one Continental officials all claim to have supported, if mostly retrospectively and for the purposes of justifying their "principled moral opposition" to Iraq.

The standard Franco-German beef, echoed in news media on both sides of the Atlantic, is that Mr. Bush conducts a "cowboy foreign policy." He threatens nice people like Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and Syria's Bashar Assad, merely because these two innocents support terrorism, plot mass destruction and undermine peace efforts in Iraq. He frowns on Europe selling China advanced weapons to help it become the dominant military power in Asia. He dares to suggest that Europe's embrace of a massive United Nations "global warming" tax is a fool's errand.
-- George Melloan, WSJ

Melloan compares Europe's reaction today to their reaction to Ronald Reagan in 1983. They protested in the millions his decision to use Pershing missile deployments as a show of strength in the face of the Soviets. ABC Television ran the nuclear tragedy "The Day After" (but never ran a miniseries on the Soviet downing of a South Korean airliner, eh?). They were on the wrong side of history then. They're wrong now too.

Before the topic is parsed remember the wise words of Michael Crichton from last year:

I remind you that in the lifetime of most scientists now living, we have already had an example of dire predictions set aside by new technology. I refer to the green revolution. In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergoe famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." Ten years later, he predicted four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and it now seems it isn't ever going to happen. Nor is the population explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago. In 1990, climate modelers anticipated a world population of 11 billion by 2100. Today, some people think the correct number will be 7 billion and falling. But nobody knows for sure.
Long point short -- even were global warming 1) a proven fact 2) exclusively tied to man-made events (fossil fuels opposed to solar activity and volcanoes) and 3) reversable through extreme limitation of number 2, the global warming advocates fail to address - and purposely at that - how technology often makes the problem moot or at least negligible.

And so to the relevant headline of the day: "Scientists Looking at Ways to Trap Greenhouse Gases; Arizona Study Aims to Ease Global Warming"

Even if there exists a true global warming problem scientists are researching ways to sidestep it through technology. Great news, right? Oh, no, no.

Americans' prodigious energy use -- from the gas that fuels massive SUVs to the coal that keeps the light and heat on in sprawling suburban homes -- comes at a cost. Burning fuel spews carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) into the air, which in turn traps heat and, most scientists believe, is accelerating global climate change that is melting glaciers, altering animals' breeding and migration patterns, and boosting temperatures around the globe.
"Most scientists believe"? Really? Did the Post conduct a poll first? Ah well, just keep saying it and it's law, right?

Continuing:

But many business leaders and top policymakers, including President Bush, reject the idea of imposing mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions because, they contend, it could hurt the U.S. economy. As one alternative, some scientists, funded by government and private industry, are exploring whether they can extract carbon dioxide from the air in meaningful amounts and trap it underground, beneath the sea or on land.
"Could hurt the U.S. economy"? Could? Everybody not burn fossil fuels for a day and see how it hurts... Anyway,

But scientists are deeply divided on whether "carbon sequestration" can make a dent in the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Advocates say it could at least mitigate the impact of humans' insatiable hunger for cheap fossil fuels, which provide 85 percent of the globe's commercial energy. Critics say it is an unrealistic and shortsighted response to a problem that requires politicians to make hard economic choices.
Scientists are deeply divided on "carbon sequestration", but they're not deeply divided on if there's warming, if that's a problem, if it's man's fault, and if we could do anything to put a dent in it? Critics say "carbon sequestration" is unrealistic but don't think that enforcing Kyoto and costing the US economy $300 billion every year is unrealistic?

I'll put my money on the scientists betting on technological advances, because at least they're taking the right approach - they're not attacking energy consumption, the backbone of our way of life. A nation is only as healthy and wealthy as it has energy abundance. But in short time these scientists will be targeted by the Greeniacks because they are disloyal to the true cause -- the limitation of energy, the attack on capitalism. After all, if fossil fuels, and not America, are their real target then why are China and India exempt from Kyoto's CO2 caps?

And at what cost will this come, and for what benefit? Fox News contributor Stephen Milloy of Junk Science.com has come up with a clock similar to the liberal-favored National Debt Clock. The latest estimate is that Kyoto has cost the world $2.69 billion while the potential temperature savings has been .000027939 degrees C. (And there's an entire explanation at the link at how the numbers were calculated, which is more science than you'll ever get from the global warming scaremongers.)

The lines of geopolitical demarcation could not be more clear, and are especially visible from moves and statements made by a number of players during the past week.

First there was the Iranian announcement of solidarity with Syria. This announcement, of course, is quite laughable because the pair has been long unified with their support of Hezbollah and opposition to Israel and for decades. Who are they fooling?

Next, last Friday President Vladimir Putin of Russia promised to continue supporting Iran's quest for nuclear power, adding he was convinced the Iranians did not seek nuclear weapons. You'll forgive my skepticism as this promise comes from a former KGB head who has done less for Russian liberty than Nikita Krushchev, and is making an unkeepable vow for the world's largest sponsor of Islamic terror.

Me thinks we'll just keep selling Israel F-16s, just in case Mr. Putin's promises of Iranian intentions are off the mark, eh?

Bush will be meeting Putin this week in Slovakia on Wednesday and Thursday. I'm sure he'll have some things to say about Iran.

A nice little affirmation of friendship came from the Far East this weekend with Japan's dual announcement expressing utmost dissatisfaction with North Korean proliferation, and more importantly, a watershed decision to protect Taiwan in line with current American policy. The latter came as an unpleasant surprise to the Chinese.

"It would be wrong for us to send a signal to China that the United States and Japan will watch and tolerate China's military invasion of Taiwan," said Shinzo Abe, the acting secretary general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party who is widely considered a likely successor to Junichiro Koizumi as prime minister. "If the situation surrounding Japan threatens our security, Japan can provide U.S. forces with support."

..."We consider China a friendly country, but it is also unpredictable," a senior Japanese government official said. "If it takes aggressive action, Japan cannot just stand by and watch."
If China thought that it could take advantage of strained American resources focusing on Iraq, Syria, Iran and North Korea they were wrong. Japan is guarding our flank. It's also a reminder to China that the Japanese - while constitutionally restrained militarily - consider a nuclear North Korea to be a Chinese problem as well.

CAMP BUCCA, Iraq -- A bloody inmate riot three weeks ago at the biggest U.S.-run detention facility in Iraq has exposed an increasingly hard-core prison population that is confronting U.S. forces with a growing risk of prison violence, according to military officers.

U.S. troops who dealt with the clash tell of a chaotic and threatening situation. They say the extent of violence surprised them. They also say the nonlethal weapons available to them at the time for crowd control proved largely ineffectual.

...Four inmates died and six were injured in the uprising the morning of Jan. 31, the most deaths in a prison disturbance since U.S. forces invaded Iraq two years ago. Frightened guards, some having arrived in Iraq only a month before, tried vainly to quell the rioting, spraying pepper gas and shooting rubberized pellets into throngs of prisoners, according to accounts by troops here.

The clashes spread through five of eight compounds at the sprawling detention facility in the southern Iraqi desert near the Kuwaiti border. Prisoners pelted guards with large stones and makeshift weapons, heaving debris over 15-foot-high metal fences and up at 30-foot-tall guard towers that ring the compounds.

Only after two Army guards in separate towers opened fire with M-16 rifles, killing the inmates, did the violence subside. U.S. officers say the guards acted on their own, with no order to fire. Rules here allow for use of deadly force if soldiers feel endangered.

... The uprising of Jan. 31 began when U.S. soldiers entered compound No. 5 to search for contraband. A Muslim cleric complained that the soldiers damaged several Korans. Soon, masses of prisoners formed and pressed up against the compound's front fence, chanting and shouting.

"The initial worry was that they would push the fence over and escape," said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Keith Gray, who rushed to the scene with an emergency response force of 15 troops. "We started spraying gas, which pushed back the first row or two. But then they started throwing things."

Using makeshift slingshots, the inmates hurled rocks and chunks of concrete torn from the floors of their huts. They tossed sticks and plastic water bottles filled with sand. They lit plastic bags filled with flammable hand sanitizer.

Prisoners in four other compounds quickly joined in.

Senior Airman Tony Miles, who was manning a tower at compound No. 1, found himself pinned down by the flying debris. "It was chaotic," he recalled. "Stuff was coming from everywhere."

In another tower, Airman 1st Class Eric Coggswell repeatedly shouted in Arabic for the demonstrators to stop. "But they weren't listening," he recounted. "I fired eight shotgun rounds of nonlethal rubber bullets and small rubber pellets. But a lot of the prisoners were using sleeping bags as shields."

Other guards said the inmates appeared to know the limited ranges of the nonlethal shotgun blasts and gas sprays and would withdraw out of range, then rush again toward the perimeters. Their rocks shattered the double-pane glass in the windows of some tower huts.
Though almost dumbfounding, the military's politically correct response is predictable. The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of our knee-jerk apologists peppering our national media and political structure.

So concerned are we the treatment of detainees that we put the lives of our soldiers further in danger. Pellet guns and pepper spray? Is this a protest march at Berkeley, or Iraq?

These are not common criminals in American prisons (of whom one must wonder would receive such a timid escalatory response were they to initiate such a dangerous revolt). These are captured battlefield enemies equal to and surpassing the most dangerous felons back home. Yet, we ask our soldiers to treat ex-Baathist soldiers and dangerous Islamic militants as though they were a bunch of drug dealers, petty thieves and sex offenders.

Our soldiers should not have to worry about enemy detainees making Molotov cocktails from hand soap just to placate the hand-wringing Congressman from the People's Republic of California.

The M-16 should be the first response to such a massive prison uprising, not the last. Indeed, four dead revoltees by rifle fire and this uprising was stopped dead in its tracks. Next time, however, we may not be so lucky at the lack of American casualties. Next time our soldiers may not have the luxury to slowly escalate to the gun.

The captured detainees were testing our defenses. Pull out the gun first and all future tests will be moot.

[TIME] Members of the insurgency are open to negotiating an end to their struggle with the U.S. "We are ready," he says before leaving, "to work with you."

In that guarded pledge may lie the first sign that after nearly two years of fighting, parts of the insurgency in Iraq are prepared to talk and move toward putting away their arms—and the U.S. is willing to listen. An account of the secret meeting between the senior insurgent negotiator and the U.S. military officials was provided to TIME by the insurgent negotiator. He says two such meetings have taken place. While U.S. officials would not confirm the details of any specific meetings, sources in Washington told TIME that for the first time the U.S. is in direct contact with members of the Sunni insurgency, including former members of Saddam's Baathist regime.

...Hard-line islamist fighters like Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda group will not compromise in their campaign to create an Islamic state. But in interviews with TIME, senior Iraqi insurgent commanders said several "nationalist" rebel groups—composed predominantly of ex-military officers and what the Pentagon dubs "former regime elements"—have moved toward a strategy of "fight and negotiate." Although they have no immediate plans to halt attacks on U.S. troops, they say their aim is to establish a political identity that can represent disenfranchised Sunnis and eventually negotiate an end to the U.S. military's offensive in the Sunni triangle. Their model is Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, which ultimately earned the I.R.A. a role in the Northern Ireland peace process. "That's what we're working for, to have a political face appear from the battlefield, to unify the groups, to resist the aggressor and put our views to the people," says a battle commander in the upper tiers of the insurgency who asked to be identified by his nom de guerre, Abu Marwan. Another negotiator, called Abu Mohammed, told TIME, "Despite what has happened, the possibility for negotiation is still open."
If the Time Magazine report is accurate it's a sign of weakness from at least one half of the insurgency. The Sunni Baathists know they screwed up by boycotting the Iraqi elections. Had they come forward they could have had some role. But by choosing bullets over ballots, and a losing effort at that, they only created more obsticles for themselves.

If they've moved from strategies of Just Fight to Fight and Negotiate, the next step could be Just Negotiate.

Most of all it's more evidence that this is a finite and weakening enemy.

Not coincidence then is this weekend's offensive by US Marines in Hit, Baghdadi and Haditha -- all towns known to be loyal to the old regime. If the Baathists aren't on the ropes just yet we're pushing them towards.

"The fact that you have these suicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure."
-- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), visiting Iraq, responding to suicide bombings directed at Shiites on their holy day.

You can say what you want about the Clintons - and I usually do - but they are nothing if not crafty. In this case Hillary's reaction to the bombing is refreshing because it's opposite of the usual defeatist rhetoric that comes from the lips of Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Howard Dean sect of the Democratic Party.

It's also proof positive that Hillary is going to make her run for 2008, and has learned the Red State lessons that the rest of her party doesn't get. Unlike their likely future competitors the Clintons have not put themselves in the common liberal position whereby they only can gain if something bad happens for America.

Don't get me wrong, she's still very much as liberal as Howard Dean, et. al. She's just much smarter in hiding it. She's going to be a very formidable opponent.

Democracy has many enemies, and the terrorist is only one of them. It also has many hypocritical and humbugging pseudosupporters, which is one of numerous lessons to be drawn from the situation in Iraq.

...The European Union itself is the epitome of the Continent's pseudodemocracy. There power is distributed among masterful bureaucrats and permanent political elites. The resulting lack of freedom for individuals and businesses means that economic growth is almost nil and the future is bleak.

As for European intellectuals, who command so much power in the media, universities and opinion-forming circles, they have done everything they possibly could to abuse America's initiative in Iraq and to prevent the installation of freedom. Some make it clear that they would much prefer Iraq to be run by men like Saddam than by American-backed democrats. Of course, intellectuals pay lip service to free elections but in practice have a profound (if secret) hatred of democracy. They cannot believe that their votes should count for no more than the votes of "uneducated" people who run small businesses, work on farms and in factories and have never read Proust.

The intellectuals wanted the Iraqi elections to be defeated by terror. But now that the elections have actually taken place, they want the new government to fail. They want democracy to fail in Afghanistan as well so that they can smile smugly and say, "We told you so." For if democracy were to triumph everywhere, what role would there be for the intellectual critic? As Shakespeare put it, "Othello's occupation's gone."
-- Paul Johnson, eminent British historian and author

[AP] John Negroponte will be the nation's first national intelligence director, after being named by President Bush today. Negroponte is ambassador to Iraq and former United Nations ambassador.

President Bush is naming the nation's first new national intelligence director, the powerful overseer of 15 separate intelligence agencies including the CIA.
That Negroponte came from the State Department hardly excites me, so this is a bit of a letdown I think. well, we'll see how he does.

[wa post] Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday defended plans to resume studying the feasibility of an earth-penetrating nuclear warhead, saying many countries are burying targets underground and "we have no capability, conventional or nuclear" to go after them.

Last year, Congress, by a single vote, refused to continue funding what was begun in 2002 as a three-year technical study. The goal is to see whether the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories could come up with a concept for a warhead casing that could carry a nuclear device down through rock or hardened earth, keeping it intact to explode and destroy an underground facility.

Opposition to the study came from House and Senate members who saw it as the United States working to create a new nuclear weapon when Washington is attempting to stop other countries, such as Iran and North Korea, from having atomic weapons.
Yeah, and how is that working out, Congress? It seems to me that Iran and North Korea consider themselves in an arms race whether we do or not. You see, we don't have to worry that our new nuclear development will "start" another arms race because our enemies already consider themselves in one.

This amounts to trusting dictators. Is our Congress really willing to bet on the trust of dictators who sign and break treaties with no more thought than which faction they plans on sticking in the gulag this week, instead of betting on our own capabilities? Somebody should remind Congress that at the height of Clintonian nuclear nonproliferation agreement and feelgoodism both India and Pakistan surprised everyone in 1997 by announcing nuclear capability even though they both signed pieces of paper promising not to do so.

Congress needs to stop worrying about what could happen and begin to worry about what is happening.

[wa post] "Our policies in the Middle East fuel Islamic resentment," Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate panel. "Overwhelming majorities in Morocco, Jordan and Saudi Arabia believe the U.S. has a negative policy toward the Arab world."
I hope the reporter just parsed his words because I'd be disgusted if a vice admiral really issued such an ignorant and blatantly partisan comment. It's sounds like the kind of sixth-grade logic Michael Moore propagates.

Overwhelming majorities in the Arab world have a negative view of the US because there is no freedom of the press or freedom of speech in the Arab world. Thus the Arab peoples know ONLY what their government-controlled medias tell them. Of those 22 Arab governments only one - Iraq - is a democracy, and thus their reaction to American democratization is to promote a negative image about America to its people in order to prevent its people from embracing democracy.

Nonetheless the "Iraq War causes terrorism" theme is back on the front pages with the Post's headline "War Helps Recruit Terrorists, [Capital] Hill Told." The argument fails the logic test from the get go, of course, because the antithesis statement "no war in Iraq does not cause terrorism" ignores that Saddam Hussein's regime for years trained hundreds of Arab nationals as terrorists at Salman Pak (complete with Boeing 707 fuselage); harbored notables like Musab Yasin, Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal and Abu Zarqawi; or funded Palestinian terror groups. It also ignores the fact that 9-11 and terrorism were alive and well long before the Iraq war.

So it would seem to me if terrorists are going to recruit regardless we may as well kill them and promote the very vehicle of democracy which hurts their cause.

War causes terror, page 1.

The strategy is working, page 12

"I think at the end of a year we will see fewer U.S. forces because we're seeing Iraqi capability grow in numbers and effectiveness," said Lt. Gen. John Vines, head of the 18th Airborne Corps and, as of last week, the senior U.S. tactical commander in the country.

...Even more emphatic, Col. Ben Hodges, the senior operations officer for the corps, said he "will have personally failed" if by the end of the year "we have not made enough progress" to "decrease the total number of brigades required" from this year's baseline of 17, or about 135,000 troops.

Inspired by the Jan. 30 elections, which many of them arrived just in time to witness, the fresh ranks of U.S. troops are determined to take the U.S. mission in Iraq to its next phase. For them, that means an eventual reduction in U.S. forces by bolstering Iraq's fledging security services and taking more of a backseat role in counterinsurgency operations.

[WND] Reacting to the near unanimous Western blame landing on Syria's doorstep for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, Damascus yesterday went on the defensive and fingered Israel for the blast that killed Hariri and 17 others Monday.

...But the official Damascus press, considered a mouthpiece for Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, condemned the murder as an "odious crime," and blamed Israel for seeking to create instability in Lebanon with the killing of Hariri.

"What happened was an attempt to shatter national unity in Lebanon, to sow anarchy and divisions which lead to a climate of civil war," said the government newspaper Tishrin.

The Jewish state "continues to work to sabotage Lebanon's achievements to try to bring anarchy to the country and to be able to continue its occupation of the Shebaa Farms," a strip of land along the Israeli border that Hezbollah says it is trying to reclaim, according to Tishrin.
The accusation is stupid to the core, but Arabs accustomed to blaming Israel first will find it acceptable. Israel had everything to gain by Hariri's pro-democracy, anti-Syrian stance. The last Lebanese civil war didn't bode so well for Israel, thus it's additionally stupid to claim Israel wanted a new one.

Nonetheless the Arab press will push this line of thought. It's the old standby. Got a problem? Blame Israel. Or the CIA. Or Bush.

What they won't learn is that "Hariri, a billionaire businessman who resigned from his government post last year and had recently joined calls by opposition leaders for Syrian troops to vacate Lebanon in the run-up to a general election in May, was close to many in the Israel government. Hariri was reportedly working behind the scenes the past few months to push for official Lebanese recognition of the Jewish state, and was involved in multiple business ventures with Israeli and Jewish businessmen."

Here's NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman on the assassination of Lebanon's Rafik Hariri.

It will be difficult to prove who killed Mr. Hariri. But the gang ruling Syria had all the ability, experience and motive to murder the Lebanese statesman for the way he had teamed up with Paris and Washington to pass the recent U.N. resolution, 1559, calling for Syria's immediate withdrawal from Lebanon. Mr. Hariri pressed for that U.N. resolution, and resigned his office, after Syria perverted Lebanese democracy by forcing Lebanon's Parliament to accept a three-year extension for a Syrian puppet, Émile Lahoud, as Lebanon's president.

When Syria's Baath regime feels its back up against the wall, it always resorts to "Hama Rules." Hama Rules is a term I coined after the Syrian Army leveled - and I mean leveled - a portion of its own city, Hama, to put down a rebellion by Sunni Muslim fundamentalists there in 1982. Some 10,000 to 20,000 Syrians were buried in the ruble. Monday's murder of Mr. Hariri, a self-made billionaire who devoted his money and energy to rebuilding Lebanon after its civil war, had all the hallmarks of Hama Rules - beginning with 650 pounds of dynamite to incinerate an armor-plated motorcade.

Message from the Syrian regime to Washington, Paris and Lebanon's opposition: "You want to play here, you'd better be ready to play by Hama Rules - and Hama Rules are no rules at all. You want to squeeze us with Iraq on one side and the Lebanese opposition on the other, you'd better be able to put more than U.N. resolutions on the table. You'd better be ready to go all the way - because we will. But you Americans are exhausted by Iraq, and you Lebanese don't have the guts to stand up to us, and you French make a mean croissant but you've got no Hama Rules in your arsenal. So remember, we blow up prime ministers here. We shoot journalists. We fire on the Red Cross. We leveled one of our own cities. You want to play by Hama Rules, let's see what you've got. Otherwise, hasta la vista, baby."

It is a measure, though, of just how disgusted the Lebanese are with the Syrian occupation and Hama Rules that everyone - from senior Lebanese politicians, like the courageous Walid Jumblatt, to street protesters - is openly accusing Syria of Mr. Hariri's murder.

What else can the Lebanese do? They must unite all their communities and hit the Syrian regime with "Baghdad Rules," which were demonstrated 10 days ago by the Iraqi people. Baghdad Rules are when an Arab public does something totally unprecedented: it takes to the streets, despite the threat of violence from jihadists and Baathists, and expresses its democratic will.

Rafik Hariri stopped playing by "Lebanese Rules" - eating any crow the Syrians crammed down Lebanon's throat - and openly challenged Syrian imperialism. If the Lebanese want to be free, they have got to take the lead. They have to summon the same civic courage that Mr. Hariri did and that the Iraqi public did - the courage to look the fascists around them in the eye, call them in the press and in public by their real names, and confront the European Union and the Arab League for their willingness to ignore the Syrian oppression.

Nothing drives a dictatorship like Syria's more crazy than civil disobedience and truth-telling: when people stop being intimidated, stand up for their own freedom and go on strike against their occupiers. The Lebanese can't play by Hama Rules and must stop playing by the old Lebanese Rules. They must start playing by Baghdad Rules.

Baghdad Rules mean the Lebanese giving the Syrian regime - every day, everywhere - the purple finger.

[UK TIMES] WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”
Wait, wait... Less amenable to their point of view...? Pleeease! Since when has a mob of protesters ever trespassed by force to have a conversation or debate? Are we to believe that the Greenpeace fairies would have in turn listened to the oil traders' point of view? You don't break into someone's company with signs and bullhorns while preventing people from entering or doing their job if you're interested in their point of view.

These protesters are only upset because the IPE workers fought back.

Here's more:

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”
He "took on" -- doesn't sound like he was real interested in debate either.

Here's another definition of Greenpeace debate:

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”
The IPE folks deserve medals.

[times] WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”
Wait, wait... Less amenable to their point of view...? Pleeease! Since when has a mob of protesters ever trespassed by force to have a conversation or debate? Are we to believe that the Greenpeace fairies would have in turn listened to the oil traders' point of view? You don't break into someone's company with signs and bullhorns while preventing people from entering or doing their job if you're interested in their point of view.

These protesters are only upset because the IPE workers fought back.

Here's more:

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”
He "took on" -- doesn't sound like he was real interested in debate either.

Here's another definition of Greenpeace debate:

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”
The IPE folks deserve medals.

[times] WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”
Wait, wait... Less amenable to their point of view...? Pleeease! Since when has a mob of protesters ever trespassed by force to have a conversation or debate? Are we to believe that the Greenpeace fairies would have in turn listened to the oil traders' point of view? You don't break into someone's company with signs and bullhorns while preventing people from entering or doing their job if you're interested in their point of view.

These protesters are only upset because the IPE workers fought back.

Here's more:

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”
He "took on" -- doesn't sound like he was real interested in debate either.

Here's another definition of Greenpeace debate:

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”
The IPE folks deserve medals.

[times] WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”
Wait, wait... Less amenable to their point of view...? Pleeease! Since when has a mob of protesters ever trespassed by force to have a conversation or debate? Are we to believe that the Greenpeace fairies would have in turn listened to the oil traders' point of view? You don't break into someone's company with signs and bullhorns while preventing people from entering or doing their job if you're interested in their point of view.

These protesters are only upset because the IPE workers fought back.

Here's more:

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”
He "took on" -- doesn't sound like he was real interested in debate either.

Here's another definition of Greenpeace debate:

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”
The IPE folks deserve medals.

[times] WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”
Wait, wait... Less amenable to their point of view...? Pleeease! Since when has a mob of protesters ever trespassed by force to have a conversation or debate? Are we to believe that the Greenpeace fairies would have in turn listened to the oil traders' point of view? You don't break into someone's company with signs and bullhorns while preventing people from entering or doing their job if you're interested in their point of view.

These protesters are only upset because the IPE workers fought back.

Here's more:

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”
He "took on" -- doesn't sound like he was real interested in debate either.

Here's another definition of Greenpeace debate:

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”
The IPE folks deserve medals.

[times] WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”
Wait, wait... Less amenable to their point of view...? Pleeease! Since when has a mob of protesters ever trespassed by force to have a conversation or debate? Are we to believe that the Greenpeace fairies would have in turn listened to the oil traders' point of view? You don't break into someone's company with signs and bullhorns while preventing people from entering or doing their job if you're interested in their point of view.

These protesters are only upset because the IPE workers fought back.

Here's more:

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”
He "took on" -- doesn't sound like he was real interested in debate either.

Here's another definition of Greenpeace debate:

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”
The IPE folks deserve medals.

[times] WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”
Wait, wait... Less amenable to their point of view...? Pleeease! Since when has a mob of protesters ever trespassed by force to have a conversation or debate? Are we to believe that the Greenpeace fairies would have in turn listened to the oil traders' point of view? You don't break into someone's company with signs and bullhorns while preventing people from entering or doing their job if you're interested in their point of view.

These protesters are only upset because the IPE workers fought back.

Here's more:

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”
He "took on" -- doesn't sound like he was real interested in debate either.

Here's another definition of Greenpeace debate:

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”
The IPE folks deserve medals.

[times] WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”
Wait, wait... Less amenable to their point of view...? Pleeease! Since when has a mob of protesters ever trespassed by force to have a conversation or debate? Are we to believe that the Greenpeace fairies would have in turn listened to the oil traders' point of view? You don't break into someone's company with signs and bullhorns while preventing people from entering or doing their job if you're interested in their point of view.

These protesters are only upset because the IPE workers fought back.

Here's more:

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”
He "took on" -- doesn't sound like he was real interested in debate either.

Here's another definition of Greenpeace debate:

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”
The IPE folks deserve medals.

[times] WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”
Wait, wait... Less amenable to their point of view...? Pleeease! Since when has a mob of protesters ever trespassed by force to have a conversation or debate? Are we to believe that the Greenpeace fairies would have in turn listened to the oil traders' point of view? You don't break into someone's company with signs and bullhorns while preventing people from entering or doing their job if you're interested in their point of view.

These protesters are only upset because the IPE workers fought back.

Here's more:

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”
He "took on" -- doesn't sound like he was real interested in debate either.

Here's another definition of Greenpeace debate:

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”
The IPE folks deserve medals.

[times] WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”
Wait, wait... Less amenable to their point of view...? Pleeease! Since when has a mob of protesters ever trespassed by force to have a conversation or debate? Are we to believe that the Greenpeace fairies would have in turn listened to the oil traders' point of view? You don't break into someone's company with signs and bullhorns while preventing people from entering or doing their job if you're interested in their point of view.

These protesters are only upset because the IPE workers fought back.

Here's more:

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”
He "took on" -- doesn't sound like he was real interested in debate either.

Here's another definition of Greenpeace debate:

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”
The IPE folks deserve medals.

[uk times] WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”
Wait, wait... Less amenable to their point of view...? Pleeease! Since when has a mob of protesters ever trespassed by force to have a conversation or debate? Are we to believe that the Greenpeace fairies would have in turn listened to the oil traders' point of view? You don't break into someone's company with signs and bullhorns while preventing people from entering or doing their job if you're interested in their point of view.

These protesters are only upset because the IPE workers fought back.

Here's more:

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”
He "took on" -- doesn't sound like he was real interested in debate either.

Here's another definition of Greenpeace debate:

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

But they were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”
The IPE folks deserve medals.

I don't know if this means that Senate Republicans will finally fight back on Democratic blockades of Bush judicial nominees but I sure like the sound of Sen. John Cornyn's retort to Senate Minority Leader Harry "Palms" Reid.

There has NEVER been a 60-vote threshold for judicial nominations

At his stakeout today, the Minority Leader, Harry Reid, made some interesting, if inaccurate comments about judicial nominations.

In particular, he said:

“Renomination is not the key. I think the question is, those judges that have already been turned down in the Senate. And unless there's something that is new that I'm not aware of with each of these men and women, we will vote the same way we did in the past.”

That charge, though, is inaccurate. NONE of President Bush’s judicial nominees have “been turned down in the Senate.” None. The nominees he referred to were denied a vote altogether—despite the fact that they all had (and have) bipartisan majority support. ALL would be confirmed if a partisan minority of the Senate would allow an up-or-down vote. It’s a little difficult to “turn down” a nominee if he or she never gets an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

Sen. Reid also mentioned what he characterized as Republican obstruction of Clinton nominees. In particular, he singled out Judge Richard Paez. But there’s just one problem: Richard Paez was confirmed by the Senate; he had an up-or-down vote and is now a sitting judge.

The 10 nominees filibustered by Sen. Reid and others during President Bush’s term, however, are still waiting to be treated as “poorly” as Judge Paez.

Sen. Reid also claimed that there has “always been” a 60-vote threshold for judicial nominations:

“It's always been a 60-vote for judges. There is --nothing change. Go back many, many, many years. Go back decades and it's always been that way.”

But we did “go back decades” and look. It hasn’t always been that way. Many nominees, including Paez, were confirmed with less than 60 votes. In fact the Senate has consistently confirmed judges who enjoyed majority but not 60-vote support — including Clinton appointees Paez, William Fletcher, and Susan Oki Mollway, and Carter appointees Abner Mikva and L. T. Senter.
Give 'em hell, John!

Put another way, Syria and Iran could be using one another as a designed strategy to shift world attention while pursuing mutual agendas.
-- Me, yesterday.

[BBC] Iran to aid Syria against threats: Iran has vowed to back Syria against "challenges and threats" as both countries face strong US pressure.

"We are ready to help Syria on all grounds to confront threats," Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Aref said after meeting Syrian PM Naji al-Otari.

[bbc] Syrian Expatriate Affairs Minister Buthaina Shaaban said she was "baffled" by the US reaction to the killing.

"To point to Syria in a terrorist act that aims at destabilising both Syria and Lebanon is truly like blaming the US for 9/11," she told the BBC.
Me thinks she protests too much -- Assuming they were responsible, Syria is reacting in a fashion typical of dictatorships: when threatened with an opposition voice they strike down to eliminate the threat and intimidate the movement.

But on to the point of her analogy to 9-11. In fact, blaming the US for 9-11 was precisely what Arab media did. They concocted conspiracy theories that Bush or the CIA or Bush and the CIA or Bush and the CIA and the Jews all conspired to commit 9-11 in order to take over the world.

Syria had effectively positioned itself after 9-11 as a distasteful but necessary ally - well, ally is probably too strong a word for the relationship - to fight al Qaeda terrorists. The relationship peaked when Syria agreed to imprison Mohammed Zammar, a German-Morrocan national who recruited the 9-11 pilots. But like Janet Jackson once sang, "what have you done for me lately?":

[Wa. Post] Even before Hariri's assassination, tensions had been growing for months between the United States and Syria over its failure to clamp down on insurgents and foreign fighters using Syria as a refuge and crossing the border into Iraq. Washington is also frustrated that Syria has not joined the Arab-Israeli peace process, and U.S. officials say the country provides havens for Palestinian and other Arab extremist groups.

Since last fall, the administration has given Damascus a list of 34 people linked to extremism and terrorist attacks to arrest, but Syria has detained only one, according to the State Department.

"The assassination is a sign of how badly messed up Lebanon is, and for that Syria is responsible," said a senior State Department official who spoke anonymously because of department rules. "On a host of issues, Syria has been largely unresponsive and it's coming to a head with movement on Mideast peace, the continuation of [Iraq's] insurgency after the elections, and now the assassination."
Was the assassination of Rafiq Hariri the final straw for American realpolitik? It's looking that way.

[Wa. Post] Col. Dan Wilson, operations officer for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which is responsible for controlling restive Anbar province in western Iraq, said it was impossible to estimate how many insurgents remained in Fallujah. But he said they were there, some of them hiding among the returning civilians and others who never left.

The last major clash in the city took place on Dec. 23. Three Marines were killed; 14 others were wounded. Since then, Wilson said, security forces have mostly engaged in small-arms fire with the insurgents.

"They are onesies and twosies," he said. "They take a shot off, and usually it's ineffective small-arms fire. They have difficulty moving. Right now we really consider Fallujah the safest city in Anbar province and maybe in all of Iraq."

So, on a battleground where many of them fought for their lives, U.S. forces are fighting to keep the peace in a city that was once one of the most dangerous in Iraq.

... Marines said that when they started patrolling the streets, residents were standoffish and rarely smiled or waved. Children were the first to approach them, and once they learned that the Marines would give them candy, footballs and soccer balls, they began swarming the patrols. "Saddam bad, George Bush good," one boy said, repeating a phrase the Marines said he often uses to get candy from them. It usually works.

Another small girl has learned to follow the Marines throughout their hour-long patrol, pausing to shed crocodile tears when she does not get a piece of "chocolata, mister." When she tried to pick the pocket of a visitor who was with the Marines, the visitor swatted her hand. She simply smiled and ran to a Marine ahead. "Chocolata, mister?" she asked, peering up at him.

Hattam Jasam Hussein, 50, who stopped the Marines on their patrol to show them a pile of empty artillery shells in a muddy field littered with trash, said he was happy the Americans were there.

"We're all very happy, everybody," Hussein said, pulling his leather jacket tighter around his gray dishdasha. "We're relaxed. The Americans protect us. We feel safe."

But, Hussein said, he wants more help rebuilding his house, which was burned during the offensive. "What about fixing the town?" he said. "We need to fix the city."

An Iraqi interpreter who works for the Marines nodded sympathetically and told the man to be patient. He then told him where to go to make a claim for his damages.

After they collected the canisters, the Marines scrambled back into their Humvees. As they roared away, a boy in a red jacket waved and called out in stilted English: "Thanks for coming."
One more question: Do Michael Moore's beheading "minutemen" pass out chocolate? Just curious.

Rather than let them alarm you, ask yourself this: do you think people who can't tell you whether it will rain next Wednesday are really capable of building models that tell you what the climate will be like 100 years from now? I wouldn't trust any economic modelling that forecast what the world economy would look like a century hence, and climate models are at least as flawed as economists' ones.
-- Alan Wood.

TCS Editor Nick Schulz also comments on today being the official start to Kyoto, and that current media spin assails the US for not being involved with the position the rest of the world is taking (sound familiar? See: Iraq). The truth is actually far from that -- China, India and the developing world are aligning themselves with the US; and many EU nations, Italy for one, have refused to back the treaty past 2012. Why?

For the developing world, they understand that mandating severe limitations on greenhouse gas emissions means slowing down their economies.

As their economies grow, they will use increasing amounts of energy to develop the transportation infrastructure, telecommunication systems, industrial and manufacturing bases, medical systems and housing enjoyed by the developed world. Since there is no currently available technology to reduce emissions drastically without limiting energy use, mandatory restrictions on emissions mean slower economic growth. With millions of people still living in abject and dehumanizing poverty, representatives from the developing world believe they can't afford Kyoto and its regulatory offspring. It leaves them vulnerable to natural climatic events, such as hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis, that no level of emissions control can affect.

Those in the developed world, like the Italians, who now doubt the efficacy of Kyoto, are realizing that the treaty has significant structural flaws. The treaty does nothing to address the rapidly rising emissions of quickly growing poor economies. These countries, given population size and growth rates, will soon be among the largest emitters of greenhouse gases on the planet. A treaty that does nothing to mitigate those emissions can't possibly claim to take the threat of global warming seriously.

In 1975, Newsweek magazine warned us that climate scientists were unanimous in their view that imminent global cooling would produce catastrophic famines. Thirty years later, the prophets of doom are still with us, but now the culprit is global warming. Every natural disaster that occurs, including the recent tsunami in Southeast Asia, is immediately linked with climate change, no matter how tenuous or absurd the connection.
That's the start of an essay by David Deming, who I'm sure must be a very lonely conservative in academia (more on that later).

Deming's column is in response to Cal professor Naomi Oreskes for her ridiculous study - and oft repeated theme - that there exists a consensus position by scientists on global warming. Well, if one refuses to count the opposition's points I suppose one will find consensus on everything. Deming compares her claim to Saddam Hussein's 100 percent vote in 2002.

Her definition of the "consensus position" on global warming essentially amounts to affirming the validity of the greenhouse effect itself, a physical phenomenon that can be demonstrated in the laboratory. By a disingenuous process of semantic transformation, this conclusion becomes an excuse for reforming our entire civilization.

The interesting and significant questions are left unanswered. What will be the magnitude of any future warming? If it occurs, will global warming be detrimental or beneficial? If the effects of global warming are detrimental, will the cost of mitigation be greater than any possible benefits? These are the questions that have to be addressed before any rational policy decisions can be made.

The most troubling aspect of the Oreskes Flap is the idea that scientific truth depends on consensus... The history of science repeatedly illustrates that human consensus has no relationship with truth. In 1915, a German meteorologist published a book where he claimed that continents drift over the face of the Earth. Continental drift was rejected by American geologists with near unanimity, and Alfred Wegener froze to death in Greenland in 1930. By 1955, his theory of continental drift had been relegated to the same category as Bigfoot, flying saucers, and astrology.

But as new evidence emerged, Wegener was vindicated. By 1970, the reality of continental drift was recognized by earth scientists. Professor Oreskes' endorsement of truth by consensus is something that could never be made by any person who has studied the history of science. Or could it? The most astonishing aspect of this entire affair is that professor Oreskes herself is a historian of science who has written a book about the rejection of continental drift.

Global warming predictions depend largely on computer models. But according to professor Oreskes, such models can never be validated or verified. In a 1994 paper published in Science, she wrote "verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible." In a 26 December op-ed published in the Washington Post, Oreskes said that "we need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming." But the man who invented the scientific method, Francis Bacon, said "if we begin in certainty, we will end in doubts."

According to the National Science Foundation US and Russian icebreakers have had a difficult time clearing the ice around McMurdo Sound in Antarctica.

The sea ice normally extends roughly 10 nautical miles from McMurdo Station. This year, the ice edge was more than 80 nautical miles from the station.
Next up: Global warming advocates use Palm Pilots and Magic Eight Balls to peddle how thicker ice is actually a sign of global warming.

Professor Deming's complaints about leftward ideology driving academia aren't isolated to climate change, unfortunately. In a search on Deming I found this commentary, written by him earlier this month, in which he describes the University of Oklahoma's dedicated and systematic process to banish him because his politics do not match those of liberal academia.

My troubles began in March of 2000 when I published a "letter to the editor" in the campus newspaper that some people found offensive. Responding to a female columnist who claimed that possession of a firearm made every gun owner a potential murderer, I pointed out by way of analogy that her possession of an unregistered sexual organ made her a potential prostitute. For writing this letter, twenty-five charges of sexual harassment were filed against me by people I had never met. My attitudes, convictions, and beliefs were put on trial in a secret Star Chamber proceeding. After I admitted (gasp) that I was a member of the National Rifle Association, I was asked this question: do you think the Nazis were bad people?
Yep. Member of the NRA = Nazi.

You'd think that academics - educated on such matters - would be a little more measured than to compare a fascist regime that murdered millions to a gun club. But you'd be wrong.

For expressing his free speech Deming's boss let it be known it could affect his future at the university. The University of Oklahoma itself sued Deming for sexual harassment. Deming is currently under fire for challenging affirmative action assumptions, via his suggestion that "inequalities in numbers do not necessarily imply inequities."

I pointed out that although there may be relatively few women in disciplines like geoscience and engineering, females have advantages in other areas. For example, women live longer than men, receive higher grades in college, and are much less likely than men to end up in prison. Instead of addressing the issues, Geology Chairman Roger Slatt responded to my editorial with a personal attack. Acting with the imprimatur of his administrative authority, Roger Slatt circulated to all faculty, staff, and students in the College of Geoscience a statement that implied because I was against affirmative action I had dysfunctional relationships with women. I protested to Dean John Snow. But Chairman Slatt was not punished—I was.

Seven days before Christmas, I was summoned into the office of Dean John T. Snow. My tenure in the geology department was abrogated without due process. My geophysics class—for which I receive outstanding student evaluations—was taken from me without explanation. I was stripped of my right to supervise graduate students in geology and geophysics. I was evicted from my office and relegated to a small, dark room in a corner of the basement. No other faculty member in the entire College has office space assigned in the basement. Dean Snow glared at me and said that the fundamental problem was that I was not submissive to authority.

The administration of the University of Oklahoma seems to want a generation of faculty that are servile, apathetic, and obsequious. No doubt that is what they will get.

Fascinating, repulsive and scary is the bond of brotherhood forming between contrarian liberalism, so perfectly depicted in academia, and Islamic extremism. Of course the theories and positions taken by the extremists are the most ridiculous (Jews using Arab children as pastry filling), but the veracity and common cause of anti-Americanism by both is startling.

Read Robert Pollock's editorial regarding the current climate in Turkey and tell me it doesn't remind you of anti-globalization protests in Seattle or antiwar marches in our capital:

On a brief visit to Ankara earlier this month with Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith, I found a poisonous atmosphere--one in which just about every politician and media outlet (secular and religious) preaches an extreme combination of America- and Jew-hatred that (like the Turkish artists) voluntarily goes far further than anything found in most of the Arab world's state-controlled press. If I hesitate to call it Nazi-like, that's only because Goebbels would probably have rejected much of it as too crude.

Consider the Islamist newspaper Yeni Safak, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's favorite. A Jan. 9 story claimed that U.S. forces were tossing so many Iraqi bodies into the Euphrates that mullahs there had issued a fatwa prohibiting residents from eating its fish. Yeni Safak has also repeatedly claimed that U.S. forces used chemical weapons in Fallujah. One of its columnists has alleged that U.S. soldiers raped women and children there and left their bodies in the streets to be eaten by dogs. Among the paper's "scoops" have been the 1,000 Israeli soldiers deployed alongside U.S. forces in Iraq, and that U.S. forces have been harvesting the innards of dead Iraqis for sale on the U.S. "organ market."

It's not much better in the secular press. The mainstream Hurriyet has accused Israeli hit squads of assassinating Turkish security personnel in Mosul, and the U.S. of starting an occupation of Indonesia under the guise of humanitarian assistance. At Sabah, a columnist last fall accused the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman, of letting his "ethnic origins"--guess what, he's Jewish--determine his behavior. Mr. Edelman is indeed the all-too-rare foreign-service officer who takes seriously his obligation to defend America's image and interests abroad. The intellectual climate in which he's operating has gone so mad that he actually felt compelled to organize a conference call with scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey to explain that secret U.S. nuclear testing did not cause the recent tsunami.

Never in an ostensibly friendly country have I had the impression of embassy staff so besieged. Mr. Erdogan's office recently forbade Turkish officials from attending a reception at the ambassador's residence in honor of the "Ecumenical" Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, who resides in Istanbul. Why? Because "ecumenical" means universal, which somehow makes it all part of a plot to carve up Turkey.

Perhaps the most bizarre anti-American story au courant in the Turkish capital is the "eighth planet" theory, which holds not only that the U.S. knows of an impending asteroid strike, but that we know it's going to hit North America. Hence our desire to colonize the Middle East.

It all sounds loony, I know. But such stories are told in all seriousness at the most powerful dinner tables in Ankara. The common thread is that almost everything the U.S. is doing in the world--even tsunami relief--has malevolent motivations, usually with the implication that we're acting as muscle for the Jews.

In the face of such slanders Turkish politicians have been utterly silent. In fact, Turkish parliamentarians themselves have accused the U.S. of "genocide" in Iraq, while Mr. Erdogan (who we once hoped would set for the Muslim world an example of democracy) was among the few world leaders to question the legitimacy of the Iraqi elections. When confronted, Turkish pols claim they can't risk going against "public opinion."

...Entirely forgotten is that President Bush was among the first world leaders to recognize Prime Minister Erdogan, while Turkey's own legal system was still weighing whether he was secular enough for the job. Forgotten have been decades of U.S. military assistance. Forgotten have been years of American efforts to secure a pipeline route for Caspian oil that terminates at the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Forgotten has been the fact that U.S. administrations continue to fight annual attempts in Congress to pass a resolution condemning modern Turkey for the long-ago Armenian genocide. Forgotten has been America's persistent lobbying for Turkish membership in the European Union.

Forgotten, above all, has been America's help against the PKK. Its now-imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was expelled from Syria in 1998 after the Turks threatened military action. He was then passed like a hot potato between European governments, who refused to extradite him to Turkey because--gasp!--he might face the death penalty. He was eventually caught--with the help of U.S. intelligence--sheltered in the Greek Embassy in Nairobi. "They gave us Ocalan. What could be bigger than that?" says one of a handful of unapologetically pro-U.S. Turks I still know.