PrairiePundit

Aaron David Miller writes another story touting the supposed importance of a Middle East "peace" agreement, and makes the factual error of asserting that the Bush administration has "for almost seven years, the Bush administration has hung a 'Closed for the Season' sign on serious Arab-Israeli diplomacy." He must have a short memory. When former Gen. Anthony Zinni was the "peace" envoy every trip was greeted by multiple exploding Palestinians doing their worst to prevent any hope of such an agreement. Hamas was turning its children into ordinance to prevent such an agreement, and the Palestinians were celebrating this homicidal nonsense. He can talk about weak leaders on both sides, but at its heart the reason there is no agreement is because the Palestinians have nothing of value to offer the Israelis. No one ever focuses on this reality. In fact people like Miller adopt the fiction that the Palestinians actually have the ability to offer pea...

Houston Chronicle: It may be up or out as Congressman Nick Lampson ponders his political future. The Stafford Democrat is giving serious consideration to entering the U.S. Senate race against Republican incumbent John Cornyn, well-connected Democrats in Texas and Washington say. Lampson's jaunt last weekend to San Antonio to mingle with donors at a fundraiser for the national Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee hasn't done anything to discourage the speculation — particularly since he underwent major heart surgery less than a month before and has yet to resume a full work schedule. Lampson's camp is being somewhat coy about the Senate race, as might be expected at this point. "He has been getting a lot of calls from lots of friends and supporters around the state asking him to look into it," said Mike Lykes, who just traded in his job as Lampson's chief of staff to become his campaign finance director. "He is just trying to concentrate right now o...

Sunday Times: Drawing on a trove of private papers from Hillary Clinton’s best friend, the legendary Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein is to publish a hard-hitting and intimate portrait of the 2008 presidential candidate, which will reveal a number of “discrepancies” in her official story. Bernstein, who was played by Dustin Hoffman in the film All the President’s Men, has spent eight years researching the unauthorised 640-page biography, A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton . “Bernstein reaches conclusions that stand in opposition to what Senator Clinton has said in the past and has written in the past,” said Paul Bogaards, a spokesman for Knopf, which publishes the book on June 19. With the thoroughness for which he is famous, Bernstein spoke to more than 200 of Clinton’s friends, colleagues and adversaries. He stops short of accusing the New York senator of blatantly lying about her past, but has unearthed examples of where she has played fast and loose with the f...

Sunday Telegraph: Caught in the middle of the Helmand river, the fleeing Taliban were paddling their boat back to shore for dear life. Smoke from the ambush they had just sprung on American special forces still hung in the air, but their attention was fixed on the two helicopter gunships that had appeared above them as their leader, the tallest man in the group, struggled to pull what appeared to be a burqa over his head. As the boat reached the shore, Captain Larry Staley tilted the nose of the lead Apache gunship downwards into a dive. One of the men turned to face the helicopter and sank to his knees. Capt Staley's gunner pressed the trigger and the man disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust. By the time the gunships had finished, 21 minutes later, military officials say 14 Taliban were confirmed dead, including one of their key commanders in Helmand. The mission is typical of a new, aggressive, approach adopted by American forces in southern Afghanistan and particularly in He...

Sunday Telegraph: Suspects linked to al-Qaeda have obtained sensitive jobs in vital industries that could be the target of terrorist attacks, it can be revealed. The individuals were uncovered by police and the security services in operations designed to protect key British sites such as transport hubs, power stations and the water supply. Security chiefs believe that they may have become radicalised while already in employment, thus evading the strict vetting procedure for applicants for security-sensitive posts. Following the discovery, the Government is to draft new guidelines for companies to strengthen systems for monitoring staff. Employees will be encouraged to report any concerns they may have about suspicious behaviour by colleagues. Other elements of the critical national infrastructure that the Government has drawn up include plans to defend telecommunications, food supply, finance, key health facilities and the emergency services. A senior Whitehall source said: "Polic...

NY Times: Anbar Province, long the lawless heartland of the tenacious Sunni Arab resistance, is undergoing a surprising transformation. Violence is ebbing in many areas, shops and schools are reopening, police forces are growing and the insurgency appears to be in retreat. “Many people are challenging the insurgents,” said the governor of Anbar, Maamoon S. Rahid, though he quickly added, “We know we haven’t eliminated the threat 100 percent.” Many Sunni tribal leaders, once openly hostile to the American presence, have formed a united front with American and Iraqi government forces against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. With the tribal leaders’ encouragement, thousands of local residents have joined the police force. About 10,000 police officers are now in Anbar, up from several thousand a year ago. During the same period, the police force here in Ramadi, the provincial capital, has grown from fewer than 200 to about 4,500, American military officials say. At the same time, American and Ir...

His name is not mentioned in the reports on the breakup of the plot to destroy oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, but the al Qaeda terrorist recently sent to Gitmo that the NY Times calls Mr. Iraqi was captured about nine months ago. According to Reuters , that is about the time that the Saudis started making arrest in the giant plot. The Saudis do not think they are finished with arrests and they are probably right. The arrest of 172 suspected militants did not end the al Qaeda-linked threat in Saudi Arabia, the interior minister was quoted on Saturday as saying. Prince Nayef told the Arabic-language al-Riyadh daily a Saudi man was held on suspicion of being the spiritual leader of the largest of the seven cells which were smashed, foiling a plot to attack oil facilities and military bases. "We cannot say that we are finished from these deviants," Prince Nayef said. "But efforts will continue. The eyes...are wide open and efforts are under way to purify our country from ...

Red States' Jeff Emanuel is in Iraq talking to the troops and his interviews have a ring of truth. ... One notable person I spoke with was in transit back to Iraq after spending time in Germany recovering from wounds. This young officer, a captain, had been in Iraq for three weeks when he was called to respond to an EFP attack on a humvee that had killed two soldiers and grievously wounded a third (breaking both of his femurs). Upon arriving at the scene to do his job, he was struck in the upper arm by a sniper’s bullet. The .308 round passed completely through his arm between the biceps and the shoulder, and struck a companion in the stomach. The tow truck which went to recover the injured personnel and the destroyed humvee was also hit by an EFP en route to the scene, and both occupants were also killed. Read on . . . “I didn’t know where the shots were coming from,” he said, “and it’s not like we could fire back. All we could do was take cover behind the wreckage and hope...

The Jawa Report: Pardon my speculation, but as soon as I learned that the Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi was the 7/7 London bombing mastermind , I couldn't help but think that it was a bit singular that six former al Mujahiroun goons , including Abu Izzadeen who publicly supported the 7/7 terrorists , were arrested just days before the announcement that Abd al-Hadi was in U.S. custody. Glen Jenvey has been insisting to me for some time that ever since the arrest of Abu Hamza (which he had a hand in ) that Omar Bakri Mohammed, and his two right-hand men Abu Izzadeen and Anjem Choudary, were the face of al Qaeda in Britain. A charge that is backed up by hours of video and audio of the group supporting jihadists, including al Qaeda, and Omar Bakri Mohammed's pre-9/11 boasting that he was the spokesperson for al Qaeda in the U.K., an affiliation he later denied. But another fact suddenly comes to mind, something that didn't really click until just now. The forum on which Izzadeen ...

Gateway Pundit does a review of Iran's reaction to the democrat debate and the recent surrender in Iraq bill Democrats pushed. For a country that has been at war with us since 1979 they seem to have sound some Americans they like. What is it about Democrats that appeals to our enemies?

Dave Kilcullen: Gated communities in counterinsurgency are like tourniquets in surgery. They can stem a life-threatening hemorrhage, but they must be applied sparingly, released as often and as soon as possible, and they have side-effects that have to be taken into account. They are never a first choice. But, given the dire current situation in Baghdad, the “urban tourniquet” is the lesser of several evils, because it breaks the cycle of sectarian violence that has caused so much damage and human suffering in Iraq. This cycle typically involves extremists infiltrating a Sunni neighborhood, intimidating the population, setting up a base (often in derelict houses), then using that base to launch attacks on the Shi’a community in surrounding districts. Shi’a militias then retaliate, striking out at the Sunni neighborhood, killing innocent people, provoking blood feuds and further retaliation. The pall of fear, and the external threat, cements the extremists’ hold over the local population...

Larry Kudlow: Our last, best hope in Iraq -- Gen. David Petraeus -- reminded Pentagon reporters this week of a critically important fact long forgotten by most observers: Our real enemy in Iraq, the true source of all the murders, mayhem, and instability, is not sectarian strife. And it's not the Sunnis or the Shiites, either. The real enemy we face in Iraq is al-Qaida. According to the top American commander in Iraq, al-Qaida's No. 1 priority is defeating the United States in Iraq. The general called this organization "public enemy No. 1," adding that "Iraq is, in fact, the central front of al-Qaida's global campaign." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn't understand this. Nor, for that matter, do the other defeatist Democrats carelessly demanding our immediate withdrawal. They fail to grasp that the root of our problems in Iraq -- again, the true source of the hostilities -- remains al-Qaida. These murderous thugs are fomenting the sectarian st...

NY Times: It was not the typical Bay Area morning. Before dawn on March 6, dozens of federal immigration agents conducted surprise raids in San Rafael and nearby Novato, two comfortable Marin County suburbs where the idea of early morning excitement usually involves a trip to Starbucks. The raids are part of the government’s Operation Return to Sender, in which more than 23,000 people have been arrested nationwide, including more than 1,800 in Northern and Central California, immigration officials said. And while the raids have upset many pro-immigrant groups nationwide, that displeasure has been particularly acute in the Bay Area, a region that generally bends left politically and where many cities consider themselves so-called “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants. “These people have been here many, many years and they have an investment in the community,” said Mayor Al Boro of San Rafael, a city of about 56,000 residents, a quarter of whom are Latino. “And we need to respect that.” S...

Washington Times: The ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee has called for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to resign his leadership post for saying the U.S. has lost the war in Iraq. "This unfortunate statement is both inaccurate and damaging ... [and] can have no effect but to demoralize the brave men and women who are honorably fulfilling their mission in Iraq," said Rep. Duncan Hunter of California in a letter to Mr. Reid. Mr. Hunter, an Army Ranger in the Vietnam War whose son, a Marine, is returning to Iraq for his third combat tour, wrote that his friendship with Mr. Reid is secondary to his obligation to the nation's wartime military forces. "In light of the fact that this statement has both been used by our adversaries and has exhibited a marked lack of leadership to U.S. troops, I call on you to resign your leadership position," said Mr. Hunter, who is running for president. Mr. Hunter added that Mr. Reid's comme...

Washington Times: Illegal alien-related felony cases are swamping federal courts along the southwest border, forcing judges to handle hundreds more cases than their peers elsewhere. Judges in the five, mostly rural judicial districts on the border carry the heaviest felony caseloads in the nation. Each judge in New Mexico, which ranked first, handled an average of 397 felony cases last year, compared with the national average of 84. Federal judges in those five districts -- southern and western Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Southern California -- handled one-third of all the felonies prosecuted in the nation's 94 federal judicial districts in 2005, according to federal court statistics. While Congress has increased the number of border patrol officers, the pace of the law enforcement has eclipsed the resources for the court system. Judges say they are stretched to the limit with cases involving drug trafficking or illegal aliens who have also committed serious crim...

NY Times: The Central Intelligence Agency held a captured Qaeda leader in a secret prison since last fall and transferred him last week to the American military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, officials said Friday. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an Iraqi Kurd who is said to have joined Al Qaeda in the late 1990s and ascended to become a top aide to Osama bin Laden, is the first terrorism suspect known to have been held in secret C.I.A. jails since President Bush announced the transfer of 14 captives to Guantánamo Bay last September. The Pentagon announced the transfer, giving few details about his arrest or confinement. Mr. Iraqi’s case suggests that the C.I.A. may have adopted a new model for handling prisoners held secretly — a practice that Mr. Bush said could resume and that Congress permitted when it passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Unlike past C.I.A. detainees, including the Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was held by the agency for several years after being seiz...

Washington Post: The Interior Department will announce a proposal Monday to allow oil and gas drilling in federal waters near Virginia that are currently off-limits and permit new exploration in Alaska's Bristol Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, according to people who have seen or been told about drafts of the plan. The department issued a news release yesterday that was lacking details but said that it had finished a five-year plan that will include a "major proposal for expanded oil and natural gas development on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf." Department officials declined to describe the plan. Congress would still have to agree to open areas currently off-limits before any drilling could take place off Virginia's coast. Every year since 1982, after an oil spill off Santa Barbara, Calif., Congress has reaffirmed a moratorium on drilling off the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Last year, after a vigorous push by drilling advocates, Congress opened new waters...

Times: The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay. Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison” before being transferred to the internment camp in Cuba. Abd al-Hadi, 45, was regarded as one of al-Qaeda’s most experienced, most intelligent and most ruthless commanders. Senior counter-terrorism sources told The Times that he was the man who, in 2003, identified Britain as the key battleground for exporting al-Qaeda’s holy war to Europe. Abd al-Hadi recognised the potential for turning young Muslim radicals from Bri...

AP /Fox News: The woman who accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape gave contradictory statements to investigators, and there was no credible evidence a crime occurred, the state attorney general's office said Friday. In a 21-page report outlining the findings of its three-month review of the case, the office said additional evidence uncovered during its investigation backed its determination that the accused players were innocent. "The state's cases rested primarily on a witness whose recollection of the facts of the allegations was imprecise and contradictory," the report said, adding that the accuser's changing accounts of what happened lead to "insurmountable credibility issues." The report comes more than two weeks after Attorney General Roy Cooper dropped all remaining charges against former players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans. Cooper declared the men innocent, saying they were victims of a "tragic rush to accuse"...

CNN: Troops captured four suspected members of a secret terrorist training network in Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The network takes militants from Iraq to Iran for training, and transports explosives from Iran into Iraq, the military alleges. "Intelligence reports also indicate the secret cell has ties to a kidnapping network that conducts attacks within Iraq." the military said. The suspects were arrested in the Baghdad Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, where support for Iran is high. The Bush administration has long insisted that Iran is helping insurgents create chaos in Iraq. ... Shhh. The Democrats still think there is a sectarian civil war going on. Of course, Iran has been at war with the US since the Carter administration but Democrats don't want to return fire on that front either. One of the major successes of the surge has been to decrease the sectarian violence. That has been done mainly by shutting down the Shia militia death squads. If our troops are...