Salafi Jihadists are becoming increasingly active in ‘Palestine.’ They are garnering more support than ever before, and they are partially responsible for the increasing radicalization of Palestinian Arabs. If you think Fatah and especially Hamas are evil and extreme, just take the following comparison made by Salafi Jihadists into consideration: “compared to us, Hamas is Islamism Lite.” (more…)

PoliGazette’s Jonathan Wilson wonders what went wrong in the Middle East and what US policy should be. (more…)

Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, a Canadian engineering professor and national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress,  published an article on the grim statistics in Iraq.  It’s not clear where he gathers all of these statistics from, although there is one reference to the British Oxford Research Bureau. If any readers have insight into where these numbers come from, your comments and identification of sources would be welcome. (more…)

You know, there was a time when Presidents lied about this kind of thing. Plausible deniability it’s called, if I’m not mistaken. Not so George W. Bush, the man knows no shame when it comes to torture: (more…)

The New York Times reports that where US government officials thought for years that the war on terrorism required a brand new strategy, they have now changed their minds; it seems that they now believe that “a combination of efforts could in fact establish something akin to the posture of deterrence, the strategy that helped protect the United States from a Soviet nuclear attack during the cold war.” (more…)

An Al Qaeda leader, the Saudi Jar Allah aka Abu Yasir al-Saudi, was killed Wednesday, by a guided missile fired from a US Military helicopter. “According to the military, al-Saudi conducted numerous attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces, including a Jan. 28 bomb attack that killed the five U.S. soldiers.” (more…)

Well, one gets the impression that the parties that won the elections in Pakistan this week do indeed represent change. Not the kind of change foreign policy haws were looking forward to though: “The winners of Pakistan’s parliamentary elections said Tuesday that they would take a new approach to fighting Islamic militants by pursuing more dialogue than military confrontation” with them. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal took on apologists for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) today, saying:

These are not ordinary crimes. "For sure, I’m American enemies," said KSM in his broken English. "When we made any war against America we are jackals fighting in the nights. . . . the language of the war are killing." The proper venue to address his mass crimes against humanity is not some civilian jurisdiction. Terror cases committed as acts of war, by their very nature, require a separate judicial process.

(more…)

Gunmen have stormed an elementary school near Peshawar, in Pakistan, taking children and teachers hostage. There are conflicting accounts as to how many children are being held, with police reporting around 25, but others raising that number to 250. Apparently, the militants originally planned to kidnap a local health official, but were thwarted and in the process of escaping, went into the school and took the children.

Here’s hoping there isn’t a repeat of the Beslan tragedy, and all the children, and their teachers are safely released.

Update: The gunmen have released the children (final number around 200) and surrendered to tribal authorities. A happy ending, thank goodness.

In what has to have left an extremely bitter taste in liberals’ mouths, the U.S. Senate approved a $556B spending bill that includes $70B for the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By a vote of 76-17, the Senate approved the $556 billion fiscal 2008 spending bill.

Marking another defeat for Democrats trying to end nearly five years of combat in Iraq, the Senate included $70 billion in new money for the war there and in Afghanistan. Attempts to attach Iraq troop withdrawal plans failed.

The House of Representatives could vote as early as Wednesday to approve the Iraq war funds. When the House passed its version of the budget bill on Monday, it specifically prohibited any new money for Iraq.

But with the Democratic-controlled Congress hurrying to recess for three weeks and Republican Bush promising to veto any budget bill that does not have money for the Iraq war, the House is expected to relent.

(more…)

I understand and respect the views of those who argue that torture — more specifically, waterboarding — is immoral and should never, under any circumstances whatsoever, be employed. Yes, torture is a form of immorality. But it is not the only form of immorality, and there are instances in which the forms conflict with each other.

Before dealing with the current issue — which has been brought into sharp focus by John Kiriakou’s interview on ABC News, let us look back some seventy years. As the war clouds gathered over Europe, pacifists were as devoted to avoiding war — or perhaps better said, to peace at any price — as are those who today affirm that torture should never be employed. While never representing the majority opinion in either the United States or England, pacifism was a force to be reckoned with in both countries.

(more…)

From ABC News, with my emphases [the complete transcript is here and here]:

A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds. (more…)

Changing the procedures isn’t enough. Guantanamo Bay has to be closed and, then, the US has to make a new start with regards to how it treats terrorism suspects.

“It’s war” isn’t sufficient reason to break with the rule of law and to prevent suspects from defending themselves, nor to keep people locked up for six years without charging them with anything.

Heck, there’s never a good reason to treat suspects like that.

Consider the following:

• The CIA’s erased tapes date from 2002 and show “enhanced interrogation techniques” — presumably waterboarding — being applied to Abu Zabaida, among others.

• Also in 2002, four members of Congress — including now Speaker of the House Pelosi — attended a secret meeting at which they were shown “a CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects.” Among the techniques was waterboarding, and among the detainees that received such treatment was Abu Zabaida.

Same year (2002), same interrogation technique (waterboarding), same detainee (Abu Zabaida). Could it be that the erased tapes are of the secret meeting that Pelosi and other members of Congress attended? If so, what a scandal it would make. (more…)

Andrew C. McCarthy wrote an interesting article for NRO about the Bush administration’s decision to isolate Hamas and (but) to embrace Fatah / Abbas. Andrew writes:

President Bush’s stirring post-9/11 message that regimes the world over have to choose between aligning with civilization or with terrorists should officially be interred in war-torn “Palestine.” Seriousness about the doctrine is the only realistic way to defeat our enemies, and now we make a mockery of it. A mockery built on the trifecta-fiction that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is an avatar of peace, that his Fatah faction has aligned with civilization, and that the Palestinian people — the ones who freely chose to install Hamas as their parliamentary majority and who have trademarked “Intifada” as an instrument of statecraft — are somehow worth prostituting ourselves over.

In the Palestinian civil war, the Bush administration has unabashedly cast its lot with Fatah. The United States, in the midst of its own global war against Islamic radicalism, is promising additional millions in foreign aid for a cabal which maintains its own jihadist wing, and which is so thoroughly corrupt — having pocketed much of the foreign aid billions that poured in over the last two decades — that Palestinians opted for the more transparent Hamas terrorists when given the option…

Abbas proceeded to urge a throng of 50,000 Palestinians to re-aim their guns at the “occupation” (that would be Israel) instead of turning them on each other: “[W]ith the will and determination of its sons, Fatah has and will continue,” he brayed. “We will not give up our principles and we have said that rifles should be directed against the occupation…. We have a legitimate right to direct our guns against Israeli occupation….”

That was less than six months ago — despite administration assertions on Monday that Abbas is “a partner who is committed to peace.” And none of it was a surprise. When Abbas was seeking election in 2005, he declared to a cheering mob in Gaza that Palestinian terrorists being sought by Israel were “heroes fighting for freedom.”

After that, Andrew takes a closer look at Fatah’s constitution (which isn’t exactly filled with positive statements).

Although I understand Andrew’s reasoning: that the US has made a deal with the devil, I think that he is wrong, in so far that the West has to do something and that now is a great opportunity to force Abbas to moderate Fatah and to work on a lasting peace. Lord knows that I am not exactly a big fan of Fatah either, but in this case Fatah is - certainly - the lesser of two evils.

It is time for some true realism in America’s foreign policy. I agree with those who say that talking to Hamas is completely useless, but Fatah and Abbas have indicated on several occasions that they might be willing to compromise, which means that talking to Abbas and helping him might pay off.

Fatah is not ‘good,’ but a regime does not have to be ‘good’ for the West to deal with it: the regime must be willing to compromise and to give us something of value (with, of course, something for them in return).

The Fourth Rail reports:

The Diyala Campaign is underway. As part of major offensive operations throughout the belts regions of Baghdad, Iraqi and U.S. forces have launched a large scale operation in the city of Baqubah, the provincial capital of Diyala. Dubbed Operation Arrowhead Ripper, the offensive is massive in scale. This is a division sized operation of “approximately 10,000 Soldiers, with a full complement of attack helicopters, close air support, Strykers and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.” Over 30 al Qaeda operatives have been killed since the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division kicked off the operation with a “quick-strike nighttime air assault.”

Elements of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, and the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, are operating in Baqubah, along with the 2nd Brigade of the 5th Iraqi Army Division. American forces are in the lead of the assault, with the Iraqi Army in support. The 2-5 Iraqi Army Brigade killed four al Qaeda after receiving sniper fire, and captured 2 others.

The New York Times, which incorrectly reported the operation as consisting of 2,000 U.S. troops, reported that the western portion of the city of Baqubah has been sealed off with ground a and air units as troops pursue the 300 to 500 Qaeda believed to be operating in the area…

Back in May, we noted Diyala has become the main hub of al Qaeda’s operations. Al Qaeda in Iraq made Baqubah the capital of its rump Islamic State of Iraq last year. Since the inception of the Baghdad Security Plan in mid-February, the security situation, which was deteriorating after U.S. forces pulled back last fall, has markedly worsened. Al Qaeda has prepared fighting positions, supply bases, IED traps, bomb rigged buildings, and training camps in the province.

The question is - of course - will the US be able to kill most AQ terrorists, or will the terrorists simply flee the neighborhood and start killing and kidnapping people there? Criticism aside, it is - of course - a good thing that the US fights AQ like this. The more AQ members are killed or captured, the better. I’m starting to think, however, that the US should - quite simply - send in Shia militias. Let the Shia militias take care of Al Qaeda - let them kill each other; they’re killing to birds with one stone.

The Boston Globe reports that Senator John Kerry “blasted the leading Republican presidential candidates on foreign policy yesterday,” a speech at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Kerry said that “‘it should disturb all of us’ that the GOP contenders are taking increasingly hawkish stances on national security issues like Iran and the Guantanamo Bay detention center.”

Two days ago, Pamela Leavey published the Senator’s entire speech. An excerpt:

Fourth–it is a misconception that torturing prisoners, as we saw at Abu Ghraib, and detaining them indefinitely, as we are now at Guantanamo Bay, are effective ways of fighting terrorism. In fact they define the word “counterproductive.” Just this week, a federal appeals court struck down part of the President’s detainee policy as having —and I’m quoting judges here—“disastrous consequences for the Constitution and the country.” It should disturb all of us that a proposal to double Guantanamo is considered red meat for Republican primary voters. Our military leaders tell us that torture does not yield better intelligence. And as Colin Powell has said, the world is beginning to doubt the moral authority of our fight against terrorism—our most precious asset in winning the war of ideas…

Many of our best thinkers in the private sector and the Pentagon now speak of fighting terrorism as a “global counterinsurgency” The goal of counterinsurgency operations is far more than just killing insurgents. Ultimate success depends on winning over the local population and isolating the extremists. Applied to global terrorism, this leads us to focus on winning a global “information war,” and turning “the street” against Al Qaeda wherever they seek a base of operations.

As we’ve seen in Iraq, this struggle cannot be won by military means alone. Again, it’s the Army’s new counterinsurgency manual that tells us “the more force used, the less effective it is.” Successful counterinsurgency relies on every tool in our national arsenal—economic, political, military - and perhaps most importantly recognizes the power of our ideas.

It’s the Tip O’Neill doctrine applied to a dangerous world – successfully fighting a global counterinsurgency recognizes that, just like politics, all terrorism is local. That means looking beyond catch-all phrases like “Islamo-Fascism” that obscure more than they illuminate. After all, Al Qaeda is, as the theorist David Kilcullen says: “sixty different groups in sixty different countries who all have different objectives.” …

Some policymakers like to say we need to stay on the offensive against the terrorists. They tend to equate “offense” with military force. But we must never forget that we are fighting a battle within Islam for the hearts and minds of Muslims everywhere.

Al Qaeda understands that we are fighting an information war: they quadrupled their output of propaganda videos last year and take advantage of some 4,500 different jihadi websites. And we know that Al Qaeda’s #2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, urged Al Qaeda in Iraq to stop mass-murdering Shia civilians because he worried it would hurt Al Qaeda’s reputation among moderate Sunnis. Today the sobering reality is that, in many quarters, we are losing a public relations battle to a gang of cave-dwelling mass-murderers…

To succeed in this arena, we must regain our moral authority. Our actions matter more than our words: no Madison Avenue PR firm or public diplomacy czar can make the Arab world forget Abu Ghraib. This self-defeating tendency continues today at Guantanamo—which has become a catchphrase in every language for the perceived lawlessness of America’s fight against terrorists. These policies amount to a unilateral disarmament in the war of ideas.

I suggest you read Kerry’s entire speech. It has to be said - it is a good speech, he makes some excellent points. The war against terrorism is more than a military war, it is also an information war, it is also a moral war, it is also an ideological war, it is also a war from the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide, etc.

We, the West, have to be seen as the good guys. Admittedly, it may take us a while to convince Muslims worldwide that we are the good guys, but we must be patience because we cannot afford to lose the battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims. We must invest in Muslim countries - in a positive way. I propse a gigantic Marshall plan for Muslim countries that are in need. Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. were able to become so powerful, because they invest in people, in neighborhoods and cities. We must build schools, we must create jobs, we must improve these people’s lives without wanting anything in return (except for moderation and a partner in the war on radical Islam).

H/t Ginny Cotts.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., has ordered the US military to release Ali al-Marri, who is accused by the US government of being a sleeper agent for Al Qaeda. Al-Marri studied computer science at Bradley University until he was arrested on December 12, 2001.

Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote:

To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the President calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and the country. We refuse to recognize a claim to power that would so alter the constitutional foundations of our Republic.

As Shaun Mullen points out, this is the third time this month that the Bush administration’s “extralegal efforts to circumvent the American legal system in order to try so-called enemy combatants,” have been rebuked.

As someone who strongly opposes Bush’s vision on how to deal with terrorism suspects (by labeling them enemy combatants), I applaud this decision by the Court of Appeals in Richmond. It is about time that these suspects get the treatment suspects of other crimes get.

There should be no exceptions to the Rule of Law. It’s about time that Bush et al. understand this as well.

Terrorists should be punished - we should fight aggressively against terrorism - but the West cannot allow itself to break with the Rule of Law.

Holding people captive for years (without them being able to do something about it / without charging them with anything) has got to stop. If there is one thing the government should not be able to do in modern democracies, it is that.

Kevin Drum asks the following question:

Will the Bush administration allow al-Marri a trial, or will they appeal this to the Supreme Court and risk an adverse ruling?

As usual, we will have to wait and see.

Children have become victims of the war on terror, according to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and four other human rights organizations. They describe, among other examples, the fate of Yusuf al-Khalid and Abed al-Khalid, sons of Al-Akadiabrein Sheikh Mohammed al-Khalid. They were arrested in Pakistan, in 2002, together with their mother, where they were interrogated: the interrogators asked questions about their father (who they couldn’t find). According to a fellow inmate, the two little boys will badly treated: sometimes they didn’t receive water and / or food. “They were mentally tortured, by letting ants and other animals crawl on their legs to scare them.”

In March 2003, after Sheikh Mohammed was arrested, were the two boys handed over to the CIA. It remains unclear whether the CIA was involved in earlier interrogations. Of course, the CIA denied torturing them back then:

“We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children,” said one official, “but we need to know as much about their father’s recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care.”

For those who are wondering about who Sheikh Mohammed is, he is the person who, not too long ago, admitted to be responsible for just about every terrorist attack in the last decade or so. He made this confession after being held in Gitmo for four years and after the CIA used his sons against him (from that 2003 article):

Their father, Mohammed, 37, is being interrogated at the Bagram US military base in Afghanistan. He is being held in solitary confinement and subjected to “stress and duress”-style interrogation techniques.

He has been told that his sons are being held and he is being encouraged to divulge future attacks against the West and talk about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.

“He has said very little so far,” one CIA official said yesterday. “He sits in a trance-like state and recites verses from the Koran. But while he may claim to be a devout Muslim, we know he is fond of the Western-style fast life.

“His sons are important to him. The promise of their release and their return to Pakistan may be the psychological lever we need to break him.”

Trouw reports that, by now, the sons have been released. I am trying to find information about when they exactly were released. I am asking you to help me find more information about that: how long were they held? When were they released? I get the impression, from this sentence: “They arrested my kids intentionally. They are kids. They been arrested for four months they had been abused,” that they were being held for four months… at least. Again, can anyone help me find more information about that? How were they treated? Can the CIA get away with this?

You can read more about this at the Amnesty International website. Amnesty is concerned about 39 individuals who were taken prisoner by the US and have disappeared since then. Nothing has been heard about their whereabouts.

You can read the report here.

The US should have the moral highground here. Sadly, this is not so. When the CIA makes people disappear, when the CIA holds children to put pressure on their father… the CIA has lost the moral highground (and thus the US as well).

I do not quite understand why there is not a massive movement in the US to do something about this. Not only is it highly immoral, it is also incredibly bad for America’s reputation. Do you really expect Europeans to defend and to support you if you do not respect human rights? Do you expect us to defend and support you when you are holding and interrogating children? Do you expect us to defend and support you when you make people disappear like the KGB once did?

I’m a hawk, I’m a supporter of the US, but the US has to change its policies ASAP. This is highly unacceptable.

UPDATE
Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for linking to this post. Andrew comments:

I tend to think that even Bush’s CIA would not abuse children, apart from imprisoning them for the crimes of their father.

I tend to think the same.

On the other hand, once I also thought that Bush et al. would oppose taking children of terrorists prisoner, just so the CIA can pressure the father into a confession.

But I have learned the bad way that Bush and Cheney cannot be trusted with the humane tradition of American warfare. These children belong, like many others, in the black hole of the Bush-Cheney torture and detention regime, beyond the reach of the law, treaties or civilization. Just as Cheney likes it.

Exactly, and that is an incredbily sad thing.

To Andrew’s readers: if you want to help find out more about this, please send me an e-mail.

“Safin Dizai, a senior official from the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and a close aide to Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani,” said that “Turkish tanks would not be allowed to cross into northern Iraq.”

Dizai pointed to the ongoing domestic debates in Turkey about a possible cross-border operation to crack down on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) camps based in northern Iraq in the face of ongoing attacks inside the country.

“The people of Kurdistan will not remain spectators to the crossing of Turkish tanks and panzers into Kirkuk,” he was quoted as saying by the Doğan News Agency (DHA), which took excerpts from statements made by the Iraqi Kurdish official to Kurdish-broadcasting Web site “Nefel.”

Sadly for the Kurds, the Turkish military believes that a military operation is necessary: there are five PKK camps in Northern Iraq, from which the PKK launches attacks against Turks. Of course there was the terrorist in Ankara recently as well. The PKK has already killed more than 30,000 Turks.

Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gül, meanwhile, had a telephone conversation with Condi Rice, in which he told the latter that “the Turkish public was running out of patience due to the ongoing attacks in eastern Turkey.” He also urged Washington “to take urgent and effective measures to stop terrorist infiltrations from northern Iraq.”

Rice “did not touch upon the likelihood of a military incursion into northern Iraq by the Turkish army,” she did say, however, that the US is on Turkey’s side in the war on terrorism and she assured Gül “that Washington would increase cooperation with Turkey in that respect.” She also “expressed the U.S. administration’s dismay stemming from the killings of many civilians and soldiers in clashes with the PKK.”

Gül said that he didn’t talk with Rice about a possible cross-border operation in Northern Iraq. Of course “Washington has warned Ankara against a cross-border operation in northern Iraq, wary that such a move may destabilize a relatively peaceful region in the conflict-torn country and fuel tensions between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds.”

Turkey is a member of NATO, the Kurds support the US and live in a “relatively peaceful region” of the mess frequently referred to as Iraq. In other words: a lose-lose situation.

It will be interesting to see how the US will respond if Turkey invades northern Iraq. My guess is that the US will object pro forma. There will be a condemnation, because Washington does not want to lose the support of the Kurds, but Turkey will be given all the time and room she needs to destroy the PKK camps.

This is probably the best thing for the US to do: that, and doing something about the PKK problem herself.

The Sunday Times reports:

NEW anti-terrorism laws are to be pushed through before Tony Blair leaves office giving “wartime” powers to the police to stop and question people.

John Reid, the home secretary, who is also quitting next month, intends to extend Northern Ireland’s draconian police powers to interrogate individuals about who they are, where they have been and where they are going.

Under the new laws, police will not need to suspect that a crime has taken place and can use the power to gain information about “matters relevant” to terror investigations.

If suspects fail to stop or refuse to answer questions, they could be charged with a criminal offence and fined up to £5,000. Police already have the power to stop and search people but they have no right to ask for their identity and movements.

No general police power to stop and question has ever been introduced in mainland Britain except during wartime.

Civil liberties campaigners last night branded the proposed measures “one of the most significant moves on civil liberties since the second world war”.

Ironically, the stop and question power is soon to be repealed in Northern Ireland as part of the peace agreement. Home Office officials admitted, however, that the final wording of the new power to stop and question in the rest of the UK might have to include a requirement for reasonable suspicion.

Blair, meanwhile, criticized judges for “emasculating his antiterrorism legislation.” In an article for The Sunday Times, “he condemns those who say ‘civil liberties come first’ before the security of the population. “I believe this is a dangerous misjudgment,” writes Blair.

A major misjudgement? In the socialist’s view perhaps, not in my opinion. It seems to me that civil liberties always come first: the biggest danger to the individual is the government. A government that thinks it should protect its people by ignoring civil liberties is one dangerous government. That is exactly how totalitarian governments came into existence: slowly but surely they destroyed all civil liberties, until none were left.

And this is exactly why we can’t have socialists fighting the war on terrorism. At the moment socialists are in power, they will destroy everything that made Western Europe great. Freedom from random government intrusion is, in reality, an English invention.

Magna Carta anyone?

Will the British let this happen?

Here is Tony Blair’s column. Go and read it. Blair writes:

We should remember that consistently over the past few years, and even after July 7, attempts to introduce stronger powers have been knocked back in parliament and in the courts.

And mostly they are good decisions Tony. You might not care much about the freedom your ancestors fought so hard to achieve, but others do. The war on terrorism is a very real war, and one we will be in for decades. We cannot give any government powers like you want for a period of, say, 50 years. If we do that, we can bet that we will never get our freedom back.

After 20 or 30 or 50 years, does one actually believe that, in this case the British government will say “ok, great, we won the war on terror, here are your civil liberties back”?

More:

As for British nationals who pose a threat to us, we need to be able to monitor them carefully and limit their activities. It is true that the police and security services can engage in surveillance in any event. But this is incredibly time-consuming and expensive, and even with the huge investment we have made since 2001, they simply cannot do it for all suspects. Over the past five or six years, we have decided as a country that except in the most limited of ways, the threat to our public safety does not justify changing radically the legal basis on which we confront this extremism.

Their right to traditional civil liberties comes first. I believe this is a dangerous misjudgment. This extremism, operating the world over, is not like anything we have faced before. It needs to be confronted with every means at our disposal. Tougher laws in themselves help, but just as crucial is the signal they send out: that Britain is an inhospitable place to practise this extremism.

Of course you believe that the community comes first, that’s because you’re a socialist. Traditional liberals like myself believe that society as a whole is served best (in the long run) if we put the individual first. Socialists don’t, they believe that, if considered necessary or useful, the individual should be sacrificed to serve the (interest of the) community.

See the Soviet Union for evidence.

Lastly, Blair’s conclusion:

This extremism can be defeated. But it will be defeated only by recognising that we have not created it; it cannot be negotiated with; pandering to its sense of grievance will only encourage it; and only by confronting it, the methods and the ideas, will we win.

I agree completely and that means that we have to be ourselves, that we should not give up our freedom, that we should act out of conviction and passion for liberty, not out of fear. This means that we have to fight this war as liberal democracies: it would be terribly ironic if we surrender our rights, our civil liberties, in a war meant to protect those very same liberties.

To the British: Blair wants to take your civil liberties away, it is that simple. He openly admits it in this column.

Perhaps time to vote Labor out of power?

Betsy Pitsik reports for the Washington Times:

The U.N. agency that oversees the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, the scene of three days of battles between Lebanese troops and Muslim militants, said yesterday it had been aware for months that heavily armed foreigners were moving into the Palestinian enclave but were helpless to stop them.

The extremists of Fatah Islam, who local reports say hail from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Bangladesh, apparently entered the camp, just north of Tripoli, several months ago. They are thought to have arrived in a group, not individually.

Officials of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) could not say how a large band of foreigners carrying what has been described as mortars, rockets, explosive belts and other heavy weapons were able get past the Lebanese army soldiers stationed outside the camp.

They also could not explain why militias of young Palestinian men who provide security and gather intelligence throughout Nahr el-Bared and other Palestinian areas allowed foreign fighters to settle there.

Ed Morrissey, writing at Heading Right, rightfully concludes that “the UN once again shows itself to be useless when it comes to fighting international terrorism.”

I agree with Ed, even if providing security isn’t the responsibility of the UNRWA it should have, at least, informed the Lebanese government and other governments (about the infiltration of the camp by heavily armed foreigners). If governments would have been informed, and if they were allowed to take action, perhaps the current mess could have been avoided.

Pajamas Media reports that Iraqi authorities said that “the leader of al-Qaeda’s political front organization the Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, was killed in the Ghazaliya district in western Baghdad this morning.”

The US army declined to comment thusfar, but U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver did say that ‘a news conference would be held later on Thursday to announce the “success” of an operation against al Qaeda. He stressed that the topic would not be Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.”’

I can just repeat / summarize what I wrote when rumor had it that al-Masri was killed: it would be an important strike, it would once again signal / prove that no Al Qaeda member, not even the most important terrorist leaders, are safe: they can be hit, they can be killed, no matter who they are. However, al-Baghdadi will simply be replaced by someone else. Today’s terrorist organizations and especially Al Qaeda are not dependenton one or or even five people. Every single Al Qaeda member is replaceable.

UPDATE
H/t Elrod: the Washington Post has an article up about this as well: it was not al-Baghdadi who was killed, it was Muharib Abdul Latif al-Jabouri a “senior al-Qaeda in Iraq leader who helped orchestrate the kidnappings of American journalist Jill Carroll and Virginia peace activist Tom Fox.”

In a way, this might be more important:

Jabouri was identified as al-Qaeda in Iraq’s senior information minister, responsible for crafting propaganda efforts and coordinating the flow of money and foreign fighters.

Leaders can easily be replaced, or so it seems, but what about those who coordinate the flow of money and are in charge of propaganda? Strangely, sometimes, it is more difficult to replace people like that than the true leaders.