While the media has moved into full-bore news recycling [note to editors – new pictures of the same scandal does not a “broadening” story make];
Chechen president assassinated

The Kremlin-backed president of Chechnya was killed Sunday when an explosion ripped through a packed stadium during Victory Day observances in Grozny.
The head of Chechnya’s state council, the region’s finance minister and a journalist working for the Reuters news agency were also among the dead.
Several dignitaries were in the crowd for ceremonies to mark the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
The top Russian commander in the region, Col.-Gen. Valery Baranov, was badly wounded. It’s reported he lost one of his legs in the explosion.

Kadyrov had been part of the separatist war against Russia in the 1990’s before recognizing his cause was being taken over by Islamists. He was being credited for helping erode public support for the movement.
While the abuses at Abu Ghraib are a public relations win for Islamism, this is a strategic and military one.
I predict it will be treated like any of the other news “blips” out there this morning. A day or two will pass, and we’ll hear nothing more until another blast goes off in another remote part of somewhere we know nothing about. A body count, some background history and then, back to analysis of naked detainee photos.

In what is beginning to seem like a weekly occurance, another Jewish cemetery is desecrated.

Police do not believe the overnight vandalism is linked to the recent fire-bombing of a Montreal- area Jewish elementary school.

Well, that may help explain why these crimes remain unsolved.

Richard Clarke has a piece in the New York Times for those who would like further insight into why he was demoted by the Bush Administration. He offers that Islamic terrorism is a battle “chiefly of ideas”, while admitting “I do not pretend to know the formula for winning that ideological war.” Two decades in counter-terrorism, and 21/2 years after 9-11, and that’s the best he can offer? Not that it holds him back from criticizing the formula now under trial. After dismissing a liberal western style media and democracy “at the end of an American bayonnet” , he regrets the fall of the shah of Iran.

We must also be careful, while advocating democracy in the region, that we do not undermine the existing regimes without having a game plan for what should follow them and how to get there. The lesson of President Jimmy Carter’s abandonment of the shah of Iran in 1979 should be a warning.

In practical terms – an American invasion of Iran and dictatorship at the end of an American bayonnet.

Other parts of the war of ideas include making real progress on the Israel-Palestinian issue, while safe-guarding Israeli security, and finding ideological and religious counter-weights to Osama bin Laden and the radical imams. Fashioning a comprehensive strategy to win the battle of ideas should be given as much attention as any other aspect of the war on terrorists, or else we will fight this war for the foreseeable future.

Strange that no one’s noticed that Israeli-Palestinian thing before now. This is what they paid him the big bucks for.

The second major lesson of the last month of controversy is that the organizations entrusted with law enforcement and intelligence in the United States had not fully accepted the gravity of the threat prior to 9/11. Because this is now so clear, there will be a tendency to overemphasize organizational fixes.

His next six paragraphs are devoted to organizational fixes.
And Richard Clarke’s ultimate solution for militant Islam? Public discourse.

We all want to defeat the jihadists. To do that, we need to encourage an active, critical and analytical debate in America about how that will best be done. And if there is another major terrorist attack in this country, we must not panic or stifle debate as we did for too long after 9/11.

There you have it. While the enemy straps on their suicide belts, hijacks airplanes and calls for the destruction of Israel, we must all gather round and debate one another.
(Oh, in a non-partisan way. He was careful to mention that.)
Cross posted at The Shotgun

Condi Rice’s opening statement is here.
(CTV is running their usual morning show, talking movie reviews at the moment. CBC has cartoons on. CKOM talkradio is interviewing someone about the Masters.)
Michelle at the Command Post is blogging the Q&A session live.
If there has been any doubt about the partisanship involved in the 911 commission, note this comment from Michelle about Bob Kerrey’s [D] questioning… about the Cole bombing.

“I’m trying very hard not to interject opinion into this, but Kerrey has some pair to try to blame the Bush admin for not responding to the Cole bombing. Like this guy, I notice that Condi did not retort by brining up the obvious that THE COLE BOMBING HAPPENED DURING THE CLINTON ADMIN!”

“This guy” is Powerline Blog – also following the action. (Actually, more comprehensively)
Update – The Command Post now has actual transcripts
In contrast to some of the angst at Powerline, John Gormley, a conservative local Canadian talk show host just mentioned he’s been watching the testimony and thinks she’s handling the questioning extremely well. Not an unbiased oberserver, but a little more detached than her nervous supporters in the US.

Anne Mclellan – Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness – was interviewed on CBC Radio this morning. She was invited to respond to the criticisms of the Auditor General on glaring failures and gaps in homeland security, and the continuing problems with lack of integration between security and intelligence agencies.

“Appreciate the question … challenges … new committee … my department … same in Britain … as we saw in the US … challenges… lessons learned … bring cultures together …. challenging problems … God forbid … another 911 … challenging … accountable … my department …. as we saw in Madrid … challenges … lessons learned … “

We’re all going to die.

The suspect arrested Monday in Ottawa is now reported to be linked to the British bombing plot.

Mohammad Momin Khawaja, a Canadian government computer specialist, was held in Ottawa on Monday.
He was later accused of involvement in terrorist activity around the London area.
Early on Tuesday morning 700 British police raided 24 addresses in the South East of England, arrested eight young men and recovered half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertiliser – favoured by terrorists for manufacturing bombs.
Late last night police were granted another three days to question the suspects, meaning they can be detained under the Terrorism Act until Saturday afternoon.
It was also disclosed that a number of the eight – all British citizens mainly of Pakistani descent – had attended al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
Canadian suspect Khawaja, 29, was arrested at the Foreign Ministry offices where he worked.

Yesterday his father, Mahboob Khawaja, a university prof living in Saudi Arabia, called the raids in Canada and London “a hoax to create embarrassment”. Today the Saudis detained him, too..