Via
Related: “Suddenly, just after 2 p.m., the crowd was startled as militants near the hospital fired a missile… “

A real journalist manages to crash a State Department press conference.

Good riddance.

Jabari is the most senior Hamas official to be killed since an Israeli invasion of Gaza four years ago. He has long topped Israel’s most-wanted list.
Jabari, a relative of one of the founders of Hamas, Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, was responsible for the attack on Kerem Shalom, when IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped and two other soldiers killed. Jabari was in charge of negotiations during Shalit’s five years in captivity.

Related: Awaiting Rabble’s declaration of a day of mourning.
Update! Video here.

The Brits finally got him on the plane.

The five have sought to avoid extradition by raising concerns about human rights and the conditions they would face in a U.S. prison.

Here’s hoping.

Ezra has set up a fund for you to contribute to to send Sgt. Speers’ children to college. Please think about giving what you can.

You know, that phrase rings a bell…

It remains an open question whether the administration was intentionally misleading the public so as to avoid the appearance of an administration failure, or was simply making things up without pinning down the facts (what the Democrats accused Romney of doing). Lake quotes a retired CIA official as saying: “I think this is a case of an administration saying what they wished to be true before waiting for all the facts to come in.” That’s the most generous take on what happened.

Of course, on the first 9/11, there was a Republican in the White House.

There is, as always, a media scandal here, a deliberate effort, conservatives believe, to construct narratives that favor the president. But that is small potatoes compared with the mounting evidence of a scandal in the Obama administration. If the administration was negligent in planning, convinced of its own spin (the war on terror is over!) and politicized national security to aid the president’s reelection campaign, that is all a big deal. In any event, it should make for an interesting foreign policy presidential debate.

Related from James Taranto;

What message does the ad actually send the Mohammed Tariq Khans? On the one hand, a message of weakness: Assemble a big enough mob, kill enough people, burn enough flags and churches, and you too can grab the attention of the most powerful man and woman in the world. On the other hand, a taunt. If Obama and Mrs. Clinton really mean it, the Khans must think, why haven’t they presented the video makers for public mincing? The State Department’s ad contains no answer to that crucial question.

Reuters;

Sunbathing and drinking at bars, men and women lived in a bubble on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. They refused to believe their country was collapsing into chaos. Until now.

More…

CIA is racing to find Syria’s chemical and biological weapons before it’s too late.

Saddam’s too.
Via Drudge

Approvingly.

h/t marc in calgary

Watch for this story to go away now: The individual at the center of the controversial Trayvon Martin shooting is a registered Democrat.

Michael Totten interviews Andrew Tabler.

MJT: There’s a whole chapter in your book about you and bunch of other journalists at a Syrian government conference.
Andrew Tabler: [Laughs.]
MJT: Writing about something like that would normally be a thundering bore, but this was fascinating. The authorities did everything in their power to make sure nobody understood anything or left the conference with any information whatsoever. Why do you suppose they spent so much time and effort making themselves all but impossible for mere mortals to understand?
Andrew Tabler: One of the ways the Syrian government defends itself is by obscuring everything that happens inside the country. Right now there’s a huge question about whether or not to intervene. The government can dispute whatever argument pro-interventionists have. This isn’t unusual for these kinds of regimes. Assad is a master at manipulating the press. Often times hardly anyone is even paying attention to Syria, though that’s changed now. At the time they could snow job us, but now it’s a lot harder, especially when so much violence is being captured on YouTube.

WaPo, February 21st, 2012;

Even as a significant percentage of Americans falsely believe Obama is Muslim, the president has spoken of his Christian faith with increasing fervor during his three years in the White House.

Via NRO, February 22nd, 2012;

It was just revealed two days ago that FBI Director Mueller secretly met on February 8 at FBI headquarters with a coalition of groups including various Islamist and militant Arabic groups who in the past have defended Hamas and Hizballah and have also issued blatantly anti-Semitic statements. At this meeting, the FBI revealed that it had removed more than 1000 presentations and curricula on Islam from FBI offices around the country that was deemed “offensive.” The FBI did not reveal what criteria was used to determine why material was considered “offensive” but knowledgeable law enforcement sources have told the IPT that it was these radical groups who made that determination.

A whole lot has been going on behind the scenes in the aftermath of last year’s riot in Vancouver, including but not limited to the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) utilizing a special Homeland Security facility in Indianapolis. In this video, David Berner interviews the VPD’s Howard Chow:

Arab SPRING! – Libyan militia accused of torturing to death ambassador to France (h/t Adrian)

Caroline Glick;

CONTRARY TO what several leading commentators have argued since the onset of the Syrian popular rebellion against Assad, Hamas has not been seriously damaged by the events. True, its leaders are looking for a new place to station their headquarters. But there is no law that requires terrorist organizations to have one central office. The families of Hamas’s leadership have decamped to Jordan. Hamas leaders have close relations with the Qataris – who remain major funders – as well as with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the Sudanese regime.
In addition to these state supporters, through its relations with Turkey and Fatah, Hamas has Washington as well. To understand how Washington acts as Hamas’s protector, it is necessary to consider not only the corrosive impact of Washington’s relations with Turkey, but also the nature of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

h/t Adrian

The turnover of Iraq to Iran continues apace;

A wave of bombings ripped across Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing at least 63 people and injuring almost 200 in the worst violence Iraq has seen for months. The bloodbath comes just days after American forces left the country.
The blasts also came on the heels of a political crisis between Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite factions that erupted this weekend.
The political spat has raised fears that Iraq’s sectarian wounds will be reopened during a fragile time when Iraq is finally navigating its own political future without U.S. military support.

Is there nothing that Obama can’t do?

Telegraph;

At least two people have been killed and up to 47 others wounded when up to four grenades exploded outside the main courthouse in the eastern Belgian city of Liege.

Via Drudge

Related – Microphones accidently left on after G20 meeting pick up private conversation between US, French presidents.

h/t Adrian

From an editorial in the very conservative Washington Times:

…
Precedent always makes policy, but this is both a dangerous precedent and bad policy. The memo may attempt to explain how this utilitarian argument for assassination overawes constitutional guarantees of due process, but so long as the report remains locked away in the White House, we may never know…[via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs]

Then Richard Cohen in the Washington Post (not as liberal a paper as some might think, compare to the Gray Lady editorially) :

…
The Justice Department memo and its acknowledgment of Awlaki’s citizenship are ample proof that the Obama administration realized it was crossing a line. But it did so on the sneak — a memo, still secret, written by two lawyers you and I never heard of…

Otherwise:
1) Bush tortures foreigners;
2) Obama kills an American.
Go figure. Very nasty things may sometimes be needed for raison d’État. But one then keeps them covert when they may offend commonly accepted legal, and other, principles–instead of effectively boasting of them.

Take that, troofers!