But, first he has to dress up as a girl.

Keeping score.

Real Clear Politics;

On May 17th, Sandy Berger, President Bill Clinton’s National Security Adviser, voluntarily gave up his law license and with it the right to practice law. That is a stunning move for an accomplished lawyer, one of the nation’s most influential public officials. Someone should take note. In fact, everyone should.
Berger previously entered a deal with the Department of Justice after he was caught stealing and destroying highly sensitive classified material regarding the Clinton Administration’s handling of terrorism issues. That deal allowed him to avoid jail time, pay a modest fine, and keep his law license. It also allowed him to avoid full explanation of what he had taken and why he had taken it.
What information was worth risking his reputation, his career, and his freedom to keep hidden? And who was he risking that for?
Recently, the Board of the DC Bar, which had granted Berger his license, began asking those questions. There was only one way to stop that investigation, to keep from answering questions about what he did and why he did it, to keep the Bar from questioning his colleagues in the Clinton Administration about what had been in the documents Berger destroyed.

It’s astonishing – even given the overwhelming liberal-left bias of the American media – that the Plame non-crime received so much attention, and this much more serious scandal so little. Read the whole thing.

In the future, just shoot them – while you still have the chance.
In the comments reader DThomas takes disagrees: “I think a child brought up by a terrorist should not be blamed for the situation he is in.”
If they’re old enough to pick up a grenade – they’re old enough to take a bullet.

WNBC.COM

According to NewsChannel4’s Jonathan Dienst, sources said federal investigators have made arrests in an alleged terror plot on Kennedy Airport. Four people have been charged. One is in custody in New York. Three suspects in total are in custody. One is still at large.
According to sources, the suspects have been identified as: Russell Defreitas, Abdul Nur, Kareem Ibrihim and Abdul Kadir.
[…]
Sources said the plot involved a plan to blow up a jet-fuel pipeline at JFK setting off a potential massive explosion.

A related development –

A newly released inspector general report backs eyewitness accounts of suspicious behavior by 13 Middle Eastern men on a Northwest Airlines flight in 2004 […] a background check in the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database, which was performed June 18 as part of a visa-extension application, produced “positive hits” for past criminal records or suspicious behavior for eight of the 12 Syrians, who were traveling in the U.S. as a musical group.
In addition, the band’s promoter was listed in a separate FBI database on case investigations for acting suspiciously aboard a flight months earlier.

(Background here for those not familiar with the incident.)

Now online;

The Global Terrorism Database developed by START, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism based at the University of Maryland, with funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Available online: http://www.start.umd.edu/data/gtd/.
The database, five years in the making, includes 80,000 terror incidents from 1970 through 2004. START plans to update the database through 2007 within the next 12 months. The Internet site is designed to be as user friendly as possible. Each attack is coded on more than 100 variables to aid in the identification and explanation of trends in domestic and international terrorism.
“This is a powerful new weapon in the hands of researchers and policy-makers who must respond to the threat of terrorism,” says Gary LaFree, director of START, a University of Maryland professor and a criminologist by training. “We’re not just counting up the number of attacks. We’re looking at a long list of specific details, as well as social and economic considerations that may help us understand the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of terrorism. This can especially help counterterrorism experts and researchers improve their understanding of violent radical groups and movements, and to predict the nature of future incidents.”

Cool tool for a few bloggers I can think of, too.

Backign up earlier commentary by MIchael Yon, more good news from the heart of the Sunni insurgency;

The level of violence has plummeted in recent weeks. An alliance of U.S. troops and local tribes has been very effective in moving against the al-Qaeda foreign fighters. A senior U.S. military official told me—confirming reports from several other sources—that there have been “a couple of days recently during which there were zero effective attacks and less than 10 attacks overall in the province (keep in mind that an attack can be as little as one round fired). This is a result of sheiks stepping up and opposing AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq] and volunteering their young men to serve in the police and army units there.” The success in Anbar has led sheiks in at least two other Sunni-dominated provinces, Nineveh and Salahaddin, to ask for similar alliances against the foreign fighters.

In Time magazine, of all places.

But let the guns do the talking;

The Taliban’s much-vaunted spring offensive has stalled apparently due to lack of organisation after dozens of middle-ranking commanders were killed by British troops in the past year, according to military sources.
The death last week of the key Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah at the hands of American special forces has harmed the Taliban’s morale to the point that local commanders are having to tell their troops to “remain professional” despite the loss.
After suffering more than 1,000 dead in battles with the Parachute Regiment and Royal Marines in the last year, the Taliban retired to regroup and re-equip last winter.
A spring offensive was ordered by the Taliban leadership based in Quetta, Pakistan, and was meant to be launched in late March.
But a lack of mid-level commanders has meant that there has been little co-ordination to bring about the offensive.
“They are getting strategic guidance from Quetta but this is not translating on the ground,” a military source said.
“It’s a bit premature to discuss the Taliban as a spent force. I believe that they are struggling but still maintain a capability to carry out attacks on a daily basis. But I would suggest in the long term the Taliban may just peter out.”

Very good – may they “negotiate” them to the last man.
Though, expect our own Taliban Jack to be displeased about this setback for a “failing and futile mission”;

Afghanistan’s most famous woman MP has been thrown out of the country’s parliament for saying that her fellow parliamentarians are less competent than farmyard animals.

That’s right – she wasn’t dragged into a soccer stadium and shot.

By the way, what happened to the UN in all of this? Nahr el-Bared is a UN refugee camp, and they’re supposed to keep the inhabitants disarmed.

Always finish up with the fertilizer.
(h/t Maz2)

“And no Western media noticed?”
Business as usual, I’d say.

Pierre Legrand;

Fighting terror with a Law Enforcement Model – who knew we got stupid again?
Here we are again with the FBI trying to fit a law enforcement model over a terror war. In New Jersey the FBI admits that they know of 4 other “accomplices” who were seen in the company of the 6 already arrested but that they don’t have enough evidence to arrest them. Haven’t we been here before?”

Related questions;

Why would Albanian-speaking Muslim refugees from the Balkans try to murder American soldiers? After all, the United States — not bin Laden’s rag-tag jihadists — saved Bosnia and Kosovo? And we did that by bombing the capital of a Christian European nation.
But then, why did a mixed-up Albanian Muslim in Salt Lake City, one Sulejman Talovic, go on a shopping-mall shooting spree? Five innocents were killed in the attack before the murderer himself was shot and killed.
And why, after pouring billions of dollars into Afghanistan, did poor, mixed-up Omeed Aziz Popal, an Afghan Muslim, try to run over several innocents in San Francisco near a Jewish center in September 2006?
Or, for that matter, why did an angry Muslim Pakistani gun down Jews in Seattle?
Or, again, why earlier last year, did a 22-year-old Iranian-American Muslim drive his sport utility vehicle into a crowded pedestrian zone at the University of North Carolina?

(Both links are lengthy, and I’ve quoted just the intros.)

Ed Morrissey on today’s FBI arrests of al-Qaeda wanna-bes in New Jersey;

In what seems a familiar move among al-Qaeda jihadis, they had videotaped their training as well as angry statements denouncing America. And, in what seems like familiar stupidity among tri-state jihadis, they brought the film to a retail store to get it made into DVDs. This recalls the idiot who tried to get his deposit back on the Ryder rental truck used to blow up the World Trade Center garage in 1993. That allowed the FBI to track down the terrorist cell that executed the attack.

This AP account provides the type of detail we don’t often get from a media ordinarily mired in “broad strata” whitewash;

The three brothers owned a roofing business, and the women in the ethnic Albanian family wore head scarves. They kept farm animals in the backyard until others in the neighborhood of tidy two-story houses complained, Levine said.
Authorities say the brothers’ unremarkable blue-collar lives belied the mayhem they allegedly planned to unleash with others in a plot to kill hundreds of soldiers at Fort Dix. They and three other foreign-born Muslims living in the area were arrested Monday night.
[…]
Also arrested were Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 22, of Cherry Hill; Serdar Tatar, 23, of Philadelphia; and Agron Abdullahu, 24, of Buena Vista Township. Shnewer and Tatar were charged in the alleged plot; Abdullah was charged with aiding and abetting the Duka brothers’ illegal possession of weapons.
The Duka brothers were born in the former Yugoslavia and residing illegally in the U.S. Shnewer, a native of Jordan; Tatar, a native of Turkey; and Abdullahu, who was born in the former Yugoslavia, are legal residents.
Dritan and Shain Duka once owned a pizza shop in Turnersville, N.J., about 35 miles from Fort Dix. They sold it in June 2005 to Tony Giordano, who now operates it as Tony Soprano’s Pizza, Giordano said. He said it was “a filthy rat trap” before he remodeled it.
“I had a brief encounter with” Dritan Duka, who goes by Tony, Giordano said. “They weren’t the friendliest people, but then again, who would know something like that?”
Levine recalled seeing some of the Dukas shooting paintballs at trees in their front yard, an incident that seemed harmless at the time. Authorities say the group spoke of playing paintball as a training exercise for the attack.
Shnewer, a cab driver in Philadelphia who comes across in the criminal complaint as the group’s dominant figure, lived just a few miles away.
Neighbors there said four or five families appeared to be living in the house and there were frequent visitors, but they did not mingle with their neighbors.
“They kept to themselves,” said Don Bauer, 40, who lives across the street.

By way of comparison, a decidedly “or so the FBI alleges” CBC account.

A Hugh Hewitt interview with Fred Kagan;

HH: You come back from Iraq, you see these changes, you talk with it, and then you hear Harry Reid declare the war is lost. What was your reaction upon hearing that, Frederick Kagan?
FK: It’s very disappointing. I think a lot of people, there is a lot of hyperbole, there’s a lot of exaggeration, and we really need to look this squarely in the eye, and recognize that most wars, you don’t know who’s going to win until the end. And there’s been, there were rosy optimistic scenarios from the Bush administration early on, and declarations of victory that were mistaken, and now you’ve got Democratic opponents of the war rushing to say that the war’s lost, and that it’s hopeless. And the facts on the ground just don’t support that. The war isn’t lost. We certainly can still win, and it’s really very disappointing to hear the Senator majority leader just throw up his hands like that.
HH: One of the things I read in Max Boot’s piece, which I had not realized, is that the Iraqi special forces are operating along with our special forces at night in recon type situations, and are devastating the bad guys. That’s a change of significance.
FK: There have been a lot of changes along those lines. Iraqi forces at all levels are fighting in a very determined fashion. And even sometimes Iraqi local police, which no one has put any stock in, but a former cadet of mine who is now up in Salahaddin Province north of Baghdad, told me a story about the Iraqi local police who were engaged by a bunch of al Qaeda fighters who thought they would just drive through a checkpoint, and the local police shot them up, drove them off, and seized one of their cars. It was amazing. These Iraqi soldiers, both special forces even down to some of the local police guys, are fighting hard, putting their lives on the line, taking casualties and killing the enemy.

And a photo essay from Michael Yon;

The latest group of professional soldiers I had the honor of accompanying was the 1-4 Cavalry from Fort Riley, Kansas. They opened their doors in Baghdad and wanted me to tell the people at home the good, the bad and the ugly. They didn’t hold back; they provided plenty of all three. In one neighborhood where residents have been subject to a methodical slaughter, our people found an abandoned Christian college that had already proved itself the proverbial island in the storm.

Another installment by Michael Totten, with the Iraqi Police in Kirkuk;

“If America pulls out of Iraq, they will fail in Afghanistan,” Mam Rostam said.
Hardly anyone in Congress seems to consider that the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan might become much more severe if similar tactics are proven effective in Iraq.
“And they will fail with Iran,” he continued. “They will fail everywhere with all Eastern countries. The war between America and the terrorists will move from Iraq and Afghanistan to America itself. Do you think America will do that? The terrorists gather their agents in Afghanistan and Iraq and fight the Americans here. If you pull back, the terrorists will follow you there. They will try, at least. Then Iran will be the power in the Middle East. Iran is the biggest supporter of terrorism. They support Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Ansar Al Islam. You know what Iran will do with those elements if America goes away.”

Ray Robinson;

While researching for our new eBook Both In One Trench we realized that there seems to be a confluence of prominent terrorists emanating from Kuwait after it was occupied by Saddam’s armies. Many of these men are of Palestinian ethnicity. The Palestinians living in Kuwait had favored Saddam because he was a prominent proponent of the Palestinian cause. Their allegiance to Saddam was so thorough that the Kuwaiti government kicked out its Palestinian population after liberation because they collaborated with Saddam. Saddam’s support of Palestinian terrorism is incontrovertible.
A large number of these Palestinians, over a hundred thousand, made their way to Jordan where they began to radicalize the moderate Jordanian population. One of these Palestinians – part of the Palestinian migration from Kuwait which has been termed the “returnees from Kuwait” – was Sheik Abu-Mohammed al-Maqdisi (or Isam Mohammad Taher al-Barqawi). He would later become a major al Qaeda leader.

Good question. Ken Timmerman;

The announcement Wednesday by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that his government would release the 15 captured British sailors and marines came after an intense and often bitter internal debate, sources in Tehran told NewsMax.
The capture of the British naval inspection team was clearly a coordinated effort by the Iranian government aimed at demonstrating Iran’s ability to confront the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq and to divert international attention from the nuclear showdown. The decision to release the hostages showed the limits of Iran’s power and the fears of some leaders that too much provocation could backfire.
[…]
Khamenei’s top advisers argued that by striking out against a U.S. ally in Iraq, they would be sending a message to other European nations to step back from supporting the U.S. strategy of increasing pressure on Iran over its nuclear program. They saw the move as a clear test of Western resolve.
But as Britain refused to apologize for the behavior of its boarding party, continuing to insist that they were operating in Iraqi waters – not inside Iran’s territorial waters, as Tehran alleged – some of Khamenei’s advisers began to have second thoughts.
Adding to those doubts were reports that the USS Nimitz was steaming toward the Persian Gulf – making it the third Carrier Strike Group in the area.

Victor Davis Hanson, on the popular theory that Iran was looking for a shooting war;

What should we make of the Iranians’ behavior?
Namely that the country’s leadership is in deep political trouble. The Iranian government is desperate to provoke the West to win back friends in the Islamic world, and to quell growing unrest at home. Subsidizing food and gas, providing billions for terrorists and building nukes all cost money at a time when the state-run Iranian economy is in shambles.
Because of incompetence in their oil industry, the Iranian mullahs have achieved the impossible: Despite having among the world’s largest petroleum reserves, their production is shrinking and they have managed to earn increasingly less petrodollars even as the world price has soared.

Robert Mayer thinks it was an exercise in image rehabilitation. “See? These Holocaust deniers aren’t such bad guys, after all.”

There is no way to know what the now-released British sailors will say once they’ve been debriefed. But one thing is certain — they will be the most sought after people in the media. Iran knows this. Do not be surprised if they tell all of Britain that they were not tortured, forced to confess, and kept in a jail cell. Do not be surprised if they tell us that they were treated with respect, fed well, and allowed to play games. Do not be surprised if they say that they freely confessed to crossing into Iranian territorial waters after being told that there is no clear agreement specifying the border. And last, do not be surprised if they think that Ahmadinejad is a pretty swell guy after they met with him.

A few informed opinions to chew on.

SundayTimes (UK)

First, the attackers threw a grenade to stop the minibus. Then they shot dead the passengers, one by one. Only the driver survived. The executioners heard him gabbling to Allah for forgiveness, realised he was not a Buddhist and spared him.
After that, communal passions erupted. Crowds of Muslims and Buddhists took to the streets to demand protection. Since the ambush a string of killings claiming victims of both faiths has taken the death toll to more than 2,100.
The insurgency is now the bloodiest conflict in southeast Asia. Yet it is a war of shadows. The militants issue no communi-qués. They have no known leaders. They have made no precise demands. If they are connected to the worldwide network of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates there is no proof.
There is a sense of siege over the hushed towns and quiet fishing villages in the palmy jungles of the far south of Thailand.
[…]
“The coup leaders continue to ask the wrong questions and refuse to take the conflict for what it is — an Islamic insurgency,” said Professor Zachary Abuza of Simmons College, Boston, the leading foreign expert on the struggle. “Many Thais think it’s only about poverty and social justice,” he added.
Abuza says that two well established separatist groups, the National Revolutionary Front and the Pattani Islamic Mujaheddin Movement, are the prime movers.
Intelligence officers from Thailand and its allies are not wholly convinced. Interrogations have produced stories of tall, hooded terrorist trainers who are not Thai. Eavesdroppers have picked up radio chatter in Indonesian.

This comment from Mel Welch, Minneaplis, (in the comments below the article);

As [earlier commentor] Usman Ali illustrates, there will always be a valid justification for Islamic violence against anyone (oh, except civilians, of course, though if they’re infidel civilians it will be alright) – a right to an insurgency, though no palpable enemy or oppressor is visible. The very existence of non-Islamic ideology presents a credible threat to the oppressive Islamic Theo-tyranny that would rule your thoughts and your actions.
It is an insult and disingenous article that the Times would call this murderous action an “insurgency.” It is what it is – terrorism and murder by a tunnel-visioned worldview that will, when able, convert or kill all opposition.

The leaders of a car-bombing ring responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Iraqis have been captured,

It is noteworthy, though the AP can’t quite bring itself to note it, that the anti-al-Qaeda Sunni insurgents have advanced beyond the Democratic congressional leadership in their thinking.

According to Wired;

After Google recently updated its satellite images of parts of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, much of the region still looked blotchy — the kind of low resolution that persists in coverage of, say, upstate New York. But several small squares (they stand out as off-color patches from 680 miles up) suddenly became as detailed as the images of Manhattan. These sectors happen to be precisely where the US govern­ment has been hunting for bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Turns out, Google gets its images from many of the same satellite companies — DigitalGlobe, TerraMetrics, and others-that provide reconnaissance to US intelligence agencies. And when the CIA requests close-ups of the area around Peshawar in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, Google Earth reaps the benefits (although usually six to 18 months later). This is also why remote parts of Asia went hi-res after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and the Kashmir earthquake in 2005.

h/t