Fire Hydrant of Freedom

Henry Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform met Tuesday to examine "The Role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the Financial Crisis." Alas, Mr. Waxman didn't come to bury Fan and Fred, but to bury the truth.


The two government-sponsored mortgage giants have long maintained they were merely unwitting victims of a financial act of God. That is, while the rest of the market went crazy over subprime and "liar" loans, Fan and Fred claimed to be the grownups of the mortgage market. There they were, the fable goes, quietly underwriting their 80% fixed-rate 30-year mortgages when -- Ka-Pow! -- they were blindsided by the greedy excesses of the subprime lenders who lacked their scruples.

But previously undisclosed internal documents that are now in Mr. Waxman's possession and that we've seen tell a different story. Memos and emails at the highest levels of Fannie and Freddie management in 2004 and 2005 paint a picture of two companies that saw their market share eroded by such products as option-ARMs and interest-only mortgages. The two companies were prepared to walk ever further out on the risk curve to maintain their market position.

The companies understood the risks they were running. But squeezed between the need to meet affordable-housing goals set by HUD and the desire to sustain their growth and profits, they took the leap anyway. As a result, by the middle of this year, the two companies were responsible for some $1.6 trillion worth of subprime credit of one form or another. The answer to Mr. Waxman's question about their role in the crisis, in other words, is that they were central players, if not the central players, in the creation of the housing boom and the credit bust. Mr. Waxman released some of these documents Tuesday but kept others under wraps.

In early 2004, Freddie's executive team was engaged in a heated debate over whether to start acquiring "stated income, stated assets" mortgages. And in April of that year, David Andrukonis, the head of risk management, wrote to his colleagues, "This is not an affordable product, as I understand it, but a product necessary to recapture [market] share. . . . In 1990 we called this product 'dangerous' and eliminated it from the marketplace." Freddie went ahead anyway.

At Tuesday's hearing, both Mr. Waxman and former Fannie CEO Franklin Raines argued that Fan and Fred were following the market, not leading it, as if this was exculpatory. The documents plainly show that people at both Fan and Fred clearly understood that these mortgages were risky, thought many homeowners didn't understand them and that they were putting their business at risk by buying up Alt-A and subprime mortgage-backed securities.

One Fannie Mae document from March 2005 notes dryly, "Although we invest almost exclusively in AAA-rated securities, there is a concern that the rating agencies may not be properly assessing the risk in these securities." But they bought them anyway, both to maintain their market share and to show people like Democrat Barney Frank that they were promoting affordable housing.

By April 2008, according to a document prepared for then-Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd and marked "Confidential -- Highly Restricted," Fannie's $312 billion in Alt-A mortgages represented "12% of single-family credit exposure." This book of business, the document notes, "was originated to maintain relevance in market with customers -- main originators were Countrywide, Lehman, Indymac, Washington Mutual, Amtrust." The first four need no introduction; regulators ordered Ohio-based Amtrust to stop lending two weeks ago.

Remember that one of Fannie's roles was supposed to be to buy up mortgage-backed securities in the secondary market and keep that market "liquid." This was, they always argued, the rationale for their $1 trillion-plus MBS portfolios. By becoming buyers of private-label subprime and Alt-A-backed MBS, they did just that -- they liquified and helped legitimize products that they now claim others irresponsibly sold.

In today's Opinion Journal
 

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Whitewashing Fannie MaePolitical Favors at the FCC

TODAY'S COLUMNIST

Wonder Land: U.S. Says It Will Bail Out Christmas
– Daniel Henninger

COMMENTARY

We Need a Bailout Exit Strategy
– Christopher CoxObama Was Mute on Illinois Corruption
– John FundHow the GOP Should Prepare for a Comeback
– Karl RoveBankruptcy Doesn't Equal Death
– Don boudreauxMr. Raines even suggested that Fan and Fred's regulator was to blame for allowing them to get into trouble. "It is remarkable," he told the committee, "that during the period that Fannie Mae substantially increased its exposure to credit risk its regulator made no visible effort to enforce any limits."

What Mr. Raines failed to mention was that, all along, Fannie and Freddie were spending millions on lobbying to ensure that regulators did not get in their way. As the AP reported Sunday night, Freddie spent $11.7 million in lobbying in 2006 alone, with Newt Gingrich, for example, getting $300,000 that year for talking up the benefits of Freddie's business model. (Apologies welcome, Newt.)

Other Republicans on Freddie's payroll included former Senator Al D'Amato and Congressman Vin Weber, and then House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's former chief of staff, Susan Hirschmann. As we know by now, Fan and Fred tried to buy everybody in town from both political parties, and the companies did it well enough to make themselves immune from regulatory scrutiny.

Mr. Waxman calls it a "myth" that Fannie and Freddie were the originators of the crisis. That's a red herring. Mr. Waxman's documents prove beyond doubt that Fan and Fred turbocharged the housing mania with a taxpayer-backed, Congressionally protected business model that has cost America dearly.

 

The Son Almost Rises

One key political casualty in the fallout from the Blagojevich scandal is likely to be Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who yesterday stepped forward to acknowledge he was "Senate Candidate 5" in the federal criminal complaint against Illinois' governor.

According to federal prosecutors, Mr. Blagojevich told allies that a representative of Candidate 5 had approached him on a "pay to play" basis and offered over $1 million in contributions in exchange for appointing Rep. Jackson as the U.S. Senator replacing Barack Obama.

Mr. Jackson said he had nothing to do with any such offer, although his attorney indicated that it was possible someone in Mr. Jackson's orbit had approached the governor without his consent.

Regardless of what ultimately happens legally, Mr. Jackson has now been captured on tape reading carefully from a prepared statement denying his guilt and then refusing to take questions from reporters on the advice of his attorneys -- hardly a launching platform to political greatness.

Mr. Jackson has been angling for a bigger political stage to play on for years, having frequently clashed with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to the point that he almost challenged him for the office in 2007. Lately, though, the fiery congressman from Chicago's South Side had made peace with the Daley machine and was on track to secure its blessing for a bid for statewide office. At a breakfast held at last fall's Democratic National Convention in Denver, Mr. Jackson effusively hugged Mayor Daley and had to use a tissue to wipe away some tears as he explained the meaning of the reconciliation. "I've been trying to get to know Mayor Daley for 14 years," he told the assembled crowd.

Political reporters interpreted the performance as an obvious attempt to secure Mr. Daley's blessing as the next U.S. Senator from Illinois. It was a good strategy, but it crashed and burned this week as Mr. Jackson was caught up in L'Affaire Blagojevich.

Now, instead of moving to the U.S. Senate, Mr. Jackson faces months of uncertainty as federal prosecutors probe his relationship to the disgraced Illinois governor and the possible indictment of his associates or even himself.

-- John Fund

Kissing the Olympic Rings Goodbye?

Chicago's Olympic committee is holding its breath, hoping that the high-profile drama surrounding Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's arrest on federal corruption charges won't adversely impact the city's bid to win the 2016 Games. Earlier this year, Chicago was announced as one of the four finalists by the IOC along with Tokyo, Madrid, and Rio de Janeiro.

Though generally considered an underdog, most observers believe the election of Barack Obama as president significantly boosted Chicago's chances of becoming only the fourth American city to host the Games (St. Louis hosted in 1904, Los Angeles in 1984, and Atlanta in 1996). Indeed, Mr. Obama wasted no time in putting his new global clout to work on behalf of the Windy City: One of his first acts as President-elect was to tape a video message to IOC members that was submitted along with city's final bid on November 21.

"The United States would be honored to have the opportunity to host the games and serve the Olympic movement," Mr. Obama said in the video. "As president-elect, I see the Olympics and Paralympic Games as an opportunity for our nation to reach out, welcome the world to our shores and strengthen our friendships across the globe."

Olympic officials say Governor Blagojevich hasn't played much of a role in the bidding process thus far, but the Governor did pledge to contribute $150 million in guaranteed state funds as part of Chicago's overall $1.5 billion bid package to the IOC. These financial guarantees are critical to Chicago's chances, since Chicago is the only city among the final four whose financial commitments are not being fully backed by the host country's national government.

Initial reactions suggest that while the Blagojevich scandal is unseemly and not necessarily helpful in the short term, it won't have much impact, if any, on the final outcome. Then again, the IOC won't make the final decision until next October, and in the world of Chicago politics, who knows what could happen by then.

-- Tom Bevan, executive editor of RealClearPolitics.com

Those Tragic Al Franken Voters

Al Franken, the Democratic Senate candidate locked in an acrimonious recount battle with GOP Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, has turned to YouTube.com to make the case that Minnesota officials aren't counting ballots that should be counted.

The Franken campaign released its latest video just before the State Canvassing Board's scheduled meeting on Friday, in an effort to convince the board to count several hundred absentee ballots that Team Franken claims were rejected for specious reasons. The video, which features seven voters who claim their votes should have been counted, is an effective piece of propaganda. As the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports: "In one scene, quadriplegic Mike Brickley of Bloomington is shown lying in bed -- with his head resting on a Minnesota Vikings pillow -- as he pleads with officials to count his vote."

Mr. Brickley tells the camera: "I may be a quadriplegic, but we are still someone, and we deserve to have our votes counted."

The Coleman campaign claims Mr. Brickley had his ballot rejected because officials found he was not registered to vote and that his signature on the absentee ballot didn't match the one used on the application for an absentee ballot. Mr. Brickley maintains he was registered and that his wife had to sign his ballot on his behalf because of his disability.

If Mr. Brickley is indeed registered to vote, I have no doubt a way will be found to have his ballot counted. But his hard-luck case doesn't address the many thousands of absentee ballots rejected for legitimate reasons. With Mr. Coleman holding a lead of between 190 and 300 votes as the recount ends, Mr. Franken has little chance of winning unless he can convince state officials to count a large number of absentee ballots that were originally rejected for not meeting legal requirements. There is precious little evidence that enough such ballots exist to turn the tide.

-- John Fund

Quote of the Day I

"When it comes to Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Dead Meat), many national TV talking heads can't resist playing amateur psychiatrist. 'He's crazy,' said one talking head of our governor. 'A sociopath!' said another. 'He should have been put in a straitjacket, not handcuffs,' said a third, all of them diagnosing Blagojevich as cuckoo. . . .

• ne thing is clear: The pundits who make such diagnoses have never talked to a Chicago machine politician in their lives. How do they think Chicago politicians talk in private when they're muscling some other guy for cash? Like Helen Mirren playing the queen?" -- Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass.

Quote of the Day II

"Idiocy and greed aren't just for Republicans. For every Larry Craig, there's an Eliot Spitzer; for every Ted Stevens, there's a Rod Blagojevich. In our heads, we Democrats know that. It's just that in our hearts, we don't want to believe it. Because we're the good guys, right? But it's precisely when a party achieves power that its members need to start worrying the most about idiocy and greed. . . Gaining political power also corrupts in far more subtle ways. Members of political majorities succumb easily to smugness and complacency, to the conviction that explaining and justifying ideas is no longer necessary, to the temptation to dismiss critics as so many irrelevant cranks. 'Groupthink' is mainly a disease of the powerful and complacent, not the fractious opposition" -- Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks.

The Next Senator from New Yawk?

When Hillary Clinton vacates her Senate seat, there won't be any need for another carpetbagger to fill the spot. Among those applying for the job is Fran Drescher, star of "The Nanny" and a childhood resident of the outer boroughs of New York City. The actress best known for her role as a nasally New Yorker feels she could play that role just as convincingly in the U.S. Senate.

Ms. Drescher's publicist notes that she has been an advocate for women's health, notably the "Cancer Schmancer" movement, encouraging early testing. For that matter, she's also been a public diplomacy envoy for the State Department, a frequent visitor to Capitol Hill to lobby for cancer funding, and a fixture at Democratic conventions and fundraisers. For a celebrity, in other words, she's been far more of a political workhorse than, say, fellow small-screener and loud mouth Al Franken.

The rap on Ms. Drescher, of course, has always been that she's too annoying to listen to. Then again, being known for whining isn't necessarily a liability in politics. As she told People Magazine, her audiences on the lecture circuit have been goading her to get into politics for ages. "It was one of the single most-asked questions: When are you going to run? Only second to: Is that your real voice?"

Why should New York Gov. David Paterson pick her to fill the Hillary seat? "I would hope he would take into consideration that I'm a beloved New Yorker who gets the New York constituents probably as good, if not better, than any of the other people being considered," she told People magazine.

One other potential qualification is that Ms. Drescher was an energetic Hillary supporter in the Democratic primaries. If Mrs. Clinton has a say, the Nanny might be a shoo-in compared to current pollster favorite Caroline Kennedy, who famously stiffed her home-state senator and instead came out for Barack Obama.

-- Collin Levy

Two interesting posts there Rachel.

Turning to the Dating Darwin one, I commend the author for what seems to be a honest search for Truth.

She writes:

"As girls overturn traditional gender roles, boys are forced to do the same, leaving both sexes in scary, unscripted territory. This has, indeed, come as a result of feminist advancements -- but  feminist advancements within a culture that is not yet egalitarian. I think many young women are still in search of an empowered and authentic sexual identity -- a way to be active participants in our sexual culture. Given that they are doing this within a culture than defines sexual power in male terms, , ,"

The word "egalitarian" is a slippery one.  Properly understood, it simply means "equal in value" but in point of fact it is often used to mean "identical in all ways"-- which IMHO is foolishness.

As I see it, the underlying Darwinian question is presented by the interregnum between the onset of puberty and actual childbearing in the modern era.  In many cases, this lasts for decades!!!  The consequences of this separation of sex and reproduction, greatly enabled by technology (the various forms of birth control) and fetus-cide) are as profound as they are outside of Darwinian logic.
IMHO THIS is what drives the dynamic the author seeks to address.

What I sense feminists (even a lucid one such as this author) imply when they use the phrase "traditional gender roles" is that these traditions are simply some sort of arbitrary social construct with oppressive overtones-- one that can be replaced by the "identical in all ways" construct.  Men and women are equal in value, but they most certainly are not the same, and the liberal PC feminazi ideology that says they are ultimately will fail.

A very simple and direct Darwinian example of this is the dramatic decline in birth rates below replacement rates.  I submit the proposition that the more "egalitarian" the culture, the lower the birth rates.  Look at Europe for example.  In many major countries such as Germany, France, and Spain the birth rates are as low as 1.1- 1.4!!!  In contrast, the Muslim birth rates (both Turkish and Arabic) are way above the replacement rate of 2.1.   The net result is the pre-emptive dhimmitude chronicled in various nearby threads.

A large subject, but right now my day takes me elsewhere.

TAC!
Marc

Ann Coulter IMHO has become highly erratic in the quality of her work.  That said, this one seems rather lucid.  Here's her take on the shenanigans in Minnesota:
=============
Minnesota Ballots: Land of 10,000 Fakes
by  Ann Coulter

 
What is the point of having a hand recount of ballots in the Minnesota Senate race if the Democratic secretary of state is going to use the election night totals in precincts where it will benefit Democrat Al Franken?
   
Either the hand recount produces a better, more accurate count, or there was no point to the state spending roughly $100,000 to conduct the hand recount in the first place.
   
But that is exactly what the George Soros-supported secretary of state has agreed to do in the case of a Dinkytown precinct near the University of Minnesota. The hand recount of the liberal precinct produced 133 fewer ballots than the original count on election night and, more important, 46 fewer votes for Franken.
   
So he's proposing to defer to the election night total over the recount tally.
   
There are no "missing" ballots in Dinkytown. Ballots were run through the voting machines twice on election night. Last week, Minneapolis elections director Cindy Reichert explained they already knew for a fact that 129 ballots had been run through machines twice on election night, which pretty closely matched the 133 allegedly "missing" ballots.
   
As Reichert said, "There are human errors that are made on Election Day." According to an article in the Dec. 2, 2008, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Reichert was "confident that that's what happened" and that "we have all the ballot envelopes here."   
   
But after relentless badgering by the Franken campaign, now Reichert isn't so sure anymore. So the new plan is for Minneapolis to submit both the election night total from Dinkytown -- which gives Franken an extra 46 votes -- and the meticulous hand recount total, which does not, and allow the canvassing board to decide which to use.
   
The 129 ballots that Reichert said were run through the machines twice on election night could end up being counted twice. 
   
In all other precincts, the initial tallies from election night are treated as highly unreliable rough approximations of the actual vote, while the results from the hand recount are regarded as the absolute truth.
   
Only in the Dinkytown precinct, where the election night total gave Franken an additional 46 votes, does the state treat the hand recount as an error-prone joke compared to the highly accurate election night vote.
   
The Soros-supported Secretary of State Mark Ritchie explains that there is "precedent" for counting election night totals rather than the recount totals. If so, how about using the election night tally from some of the precincts that gave Coleman more votes on election night?
   
Highly implausible, post-election "corrections" in just three Democratic precincts -- Two Harbors, Mountain Iron and Partridge Township -- cost Coleman 446 votes. But I note that Ritchie doesn't propose deferring to the election night totals there.
   
The Minneapolis Star Tribune attributed the 436-vote "correction" in Franken's favor to "exhausted county officials." Were they more exhausted in those three precincts than in Dinkytown?
   
Either the post-election tally is better than the election night tally or it isn't. Cherry-picking only those election night results Ritchie likes isn't an attempt to get an accurate vote-count; it's an attempt to get a Democrat in the U.S. Senate.
   
If Minnesota is going to accept the election night tally from Dinkytown, why not from any of these precincts where Coleman lost votes under far more suspicious circumstances?  And why are guys named "Al" always caught trying to steal elections?
   
Wholly apart from the outrageous inconsistency of deciding that some election night tallies trump the hand recount and some don't, Franken's miraculous acquisition of more than 500 votes from heavily Democratic precincts in post-election "corrections" wasn't believable on its face -- and that's even accounting for the fact that Franken voters tend to be stupider than average and therefore more likely to fill out their ballots incorrectly.
   
Corrections in all other 2008 races combined led to only 482 changes in the entire state of Minnesota. The idea that typo "corrections" in one single contest from only three precincts, out of more than 4,000 precincts, could lead to 436 "corrections" benefiting Franken is manifestly absurd.
   
Ritchie's proposal to accept the election night count from one precinct is a stunning admission that even he doesn't believe a hand recount is any more accurate than the original election night tally. 
   
To be sure, endlessly recounting ballots doesn't yield more accurate results, it just creates different results. There is no reason to think a tabulation is more accurate because it occurred later in time.
   
But then why have a recount at all?  If the state of Minnesota is going to spend $100,000 and endless man-hours to conduct a meticulous hand recount on the grounds that it is more accurate, the state ought to at least pretend to believe in its own recount.
   
Election recounts are never intended to get more accurate results. They are simply opportunities for Democrats to manufacture new votes and steal elections.
   
And once again, Republicans are asleep at the wheel while another close election is being openly stolen by the man whose contributions to western civilization include the "Planet of The Enormous Hooters" sketch on "SNL."

'Joe the Plumber' told conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Tuesday that he felt "dirty" after hitting the campaign trail with Republican presidential nominee John McCain and "seeing some of the things that take place," Politico reported.

Joe Wurzelbacher said he was specifically put off by McCain when it came to talk of the $700 billion bailout.

"When I was on the bus with him, I asked him a lot of questions about the bailout because most Americans did not want that to happen,"

Wurzelbacher told Beck. "I asked him some pretty direct questions. Some of the answers you guys are gonna receive they appalled me, absolutely. I was angry. In fact, I wanted to get off the bus after I talked to him."
Wurzelbacher said he stayed on the trail with McCain "honestly, because the thought of Barack Obama as president scares me even more."

Wurzelbacher, however, offered kind words to McCain running mate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

"Sarah Palin is absolutely the real deal," he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elec...cain-appalled/

"No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable."

--George Washington, Message to the House of Representatives, 3 December 1793

second post of the day:

WHY ARE MEXICAN PASSPORTS SHOWING UP IN MUMBAI, INDIA?

By Todd Bensman
The San Antonio Express-News

Three Afghani Muslim men caught posing as Mexican nationals last month while
en route to Europe were part of a human smuggling operation and carried what
are now believed to be altered but genuine Mexican passports for which they
paid $10,000 each, Indian investigators told The San Antonio Express-News.


An ongoing transcontinental investigation, which now involves Mexican and
Indian authorities, began Feb. 11 when a suspicious airport customs official
in Kuwait noticed the three Afghanis, traveling under Mexican pseudonyms,
could not speak Spanish during a layover on their air trip from New Delhi,
India to France.

The three Afghani travelers were detained and deported to India, where they
remain in custody while Mexican and Indian authorities try to learn about
their backgrounds, where they were going and who sold the apparently real
government-issue passports. A U.S. source confirmed the FBI and Immigration
and Customs Enforcement investigators also are looking into the matter.

At issue to some U.S. national security experts is whether another of
Mexico's embassies and consulates abroad might be implicated in selling
travel documents to people from countries like Afghanistan where terrorist
organizations are active, a circumstance that potentially could bring
terrorists to American borders. It wouldn't be the first time a Mexican
embassy was implicated in such an affair.

In 2003, a Mexican investigation into a Lebanon-Mexico human smuggling
operation produced firings and indictments of Mexican embassy personnel in
Beirut for allegedly selling travel documents to Lebanese citizens. One man
who bought a Mexican visa for $3,000 turned out to be a ranking Hezbollah
operative smuggled over the California border in the trunk of a car. Mahmoud
Kourani was convicted in 2004 of supporting the terrorist group from
Detroit.

Interdicting U.S.-bound travelers from the Middle East "was our number one
concern," said recently retired FBI Assistant Legal Attaché James Conway,
who for four years after 9-11 oversaw the bureau's counterterrorism programs
in Mexico City. "That's the national security concern from our southern
flank."

Travelers from Islamic countries carrying passports that are valid but
altered with fake names and photographs are among the most difficult to
detect, he said. In the black markets of human smuggling, real national
passports with embedded security bar codes rank among the most valuable
travel documents because they enable their bearers to more easily slip
through airport inspections.
==============
"If you've got a Mexican passport you've already crossed the bridge," Conway
said. "And you can become part of the flood of people who cross into the
U.S. If terrorists wanted to exploit the infrastructure in place, they can.
It's there."

TERRORISTS OR REFUGEES?

V.G. Babu, superintendent of immigration police at Cochin International
Airport, told the Express-News in a telephone interview the passports were
genuine government-manufactured passports and that the three men admitted to
buying them for $10,000 each in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, which
hosts a Mexican consulate office.

Babu said the three men initially tried to convince Indian authorities that
they were Mexicans. But the story quickly fell apart when two of the three
couldn't prove they spoke Spanish, he said.

"We broke them," because of the language issue, he said, and handed the men
over to federal Indian police for further investigation.

Investigators learned that a third Afghan who did speak some Spanish had
more than casual dealings with the Mexican embassy personnel in New Delhi
and was known to speak several languages, according to one Indian news
report.

Babu said he could offer no further details. Mexican foreign service
officials would only confirm that a multi-ministry investigation was
underway.

The Mexican Embassy in New Delhi declined to comment on the case. However, a
Feb. 16 Newindypress.com report cited New Delhi-based Ambassador Rogerlio
Granguillhome as confirming to Indian authorities that the passports were
likely real and asking that the documents be handed over so they can be
traced to their origins at an embassy or consulate office.

Ricardo Alday, a spokesman for Mexico's embassy in Washington D.C., also
would not answer questions specific to the investigation. But he did say his
government "has applied strong measures and invested considerable resources
to continuously improve the security of its travel documents."

"Mexico is a committed partner with the U.S. in ensuring . our borders are
not used to threaten or undermine our common security," Alday said in an
email.

Whether the Afghanis are connected to terrorist organizations battling with
American troops in Afghanistan and how they obtained the passports remain
unknown as the obscure investigation unfolds.

But Afghanistan is one of 43 predominantly Islamic nations listed by the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security as "countries of special interest"
because Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups operate in them.

Many Afghans caught crossing the U.S. southern border in recent years have
been determined to be economic immigrants, not terrorists, but many others
are presumed to have crossed and not been caught. Between 2002 and 2006, the
U.S. border patrol caught about 63 Afghanis crossing the borders, according
to agency capture data.

Conway, the former FBI legal attaché to Mexico, said that during his tour
the FBI got many "hits" running the names of captured immigrants from those
countries through terror watch list databases. He declined to elaborate,
citing national security rules against disclosure, and it remains unknown
what was learned of those individuals. But terrorists have illegally crossed
into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada since the mid 1990s.


THE WEAK LINK

The India case highlights concern felt among homeland security officials
since 9-11 about a continuing stream of immigrants from countries of
interest who illegally cross U.S. borders every year using Latin American
travel documents, often provided by paid human smugglers.

The chief concern, according to current and former FBI and ICE agents
familiar with the issue, is how well Latin American countries police the
supplies of travel documents emanating from their embassies and consulates
in Islamic countries.

According to federal court records from prosecutions of Middle Eastern
smugglers, thousands of Iraqis, Syrians, Lebanese and citizens of many other
Islamic countries have been able to travel illegally to Latin American
countries, then over U.S. borders. They were often able to do so by using
real travel documents originating from embassy offices of Mexico, Guatemala,
Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia and Peru.

Conway said the ability to obtain real passports from any of those countries
represents a high danger.
================
"If you've got diplomatic establishments, like in Beirut, handing out
passports, there's little you can do," he said. "They come to Mexico, dress
like Mexican businessmen and you think they're going to pop up on our radar
screen? Absolutely not. They're going to walk on through."

In recent years, U.S. authorities have sought to make Central- and South
American countries more aware of the security threat presented by their
consulate offices and embassies. But some of those countries, such as
Venezuela and Guatemala, have proven less than responsive when asked to
tighten controls on foreign service personnel stationed abroad.

Among countries south of the U.S., Mexico has proven to be among the most
cooperative, Conway and other federal agents who have worked
counterterrorism programs there have said. Mexico has collaborated
extensively with American agencies to interdict travelers from countries of
interest, going so far as to allow American agents to interrogate captured
detainees inside Mexican facilities.

As part of those efforts, the Mexican government has taken some steps to
fortify confidence in its embassy personnel. For instance, after an
investigation in 2003 Mexico purged its Beirut embassy of personnel thought
to have been supplying travel documents to a Lebanese human smuggling
operation run by Salim Boughader, a Lebanese-Mexican.

Then, after U.S. courts were through convicting Boughader of smuggling
hundreds of Lebanese into Mexico for journeys over the U.S. border, Mexico
prosecuted and convicted him.

Mexico also has intensified a program of vetting its consuls and actively
monitoring the activities of staff elsewhere. Last year, the Express-News
reported that Iraqis and other citizens of the region had offered hundreds
of thousands of dollars in bribes to Mexico's honorary consul to Jordan, for
travel visas that would get them to Mexico and then the U.S. (SEE BREACHING
AMERICA SERIES)


Raouf N. El-Far, a Jordanian businessman who was appointed Mexico's honorary
consul to Jordan in 2004, said he refused all offers. He also said he
underwent an intensive intelligence background check before his appointment,
part of a new program at the time.

Still, word that three Afghans caught using passports to pose as traveling
Mexican nationals struck counter-terrorism expert Steven Emerson as lucky -
and alarming.

"If these three Afghanis figured out how to infiltrate under false Mexican
identifies, you can be sure that Islamic terrorists have done the same,"
said Emerson, who runs the Washington D.C.-based Investigative Project on
Terrorism.

"This needs to be investigated by Congress and the FBI."

Express-News reporter Sean Mattson in Mexico contributed to this report
=================

No idea yet about this website's reliability:
==============================

Recruitment from...Canada for Islamic terror training continues

Young Muslim men are being recruited from mosques and Islamic Centers in the U.S., Canada for terrorist training. They are beginning to return, some in plastic bags.

By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director

5 December 2008 The Northeast Intelligence Network confirmed Thursday that there is a nationwide investigation being conducted by the FBI of young men from Somalia being trained as suicide bombers and “low-tech attackers” for use inside the U.S. The investigation began last summer when authorities noticed a trend of Somali immigrants “disappearing” from the Minneapolis, Minnesota area. According to initial reports, about four dozen men ranging between the ages of 17 and 35 have “gone missing” within the last several months in the Minneapolis area alone. One federal law enforcement official, speaking on the strict condition of anonymity to the Northeast Intelligence Network, confirmed that this trend is neither exclusive to Minneapolis nor Somalia immigrants, but it was first noticed there. The investigation was further punctuated by the death of suicide bomber and Minnesota resident Shirwa AHMED. AHMED, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was one of five Muslim terrorists who killed 29 people in northern Somalia on October 29.

 

AHMED, pictured at left, was buried this week in Burnsville, a suburban community south of the Minneapolis- St. Paul area. AHMED’s remains were transported back to the U.S. with the help of the FBI after DNA tests established his identity. According to news reports, the FBI is investigating the “disappearance” of young men from Somalia by “ reaching out to the Somali-American community” in search of additional information. The FBI admits that they are looking into the disappearance of 20-40 young Somalia men from Minnesota, but unofficial reports by a federal source close to the Northeast Intelligence Network places that number much higher.

“There is active recruitment from mosques, Islamic centers and over the Internet calling young men from the U.S. and Canada to ‘train for Jihad as their religious duty,’” stated this official. The plan is to have these young men trained in the handling of weapons and explosives, and sending them back to the U.S. and Canada to engage in low-tech attacks against “soft targets,” such as malls, shopping centers, and other crowded locations.

The Northeast Intelligence Network has been warning readers about homicide bombers coming to the U.S. and Canada for years, with expedited recruitment within the past 36 months. We are now beginning to see the evolution of this recruitment and training as it manifests into results, such as the recent terrorist attack in Mumbai. It will not be long before we see it in North America.

http://3w.homelandsecurityus.com/20081205b

======================

In a closely related vein, here's this from the local FOX station:

http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video.jsp?contentId=8029360&version=1&locale=EN-US

For the RNC, What Kind of 'Conservative'?

The race for the GOP party chairmanship has now jelled. Some 168 members of the Republican National Committee will make their selection from a half-dozen candidates at their meeting in Washington D.C. on January 29.

All of the candidates claim to be conservative, all insist that the party has to compete in states outside its Southern and Western bases, and all agree that the party needs to rediscover its basic principles.

But there are variations in approach.

Mike Duncan, the current RNC chairman, is running a low-key campaign touting his technocratic skills and taking some credit for the party's successes in Georgia and Louisiana runoff elections this month. Michael Steele, a former lieutenant governor of Maryland who is a frequent guest on Fox News, is a little more moderate on social issues than some of the other candidates, saying that Republican Congressional leaders misjudged the mood of the country when they pressed for a federal solution in the case of Terri Schiavo, a comatose woman who was allowed to die in accord with her husband's wishes. Mr. Steele has a good headstart in building support among Republicans who like his direct style and smooth television presence.

Other candidates include: Former Tennessee Republican Chairman Chip Saltsman, who made many contacts this year while managing Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign and is seen as someone in accord with the former Arkansas governor's populist pitch; Saul Anuzis, the chair of the Michigan GOP, who appeals to many Northeastern Republicans who say that the party needs to get away from its over-reliance on support in Southern states; and Katon Dawson, the current chair of the South Carolina party, who says the party can't afford geographic snobbery and is sending out a slick DVD touting his achievements in building a state party.

Last week, a new entrant joined the field. Ken Blackwell, a former state treasurer and secretary of state in Ohio who was his party's gubernatorial candidate in 2006, sent a letter to all RNC members. He calls for returning the party to its Reaganite roots and touts internal reform at the RNC, including "spending smarter, replacing staff and consultants and modernizing our fundraising infrastructure." Mr. Blackwell is the favorite of many movement conservatives, having served on the boards of the National Rifle Association, the National Taxpayers Union and the Club for Growth.

But this will be no conventional election. RNC members are concerned not just with the big picture but also with two very parochial issues: Members want somebody who will keep them personally in the loop on what's happening inside the party, and they also recognize the need for a good manager to keep on top of the sprawling Republican National Committee army of staff members and consultants.

"It's fair to say that the Republican Party has a habit of retaining old consultants and old Beltway players for far too long," one RNC member told me. "We saw the benefit the Obama campaign got by getting some fresh blood for their campaign versus the sluggish response of the retreads around Hillary Clinton. I think the candidate who is most likely to win is the one who will solve the party's 'staff infection.'"

-- John Fund

That Immigration Dog Don't Hunt

National and Louisiana Democrats pulled out all the stops in trying to elect longtime Shreveport District Attorney Paul Carmouche to Congress last Saturday. They touted Mr. Carmouche's anti-crime record and ran ads attacking Republican John Fleming, a physician, for advocating a private alternative to Social Security. Barack Obama taped a radio ad calling on voters to send Mr. Carmouche to Washington so he could back the Obama agenda.

But Democrats also made a blatant attempt to poach conservative votes from Mr. Fleming by attacking him on the immigration issue. Earlier this year, Dr. Fleming spoke in favor of allowing easier entry for foreigners with valid work permits and expressed general support for legal immigration: "We will welcome the positive contributions that they can make to our society. We will encourage them to [pursue] the American dream. And when they become citizens, we will gladly call them our fellow Americans."

Mr. Carmouche claimed Mr. Fleming's position was tantamount to wanting to bring more illegal immigrants into the U.S. "We certainly don't need to bus illegal aliens into the country, to take jobs that belong to Americans," he said in a recent debate. He told voters that on immigration, he was "completely in opposition to my opponent, John Fleming."

Mr. Fleming evenly responded that he supported strict enforcement of border controls, but bravely added that a policy that focused only on enforcement could only go so far. "Just simply deporting [people] is not going to solve the problem," he told voters.

In the end, voters had a clear choice. The final outcome was very close, but in a very anti-Republican year and running a handpicked centrist candidate, Democrats still lost. The lesson appears to be one that more than a few Republican candidates have learned in recent years: While a hard line on immigration may poll well, its concrete political benefits at the ballot box remain elusive.

-- John Fund

Quote of the Day I

"We've never seen anything like [Barack Obama's campaign organization] in this country. They have 4 million contributors, but they have several million more people who are on their e-mail lists. That's just a very, very powerful base for grassroots lobbying . . . We probably put too much weight on [having 60 Democratic votes for a filibuster-proof Senate majority] and not enough weight on the fact that a lot of Republicans, I think, either genuinely want to cooperate or are going to be fearful of the political consequences of not cooperating with President Obama in a period like this. So I think you'll see Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and even some more conservative Republicans -- John McCain, for example, on issues like torture and Guantanamo could end up being a real ally of the new president" -- Democratic strategist and former John Kerry campaign manager Bob Shrum, in a Q&A with National Journal's XM Radio show.

Quote of the Day II

"On November 10, in a lengthy telephone call with numerous advisors that included discussion about Blagojevich obtaining a lucrative job with a union-affiliated organization in exchange for appointing a particular Senate Candidate whom he believed was favored by the President-elect and which is described in more detail below, Blagojevich and others discussed various ways Blagojevich could 'monetize' the relationships he has made as governor to make money after leaving that office . . . . Throughout the intercepted conversations, Blagojevich also allegedly spent significant time weighing the option of appointing himself to the open Senate seat and expressed a variety of reasons for doing so, including: frustration at being 'stuck' as governor; a belief that he will be able to obtain greater resources if he is indicted as a sitting Senator as opposed to a sitting governor; a desire to remake his image in consideration of a possible run for President in 2016; avoiding impeachment by the Illinois legislature; making corporate contacts that would be of value to him after leaving public office; facilitating his wife’s employment as a lobbyist; and generating speaking fees should he decide to leave public office"-- from a Justice Department press release today announcing the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris on federal corruption charges.

Kozying Up with the Dalai Lama

President Nicolas Sarkozy has been regaining lost ground in the French polls, despite the global financial crisis and France's rising unemployment and personal controveries. Over the weekend, he further bolstered his popularity with a risky but crowd-pleasing move: meeting the Dalai Lama.

Mr. Sarkozy's sit-down on Saturday in Gdansk, Poland was his first meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader, who was in Poland to attend a gathering of Nobel Laureates. China's reaction was the usual fit of pique, which French Minister for Human Rights Rama Yade described as a "psychodrama." Not only did Beijing cancel a trade summit that was supposed to take place in Lyons on December 1. An editorial in the People's Daily denounced Mr. Sarkozy as "stubborn" and called his move "provocative and dangerous." The paper added: "He must pay for it."

"I am free to decide on my agenda as president of the French Republic," Mr. Sarkozy told reporters in response. "I represent values, convictions."

In this case, he also represented Europe's love affair with the Dalai Lama. In April, pro-Tibet protesters attacked the Olympic torch as it relayed through Paris. And last week, in honor of the Dalai Lama's visit, some 30 members of the European Parliament fasted for a day to greet his arrival.

But trade is important too. And more worrisome than the fulminating of the Chinese-language People's Daily may have been Beijing's English-language paper, China Daily, which warned darkly that the spat might hurt the image of such French brands as the Carrefour supermarket chain and Louis Vuitton luxury goods, both of which do good business on the mainland.

Having earned his bouquets for meeting the Dalai Lama, Mr. Sarkozy on Monday quickly tried to limit the damage by dispelling any notion that he was stirring up Tibetan separatism, saying there is "only one China."

-- Leslie Hook

Second post of the AM:

Michael Yon with an odd little tidbit:

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/sniffer.htm


Here is a rare and curious thing: an antique British WB-17 bomber flying over Afghan skies. These planes flew in the 1950s and 60s, performing top of the atmosphere reconnaissance. The U.S. Air Force retired the WB-17 decades ago.  But NASA owns two, which it uses for an odd group of missions, including collecting cosmic dust from extremely high altitudes.  It seems doubtful that NASA came all the way to Afghanistan to collect cosmic dust, but this would be an interesting region in which to search for traces of nuclear debris, drifting upwards from Iran, Pakistan, various Central Asian states, China, or India.

Next Steps in the Indo-Pakistani Crisis
December 8, 2008
By George Friedman

Militant Attacks In Mumbai and Their Consequences

In an interview published this Sunday in The New York Times, we laid out a potential scenario for the current Indo-Pakistani crisis. We began with an Indian strike on Pakistan, precipitating a withdrawal of Pakistani troops from the Afghan border, resulting in intensified Taliban activity along the border and a deterioration in the U.S. position in Afghanistan, all culminating in an emboldened Iran. The scenario is not unlikely, assuming India chooses to strike.

Our argument that India is likely to strike focused, among other points, on the weakness of the current Indian government and how it is likely to fall under pressure from the opposition and the public if it does not act decisively. An unnamed Turkish diplomat involved in trying to mediate the dispute has argued that saving a government is not a good reason to go to war. That is a good argument, except that in this case, not saving the government is unlikely to prevent a war, either.

If India’s Congress party government were to fall, its replacement would be even more likely to strike at Pakistan. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress’ Hindu nationalist rival, has long charged that Congress is insufficiently aggressive in combating terrorism. The BJP will argue that the Mumbai attack in part resulted from this failing. Therefore, if the Congress government does not strike, and is subsequently forced out or loses India’s upcoming elections, the new government is even more likely to strike.

It is therefore difficult to see a path that avoids Indian retaliation, and thus the emergence of at least a variation on the scenario we laid out. But the problem is not simply political: India must also do something to prevent more Mumbais. This is an issue of Indian national security, and the pressure on India’s government to do something comes from several directions.

Three Indian Views of Pakistan
The question is what an Indian strike against Pakistan, beyond placating domestic public opinion, would achieve. There are three views on this in India.

The first view holds that Pakistani officials aid and abet terrorism — in particular the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), which serves as Pakistan’s main intelligence service. In this view, the terrorist attacks are the work of Pakistani government officials — perhaps not all of the government, but enough officials of sufficient power that the rest of the government cannot block them, and therefore the entire Pakistani government can be held accountable.

The second view holds that terrorist attacks are being carried out by Kashmiri groups that have long been fostered by the ISI but have grown increasingly autonomous since 2002 — and that the Pakistani government has deliberately failed to suppress anti-Indian operations by these groups. In this view, the ISI and related groups are either aware of these activities or willfully ignorant of them, even if ISI is not in direct control. Under this thinking, the ISI and the Pakistanis are responsible by omission, if not by commission.

The third view holds that the Pakistani government is so fragmented and weak that it has essentially lost control of Pakistan to the extent that it cannot suppress these anti-Indian groups. This view says that the army has lost control of the situation to the point where many from within the military-intelligence establishment are running rogue operations, and groups in various parts of the country simply do what they want. If this argument is pushed to its logical conclusion, Pakistan should be regarded as a state on the verge of failure, and an attack by India might precipitate further weakening, freeing radical Islamist groups from what little control there is.

The first two analyses are essentially the same. They posit that Pakistan could stop attacks on India, but chooses not to. The third is the tricky one. It rests on the premise that the Pakistani government (and in this we include the Pakistani army) is placing some restraint on the attackers. Thus, the government’s collapse would make enough difference that India should restrain itself, especially as any Indian attack would so destabilize Pakistan that it would unleash our scenario and worse. In this view, Pakistan’s civilian government has only as much power in these matters as the army is willing to allow.

The argument against attacking Pakistan therefore rests on a very thin layer of analysis. It requires the belief that Pakistan is not responsible for the attacks, that it is nonetheless restraining radical Islamists to some degree, and that an Indian attack would cause even these modest restraints to disappear. Further, it assumes that these restraints, while modest, are substantial enough to make a difference.

There is a debate in India, and in Washington, as to whether this is the case. This is why New Delhi has demanded that Pakistan turn over 20 individuals wanted by India in connection with attacks. The list doesn’t merely include Islamists, but also Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, the former head of the ISI who has long been suspected of close ties with Islamists. (The United States apparently added Gul to the list.) Turning those individuals over would be enormously difficult politically for Pakistan. It would create a direct confrontation between Pakistan’s government and the Pakistani Islamist movement, likely sparking violence in Pakistan. Indeed, turning any Pakistani over to India, regardless of ideology, would create a massive crisis in Pakistan.

The Indian government chose to make this demand precisely because complying with it is enormously difficult for Pakistan. New Delhi is not so much demanding the 20 individuals, but rather that Pakistan take steps that will create conflict in Pakistan. If the Pakistani government is in control of the country, it should be able to weather the storm. If it can’t weather the storm, then the government is not in control of Pakistan. And if it could weather the storm but chooses not to incur the costs, then India can reasonably claim that Pakistan is prepared to export terrorism rather than endure it at home. In either event, the demand reveals things about the Pakistani reality.

The View from Islamabad
Pakistan’s evaluation, of course, is different. Islamabad does not regard itself as failed because it cannot control all radical Islamists or the Taliban. The official explanation is that the Pakistanis are doing the best they can. From the Pakistani point of view, while the Islamists ultimately might represent a threat, the threat to Pakistan and its government that would arise from a direct assault on the Islamists is a great danger not only to Pakistan, but also to the region. It is thus better for all to let the matter rest. The Islamist issue aside, Pakistan sees itself as continuing to govern the country effectively, albeit with substantial social and economic problems (as one might expect). The costs of confronting the Islamists, relative to the benefits, are therefore high.

The Pakistanis see themselves as having several effective counters against an Indian attack. The most important of these is the United States. The very first thing Islamabad said after the Mumbai attack was that a buildup of Indian forces along the Pakistani border would force Pakistan to withdraw 100,000 troops from its Afghan border. Events over the weekend, such as the attack on a NATO convoy, showed the vulnerability of NATO’s supply line across Pakistan to Afghanistan.

The Americans are fighting a difficult holding action against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The United States needs the militant base camps in Pakistan and the militants’ lines of supply cut off, but the Americans lack the force to do this themselves. A withdrawal of Pakistani forces from the Afghan border would pose a direct threat to American forces. Therefore, the Pakistanis expect Washington to intervene on their behalf to prevent an Indian attack. They do not believe a major Indian troop buildup will take place, and if it does, the Pakistanis do not think it will lead to substantial conflict.

There has been some talk of an Indian naval blockade against Pakistan, blocking the approaches to Pakistan’s main port of Karachi. This is an attractive strategy for India, as it plays to New Delhi’s relative naval strength. Again, the Pakistanis do not believe the Indians will do this, given that it would cut off the flow of supplies to American troops in Afghanistan. (Karachi is the main port serving U.S. forces in Afghanistan.) The line of supply in Afghanistan runs through Pakistan, and the Americans, the Pakistanis calculate, do not want anything to threaten that.

From the Pakistani point of view, the only potential military action India could take that would not meet U.S. opposition would be airstrikes. There has been talk that the Indians might launch airstrikes against Islamist training camps and bases in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. In Pakistan’s view, this is not a serious problem. Mounting airstrikes against training camps is harder than it might seem. The only way to achieve anything in such a facility is with area destruction weapons — for instance, using B-52s to drop ordnance over very large areas. The targets are not amenable to strike aircraft, because the payload of such aircraft is too small. It would be tough for the Indians, who don’t have strategic bombers, to hit very much. Numerous camps exist, and the Islamists can afford to lose some. As an attack, it would be more symbolic than effective.

Moreover, if the Indians did kill large numbers of radical Islamists, this would hardly pose a problem to the Pakistani government. It might even solve some of Islamabad’s problems, depending on which analysis you accept. Airstrikes would generate massive support among Pakistanis for their government so long as Islamabad remained defiant of India. Pakistan thus might even welcome Indian airstrikes against Islamist training camps.

Islamabad also views the crisis with India with an eye to the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. Any attack by India that might destabilize the Pakistani government opens at least the possibility of a Pakistani nuclear strike or, in the event of state disintegration, of Pakistani nuclear weapons falling into the hands of factional elements. If India presses too hard, New Delhi faces the unknown of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal — unless, of course, the Indians are preparing a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Pakistan, something the Pakistanis find unlikely.

All of this, of course, depends upon two unknowns. First, what is the current status of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal? Is it sufficiently reliable for Pakistan to count on? Second, to what extent do the Americans monitor Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities? Ever since the crisis of 2002, when American fears that Pakistani nuclear weapons could fall into al Qaeda’s hands were high, we have assumed that American calm about Pakistan’s nuclear facilities was based on Washington’s having achieved a level of transparency on their status. This might limit Pakistan’s freedom of action with regard to — and hence ability to rely on — its nuclear arsenal.

Notably, much of Pakistan’s analysis of the situation rests on a core assumption — namely, that the United States will choose to limit Indian options, and just as important, that the Indians would listen to Washington. India does not have the same relationship or dependence on the United States as, for example, Israel does. India historically was allied with the Soviet Union; New Delhi moved into a strategic relationship with the United States only in recent years. There is a commonality of interest between India and the United States, but not a dependency. India would not necessarily be blocked from action simply because the Americans didn’t want it to act.

As for the Americans, Pakistan’s assumption that the United States would want to limit India is unclear. Islamabad’s threat to shift 100,000 troops from the Afghan border will not easily be carried out. Pakistan’s logistical capabilities are limited. Moreover, the American objection to Pakistan’s position is that the vast majority of these troops are not engaged in controlling the border anyway, but are actually carefully staying out of the battle. Given that the Americans feel that the Pakistanis are ineffective in controlling the Afghan-Pakistani border, the shift from virtually to utterly ineffective might not constitute a serious deterioration from the United States’ point of view. Indeed, it might open the door for more aggressive operations on — and over — the Afghan-Pakistani border by American forces, perhaps by troops rapidly transferred from Iraq.

The situation of the port of Karachi is more serious, both in the ground and naval scenarios. The United States needs Karachi; it is not in a position to seize the port and the road system out of Karachi. That is a new war the United States can’t fight. At the same time, the United States has been shifting some of its logistical dependency from Pakistan to Central Asia. But this requires a degree of Russian support, which would cost Washington dearly and take time to activate. In short, India’s closing the port of Karachi by blockade, or Pakistan’s doing so as retaliation for Indian action, would hurt the United States badly.

Supply lines aside, Islamabad should not assume that the United States is eager to ensure that the Pakistani state survives. Pakistan also should not assume that the United States is impressed by the absence or presence of Pakistani troops on the Afghan border. Washington has developed severe doubts about Pakistan’s commitment and effectiveness in the Afghan-Pakistani border region, and therefore about Pakistan’s value as an ally.

Pakistan’s strongest card with the United States is the threat to block the port of Karachi. But here, too, there is a counter to Pakistan: If Pakistan closes Karachi to American shipping, either the Indian or American navy also could close it to Pakistani shipping. Karachi is Pakistan’s main export facility, and Pakistan is heavily dependent on it. If Karachi were blocked, particularly while Pakistan is undergoing a massive financial crisis, Pakistan would face disaster. Karachi is thus a double-edged sword. As long as Pakistan keeps it open to the Americans, India probably won’t block it. But should Pakistan ever close the port in response to U.S. action in the Afghan-Pakistani borderland, then Pakistan should not assume that the port will be available for its own use.

India’s Military Challenge
India faces difficulties in all of its military options. Attacks on training camps sound more effective than they are. Concentrating troops on the border is impressive only if India is prepared for a massive land war, and a naval blockade has multiple complications.

India needs a military option that demonstrates will and capability and decisively hurts the Pakistani government, all without drawing India into a nuclear exchange or costly ground war. And its response must rise above the symbolic.

We have no idea what India is thinking, but one obvious option is airstrikes directed not against training camps, but against key government installations in Islamabad. The Indian air force increasingly has been regarded as professional and capable by American pilots at Red Flag exercises in Nevada. India has modern Russian fighter jets and probably has the capability, with some losses, to penetrate deep into Pakistani territory.

India also has acquired radar and electronic warfare equipment from Israel and might have obtained some early precision-guided munitions from Russia and/or Israel. While this capability is nascent, untested and very limited, it is nonetheless likely to exist in some form.

The Indians might opt for a drawn-out diplomatic process under the theory that all military action is either ineffective or excessively risky. If it chooses the military route, New Delhi could opt for a buildup of ground troops and some limited artillery exchanges and tactical ground attacks. It also could choose airstrikes against training facilities. Each of these military options would achieve the goal of some substantial action, but none would threaten fundamental Pakistani interests. The naval blockade has complexities that could not be managed. That leaves, as a possible scenario, a significant escalation by India against targets in Pakistan’s capital.

The Indians have made it clear that the ISI is their enemy. The ISI has a building, and buildings can be destroyed, along with files and personnel. Such an aerial attack also would serve to shock the Pakistanis by representing a serious escalation. And Pakistan might find retaliation difficult, given the relative strength of its air force. India has few good choices for retaliation, and while this option is not a likely one, it is undoubtedly one that has to be considered.

It seems to us that India can avoid attacks on Pakistan only if Islamabad makes political concessions that it would find difficult to make. The cost to Pakistan of these concessions might well be greater than the benefit of avoiding conflict with India. All of India’s options are either ineffective or dangerous, but inactivity is politically and strategically the least satisfactory route for New Delhi. This circumstance is the most dangerous aspect of the current situation. In our opinion, the relative quiet at present should not be confused with the final outcome, unless Pakistan makes surprising concessions

Geopolitical Diary: Too Little, Too Late for Pakistan?
December 8, 2008
Amid growing pressure from both India and the United States, Pakistani security forces began raiding camps and offices belonging to Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in and around Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, on Sunday. The Pakistanis allegedly detained members of LeT and its front organization, Jamaat-ud-Dawah. Islamabad desperately needs a break from the pressure that has been building since the United States — the only potential restraint on Indian retaliation over the Mumbai attacks — issued sharp warnings about the need for the government to clamp down on Islamist radicals operating within its borders.

Pakistan is trying to demonstrate its commitment to cooperation with India. Yet its attempts to control what happens on Pakistani soil appear increasingly feeble.

India, for one, is unlikely to be satisfied by Sunday’s arrests. There is no reason at the moment to believe that the targeted sites hosted a significant number of militants, or that any of those who were apprehended are of any value in ensuring India’s security. It is even possible that the militants who once operated in these locations got out before the raids, rendering the strikes a purely symbolic action.

India anticipated, and to an extent designed, this outcome. New Delhi’s demands following the Mumbai attacks were that Pakistan hand over some 20 individuals whom Indian intelligence agencies had pinpointed as threats to national security. The Indians knew that the Pakistanis — unwilling to suffer the embarrassment and political cost of handing over such high-value targets under pressure — were unlikely to comply. Pakistan’s refusal to turn over the people on India’s most-wanted list gives India better justification in taking matters into its own hands.

In India, the pressure is building — within the government, the opposition and the public — to take decisive military action, commensurate with the threat non-state actors pose to national security. Potential military strategies available to New Delhi range from air strikes to a naval blockade of Pakistan’s most significant port, Karachi. Notably, Indian military officials have canceled events on their calendars — including a high-profile annual military parade to be held on Republic Day in late January, fueling speculation that the armed forces expect to be preoccupied somehow during that time.

Meanwhile, New Delhi is preparing to embark on a campaign of diplomacy that will last through the coming week, hoping to convince the world that the Mumbai attacks can be traced back to Pakistani nationals who received support from rogue elements within the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. The Indians will attempt to establish a firm legal basis for retaliatory strikes against Pakistan, while presenting evidence to the U.N. Security Council and the broader international community.

Nevertheless, India would find it extremely difficult to eradicate the Islamists through military action. The more important question is whether New Delhi can force Pakistan to take care of its own militant problem. If Islamabad can be pushed into mowing down militant groups that thrive on Pakistan’s soil and rooting out the rogue elements of the ISI, then India will be safer and total war will have been averted. But this strategy hinges on whether Pakistan has sufficient control of its interior to stop the militant groups.

The United States depends on the stability of the Pakistani state for similar reasons. Pakistan’s chief playing card is its ability to rein in militants on its side of the border and, crucially, to act as a transport route for equipment and materials needed by U.S. and NATO troops for the campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan. If these lines are cut off or disrupted, counterinsurgency operations are affected.

This brings to mind another news item from South Asia. A Taliban force numbering in the hundreds attacked a NATO facility near Peshawar, Pakistan, on Sunday and destroyed nearly 100 trucks, including Humvees, used to transport equipment for the war effort in Afghanistan. This kind of attack has happened before, and security precautions were said to have been taken, but this particular attack was conducted on a larger scale, and more brazenly, than anything seen so far. It was another telling example of how the situation in Pakistan’s northwest regions has spiraled out of Islamabad’s control, jeopardizing its commitments to Washington.

The security strategies of both India and the United States hinge on Islamabad’s ability to snuff out militant groups. The assumption behind recent U.S. and Indian moves is that, if they apply enough pressure, they can coerce Islamabad into braving the domestic political consequences it will face in cracking down on these groups. But this assumption breaks down if the Pakistani government is not capable of controlling its interior. In that case, New Delhi and Washington each have an entirely new set of complications to deal with.

A funny thing happened on the road to Barack Obama's inaugural: America became open to rational debate on Guantanamo.

 
AP
What should we do with people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
Not all that long ago, Guantanamo was simply one more manifestation of the wickedness of George W. Bush. Back then, the operating assumption appeared to be that the only people being held at Guantanamo were innocent goat herders whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As a result, the focus was on detainee abuse and their lack of rights, as witness an Associated Press headline from last December: "Lawyers complain iguanas at Guantanamo get more legal protection than detainees."

One year later, we now have Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 plotters at Gitmo saying they want to plead guilty. And the headlines have begun to concede that closing the detention center will not be as easy as the critics suggested. "Closing detainee camp a minefield of critical steps," notes the Miami Herald. "Closing it may be the easy part; With Guantanamo, the issue for Obama will be deciding what to do with the 250 prisoners, experts say" reports the L.A. Times. "Close Guantanamo prison? Sure. But that's the easy part," says USA Today.

What unites all these stories is the acknowledgment of the basic fact of Guantanamo: The problem is the people, not the place.

As evidence of this new openness, the New York Times recently ran a piece reporting that "even some liberals are arguing that to deal realistically with terrorism, the new administration should seek Congressional authority for preventive detention of terrorism suspects deemed too dangerous to release even if they cannot be successfully prosecuted."

Exactly. The real issue isn't even so much the idea of trying these men in federal courts, which has already been done with Zacarias Moussaoui. The real issues for the president-elect are as follows: Where in America would you put these men? Would you release them on American soil if they are found not guilty? What about those whose home countries will not take them back? And what do you do with the toughest cases: those for whom the evidence is insufficient for a trial, but sufficient to tell us they are far too dangerous to release?

During the campaign, of course, both John McCain and Barack Obama vowed to close Gitmo down. But a President Obama will likely find it easier to do the prudent thing. As a Republican hawk charged by his opponent with representing a third Bush term, Mr. McCain would have been under immense pressure to prove that he wasn't George W. Bush. And a hasty closing of Guantanamo would have been a high-profile way to do it.

Fortunately, Mr. Obama is under no such pressure. For one thing, his opposition to the war gives him better credentials to do the wise thing here. For another, at least during his "honeymoon" period, the press is likely to give him a pass for whatever he comes up with -- even if the substance of what he decides seems to echo his predecessor.

In today's Opinion Journal
 

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

The Obama Health-Care ExpressFight Racism, U.N.-StyleLet Ford Save Ford

TODAY'S COLUMNISTS

Main Street: Now for an Honest Debate on Gitmo
– William McGurnGlobal View: Obama's Team of Conformists
– Bret Stephens

COMMENTARY

Getting Out of the Credit Mess
– Harvey GolubRestore the Uptick Rule, Restore Confidence
– Charles R. SchwabHolding CEOs Accountable
– Jonathan MaceyYes, it's a double standard. But it could turn out to be a good thing for the nation. What the American people need today is a sensible policy that recognizes three facts: that terrorists present a unique challenge to our rules of war; that capturing and holding terrorists is different from capturing and holding criminals or prisoners of war; and that the men and women who set up Guantanamo did so not because they were out to shred the Constitution but because, faced with some very imperfect choices, this was thought to be the best way to protect the American people.

It's true that Mr. Obama repeated his pledge to close Guantanamo during his recent "60 Minutes" interview. But he also declined to set a date. No doubt he is now realizing a hard truth. While senators can say what they please and go to sleep untroubled, presidents cannot escape the consequences of their decisions.

Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor who served as assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, hopes we might finally be getting a real debate. Though he has criticized some of the legal reasoning behind the Bush administration's terror policies, he says the animus against President Bush has corrupted our public discourse by making the issue the character of the good men and women trying to protect us rather than the enemy they were trying to stop.

Mr. Goldsmith notes that Mr. Obama is in a position to end the acrimony and strike a prudent way forward. "The single best thing about the election of Obama," he says, "may be that we now have a chance to view the terror threat without the distorting lens of Bush hatred."

Write to MainStreet@wsj.com

From a friend currently traning the Iraqi police:

"Almost every Iraqi I have met has said they fear that if the U.S. leaves, then the sectarian strife will be on like Donkeykong.  There was nothing less than wholesale Shia against Sunni neighborhood ethnic cleansing going on in mixed areas of Baghdad back on 2006.  Some of it directly attributable to Iraqi police and army.  Much of it occurring right in front of them because they were the problem.  Militia infested.  Militia connected.  Militia supporting.  Very simply put, Shia versus Sunni.  The bottom line here.  Time will tell."

Let Caroline Run

Is there a divine right for the Kennedy family to hold a U.S. Senate seat, as they have for 54 of the last 56 years? Nepotism on Capitol Hill has become an art form, and there is no better practitioner than Senator Ted Kennedy. Only hours after news of his cancerous brain tumor last spring, the New York Daily News reported that he was telling friends he wanted his wife Vicki to take his Massachusetts seat.

Now the New York Post is reporting that Mr. Kennedy "has been working back channels to promote niece Caroline as the replacement for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Senate." New York Governor David Paterson has already spoken with Ms. Kennedy about her interest in the job, the paper says, and her uncle has helpfully sent word to the governor that if she were appointed "legislation affecting New York would receive prompt attention."

Two generations after anti-nepotism laws began to open up civil service positions to excluded groups like Jews and blacks, "the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way," says Adam Bellow, author of a book called "In Praise of Nepotism." The National Journal reports that 63 current members of Congress, including at least one-third of U.S. Senators, have relatives who have lobbied or consulted on government relations at the federal or state level in recent years. At least eight former legislators who are now registered as lobbyists were replaced by relatives in their former Congressional seats.

Yet I sense a backlash is brewing. A deep-seated American belief holds that those who gain public office through artificial privilege should be viewed with suspicion. That wariness can certainly be overcome, as the electoral success of political workhorses Senator Evan Bayh and former Governor Jeb Bush of Florida demonstrates, but some brighter lines are certainly in order. Back in 1960, a Scripps-Howard reporter shocked the country and won a Pulitzer Prize with the revelation that one in five members of Congress had relatives on the official payroll. There ought to be some decent restraint on official nepotism, and now is the time to show it. If Caroline Kennedy really wants to represent New York in the Senate, she has the visibility and the connections to raise money and run for the office in her own right.

-- John Fund

Who's Multicultural Now?

Louisiana isn't known as a leading indicator of political diversity even though it has always been a mixture of northern Baptists, New Orleans blacks and Bayou Cajuns. But the state sports a governor whose parents came from India, a Lebanese-American Congressman and now the nation's first Vietnamese-American congressman.

Anh "Joseph" Cao fled South Vietnam as a boy in 1975 when a Communist invasion threw the last remnants of U.S. influence out of the country. He quickly taught himself English and earned degrees in philosophy and physics. In 2000 he became a lawyer specializing in immigration work.

He, like many anti-Communist Vietnamese refugees, also became a Republican. While a half-dozen Democrats fought to challenge indicted Congressman Bill Jefferson in their party's primary, Mr. Cao held back and husbanded his resources. After Mr. Jefferson won a Democratic primary runoff against Hispanic former news anchor Helena Moreno by 57% to 43% last month, Mr. Cao began collecting endorsements from Democrats who were furious at the revelation that Mr. Jefferson had hidden $90,000 in alleged bribe money in his home freezer.

On Election Day, Mr. Cao's campaign flooded local voters with two automated "robo" calls from Ms. Moreno and from respected former New Orleans District Attorney Harry Connick Sr. Both urged voters to abandon Mr. Jefferson and vote for Mr. Cao, a former law professor who specialized in teaching ethics.

Mr. Cao was aided by low voter turnout on Saturday, but he also managed to win black votes that few Republicans have ever gotten before. "It's no longer an issue of black and white," he explained, noting that his Asian heritage meant he hadn't been part of the old racial rivalries in the city. "It now goes to the issue of who's going to better represent the 2nd District to bring about change, to bring about reform." After his victory, Mr. Cao exulted that "the American Dream is well and alive."

Indeed, the country's 1.5 million Vietnamese Americans are coming into their own politically. Mr. Cao was able to draw on the votes and support of more than 20,000 who live in the New Orleans area. In California's Orange County, Janet Nguyen serves on the Board of Supervisors and much of the area is represented in the State Assembly by Republican Van Tran. Last month, the city of Westminster in Orange County (pop. 90,000) elected its first city council in which a majority of members are Vietnamese-Americans.

Republicans now have Mr. Cao as a national spokesman to carry their message to Asian voters. Two-thirds of Vietnamese Americans indicated they were voting for John McCain over Barack Obama in this year's election, a clear break from the voting pattern of other Asian groups. Democrats acknowledge the historic nature of Mr. Cao's victory, but they also note that he will be hard pressed to keep his seat in a normal turnout election two years from now in a district that went overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.

-- John Fund

The Vietnamese Swing Vote

"The future is Cao." So wrote House Republican Leader John Boehner in a note to his GOP colleagues last night. "The Cao victory is a symbol of what can be achieved when we think big, present a positive alternative, and work aggressively to earn the trust of the American people."

Saturday's victory by Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao in the battle for a New Orleans House seat is also a big opportunity for the Republican Party to visibly reach out to an immigrant group that has traditionally supported the GOP but is in danger of slipping away. When he is sworn in next year, Mr. Cao will become the first Vietnamese American to serve in Congress in history. He will therefore become an ambassador to a community that is small in total numbers but heavily concentrated in a handful of states and capable of tipping the scales in close elections.

Though the largest Vietnamese community can be found in California's Orange County, Virginia is the state with the second largest. And one reason Barack Obama surprised many by carrying that traditional red state was his aggressive outreach to the Vietnamese community. Ironically, Vietnam veteran John McCain never bothered to court what should have been a well-disposed constituency. Two years earlier, another Vietnam vet, Democrat Jim Webb, made a strong play for their support in his Senate race. Mr. Webb, whose wife is Vietnamese American, ended up defeating incumbent Republican Sen. George Allen by a few thousand votes. Had Mr. Allen run more strongly among Vietnamese-American voters, he'd likely be in the Senate today.

After Mr. Cao's victory on Saturday, he was flanked by his wheelchair-bound father who had, as one press report put it, "spent seven years in a North Vietnamese prison camp during that country's civil war." One reason Republicans could long count on Vietnamese-American support was that they didn't call the Vietnam War a "civil war" but a case of communist aggression against a free country. Mr. Cao's victory is now an opportunity for the GOP to reconnect with a Vietnamese community that's likely to grow in electoral importance in the future.

-- Brendan Miniter

Quote of the Day

"I was embarrassed . . . ashamed at their treatment. They [the lawmakers] wanted to unload on [the Detroit executives in last week's bailout hearings]. They wanted to grandstand, smack them around. . . . I said to [GM Chief] Rick [Wagoner], 'You're a better man than me.' I would have told the committee, 'Kiss my butt,' and walked out" - mega-auto dealer and Nascar championship team owner Rick Hendrick, on last week's Congressional hearings with the Big Three auto makers.

Baby Al, It's Cold Outside

Al Gore is having a bad decade. So far, 2000-2008 has seen a very slight cooling. According to Climate Research News, "This year is set to be the coolest since 2000."

Even more amazing is that 2009 isn't expected to get any better for Democrats on Capitol Hill who will be pushing cap-and-trade legislation to slow down catastrophic global warming. The Farmer's Almanac predicts another colder than usual year in 2009 with the highest snowfall in years. We will see if the 200-year-old Farmer's Almanac is more reliable than the NASA multi-billion dollar climate forecasting models.

More bad news for the "heat is on" crowd: A new U.S. military report says that "scientific conclusions about the causes and potential effects of global warming are contradictory." The report, titled Joint Operating Environment 2008, states that global warming's impact on rising sea levels, hurricanes and other natural disasters is "controversial." Why? Because, as the report correctly notes, scientists themselves are in disagreement about what a warming planet would mean: "Some argue that there will be more and greater storms and natural disasters, others that there will be fewer."

Environmentalists are quick to respond that a few years of cooling prove nothing, and they are mostly right. But the important point is that the global climate computer models -- which Mr. Gore cites in his Oscar-winning docudrama "An Inconvenient Truth" and which are the sole basis for predictions of dangerous human-caused warming -- have a terrible track record when matched against actual climate experience. Many of the same alarmists who now downplay a year or two (or eight) of cooling once pointed to the seemingly hot years in 2004 and 2005 as proof positive of manmade global warming. Most readers will remember the screaming headlines about the "The Hottest Year Ever." But as we've learned since, the data were actually in error. The hottest years of the past century were in the 1930s, before 90% of the manmade carbon emissions even took place. Talk about inconvenient truths.

The latest cooling data give the alarmists something really to be alarmed about. Precisely because the science is so uncertain, anecdotes have tended to drive public and political perception of climate change. But the anecdotes today are of a planet that has stopped warming and may be cooling, and of climate lobbyists who repeatedly have been forced to back off their most alarming claims about recent temperature trends.

-- Stephen Moore

Words associated with Christianity and British history taken out of children's dictionary

Words associated with Christianity, the monarchy and British history have been dropped from a leading dictionary for children.

Julie Henry, Education Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:47PM GMT 07 Dec 2008


Oxford University Press has removed words like "aisle", "bishop", "chapel", "empire" and "monarch" from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like "blog", "broadband" and "celebrity". Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled.

The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith society.

But academics and head teachers said that the changes to the 10,000 word Junior Dictionary could mean that children lose touch with Britain's heritage.

"We have a certain Christian narrative which has given meaning to us over the last 2,000 years. To say it is all relative and replaceable is questionable," said Professor Alan Smithers, the director of the centre for education and employment at Buckingham University. "The word selections are a very interesting reflection of the way childhood is going, moving away from our spiritual background and the natural world and towards the world that information technology creates for us."

An analysis of the word choices made by the dictionary lexicographers has revealed that entries from "abbey" to "willow" have been axed. Instead, words such as "MP3 player", "voicemail" and "attachment" have taken their place.

Lisa Saunders, a worried mother who has painstakingly compared entries from the junior dictionaries, aimed at children aged seven or over, dating from 1978, 1995, 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2007, said she was "horrified" by the vast number of words that have been removed, most since 2003.

"The Christian faith still has a strong following," she said. "To eradicate so many words associated with the Christianity will have a big effect on the numerous primary schools who use it."

Ms Saunders realised words were being removed when she was helping her son with his homework and discovered that "moss" and "fern", which were in editions up until 2003, were no longer listed.

"I decide to take a closer look and compare the new version to the other editions," said the mother of four from Co Down, Northern Ireland. "I was completely horrified by the vast number of words which have been removed. We know that language moves on and we can't be fuddy-duddy about it but you don't cull hundreds of important words in order to get in a different set of ICT words."

Anthony Seldon, the master of Wellington College, a leading private school in Berkshire, said: "I am stunned that words like "saint", "buttercup", "heather" and "sycamore" have all gone and I grieve it.

"I think as well as being descriptive, the Oxford Junior Dictionary, has to be prescriptive too, suggesting not just words that are used but words that should be used. It has a duty to keep these words within usage, not merely pander to an audience. We are looking at the loss of words of great beauty. I would rather have "marzipan" and "mistletoe" then "MP3 player."

Oxford University Press, which produces the junior edition, selects words with the aid of the Children's Corpus, a list of about 50 million words made up of general language, words from children's books and terms related to the school curriculum. Lexicographers consider word frequency when making additions and deletions.

Vineeta Gupta, the head of children's dictionaries at Oxford University Press, said: "We are limited by how big the dictionary can be – little hands must be able to handle it – but we produce 17 children's dictionaries with different selections and numbers of words.

"When you look back at older versions of dictionaries, there were lots of examples of flowers for instance. That was because many children lived in semi-rural environments and saw the seasons. Nowadays, the environment has changed. We are also much more multicultural. People don't go to Church as often as before. Our understanding of religion is within multiculturalism, which is why some words such as "Pentecost" or "Whitsun" would have been in 20 years ago but not now."

She said children's dictionaries were trailed in schools and advice taken from teachers. Many words are added to reflect the age-related school curriculum.
Words taken out:

Carol, cracker, holly, ivy, mistletoe

Dwarf, elf, goblin

Abbey, aisle, altar, bishop, chapel, christen, disciple, minister, monastery, monk, nun, nunnery, parish, pew, psalm, pulpit, saint, sin, devil, vicar

Coronation, duchess, duke, emperor, empire, monarch, decade

adder, ass, beaver, boar, budgerigar, bullock, cheetah, colt, corgi, cygnet, doe, drake, ferret, gerbil, goldfish, guinea pig, hamster, heron, herring, kingfisher, lark, leopard, lobster, magpie, minnow, mussel, newt, otter, ox, oyster, panther, pelican, piglet, plaice, poodle, porcupine, porpoise, raven, spaniel, starling, stoat, stork, terrapin, thrush, weasel, wren.

Acorn, allotment, almond, apricot, ash, bacon, beech, beetroot, blackberry, blacksmith, bloom, bluebell, bramble, bran, bray, bridle, brook, buttercup, canary, canter, carnation, catkin, cauliflower, chestnut, clover, conker, county, cowslip, crocus, dandelion, diesel, fern, fungus, gooseberry, gorse, hazel, hazelnut, heather, holly, horse chestnut, ivy, lavender, leek, liquorice, manger, marzipan, melon, minnow, mint, nectar, nectarine, oats, pansy, parsnip, pasture, poppy, porridge, poultry, primrose, prune, radish, rhubarb, sheaf, spinach, sycamore, tulip, turnip, vine, violet, walnut, willow

Words put in:

Blog, broadband, MP3 player, voicemail, attachment, database, export, chatroom, bullet point, cut and paste, analogue

Celebrity, tolerant, vandalism, negotiate, interdependent, creep, citizenship, childhood, conflict, common sense, debate,
EU, drought, brainy, boisterous, cautionary tale, bilingual, bungee jumping, committee, compulsory, cope, democratic, allergic, biodegradable, emotion, dyslexic, donate, endangered, Euro

Apparatus, food chain, incisor, square number, trapezium, alliteration, colloquial, idiom, curriculum, classify, chronological, block graph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...ictionary.html

KABUL, Afghanistan — Most of the additional American troops arriving in Afghanistan early next year will be deployed near the capital, Kabul, American military commanders here say, in a measure of how precarious the war effort has become.

It will be the first time that American or coalition forces have been deployed in large numbers on the southern flank of the city, a decision that reflects the rising concerns among military officers, diplomats and government officials about the increasing vulnerability of the capital and the surrounding area.  It also underscores the difficult choices confronting American military commanders as they try to apportion a limited number of forces not only within Afghanistan, but also between Afghanistan and Iraq.

For the incoming Obama administration, a first priority will be to weigh which is the greater risk: drawing down American forces too quickly in Iraq, potentially jeopardizing the gains there; or not building up troops quickly enough in Afghanistan, where the war effort hangs in the balance as security worsens.

The new Army brigade, the Third Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, N.Y., is scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan in January and will consist of 3,500 to 4,000 soldiers. The “vast majority” of them will be sent to Logar and Wardak Provinces, adjacent to Kabul, said Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, a spokeswoman for the American units in eastern Afghanistan. A battalion of at least several hundred soldiers from that brigade will go to the border region in the east, where American forces have been locked in some of the fiercest fighting this year.

In all, the Pentagon is planning to add more than 20,000 troops to Afghanistan in response to a request from Gen. David D. McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan. Those troops are expected to be sent to violent areas in the south. But they are expected to be deployed over 12 to 18 months. Nearly all would be diverted from Iraq, officials say.

The plan for the incoming brigade, then, means that for the time being fewer reinforcements — or none at all — will be immediately available for the parts of Afghanistan where the insurgency is most intense.

It also means that most of the newly arriving troops will not be deployed with the main goal of curbing the cross-border flow of insurgents from their rear bases in Pakistan, something American commanders would like and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has recommended.  In recent months, amid a series of American military operations that caused civilian casualties, Mr. Karzai has repeatedly said that the fight against the insurgents should not be waged “in the villages” of Afghanistan but rather in the rugged borderlands to the east and south.

In an interview, the president’s spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said there was no conflict between the January deployment and Mr. Karzai’s declarations. While Mr. Karzai had requested a focus on border areas, the spokesman said, additional reinforcements were also needed throughout the country, including in Wardak and Logar.

There are about 62,000 international troops currently in Afghanistan, including about 32,000 Americans, a military spokesman said, but they are spread thinly throughout the country, which is nearly the size of Texas.  American commanders say they desperately need more. Military officials say that if General McKiernan’s requests are met, deployments in the next year and a half or so will include four combat brigades, an aviation brigade equipped with attack and troop-carrying helicopters, reconnaissance units, support troops and trainers for the Afghan Army and the police, raising American force levels to about 58,000.

The United States and NATO forces are hoping to expand the Afghan Army to 134,000 from nearly 70,000 over the next four or five years. Col. Gregory S. Julian, a top military spokesman, said that for security reasons he could not say where exactly those troops would go, but NATO’s southern command in Afghanistan includes Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan and Zabul Provinces.

Of immediate concern, American and NATO commanders say, is the need to safeguard the capital, to hit new Taliban strongholds in Wardak and Logar, and to provide enough security in those provinces for development programs, which are essential to maintaining the support of Afghan villagers.

Unlike in previous winters, when there was a lull in fighting as many Taliban fighters returned to Pakistan, American commanders expect more Taliban fighters to remain in Afghanistan and continue the fight. If so, the change would seem to reflect an effort by the emboldened insurgency to maintain its momentum and hold newly gained territory.
===========

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Wardak and Logar had been relatively secure until late last year. But by most accounts, Taliban activity has soared in the two provinces in the past year, as the insurgents have stepped up attacks against Afghan and foreign forces, sometimes even controlling parts of major roads connecting Kabul to the east and south.

The number of attacks in Wardak by the Taliban and other insurgent groups has increased about 58 percent since last year, and in Logar about 41 percent, according to statistics collated by Sami Kovanen, a security analyst in Kabul.

Insurgents now have significant influence, if not control, in much of the two provinces, said Mr. Kovanen, who draws his information from a wide range of government, nongovernment and private sources.

The American military command said it had incomplete statistics for the level of violence in those provinces. “Frankly, in Wardak and Logar, we don’t know what we don’t know,” Colonel Nielson-Green said in an e-mail message. “There are few of our forces present in those areas, hence the reason for the incoming brigade there.”

“I suspect that violence will increase as we place this unit but will go down over time,” she added, “because we assess that there are considerable enemy support areas in both provinces and we will be going after them.”

In June, three American soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were killed in an ambush when their vehicles were hit by mines and rocket-propelled grenades as they drove through Wardak Province.

In August, three Western women and an Afghan driver, all working for the International Rescue Committee, a relief group based in New York, were killed in Logar. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

The next month, the governor of Logar Province and three of his guards were killed in the explosion of a mine buried in a road.

American and NATO military commanders eventually hope to turn over the country’s security to Afghan forces, but the Afghan police and military are nowhere near ready to assume that responsibility, officials say.

The Afghan government has already begun to work with local and provincial elected officials to extend the influence of the central government in the region, improve public services and gain the support of residents. But the government’s efforts have been continually hampered by criminal gangs and insurgent groups.

Sediqa Mubariz, a member of Parliament from Wardak, said in an interview that she would welcome any additional American troops in her province.

Ms. Mubariz said security had been so poor that since last year she had not been able to travel from Kabul to her home district in Wardak, only 50 miles away.

"December 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. ... Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory. ... With confidence in our armed forces -- with the unbounded determination of our people -- we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God." --Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat far removed from today's crop of defeatists

Freki:

Thank you for your words, words which warm my heart. 

When I first started this thread, the number of "reads-per-post" (which tells me of the interest in a thread) was rather desultory, but over time it has risen to a ratio of over 60 RPP.   This number includes the time when the RPP was lower, so current RPP is even higher than that.

We share a belief in the profound importance of our American creed and the value of doing our part to see that it lives and is transmitted to the current and following generations!

TAC!
Marc

Progress in Iraq is often measured in declining rates of terrorist violence, the number of provinces under Iraqi control, growing Iraqi troop strength, and the new U.S.-Iraq Security pact that received final Iraqi approval this week. But a pair of recent Iraqi court decisions also tells us something about the moral distance the country has traveled since the days of Saddam Hussein.

On Tuesday, an Iraqi court handed down a second death sentence to Ali Hassan al-Majeed, better known as "Chemical Ali." Mr. Majeed, a cousin and top lieutenant of Saddam, was first sentenced to die last year for using poison gas against thousands of Kurdish villagers in the late 1980s. This time, he stood trial for his role in suppressing the 1991 Shiite uprising in southern Iraq, in which an estimated 60,000 people were slaughtered.

In today's Opinion Journal
 

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Bridge Loan to NowhereJustice in IraqOf Jobs and 'Stimulus'

TODAY'S COLUMNISTS

Declarations: 'At Least Bush Kept Us Safe'
– Peggy NoonanPotomac Watch: Obama's Environmental Test
– Kimberley A. Strassel

COMMENTARY

The Weekend Interview: Andy Stern
– Matthew KaminskiHow the Credit Crisis Will Change the Way America Does Business
– Henry KaufmanIndia Is a Key Ally in the War on Terror
– Douglas J. FeithCross Country: A Property Tax Cut Could Help Save Buffalo
– Steven H. Hanke and Stephen J.K. WaltersDivorce Lawyers Could Use Subsidies Too
– Raoul FelderThink what you will about the death sentence -- and Mr. Majeed was initially spared due to Iraqi President (and Kurdish leader) Jalal Talabani's opposition to it -- it's hard to name anyone who has inflicted more cruelty than Mr. Majeed, and his sentence is of a piece with the justice meted to the Nazis at Nuremberg.

Now take the case of Mithal al-Alusi, an Iraqi legislator who visited Israel in 2004 and paid for it when his two sons were murdered the following year. Undeterred, Mr. Alusi returned to Israel in September, only to be sanctioned by parliament on the grounds that he had violated Saddam-era statutes forbidding travel to the Jewish state. Fortunately, Iraq's constitutional court disagreed, noting that Saddam-era laws don't apply in the new Iraq. Mr. Alusi will now be returning to his parliamentary duties.

It's a shame that Iraq's young democracy isn't prepared to recognize Israel, as Egypt and Jordan have. Then again, any state which sentences a man like Mr. Majeed to die while defending the rights of Mr. Alusi has put itself on the right side of history, and deserves our continuing support.

 

September 26, 2008 6:00 AM

Court Contradiction
Abortion on high.

By Sheila Liaugminas

For the first time in the 35 years, the Supreme Court has been asked to decide whether this statement is biological fact, or mere ideology: “Abortion terminates the life of a human being.”

Two U.S. courts disagree over what Roe v. Wade means for this issue, so there are now two Constitutions — one in New Jersey, the other in the Eighth Circuit’s six states. This kind of conflict increases the odds that the United States Supreme Court will step in, and a new case, Acuna v. Turkish, gives it the option to.

On September 29, the high Court will announce whether it plans to do so.

Acuna presents a compelling opportunity to address an issue that Roe sidestepped, and that now represents ground zero in the abortion culture. Roe considered only whether there was a state interest in protecting “the potentiality of human life” (yes, according to the court, but a very limited one that grows as the fetus ages) and whether the unborn were considered “persons” under the Fourteenth Amendment (no).

The new case began just prior to Rosa Acuna’s abortion in April 1996. She asked Dr. Sheldon Turkish if her “baby is already there.” She wanted to know whether the abortion would terminate the life of a whole, living human being, or whether the procedure prevented a human being from coming into existence in the first place. What was it that the abortionist proposed to “evacuate” from her? To her, the difference was crucial.

According to Acuna, Turkish said, “Don’t be stupid; it’s only some blood.” According to Turkish, he said, “It’s just some tissue.” Based on that, she consented to an abortion.

A month later, she had a massive hemorrhage. Bleeding profusely, she was rushed to a hospital. Heading into the operating room on a gurney, she asked a nurse what was wrong with her. “They left part of your baby in you,” the nurse told her. She’d had an incomplete abortion.

Acuna was devastated. What the nurse said clashed with what Turkish had said. She decided to find out for herself at the local library. In medical and scientific books, Acuna realized that Turkish had lied. She became severely depressed, and it got worse over time. She sued the doctor, claiming he’d had the duty to tell her she was carrying an already-existing human being.

New Jersey trial judges denied Acuna’s claim. Her case bounced from trial to appellate court and back again. One ruling argued that since Roe had found that unborn children are not persons, Acuna’s claims had no merit.
In September 2007, the New Jersey supreme court — the last court that could hear the case, besides the U.S. Supreme Court — decided 5-0 that Acuna was not entitled to a more accurate answer from Turkish, because “there is no consensus in the medical community” that embryos are living human beings at six to eight weeks of age, as a matter of scientific fact.

However, Mrs. Acuna had put into the record scientific proof from internationally renowned biologists, embryologists, and geneticists that the embryo is an independent, living human being from the instant of fertilization. Turkish’s lawyers presented no evidence that contradicted this.
 
========
Court Contradiction


Meanwhile, in 2005, the South Dakota legislature passed the nation’s most thorough “informed-consent” law, requiring abortion clinics to tell women “that the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” The law required doctors to disclose that abortion may cause women psychological harm, and that the mother’s relationship with the human being she carries is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Planned Parenthood asked for and received an immediate injunction in a U.S. District Court. The group convinced Judge Karen Schreier that the law infringes on the abortionist’s “right to free speech,” because the language of the informed consent was ideological and not biological.


An Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld Schreier’s ruling 2-1, citing Roe. The majority said “the factual underpinning” of Roe was the “finding that there was no medical, scientific, or moral consensus about when life begins, making the question of when a fetus or embryo becomes a human being one of individual conscience and belief.”

But then, all eleven judges of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals considered the case. They vacated the three-judge panel’s decision: In June 2008, a 7-4 majority decision threw out Schreier’s order, clearing the way for the informed-consent law to take effect. The court found that the state of South Dakota’s “evidence suggests that the biological sense in which the embryo or fetus is whole, separate, unique and living should be clear in context to a physician.”

Furthermore:


While the State cannot compel an individual simply to speak the State’s ideological message, it can use its regulatory authority to require a physician to provide truthful, non-misleading information relevant to a patient’s decision to have an abortion, even if that information might also encourage the patient to choose childbirth over abortion. Therefore, Planned Parenthood cannot succeed on the merits of its claim that [the informed consent law] violates a physician’s right not to speak unless it can show that the disclosure is either untruthful, misleading or not relevant to the patient’s decision to have an abortion.

And Planned Parenthood, the court decided, could not show that.

We now have two major U.S. courts in direct conflict. The Eight Circuit Court of Appeals upheld as biological fact the same statement that the New Jersey supreme court decided was simple ideology. This is a key constitutional question, which may soon be settled in Washington.

Author Barrett Tillman has come up with some excellent additions to the Liberty Poll (http://www.gunlaws.com/the%20liberty%20poll.htm), aimed at those who would seek to take away our guns:



"Tell me why you think a woman should 'lie back and enjoy being raped' instead of shooting a rapist dead with the handgun in her handbag."

"Tell me why black Americans should submit to being lynched instead of shooting the lynch mob dead."

"Tell me why homophobes should be free to beat up homosexuals without the risk of being shot."

"Watch Schindler's List and tell me again why only the police and military should have guns."

"Tell me why you think police should be able to shoot an attacker to save their lives but I shouldn't."

 "Tell me why I shouldn't have the best means of defending myself -- a semiauto firearm with a standard capacity magazine."

"Tell me why a woman's right to choose should not include weapon, mag size and ammunition."

"Tell me why you think I shouldn't be able to defend my life or my freedom."

"More than that, tell me why you should not have that right!

 

--
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have" -- Thomas Jefferson

The point of the original post in this thread seeming to be well-imbedded in the culture of the forum, I think it time to take this thread off of sticky. 

Interesting piece
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Piracy Is Terrorism
by DOUGLAS R. BURGESS Jr.
NYT
Published: December 5, 2008

THE golden age of piracy has returned. Just as Henry Every and William Kidd once made their fortunes in the Red Sea, a new generation has emerged, armed with grenade launchers and assault rifles, to threaten trade and distract the world’s navies. With the recent capture of the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, a crime that once seemed remote and archaic has again claimed center stage.

And yet the world’s legal apparatus is woefully confused as to how to respond to piracy. Are the Somali pirates ordinary criminals, or a quasi-military force?

The question is not insignificant. It has virtually paralyzed the navies called to police the Gulf of Aden. The German Navy frigate Emden, on patrol this spring to intercept Qaeda vessels off the Somali coast, encountered pirate vessels attacking a Japanese tanker. But since it was allowed to intervene only if the pirates were defined as “terrorists,” the Emden had no choice but to let the pirates go. Currently, 13 vessels are held by pirates in the Gulf of Aden, while the navies of a dozen nations circle almost helplessly.

The legal confusion extends to what happens once pirates have been caught. In theory, any nation can shoulder the burden of prosecution. In fact, few are eager to do so.

Prosecuting pirates puts enormous strain on a country’s legal system. A state whose ship was not attacked, and whose only involvement with the incident was as rescuer, might balk at being asked to foot the bill for lengthy and costly proceedings. Yet it might find itself forced to do so, if neither the victim’s nor the pirates’ state is willing. As Somalia has not had a recognized government since the early 1990s, the situation is all the more precarious for would-be capturers. The result is that ship owners, knowing that no rescue is imminent, pay the ransom. This emboldens the pirates further, and the problem worsens.

Fortunately, there is a way out of this legal morass. Indeed, the law is very clear — we just seem to have forgotten about it.

The solution to piracy lies in the very nature of piracy itself. The Roman lawmaker Cicero defined piracy as a crime against civilization itself, which English jurist Edward Coke famously rephrased as “hostis humani generis” — enemies of the human race. As such, they were enemies not of one state but of all states, and correspondingly all states shared in the burden of capturing them.

From this precept came the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, meaning that pirates — unlike any other criminals — could be captured wherever they were found, by anyone who found them. This recognition of piracy’s unique threat was the cornerstone of international law for more than 2,000 years.

Though you wouldn’t guess it from the current situation, the law is surprisingly clear. The definition of pirates as enemies of the human race is reaffirmed in British and American trial law and in numerous treaties.

As a customary international law (albeit one that has fallen out of use since the decline of traditional piracy) it cuts through the Gordian knot of individual states’ engagement rules. Pirates are not ordinary criminals. They are not enemy combatants. They are a hybrid, recognized as such for thousands of years, and can be seized at will by anyone, at any time, anywhere they are found.

And what of the Emden’s problem? Are pirates a species of terrorist? In short, yes. The same definition of pirates as hostis humani generis could also be applied to international organized terrorism. Both crimes involve bands of brigands that divorce themselves from their nation-states and form extraterritorial enclaves; both aim at civilians; both involve acts of homicide and destruction, as the United Nations Convention on the High Seas stipulates, “for private ends.”

For this reason, it seems sensible that the United States and the international community adopt a new, shared legal definition that would recognize the link between piracy and terrorism. This could take the form of an act of Congress or, more broadly, a new jurisdiction for piracy and terrorism cases at the International Criminal Court.

There is ample precedent. In the 1970s, the hijacking of airliners was defined by the United Nations as “aerial piracy.” In 1985, when Palestinian terrorists seized the cruise ship Achille Lauro and held its passengers hostage, President Ronald Reagan called the hijackers “pirates.” Recent evidence also indicates that the Somali pirates hand over a part of their millions in ransom money to Al Shabaab, the Somali rebel group that has been linked to Al Qaeda.

The similarities and overlaps between the two crimes have prompted some jurists to advocate abandoning the term piracy altogether in favor of “maritime terrorism.” By reasserting the traditional definition of pirates as hostis humani generis, and linking it to terrorism, the United States and other nations will not only gain a powerful tool in fighting the Somali pirates, but other incidents of terrorism around the world as well.

Recognizing piracy as an international crime will do something else: It will give individual states that don’t want to prosecute pirates an alternative — the international court. If pirates are recognized under their traditional international legal status — as neither ordinary criminals nor combatants, but enemies of the human race — states will have a much freer hand in capturing them. If piracy falls within the jurisdiction of the international court, states will not need to shoulder the burden of prosecution alone.

Today the world’s navies are hamstrung by conflicting laws and the absence of an international code. A comprehensive legal framework is the only way to break the stalemate off Somalia. In a trial before the Old Bailey in 1696, Dr. Henry Newton, the Admiralty advocate, declared, “Suffer pirates and the commerce of the world must cease.”

More than 300 years later, the world is suffering again. Fortunately, this time we have the answer.

Douglas R. Burgess Jr. is the author of “The Pirates’ Pact: The Secret Alliances Between History’s Most Notorious Buccaneers and Colonial America.”

ospitals Now a Theater in Mexico’s Drug War

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December 5, 2008

Hospitals Now a Theater in Mexico’s Drug War

By MARC LACEY
TIJUANA, Mexico

The sedated patient, his bullet wounds still fresh from a shootout the night before, was lying on a gurney in the intensive care unit of a prestigious private hospital here late last month with intravenous fluids dripping into his arm. Suddenly, steel-faced gunmen barged in and filled him with even more bullets. This time, he was dead for sure.

Hit men pursuing rivals into intensive care units and emergency rooms. Shootouts in lobbies and corridors. Doctors kidnapped and held for ransom, or threatened with death if a wounded gunman dies under their care. With alarming speed, Mexico’s violent drug war is finding its way into the seeming sanctuary of the nation’s hospitals, shaking the health care system and leaving workers fearing for their lives while trying to save the lives of others.

“Remember that hospital scene from ‘The Godfather?’ ” asked Dr. Héctor Rico, an otolaryngologist here, speaking about the part in which Michael Corleone saves his hospitalized father from a hit squad. “That’s how we live.”

An explosion of violence connected with Mexico’s powerful drug cartels has left more than 5,000 people dead so far this year, nearly twice the figure from the year before, according to unofficial tallies by Mexican newspapers. The border region of the United States and Mexico, critical to the cartels’ trafficking operation, has been the most violent turf of all, with 60 percent of all killings in the country last month occurring in the states of Chihuahua and Baja California, the government says. And it has raised fears that violence could spill across the border, because dozens of victims of drug violence have been treated at an El Paso hospital in the last year.

The federal government argues that the rising death toll reflects President Felipe Calderón’s aggressive stance toward the cartels, which has forced traffickers into a bitter war over the dwindling turf that remains.

In fact, most of the deaths do appear to be the result of infighting among traffickers. But plenty of innocent people are dying too, and the spate of horrifying killings — bodies are routinely decapitated or otherwise mutilated and left in public places with handwritten notes propped up nearby — has left people from all walks of life worried that they might be next.

“If a patient is in the E.R. bleeding, we should be focused on the wounds,” said Dr. Rico, who has led doctors in street demonstrations to protest the rising violence in and around Tijuana, where 170 bodies were discovered in November alone, the bloodiest month on record. “Now we have to watch our backs and worry about someone barging in with a gun.”

Doctors feel particularly vulnerable. When they leave their offices, they say they face the risk of being kidnapped and held for ransom, as about two dozen local physicians have been in the last few years. Doctors also complain about receiving blunt threats from patients or patients’ relatives. “Sálvame o te mato,” save me or I will kill you, is what one orthopedic surgeon said he was told by a patient, who evidently did not grasp the contradiction.

Adding to the anxiety, hospitals and health care workers have to notify the authorities when a patient comes in with a gunshot or knife wound, a legal requirement that the traffickers know well. That leads to further threats.

Then, there is the risk of shootouts.

Authorities suspect that the killers and the victim in the intensive care unit at the private hospital, Hospital del Prado, had links to the drug cartels that are wreaking so much havoc across Mexico. Nowhere to be found were the police, who received a call from the hospital authorities when the shooting victim, who was in his 20s, first arrived, as is required by law. The police did not show up until after the gunmen had come and gone and bullet casings littered the hospital floor.

Hospital General de Tijuana, the city’s main public hospital, has twice been ringed by police officers and soldiers in the past 20 months. The first time, in April 2007, gunmen stormed the building either to rescue a fellow cartel member who was being treated in the emergency room or to kill a rival, said the police, who were not certain which scenario it was. Two police officers were killed, and all but one of the gunmen got away.

A video taken by a hospital worker revealed a terrifying scene, with two state police officers firing inside the emergency room to protect patients while doctors, nurses and others cowered in closets, under gurneys and wherever else they could find cover.

An elderly woman in a wheelchair is seen hiding under a blanket, while a patient in a hospital gown is sprawled on the floor near his hospital bed.

Meanwhile, panicked patients were escorted out of the building, some with IVs in their arms, to a nearby sports field.

The second time was this past April, when soldiers in camouflage ringed Hospital General de Tijuana, shutting it down while doctors treated eight traffickers who were wounded in various shootouts in the city. The Mexican Army was apparently trying to prevent a repeat of the 2007 shootout. In a recent third episode, soldiers were sent to the hospital for a bomb scare.

“Fear has become part of our lives,” said one of the doctors at Hospital General de Tijuana, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from organized-crime figures. “There’s panic. We don’t know when the shooting is going to break out again.”

The violence is already affecting service, as hospitals armor themselves with more police officers and guards. To protest the spate of killings, some doctors closed their offices for a day in November. And Tijuana clinics are closing earlier on a regular basis, with more and more doctors shunning late-night medical care as too risky.

In Ciudad Juárez, which abuts El Paso, the local Red Cross hospital called a halt to 24-hour emergency service earlier in the year after gunmen killed four people who were being treated for gunshot wounds. Emergency service now ends at 10 p.m.

Paramedics in Ciudad Juárez temporarily stopped treating gunshot victims one day in August after receiving death threats over their emergency radios. They resumed ambulance service later the same day, but only after they were provided armed police escorts.

An episode that took place in the early morning hours of Oct. 5 in Tijuana shows the complicated new environment in which health care workers find themselves. After a major shootout, two wounded men were carried to Clínica Londres, a private health clinic that was closed for the night. There was a lone nurse inside the locked facility, tending to the patients there, and she initially did not open up to the small group of anxious people outside.

The nurse was not qualified to treat gunshot victims, and the clinic did not offer emergency care. But the crowd outside included two men dressed in law enforcement uniforms, who banged menacingly on the door.

Frightened of the men in uniform — criminals routinely wear police uniforms in Mexico — she eventually relented, she told authorities. What happened next is shrouded in confusion.

Tipped off, the army and the police arrived at the clinic and asked the nurse and two other employees who had since arrived if they were treating gunshot victims, and they were told no. Then, hearing a groan from another room, the authorities discovered the two wounded men — the men in uniform had already fled — and accused the health care workers and the group of people who arrived with the patients of having links to the drug traffickers.

The clinic workers, who have been detained for two months while authorities decide whether to charge them, deny that they did anything wrong. “It is not true that this is a narco-clinic,” said their lawyer, Rafael Flores Esquerro.

Another Tijuana doctor, Fernando Guzmán Cordero, has also found himself denying connections to traffickers. Dr. Guzmán, a prominent general surgeon, was kidnapped in April and suffered a bullet wound to his leg. But the kidnappers released him 36 hours later, even giving him cab fare home.

Then two weeks later, after another Tijuana shootout, a group of gunshot victims were taken to his clinic for treatment. In radio call-in shows and on Internet chat sites, local residents wondered whether the traffickers were now in cahoots with Dr. Guzmán, something he vehemently denied.

“People can say whatever they want,” he said. “They say I kidnapped myself or made a pact with them. They say a million things. I know who I am. Why would I get involved with criminals?”

The problem everyone in Tijuana faces, no matter their line of work, is that they might be associating with traffickers without even knowing it. Doctors say they now screen their patients carefully. Traffickers pay well and in cash, but they are not worth the trouble they bring, doctors say.

But hospitals do not have that luxury. “We’re not judges,” said Carolina Aubanel Riedel, whose family owns Hospital del Prado. “We treat those who arrive.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/wo...mexico.html?hp