One of Ours

Here's the relevant passage from MSNBC:

The report revealed that in a previously undisclosed secret diplomatic mission, Saudi Arabia won a commitment from the Taliban to expel bin Laden in 1998. But a clash between the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and Saudi officials scuttled the arrangement, and Bush did not follow up.

Damn him -- governing Texas while Rome burned! Why didn't he send the Texas Rangers to finish off Bin Laden?...

...It seems like people are trying awfully hard to make it sound as if all this stuff happened on Bush's watch. It's not as if anybody has the storyline on this figured out from the get-go or anything...

Coming soon: Complaints about why the Bush Administration didn't do anything to prevent the assassination attempt on Harry Truman at Blair House. And what about the Maine, huh? Why didn't Bush do something about that?

...In the hours that followed the attacks, our investigation focused on one obvious suspect, the Basque terrorist group ETA. It was a reasonable inference to make, and those who say otherwise are being either naive or dishonest. History has left us with clear evidence of ETA’s sinister habit of killing during election campaigns...

...My government was not alone in attributing the March 11 attacks to ETA. In the first few hours, the president of the Basque Autonomous Region, the secretary general of the Socialist Party, the general coordinator of the United Left and the secretary general of Catalonia’s Esquerra Republicana, among others, did likewise...

...This is not the moment to think about withdrawals of troops. And much less when the terrorists, with their message of death and destruction, have demanded that we surrender. To yield now would set a dangerous precedent that would allow our attackers to believe that they have imposed their conditions on us. It would allow our attackers to believe that they have won...

March 24, 2004: The U.S. Army Special Forces have gone back to their roots in Afghanistan. Using techniques developed and used with great success as far back as World War II, Special Forces A Teams are operating in remote Afghan valleys, and forming their own small armies by hiring local Afghans to help catch any Taliban or al Qaeda who might come through...

...The Special Forces understand all this, and now they are, well, behaving like warlords. Special Forces troops have been establishing contacts throughout the southeastern Afghan border area over the last two years. So when a dozen Special Forces troops show up with guns and money, they are not treated as enemies. The Special Forces already have a well earned reputation throughout Afghanistan as being formidable fighters. Often the Special Forces can speak the Afghan languages, which impresses Afghans a lot (because it is so rare for outsiders to do this). And most importantly, the Special Forces have the power to call down from above "the bombs that never miss" (JDAM dropped from B-52s overhead)...

...Along with the Special Forces comes access to American army civil affairs troops and more money for public works (repairing roads and bridges, digging wells, building schools). Locals are hired to help build the Special Forces compound, and work in it. The Special Forces often also bring along a detachment of soldiers or marines to help with security...

...more importantly, the Special Forces spend a lot of time sitting around drinking tea. Chatting with their gunmen and other locals creates a familiarity that eventually leads to what they are really here for; information. The Afghans know they are being played, but they admire how the Special Forces do it by Afghan rules. Professionals are always admired, and in Afghanistan, professionals with guns, money and patience are particularly admired...

...Afghans also understand that it's important to be on the winning side if there's going to be a dispute...

U.N. bureaucrats are stonewalling requests from Iraq's new government for records from the scandal-plagued oil-for-food account set up in Saddam Hussein's handpicked French bank.

The mysterious activities over the handling of the U.N. account at the French banking giant BNP Paribas, where $100 billion worth of oil-for-food transactions flowed until the war, has emerged as a central focus of several investigations in the wake of the massive bribery-kickback scandal that has rocked the world body at its highest levels...

The Seattle Times carries this report on the employment problems of Dana Beaudine -- an Oregon National Guardsman who fought in Iraq, was wounded by a mortar attack, and diagnosed with some residual disability -- who has run into trouble with his recalcitrant employer who refuses to reemploy him in accordance with federal law. The Department of Labor has gotten involved, saying that Securitas is in violation of federal law in its treatment of CPL Beaudine. Yet, the company refuses to do the right thing -- even though it's a security contractor with lots of government business, and even though it's won an award from DoD for its treatment of reservists...

...Employment law issues are never pretty -- there are usually unclean hands on both sides. But this looks like a pretty clear case of bad corporate citizenship, and I personally hope that Securitas gets slammed by DOL with an enforcement action that costs them thousands of dollars in legal fees and many more thousands in damages...

...the Seattle Times reports that there have been 3,200 USERRA complaints filed with the Department of Labor since Sept. 11, out of roughly 360,000 reservists mobilized since that time. That's an awfully large number of bad corporate citizens, and I hope they all get what they deserve from the Labor Department and the Justice Department...

Mr. Clarke says that American "HUMINT capabilities were eviscerated during the 1980s and 1990s", and draws a connection between this capabilities gap and our failure to interdict Al Qaeda while it was growing in the 1990s.

At one point, Ms. Gorelick asks why Mr. Clarke didn't go further with his recommendations, and why his recommendations weren't followed, especially after the thwarted attacks on L.A. airport at the time of the Millenium. The response -- (1) that policymaking is often the art of the possible, and (2) that it wasn't possible to get these policies adopted before the horror of 9/11 and the reality of 3,000 American deaths. To paraphrase, Mr. Clarke says that it takes body bags to make policy changes.

GORTON: ...Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on Delenda, based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance, which had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?
CLARKE: No..

GORTON: Yes, but there was no recommendation, on your part or anyone else's part, that we declare war and attempt to invade Afghanistan prior to 9/11?
CLARKE: That's right.

CLARKE: "By invading Iraq, the President has greatly undermined the war on terrorism."

Mr. Clarke testified that he was very supportive of retaliatory and preemptive strikes against Al Qaeda during the Clinton and Bush Administrations -- "not waiting for the terrorist attack ... but taking the offensive against terrorist organizations that looked like they threatened the United States". So my guess is that Mr. Clarke was initially happy with the President's National Security Strategy which incorporates pre-emptive (preventive?) military action, but that he later became disillusioned with the White House strategy when the target became Iraq.

It has almost been a year since about one thousand paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade parachuted into war, opening up the northern front in the effort to liberate Iraq. The March 26, 2003 jump was recently classified as a combat jump and the paratroopers who participated in it will now be able to stick their chests out with pride showing off the gold star, or “mustard stain,” that crowns their parachutist wings...



..“Each little event after the red lights came on made your heart beat a little bit faster, regardless of what you do or don’t know,” Deaconson said. “By the time we stood up to wait for the green light, my stomach was doing somersaults. I thought for a second I might throw up and had to put my head on the parachute of the guy in front of me to get my bearings.”...

...An Associated Press writer on Tuesday became the first to report from the special operations' observation post since the start of Operation Mountain Storm, a 2-week-old American offensive designed to capture Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants...

...The camp is home to 60 Americans, working with 200 Afghan militia, the Afghan militiamen say. The Westerners wear T-shirts and sunglasses, and most sport beards and mustaches, with pistols strapped to their legs. Rank and file U.S. soldiers must remain in uniform and are banned from growing beards, but special operations forces are not subject to the same regulations...

...Americans around the camp refused to speak to AP. Relaying their request through Afghan militiamen, they eventually asked the reporter to leave, saying no journalists were allowed in the area...

...It's no secret that Israeli military officials are concerned about the dangers of having it appear as if Hamas violence is the reason for Israel's planned military withdrawal from Gaza. (That, of course, may account for the increased impulse to go after Hamas and its leaders in Gaza.) What is more remarkable is that every Palestinian I spoke with during a recent visit to the Middle East agreed, believing that Hamas would gain psychologically and practically from an Israeli withdrawal...

...[This] is a call for the Bush administration to begin parallel talks with the Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians and others to ensure a particular set of outcomes when the Israeli evacuation takes place. Fundamental questions need to be raised now, including these: What steps should the Palestinian Authority take so that it, and not Hamas, assumes control of the territories and Israeli settlements? What kinds of assistance and investment would help Palestinian moderates show that they, and not extremists, are able to deliver for the Palestinian people?...

The most vicious ethnic cleansing you've never heard of is unfolding here in the southeastern fringes of the Sahara Desert. It's a campaign of murder, rape and pillage by Sudan's Arab rulers that has forced 700,000 black African Sudanese to flee their villages...
...In the 21st century, no government should be allowed to carry out ethnic cleansing, driving 700,000 people from their homes. If we turn away simply because the victims are African tribespeople who have the misfortune to speak no English, have no phones and live in one of the most remote parts of the globe, then shame on us.

In an 8 to 1 decision the Supreme Court of the United States today decided that states are free to prohibit cities and municipalities from providing telecommunications services. The opinion is available here (PDF).

This decision allows states to pass laws which prohibit cities and municipally-owned utilities from offering telecommunications services, including broadband Internet access. Several states have passed such laws limiting competition, leaving only commercial entities to provide services...