Better late than never.

And can I say something? I'm glad he's dead. I thrilled he's dead. I hope his death brings some comfort to Paul Johnson's family. And I think they have no reason to feel guilty about that.

Our society is soft. Everyone likes to pretend that retribution -- vengeance -- is a base impulse. Deep down, I think most crave retribution against the evil, but they convince themselves that is a retrograde, reptillian emotion.

It is not. It is a moral impulse. It is moral for the just to be rewarded. It is equally moral for the vicious to be punished.

There is no shame in delighting that justice is done. And that's what retribution is -- bringing justice to the evil.

Thanks to NRO's The Corner.

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (13)
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The Great Allah tipped me to this utterly-surprising story.

Believe it or not, somewhere in the country a political independent with liberal leanings has finally said what we've all been thinking.

He's finally gotten around to congratulating himself as being wise, intelligent, and brave for not being a member of the Republican Party.

It's about time that some liberal-leaning independent somewhere had the balls to acknowledge his own intellectual and moral superiority.

It's bothered me for some time: Why aren't all of these "independents" more willing to praise themselves for their courageous non-conformism and intrepid independence?

Sure, every four years Frank Luntz holds focus-group panels where independents, largely liberal-leaning, do little else but pat each other on the back for having the tough-minded moral courage of being indecisive and vacillating.

And of course you can hardly go five or six seconds reading a liberal-leaning independent before he proudly announces he can't choose between the two major political parties, and then patiently explains why that makes him a better citizen than you could ever be.

But is this really enough? Seriously-- do we really have to wait those painful five or six seconds in between liberal-leaning independents' self-acknowlegment of superiority?

Bear in mind, when a liberal-leaning independent fails to inform me every three seconds that he's a better citizen, American, and dancer than I am, I start to forget how superior he is to me in every conceivable way.

After all, I'm someone who is a fairly-contented member of a party which roughly promotes my own political views. A moron, in other words.

My short-term memory-- not so good.

Why, oh why, do these liberal-leaning independents have to be so damnably stinting in their own self-praise?

So, Mr. Michael J. Totten has finally announced that he's a better person than me, and a better person than any of you. Sadly, this will be his only acknowledgment of this simple truth for some time. Until, like, tomorrow, at around 9:45 am.

This one declaration of the day may be enough for you.

It's not enough for me. Not by a long shot, buddy.

Posted by: Ace at 01:01 PM | Comments (9)
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Big Dick sent me this video. It's the same one I posted earlier in the week, only this one is of a much better video-quality.

And you can see on the basis of this video that the Marines or Army didn't just shoot two or three shots. Looks like at least two three-shot burts, but I'm not in the military and so I'm just guessing. Still great fire discipline-- all shots land within a foot of the target.

Some readers objected to the "happy dance" over this terrorists' death. Be advised that Big Dick isn't exactly regretful about the death, so that might annoy you.

I'm sorry to be posting such macabre stuff a second time, but this new video does actually refute my claim of only two or three shots, so I actually think I have to provide the link.

Be warned: The better video quality makes this more graphic than the original video.

Posted by: Ace at 12:42 PM | Comments (7)
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This is a silly point, but I can't help thinking the media is playing the relationship between Saddam and bin Ladin as being one of "like" but not "like like."

Every article I read says there was no relationship. No relationship between them, that is, except for the relationship between them, which is often grudgingly acknowledged in the article denying the existence of a relationship.

Apparetly they had a relationship, in our 7th-grade media's eyes, but not a relationship relationship.

Oh, sure, they had connections. But not connections connections.

You know-- there's a difference. Did they see each other? Why yes, they "saw each other." But they weren't seeing each other seeing each other.

Third base apparently doesn't count as hooking up in the jaded eyes of our media. Either you scored or you didn't hook up at all.

We have connections stretching back a decade but the idiotic media is applying The Rules to the relatioship, and judging that there wasn't a relationship at all because Saddam never offered bin Ladin his pin.

Posted by: Ace at 12:20 PM | Comments (2)
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It's time for Bush to call for a prime-time press conference in which he lays out the links between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The under-the-radar strategy is not working. If there are links between the two -- and I believe there are -- it is time for Bush to stop being afraid to say so.

If there are not links, it is time for him to admit that too. That will cost him the presidency, of course. But I, for one, have had enough of the kinda-sorta mealy-mouthisms.

It's one or the other, Mr. Bush.

I'd like to see a press conference -- in prime time, with the time specifically and strongly requested by the President -- in which he lays out the case.

But that's not the good part. The good part comes during reporters' questioning.

He picks on reporters representing the major liberal media. After they ask their predictable questions and he gives them the predictable response, he poses questions in turn to the media.

To the Newsweek reporter, he reads the following Newsweek report, verbatim:

"Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas--assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer."

He then asks:

Has Newsweek written a correction for this report?

Has Newsweek any evidence the original report was wrong?

Has Newsweek written an article suggesting that Clinton was "strongly contradicted" by the 9-11 panel?

If not -- and of course all the questions are answered "No" -- then why not?

Next he calls upon Terry Moran of ABC. Once Terry Moran is done screeching about Abu Ghraib, he reads him this ABC News report:

Intelligence sources say bin Laden's long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan's fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. . . . ABC News has learned that in December, an Iraqi intelligence chief named Faruq Hijazi, now Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC News they cannot be certain what was discussed, but almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad."

Once again, he asks Mr. Moran:

Has ABC News published a correction for this report?

Has ABC News any evidence the original report was wrong?

Has ABC News written an article suggesting that Clinton was "strongly contradicted" by the 9-11 panel?

If not -- and of course all the questions are answered "No" -- then why not?

And so forth around the room, until reporters almost refuse to stand and ask questions when called upon.

For those few organizations that did not report on the Saddam-bin Ladin connection in 1998-2000, he reads to them the words of Kean and Hamilton specifically and vigorously refuting the media's coverage of the 9-11 Panel's findings, and asks:

"Did you prominently feature 9-11 Chairmen Kean and Hamilton specifically and vigorously refuting your coverage of their findings? If not, why not?"

The media has declared war on the Bush Administration. The time for pretending to make nice-nice is over.

Again: Either these links are real or they are not. If they are not, then Bush deserves to lose this election.

If they are real, but Bush does not take on the media regarding their distortions, then he deserves to lose the election for his utter stupidity and gutlessness.

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 PM | Comments (7)
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In an earlier post, I made the assertion that the media had at one time routinely reported a bin Ladin-Saddam connection as uncontroversial. But that time was during the Clinton Administration.

I didn't provide the cite because I didn't have it, and it was late. Thankfully, MRC has tracked down the cite for me; it's from the the Weekly Standard (discussion begins after break in middle of page).

Here's a sample:

THERE WAS A TIME not long ago when the conventional wisdom skewed heavily toward a Saddam-al Qaeda links. In 1998 and early 1999, the Iraq-al Qaeda connection was widely reported in the American and international media. Former intelligence officers and government officials speculated about the relationship and its dangerous implications for the world. The information in the news reports came from foreign and domestic intelligence services. It was featured in mainstream media outlets including international wire services, prominent newsweeklies, and network radio and television broadcasts.

Newsweek magazine ran an article in its January 11, 1999, issue headed "Saddam + Bin Laden?" "Here's what is known so far," it read:

"Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas--assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer."

Four days later, on January 15, 1999, ABC News reported that three intelligence agencies believed that Saddam had offered asylum to bin Laden:

"Intelligence sources say bin Laden's long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan's fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. . . . ABC News has learned that in December, an Iraqi intelligence chief named Faruq Hijazi, now Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC News they cannot be certain what was discussed, but almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad."

NPR reporter Mike Shuster interviewed Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, and offered this report:

"Iraq's contacts with bin Laden go back some years, to at least 1994, when, according to one U.S. government source, Hijazi met him when bin Laden lived in Sudan. According to Cannistraro, Iraq invited bin Laden to live in Baghdad to be nearer to potential targets of terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. . . . Some experts believe bin Laden might be tempted to live in Iraq because of his reported desire to obtain chemical or biological weapons. CIA Director George Tenet referred to that in recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee when he said bin Laden was planning additional attacks on American targets."

By mid-February 1999, journalists did not even feel the need to qualify these claims of an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. An Associated Press dispatch that ran in the Washington Post ended this way: "The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against Western powers."

Where did journalists get the idea that Saddam and bin Laden might be coordinating efforts? Among other places, from high-ranking Clinton administration officials....

The article then tracks the Clinton Administration's linkage of the two terrorists.

MRC has a terrific report (Item 1; scan to near the end) summarizing this, plus providing its own instances of CNN and NBC reporting on the Saddam-bin Ladin relationship, before the liberal media decided to airbrush this relationship out of the photo, Soviet-style.

Posted by: Ace at 11:38 AM | Add Comment
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I understand the great dangers of torture -- that we might begin to inflict this horrific treatment routinely. I understand that there is a moral imperative -- or, as I would term it, a moral near-imperative -- against the practice.

I understand that, in fighting monsters, one should guard against becoming a monster oneself.

But let me ask this:

Suppose torturing -- inflicting pain which will be recovered from; i.e., not maiming -- six known Al Qaeda terrorists reveals a plan to shoot a single man on the street in Annan.

One man. I'm not talking about a "ticking time bomb." I'm talking about saving only one man's life. One man.

Can anyone say that the immorality of inflicting pain on six dedicated killers is actually worse than immorality of letting a man die whom you might have saved?

Put it like this: Suppose we don't abuse those men, but we know that abusing them could have saved that one man's life.

Who, with a straight face, can go to that man's widow and children and patiently explain that it was more important to treat inhuman monsters humanely than to save that man's life?

Would the widow or children agree with this moral calculus?

Would you agree with the calculus, when forced to confront the negative consequences of the ethic against absue of killers?

Utilitarian calculations are often brutal. So brutal we almost completely avoid discussing them at all, except when forced to-- such as in car-design-negligence trials.

But the fact is we employ a vicious, brutal, and ultimately moral utilitarian calculus every day of our lives. We know that lighter cars, with lighter bumpers and lighter chasses, will result in a certain additional number of vehicular-collision deaths than heavier cars. But we have decided, collectively (if not individually), that the benefits of lighter cars -- to wit, better gas mileage -- actually outweigh the number of people who we know with mathematical certaintity will perish because of our decisions.

We accept this primarily because we don't bother thinking about it. But even when we are forced to confront it, we collectively say: We will accept that fact. We don't know who these additional dead people will be, but we accept the risk that we ourselves may count among their numbers, and we say that the deaths, and the risk of our own personal death, are justified.

We know that lifting the speed limit by 10 mph will result, with mathematical certainty, in a certain additional number of people -- mothers, fathers, daughers, and sons -- dying on the road every year. But we've made the cruel calculus that our convenience in getting from one place to another ten minutes faster justifies these deaths.

I don't disagree with this judgment. But no one can claim that we have made the preservation of human life absolutely sacrosanct in these decisions. Deaths are an important factor, but we have decided that the negative of additional deaths can often be outweighed by even trivial considerations. Such as one's right to drive 65 or 70 on a highway.

If saving human lives is not itself sacrosanct -- if other considerations can compete even with saving human lives -- can we argue that inflicting pain on cutthroats and bombers and death-cult murderers is, on the other hand, sacrosanct and inviolable?

Is that the position of Glenn Reynolds? I'm asking in all seriousness. Is it his belief that we can essentially sacrifice human life to achieve some useful but not morally compelling goal (saving gas, speeding a trip), but that the ethic that we must not, under any circumstances, inflict pain on known killers and cutthroats is absolute and cannot be similarly outweighed by competing considerations?

Utilitarian calculations are, as applied to matters of life and death, brutal and ugly. Everyone flinches from examining these issues in such a mathematical way; we all recoil from the understanding that human life can be less important than achieving some lesser goal. We all claim that it's an absolute imperative that we preserve human life no matter what the competing considerations, but we all know that's a lie. It's just a lie that sounds good.

If those who oppose torture wish to argue that the ethic against torture outweighs the competing consideration of preserving human life, that is their right. They can claim that just like we willingly sacrifice human lives in the interests of gas-economy and the vague notion of "saving the environment," surely we can also sacrifice human lives to safeguard the moral imperative of not deliberately inflciting pain on another human being.

That is not necessarily a bad argument. I wouldn't call anyone making that argument morally unserious.

But I think it's time we actually did hear that argument. If it's more important that we not inflict pain than we save human lives, let us hear that case made. Let us stop simply asserting that we must never torture without explaining why.

I think that saving a human life -- even one human life -- is more compelling a consideration than safeguarding the comfort and human dignity of cutthroats and murderers. I think that's a decent argument as well.

Perhaps I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, I'd like to know why. I'd like to hear it stated forthrightly from the opponents of torture why it's more important that we not torture Al Qaeda murderers than we see one additional man make it home to his wife and children without being shot in the back of the head, or exploded as he walks on the street, or abducted and then beheaded on videotape.

So far we've been having this argument largely by implication only. Neither those who support torture of terrorists, nor those who oppose it, have been willing to honestly engage on the issue. Those who oppose it simply dismiss torture as being inhuman, without confronting the fact that's it's also quite inhuman to let a man die simply to safeguard an important moral priniciple. Those who support it have been cagey and evasive about stating their reasons why.

Well, there are my reasons. Where are the reasons against?

Crushing Rejoinder Which Isn't So Crushing at All Update: The way the anti-torture ethicists answer this question is by avoiding it, that is, they simply deny that torture can result in saving a human life.

It never works, they say. Never. Never ever ever never ever never.

This is the common childish way to avoid a difficult hypothetical: by simply denying the premise of the hypothetical. Asked to choose between the moral imperatives of not inflicting pain and saving a human life, people often childishly answer that they choose both: They choose to both never inflict pain and save human lives, because torture doesn't work anyway.

With all due respect, someone who's actually used torture to save human lives disagrees [link coming].

But a narrower claim can be made. Those who argue that the ethic to never torture is more imperative than the ethic to save a human life will say, quite plausibly, that torture didn't seem to work in the case of Paul Johnson. After all, they will say, the Saudis probably tortured Al Qaeda suspects, but to no good result.

But we actually don't know that. We don't know how determined the Saudis were to track Paul Johnson's abductors down; we don't know if they ever came across anyone with any association with the abductors. I think we should torture when it can save a single life, but not when it can't save a human life. And if the Saudis never captured anyone with any association with these abductors, then torturing them could do no earthly good, as they simply didn't know anything.

And yes: Of course, it will often be difficult to tell the difference between those who have information that could save a human life and those who could not.

That said, when you do capture someone who you know knows something about the operations and personnel of an organization intent on murdering innocents, and you know that organization will, to a mathematical certainty, take innocent human lives unless you persuade those you've captured to reveal information about the organization, how can you say that these murderers are more deserving of comfort than an innocent civilian is more deserving of his very life?

When we know someone is a member of Al Qaeda, what is the argument against torturing him, whether you know he's involved in a specific plot or not? You know the reason he's joined Al Qaeda: To kill innocent people. Is it necessary that we know precisely which innocent person he plans to kill before we start twisting his arms and beating the shit out of him?

He didn't join Al Qaeda for the free fucking health-club membership, after all. He didn't join Al Qaeda to work on his lats or take advantage of the lap swim.

He joined to kill people.

He will have information helpful in stopping the other members of his cell from killing people.

Is his comfort more valuable than their lives?

Addendum: This Guy Says Torture Works: Re-printing a previous post....

The Atlantic Monthly headlined an article thus in January 2002:

A Nasty Business

Gathering "good intelligence" against terrorists is an inherently brutish enterprise, involving methods a civics class might not condone. Should we care?

The writer is torn by self-doubt and his precious conscience, but he recounts this story:

I cannot use his real name, so I will call him Thomas. However, I had been told before our meeting, by the mutual friend—a former Sri Lankan intelligence officer who had also long fought the LTTE—who introduced us (and was present at our meeting), that Thomas had another name, one better known to his friends and enemies alike: Terminator. My friend explained how Thomas had acquired his sobriquet; it actually owed less to Arnold Schwarzenegger than to the merciless way in which he discharged his duties as an intelligence officer. This became clear to me during our conversation.

"By going through the process of laws," Thomas patiently explained, as a parent or a teacher might speak to a bright yet uncomprehending child, "you cannot fight terrorism."

Terrorism, he believed, could be fought only by thoroughly "terrorizing" the terrorists—that is, inflicting on them the same pain that they inflict on the innocent.

Thomas had little confidence that I understood what he was saying. I was an academic, he said, with no actual experience of the life-and-death choices and the immense responsibility borne by those charged with protecting society from attack.

Accordingly, he would give me an example of the split-second decisions he was called on to make. At the time, Colombo was on "code red" emergency status, because of intelligence that the LTTE was planning to embark on a campaign of bombing public gathering places and other civilian targets. Thomas's unit had apprehended three terrorists who, it suspected, had recently planted somewhere in the city a bomb that was then ticking away, the minutes counting down to catastrophe.

The three men were brought before Thomas. He asked them where the bomb was. The terrorists—highly dedicated and steeled to resist interrogation—remained silent. Thomas asked the question again, advising them that if they did not tell him what he wanted to know, he would kill them. They were unmoved.

So Thomas took his pistol from his gun belt, pointed it at the forehead of one of them, and shot him dead. The other two, he said, talked immediately; the bomb, which had been placed in a crowded railway station and set to explode during the evening rush hour, was found and defused, and countless lives were saved.

On other occasions, Thomas said, similarly recalcitrant terrorists were brought before him. It was not surprising, he said, that they initially refused to talk; they were schooled to withstand harsh questioning and coercive pressure. No matter: a few drops of gasoline flicked into a plastic bag that is then placed over a terrorist's head and cinched tight around his neck with a web belt very quickly prompts a full explanation of the details of any planned attack.

I don't see this as a difficult choice. I understand that we are doing bad. But I also understand we are doing bad in order to do good. That happens sometimes.

Thomas, you'll note, didn't just torture a terrorist; he actually "murdered" one in cold blood. (I don't know if we can really call this "murder," but I've no doubt as to what the statutes would say about it.)

Did he do wrong?

Should he have just allowed the bomb to detonate?

Would that have been the more moral choice? By what calculus?

Update: Brock writes:

Just to clarify Instapundit, I don't think he was saying "Never torture." His statement was closer to "Never have _a rule_ for when torture can be used." Rules can be abused; technicalities can be stretched, and the slippery slope starts there.

I think his point was "You can never torture, unless you can later prove (based on all the evidence) it was the right thing to do."

Okay, I've heard that take before. That we allow torture, but we don't allow it. Wink wink. On the QT. Keeps things from getting out of hand.

But here's the thing: That's out the window right now, because the liberals in this country are not content to leave it on the QT. For reasons of pure political positioning, they want to expose it and declare it illegal.

So we don't have that choice. Conservatives kept quiet about Clinton's extraordinary rendtions -- delivery of terrorists to Arab countries for torturing -- and thus the keep-it-quiet-and-formally-illegal option was open when we had a Democratic President.

But the liberals are not willing to keep it quiet now, are they? Apparently their delicate consciences will only countenance torture when it's a liberal Democrat doing the torturing.

Since the liberals are exposing this and demanding that the practice be ended, I don't see any other option at this point but to publicly defend the practice.

Quite frankly, I think it's even a winning political issue. If the liberals want to rule out torturing terrorists under any circumstances, let John Kerry affirmatively promise that. But of course he doesn't-- he just criticizes Bush without saying what he'd do in that situation.

By remaining silent, we're letting John Kerry punish Bush politically for doing the right thing without himself pay a political price for compromising US security.

..

Some argue that even terrorists have rights. Well, I say that no man has any rights except those which he can defend. By social contract, we grant rights to each other, and agree to defend those rights for each other. When a terrorists commits himself to his endeavor, he is outside the contract and I have no responsibility to protect his rights. When I torture him for information (practical torture you might say; not Baathist "for Saddam's glory" torture), I am defending my own rights and the rights of all members of civilization (even the French).

Well said.

Posted by: Ace at 10:22 AM | Comments (14)
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Just on the wires. Reuters reporting, based on reporting from Al Arabia TV.

Vicious animals.

I'm not religious, but I don't suppose it could hurt to pray for his family and friends.

This may not be the time or place for sarcasm. But the point has to be made. I have not heard yet if Paul Johnson -- an innocent civilian -- was afforded a beheading which complied with the beheading-requirements of the Geneva Conventions.

I'm sure Joe Biden will explain to me that we have to treat these subhumans with kid gloves because otherwise these murder-cultists will begin really abusing civilian prisoners.

Let me say what I've been dancing around for a while: Not only do I think it permissible to torture these cocksuckers, not only do I think it well-advised to torture these cocksuckers, but I think it is necessary and right that we torture these cocksuckers.

They have forfeited their claims on humanity.

They are not human and ought not to be treated as such. They are monsters, by their own voluntary choice.

I don't like the idea of medical experimentation on animals. I don't like to know that animals are suffering. But between animal suffering and saving human lives, I support saving human lives.

These people are less than animals, for they have become animals by conscious choice. If you support inflicting horrible pain on chimpanzees to save human lives, I do not see how you can object to inflicting horrible pain on these vicious, vile pigs. Chimpanzees are innocent. These monsters are as guilty as Satan himself.

Posted by: Ace at 09:28 AM | Comments (24)
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How else to explain Putin's suprise announcement of credible intelligence of planned Iraqi terrorist attacks on the US?

Was Hussein really planning such attacks? I'm inclined to think he was. The left has portrayed Saddam Hussein as utterly peaceable and without any malign intentions, but they never seem to acknowledge that Saddam attempted to murder a former US President using terrorist assassins as revenge for his military defeat.

And that, of course, was during the magical age of "containment."

It would also seem that Bush is on better terms with one of our vaunted "allies" than Kerry and the DNC maintain. The left will spin this as an utterly baseless claim and a mere political favor to Bush.

All right. Let's say it is just a political favor.

Why is the President of Russia, whom the left claims is so completely alienated by Bush, doing him such enormous favors? You'd almost think Russia was engaging in friendly diplomacy with the unilateralist warmonger Bush.

Glib Minds Also Think Alike Update: Now I don't trust Putin in the slightest. But if he's lying that's interesting and if he's telling the truth, that's interesting.

SHOCKING NEWS!!!

Believe it or not -- I'm sure you're having trouble with the very notion -- but the liberal media isn't covering this story at all.

Thanks to RDBrewer for alerting me to this absolutely-shocking development.

PS: Those sirens are "ironic sirens." I am not actually surprised. I am not, in fact, a retard.

Posted by: Ace at 08:59 AM | Comments (7)
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"Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezballah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States. In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq."

Where's that from? Oh, it must be some kooky claim by one of Bush's crazy neocon warmongers.

What's that? It's not?

It's... from an indictment?

An indictment drawn up by the... Clinton administration?

That's from the original indictment of Bin Laden, in 1998 (in case you're wondering, no Bushes of any sort were President in 199 . Paragraph 4.

But there's no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and there never has been, except in the imaginings of Bush's war-cultists, who apparently successfully infiltrated Clinton's Justice Department and National Security apparatus in 1998.

All of this is very, very interesting. Why isn't it being reported?

Well, silly-- it was reported. Connections between Al Qaeda and Hussein were routinely reported by CNN, NBC, the NYT, the WP as uncontroversial common-sense facts... when Clinton was President.

When it was safe to connect the two.

But now that there's a President who takes such connections seriously... why, we'd better stop reporting them. People could get "the wrong idea."

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 AM | Comments (3)
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