Faded Hope

I had considered it a longshot that Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev, or Gilad Shalit would be released alive, especially the longer that their captivity by Islamic terrorists endured. There have been few signs that they are alive, and the inability to confirm that they're alive must be extremely disheartening to their families.

A report today suggests that either Goldwasser or Regev have indeed died while in the hands of Hizbullah.

One of two Israel Defense Forces kidnapped by Hezbollah last summer is no longer alive, a Lebanese newspaper reported Saturday.

In the first report by a Lebanese media outlet on the soldiers' fate since their 2006 abduction, the a-Nahar daily quoted German diplomatic sources as saying they were under the impression that either Ehud Goldwasser or Eldad Regev had died.

Hezbollah abducted Regev and Goldwasser in a cross-border raid last July that sparked the Second Lebanon War.

It was the capture of Goldwasser and Regev in a Hizbullah invasion of Israel last summer that sparked a month long war that ravaged Lebanon and did considerable damage to Northern Israel as Hizbullah hid among civilian areas in South Lebanon and fired off thousands of rockets and mortars against Israeli cities.

The families of Goldwasser and Regev are both discounting the reports are unsubstantiated, as without any evidence there is no way to corroborate the information. Hizbullah has refused to give the Red Cross or Red Crescent access to see the Israeli soldiers.

I simply don't trust Hizbullah on this, but their intentions are quite clear - they are itching for another conflict with Israel and are rearming North of the Litani River in Southern Lebanon.

Why the Truth Matters

Scott Thomas Beauchamp would appear to be in a bunch of hot water under the Uniform Code of Military Justice no matter how this ends. His behavior throughout casts a poor light on himself, his uniform, and his obligations under the law to report misconduct if witnessed.

Consider the possibility that he lied and/or exaggerated in his stories. As such, he could have violated UCMJ Article 99, which is a court martial offense for submitting false alarms in any command, unit, or place under control of the armed forces. Grim has more on the matter, including the limitations on such a matter. Making a false statement is another potential cause of action.

Any person subject to this chapter who, with intent to deceive, signs any false record, return, regulation, order, or other official document, knowing it to be false, or makes any other false official statement knowing it to be false, shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

His blog and TNR postings are not official statements so his possible problem under this provision would come from statements made in the course of the ongoing investigation.

Still another possibility is that he could be charged for committing fraud against the United States.

If he's telling the truth, he could again run into trouble under the UCMJ because he failed to inform his superiors of the alleged incidents such that they would run an investigation to determine the veracity of said claims. Such a failure could be construed as a failure to obey an order or regulation, as well as conduct unbecoming an officer or the catchall provision. All of those charges are court martial offenses.

It remains to be seen how the investigation will turn out, but Beauchamp is definitely in for a tough time.

Greyhawk notes that all of this is in the hands of his superior officers, but his personal opinion of him is that he's stepped in it either way - if he lied, or if he failed to report the incidents as they happened up the chain of command.

Bryan writes of why all this matters. Michael Goldfarb notes that the Left is trying to call Beauchamp a whistle blower. That's rich - and would insinuate that Beauchamp considered his commanding officers would not pursue the matter or perhaps condoned such behavior. Those are quite interesting allegations indeed, and it's an odd defense especially considering that Beauchamp participated and claimed to make the egregious statements about the woman who was severely burned by an IED in the dining facility at FOB Falcon.

But now the DailyKos has put forward what is surely the most disturbing defense of the Baghdad Diarist--that those who are questioning Beauchamp's credibility do so as part of a larger effort of "intimidating whistleblowers." But Beauchamp is no whistleblower...he claims to have been a participant in every grotesque tail he recounts. If Lynndie England had penned an anonymous account of her crimes at Abu Ghraib, would the left have defended her as a whistleblower? Of course, not. They'd have demanded that she reveal herself and face the consequences of her actions.

If Beauchamp's story is true--and at this point we have no reason to believe the stories he's told are any different from the vivid fictional accounts of life in Baghdad that he was writing before he was deployed--then he is not a whistleblower, he's a disgrace to the uniform. A whistleblower is an employee who reports the misconduct of his employer--but the Army didn't order Thomas to ridicule an IED victim or to desecrate corpses. If Beauchamp did those things at all, he did them of his own volition.

So one wonders, why is it that the left not only wants the stories to be true, but wants to afford Beauchamp the same status as Joe Darby, the man who blew the whistle on the goings on at Abu Ghraib. The first question is fairly easy to answer--lefty bloggers believe the soldiers are both victims and perpetrators of the violence in Iraq, and Beauchamp's tales perfectly conform to that narrative. But I've failed to come up with an answer to the second question. Whether the stories are true or not, Beauchamp is no kind of hero.

Six Meat Buffet take on the serious and not so serious aspects of all this.

So what does TNR do in all this? They take a page out of the CBS playbook and go on the offensive, despite the fact that the facts are not exactly running in their favor. They'd much rather claim that this is all trumped up by conservatives or those with an agenda, saying as much with a straight face, even as they have their own agenda to push. Flopping Aces has more on TNR pushback.

Baldilocks notes that the chickenhawk meme is making another run at this story, which is especially interesting because the most ardent critics of Beauchamp's story started with the milbloggers - Beauchamp's fellow soldiers and comrades in arms. Other people who served in the US Armed Forces and found that his stories were not believable or trustworthy.

Others blogging: Dan Riehl, Heading Right, Say Anything.

Arms for Saudi Arabia?

Who exactly thinks that it's a good idea for the Administration to package $20 billion in arms over the next number of years for the Magic Kingdom (Saudi Arabia) especially in light of the fact that the Saudis aren't exactly cracking down on the Islamists in house unless you consider that their export of jihadis to Iraq where they're killing US soldiers or are being killed in significant numbers to be a crackdown.

The rationale being given for the arms deals? Iran:

The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels, has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years.

But administration officials remained concerned that the size of the package and the advanced weaponry it contains, as well as broader concerns about Saudi Arabia’s role in Iraq, could prompt Saudi critics in Congress to oppose the package when Congress is formally notified about the deal this fall.

In talks about the package, the administration has not sought specific assurances from Saudi Arabia that it would be more supportive of the American effort in Iraq as a condition of receiving the arms package, the officials said.

The officials said the plan to bolster the militaries of Persian Gulf countries is part of an American strategy to contain the growing power of Iran in the region and to demonstrate that, no matter what happens in Iraq, Washington remains committed to its longtime Arab allies. Officials from the State Department and the Pentagon agreed to outline the terms of the deal after some details emerged from closed briefings this week on Capitol Hill.

The folks pushing this deal with Saudi Arabia are doing so by saying that they're easing concerns over in Israel by giving them even more weapons than they're giving Saudi Arabia.

I find this to be poor logic. Iran is a threat to Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East, but Saudi Arabia remains a threat to the US as well. 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis, and the ongoing flow of jihadis into Iraq contains a large percentage of Saudis. Their prime export, beyond oil, is jihadis.

That's got to stop, and providing them with state of the art weapons systems isn't exactly in the best interests of the US.

The weapons sales may happen over a period of a decade so as to provide a direct comparison with the sales to Israel, but last time I checked, Israel wasn't sending suicide bombers and jihadis to kill US forces in Iraq. Israel was dealing with suicide bombers, terrorists, and thugs firing rockets and mortars into Israel on a near daily basis.

Attention Getter

This is what happens when you write stuff and it raises questions. People start looking at everything you've written. Everything.

Look at what happened with Ward Churchill. He said some truly stupid and reprehensible stuff about 9/11, but that got people looking at what else he wrote and said. It turned out that he invented a bunch of stuff, engaged in plagiarism and other academic misconduct.

He was fired for his troubles, though he and his supporters think the firing was political. No. He was hired for political reasons, and fired because of academic misconduct.

Then, we come to the latest case of journalistic liberties in facts and logic. That would be Scott Thomas Beauchamp. Not only are his diary entries at The New Republic under scrutiny from bloggers and the US military, but it would now appear that he may have violated operational security (opsec) on troop movements by publishing details of his unit's deployment to Iraq. That's a big problem for him regardless of how the other facts pan out.

Violating opsec is a punishable offense under the UCMJ.

And the ongoing investigation by the US military is sure to turn up interesting nuggets on Beauchamp and his stories as the veracity of his stories remains the central issue.

Friday Funny

What happens when you do a mashup of The Ten Commandments and a high school romp?



Listen for a great cameo towards the end.

Jihadi Turned? Has Spiritual Leader Recanted Violent Jihad?

The spiritual leader of the Islamist movement that spawned al Qaeda, Sayid Imam al-Sharif, appears to be putting the finishing touches on a document that repudiates violent jihad.

Sharif, a surgeon who is still known by his underground name of "Dr Fadl", is famous as the author of the Salafi jihadists' "bible" - Foundations of Preparation for Holy War. He worked with Ayman al-Zawahiri, another Egyptian doctor and now Bin Laden's deputy, before being kidnapped in Yemen after 9/11, interrogated by the CIA and extradited to Egypt where has been serving a life sentence since 2004.

Sharif recently gave an electrifying foretaste of his conversion by condemning killings on the basis of nationality and colour of skin and the targeting of women and children, citing the Qur'anic injunction: "Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress the limits; for God loveth not transgressors." Armed operations were wrong, counterproductive and must cease, he declared sternly.

Zawahiri, evidently rattled, rounded sarcastically on him in a video message broadcast after Sharif's statement - faxed from Torah prison to an Arabic newspaper - announced not only his change of heart but a book-length repudiation endorsed by hundreds of other former militants, and which is due to be published soon.

I'm not sure whether this is legit or not, as Islamists are fond of lying to further their agendas and to disguise their true intentions but it could be potentially significant. Either way, it's sure to make for an interesting conversation.

Developing: NASA Discovers Sabotaged Equipment Headed To ISS

NASA also revealed that it had discovered the apparent sabotage of a noncritical component of the International Space Station due to be carried up by the shuttle. It launched an investigation after finding cut wires in a piece of computer equipment intended to transfer data from station sensors to the ground, the agency said.

Endeavour, fresh from a complete overhaul and the last of NASA’s three remaining shuttles to return to flight following the 2003 Columbia disaster, is due to carry out a construction mission to the $100-billion space station.

It will be NASA’s second shuttle flight of the year.

Endeavour was almost totally rebuilt during its overhaul and was like a new space shuttle, shuttle program manager Wayne Hale told reporters at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the launch will take place.

UPDATE:
It appears that two separate acts of sabotage were involved by a subcontractor. The computers that were affected were non critical and were detected with more than two weeks before the launch of the shuttle. (HT: Gaius) Gaius also wonders why the FBI isn't investigating the matter further, considering the national security and law enforcement implications.

Meanwhile, this wasn't the only bad news to come out from NASA today. It turns out that several astronauts were blasted before they blasted off. They drank heavily and could have been a flight risk, but were cleared by flight doctors despite the risk. Yes, this looks real good for NASA.

Also, an explosion occurred at a Mojave Desert airport, which is home to Scaled Composites, the company that won the X-prize for sending a reusable spacecraft into space twice within the required time limits. Burt Rutan is associated with that effort, which has attracted serious financial backing from Virgin Airlines founder Richard Branson and Northrup Grumman has a 40% stake in the company.

This is a possible setback for the company, which occurred when nitrous oxide tanks blew up.

USS Intrepid Update

The Fighting I, the USS Intrepid, a retired US aircraft carrier that has been the centerpiece of a sea, air and space museum and a fixture on the West Side at Pier 86, has been undergoing a much needed restoration since last year in Bayonne New Jersey and in Staten Island.

The ship is expected to reopen at the refurbished Pier 86 in time for Veterans' Day 2008. At that time, it will also be available in case of a major emergency in the City

The aircraft carrier Intrepid, in the midst of an 18-month makeover, returns to its mission as a floating military museum in fall 2008. But the legendary World War II ship is also available as an emergency operations center in the event of another terrorist attack.

``If there is another terrorist attack and Intrepid is called to duty, she will be ready to go back into service of her country,'' Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, said Thursday.

Intrepid is considered ideal for a law enforcement because it could be immediately and easily converted into a full-fledged, secure auxiliary emergency operations post with air, sea and land capability, according to White.

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies used the Intrepid for more than a month after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack.

``Within 20 minutes of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center towers, officials requested that Intrepid be used,'' said White. A temporary command post was set up with hundreds federal agents and members of the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force fielding thousands of phone calls over the weeks. Many of them slept in sleeping bags in the ship's hangar bay.

It was the first time since the storied Intrepid was mothballed by the Navy in 1976 that the ship was called to serve.

You can view updates of the work on the ship and the pier at the Intrepid's website.

Olmert's Gambit

I received the following from the Israeli Consulate in New York. I'm on their mailing list, and today's email contained the following from Haaretz:

Olmert's new offer to Abbas: Agreement of Principles toward Palestinian state Haaretz reported that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is offering to hold negotiations toward an "Agreement of Principles" for the establishment of a Palestinian state on most of the territory of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Olmert's proposal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is based on his view that it is important to first discuss issues that are relatively easy for the two sides to agree upon. No less important is Olmert's assessment that such an accord will enjoy the overwhelming support of the Israeli public and the Knesset.

If Olmert's proposal is accepted by the Palestinians, the two sides will begin negotiations on the characteristics of the Palestinian state, its official institutions, its economy, and the customs arrangement it will have with Israel.

After an "Agreement of Principles," the two sides will tackle the more sensitive diplomatic issues, like final borders and the transit arrangements.

Such agreement is believed to offer both Abbas and Olmert domestic political gains, and the Palestinian leader will be able to use it as part of his reelection campaign.

According to surveys, Olmert knows that the Israeli public is overwhelmingly supportive of a two-state solution, and that the current balance of power in the Knesset will allow him to rally a firm majority of 82 MKs behind such an agreement.

In the prime minister's view, this is not the time to deal with the minute details of the agreement, because it will be very difficult to reach agreement on final status issues, such as borders, Jerusalem and the refugees. These, Olmert proposes, should be left to the end of the negotiations.

Olmert would like to reach an agreement on principles, and then proceed to more difficult issues. This way, the prime minister claims, it will be possible to restart the peace process, in spite the weakness of the Palestinian Authority, and the skepticism regarding its ability to keep its part of the agreement and guarantee security.

The likely principles that Olmert will offer as part of the the agreement will be as follows:

*The establishment of a Palestinian state comprising about 90 percent of the territory of the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

Even prior to the 2006 elections, Olmert suggested that Israel unilaterally evacuate from such territory in the West Bank, and withdraw to the separation fence, for the primary purpose of retaining a Jewish majority in its territory, behind a defensible border.

Palestinian support for such agreement will contribute to Israeli public and political support for the deal.

*Exchange of territory to compensate for the large settlement blocs that will remain under Israeli control in the West Bank.

*Connecting the West Bank and the Gaza Strip through a tunnel in order to offer the Palestinians territorial contiguity, prevent friction between Israelis and Palestinians, and preserve security.

Israel will request territorial compensation for the digging of a tunnel in its sovereign territory. From Israel's point of view, a tunnel connecting the West Bank and the Strip is the best option to link the two, and is better than the elevated or sunken highway proposals.

*The Palestinians will be able to declare Jerusalem their capital. In the past Olmert has hinted that he would be willing to withdraw from the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem "on the edge," which have never been considered part of the historical city. The Old City, its environs and the Mount of Olives would remain in Israel's control.

The prime minister initiated discussions on the political vision during his recent meetings with Abbas. The goals and the framework of the negotiations was also discussed during the routine meetings between Olmert's senior aides, Yoram Turbowicz and Shalom Turjeman and their Palestinian counterparts, Rafik Huseini and Saeb Erekat.

Olmert turned down the proposal of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a "shelf agreement," which would be a complete final status agreement, negotiated by the U.S., whose implementation would be postponed. The prime minister explained that he is concerned that the PA will be unable to implement the agreement.

Olmert is also worried that such a plan would be used as the starting points for further negotiations, as happened to the proposals of Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David in 2000, and the Clinton Plan, that are now seen by the international community as the basis to any future agreement.

Where does one begin with this? Well, let's start with the things that Israel and Palestinians agree on. Palestinians want territory, and it appears that Israel is more than willing to give territory up. The only question is how much. I doubt Israel would ever accept the Palestinians final demands - to cease existing, so we're left with something along the lines of the 2000 Camp David maps.

As for connecting Gaza with the West Bank with a tunnel, I think that would be a problem since it would be easy for Palestinian terrorists to use the underground passage to start tunneling into Israel and launching terrorist attacks that way. If you were talking about an aboveground viaduct, Israeli forces could keep an eye on who and what was passing through - including disrupting terrorists attempting attacks and infiltration into Israel proper.

Finally, the idea that Israel would withdraw from a portion of Jerusalem and not cede the Temple Mount to the Palestinians would not pass muster with the Palestinians. Israelis might be willing to give up the Arab areas of Jerusalem, but none would give up the Temple Mount, the holiest spot on the planet for Jews.

It's interesting what what remains unmentioned in this - right of return. That's as it should be. There should be no right of return to Israel proper.

So, what does this get Olmert? Time.

He gets more time. It doesn't give Israel security, since Fatah is just as committed to Israel's destruction as Hamas - they just are willing to appear reasonable and have no problem destroying Israel through thousands of paper cuts. Also, the failure to adhere to earlier agreements should give Israel caution.

Abbas says that he could reach an agreement with Israel in less than a year. That's funny. You had seven years since Camp David in 2000 to provide a counter offer and yet you never did. There's a reason for that - because the US and or Israel would provide one for you. There's no incentive for Abbas to negotiate. If he waits long enough, Israel will provide concessions and Abbas can hold out for more.

Concessions also give Palestinians the opportunities to demand more without having to give up anything themselves. Note that Abbas is demanding more prisoners to be released.

You want progress, you must break that cycle. Make Abbas and the Palestinians hold to a position and negotiate in good faith. However, as I've noted before, when Palestinians continue to seek all of Israel as a Palestinian state, there is no common ground on which to build. Hamas is even more extreme in its view - it wants Israel destroyed sooner rather than later.

US Secretary of State Rice is deluded if she thinks that the future of the state of Israel is building up the Negev. Israel should not be forced to make concessions when Palestinians have yet to live up to their obligations under existing agreements.

And don't bother bringing up the fact that the Negev and areas surrounding Gaza have been under rocket and mortar fire nearly constantly for months by the Palestinian terrorists of Hamas, PIJ, and their branch outfits.

President Bush calls on Hamas to recognize Israel, but that's like talking to a wall, although if Hamas does manage to do so, one has to be extremely caution that they're simply engaging in deception to gain time and space to build up their weapons and terror forces for an attack on Israel.

"Scott Thomas" Meet Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp

The New Republic has come out and announced that Scott Thomas is in fact, a member of the US military.

My Diarist, "Shock Troops," and the two other pieces I wrote for the New Republic have stirred more controversy than I could ever have anticipated. They were written under a pseudonym, because I wanted to write honestly about my experiences, without fear of reprisal. Unfortunately, my pseudonym has caused confusion. And there seems to be one major way in which I can clarify the debate over my pieces: I'm willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name.

I am Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a member of Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division.

My pieces were always intended to provide my discreet view of the war; they were never intended as a reflection of the entire U.S. Military. I wanted Americans to have one soldier's view of events in Iraq.

It's been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq. I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join. That being said, my character, my experiences, and those of my comrades in arms have been called into question, and I believe that it is important to stand by my writing under my real name.

That's nice, but what about the veracity of what he wrote about? Well, TNR is taking its time in checking up on those stories.

Hey, TNR, you're supposed to fact check the stories before you run them - not after. If they're sounding too good to be true, they probably are.

As it stands, there are quite a few issues with his stories that suggest that Beauchamp exaggerated what he reported.

I have not served in the military, but I have studied military affairs for more than a decade, and a legal background doesn't hurt in processing evidence. If you're familiar with the Middle East and Iraq in particular, you know that the country is awash in all kinds of weapons, and quite a few of them fire 9mm ammo. Confederate Yankee and the milbloggers have been all over that aspect. That might sound like nitpicking on the larger story, but if he gets the small details wrong, are there problems with other aspects?

How about a time frame for when he claimed that a woman who suffered horrible burns from an IED was jeered in the dining facility? Can we track down who this woman is? Does she exist and can she corroborate his story? Again, milbloggers have questioned whether this incident occurred and the the timeframe so that they can corroborate that the incident occurred.

What about the mass grave discovery? Well, the MNF-I says that no such mass grave was discovered. They did find an unmarked cemetery and the bodies were reinterred with dignity and without the kind of scene that Beauchamp detailed.

Indeed, what we have here are questions that remain unanswered and Beauchamp has to account for his writings.

Still, now that you have a name, you can begin to get an idea of when this person served in Iraq and whether he would have been privy to the situations of which he writes.

Michelle Malkin also picks up the trail.

UPDATE:
Commenters on Hot Air are noting some possibile inconsistencies in Beauchamp's timeline, based on another blog that he wrote. The questionable blog post is from May 8, 2006. This is surely getting most curious. As Greyhawk cautioned, focus not on whether Thomas was a soldier (he thought that he was), but on the veracity of his claims.

UPDATE:
Private Beauchamp may be a private, but when you're in the military, there are several grades within that rank. Is this guy an E-1, E-2, or an E-3 (E-3 is also known as Private First Class). This would also relate to how much experience and responsibility he gained along with the amount of access he had to information.

UPDATE:
Gay Patriot makes a most astute observation, and one that I've made above - TNR hasn't actually corroborated anything that Pvt. Beauchamp has written.

UPDATE:
QandO notes that much of the criticism isn't coming from chickenhawks, but from those who served at FOB Falcon, which makes them soldiers in the same theater of operations as Beauchamp. Gateway Pundit recaps the situation.

Milblogger John at The Donovan has some more questions and points out that only Beauchamp has himself to blame for all the negative attention.

Milbloggers at Blackfive also weighs in.

UPDATE:
The PAO at FOB Falcon, Major Kirk Luedeke, wrote that they are investigating the matter further. It will definitely be interesting to see if the military can corroborate the details alluded to by Beauchamp. If they can't, Beauchamp is in serious trouble. If they can, someone is still going to be in trouble because of the numerous violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and that can include Beauchamp for failing to report such instances to his superiors.

UPDATE:
Discarded Lies is where the latest subplot is taking place. A former TNR staffer was let go for undisclosed reasons, and has been a source for some of Ace's intel on the Beauchamp story. It would also appear that Beauchamp got the job because of his connections to a TNR staffer - as in he was married to a TNR staffer.

That's all well and good in determining how Beauchamp came to be published in TNR, but it says nothing about the veracity of his claims or how and why TNR published his work without bothering to fact check it? Did they simply think that the say-so of his wife was sufficient to forgo the vetting?

Eyes on the prize folks - the key is getting the facts straight here. Did Beauchamp invent the stories, or are they accurate. It's about the veracity of his claims, not who he was sleeping with - although that makes for a more salacious story.

UPDATE:
evariste has reconstructed a time line on the firing of gracie/beth at DL, and notes that if TNR had exhibited this kind of work before publishing Beauchamp's work, it is possible none of this would have happened. Very true.

UPDATE:
The Corner cautions to stick to what's important here - determining the veracity of Beauchamp's story. Correctamundo. See above.

I note that no one else has yet named this scandal with a catchy quip. I'd suggest ScottScam. Short. Pithy. Catchy.

Other milbloggers picking up on the scent: Neptunus Lex, Baldilocks, John at Argghhh!

Others blogging in general: Confederate Yankee, Ace has been all over this story, so keep tuned in for updates, Villainous Company, Dan Riehl, Betsy's Page, and Wizbang.

Name That Party: NY Metro Area Edition

Charles Barron, the demagogue fixture of the City Council watched as one of his former lackeys Viola Plummer got tossed from the City Council chambers by the Speaker. He claimed that the speaker, Christine Quinn, was flexing her political muscles and that he would do everything possible to keep her from running for mayor. Quinn claimed that she was abiding by the rules and that only those invited by the Speaker could sit in the Chamber where Plummer had been sitting. Barron also claimed racism, but that gets overlooked every time Barron opens his yapper since that's his MO ever since he arrived on the political scene. He claims every white person is a racist (pot meet kettle).

No mention of political affiliations there, but all are Democrats. They just belong to different political clubs.

Another NYC City Councilman is in hot water. Dennis Gallagher is accused of raping a woman at his district office. The article promptly addresses Gallagher's political affiliation. He notes no charges have been filed and expects to be exonerated.

The ongoing fight between Spitzer, Bruno, and Cuomo continues, and the Times decides to give people a break on which parties the combatants belong to. Yet, this article in the NY Sun focusing on Governor Spitzer declines to mention his party affiliation (Spitzer, Silver and Cuomo are Democrats, Bruno is a Republican).

An investigation definitely needs to be launched into the actions of his administration. Specifically, they need to focus on whether Spitzer knew of the acts of his underlings in launching an investigation of Bruno's travel routines. This has the possibility of ending very badly for Spitzer, and the lasting damage could cripple his remaining term in office. One who would benefit? Andrew Cuomo, who was denied the chance to run for Governor by Spitzer, and instead settled for Attorney General.

How difficult is it to mention political affiliations in the first paragraph or work that detail into the articles? It's not like the Spitzer story happened overnight. There's no excuse for leaving out those details.

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 237

We're nearly six years past the 9/11 attacks, and we're still identifying remains. The wait is agonizing for those who get the news that their loved ones have been positively identified, but it just as surely rips open old wounds. It also reawakens old concerns over how to properly treat the thousands of tons of wreckage and debris that was carted to Fresh Kills. Family groups are still calling for proper burial for all that debris, even as the costs to do so would run in the hundreds of millions of dollars. One more person was identified today, and more bone fragments have been discovered in the ongoing search and construction around the bustling Ground Zero site.

The latest Sept. 11 victim to be identified, Edward Ryan, of Scarsdale, N.Y., was a vice president of Carr Futures with an office on the 92nd floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center.

His remains were found while sifting materials from a ramp once used to get to ground zero, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city's medical examiner. The ramp was dismantled several months ago as construction at the site progresses.

Ryan died along with 68 co-workers after apparently being trapped by debris that clogged stairwells in the burning tower that was hit by American Airlines Flight 11.

The families of 13 other Carr employees are still hoping the remains of their loved ones might be identified.

The office of the medical examiner is working with the Bode Technology Group, a DNA testing laboratory, to identify as many victims as possible.

Bode has patented a new methodology of DNA extraction that enables the creation of a DNA profile from much less sample material than was required only five years ago.

Following the discovery of human remains in an abandoned Con Edison manhole at the trade center site last October, more materials were collected from the access ramp and from another area bordering ground zero.

On Tuesday, 35 "potential" human remains were recovered, said Borakove, explaining that the term "potential" is used until DNA experts verify the exact nature of the remains. The human fragments are from a half inch to 4 inches long.

As construction proceeds, it is likely that more remains may be discovered, especially as access points and nearby roads are excavated for utilities and other related work.

Meanwhile, one of the many rescue dogs that worked at Ground Zero in the recovery efforts, has died after a battle with cancer.

No one can say whether the dog would have gotten sick if he hadn’t been exposed to the smoky air at ground zero, but cancer in dogs Jake’s age – he was 12 – is quite common.

Some rescue dog owners who worked at the World Trade Center site claim their animals have died because of their work at ground zero. But scientists who have spent years studying the health of Sept. 11 search-and-rescue have found no sign of major illness in the animals.

The results of an autopsy on Jake’s cancer-riddled body will be part of a University of Pennsylvania medical study of Sept. 11 search-and-rescue dogs.

Some workers who were involved in the Windows on the World restaurant have sued a restaurant, claiming that the former Windows employees are being forced out and that claims that former Windows workers were owners is a sham. Colors was established after 9/11 by former Windows workers, but the lawsuit claims that a group of Italian investors and ROC-NY are the only owners.

Also on the legal front, the dismissal of a subrogation suit involving 7WTC and the insurance company IRI and Citibank was upheld by an appeals court.

The lawsuit alleged that the New York-based financial services company chose to design, construct and install a diesel fuel powered generator that aggravated the fire damage caused by the terrorist attacks on the nearby Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, and the ultimate collapse of the building.

IRI sued Citigroup as a subrogee of Silverstein Properties, but a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the lawsuit in 2005, finding that New York's "subrogation waiver" doctrine precluded IRI from asserting a claim of gross negligence against Citigroup.

As far as actual construction is concerned, work is progressing on the permanent transit hub designed by Santiago Calatrava and steel is continuing to go in for the sublevels of the Freedom Tower. Even Deutsche Bank is finally coming down after many delays. And the cranes are outnumbering the delis. That's a good thing - it's a sign that construction is progressing, though I hope for the day when the number of delis significantly outnumbers the cranes in the area since that means that construction is done and businesses are moving in. That day can't come fast enough. Downtown Express has more on the ongoing construction around Lower Manhattan and Ground Zero.

However, the hulking remain of Fiterman Hall remains an eyesore. A plan that would have moved the Signature/Joyce theater to where Fiterman stands has gone nowhere.

Sports Blotter Roundup

The wheels are officially coming off the cycles at the Tour de France, as not only have two teams been disqualified for members doping, but the tour leader was pulled by his team because he failed to provide an itinerary for the past several weeks. Oh, and a bomb went off along the Spanish portion of the ride earlier today. The terrorist group, ETA, claimed responsibility. As for the racing, Michael Rassmussen was tossed, even though he was leading the race. He violated his team rules.

The Tour is in complete disarray as leaders have been sacked, high profile cyclists have been tossed, and last year's winner, Floyd Landis, is still under a cloud of suspicion over his performance and a failed test.

Earlier this week, Cofidis pulled its team out of the Tour when rider Cristian Moreni of Italy failed a doping test and was led away by police at the end of the 16th stage. That comes on the heels of another team pulling out because Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive for a banned blood transfusion. He had won a stage earlier in the race.

It's a sad thing that the sport of cycling is best known for doping scandals, and not the difficulty of winning the most prestigious race, the Tour de France.

Then, there's the ongoing mess with Michael Vick. He's been told to stay away from training camp by the NFL. Some are wondering why the half measures. Well, good question. There's also a good answer. While everything appears stacked against him, he is still presumed innocent under the law. Animal lovers have every right to be pissed off at Vick, but don't get ahead of the legal process. These things also have a way of working out for themselves. It might not be as fast as one would like, but they will work out.

There are also signs that Vick might never take another snap with the Atlanta Falcons, the team that drafted him out of college.

Expect Vick to take a look at what's happened and I expect him to try and cut a deal to get out. Prosecutors will likely try to take this to court, and the evidence certainly seems quite complete.

Oh, and for those still paying attention, there's Barry Bonds and his quest to crack baseball's holy grail, the career baseball home run record. He's sitting at 753, and Hank Aaron stands at 755. The problem for Bonds is that everyone associates him with the steroid scandal, regardless of whether he actually took them or not. His name is indelibly linked with the BALCO mess, and his name keeps popping up, despite his protestations to the contrary. It's surely keeping MLB Commissioner Bud Selig up at night, and perhaps wishing that Bonds comes down with an injury that prevents him from reaching the milestone, but Selig has said he'd be there. Hank Aaron has said he wouldn't attend, which is a shame, since putting the spotlight on Bonds actually makes Aaron's accomplishments all the more impressive - he did them without any claims of performance enhancement.

The Coming Fare Hike

You've been warned. The MTA is looking to raise fares and tolls, and I fully expect Mayor Bloomberg to tout this point when arguing for the congestion pricing scheme. The fact remains is that the MTA is not fully transparent on its finances and has repeatedly been shown to cook the books to suit its needs.

Officials were also expected to propose a system of regular, more modest fare increases, at the rate of inflation, every two years, as a way of stabilizing revenues, according to a person with direct knowledge of the authority’s financial plan.

Fares and tolls were last raised in February 2005. At that time the authority maintained the base bus and subway fare at $2, but raised the cost of a 7-day MetroCard by 14 percent, from $21 to $24, and the cost of a 30-day MetroCard by 8.6 percent, from $70 to $76. Increases were also made to commuter rail fares and bridge and tunnel tolls.

Officials said it was not clear what formula they would use for an increase this time. The board will be asked today to authorize the authority to begin the process of raising fares and tolls, including holding public hearings on the increase. Those familiar with the plan said that a fare increase, if ultimately approved by the board, was not expected to go into effect until early next year.

The authority has warned for several years that it would face dire financial challenges because of hefty increases in debt payments caused by major borrowing. In February, it said it would have a deficit next year of $799 million, followed by deficits of $1.46 billion in 2009 and $1.78 billion in 2010.

But it may now find itself with a different sort of challenge: convincing the public that a fare and toll increase is necessary when it is still operating in the black. Last year, the authority ran a surplus of more than $900 million, money that is being used in this year’s budget. The surplus at the end of this year is expected to be similar. The surpluses have largely been generated by higher-than-expected income from taxes on real estate sales and mortgages.

The budget surpluses also represent a marked reversal from earlier forecasts. In late 2003, the authority predicted it would have a budget shortfall this year of $1.5 billion.

A fare hike might be needed, especially with the increased fuel and energy costs borne by the agency for operating the buses and subways and a potential decline in real estate sales. However, without transparency, one cannot be assured you're getting accurate figures.

Congestion pricing also fits into this whole scheme, as it is touted as a cure-all for the transportation woes facing the City. It's curious that NYC City Councilman John Liu notes that a fare increase is tantamount to a tax hike. I've been saying the same exact thing about the congestion pricing scheme, which is designed to capture revenue from those who don't use mass transit.

Pouring It On

The Lebanese military has been pouring on the artillery against Fatah al Islam in its ongoing battle with that Palestinian terrorist group in Nahr al-Bared.

"This is the final phase of the military operation," one Lebanese political source said, adding that he expected the army to capture the whole camp by the end of this week.

The source said there were about 100 people left inside the area controlled by Fatah al-Islam -- 60 fighters and 40 civilians who include 24 wives of militants and 16 children.

Palestinian and U.N. officials had earlier put the number of civilians left in the hundreds. The Lebanese source said some 200 civilians had left the camp in recent days.

Witnesses said soldiers blasted with tanks and artillery the last pockets of the militants who have refused repeated calls to surrender. The fighting, which began on May 20, is Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.

The conflict has further undermined stability in Lebanon, already crippled by a prolonged political crisis and shaken by bombings that have killed six U.N. peacekeepers and two anti-Syrian lawmakers in the past eight months.

"At its heaviest shortly after dawn, some 20 shells a minute were hitting the camp," said one witness who watched the fighting from a distance. "It was deafening."

The militants hit back, firing a few Katyusha rockets into areas outside the camp. The security sources said two soldiers were wounded in the clashes.

The Lebanese army's slow push into the destroyed camp has cost the lives of 120 soldiers. More than 84 Fatah al-Islam fighters and 41 civilians have also been killed.

There isn't much left to the area, as the incessant artillery has reduced the area to rubble. Two Lebanese soldiers were killed in the latest fighting.

Taliban Claim Execution of South Korean Hostage

Taliban militants claimed they shot and killed one South Korean hostage on Wednesday while a group of abductees was freed and taken to a U.S. military base, officials said.

Purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi claimed that one of the hostages had been shot and killed around 4 p.m. (7:30 a.m. EDT), and a police official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation said militants told him the hostage was sick and couldn’t walk and was therefore shot.

The Jawa Report has been all over this hostage situation from the outset, as has Hot Air. The barbarity of the Taliban once again shows what we're up against. Islamists who have absolutely no regard for human life.

There is no evidence as yet that any of the group of 23 South Koreans had been freed.

The Taliban have been demanding that Taliban prisoners held by coalition forces and the Afghan government be released and the South Korean contingent of the coalition forces leave. Their latest deadline is 1:00 am Thursday local time.

UPDATE:
The bullet riddled body of one of the South Koreans held hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan has been recovered.

The male victim had 10 bullet holes in his head, chest and stomach, and was discovered in the Mushaki area of Qarabagh district in Ghazni province, said police officer Abdul Rahman.

The Taliban spokesman said earlier that the hostage was was killed because Afghan authorities hadn't met their demands to release other militants from prison.

Suspicious Dry Runs Have Airports Worried

A news report came out overnight how airports have been alerted to a series of suspicious incidents at airports around the country that may have been dry runs to see how security handles such situations.

Airport security officers around the nation have been alerted by federal officials to look out for terrorists practicing to carry explosive components onto aircraft, based on four curious seizures at airports since last September.

The unclassified alert was distributed on July 20 by the Transportation Security Administration to federal air marshals, its own transportation security officers and other law enforcement agencies.

The seizures at airports in San Diego, Milwaukee, Houston and Baltimore included "wires, switches, pipes or tubes, cell phone components and dense clay-like substances," including block cheese, the bulletin said. "The unusual nature and increase in number of these improvised items raise concern."

Security officers were urged to keep an eye out for "ordinary items that look like improvised explosive device components."

The 13-paragraph bulletin was posted on the Internet by NBC Nightly News, which first reported the story.

A federal official familiar with the document confirmed the authenticity of the NBC posting but declined to be identified by name because it has not been officially released.

"There is no credible, specific threat here," TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe said Tuesday. "Don't panic. We do these things all the time."

So, what are you supposed to do if you see something suspicious? If you see something, say something, says law enforcement officials around the country. However, Democrats are trying to prevent legislation that would provide immunity for those who would report suspicious behavior and incidents in case their suspicions turn out to be wrong. This became an issue after the flying imams incident and CAIR sought to sue those who reported the incident to the authorities.

I'll tell you what I would do. If I saw something suspicious, I would speak up. I'd take my chances with the legal system, knowing that an honest mistake is far better than being silent and it turns out to be a terrorist incident.

The Visit

Let's make a huge deal about the fact that the Arab League has visited Israel for the first time. Hooray!

Foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the visit was historic.

"This is the first time that a delegation is coming here under the auspices of the Arab League," he said. "In the past, the Arab League has opposed dialogue, normalization and any contact with Israel and this is the first time the Arab League has authorized a delegation to visit Israel."

The Arab League asked Jordan and Egypt to take the lead in pushing forward their newly revived peace plan, which offers a comprehensive peace agreement in exchange for Israel's withdrawal from all territories captured in 1967.

Israel rejected the plan when Saudi Arabia first proposed it in 2002, at the height of the Palestinian uprising. But it softened its resistance after moderate Arab states endorsed the plan again in March, sharing their concerns about Iran's growing influence.

Israel has welcomed the plan as a basis for negotiations, but raised concerns about certain aspects. Israel rejects a full withdrawal from the West Bank and east Jerusalem. It also objects to the plan's apparent call for the return of Palestinians who became refugees in the 1948 Mideast war and their descendants. Israel says a large-scale return of refugees would destroy the country's Jewish character.

Moderate Arab countries and the West have been pushing for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking since Gaza fell to Hamas, a group that refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist and has killed more than 250 Israelis in suicide bombings.

Can we please get a little perspective here? Seriously, what exactly has this visit accomplished? The Arab League is sticking to the same line it's had since 1967. They want Israel to relinquish all of the territories it captured in 1967.

That means giving up the Golan Heights, all of the West Bank, and most importantly, Jerusalem, home to Judaism's holiest site - the Temple Mount and Western Wall.

Israel is under absolutely no obligation to do so, even under UN SCR 242, which only requires that Israel return lands for peace, not all land captured.

Syria, meanwhile, continues to play games in Lebanon and nary a peep from the Arab League - the ongoing occupation of 177 square miles of Lebanon. Gaza is only 57.916 square miles (and Israel withdrew fully in 2005 only to watch Gaza turn into a terrorist homeland for Hamas - complete with regularly scheduled rocket attacks on a near daily basis). The West Bank is about 2,200 square miles. The Arab League has no problem putting its blinders on when it comes to the depravities of Arabs against Arabs, but Israel's ongoing existence and repeated victories over Arab armies through the years is too much to ignore.

If the Arab League were truly serious about a peace deal with Israel, they should start with the member nations fully recognizing Israel and dropping the demands for Palestinian right of return along with normalization of relations.

UPDATE:
And while the Arab League continues to pressure Israel in to making concessions, Hamas is finding persuasion of a different sort useful. Assassinating your enemies is superior to dealing with them. In this instance, Hamas failed to assassinate Abbas, but the gunmen got away.

PA security officials here told The Jerusalem Post several shots were fired at Abbas's home. Abbas was inside the house, but neither he nor any of his family members were hurt, they said.

Following the incident, PA security forces launched a manhunt for the shooters who, eyewitnesses said, managed to escape in a car toward the northern part of the city.

"Several shots were fired near the home of President Abbas," said a senior PA security official. "I don't know if this was an assassination attempt, but it's the first incident of its kind here and that's why we are taking it very seriously."

Another top security official said he was convinced Hamas was behind the shooting.

Fawning Over Fidel: A Year Without El Presidente

It's been one year since old Fidel has been seen in public (and not simply some staged photo ops that make one wish for reruns of Weekend at Bernies). The AP is practically drooling as they write this:

When Fidel Castro last appeared in public one year ago Thursday, he enthusiastically led about 100,000 Communist Party faithful in celebrating the audacious attack on an army barracks that launched his revolution.

These days, the convalescing 80-year-old seems to be in vigilant semiretirement.

He tracks government affairs and writes essays from an undisclosed location, apparently in no rush to resume the hectic lifestyle he blamed for his ailment. He can spend hours watching the Pan American games on television, writing last week that he is so engrossed that he forgets to eat and take his medicine.

Forgets to eat and take his meds? Heh. He's so busy that he can't be seen in public and his handlers are limiting access to [T]hugo Chavez and similar persons?

Did the AP actually meet and greet Fidel, or did they simply reprint the Cuban government line?

UPDATED: Ward Churchill Fired By University of Colorado

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Churchill is being fired because he was a plagiarist and lied about his background. It has nothing to do with his comments about 9/11, though those comments didn't help - they helped ignite an interest in his background, which was quite revealing.

"Today, I issued to Professor Churchill a notice of intent to dismiss him from his faculty position at the University of Colorado Boulder," CU Interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano said Monday afternoon.

Churchill has 10 days to appeal, which entails making a request to have the university president or chancellor forward the recommendation to the faculty senate Committee on Privilege and Tenure. A special panel will then conduct hearings on the matter and make a recommendation to the president on whether grounds for dismissal are supported.


Another committee found Churchill guilty of research misconduct and another panel recommended that he be fired because of "repeated and deliberate" infractions of scholarship rules.

Churchill's attorney promptly called a news conference Monday afternoon to announce that his client does intend to appeal to the tenure committee. He also mentioned going to court.

Churchill, who ignited a firestorm by calling some of the World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns" in an essay he wrote after Sept. 11, 2001, has vowed to sue the school if he was fired.

"We're going to a real court because we can trust juries to do the right thing," said Churchill's attorney David Lane. "Churchill says this all completely bogus. Let's see if a jury and a Federal District Court agrees with the committee. Or see if everything that's happened here is retaliation for Ward Churchill's First Amendment free speech relating to 9/11."

The tenured professor of ethnic studies has repeatedly denied all accusations of misconduct.

He told The Associate Press in mid-June, "The basic situation here is that there was a call by high officials in the state, notably the governor but hardly restricted to the governor, for my termination clear back last February, whether or not it was legal. They were willing to take the heat and go to court if necessary to stand behind an illegitimate investigation."

When his essay was brought to light in January 2005, Gov. Bill Owens, state lawmakers and relatives of Sept. 11, 2001 victims in New York immediately denounced it. University officials concluded Churchill could not be fired for the essay, but in March 2005 they launched an investigation into allegations of plagiarism and other research misconduct.

"A committee last year began to look at his writings including his essay on 9/11," said DiStefano. "We determined his writings were protected under the First Amendment. However, during that process there were allegations of research misconduct."

Last month, an investigative subcommittee concluded that Churchill repeatedly fabricated his research, plagiarized others' work and strayed from the "bedrock principles of scholarship."

While one expects the leftists and Churchill backers to claim that he's losing his job because of his exercise of free speech, he's being fired because of academic misconduct that undermines the university's mission to provide an education and unethical conduct by a professor.

UPDATE:
The final decision is expected later today. The calls for his being dismissed have grown over the past two years since it was revealed that he engaged in falsifying evidence, plagiarism, and inventing stories in the course of his 'research.'

UPDATE:
Pirate Ballerina is live blogging the developing situation at CU.

UPDATE:
Fixed typo in title and more importantly, note that it is now official. Churchill has been fired from his professorship at the University of Colorado (video and more at Hot Air). Expect him to whine and seethe over the firing, but the proof of his academic misconduct is incontrovertible.

Of course, he'll claim that the university was denying him free speech. Nonsense. He can say whatever he want. He can even say it on the college campus no matter how distasteful it would be. That isn't what got him fired. That only got people to take a closer look at his work, and that closer inspection showed serious discrepancies in his CV and his works.

He can't invent evidence and plagiarize. That got him fired.

UPDATE:
Others blogging his firing from the University of Colorado: Michelle Malkin, Ed Driscoll, and Weasel Zippers.

UPDATE:
Pirate Ballerina is all over this story. Still others weigh in: Sister Toldjah and Gateway Pundit.

UPDATE:
So how is the AP reporting the firing? Well, they headline that “Professor fired for 9/11-Nazi comparison.” Another AP report states "Colorado Prof Fired After 9-11 Comments." Even Drudge gets the story conflated, where he posts: "Professor Ward Churchill Fired After 9-11 Remarks... " The stories themselves do note that he was fired for academic misconduct, not his outrageous comments about 9/11.

Doubting the Thomas Story

The editor of The New Republic (TNR), Franklin Foer, continues to sidestep serious questions over the veracity of stories it has been publishing under the name of Scott Thomas. Thomas claims to be a soldier, and yet mibloggers from around the blogosphere have taken his stories apart for discrepancies large and small. The military has taken his comments to task for going outside the chain of command if such incident had indeed occurred - so that those responsible for the violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice would face the music.

Confederate Yankee's questions remain unanswered.

Bill Kristol notes that the Left really doesn't support the troops. Their actions speak far louder than their words.

Publishing the statements and reports without assuring their validity? That's par for the course at TNR, which should have learned its lesson after being burned by Stephen Glass. Apparently that incident didn't do the trick.

UPDATE:
Now this is where things get interesting. Yesterday, I cited a New York Times piece, and noted how curious it was that Foer was nearly certain of the identity of Thomas as a soldier. Here's how the original last paragraph of the story ran:

The magazine granted anonymity to the writer to keep him from being punished by his military superiors and to allow him to write candidly, Mr. Foer said. He said that he had met the writer and that he knows with “near certainty” that he is, in fact, a soldier.

Here's the current version, pulled on July 24:

The magazine granted anonymity to the writer to keep him from being punished by his military superiors and to allow him to write candidly, Mr. Foer said. He said that he had met the writer and that he knows that he is, in fact, a soldier.

What's missing? It's that near certainty. As Ace notes, someone better have a damned good explanation for this and the stories offered by both TNR and NYT better match up. What's with the revision without attribution of correction as per company policy? After all, it would seem that the Times has revised the story to eliminate a direct quote from Foer that changes the context and strength of Foer's argument that he vetted Thomas' background (see here for problems with the NYT corrections policy - the failure to append corrections to the original story for completeness of the record). Did the NYT incorrectly quote Foer, or did Foer request a retraction of the comment? Either way, someone better explain why the change was made.

UPDATE:
It's now reverted to the way it was originally posted yesterday. What is going on over at the NYT and where are the correction notifications?

UPDATE:
Change that. They've added a line:

The magazine granted anonymity to the writer to keep him from being punished by his military superiors and to allow him to write candidly, Mr. Foer said. He said that he had met the writer and that he knows with "near certainty" that he is, in fact, a soldier.

After this article appeared, Mr. Foer said he was "absolutely certain" that the author is a soldier.

Gee, that clears things up, doesn't it?

The Slammer Awaits

This doesn't look good for Lindsay Lohan at all. After leaving rehab no less:

Lindsay Lohan, who just finished a second stint in rehab for substance abuse treatment, was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving early Tuesday, authorities said.

Lohan, who is already facing a drunken driving charge in Beverly Hills, was pulled over near the Santa Monica Police Department after authorities spotted her car chasing another vehicle, said Sgt. Shane Talbot.

Authorities conducted a field sobriety test and then transported Lohan to the police department.

The 21-year-old actress was booked on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, driving on a suspended license and possession of cocaine, among other charges, Talbot said.

Police found cocaine in one of her pants pockets during a pre-booking search, Talbot said.

Not only do you have the repeat offense for the DUI to consider, but the possession of cocaine. I guess rehab didn't exactly help.

Lohan is quite talented as an actress, but her personal life is a complete mess, and she's working hard to live hard and die young at the rate she's going. Someone really needs to step in and get her clean and sober, and I doubt that her parents are up to the task either. She needs to take responsibility for her own actions, and her refusal to recognize her problems is only making this worse.

UPDATE:
Leave it to The Smoking Gun to provide the mug shots. Not as bad as it could have been. It's not in Nick Nolte territory, but isn't in the Tom DeLay category either.

Syria's Occupation of Lebanon Continues

A few weeks back, I wrote about how Syria had invaded Lebanon and no one paid much attention to the story. That story indicated that the Syrians had moved six miles inside Lebanon. Well, it turns out that the story missed the bigger picture.

The bigger picture?

Syria has been occupying 177 square miles of Lebanese territory for decades and no one is making so much as a peep about it. The occupation started after Syria's invasion of Lebanon in 1976 and continues to this day. Bret Stephens notes what he found in 2005:

This is a story to which I can contribute my own testimony. In May 2005 I paid a visit to Lebanon, just a month after Syria had announced that it had fully withdrawn its 14,000 troops from Lebanon in compliance with Resolution 1559. The rumor in Beirut was that a company of 200 or so elite Syrian soldiers remained encamped within Lebanon near the Druze village of Deir al-Ashaer. I decided to have a look. After a long drive over rutted roads, I found it.

Or rather, what I found was a hillside outpost that I was able to enter without crossing any apparent international border. The man in charge was a Syrian intelligence officer who "invited" me into a sweltering tent while he phoned his commanders for instruction. After a few tense minutes of silence with the soldiers inside, the officer reappeared, explained that the camp was 50 yards inside Syrian territory, and ordered me to go. From there I went to the village, where the mayor insisted the camp was several hundred yards inside Lebanon.

Who was right? Inclined as I was to believe the mayor, it was hard to sort out contending claims over remote parcels of land. A week later, then Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced the U.N. had "verified all [Syrian military units] had withdrawn, including [from] the border area." It seemed that was the end of the story.

I should have known then that anything "verified" by the U.N. must be checked at least twice. I should have known, too, that anything to which Mr. Annan devoted his personal attention would inevitably become worse. Last September, Mr. Annan paid a visit to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad after the latter had declared he would treat any attempt by the U.N. to deploy peacekeepers along the Lebanese-Syrian border as a "hostile act." To defuse the impasse, Mr. Annan simply accepted Mr. Assad's assurances that Syria would police its border and prevent arms smuggling. "I think it can happen," said the diplomat at a press conference. "It may not be 100%, but it will make quite a lot of difference if the government puts in place the measures the government has discussed with me."

The UN continues to be useless in this situation as the territorial integrity of Lebanon continues to be violated on a daily basis by Syria, which only seeks to reestablish full dominion over Lebanon for its own purposes.

Meanwhile, one has to wonder where is Hizbullah's outrage over this violation of Lebanon's sovereignty? After all, they start wars complaining that Israel has occupied a couple yards of Lebanese territory but yet they don't say one word over Syria occupying 177 square miles for over 30 years? Well, it's tough to bite the hand that feeds you. Syria has long offered support to Hizbullah so they look the other way as Syria carves up Lebanon for its own purposes.

NFL Tells Michael Vick To Stay Away From Training Camp

Michael Vick was ordered by commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday to stay away from the Atlanta Falcons' training camp until the league reviews the dogfighting charges against him.

"While it is for the criminal justice system to determine your guilt or innocence, it is my responsibility as commissioner of the National Football League to determine whether your conduct, even if not criminal, nonetheless violated league policies, including the Personal Conduct Policy," Goodell said in a letter to the quarterback.

The NFL said Vick would still get his preseason pay and Goodell told the Falcons to withhold any disciplinary action of their own until the league's review was completed.

The NFL is trying to balance the fact that Vick is still presumed innocent in the criminal justice system with the appearance of impropriety and misconduct under the league's personal conduct policy.

They can rationalize this simply by noting that the bad press Vick has rightfully received as a result of being indicted on multiple counts of animal abuse and gambling has given the league a black eye.

Don't expect the player's union to contest this as they are the weakest player's union among the major sports.

The Sheehanapalooza Returns, And Gets Arrested?

Cindy Sheehan, who vowed to quit the public arena, is not only back in it, but busy getting arrested for disorderly conduct in the process of pushing her "impeachment or else" agenda. She wants House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to begin impeachment proceedings. If Pelosi doesn't comply, Sheehan will run against Pelosi in 2008. I'm sure that Pelosi is quaking in her comfy designer shoes and busy counting her millions in net worth.

Sheehan was arrested inside the office of Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) who chairs the House Judiciary Committee:

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Monday at the Capitol for disorderly conduct, shortly after saying she would run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the California Democrat's refusal to try to impeach President Bush.

Sheehan was taken into custody inside Rep. John Conyers' office, where she had spent an hour imploring him to launch impeachment proceedings against Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Conyers, D-Mich., chairs the House Judiciary Committee, where any impeachment effort would have to begin.

Pelosi is quite effective at launching investigations, but not so good at the day to day business of legislating. Nothing has been accomplished, though one could argue that such an outcome is a good thing.

Others blogging Pelosi's effectiveness and the Sheehanapalooza: Don Surber, Hot Air, Macranger, and Wake Up America.

Sister Toldjah points out that Sen. Russ Feingold (D-throttle free speech) is peddling a similar line to Sheehan. He would like to introduce a resolution censuring President Bush and others in the Administration. Congress has no power to do such a thing, not that any such limitations would stop the Leftist Democrats these days. Feckless Senators have tried this route once before. That occurred when the Senate, with a majority that backed President Andrew Jackson's opponent in the 1832 Presidential election, Henry Clay. They passed a resolution of censure against Jackson over his refusal to hand over documents to Congress. Jackson was censured in 1834, but when the following Congress assumed office, the censure was stricken from the record in 1837.

Barcelona's Blackout

Worry about blackouts isn't confined to the US. Europe and the rest of the world have them as well. A blackout in Barcelona shut down large parts of the city earlier today:

Fecsa attributed the outage to a failure of part of the high-tension network of Catalonia.

A power failure that affects since this morning a large part of Barcelona and the región of Baix Llobregat is causing large problems in the Barcelona area leaving without light numerous homes, businesses, hospitals, traffic lights and public transportation systems such as the Metro and the Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat.

According to information provided to Efe by Barcelona Town Hall, the outage coincided with fires at two electrical transformers in the city, situated on Paseo Maragall and Avenida Josep Tarradellas, where various fire departments responded.

For its part, a spokesman for the company Fecsa-Endesa confirmed that the outage affected various points of the city and the metropolitana area, although he affirmed that it still remains unknown the causes and the number affected.

The outage left without electricity a good part of the districts of Sants, Eixample, Gracia, Sant Andreu, Sarrià-Sant Gervasi and Ciutat Vella, as well as some neighborhoods of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat and de Esplugues, has provoked considerable road and train chaos, and has left without light a large number of businesses, stores and homes.

At its height, more than 300,000 customers were without power. Infrastructure woes aren't unique to the US. The rest of the world has to deal with systems that are getting older and limited efforts to modernize them.

Here in the New York metro area, Con Ed continues to get slammed for its response to the steam explosion. Longtime critic, NYC Councilman Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) wants the utility to face increased scrutiny and oversight. His district was hit hard by last summer's extended blackout when Con Ed's power grid suffered a major meltdown.

Gianaris said Con Ed should reimburse the dozens of businesses that have been affected by the blast for lost business - something he said was not done for the merchants in his district who were affected by the 2006 blackout.

"They covered nothing for lost business opportunity in that eight-, nine-day period, and it sounds to me like they're doing the same thing in midtown Manhattan, where they're covering clothes and cleanup and they're telling people to file their claims for lost business and their lawyers will review them on a case-by-case basis," he said.

Following last summer's blackout, which affected more than 100,000 people, Gianaris headed an Assembly task force that introduced legislation to force Con Ed to compete, to mandate independent audits of the utility and to increase reimbursements to merchants affected by outages.

"They have no reason to improve because there's not a damn thing we can do about it when they screw up," Gianaris said at a news conference in front of Con Ed headquarters near Union Square. "We can no longer sit by and coddle this company and pat them on the back every time disaster strikes."

"Scott Thomas" Story Keeps Falling Apart

Far from the report that it was a mass grave that was uncovered, it appears that a soldier who actually served at the base of operations in question, FOB Falcon, notes that an unmarked children's cemetery was discovered and the remains therein were reinterred at another location.

This soldier also notes that had anyone acted inappropriately towards a woman disfigured by an IED on the base, they would have been swiftly dealt with under the UCMJ. The same goes for disrespecting the remains of anyone discovered in the cemetery.

Similarily, driving recklessly would have resulted in harsh lecturing by the senior officers because such actions would endanger the entire unit operating in the field.

Third: When the U.S. Army takes to the streets on patrols we do it deliberately, with task and purpose. "Thomas" describes the Bradley slowing down and 'jerking' suddenly to hit dogs. This just isn't possible. If he is slowing down, then the vehicles behind him are slowing down, and there is a gap created between him and the vehicles in front of him. This would violate standard operating procedure (SOP) and make the convoy more susceptible to attack. While no one that has been to Baghdad can deny that there are large packs of wild dogs roaming the streets, to think that that is all a Bradley crew is worried about is absurd. The streets are also filled with IED's and EFP's. They line every street and and every corner. They are the number one killer in Iraq. When we travel in convoys, dogs are not our concern. We watch the streets, we look at curbs, we look at rocks, we look at windows for snipers and trigger men, we don't look at wild dogs. Also, if this guy is driving a Bradley, how is he marking his "dog kill count" in a green book. Again, any leader would have corrected this action immediately, not only because it is subject to UCMJ action, but mainly because it endangers the lives of every man in that convoy.

It would be nice if we get names instead of soldiers or contractors who aren't willing to put their names to these statements, but it appears that the weight of evidence keeps pulling towards TNR's publication of fictictious accounts of US soldiers operating in Iraq and engaging in vile acts.

Major Ludeke, the Public Affairs Officer whose responsibilities include FOB Falcon further responds:

I invite Mr. Foer and the New Republic to actually give us something to go on. Proof. Any kind will do- and something more than one anonymous soldier's claims and a nebulous "we've heard from others who can corroborate it," kinds of responses he provided Howard Kurtz. It's kind of hard to take these allegations seriously, when you're hiding behind the cloak of anonymity. Just about every Soldier these days has his or her own digital camera or video camera. Talk to anyone here- every unit down to squad level in our brigade is *required* to have a camera on every mission. It's all part of being prepared for such a discovery. Surely- there would be photos of the skulls and mass grave if it truly existed, would there not? The reason there isn't any photos, is because simply- the story isn't true.

There may be small grains of truth to what Scott Thomas has written. But, I can tell you that at least one event he's described as "fact" could not have occurred. To claim that an entire chain of command was complicit in keeping quiet such a grisly and important discovery of such magnitude stretches the realm of believability and is a grave insult to the professionalism and dedication of so many fine Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines serving here.

I know that if my organization claimed to have unearthed a sizeable cache of hundreds of explosives, rockets, nitric acid and other key components to make roadside bombs, otherwise known here in these parts as a "good news story," media outlets would rightfully demand some kind of proof to subtantiate our claims. That's why we take pictures of such things and provide them along with our press releases. The inability of the New Republic and Scott Thomas to provide any kind of photographic evidence whatsoever, and the fact that "Scott" isn't willing to come forward and identify himself, pretty much says it all, doesn't it?

Indeed. If there is evidence as TNR and Thomas claims, provide it to the military so that the matter can be fully investigated and those responsible prosecuted for violating military protocols. That's how it should be done.

That Thomas instead is hiding behind the cloak of anonymity and TNR has published this story without actual confirmation from anyone other than anonymous sources, one is left to wonder whether the whole thing is a sham, that might be based on a few kernels of fact - that a cemetery was uncovered, that there was a unit operating Bradleys at FOB Falcon, and that someone likes to tell tall tales.

UPDATE:
Confederate Yankee continues asking probing questions of TNR and Thomas.

UPDATE:
The New York Times has finally reported on the growing kerfuffle caused by TNR's publication. This line stood out:

The magazine granted anonymity to the writer to keep him from being punished by his military superiors and to allow him to write candidly, Mr. Foer said. He said that he had met the writer and that he knows with “near certainty” that he is, in fact, a soldier.

What proof was provided that he was a soldier? Military records that were confirmed with the Defense Department? Photos of Thomas in a uniform? Why only the near certainty? Why isn't Foer completely assured that Thomas is a soldier? I'd be quite concerned if I wasn't completely assured of that fact.

Others blogging: Cassandra, Irishspy, Black and Right, John at Argghhh! (who debunks the ammo angle), and The Point.

The Menacing Continues

Hizbullah has the ability to launch rockets against any point in Israel, the organization's leader, Hassan Nasrallah said on Sunday.

He told Al Jazeera that Hizbullah had the capability to strike every part of Israel during last summer's war, and retains that capability.
"Even in the months of July and August 2006 there was not one place in occupied Palestine that we could not reach, every point and every corner," Nasrallah was quoted as saying. "I stress that we can do this today as well."

The full interview is due to be broadcast by the Qatari-based satellite television on Monday.

Meanwhile, Hizbullah guerrillas have moved most of their rockets in south Lebanon among civilians in villages, an apparent attempt to avoid detection by Israel and UN troops, Israeli military officials said Sunday.

Hizbullah doesn't have the capability to produce these rockets and missiles on its own. It requires the aid and support of others - Iran and Syria. Both those countries are using Hizbullah to further their own goals in the region, and destabilizing Lebanon and fighting Israel are chief among them.

Still, this indicates quite a bit of puffery on Nasrallah's part since they weren't actually able to fire rockets into all parts of Israel, whether it was into Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. It isn't clear whether it was because of a lack of weapons or because should they have succeeded in hitting Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, the Israeli response would have been overwhelming and crushing to Hizbullah. I lean to towards the former because had Hizbullah had the weapons, they would have used it or else possibly seen it destroyed by Israeli forces operating against them inside Lebanon.

Also, Hizbullah is simply reorganizing north of the Litani River with longer range missiles - both to avoid being in the UNIFIL areas proper, and to bring more civilians in Lebanon into range of Israeli counter battery fire. Realigning its forces North of the Litani makes sense if Hizbullah has longer range weapons because they can simply fire into Israel from further away and avoid the UNIFIL positions between the Litani and the Israeli border.

Meanwhile, Islamic Jihad continues its kassam attacks against Israel. An eight month old Israeli baby was among those injured in the latest rocket attacks, which landed South of Ashkelon.

UPDATE:
Syria appears to have learned lessons from last summer's war between Hizbullah and Israel. They're busy focusing on long range missiles with which they can hit strategic and civilian targets deep inside Israel, negating Israel's advantages on the battlefield.

Taqi said Syria took an important lesson from last summer’s war between Hizbollah and Israel: The Israeli rear is vulnerable to long-range artillery rockets. Hizbollah fired some 4,000 rockets in 33 days of intense fighting that battered the Israel Defense Force and damaged its ability to deter others.

One Syrian defense official said Syria would avoid a direct, classic war with Israel, seeking instead a guerrilla conflict on the front lines while firing rockets and ballistic missiles at strategic and civilian installations.

Syria has Soviet-made SS-21 missiles and has built a large arsenal of Scud ballistic missiles, the D variant with a 700-kilometer range. Syria also builds artillery rockets of various calibers ranging from 122mm to 240mm, and has bought other types from Russia and Iran with ranges up to 200 kilometers.

“The next possible Syrian-Israeli war will be more like a war of cities rather than battles on fronts or in the fields,” the Syrian defense official said. “It’ll be a war of attrition that Israelis are not good at.”

Israel would not tolerate such a situation, and it is possible that Syria's Assad would trade land to fight an insurgency much as the Ba'athists did in Iraq against the US and coalition forces. This might leave Syria and Damascus devastated, but Israel would still be in harm's way from ongoing rocket attacks, much as Southern Israel remains threatened from kassams fired from Gaza.