She thinks what the State Department needs is skin-based diversity. Here she is, counting racial beans the way the Left always does — and talking like Bill “Looks Like America” Clinton. Wrong, wrong, wrong:

Rice laments lack of black diplomats

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday it was “unacceptable” that there were so few black people like herself in the US diplomatic corps.

“I want to see a Foreign Service that looks as if black Americans are part of this great country,” Rice told a gathering of black colleges and universities in Washington.

“I have lamented that I can go into a meeting at the Department of State,” said Rice, the second black person to become secretary of state after her predecessor Colin Powell.

“And, as a matter of fact, I can go into a whole day of meetings at the Department of State and actually rarely see somebody who looks like me, and that’s just not acceptable,” she added.

Who cares what they look like? It’s what they think like that matters. As I’ve blogged here many , many, many, many , many , many , many times over the years, Foggy Bottom is plagued by CAIR capitulationists and America-lasters who put appeasement above American sovereignty.

We should worry less about skin pigment, and more about skin thickness. We should worry less about skin lightness or darkness, and more about dhimmitude.

I’ll be blunt: Hearing such 9/10 talk from the Secretary of State on the seventh anniversary week of the 9/11 attacks makes me want to throw up.

***

Meanwhile, here’s the latest Looks Like Al Qaeda graphic for you:

A jury in the U.K. has found three men guilty of conspiracy to murder in the trans-Atlantic airline “liquid bomb” plot.

Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain were found guilty of plotting to kill “persons unknown,” but not necessarily on planes.

The prosecutor told jurors during the trial that the men planned to attack United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada flights by smuggling liquid explosives onto jets and detonating them in-flight.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Have you seen the political cartoons of Condoleeza Rice as a parrot with huge black lips? Have you seen the racist –

JOHN HARWOOD: There are cartoons of Barack Obama, too!

SCARBOROUGH: Oh really? With lips out to here? Exaggerated lips?

HARWOOD: No, with ears out to here. [Scarborough and Harwood can be seen illustrating their respective points in the screencap.]

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, exactly. Ears are not seen, racists do not focus on ears when making fun of African-Americans.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: This is a point.

SCARBOROUGH: I will show you, the next time you’re on here, racist cartoons –

HARWOOD: From the left?

SCARBOROUGH: — of Condoleeza Rice. No, from mainstream people. Where nobody even brought it up. Nobody was even concerned. I’ll guarantee you Condoleeza Rice noticed.

HARWOOD: Show me that. I’ll be surprised to see that.

OK, here’s your assignment. John Harwood asked for it. Please help educate him. E-mail him a link to this blog post (or just use the handy ‘send to a friend’ feature). His e-mail address is politicalcapital@cnbc.com.

I’m reprinting the images from my “Grow a pair, Obama” post right here–and including links to past posts on liberal racism and liberal racist imagery.

Maybe Mr. Harwood will start paying attention now:

Here’s a reminder of the crap Condi Rice has had to deal with over the years:

1. The buck-naked bigotry of Ted Rall:

2. Jeff Danziger’s Condi-as-Prissy cartoon:

3. Pat Oliphant’s exaggerated-lipped parrot caricature:

Much more here.

See also:

Liberals love blackface

Flashback: Netroots vs. Rightroots: left-wingers love blackface

Flashback: The vile bile we have to put up with

And:

The Democrats’ sambo debacle
Michael Steele and the Sambo smear
The buck-naked bigotry of Ted Rall
Jeff Danziger: Do you draw with your hood on or off?
Danziger’s lost cartoon
Liberal racism and Condi Rice
Maglalangadingdong this
Minority conservatives and the sellout smear

The Bush administration argues that Saudi Arabia can not be compared to Iran, because Riyadh said it won’t develop uranium enrichment or spent-fuel reprocessing, the two most dangerous nuclear technologies. At a recent hearing before my Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman shrugged off concerns about potential Saudi misuse of nuclear assistance for a weapons program, saying simply: “I presume that the president has a good deal of confidence in the King and in the leadership of Saudi Arabia.”

Well, of course Ed Markey is wrong because, umm…because…err…the Saudis can’t afford it?

No, that can’t be it. Tell me why he’s wrong?

Because that sounds to me like another permutation of the faith-based non-proliferation policy.

BACKGROUND: Hey, this looks like a trend. From January:

Sarkozy, who has already signed civilian nuclear deals with Arab oil producers Algeria and Libya, has made no secret of his view that Muslim and Arab states have a right to atomic power.

Tuesday’s agreements set a framework for future cooperation on nuclear energy and allow France to establish a military base with an official capacity of 400-500 people in the UAE, which lies across a short stretch of Gulf waters from Iran, a document distributed by Sarkozy’s office said.

France’s Total confirmed on Monday it would develop two third-generation nuclear reactors in the UAE with Suez as its main partner and state-owned nuclear reactor maker Areva.

One thought to explain this trend: Professor Rice is something of a Waltzian neo-realist with a strong belief in power-balancing, one confirmed by her experience as a Russia specialist during the Cold War. Maybe the allies are hoping to guide the Arab states’ nuclear programs into a state like that of Japan–which I’ve heard described (facetiously) as “45 minutes from having a nuclear capability”. That way they can deter and contain an aggressive Iran from messing with them or with the flow of oil.

It’ll be like the Reagan days when we played off Iraq and Iran against each other. Except this time there’s fission involved. After all, when it comes to nuclear weapons, Waltz says that “More may be better“. And if we and our allies are involved in the construction of these programs, we’ll be able to keep an eye on them and know where to look if something odd is going on.

That assumes (as Markey notes) that we trust Saudi Arabia, as well as the Emirates, Algeria, and Libya (!!!!) to manage a nuclear program safely and responsibly, and not, say, leak any of the reactor waste products to a terrorist for packing up a dirty bomb. Or to start enriching uranium, like Iran is doing. Because we’re, uh, kinda having trouble stopping them.

All of which sounds kind of complicated. Me, I’ve got a better idea.

Exit question: Didn’t we just take the nuclear car keys away from Libya a few years ago?
____________________

{Post by See-Dubya.}

Speaking after meeting with both Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, Rice said she had emphasized that the United States is “committed to redoubling its efforts” to help Turkey in its struggle against the rebel fighters.

“We consider this a common threat, not just to the interests of Turkey but to the interests of the United States as well,” she said at a joint news conference with Babacan. “This is going to take persistence and it’s going to take commitment — this is a very difficult problem.”

En route here, Rice told reporters in her traveling party that the United States, Turkey and Iraq will counter any attacks on Turkey by the rebels.

She didn’t specify just what that meant but did warn against doing anything that might worsen the volatile situation on the Turkish-Iraqi border.

Washington worries that a cross-border incursion would bring instability to what has been the calmest part of Iraq, and could set a precedent for other countries, like Iran, who also have conflicts with Kurdish rebels.

But Ankara has been resolute in saying that, unless it hears concrete measures the United States will take against the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, it will launch an attack.

“We have great expectations from the United States, we are at the point where words have been exhausted and where there is need for action,” Babacan said.

While the meetings took place, 2,000 police and rooftop snipers were on patrol against possible violence.

At a larger demonstration in Istanbul, about 200 marchers organized by the small Communist Party of Turkey chanted “Down with American imperialism” and “Get out Rice” as they carried an effigy of Rice and a sign saying “Unite against the United States.”

The CDS dartboard gave the protest a lovely moonbatty flavor–but they forgot to whiten the eyes.

Just a reminder of what Vice President Cheney said a few weeks ago about Pelosi’s meeting with Syrian president Assad:

This is an evil man. He’s a prime state sponsor of terror…So for the speaker to go to Damascus and meet with this guy and treat him with the respect and dignity ordinarily accorded the head of a foreign state — we think it is just directly contrary to our national interest.”

Talk about sending “mixed messages.” Cripes.

***
Background: State Dept reports on patterns of global terrorism

Well, here’s the first name in the “D.C. madam” probe that has Washington in tizzy:

Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias.

Make that former Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias.

Here’s the State Department statement:

Ambassador Randall Tobias informed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today that he must step down as Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and US Agency for International Development Administrator (USAID) effective immediately. He is returning to private life for personal reasons.

First as the administration’s Ambassador for the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS relief (PEPFAR) then as USAID Administrator and Director of Foreign Assistance, Randy has been a leader in helping the most vulnerable populations around the globe whether it was by acting to alleviate hunger or preventing the spread of infectious disease or directing assistance to victims of natural disasters. Under Ambassador Tobias’ leadership at PEPFAR, the United States supported delivery of life-saving antiretroviral treatment to hundreds of thousands of people and saved countless other lives through AIDS prevention programs. As the State Department’s first Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, Randy helped lead one of the Department’s most far reaching reforms in recent memory, resulting in better matching of policy goals and delivery of international assistance. The lives saved and made better around the globe by Randy’s work at the State Department constitute a rich legacy on which he can look back with justifiable pride.

The nutroots are having a blog-orgasm over the story. And there’s isn’t too much sympathy for him over at conservative RedState either.

AIDS Czar and Dep. Secretary of State Randall Tobias resigned today; apparently doofus was using the services of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the soi-disant “D.C. Madam,” to acquire the services of masseuses. Mr Tobias claims that no sex was involved, and that he is now using another firm that uses “Central Americans”. This is an impressive answer, inasmuch as it pretty much torpedoes any chance of sympathy from either side: the Left won’t believe that he wasn’t having sex, and the Right won’t believe that Tobias checked his new service providers for green cards…

…What, you think I should be taking this more seriously?

Dude, it’s Washington DC. At least he wasn’t doing lines off of assorted hooker backsides. Or, worse, smoking tobacco on federal property.

Cracks another commenter:

Central Americans? If it isn’t bad enough that our highways are filling up with Toyotas and Hondas, our politicians have started out-sourcing their sex scandals. What’s the world coming to?

And on a serious note, this Redstate commenter writes:

[T]his is a pretty big deal. He is a deputy sec of state. He had access to sensitive and classified material. The use of soiled doves to obtain information is as old of time…even if he didn’t succumb to pillow talk it does put him in a position to be blackmailed.

He also should have been very well aware of the history of the use of such services in that town. I will observe that what is now the IRS building used to be a red light district. ([H]ow little things change[.])

There’s a good cross-section of conservative reaction at Lucianne.com, too. Many commenters point to these paragraphs in the Washington Post’s article on ABC News’s plundering through the D.C. madam’s list:

Palfrey’s attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, said yesterday that he has been contacted in the past few days by five lawyers asking whether their client’s phone numbers are on Palfrey’s list of 10,000 to 15,000 customers from 2002 to 2006. Some have also asked about whether an accommodation can be made to avoid identifying their clients, which Sibley said he is not able to promise. ABC’s “20/20″ is mining that database of phone numbers, Sibley said, for a news report on the more notable of Palfrey’s customers.

“I presume ’20/20′ crews running around with cameras has led to this flurry of activity,” Sibley said. “That may cause some people to worry.”

ABC reporters interviewed Palfrey last week, Sibley said, and asked her about specific customers by name. Sibley declined to identity them or speculate about Palfrey’s clients whose identities may be revealed in coming days. He said that in many cases, he and Palfrey did not have the investigative resources to identify them from their phone numbers, but that ABC did.

ABC is grappling with the question of whether to air a report or identify some of those on the list. “We can’t comment on ongoing reporting,” ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said.

Snarks commenter Richdet:

The article claims that ABC “is grappling” with the issue of deciding which of Palfrey’s list of 10,000 to 15,000 customers to expose (that’s quite a range — you would think a careful reporter could nail down a more approximate number, but that’s how reporting goes these days). Obviously what ABC is engaging in is a gotcha game, political blackmail, and winnowing out and redacting the names of prominent Dems on the list must be an exhausting process.

Well, we’ll see. Keep an eye on ABC. Meantime, several other L.com commenters, like the RedState ones, are making no excuses for Tobias:

***

Reply 23 – Posted by: nightvision, 4/28/2007 8:02:12 AM

I don’t care that this guy is supposedly working for ‘OUR side’.

This kind of behavior is NOT appropriate, particularly for an individual in such a high-level position.

He HAD to know that it could ‘get out’, and there really is no excuse for this kind of sleazing around, Bill Clinton notwithstanding.

His ‘defense’ is pathetic:

‘Tobias said he contacted the escort service ”to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage”…’

Legitimate masseuses are NOT generally referred to as ‘gals’.

I’m just sorry Condi and W had to suffer an embarrassment they don’t need right now.

***

Reply 45 – Posted by: jerseycitysteve2, 4/28/2007 10:47:09 AM

The bottom line is that Democrat voters don’t mind graft (Jefferson) or sodomy (Frank) but Republican voters do. Saying “Democrat politicians do it, too!” is no excuse. Has anybody here ever had a security clearance? Do you think you’d keep your clearance and be a regular customer of an escort service, too?

***

Reply 30 – Posted by: mc squared, 4/28/2007 8:58:56 AM

Good riddance. We can’t beat up the Clintonistas for the same stuff but give this guy a pass.

***
Reply 33 – Posted by: retiree, 4/28/2007 9:16:21 AM

We are all responsible for our own actions.
He is no better than anyone else.
He should go.

And so he has.

Previous Free Kareem blogging.

I clicked through to the story linked on Drudge about the Hillary skirt featured on the runway in Rome. The designer is Gattinoni. In addition to Hillary, the other women featured are French presidential wannabe Segolene Royal, the British great-grandmother wannabe Queen Elizabeth and the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Hillary, Royal, and the Queen all get hagiographic portraits.

But take a closer look at the Rice skirt. The designer’s moonbat colors come out:

Rice is depicted as a dragon lady. The model’s top pleads, “PEACE.” All that’s missing are those demon eyes. Maybe they’re saving that version for retail.

Audrey Hudson at the Washington Times investigates the Minneapolis Six and gets feedback from air marshals.

We take a closer look at Omar Shahin over at Hot Air. Discussion on O’Reilly last night here.

HA affiliate Charles Ryder has more video and spotted another hate-spewer at the praying imams’ protest yesterday at Reagan National.

Scott Johnson at Power Line examines the safety threat of seatbelt extenders.

Bruce at GP asks:

We know now, based on evidence, that a Republican President will err on the side of security and preemptive action if there is a perceived terrorist threat. We also know, based on repeated statements by their leaders that the Democrats favor a post-attack posture. For Democrats, Terror = Law Enforcement Response.

So I ask my fellow Americans…. if you were on this US Airways flight and this suspicious behavior by the Imams began, who would you want as your pilot and flight attendants? George Bush, Condi Rice and Dick Cheney? Or Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel and Alcee Hastings?

Allah notes that “there hasn’t been a single media inquiry thus far about the goings-on at the conference of North American imams that Shahin and co. were in town to attend. Curious, especially since America’s first Muslim Congressman, Keith Ellison, was also in attendance. You’d think that might pique some journalist’s curiosity, but so far it hasn’t.”

Rick Moran:

The professional victimologists at CAIR think that they can put on this idiotic production and rally the American people to their cause. They have, as usual, miscalculated badly. And if this Muslim “civil rights” organization spent 1/10 the time it spends on weeping about “Islamaphobia” as it could on denouncing without reservation or qualification the madmen who seek to destroy us, people would probably listen more closely to what they had to say.

I think these people have finally worn out their welcome. Yes, they’ll always have their apologists in the media. Yes, they have their water-carriers in Congress. But their incessant victim politicking–combined with their shady ties and their refusal to condemn jihad at home and around the world–has eroded America’s good will.

Remember this Arabic-speaking State Department clown, Albert Fernandez, who went on al Jazeera TV and trashed the U.S. as arrogant and stupid?

Well, speaking of arrogant and stupid, guess what? Charles Johnson notes that the State Department has decided to give Fernandez an award. Via Brit Hume’s Grapevine last week on Fox News:

Fernandez was selected from three department nominees for the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy by Tufts University… for his work with pan-Arab media … to increase the number of appearances by U.S. officials.

He receives a certificate signed by Secretary Condoleezza Rice — and $10,000 in cash.

No surprise.

This is, after all, the same U.S. State Department that gave performance awards to bureaucrats responsible for the lax visa policies that paved the way for the 9/11 terrorists.

Iran test-fired dozens of missiles, including the Shahab-3 that can reach Israel, in military maneuvers Thursday that it said were aimed at putting a stop to the role of world powers in the Persian Gulf region.

The show of strength came three days after U.S.-led warships finished naval exercises in the Gulf that Iran branded as “adventurist.” Iran remains locked in dispute with the West over its nuclear program, which Washington says is geared to producing atomic weapons but Tehran says is only for generating electricity.

Asked about Thursday’s maneuvers, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she thought the Iranians “are trying to demonstrate that they are tough.”

Israel is right–this is everyone’s problem:

In Israel, Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said he was not surprised by the missile tests, and warned that to leave Iran unchecked would pose a risk to the world.

“Iran is following a direct line after North Korea. Therefore this problem is not Israel’s but that of the entire world,” Ben-Eliezer said, referring to North Korea’s recent nuclear test and its frequent launches of long-range missiles.

Iran’s Shahab-3 missile, which can carrying a nuclear warhead and is believed to have a range of more than 1,240 miles, is believed to be based on North Korea’s Nodong missile. Iran is said to have funded the Nodong’s development.

Iran, which denies obtaining missile technology from North Korea, has been testing the Shahab-3, which means “shooting star” in Farsi, since the late 1990s and publicly paraded the rocket for the first time in 2003.

The Iranian missile tests “should bother not only Israel. It should bother the Arab countries, Islamic countries, the Gulf region, North Africa and Europe. We are always warning the world about this phenomenon called Iran,” Ben-Eliezer said. Iran already has held three large-scale military exercises this year.

Dan Riehl: “Sure wish the Dems could protect us … but then, they weren’t even for missile defense. Now were they?”

Meanwhile, the U.S. challenges Syrian, Iran, and Hiz’ballah of plotting to topple the Lebanese government.

And U.N. forces snooze:

Despite the 20,000 troops deployed in southern Lebanon, the United Nations admits that weapons smuggling from Syria continues unhindered. A German report finds UNIFIL does not patrol after dark.

Hizbullah terrorists are free to roam at night without fear of being identified by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), according to a report by the German paper Der Spiegel.

Spanish UNIFIL official Richard Ortax admitted to the paper that no patrols are carried out at night “because of the danger involved.” UNIFIL commanders said their function is to “observe changes in the behavior of the local population.”

One junior officer told Der Spiegel he was glad that his battalion had only left its camp once. “It’s absurd,” he said. “We landed here and set up our tent city, but since then we’ve only left the camp to drive around and to make sure that we’re seen.”

The report cites a long tradition of UNIFIL inaction, which it says allowed time for a Finnish contingent to construct a giant sauna and an Indian contingent to decorate its base with traditional Indian artwork.

The UNIFIL troops and the 14,000 Lebanese soldiers stationed in the region add up to a total of around 20,000 troops in the 18-by 31-mile region of southern Lebanon. Another 6,000 troops are still expected to arrive.

The United Nations itself has admitted that Syria was still successfully smuggling arms to the Hizbullah, which neither UNIFIL nor the Lebanese army plan to stop.

Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the US State Department, is al Jazeera’s favorite pet tool. He has been praised as “sassy” and is a fixture on Arab TV. From a Newsweek profile published in August, which proclaimed him “the face of the United States in the Middle East:”

On paper, at least, Fernandez’s job is basically that of a high-powered booker, coordinating appearances of high-level State Department officials on Arab media. But in reality, he’s the main act. According to his own conservative estimates, he has done about 200 interviews with Arabic media in the past year—with almost 60 media appearances in July alone. “As far as I am aware, he is the only Arabic speaker from the U.S. government who appears on Al-Jazeera says Abderrahim Foukara, managing editor at the network’s Washington offices. “Sometimes we’ll even have him on three or four days in a row.”

Well, last night, he appeared on the Arab news network to condemn America’s arrogance and stupidity in Iraq (hat tip: LGF). Your tax dollars at work:

A senior American diplomat has told Aljazeera that the United States has shown “arrogance” and “stupidity” in Iraq, but warned that failure would be a disaster for the entire region.

“We tried to do our best [in Iraq] but I think there is much room for criticism, because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq,” Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the bureau of Near Eastern affairs at the US state department, said in the interview, aired on the Arabic channel late Saturday.

International media outlets are eating up Fernandez’s rant.

We shouldn’t mince words about what’s going right and wrong in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other front in the battle against global jihad and Koran-thumping violence and repression. (See, for example, Diana West’s sober assessment: A vote for civil war.)

But place, time, and manner matter. And this feckless State Department bureaucrat has lousy judgement on all three. It’s one thing to be self-critical. It’s another to lambaste your own country as “stupid” on the terrorists’ favorite propaganda outlet–just moments after a jihadi spokesman, Abu Mohammed, proclaimed:

“The resistance, with all its factions, is determined to continue fighting until the enemy is brought down to his knees and sits on the negotiating table or is dealt, with God’s help, a humiliating defeat.”

If Fernandez’s name sounds vaguely familiar, you may recall his boneheaded comments about violet jihadist and terror theologian of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi. Andrew McCarthy reported on NRO in February:

Reminiscent of Michael Corleone’s protestations to Kaye, the Brotherhood claims it is going legit any day now, so naturally it has become a favorite Islamic organization of the State Department and the CIA, at whom it bats one winsome eye while winking at suicide bombers with the other.

Months after the original, uneventful publication of the cartoons, Qaradawi used his ready platform at al Jazeera to issue one of those fatwas he’d researched at that European Council of his. This one called for a “Day of Rage.” It worked so well that, by the end of last week, the media were reporting, with a straight face, that Qaradawi was now “condemning” the savagery he’d quite consciously started. (See The Muslim Brotherhood Playbook, p.1.) The poor, misunderstood imam, it seems, had only meant to provoke “logical” rage, like boycotts of Havarti cheese and the like. After all, he’s a “moderate” who opposes violence … whenever he’s not stirring it up.

Qaradawi, it turns out, is not just a moderate. He is, in addition, “a respected scholar and religious leader worthy of the deepest respect.” Says who? Says the State Department, that’s who.

It was only last October, you see, when Alberto Fernandez, newly minted by Secretary Condoleezza Rice as director for public diplomacy at State’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, made one of his obligatory “live dialogue” appearances on Islamonline.net. After cooing about the new Iraqi constitution, taking pains to stress that it expressly “recognizes the role of Islam” (thanks in no small part to State’s labors), Fernandez proceeded straight to the required gushing over Qaradawi.

But wait a second. Hasn’t Qaradawi has been banned from the U.S. for promoting terrorism? Surely the State Department can mount a full-throated defense of that, right? After all, isn’t our moral compass supposed to be the Bush Doctrine — the one that says “you’re either with us or with the terrorists”? Is it really that hard for State to say Qaradawi is a disgusting character promoting a noxious agenda, rather than a model of moderation?

Apparently. Such a choice, our chic-sensitive public-diplomacy pirector opined, was “for the Muslim Umma to decide.” As for the rest of us, Fernandez would brook no denying that it is “important to listen to intelligent and thoughtful voices from the region like Sheikh Qaradawi, … an important figure that deserves our attention.”

You can still see Fernandez’s endorsement of Qaradawi right here.

You want to know how Fernandez responded to criticism of his reckless jihadi suck-up remarks? He sniffed that they were “minor” comments, which he made just to be “polite,” and were much ado about nothing. Look:

He’s still surprised how minor comments get amplified when he does grant a rare English interview. Take the way right-wing pundits singled out one response from a 50-question live forum he did on the English-language Web site Islam Online. Fernandez referred to revivalist Sunni Muslim scholar Yusuf al Qaradawi—the founder of Islam Online—as “a respected scholar and religious leader worthy of the deepest respect.” The National Review denounced Fernandez for being a “chic-sensitive” apologist “gushing over Qaradawi,” who is banned from U.S. soil for his alleged links to terrorist groups. “It was just some BS answer, just to be polite, and they picked up on that one thing,” says Fernandez

If this is “the face of the United States in the Middle East,” we need to withdraw all State Department bureaucrats from the region, find out what else Fernandez and his Arabic-speaking colleagues have been telling the Arab media, and boot them off the airwaves. Permanently. If showing “politeness” towards suicide bomb-embracing jihadi clerics and showing contempt for our country on enemy airwaves is how we plan to win “hearts and minds,” we’re screwed.

Remember Abdul Rahman, the Christian convert who fled Afghanistan and found safety in Italy after Muslim mobs demanded he be killed for abandoning Islam?

Well, while the rest of the world has forgotten about Rahman, the sharia-embracers and Koran-thumpers who believe all apostates should be murdered have not forgotten Rahman’s “insult.”

They’ve kidnapped an Italian journalist and are demanding that Rahman be handed over to them in exchange for the journalist’s life:

The kidnappers of an Italian journalist in Afghanistan have offered to free him in exchange for a Christian convert who fled the country, an aid agency says.

Photojournalist Gabriele Torsello was seized last week while travelling on a bus in southern Afghanistan.

The kidnappers will free Mr Torsello, a Muslim convert, if Abdul Rahman returns from Italy where he was granted asylum earlier this year, the aid agency says.

Mr Rahman had escaped a possible death sentence for becoming a Christian.

He had been charged with rejecting Islam and released this March after being deemed mentally unfit to stand trial on a charge of apostasy.

Fearless truth-teller Robert Spencer excoriates the ignorant and the deceivers on the apostasy issue:

Abdul Rahman, you may recall, converted from Islam to Christianity and was spirited to Italy when Afghanistan’s brave new democratic government determined to obey Muhammad’s command to kill those who leave Islam (cf. Bukhari 4.52.260). Now jihadists in Afghanistan are demanding his return in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist.

And meanwhile, Islamic apologists in the U.S. blandly claim that Islam has no death penalty for apostasy, and call me “Islamophobic” for pointing out that it actually does (Salam Al-Maryati of MPAC did this to me on the Medved show not long ago, and it has happened elsewhere also). This illustrates the hollowness of the arguments we hear all the time about how we must support self-proclaimed moderate Muslims by refraining from noting the flimsiness and weakness of their presentations. While we’re being polite to alleged “reformers,” Muslim hardliners are cheerfully implementing the elements of Islamic law that we’re nodding our heads and agreeing don’t exist.

Spencer’s Truth About Muhammad, like all his books, is an absolute must-read. Clueless members of Congress and our intelligence agencies ought to be forced to read them all.

***

Previous:

Many more Abdul Rahmans
Abdul Rahman update
Abdul Rahman has landed
Abdul Rahman: Safe for now
Abdul Rahman “vanishes”
Abdul Rahman seeks asylum
Abdul Rahman to be released
Steyn on Rahman and Islam
What are you praying for?
The religion of pieces
Condi Rice calls Karzai
Free Abdul Rahman
Canada supports Abdul Rahman
Rally for Abdul Rahman
Bush: “Deeply troubled”
Video: “I am not an apostate”
Who will save Abdul Rahman?
“We will cut him into little pieces”
Save Abdul Rahman
A Christian on trial

***scroll for updates…U.N. has no immediate comment; emergency meeting scheduled Monday morning…Australian PM John Howard condemns NoKo test. “”North Korea is very gravely mistaken if she thinks this nuclear test will improve that country’s bargaining position,” Howard told parliament.”…Fox News reporting: “More fizz than pop,” according to intel official, but “provocative” nonetheless, according to White House…***

10/9 1258am Eastern update: James Rosen reporting for Fox News: US will push for strong Chapter 7 resolution at the UN Security Council to make it illegal to transfer missile technology of any kind to NoKo and general trade sanctions but not on oil…

Joshua Stanton at One Free Korea predicts:

I think this was an enormous miscalculation on North Korea’s part. The Republicans will be gleeful that no one will be talking about Mark Foley next week. The national conversation will be back to national security, and the Republicans will have the chance to do what they do best — act tough on such issues. President Bush will probably have no choice but to ignore the counsel of State Department doves who had nearly unopposed control of Bush’s North Korea policy until last August. Now, he’ll most likely use many of the options he didn’t use after North Korea’s July missile tests. I would expect some very severe sanctions and a move for a U.N. arms embargo. Stronger sanctions, along the lines of PATRIOT 311, are likely. A “soft” naval blockade, meaning enhanced enforcement under the Proliferation Security Initiative, is also likely.

White House brief statement expected overnight. Condoleezza Rice “working the phones.”

107am Eastern – latest AP dispatch:

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that information still needs to be collected and analyzed to determine whether North Korea truly conducted its first nuclear test.

Japan’s top government spokesman said if confirmed, the North Korean test would post a serious threat to the stability in the region and a provocation.

China, the North’s closest ally, said Beijing “resolutely opposes” the North Korean nuclear test and hopes Pyongyang will return to disarmament talks.

U.S. and South Korean officials could not immediately confirm the report.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said the alert level of the military had been raised in response to the claimed nuclear test.

112am update. South Korea to confer with Bush.

Bryan Preston:

It’s important to keep a couple of things in mind. As far as anyone outside North Korea knows, North Korea has yet to build a working ICBM. North Korea has short and medium range missiles capable of hitting South Korea and Japan, though. North Korea also has yet to miniaturize a nuclear weapon so that it can put one on even a faulty ICBM or shorter range missile. There is still time to contain this threat, even after tonight’s test, but some hard choices lie ahead for Japan and the US. Odds are that Japan will make the most of that time. We should too.

So far, all we’re doing is talking sanctions at the UN. Sanctions don’t work and certainly won’t change Kim Jong-Il’s behavior. North Korea is already the world’s most isolated state, and economic punishment may increase the likelihood of its selling weapons to terrorists to obtain hard currency. Kim Jong-Il will have to be either scared straight or taken out. A weak response to him now will embolden him and signal to the Iranians that we won’t stop them, either.

Washington Times highlights:

Reuters yesterday quoted a “source with close ties to Pyongyang” saying North Korean generals wanted to advance the date for a test, because of anger over published remarks by Beijing’s ambassador to the United Nations.

John R. Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said last week that while Britain, France and Japan had made clear a strong statement was needed to warn Pyongyang against testing, he was not certain “what North Korea’s protectors on the [U.N. Security] Council are going to do.” In response, Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya said: “I’m not sure which country he is referring to, but I think that for bad behavior in this world no one is going to protect them.”

North Korean generals bristled at the notion of needing China’s protection and urged their leader, Kim Jong-il, to bring the test date forward, said the source who recently met with North Korean officials. “North Korea is especially unhappy with China,” Reuters quoted him as saying. “This is chauvinism. North Korea does not need Chinese protection.”

Speculation rose that a nuclear test would take place yesterday, the anniversary of Mr. Kim’s appointment as head of the Korean Workers’ Party in 1997.

Latest from FoxNews.com.

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[10/8 10:51pm Eastern.] Drudge siren. Fox reporting. Allah monitoring: U.S. intel can’t confirm. 11:57pm Eastern update: James Rosen reporting on Fox: Learned from a senior Bush administration official, test confirmed. But the North Koreans “may not have gotten what they wanted…they were hoping for a test that would result in an explosion of 400 kilotons. Prelim reports show that it came in under that.” More: “US did indeed receive early warning from the Chinese.”

Yonhap News:

North Korea is believed to have tested a nuclear weapon in the eastern part of the country Monday morning, a South Korean defense source said.

“We detected the explosive sound from Hwadaeri near Kilju in North Hamgyong Province at 10:36 a.m.(KST),” a senior Defense Ministry official said, asking to remain anonymous because of the sensitive nature of the information.

But South Korea’s military has yet to raise its alert level beyond usual defense situations, he said. The troops are still maintaining a Watchcon 3 surveillance status and Defcon 4 defense readiness status.

NoKo official statement (hat tip – Dan Riehl):

North Korea said Monday it had conducted its first nuclear weapons test. The text of the announcement by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency follows. The formal name for North Korea is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK and KPA refers to the Korean People’s Army:

—

“The field of scientific research in the DPRK successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions on October 9, 2006, at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great, prosperous, powerful socialist nation.

“It has been confirmed that there was no such danger as radioactive emission in the course of the nuclear test as it was carried out under scientific consideration and careful calculation.

“The nuclear test was conducted with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent. It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the KPA and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability.

“It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it.”

11:52pm Eastern. Bret Baier of Fox News reporting that the US was warned by China, Japan, and South Korea before the reported test. Confirmation “looking more and more likely.”

Reminder of SecDef Donald Rumsfeld’s remarks on NoKo nuclear ramifications:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday if North Korea successfully tests a nuclear weapon, it will show weakness on the part of the international community.

“And that failure … is something that the international community would have to register and ask itself how comfortable are we being that ineffective in this situation,” Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon during a visit by Croatian Defense Minister Berislav Roncevic.

His comments came as U.S. officials warned North Korea anew not to test a nuclear weapon…

…Rumsfeld also said that a successful North Korean test could prompt other countries to pursue nuclear weapons.

“Because of the ineffectiveness, and the lack of cohesion and the inability to marshal sufficient leverage to prevent North Korea from proceeding toward a nuclear program … it will kind of lower the threshold, and other countries will step forward with it,” Rumsfeld said.

He added that depending on whether the test is above or below ground, the United States has as good a capability of detecting it as any country. But he declined to say whether or not it would trigger any U.S. military action.

“I wouldn’t be the person who would make a decision like that. That’s a decision for the country, and a decision for president,” Rumsfeld said.

Bryan Preston’s thoughts from Friday:

Diplomacy isn’t going to stop North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. That’s the bottom line. North Korea sees nukes as its last best hope of survival, while the rest of the world (minus China and possibly Russia) see North Korean nukes as an intolerable threat. I don’t see a peaceful end to this. Either China deals with Kim, or we do. And it doesn’t look like we will.

Breitbart/AP has this headline:

North Korea Says Nuclear Test Successful
Oct 08 10:54 PM US/Eastern

Nothing further yet.

Austin Bay looked at trouble on the China/N. Korean border earlier today. See also StrategyPage and the London Times. Austin from this morning:

I just heard a television report that North Korea is “reconsidering” its threat to test a nuclear weapon. Pyongyang wants face to face negotiations with the US in return for no detonation. This is an NoKo old demand, and a gimmick. The propaganda gimmick: if the US declines face to face negotiations then the NoKo test is the result of the US refusal. If the US agrees then Kim’s regime touts it as a huge dimplomatic victory, won by threatening nuclear war. In six or eight months, Pyongyang will pull the same extortion gambit once again.

Via CTV (hat tip – Dan Riehl):

North Korea has claimed to carry out what its neighbours have long feared — the test of a nuclear weapon.

“The nuclear test is a historic event that brought happiness to our military and people,” said a quote carried Monday by the Korean Central News Agency, the communist state’s official agency.

The agency said there had been no radioactive leakage from the test site.

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, reported that South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is huddling with his security advisers to plan a response.

However, the U.S. Geological Survey said it hasn’t detected any seismic activity on the Korean peninsula in the past 48 hours.

11:29pm update. Bloomberg has a few more details and context:

North Korea said it detonated its first nuclear bomb, hours after the Japanese and Chinese governments warned the communist country against proceeding with the test.

“The nuclear test, conducted under in a scientific method and under specific calculations, did not cause any danger,” North Korea’s official Korea Central News Agency said.

The South Korean presidential office began an emergency security meeting of its ministers at 11:30 a.m. Seoul time, according to officials at the presidential Blue House, the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

North Korea announced the plan on Oct. 3 without giving the timing and now faces the prospect of the U.S. drafting a United Nations resolution that includes the threat of military action. The U.S. ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, on Oct. 4 pledged such a measure should North Korea detonate a nuclear weapon.

The North Korean test may set off an arms race in the region similar to the nuclear proliferation in South Asia, where India detonated two devices in May 1998, followed in the same month by Pakistan’s test of a bomb.

The North Korean test will compound efforts to get Iran to abandon its nuclear program, which the U.S. and its allies say is geared toward building a bomb. Iran says its nuclear program is intended only to produce energy.

North Korea’s threat as an exporter of weapons technology to terrorists or so-called rogue states would increase with a test, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Oct. 5…

… North Korea may have produced as many as six nuclear weapons from spent reactor fuel, U.S. officials estimated in 2004, according to a Congressional Research Service report on its atomic arms program dated May 25 this year. The Institute for Science and International Security said in a June 26 report that North Korea may have enough plutonium to make as many as 13 nuclear weapons.

The country drew international condemnation when it tested seven missiles on July 5, including the Taepodong-2, which U.S. officials have said may be able to reach Alaska. The UN Security Council on July 15 condemned the tests and barred the country from receiving missile-related technology.

Japan imposed some sanctions on the country after the test of the missiles. Japanese officials have also suggested the government should consider whether Japan’s pacifist constitution allows for a pre-emptive strike on North Korean missile bases.

Allah points to South Korean reports of seismic activity:

In Seoul a foreign ministry spokesman said South Korea’s intelligence agency has detected a 3.58-magnitude seismic tremor, following North Korea’s announcement of a nuclear test.

11:35pm EST – Fox says USGS is detecting radioactive (sic?) activity. No magnitude or location yet.

Jason Smith remembers a toast:

11:43pm Eastern. China got a 20-minute warning, Fox reporting.
Here’s the USGS website.

Josh Trevino reflects:

I lived in Korea from 1983 through 1985. (I did not return for twenty years; an account of that experience is here.) The experience was a formative one. My father, a U.S. Air Force officer, was in a state of perpetual war-readiness I never saw stateside. And I had, by the beginning of my fourth grade year, experienced far more than my peers back home ever would: monthly air raid drills; tear-gassings; leftist students assaulting our housing compound; and most frightening of all, the perpetual threat of the North Korean war machine, a mere 25 miles away. This was more than a hypothetical danger in the Cold War atmosphere of the early 1980s: every time there was a border incident, a shootout at Panmunjom, or an aerial defection, we grew tense, and waited for the evacuation order that never came. It was wonderfully focusing for a young mind. But as the Cold War receded, so too did the consciousness of all Communist threats: even if some remained.

As the sun sets on our left coast, we face our first night in a world with a verifiable nuclear rogue state with ballistic missile capability. If you aren’t reading Claremont’s MissileThreat start now. This is a clear and present danger to the American homeland if there ever was one. For my part, I look to this era of nuclear rogue states with dread — Iran will not be far behind — and with sorrow for the little Korea where I once lived, and where I yet have friends. When the conflagration comes, it will burn as surely as night follows day. The puerile predator in Pyongyang will do no less. We have failed to prevent: now it falls to us to deter, and in time, avenge.

John Noonan at Op-For:

My source on the peninsula says that South Korea is -understandably- having a cow, same with Japan. And think of all the nations that are within the fallout range of a green-glowing, radioactive Korea. Russia, China, Vietnam, Japan, Cambodia, Taiwan, the list goes on.

And North Korean sugar-daddy China has even more reason to be seeing red (no pun). The last time the North pulled a stunt like this (launching an IRBM over the Japanese mainland) it sparked a massive Japanese defense buildup and lit a fire under America’s tail to get a missile shield operational, complicating Chinese plans for Taiwan.

Back then it was just one errant missile. Today we’re talking about a nuclear weapon. A nation killer. A world killer. And it’s in the hands of a man whose sanity is suspect and is worshipped as a god by an army of over one million.

Korea is simply too small of a theater to be playing with nuclear toys. You can bet your britches that the far east paradigm just shifted, big time. Let the arms race begin…

President Bush on Tuesday said it is naive and a mistake to think that the war with Iraq has worsened terrorism, disputing a national intelligence assessment by his own administration. He said he was declassifying part of the report.

“Some people have guessed what’s in the report and concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake. I strongly disagree,” Bush said.

He asserted that portions of the classified report that had been leaked were done so for political purposes, referring to the Nov. 7 midterm elections.

Bush announced that he was ordering parts of the report declassified during a White House news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai…

… Bush said he had directed National Intelligence Director John Negroponte to declassify those parts of the report that don’t compromise national security. The National Intelligence Estimate was written in April.

“You read it for yourself. Stop all this speculation,” Bush said.

He complained that “somebody leaked classified information for political purposes,” Bush said, criticizing both the news media and people in government who talked to them about classified material.

***

The Wall Street Journal calls on the Bush Administration to declassify the National Intelligence Estimate, which leakers blabbed about to the NYTimes and Washington Post. I think it’s a good idea:

As media scoops go, those based on “classified” information seem to have a special cachet. But judging from the latest, selective intelligence leak about terrorism, we wonder if anyone would bother to read this stuff if it didn’t have the word “secret” slapped on it.

That’s our reaction to Sunday’s New York Times report claiming that a 2006 national intelligence estimate, or NIE, concludes that “the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” according to one of the unidentified “intelligence officials” cited in the article. This is supposedly because the war has provoked radical Islamists to hate America even more than they already did before they hijacked airplanes and flew them into buildings. If this is the kind of insight we pay our spooks to generate, we’re in more trouble than we thought.

It’s impossible to know how true this report is, of course, since the NIE itself hasn’t been leaked. The reports are based on what sources claim the NIE says, but we don’t know who those sources are and what motivations they might have. Since their spin coincides rather conveniently with the argument made by Democratic critics of the war, and since this leak has also conveniently sprung in high campaign season, wise readers will be skeptical.

The White House responded yesterday by saying the full NIE on “Trends in Global Terrorism” is far more nuanced and complex than the press reports claim. Spokesman Tony Snow added that one “thing the reports do not say is that war in Iraq has made terrorism worse.” So here’s our suggestion for President Bush: Declassify the entire NIE.

It’s not as if NIEs usually contain sensitive raw intelligence. They’re more like Council on Foreign Relations reports, full of consensus analysis and glorified by the mere fact of being “secret.” To the extent that any passages might compromise sources and methods, those parts could be redacted or summarized. Meanwhile, disclosure would give the American public a valuable window into the thinking that goes on at places like the CIA. Since some of our spooks are leaking selectively to make the President look bad, Mr. Bush should return the favor by letting the public inspect the quality of analysis that their tax dollars are buying.

Meanwhile, Robert Kagan rips the quality of the leakers’ leaks and drives home a point I made yesterday about what motivates the jihadists:

Based on the press coverage alone, the NIE’s judgment seems both impressionistic and imprecise. On such an important topic, it would be nice to have answers to a few questions.

For instance, what specifically does it mean to say that the Iraq war has worsened the “terrorism threat”? Presumably, the NIE’s authors would admit that this is speculation rather than a statement of fact, since the facts suggest otherwise. Before the Iraq war, the United States suffered a series of terrorist attacks: the bombing and destruction of two American embassies in East Africa in 1998, the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since the Iraq war started, there have not been any successful terrorist attacks against the United States. That doesn’t mean the threat has diminished because of the Iraq war, but it does place the burden of proof on those who argue that it has increased.

Probably what the NIE’s authors mean is not that the Iraq war has increased the actual threat. According to the Times, the report is agnostic on whether another terrorist attack is more or less likely. Rather, its authors claim that the war has increased the number of potential terrorists. Unfortunately, neither The Post nor the Times provides any figures to support this. Does the NIE? Or are its authors simply assuming that because Muslims have been angered by the war, some percentage of them must be joining the ranks of terrorists?

As a poor substitute for actual figures, The Post notes that, according to the NIE, members of terrorist cells post messages on their Web sites depicting the Iraq war as “a Western attempt to conquer Islam.” No doubt they do. But to move from that observation to the conclusion that the Iraq war has increased the terrorist threat requires answering a few additional questions: How many new terrorists are there? How many of the new terrorists became terrorists because they read the messages on the Web sites? And of those, how many were motivated by the Iraq war as opposed to, say, the war in Afghanistan, or the Danish cartoons, or the Israel-Palestine conflict, or their dislike for the Saudi royal family or Hosni Mubarak, or, more recently, the comments of the pope? Perhaps our intelligence agencies have discovered a way to examine, measure and then rank the motives that drive people to become terrorists, though I tend to doubt it. But any serious and useful assessment of the effect of the Iraq war would, at a minimum, try to isolate the effect of the war from everything else that is and has been going on to stir Muslim anger. Did the NIE attempt to make that calculation?

Such an assessment would also require some estimate of what the terrorist threat would look like today if the war had not happened. For instance, did the authors of the NIE calculate the effect of the Sept. 11 attacks on the recruitment of terrorists or the effect of the bombings in Madrid and London? It is certainly possible that these events produced an increase in would-be terrorists by showing the possibility of sensational success. So if there is an overall increase, how much of it was the result of Iraq or the Danish cartoons or other perceived Western offenses against Islam, and how much of it is a continuing response to al-Qaeda’s own terrorist successes before, on and after Sept. 11?

Spook86 at Former Spook, via Power Line, has details of the actual NIE:

In one of its early paragraphs, the estimate notes progress in the struggle against terrorism, stating the U.S.-led efforts have “seriously damaged Al Qaida leadership and disrupted its operations.” Didn’t see that in the NYT article.

Or how about this statement, which–in part–reflects the impact of increased pressure on the terrorists: “A large body of reporting indicates that people identifying themselves as jihadists is increasing…however, they are largely decentralized, lack a coherent strategy and are becoming more diffuse.” Hmm…doesn’t sound much like Al Qaida’s pre-9-11 game plan.

The report also notes the importance of the War in Iraq as a make or break point for the terrorists: “Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves to have failed, we judge that fewer will carry on the fight.” It’s called a ripple effect.

More support for the defeating the enemy on his home turf: “Threats to the U.S. are intrinsically linked to U.S. success or failure in Iraq.” President Bush and senior administration officials have made this argument many times–and it’s been consistently dismissed by the “experts” at the WaPo and Times.

And, some indication that the “growing” jihad may be pursuing the wrong course: “There is evidence that violent tactics are backfiring…their greatest vulnerability is that their ultimate political solution (shar’a law) is unpopular with the vast majority of Muslims.” Seems to contradict MSM accounts of a jihadist tsunami with ever-increasing support in the global Islamic community.

The estimate also affirms the wisdom of sowing democracy in the Middle East: “Progress toward pluralism and more responsive political systems in the Muslim world will eliminate many of the grievances jihadists exploit.” As I recall, this the core of our strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ed Morrissey weighs in: Time To Release The NIE

Obviously, the Times has not played this straight. They have taken selected quotes from the NIE to build a political case against the war. Spook86 may have done the same for the other side, but then again, Spook86 does not pretend to be objectively reporting the facts. Clearly the report has more nuance than the Times presentation indicated.

The only solution to the problem is to declassify the NIE after redacting information about sources and methodology. We need to know the full context of all these remarks in order to know and understand the real conclusions of the intelligence community, not just a handful of disgruntled bureaucrats with Bill Keller on their speed-dial. Let’s see the entire report and then debate its contents. Democrats and Republicans should both call for that kind of openness.

The NYPost blasts sabotage-by-leak by the NYTimes, WaPo, and LATimes:

Let’s be clear here. Each in their own way, all three papers have been working as hard as possible to undermine the prosecution of the War on Terror almost since it began.

There’s a word for that, and it ain’t pretty.

But what of the substance of the latest leaks?

Terrorists, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Post yesterday, are “going to find a reason” to wage jihad, no matter what happens.

Just as they did before the Iraq war.

But that isn’t stopping Democrats from trying to make hay of the report. Typically reckless, Sen. Ted Kennedy called it “the final nail in the coffin for President Bush’s phony argument about the Iraq war.” (Maybe Teddy, his fellow Dems and al Qaeda can all get together for some hearty high-fives this week.)

Again, this kind of wartime sabotage-by-leak is dangerous.

So leakers need to be punished.

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