I’ve refrained from rapid reaction to the controversy over Bill Clinton’s trip to North Korea to secure the release of two American journalists because I’ve been torn between competing maxims.  I agree with the critics who say rewarding despots who have seized American citizens is bad precedent, incentivizing illegal behavior.  Yet, Bob Manning is right, too:  our leaders have no good alternative to talking with our adversaries.

Dave Schuler and I discussed the topic at some length toward the end of last night’s edition of OTB Radio and I’ve written an extensive essay on the matter at New Atlanticist entitled “Bill Clinton’s North Korea Gambit.”

The short version is that:

• We don’t know what, if anything we gave in exchange for the hostages, making it difficult to assess the deal

• Bill Clinton was clearly just a high profile courier in this mission, there to take pictures and bring back the hostages according to a pre-arranged deal

• While I’m not terribly hopeful it will bear fruit, this opens a window to improved bilateral relations

After several days of inflamed public debate following official confirmation that the United States government tortured suspected terrorists under specific authorization from the Bush administration, the inevitable pushback has begun.  Several reports now suggest that these extreme interrogation techniques had the desired effect, yielding valuable intelligence that saved lives.

The most interesting of these, alas, comes from CNS and is headlined “CIA Confirms: Waterboarding 9/11 Mastermind Led to Info that Aborted 9/11-Style Attack on Los Angeles.”

The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) — including the use of waterboarding — caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.

[...]

According to the previously classified May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that was released by President Barack Obama last week, the thwarted attack — which KSM called the “Second Wave”– planned “ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.”

Marc Thiessen, who “served in senior positions in the Pentagon and the White House from 2001 to 2009, most recently as chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush,” takes to WaPo’s editorial pages to proclaim “The CIA’s Questioning Worked.”

In releasing highly classified documents on the CIA interrogation program last week, President Obama declared that the techniques used to question captured terrorists “did not make us safer.” This is patently false. The proof is in the memos Obama made public — in sections that have gone virtually unreported in the media.

[...]

Specifically, interrogation with enhanced techniques “led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.” KSM later acknowledged before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay that the target was the Library Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast. The memo explains that “information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the ‘Second Wave.’ ” In other words, without enhanced interrogations, there could be a hole in the ground in Los Angeles to match the one in New York.

The memo notes that “[i]nterrogations of [Abu] Zubaydah — again, once enhanced techniques were employed — furnished detailed information regarding al Qaeda’s ‘organizational structure, key operatives, and modus operandi’ and identified KSM as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.” This information helped the intelligence community plan the operation that captured KSM. It went on: “Zubaydah and KSM also supplied important information about al-Zarqawi and his network” in Iraq, which helped our operations against al-Qaeda in that country.

Peter Baker’s NYT report, “Banned Techniques Yielded ‘High Value Information,’ Memo Says,” is a bit less exciting.

President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists.  “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday.

Admiral Blair sent his memo on the same day the administration publicly released secret Bush adminis

[...]

“I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past,” he wrote, “but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given.”

[...]

“The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means,” Admiral Blair said in a written statement issued last night. “The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”

The foiled LA attack has long been murmured about (Patrick Frey wrote about it in November 2007, for example).  It’s unclear from these reports how serious the plan was.  Certainly, we have seen reports of numerous “foiled” attacks that, upon closer scrutiny, appeared to be mere fantasies of incompetents.  Then again, we’re talking about the planner of the 9/11 attacks here.

But let’s take at face value that CIA interrogators managed to extract information that foiled a developed, 9/11 style attack, thereby saving, say, 3000 innocent American civilians.   Does that outweigh the moral and legal issues of waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times?   I’d say it does.  It’s as close to the “ticking time bomb” scenario as we’re ever likely to get.

[UPDATE: Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that Timothy Noah examines the timeline and demonstrates we likely foiled the LA Towers plot months before KSM was captured! This doesn't necessarily obviate any of the other "high value information" but it would undermine the most impressive of the examples offered.]

Blair correctly notes that we may well have gotten this information using legal techniques.  Then again, we might not have.  These guys didn’t break before they were tortured.   Of course, we didn’t try very long if we managed to get in 183 waterboarding sessions during KSM’s first month in U.S. custody.  The most reliable forms of interrogation require establishing trust and can take weeks, if not months.

What we also don’t know is how much damage the fact that the world, including our enemies, know that we were torturing terrorist suspects did.   Blair wrote, “The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.”   The first clause in that sentence is undeniable; the second is not.

In my recent interview with retired Ambassador Robert Oakley, he observed that, in Pakistan, “We’ve forgotten Rumsfeld’s question: ‘Are we creating more terrorists than we’re killing?’ And we probably are. The drones may be killing a lot of Taliban and al Qaeda but they’re alienating the tribesmen we need to win the war.”  Remember all the hostage beheadings, wherein the victims were dressed in Gitmo-style orange jumpsuits?  Would they have occurred had we not done this?  We don’t know.  How many people joined al Qaeda and the Taliban after these incidents became public, convinced that the United States really is as degenerate as the jihadists claimed we were?  We don’t know.

When I was being trained on this issue as a young cadet a quarter century ago, in addition to the legal and moral factors explaining why we must treat captured enemy combatants humanely — even risking our own lives and the accomplishment of our immediate mission to safeguard them — was a practical lesson:  The other guy was a hell of a lot more likely to surrender to you if he expected to be treated well.   Americans were more likely to keep fighting in Vietnam even against overwhelming odds because they knew they enemy would treat them as subhumans, whereas NVA and VC soldiers would surrender to us knowing they’d get three hots and a cot.   Certainly, that proved to be the case in both the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq; Saddam’s soldiers couldn’t throw their weapons down fast enough.

That’s not likely to be the case for some time now.

Via the BBC: Farc ‘co-ordinator’ held in Spain

Spanish police say they have arrested the representative of the left-wing Colombian rebel group Farc in Spain.

Maria Remedios Garcia Albert, a Spanish national, was detained near Madrid, as part of a joint operation by the Spanish and Colombian authorities.

[...]

It is claimed that Ms Garcia helped co-ordinate the group’s wider activities in Europe – allegedly liaising with counterparts in Switzerland and Sweden.

It is possible that Garcia was tracked down from information captured from the laptop of Raúl Reyes, who was killed in combat in March. The avalanche of woes that have been visited upon the FARC in the last year or so has been remarkable.

The most recent example was the highly publicized rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages (including three Americans). Not only were Betancourt and the three Americans perhaps the most valuable assets that the FARC had, the rescue operation utterly embarrassed them.

Additionally there has been the following:

• The death of the FARC’s founder, Ivan Marulanda.
• The surrender of top level leader Karina.
• The capture of another top leader, Santiago.
• The aforementioned death of Reyes in the raid over the Colombian-Ecuador border that sparked off a diplomatic row in the region (and Ecuador still remains hacked off at Colombia). The raid that killed Reyes led to acquisition of the aforementioned laptop.
• The death of Ivan Rios at the hands of a reward-seeking fellow member of the FARC, who had been (like Reyes) a member of the FARC’s seven-man secretariat. He was Karina’s immediate boss and his death appears to have set off a chain of events that led to her surrender.

A casual perusal of that list would lead one to believe that the FARC must be on its last legs and while I would like to think that as well, I remain cautious in rendering any conclusions at this point in time. It should be noted that the FARC has been in constant operation since the mid-1960s and has been, to use a word, resilient. At the moment they exist in a number of cells across the country, which makes direct destruction difficult (indeed, it was the fragmented nature of the group that the Colombian government exploited in its rescue of Betancourt). Further, their participation in the cocaine trade gives them a remarkable revenue source. As such, while the FARC has clearly been reduced in size, it is easy to see them continuing their operations for the foreseeable future, if anything because the money is available for them to do so.

There is the chance that there will be some internal divisions with the group, as the more ideologically oriented portions seek to continue armed struggle (it is thought that the current leader whose nom de guerre is El Mono Jojoy is more ideologically minded than some of the commanders) and those who simply want to pursue their criminal activities. Indeed, there are reports that some FARC fronts have teamed up with right-wing paramilitary groups (their alleged enemies) to engage in drug related activities.

There is no doubt that the armed conflict is evolving at the moment, and that the Colombian state is making strides, but I would caution against any assumptions that we are on the verge of violence ceasing. There is still the question of the ELN (the National Liberation Army, Colombia’s second largest guerrilla group) and the paramilitaries. In fact, I fear that as long at there is money to be made from drugs that there will be some sort of serious violence problem in Colombia.

The United States has not had a formal diplomatic presence in Iran since our embassy there was stormed and its staff taken hostage on November 4, 1979.  That may soon change, Ewen MacAskin reports for The Guardian.

The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section – a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country.

The news of the shift by Bush who has pursued a hawkish approach to Iran throughout his tenure comes at a critical time in US-Iranian relations. After weeks that have seen tensions rise with Israel conducting war games and Tehran carrying out long-range missile tests, a thaw appears to be under way.

[...]

A frequent complaint of the Iranians is that they want to deal directly with the Americans instead of its surrogates, Britain, France and Germany.

Bush has taken a hard line with Iran throughout the last seven years but, in the dying days of his administration, it is believed he is keen to have a positive legacy that he can point to.

The return of US diplomats to Iran is dependent on agreement by Tehran. But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicated earlier this week that he was not against the opening of a US mission. Iran would consider favourably any request aimed at boosting relations between the two countries, he said.

[...]

The special interests section would be similar to the one in Havana, Cuba. The US broke off relations with Cuba in 1961 after Castro’s takeover but US diplomats returned in 1977. The special interests section carries out all the functions of an embassy. It is, in terms of protocol, part of the Swiss embassy but otherwise is staffed by Americans and independent of the Swiss.

The fact of the matter is that we have had diplomatic relations with the Iranian government in all but name throughout this period.  Indeed, we negotiated the release of our Embassy hostages.  Less happily, the Reagan administration engaged in a convoluted and illegal sale of arms to the Iranians in exchange for cash to illegally support the Nicaraguan Contras.  And the Bush administration, despite saber rattling, has obviously been talking as well.

The amusing thing about these reports is the stance that our relations with Iran deteriorated markedly under Bush.  After all, Bill Clinton had eight years in office during a much more settled period in U.S. – Middle East relations and made no serious moves in this direction.

The daring rescue of Ingrid Betancourt from FARC terrorists misused the Red Cross symbol in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

A member of the military mission that tricked Colombian rebels into freeing 15 hostages wore the insignia of the International Red Cross during the operation, President Alvaro Uribe said Wednesday.

Mr. Uribe said his government had apologized to the Red Cross for the incident, which he called an unauthorized error by a nervous soldier. “An officer mistakenly and contrary to orders … put a piece of cloth on his vest that carried the symbol of the International Committee of the Red Cross,” Mr. Uribe said in a speech in Bogota.

A fleeting image of a portion of the cloth is visible in video taken of the operation by an agent posing as a cameraman that was officially released.

Use of the Red Cross symbol in such a military operation would appear to violate the Geneva Conventions that protect the relief organization’s reputation for neutrality in conflicts.

There’s no “appear” to it.

One hesitates to overstate matters given the stakes involved.  The rescue of these hostages is an unmitigated good.   Further, I believe Uribe when he says it was done contrary to orders.

Still, this is a serious matter.   Having soldiers pose as relief workers or journalists is illegal because, otherwise, no one would recognize the sanctity of those people and they would be in danger.  Using the Red Cross is particularly egregious because it could deny captured soldiers and their families the benefits of visits to ensure humane treatment.

Recall Clara Barton’s words from 1878:

A confederation of Relief Societies in different countries, acting under the Geneva Convention, carries on its work under the sign of the Red Cross. The aim of these societies is to ameliorate the condition of wounded soldiers in the armies in campaign on land or sea, and to furnish relief in cases of great national calamity.

The societies had their rise in the conviction of certain philanthropic men, that the official sanitary service in wars is usually insufficient, and that the charity of the people, which at such times exhibits itself munificently, should be organized for the best possible utilization. An International Public Conference was called at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1863, which, though it had not an official character, brought together representatives from a number of governments. At this conference a treaty was drawn up, afterwards remodeled and improved, which twenty-five governments have signed.

The treaty provides for the neutrality of all sanitary supplies, ambulances, surgeons, nurses, attendants, and the sick or wounded men, and their safe conduct, when they bear the sign of the organization, viz: the Red Cross.

This only works if people trust that only legitimate relief workers seek sanctuary behind the Red Cross symbol.

Woodrow Wilson Red Cross Poster:  Sparacus Education:  Red Cross

This story is a few days old now, but Noah Shachtman’s post is the first I’ve seen it:

Chinese elite anti-terror police officers are wheeling into action ahead of next month’s Beijing Olympics on two-wheeled scooters.  Members of the country’s armed police unit practised on the Segway models that have been re-named ‘Anti-Terror Assault Vehicles’ in the eastern province of Shandong.

Officials have bought 100 Segways and painted some in military camouflage to patrol airports and sporting venues during the Games.

In one drill, police posing as terrorists held ten badminton audience members hostage, ’shooting dead’ four ‘hijackers’, capturing two and defusing a mock car bomb.

A picture is, they say, worth a thousand words.  Perhaps more in this case:

Noah quotes someone named RYP,  “Ya gotta love a country that turns a Segway into a tool of oppressing the masses.”  That’s a great line although, in this case at least, it appears that they’re actually providing necessary security services.   Even police states have a legitimate requirement for police, after all.

Íngrid Betancourt Pulecio was freed yesterday in a daring rescue by the Colombian National Army after more than five years of captivity by FARC narco-terrorists.

[S]he and 14 other hostages — including three U.S. military contractors held since 2003 — were airlifted to freedom in an audaciously “perfect” operation involving military spies who tricked the rebels into handing over their prize hostages without firing a shot.

The stunning caper involved months of intelligence gathering, dozens of helicopters on standby and a strong dose of deceit: The rebels shoved the captives, their hands bound, onto a white unmarked MI-17 helicopter, believing they were being transferred to another guerrilla camp.

Looking at helicopter’s crew, some wearing Che Guevara shirts, Betancourt reasoned they weren’t aid workers, as she’d expected — but rebels. This was just another indignity — the helicopter “had no flag, no insignia.” Angry and upset, she refused a coat they offered as they told her she was going to a colder climate. But not long after the group was airborne, Betancourt turned around and saw the local commander, alias Cesar, a man who had tormented her for four years, blindfolded and stripped naked on the floor.

Then came the unbelievable words. “We’re the national army,” said one of the crewman. “You’re free.”

The helicopter crew were soldiers in disguise. Cesar and the other guerrilla aboard had been persuaded to hand over their pistols, then overpowered. Not a single shot was fired in Wednesday’s rescue mission, which snatched from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the four foreigners who were its greatest bargaining chips.

“The helicopter almost fell from the sky because we were jumping up and down, yelling, crying, hugging one another,” Betancourt later said.

The operation, which also freed 11 Colombian soldiers and police, “will go into history for its audacity and effectiveness,” Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said. It was the most serious blow ever dealt to the 44-year-old FARC, which is already reeling from the recent deaths of key commanders and thousands of defections after withering pressure from Colombia’s U.S.-trained and advised armed forces.

Military intelligence agents had infiltrated the FARC’s top ranks — not one but many — in an operation that began last year and developed slowly and with meticulous care, Colombia’s top generals said.

Amazingly good news. Steven Taylor, who studies Colombian politics for a living, has roundups here and here.

The Trashman Cometh Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(AFP/Fabrice Coffrini)

✰ THE WINNERS ✰

First: FormerHostage – Noooo they be stealin’ my Bucket! (It may be I’ve been hangin’ around at ICHC too much — rodney dill)

Second: utka – Despite all odds, Hillary is still running.

Third: yethanotherjohn – Its not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

HONORABLE MENTION

Cowboy Blob – Stand back! I have a hamster! And I’m not afraid to use it!

Bithead – Even Scotty was never able to keep the anti-grav units in line when Sulu did those warp speed 180’s.

charles austin – Marvel rejected Litterman as a superhero.

markm – Swiss riot police try to corral an unruly participant in the annual running of the trashcan event, a sister event to Spain’s running of the bulls.

Elmo – That’s no ordinary rabbit … that’s a most foul, cruel and bad tempered rodent you ever set eyes on. Look that rabbit got a vicious streak a mile wide, he’s a killer. He’ll do you a treat mate … (obviously Jimmy Carter has switched to live catch.)

ℛODNEY’S BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

Scott McClellan’s last days.

“you took my stapeler… but you can’t have my trashcan!”

“I will give up my wastebasket when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.”

“SERENITY NOW!!!”

The Monday Contest is already calling for a recount.

Dunkin’ Donuts has pulled an ad spot featuring Rachael Ray wearing a scarf around her neck because some thought it was a subtle nod of support to Palestinians.

Does Dunkin’ Donuts really think its customers could mistake Rachael Ray for a terrorist sympathizer? The Canton-based company has abruptly canceled an ad in which the domestic diva wears a scarf that looks like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men.
more stories like this

Some observers, including ultra-conservative Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin, were so incensed by the ad that there was even talk of a Dunkin’ Donuts boycott. ‘‘The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,’’ Malkin yowls in her syndicated column. ‘‘Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant and not-so-ignorant fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons.’’

The company at first pooh-poohed the complaints, claiming the black-and-white wrap was not a keffiyeh. But the right-wing drumbeat on the blogosphere continued and by yesterday, Dunkin’ Donuts decided it’d be easier just to yank the ad.

Said the suits in a statement: ‘‘In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design. It was selected by her stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended. However, given the possibility of misperception, we are no longer using the commercial.’’

The terrorists have won. Or maybe we’ve just gone collectively insane.

I was blissfully unaware of both the commercial and the the controversy surrounding it until seeing a link on memeorandum this morning. But, seriously?

It’s true that wearing the keffiyah as a fashion symbol has been a recurring trend among Palestinian sympathizers and various hipsters over the years. But Ray’s scarf doesn’t look anything like Yasser Arafat’s.

Further, the terrorists wear headdresses because that’s how men throughout the Middle East and North Africa dress. It’s a protective covering for the head in brutally hot climates. In any case, none of them are paisley.

The iconic “spider-web” black-and-white keffiyeh is often displayed symbolically by members of Arafat’s Fatah party (which more generally uses yellow as its party colour), although it has never been able to expropriate it as their exclusive symbol. The zig zag style of stitching is sometimes described as symbolic of their historic struggle and their inability to progress towards their objectives without having to avoid obsticles. This is in contrast to how many members of the radical leftist PLO factions (such as PFLP, PFLP-GC DFLP) prefer the checkered red keffieyhs — red being both the traditional colour of the workers’ movement and the red scarf supposedly more indicative of a bedouin and rural (thus poorer, more popular) background. The Islamist factions, such as Hamas, use green — representative of the Islamic faith — as a party color, but for keffiyehs they stick to the traditional black-and-white or red variants, with no particular preference evident. While widely known, this color symbolism is by no means universally accepted by all Palestinians, and its importance should not be overstated — red or black-and-white scarves are used by Palestinians of all political stripes, as well as by those with no particular political sympathies.

But, just to be safe, we should assume that every white chick wearing a scarf is a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer. Ray’s lucky her ad’s just been canceled and she hasn’t been hauled off to Gitmo for questioning.

UPDATE: Via Steven Taylor, I see that Tom Grant has discovered a much more egregious example of terror chic:

These fiends are everywhere. (While Taylor is reminded of an old Monty Python sketch about communists, it seems more to me like Ray Stevens’ “Santa Claus is Watching You.”)

Meanwhile, Doug Mataconis thinks sympathy for Arafat is the least of Ray’s crimes.

(And while we’re on the subject, what’s with the extraneous “a” in Ray’s first name? Perhaps another homage to Arafat? Or . . . Al Qaeda?)

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has even caught Meghan McCain — daughter of Juan McCain, hero of the Reconquista — wearing a purple plaid scarf keffiyah! Gawker has the photographic evidence. Nick Denton’s terrorist loving staff thinks it’s funny. They won’t think it’s funny, though, when the Straight Talk Express rams into Gawker HQ and explodes!

The Geeser Ginsu Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(AFP/William West)

✰ THE WINNERS ✰

First: markm – TURN..dodge..parry…break a hip.

Second: yetanotherjohn – Who is going to win? Depends.

Third: Bithead – You should not have come, old man….

HONORABLE MENTION

floyd – “let’s stop for a while…I’ve got to take EPEE!”

charles austin – Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

John425 – Medicare cutbacks make transplant candidates much more competitive.

FormerHostage – All we need now are wieners and a campfire.

MstrB – John McCain defends his wife’s honor.

Anderson – Bithead and Anderson settle their differences offline.

ℛODNEY’S BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

Emissions controls issues… wait a minute that was the last contest.

“I’ll gum your legs off!”

“Frankly I’m thrilled when anything sticks out far enough to risk getting cut off.”

I ’spose its too late to just arm wrestle instead?

The Monday Contest has already lost its bounce.

The The Dupes of Hazard Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(AP Photo/Bob Bird)

✰ THE WINNERS ✰

First: brainy435 – Well, it’s faster than a handbasket.

Second: FormerHostage – Oscar Meyer isn’t the ONLY one with a Weiner-Mobile!

Third: charles austin – Unsafe at any speed.

HONORABLE MENTION

Bithead – And in the back, a huge trunk, cleaverly hidden by a beige pantsuit.

DL – No chequered flag – just a chequered past.

elliot – After many long and winding roads, dead end streets, uphills, downhills, traveling through many states, logging many miles, low on fuel and dodging sniper fire…the car is still running too.

DaveD – “And here’s a little number you can count on. Sure seen some better days, but man, it just never stops runnin’.”

G.A.Phillips – I keep telling you these hybrids ain’t worth a shit!

anjin-san – Now we know what replaced “The Bitbox”

ℛODNEY’S BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

Emissions control issues, Clutch slips, Needs a new muffler, he block is cracked…

I thought the spoiler went on the back

Still needs a little body work, but the airbrush does wonders.

Mr. Toad’s wild ride

Now with James Carville for the Trunk Monkey.

The Thursday Contest is doing a little saber rattlin’

The Star Pupils Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(AP Photo/Xinhua, Ren Yong)

✰ THE WINNERS ✰

First: floyd – Unfortunately; the third brother got sad one day and drowned!

Second: Steven Taylor – Them TSA guys are sharp dressers!

Third: Elmo – Mmmm …. carrots.

HONORABLE MENTION

Cowboy Blob – Ocular Jocularity

yetanotherjohn – The Sauron party rally was sparsely attended.

FormerHostage – At least they didn’t go as testicles.

William d’Inger – Cloning experiment contaminated by squid genes.

Justgroovy – I said the “Ides” of March, you doofus, not “eyes”.

Bithead – Waiting for Nod

ℛODNEY’S BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

Tempting the fates

Unfortunately for Frodo, Sauron’s children continued to flourish in Newark, New Jersey and plotted for the day when they would return to vanquish Middle Earth (Ipse Dixit — circa May 2004)

Don’t treat us like children, we’re wearing Big-eye pants

Queer eye for the Cyclops guy.

“We don’t work together, there is no ‘I’ in ‘TEAM.’”

The Monday Contest runs a little soft in the rear end.

The Herd Mentality Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

(AFP/File)

✰ THE WINNERS ✰

First: FormerHostage – More ass than a Paris Hilton sleep-over.

Second: markm – While filming for the latest episode of “Wild Kingdom”, Jim Fowler obtained this amazing and rare shot of what appears to be a herd of superdelegates.

Third: Gollum – Supporters mistook Obama’s pledge to return the party to the grand days of Eeyore.

HONORABLE MENTION

yetanotherjohn – The trendiest thing today is to go to an Obama rally and get a little ass.

DaveD – Despite Hillary’s impressive showing in the PA primary, the superdelegates still seem to overwhelmingly favor Obama.

Stormy Dragon – You may think they’re Democrats, but they’re not–there’s a lot of asses in both parties.

john425 – We’ve got ‘em cornered and now it’s time for a little grab-ass.

Bithead – Gee, Jackie.. just think; It it wasn’t for the fact that nobody could draw a decent leech, we’d not be the symbol of a party.

Bithead – Donkeyote: an idealistic ass that howls at windmills and tilts at the moon… or something.

ℛODNEY’S BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

It has been noted that most Superdelegates exceed the maximum Federal Lead Level Content guidelines.

“Who’s givin’ the donkey note speech at the convention?”

Bill and Hillary enter on the scene from the left.

Karl Marx denigrates the electorate of Them asses.

Eventually even the monkeys had to capitulate that the asses were the masters of feces flinging.

“Ass me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies”

Just one short of Assinine

The Monday Contest is already countering Firedog.

Fareed Zakaria argues that John McCain’s foreign policy would be bellicose whereas Barack Obama’s would be conciliatiatory but, as Dave Schuler notes, both are “confrontational” and “interventionist,” just with slightly different priorities.

Zakaria points to a recent McCain speech:

Not only does it declare war on Russia and China, it places the United States in active opposition to all nondemocracies. It proposes a League of Democracies, which would presumably play the role that the United Nations now does, except that all nondemocracies would be cast outside the pale. The approach lacks any strategic framework. What would be the gain from so alienating two great powers? How would the League of Democracies fight terrorism while excluding countries like Jordan, Morocco, Egypt and Singapore? What would be the gain to the average American to lessen our influence with Saudi Arabia, the central banker of oil, in a world in which we are still crucially dependent on that energy source?

But this vastly overstates and misunderstands McCain’s proposals — not to mention the nature of the presidency.

McCain does not “declare war on Russia and China” or even place “the United States in active opposition to all nondemocracies.” Rather, he argues that we should seek to pursue our interests through the venue of an alliance with those with whom we share values.

He thinks Russia, which has not lived up to the bargain through which it was granted membership to which it was never due to the G-8, should be removed from that institution and that it should be expanded to include emerging economies that are on the same path as the core members of that group. Russia was not admitted to the club of the world’s greatest economies either through having a great economy or, as Zakaria asserts, “to recognize and reward it for peacefully ending the cold war on Western terms, dismantling the Soviet empire and withdrawing from large chunks of the old Russian Empire as well.” Rather, Boris Yeltsin showed up at the meetings and the other leaders didn’t really know what to do about it. Russia was finally admitted in 1997 after making agreeing to and reaching certain milestones but has backslid toward autocracy and regional belligerence in recent years.

China is an emerging economy and I agree with Zakaria that expansion of the G8 to include the likes of India but not China would be problematic. On the other hand, India is more-or-less democratic and complies with the rules of international law; China, not so much.

The idea that a League of Democracies would somehow lessen our mutal interest-based relations with Saudi Arabia and others is likewise puzzling. Does our membership in NATO do that?

Further, as Dave notes, while Obama is more open to diplomacy for its own sake than McCain, as demonstrated by his stated willingness to talk to the leaders of Cuba, Iran, and other states — which I support, incidentally — we shouldn’t pretend that he’s Jimmy Carter.

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are equally confrontational and interventionist. You can hardly interpret Sen. Clinton’s bellicose statements about Iran and her stump speech hostility to China or Sen. Obama’s stated willingness to intervene in Dar Fur or invade Pakistan in pursuit of Taliban and Al Qaeda finding safe haven there in any other way.

[...]

It looks very much as though come what may we’re going to have a confrontational interventionist president and we and the world had better get used to the idea. So much for mending fences and restoring the U. S.’s lost credibility.

Which, frankly, isn’t surprising. To become president of the United States, after all, one has to be elected by Americans. Our political culture demands a willingness to stand tough against rogue regime and to use military force against those who attack our interests. Even Jimmy Carter had his Desert One. And Carter was a one-termer largely because of his (minus that botched rescue mission) diplomacy-only response to the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Beyond that, as I’ve noted in previous posts, American presidents operate within the institutional confines of the office. The bureaucratic information process remains largely unchanged despite the changing of the occupants of the Oval Office. Congress continues to have essentially the same institutional stance as well, putting enormous pressure on presidents to conform to the expected role of the office.

None of this is to say that the November election won’t impact America’s foreign policy. It will. The personality, temperament, and preferences of the president very much matter, especially in world affairs. But the impact is not nearly as radical as Zakaria and others would have you believe.

The war against Jihadists and Islamo-Fascists has been won; each and every last one of these vermin has been eradicated courtesy of the United States Government. Unfortunately, the victory is quite literally in name only.

The Bush administration has launched a new front in the war on terrorism, this time targeting language. Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as “jihadists” or “mujahedeen,” according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Lingo like “Islamo-fascism” is out, too.

The reason: Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates.

For example, while Americans may understand “jihad” to mean “holy war,” it is in fact a broader Islamic concept of the struggle to do good, says the guidance prepared for diplomats and other officials tasked with explaining the war on terror to the public. Similarly, “mujahedeen,” which means those engaged in jihad, must be seen in its broader context. U.S. officials may be “unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims,” says a Homeland Security report. It’s entitled “Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims.” “Regarding ‘jihad,’ even if it is accurate to reference the term, it may not be strategic because it glamorizes terrorism, imbues terrorists with religious authority they do not have and damages relations with Muslims around the world,” the report says.

Language is critical in the war on terror, says another document, an internal “official use only” memorandum circulating through Washington entitled “Words that Work and Words that Don’t: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication.”

The memo, originally prepared in March by the Extremist Messaging Branch at the National Counter Terrorism Center, was approved for diplomatic use this week by the State Department, which plans to distribute a version to all U.S. embassies, officials said. “It’s not what you say but what they hear,” the memo says in bold italic lettering, listing 14 points about how to better present the war on terrorism.

“Don’t take the bait,” it says, urging officials not to react when Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida affiliates speak. “We should offer only minimal, if any, response to their messages. When we respond loudly, we raise their prestige in the Muslim world.”

“Don’t compromise our credibility” by using words and phrases that may ascribe benign motives to terrorists.

Some other specifics:

_ “Never use the terms ‘jihadist’ or ‘mujahedeen’ in conversation to describe the terrorists. … Calling our enemies ‘jihadis’ and their movement a global ‘jihad’ unintentionally legitimizes their actions.”

_ “Use the terms ‘violent extremist’ or ‘terrorist.’ Both are widely understood terms that define our enemies appropriately and simultaneously deny them any level of legitimacy.”

_ On the other hand, avoid ill-defined and offensive terminology: “We are communicating with, not confronting, our audiences. Don’t insult or confuse them with pejorative terms such as ‘Islamo-fascism,’ which are considered offensive by many Muslims.”

Michael van der Galien initially thought this was “silly” but came around once he thought about it.

Because I’ve seen this argument unfolding for years, I mostly share the bemusement of Steve Benen, who points out, “it took the Bush administration more than six years to figure this out?” And he’s also right that, “if a President Clinton or President Obama had issued the identical directive to administration officials, what do you want to bet they’d be slammed as politically-correct terrorist coddlers?”

Interestingly, one of the more prominent voices pushing for this policy change was Dave Kilcullen, a key member of David Petraeus’ brain trust, who was touting the need for better language in Small Wars Journal and elsewhere last summer.

Jim Guirard took that message to heart and put out a dictionary of alternative words to use. Some examples:

irhab (eer-HAB) — Arabic for terrorism, thus enabling us to call the al Qaeda-style killers irhabis, irhabists and irhabiyoun rather than the so-called “jihadis” and “jihadists” and “mujahideen” and “shahids” (martyrs) they badly want to be called. (Author’s lament: Here we are, almost six years into a life-and-death War on Terrorism, and most of us do not even know this basic Arabic for terrorism.)

Hirabah (hee-RAH-bah) — Unholy War and forbidden “war against society” or what we would today call crimes against humanity. Among the many al Qaeda-style crimes and sins which constitute this most “unholy war” are such willful, and unrepented transgressions as those enumerated in the next section of this proposed glossary of terms.

mufsiduun (moof-see-DOON) — Islam’s word for evildoers, sinners and corrupters whose criminality and sinfulness, unless ended and sincerely repented, will incur Allah’s ultimate condemnation on Judgment Day; Islam’s optimum antonym for “mujahiddin.”

munafiquun (moon-ah-fee-KOON) — hypocrites to Islam who pretend to be faithful to the Qur’an but who willfully violate many of its basic rules, mandates and prohibitions.

Practically, I don’t see a shift in language this dramatic taking place. And the idea that people who think sawing off the heads of living hostages on video is fine will change their mind because Condi Rice starts calling it irhab and the perpetrators mufsiduun rather than jihadists and butchers strikes me as dubious. If it’s not obvious to you that such conduct is barbaric, I’m not sure that a new lexicon will do the trick.