From a deeply saddened Associated Press:

Democratic Leaders Revamp Anti-War Plan

Wednesday February 28, 2007

By ANNE FLAHERTY

WASHINGTON — House Democratic leaders are developing an anti-war proposal that wouldn’t cut off money for U.S. troops in Iraq but would require President Bush to acknowledge problems with an overburdened military.

The plan could draw bipartisan support but is expected to be a tough sell to members who say they don’t think it goes far enough to assuage voters angered by the four-year conflict.

Bush “hasn’t to date done anything we’ve asked him to do, so why we would think he would do anything in the future is beyond me,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., one of a group of liberal Democrats pushing for an immediate end to the war.

Democratic protests to the war grew louder in January after they took control of Congress and Bush announced he planned to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. Earlier this month, House Democrats pushed through a nonbinding resolution opposing the buildup.

Since then, Democrats have been trying to decide what to do next. Some worried that a plan by Rep. John Murtha to restrict funding for the war would go too far. Murtha, D-Pa., is extending his support to the revised proposal.

The tactic is more likely to embarrass Bush politically than force his hand on the war. He would have to sign repeated waivers for units and report to Congress those units with equipment shortfalls and other problems.

In the Senate, a group of senior Democrats wants to repeal the 2002 measure authorizing the war and write a new resolution restricting the mission and ordering troop withdrawals to begin by this summer. But Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Iraq would have to wait until the Senate finishes work to improve homeland security.

“That would mean we would hold off the Iraq legislation for a matter of days, not weeks,” he said.

The House Democratic proposal brought a sharp response from Republicans today.

Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., called the plan a “fig leaf” to distract the public from what he said was Democrats’ ultimate goal of cutting off funds for troops in combat.

“We support full funding for our troops who are in harms way — without strings attached,” said Putnam, R-Fla., after emerging from a closed-door conference meeting…

There will be some heads exploding in Mother Sheehan-land tonight.

Perhaps out Solons in the Congress discovered that the “slow bleed” strategy wasn’t as popular with the citizenry as they had imagined.

From an anxious Associated Press:

Judge Replies to Jury Note in Libby Case

By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

(02-28) WASHINGTON (AP) — One week into their deliberations, jurors in the CIA leak trial had a question for the judge. The judge responded with a question of his own: What do you mean?

Jurors passed a note to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton at the end of the day Tuesday. Walton took the bench Wednesday morning and, without saying what the question was, told attorneys he didn’t understand it.

“I have some questions in my mind as to exactly what the jury is asking me,” Walton said. “I’m going to send a note back to the jury indicating I’m not exactly certain what you’re asking and can you please clarify.”

The question could provide the first clue about the deliberations in the case of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Since getting the case last Wednesday, jurors had asked no questions, only requesting office supplies.

Defense attorney and prosecutors have reviewed the note but did not discuss it’s [sic] contents. Defense attorney Theodore Wells said he and prosecutors believe they understand the note and proposed similar responses. But Walton said he wanted to be sure…

It’s hard not to cast aspersions sometimes. But really, who is dumb and who is dumber?

Meanwhile, another day goes by. (And how many dollars?)

From a disappointed Reuters:

U.S. says will not extradite CIA agents to Italy

By Mark John Wed Feb 28

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States will reject any request by Italy to extradite CIA agents for the first criminal trial over controversial U.S. “renditions” of terror suspects, a U.S. government lawyer said on Wednesday.

A Milan judge earlier this month ordered 26 Americans, most of them thought to be CIA agents, to stand trial with Italian spies for kidnapping a Muslim cleric and flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.

“We’ve not got an extradition request from Italy … If we got an extradition request from Italy, we would not extradite U.S. officials to Italy,” State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger told a news briefing.

Bellinger, in Brussels for meetings with European legal advisers, did not comment on details of the case but said the United States would never hand over a suspect to another country without assurances about their treatment.

He acknowledged widespread concern in Europe about the tactics of the Bush administration in what it calls the “war on terror” but said the risk of legal action against U.S. officials in Europe was harming intelligence cooperation.

“The continuing threat of criminal charges not only harms cooperation on our end but does also cast a pall over cooperation on the European side as well,” he said.

“We get assurances from countries that individuals will be properly treated and if we can’t get these assurances then we will not turn people over to those countries,” he added.

Bellinger’s remarks were no surprise and meant the indictees would probably stand trial in absentia on June 8…

This nonsense has been answered very cogently by David Rivkin Lee Casey in an editorial published in the Washington Post:

Europe’s Runaway Prosecutions

By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey
Wednesday, February 28, 2007; A19

An Italian court announced this month that it is moving forward with the indictment and trial of 25 CIA agents charged with kidnapping a radical Muslim cleric. These proceedings may well violate international law, but the case serves as a wake-up call to the United States. Overseas opponents of American foreign policy are increasingly turning to judicial proceedings against individual American officials as a means of reformulating or frustrating U.S. aims, and action to arrest this development is needed.

The Italian case involves a 2003 CIA mission to apprehend an Egyptian cleric named Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr. Suspected of terrorist ties, Nasr was seized in Milan and transported to Egypt, where he claims he was tortured. This was, of course, an “extraordinary rendition” — a long-standing and legal practice that generally involves the cooperation of two or more governments in the capture and transportation of a criminal suspect outside of normal extradition proceedings. It was through such a rendition that the terrorist “Carlos the Jackal” was delivered for trial to France from Sudan in 1994.

The United States has used extraordinary renditions as part of the war on terrorism, but the continuing value of this tactic, particularly in Europe, is questionable. One of the primary European objections to the concept of a “war” on terrorism is the fear that U.S. forces will treat Europe as a battlefield. Although this fear is specious — international law has long provided that, even in wartime, a nation cannot pursue its enemies into the territory of friendly countries without their express permission — extraordinary rendition gets uncomfortably close to U.S. military operations on European streets. Moreover, unlike many other aspects of U.S. policy, extraordinary rendition can probably be abandoned without severely undercutting the war effort. That being the case, and given the obvious and increasing hard feelings the policy has prompted in Europe, extraordinary renditions should end.

Yet the United States must still vigorously resist the prosecution of its indicted agents. If they acted with the knowledge and consent of the Italian government (as The Post’s Dana Priest reported in 2005), they are immune from criminal prosecution in that country. Although foreign nationals traveling abroad are ordinarily subject to local judicial authority, international law has long recognized an exception for government agents entering another country with its government’s permission. As Chief Justice John Marshall explained in The Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon (1812), an early Supreme Court case involving the immunity of a French warship in American waters, “[o]ne sovereign being in no respect amendable to another . . . can be supposed to enter a foreign territory only under an express license, or in the confidence that the immunities belonging to his independent sovereign nation, though not expressly stipulated, are reserved by implication.”

Because of this general rule, elaborate Status of Forces Agreements are negotiated before the troops of one state are stationed in another. These agreements usually narrow the jurisdictional immunities to be enjoyed by American troops stationed abroad, although under the NATO Status of Forces Agreements, to which Italy and the United States are both parties, America retains primary jurisdiction over offenses committed by individuals on duty — as would have been the case here. If the Status of Forces Agreement does not apply — as it might not, because intelligence agents are involved — then the general rule applies. In either case, it is up to American, not Italian, authorities to determine whether any offense was committed in the capture and rendition of Nasr.

Unfortunately, the effort to prosecute these American agents is only one instance of a growing problem. Efforts to use domestic and international legal systems to intimidate U.S. officials are proliferating, especially in Europe. Cases are pending in Germany against other CIA agents and former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld — all because of controversial aspects of the war on terrorism. These follow Belgium’s misguided effort to pursue “universal jurisdiction” claims for alleged violations of international law, which also resulted in complaints against American officials including Vice President Cheney and former secretary of state Colin Powell. That law was amended, but the overall problem is unlikely to go away. The initiation of judicial proceedings against individual Americans is too attractive a means of striking at the United States — and one often not subject to control by the relevant foreign government.

Accordingly, Congress should make it a crime to initiate or maintain a prosecution against American officials if the proceeding itself otherwise violates accepted international legal norms. Thus, in instances where there is a clear case of immunity, U.S. prosecutors could answer proceedings such as the Italian indictments with criminal proceedings in U.S. courts. By responding in kind, even if few overreaching foreign officials are ever actually tried, such a law would create a powerful disincentive for these kinds of legal antics.

The authors served in the Justice Department under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and have been expert members of the U.N. Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

Europe has gone insane.

They are suicidal.

From a still outraged Associated Press:

John Kerry Grills Belgium Ambassador Nominee Over Swift Boat Donation

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

WASHINGTON — A Senate hearing that began with glowing tributes to a St. Louis businessman and his qualifications to become ambassador to Belgium turned bitterly divisive Tuesday after he was criticized for supporting a controversial conservative group.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., grilled nominee Sam Fox about why he donated $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential race. The group of Vietnam veterans made unsubstantiated allegations against Kerry — then the Democratic presidential nominee — and charged that Kerry did not deserve the medals he won in the Vietnam War.

“Might I ask you what your opinion is with respect to the state of American politics as regards the politics of personal destruction?” Kerry asked near the end of the hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Fox, one of the nation’s most generous contributors to Republican candidates and causes, said he shared Kerry’s concerns that politics “has become mean and destructive.”

Fox said he didn’t recall who asked him to give to the group and blamed partisans on both sides for contributing to so-called 527 groups that are not subject to conventional campaign finance rules.

“So is that your judgment that you would bring to the ambassadorship, that two wrongs make a right?” Kerry asked.

“I did it because politically it’s necessary if the other side’s doing it,” Fox said.

Fox said he played no part in crafting the Swift Boat message and called on Congress to ban or more carefully regulate 527s.

But Kerry said the incident raised questions about Fox’s fitness to serve as an ambassador.

The back-and-forth overshadowed the early part of the hearing, in which a bipartisan group of lawmakers offered glowing reviews of Fox.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a presidential hopeful and chairman of Tuesday’s hearing, said he found Fox’s responses “unsatisfying.” He said he would have preferred if Fox admitted it was a mistake to contribute to the Swift Boat group…

Like Mr. Kerry, the Associated Press apparently cannot stop itself.

The group of Vietnam veterans made unsubstantiated allegations against Kerry…

The SBVFT charges were anything but “unsubstantianted.”

Rather it was Mr. Kerry’s claims that were unsubstantiated. And they remain so to this day, despite his oft-repeated assurances that he would prove them.

But the media will never stop carrying his water at every opportunity. 

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a presidential hopeful and chairman of Tuesday’s hearing, said he found Fox’s responses “unsatisfying.” He said he would have preferred if Fox admitted it was a mistake to contribute to the Swift Boat group.

Is there nothing this Solon will not opine upon?

Of course Mr. Obama wouldn’t be a Senator today if it weren’t for the media suing to have his opponent’s divorce records made public — in an unprecedented violation of privacy and jurispurdence.

Moreover it’s clear that both Senators Kerry and Obama are strongly against freedom of speech and participatory democracy.

As is also the Associated Press.

From those famously circumspect reporters at the Associated Press:

A hazardous materials personnel staging area, yellow tents at right, located near the Butler-Carlton Civil Engineering Building at the University of Missouri - Rolla,, left, is shown Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2007, in Rolla, Mo. A University of Missouri-Rolla graduate student claiming to possess anthrax and a bomb threw this south-central Missouri community into a panic Tuesday, but police suspect it was nothing more than an empty threat by a depressed student and not an incident of terrorism.

Student claimed to have bomb, anthrax

JIM SALTER

Tue, Feb. 27, 2007

ROLLA, Mo. - A distraught graduate student claiming to have a bomb and anthrax sparked a scare early Tuesday that shut down the University of Missouri-Rolla for several hours, officials said.

Nearly two dozen people, including a faculty member and eight other students, were quarantined after a white, powdery substance was found.

School officials said “possible bomb materials” were also found when the man was taken into custody. Officials described him as a graduate student who was apparently depressed and upset about his grades.

The incident started around 2:30 a.m. in a civil engineering building on campus.

Acting Police Chief Mark Kearse said that when police arrived, the student held up a bag and said: “This is a bomb.” He was armed with a knife and also claimed to have anthrax, Kearse said.

Police used a stun gun to subdue him. They also found a four-page note in which the student threatened to destroy the building, Kearse said.

“If we had to make an assessment right now, our assessment is that this is going to be a bogus or phony situation,” said Acting Police Chief Mark Kearse.

Still, a Fort Leonard Wood Explosive Operations Division team was investigating the possibility that a bomb could be in the building, and members of the Missouri National Guard were called to campus. A National Guard team took samples to determine if the substance was hazardous, said Lt. Col. David Boyle of the 7th Civil Support Team.

Officials said no one who had been exposed to the substance had shown any symptoms.

“If it was anthrax they would have been displaying some symptoms,” said Ray Massey, ambulance director at Phelps County Regional Medical Center.

The identity and nationality of the student were not released, though school spokesman Lance Feyh said he was an international student. The man was decontaminated and taken to a hospital before being taken to a holding facility at the Rolla Police Department, Kearse said.

Mayor William Jenks and Kearse said the student had been distraught over his grades, which may have led to the incident. Jenks said the student “had problems and was depressed.”

The 5,850-student technological research and engineering school campus in south-central Missouri was shut down during the incident and classes were canceled for the day while officers investigated.

“We have no hard evidence that there’s anything wrong in the building but we simply can’t take a chance,” Jenks said. “We’re taking a very cautious approach.”

Those exposed to the powder included a faculty member in whose lab the graduate student was found and eight students working nearby, said campus spokeswoman Mary Helen Stoltz. The remaining people exposed to the powder included emergency personnel who responded to the scene, she said. It wasn’t yet clear what the substance was.

Stoltz reiterated Kearse’s belief that the student was “using the threat of terror to get attention.”

“We believe the situation is completely under control,” she said. “For now everybody’s safe.”

It’s the media’s fault.

If they hadn’t such a long history now of covering up for Muslim terrorists, we wouldn’t be so inclined to suspect that this “international student” whose nationality must be protected (why?) is in fact a Muslim.

 Update!

From the local Rolla Daily News:

Bomb threat, anthrax scare close UMR

by Jaime Baranyai - Staff Writer

Tuesday, February 27, 2007 10:45 PM CST

The reality of terrorism was brought home to Rolla Tuesday morning when a distraught University of Missouri-Rolla student threatened the community with words that have shaken big cities across the nation.

Bomb. Anthrax.

Law enforcement officials responding well before daylight quickly had the situation under control, the community safe and the perpetrator, an apparently overwrought University of Missouri-Rolla student from India, in jail on a $250,000 bond and facing six felony charges, including one for making terrorist threats.

Sujith Venkatramolla, a 22-year-old graduate student, was arrested shortly after officers from the University of Missouri-Rolla and the Rolla Police Department arrived at the Butler-Carlton Civil Engineering Building around 2:30 a.m. The incident started when Venkatramolla brandished a knife and showed a bag he said contained a bomb. He also claimed to have anthrax. At that point he was subdued with a taser gun and taken into custody…

A Terrorist Threat?

The incident started at approximately 2:32 a.m. Tuesday when the University of Missouri-Rolla Police Department received a call regarding a University of Missouri-Rolla student who was threatening terrorist-type actions in the Butler-Carlton Civil Engineering Building. The call may have come from the suspect who was trying to disguise his voice as a woman’s, according to law enforcement officials. The University of Missouri-Rolla Police Department called the Rolla Police Department for backup and the two agencies responded to the scene.

“When we confronted the student he pulled a knife, held up a bag and said there was a bomb in it,” Capt. Mark Kearse, interim police chief of the Rolla Police Department, said at an 8:30 a.m. press conference Tuesday morning at City Hall.

Police officers tased Ventrakamolla and then arrested him. After being taken into custody, he was decontaminated, evaluated at the Phelps County Regional Medical Center and then taken back to the Rolla Police Department for more questioning.

In addition to the bomb, the suspect also said he had anthrax. A white powdery substance was found on the suspect and near a desk in one of the rooms of the Civil Engineering Building. A two-to-four page note was also found. Kearse could not release all the details of the note, but said it contained information about Venkatramolla’s various “missions.”

“Today’s [Tuesday] mission was to destroy the Civil Engineering Building,” Kearse said.

Kearse would not give specifics about the other “missions,” but said that “suicide by cops” was mentioned in the note…

Venkatramolla was supposedly upset after receiving the first two ‘B’ grades he’d ever gotten and falling behind in his classes due to illness, according to a source who wished to remain anonymous…

Although they’re international students, Shil and Tipaji aren’t too concerned about facing a negative backlash from the community.

“I’ve been in Rolla for five years and Rolla has been very welcoming to international students,” Shil said. “I don’t think the actions of this student will reflect negatively on the whole international community. Life will go on.”

Even so, other students are still concerned.

“We’re all under a lot of stress and we all have hard classes, but I can’t believe somebody would actually do that,” student Adam Ryley said. “No matter how much stress you’re under you can’t do something like that and get away with it. It makes me concerned that the school isn’t checking on students as much as they should be.” …

Apart from reporting that the “anthrax” turned out to be sugar, the media seems to have lost all interest in the story.

Even if he is from India, of course he could still be of the Muslim persuasion. Though his name probably indicates otherwise.

But why was his name and nationality kept secret for so long?

This would seem to be our hero, from a posted testimonial for the Valmiki Group, a foreign student placement organization:

Valmiki Group - Appreciation

Full Name: Sujith Kumar Venkatramolla

University/College: UMR

Program: MS.Civil Engg

Intake: Fall’06

Testimonial: I consider myself as a lucky guy for being a student of Valmiki.Guidence initially given by Shanti mam and later on by tulasi mam was superb. I think I would never get a visa without attending Mock - Interviews. I can’t express all my feelings in words. I am thankful to each and every staff member of Valmiki.

They might want to check their screening procedures.

And now we have this police booking photo released by Phelps County Sheriff’s Office, showing Sujithkumar Venkatramolla,:

(Thanks to Kilmeny for the heads up on the Rolla Daily News update.)

From those taxpayer-funded Communist revolutionaries at Democracy Now! (but never for Iraq):

Ex-Congressional Aide: Karl Rove Personally Received (And Ignored) Iranian Peace Offer in 2003

Monday, February 26th, 2007

…Bush’s chief advisor Karl Rove personally received a copy of a secret offer from the Iranian government to hold negotiations four years ago. The Bush administration decided to ignore the grand bargain offer. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice recently claimed she had never even seen the document. At the time Iran said it would consider far-reaching compromises on its nuclear program, relations with Hezbollah and Hamas and support for a Palestinian peace agreement with Israel.

Rove’s involvement was revealed by an aide to former Republican congressman Bob Ney. The aide, Trita Parsi, said Ney was chosen by the Swiss Ambassador in Tehran to carry the Iranian proposal to the White House because he knew the Ohio Congressman to be the only Farsi-speaking member of Congress and particularly interested in Iran.

Trita Parsi joins me now from Washington DC. He is the President of the National Iranian American Council, the largest Iranian-American organization in the US. His forthcoming book is "Treacherous Triangle - The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States." …

AMY GOODMAN: Explain exactly what this memo, this proposal was, coming from Iran, and how you say it made its way to the highest levels of the US government.

TRITA PARSI: Well, this is back in May 2003. The United States had just defeated Saddam in less than three weeks, and I think there were a lot of feelings inside Iran that they needed to present some sort of a negotiation deal with the United States. But what they presented was quite similar to many things that they had communicated verbally to the United States over the last couple of years. Basically, they said the United States has a couple of aims, Iran has a couple of aims, and there is a process to be able to proceed with the negotiations.

And what the Iranians agreed to discuss as a framework of the negotiations was how to disarm the Hezbollah, how to end support to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, how to open up the nuclear program, how to help the United States stabilize Iraq, and, in short, that the government there would not along sectarian lines, and also how to sign onto the Beirut Declaration, which is basically a former recognition of the two-state solution. These are far-reaching compromises that Iran potentially would have agreed to in the negotiations, but the Bush administration, as you reported, decided simply not to respond to the proposal…

AMY GOODMAN: And he then got this proposal to the man you worked for, Congressmember Ney?

TRITA PARSI: Exactly. I was an advisor to Bob Ney at the time. And Tim met with Bob and handed over the proposal to him. And Bob afterwards sent it to be hand-delivered to the White House to Karl Rove, and Karl Rove called back within two hours, and they had a brief discussion about the proposal.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did Karl Rove say?

TRITA PARSI: Well, he basically said that it was an intriguing proposal…

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about this proposal that came to the US? You have Karl Rove who knew, the very close relationship between — well, it was Karl Rove and Condoleezza Rice who went with President Bush to South Korea, just them together. Do you have any awareness or knowledge of President Bush knowing about this?

TRITA PARSI: Well, according to many people that I have interviewed in the Bush administration, they did have a discussion about this at the highest level in the Bush administration, and basically the hard line of the Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld basically ensured that they would not proceed with the negotiations. In fact, they actually reprimanded the Swiss ambassador for having delivered it.

And the argument by the hardliners, the hawks in the Washington — in the White House at the time was basically that Iran is weak and it’s giving this proposal precisely because of the fact that it is fearful of the United States and that the US can achieve more by taking on the Iranian regime and just removing it than by negotiating. So we had this situation in which, back then, because of America’s strength, the Bush administration argued that it could not negotiate.

And we have the opposite situation right now. Now, the Bush administration is saying that because it’s weak, it cannot negotiate. But if you can’t negotiate when you’re strong, because you’re strong, and you can’t negotiate when you’re weak, because you’re weak, that basically means that you’re not interested in negotiations at all…

So it looks like Karl Rove has yet another crime against humanity upon his head.

But who knew that staff people handled international treaties?

I mean, besides Amy Goodman and this "former Congressional aide" (or was he an "advisor"?) who is hawking her preposterous book.

[T]he Iranians agreed to discuss as a framework of the negotiations was how to disarm the Hezbollah, how to end support to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, how to open up the nuclear program, how to help the United States stabilize Iraq, and, in short, that the government there would not along sectarian lines, and also how to sign onto the Beirut Declaration, which is basically a former recognition of the two-state solution…

Would any sane person believe this?

Of course the lunatic left will. And that is who this constant stream of agit-prop targets.

They never get tired of being lied to.

From, of all places, the DNC’s Washington Post:

Clintons’ Charity Not Listed On Senate Disclosure Forms

By John Solomon and Matthew Mosk
Tuesday, February 27, 2007; A01

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former president Bill Clinton have operated a family charity since 2001, but she failed to list it on annual Senate financial disclosure reports on five occasions.

The Ethics in Government Act requires members of Congress to disclose positions they hold with any outside entity, including nonprofit foundations. Hillary Clinton has served her family foundation as treasurer and secretary since it was established in December 2001, but none of her ethics reports since then have disclosed that fact.

The foundation has enabled the Clintons to write off more than $5 million from their taxable personal income since 2001, while dispensing $1.25 million in charitable contributions over that period.

Clinton’s spokesman said her failure to report the existence of the family foundation and the senator’s position as an officer was an oversight. Her office immediately amended her Senate ethics reports to add that information late yesterday after receiving inquiries from The Washington Post.

"The details of the Clintons’ charitable family foundation and Senator Clinton’s role in it have always been publicly available, but, in an oversight that leaders of both parties have made, it was inadvertently omitted from her Senate filing, which has been corrected," Hillary Clinton’s press secretary, Philippe Reines, said yesterday

Among the institutions receiving grants from the Clinton Family Foundation were Yale University, where both attended law school; groups named for deceased heads of state in Israel and Jordan; and a charity connected to the Arkansas businessman who helped Hillary Clinton make $100,000 on a commodities trade that stirred controversy a decade ago, Internal Revenue Service reports show.

Hillary Clinton’s decision to amend her Senate disclosures comes after several other high-profile politicians came under scrutiny for omitting family foundations from their financial disclosure reports, including former Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). They amended their disclosures, and neither was penalized.

Advisers to the Clintons said the family foundation amounted to only a fraction of their overall charitable efforts, which generate millions each year.

The charity is separate from the New York-based William J. Clinton Foundation, which has directed $10 billion in corporate money and resources toward slowing the global spread of AIDS, addressing climate change, and reducing hunger and poverty in developing countries.

The smaller family foundation lists as its address a post office box in Chappaqua, N.Y., where the Clintons live. Hillary Clinton is listed as secretary and treasurer, Bill Clinton as president and the couple’s daughter, Chelsea, as a director. None takes any compensation.

The charity has been funded with money from lucrative book deals for both Clintons and from speechmaking by Bill Clinton since they left the White House in 2001. The foundation’s tax filings are available on an Internet repository for IRS documents. The only time the Clintons mentioned the foundation on her ethics report was in 2002, in a footnote about their $800,000 donation that year, but it did not disclose as required her position or other information about the foundation. In subsequent years, they made no mention of it.

Between 2001 and 2005, the Clintons seeded the charity with $5.16 million of their money. The foundation’s 2006 tax form is not due until later this year.

Tax records show the Clinton Family Foundation was created during Hillary Clinton’s first year in the Senate, when the couple gave $800,000 to launch the organization in early December 2001. The charity distributed no funds that year. The next year, the Clintons made $170,000 in donations while adding $100,000 of their own funds.

The Clintons donated much larger amounts in recent years as legal bills from Bill Clinton’s impeachment were paid off and their personal fortunes soared. At the end of 2005, the Clinton family foundation had nearly $4 million in cash assets…

Such omissions deprive the public of the right to scrutinize their political leaders’ financial dealings and identify possible conflicts of interest, the former chief of disclosure for the Federal Election Commission said.

Kent Cooper, who retired after two decades overseeing the FEC’s public disclosure office, said congressional ethics committees have not enforced the ethics disclosure requirements forcefully. As a result, he said, candidates "know there is no great consequences, and so the habit has developed that people dismiss an omission as a clerical error, when in fact it is a crucial piece of the puzzle about a member’s finances that is being hidden.

They list their donations of used underwear, but don’t list a charity they run on Hillary’s Senate "financial disclosure" forms?

Thankfully it was just "an oversight." We know how prone they are to those.

Of course this is merely a tax dodge setup to help shield the $40 million a year Bill is "earning" by influence peddling giving speeches all around the world, as also recently reported by the Washington Post.

Among the institutions receiving grants from the Clinton Family Foundation were… a charity connected to the Arkansas businessman who helped Hillary Clinton make $100,000 on a commodities trade that stirred controversy a decade ago,

It’s nice to see that the Clintons are finally getting around to paying off the gentleman who scammed them a cool $100,00 when they were earning a measly $30K a year.

It is surprising, however, to see that there are no homes for young nymphomaniacal girls listed among the recipients of their largess. (Those must be under the William J Clinton Foundation wing.)

But what has gotten into the Washington Post?

They are almost acting like a real newspaper lately.

Or maybe with the help of his Hollywood friends’ money, Obama was able to outbid the Clintons for their services this go around.

From Canada’s CBC News:

Muslim girl ejected from tournament for wearing hijab

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Five young teams from across Canada walked out of a Quebec soccer tournament Sunday because a young Muslim girl was ejected for wearing a hijab.

Calling the rule banning the headscarf worn by Muslim women racist, four other teams followed Asmahan Mansour’s team, the Nepean Selects from Ottawa, after she was thrown out for running afoul of a Quebec Soccer Association rule.

“The referee was staring and pointing. ‘She can’t play,’” said Asmahan, Asi to her friends. “I was like why? Why can’t I play?”

Because of a safety rule, league spokesman Lyes Arfa said. He pointed out that the referee is Muslim himself, and that the ban on hijabs is to protect children from being accidentally strangled.

“We have to protect the players on the field, and that’s the main point. It’s not against the Muslims.”

And the league had told organizers about the rule — “The wearing of the Islamic veil or any other religious item is not permitted” — before the game.

Asi’s team was aware of the rule, but didn’t expect it would be enforced.

So when it was, many players and adults were outraged.

Girls backed up teammate

“I automatically went back to the referee: ‘Are you sure this is what you wanna do?’” said Louis Maneiro, the Selects’ head coach. When nothing changed, he said, “I just decided that there’s no way that I would allow our team to continue, and the girls backed up Asi very strongly.”

Asi’s teammates supported the move. “I felt disgraced, I was crushed, I couldn’t see Asi like that,” said Lisa Furano. 

“It’s just a piece of material, it can’t do any harm,” added Alicia Stainton.

The Selects left the tournament in good spirits. But they say they won’t come back until the rule changes.

When I was in school we were prohibited from wearing anything, such as St. Christopher medals, which might get accidentally snagged and cause injuries.

I suppose we should have sued. But we didn’t have an organization like CAIR looking out for us.

From a breathless press release:

Asi and teamates on the Nepean Selects

CAIR Applauds Support for Muslim Soccer Player

Muslim girl wearing scarf ejected from tournament, other teams walk out in protest

Monday, February 26, 2007

Muslim girl wearing scarf ejected from tournament, other teams walk out in protest

(Ottawa, Canada - Feb 26, 2007) ­ The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN) today applauded the “tremendous” support given to a Muslim soccer player who was ejected from a Quebec tournament because she was wearing a religiously-mandated headscarf, or “hijab.”

Five other teams from across Canada walked out the tournament Sunday after the Muslim player was thrown out because of a Quebec Soccer Association rule against the hijab. The association claims the ban is a safety issue.

“The tremendous support shown for the Muslim player is an indication that common sense and respect for religious differences are more powerful than arbitrary rules,” said CAIR-CAN Executive Director Karl Nickner. He said any remote possibility of a safety issue could easily be handled through creative solutions such as Velcro fasteners on the player’s scarf.

Nickner noted that even male professional soccer players sometimes wear headgear such as sweat bands and bandanas without fear of injury. In fact, some players wear special protective devices on their heads to prevent injury from “headers.”

CAIR-CAN say they will work with the soccer association to resolve the issue in a way that satisfies both safety requirements and the need to accommodate the girl’s religious rights.

CONTACT: Sarah Elgazzar, CAIR-CAN Spokesperson at 514.776.6566, Sameer Zuberi, CAIR-CAN Communications Coordinator at 613.795.2012, or Karl Nickner, CAIR-CAN Executive Director at 613.254.9704 or 613.853.4111

As the first article noted, the referee is a Muslim himself. And that wearing such clothing is against the soccer league’s rules.

But what other religion or group insists that every rule be changed to suit them?

Why doesn’t CAIR care about the safety of Muslim soccer players? Will CAIR be responsible for any potential injuries and their concomitant lawsuits?

Of course not.

All CAIR cares about is perpetuating the lie that Muslims are endlessly discriminated against in non-Muslim countries.

And raising money — from ignorance and hatred (and probably terrorists).

From a disappointed ABC News:

A U.S. soldier stands guard as a man stands by a body after a suicide blast outside the main U.S. military base in Bagram February 27, 2007. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney heard the bomb attack at the gate of Bagram Airbase where he had spent the night and was briefly moved to a bomb shelter, he said on Tuesday.

Cheney Targeted in Assassination Attempt

Taliban Says a Suicide Bomber Outside U.S. Air Base in Afghanistan Was Targeting Cheney

By JONATHAN KARL

Feb. 27, 2007 — A suicide bomber struck at the main entrance to Bagram air base in Afghanistan today, as Vice President Dick Cheney was visiting.

Immediately after the attack, a red alert traveled throughout the base — a red alert that we heard saying that the base was under direct attack.

At least nine people were killed, officials tell ABC News. Associated Press reporters at the scene said that they had seen the bodies of at least 12 people, and that they had been carried in black body bags and wooden coffins from near the base into a market area where hundreds of Afghans had gathered to mourn.

A Taliban spokesperson has claimed responsibility, saying the intended target was in fact Cheney. The bomber never got near Cheney.

Maj. William Mitchell said it did not appear the explosion was intended as a threat to the vice president. “He wasn’t near the site of the explosion,” Mitchell said. “He was safely within the base at the time of the explosion.”

However, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a purported Taliban spokesman, said Cheney was the target of the attack.

“We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base,” Ahmadi told AP telephone [sic] from an undisclosed location. “The attacker was trying to reach Cheney.” …

 The Taliban hate Mr. Cheney almost as much as the left does.

From the Associated Press:

Pakistani people protest against government and President Pervez Musharraf after an eleven year boy was killed as metal twine cut his throat during a kite flying festival Basant in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007. Kites are becoming lethal as fanatic kite flyers use metal twine or glassdust-coated strings, aim to cut others’ kites.

Kites kill at least 11 in Pakistan

February 26, 2007

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — At least 11 people died and more than 100 people were injured at an annual spring festival in eastern Pakistan celebrated with the flying of thousands of colorful kites, officials said Monday.

The deaths and injuries were caused by stray bullets, sharpened kite-strings, electrocution and people falling off rooftops on Sunday at the conclusion of the two-day Basant festival, said Ruqia Bano, spokeswoman for the emergency services in the city of Lahore.

The festival is regularly marred by casualties caused by sharp kite strings or celebratory gunshots fired into the air. Kite flyers often use strings made of wire or coated with ground glass to try to cross and cut a rival’s string or damage the other kite, often after betting on the outcome.

Authorities temporarily lifted a ban on kite flying that was imposed following a string of deaths at the festival last year. Lahore Mayor Mian Amier Mahmood said the two-day permission to fly kites ended Sunday and that the ban has been re-imposed.

Police arrested more than 700 people for using sharpened kite strings or firing guns, and seized 282 illegally held weapons during this year’s festival, said Aftab Cheema, a senior Lahore police officer.

Five of those who died on Sunday were hit by stray bullets, including a 6-year-school boy who was struck in the head near his home in the city’s Mazang area, Bano said.

A 16-year-old girl and a schoolboy, 12, died after their throats were slashed by metal kite strings in separate incidents. Two people were electrocuted while they tried to recover kites tangled in overhead power cables, Bano said.

A 13-year-old boy fell to his death from the roof of his home as he tried to catch a stray kite, and a 35-year-old woman fell off the roof of her home trying to stop her son from running after a stray kite, Bano said.

Basant — which means yellow in Hindi — symbolizes the yellow mustard flowers that usually blossom in Pakistan at this time of the year.

Bad kites!

This festival (like most in the region) has always been deadly. As the article notes, it was recently banned in Pakistan, where these deaths occurred.

From Wikipedia:

Basant
Basant, sometimes called Jashan-e Baharaan (جشن بہاراں, जश्न ए बहारां lit. Spring Festival) or Basant Panchami (بھسنت پھنچمِ, बसंत पंचमी ), is a festival celebrating the arrival of Spring. It is celebrated by people of all religious backgrounds; Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Christians. Traditionally, celebrants dress in bright yellow or green, and many people fly kites from rooftops. In the city of Lahore, the festival lasts three days. In most other cities, there is only a one-day celebration. The Basant festival heralds the end of winter and arrival of spring. It is celebrated in the entire Indian subcontinent, and particularly in Pakistan, with flying kites - perhaps because spring generally brings a clear sky and just the right amount of wind. For its fans, kite flying is pure fun.

Historically, there have been people injured each year falling off rooftops and being cut by kite strings. While participating in "kite battles," some kite fliers even coat their strings with glass or shards of metal, leading to more injuries. As of 2005, kite flying has been banned in Pakistan. Violent protests have occurred outside the Pakistani Supreme Court house, and further protests are planned. Despite the ban on kite flying one can see hundreds of kites every afternoon and evening on Lahore’s sky and the number of kites is even higher on Sundays and public holidays.

The Basant ban was lifted by the supreme court of Pakistan for 15 days in March but was again enforced late night on 10 March by the chief minister of Punjab, Pervaiz Elahi. On January 4, 2006, the provincial government of Punjab lifted the ban for 24 hours so that kite flying can be enjoyed on the holiday.

And yet the locals still blame the government (and the kites) for these senseless deaths.

To paraphrase our parents, "they wonder why they can’t have nice things."

(Oki posted this in the "missed news" section. But I think it deserves its own thread.)

From those defenders of the faith at Reuters:

Three French nationals shot dead in Saudi: ministry

Mon Feb 26, 2007 11:59am ET

RIYADH (Reuters) - Three French nationals, some of them Muslims, were shot dead in Saudi Arabia on Monday in what appeared to be a militant attack, the Interior Ministry said.

A ministry statement said a group of eight French nationals came under fire near the town of Tabuk and a nearby historical site, Madain Saleh, in the northwest of the vast desert country as they were heading to the holy city of Mecca for a pilgrimage.

Two of the group died at the scene and one of the two wounded died later in hospital, said the statement carried by the official news agency SPA. A state television report earlier said four had died.

The group included four men, three women and a child, the ministry said. It said two of the dead were men. A security source said the attackers had singled out the men when shooting.

“Three are dead and I am not sure about the state of the fourth one,” an Interior Ministry spokesman told Saudi television.

Militants swearing allegiance to al Qaeda launched a violent campaign to topple the U.S.-allied Saudi monarchy in 2003, with suicide bomb attacks on foreigners and government installations including the oil industry.

There had been no major attacks targeting foreigners since 2004, when the campaign was at its height.

Frenchman Laurent Barbot was shot dead in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah by suspected al Qaeda militants in September 2004…

Zut alors!

How can this happen within the relgion of brotherly love?

From, of all places, the Washington Post:

Clinton Fights to Keep Impeachment Taboo

After Spat, Campaigns Know to Expect Swift Reprisal for Any Hint of the Scandal

By Anne E. Kornblut
Sunday, February 25, 2007; Page A04

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has a new commandment for the 2008 presidential field: Thou shalt not mention anything related to the impeachment of her husband.

With a swift response to attacks from a former supporter last week, advisers to the New York Democrat offered a glimpse of their strategy for handling one of the most awkward chapters of her biography. They declared her husband’s impeachment in 1998 — or, more accurately, the embarrassing personal behavior that led to it — taboo, putting her rivals on notice and all but daring other Democrats to mention the ordeal again.

“In the end, voters will decide what’s off-limits, but I can’t imagine that the public will reward the politics of personal destruction,” senior Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson said Friday, when asked whether the impeachment is fair game for Clinton’s opponents. Earlier in the week, Wolfson dismissed references to President Bill Clinton’s conduct as “under the belt.” …

But the reality, of course, is that the impeachment was conducted very much in public…

Although she has spent the past seven years establishing her own identity as a public servant, Clinton has been embracing the more popular aspects of her husband’s presidency more widely as she mounts her own campaign, with frequent references to their time together in the White House and their joint legacy.

And as she has invoked the good Bill Clinton, she has risked invoking the bad, several Democratic strategists said.

“She’s using him in this campaign, so why can’t somebody else use him?” asked a veteran of Democratic presidential politics who is not currently aligned with a candidate but who, like numerous other Democrats, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering the Clintons. “She’s just made him fair game. He’s part of her strategy, so why can’t he be part of one of her opponents’?” …

And Clinton advisers express confidence that any explicit attempt to revive the scandal would instantly backfire, particularly among Democratic primary voters who were outraged by the Republican investigation into her husband when it first occurred. (One Clinton official said donations to her campaign spiked when the Geffen interview was published.)

The former first lady’s popularity ratings have never been higher than when her husband’s affair with a young intern burst into the open and cast her in the role of victim. After a successful Senate bid, she became a colleague, and even an ally, with some of the Republicans who had sought to unseat her husband — seemingly putting the whole thing to rest…

It’s good to be the Queen. You can issue such pronouncements. It will be interesting to see if she is obeyed.

But of course the media will never bring the subject up. Nor will the Republicans. They are far too polite.

They would rather lose than mention such sordid facts.

Earlier in the week, Wolfson dismissed references to President Bill Clinton’s conduct as “under the belt.”

Well, wasn’t much of Mr. Clinton’s conduct "under the belt"?

The former first lady’s popularity ratings have never been higher than when her husband’s affair with a young intern burst into the open and cast her in the role of victim.

Apparently that is Ms. Clinton’s only qualification. She makes a good dupe victim.

But that doesn’t quite make her Presidential timber.

(If you will pardon the expression.)

From Bloomberg:

Libby Juror Dismissed; Deliberations Continue With 11

By Cary O’Reilly

Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) — A juror in the perjury case of Lewis ”Scooter” Libby was dismissed after being exposed to out-of- court information on the case. The judge decided deliberations would continue with the 11 remaining jury members.

The female juror came in contact with information about the case by accident, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said after discussing the situation with her, the jury foreperson and lawyers. He ruled that the juror, an art historian, could not remain on the panel.

”She did have contact with information related to this case,” Walton said in court in Washington today. ”It wasn’t intentional on her part, it was a misunderstanding of what I had been telling her throughout the trial.” …

Walton said other jurors weren’t tainted by the information learned by the dismissed juror, which he didn’t describe. To avoid the potential for a mistrial, he has instructed the jury throughout the trial not to view or listen to any news or other reports about the case.

Walton told the remaining jurors to resume deliberations. Defense lawyer Ted Wells told the judge that adding an alternate to return the panel to 12 members would require it to start over, which he said wouldn’t be fair to Libby.

By removing one juror, ”it’s not like we’re on the cliff of some mistrial,” Wells said. Walton said one of two remaining alternates could be called if another jury member is lost.

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said the government preferred a 12-member jury…

It’s hard to say, but it looks like the defense may be more confident about going with the cards they have been dealt than Mr. Fitzgerald is.

From the UK’s Telegraph:

Al-Qa’eda ‘plotted to kill Blair in front of Queen’

By Andrew Pierce

26/02/2007

Tony Blair defied an assassination threat from al-Qa’eda to take part in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations in central London, it can be revealed for the first time.

The risk to the Prime Minister was disclosed to a new BBC documentary by Lord Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in 2002. He positioned marksmen around Buckingham Palace in readiness for an attack by bombers or snipers.

Lord Stevens, talking for the first time about the alleged plot, said: “There was a threat against the Prime Minister over the Queen’s Jubilee period. It was an assassination threat. There was good reason to believe that the threat was credible.”

Mr Blair had become a target after backing the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan by the deployment of British air power and troops. He was also using his diplomatic influence to try to generate support for President George W Bush to invade Iraq.

The climax of the celebrations in the summer of 2002 was a street party in The Mall attended by the Queen and senior members of the Royal Family…

The sad thing is, if Al Qaeda had succeeded, the UK probably would have felt obligated to surrender.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Choice on Iraq

“I appeal to my colleagues in Congress to step back and think carefully about what to do next.”

BY JOSEPH LIEBERMAN
Monday, February 26, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

Two months into the 110th Congress, Washington has never been more bitterly divided over our mission in Iraq. The Senate and House of Representatives are bracing for parliamentary trench warfare–trapped in an escalating dynamic of division and confrontation that will neither resolve the tough challenges we face in Iraq nor strengthen our nation against its terrorist enemies around the world.

What is remarkable about this state of affairs in Washington is just how removed it is from what is actually happening in Iraq. There, the battle of Baghdad is now under way. A new commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has taken command, having been confirmed by the Senate, 81-0, just a few weeks ago. And a new strategy is being put into action, with thousands of additional American soldiers streaming into the Iraqi capital.

Congress thus faces a choice in the weeks and months ahead. Will we allow our actions to be driven by the changing conditions on the ground in Iraq–or by the unchanging political and ideological positions long ago staked out in Washington? What ultimately matters more to us: the real fight over there, or the political fight over here?

If we stopped the legislative maneuvering and looked to Baghdad, we would see what the new security strategy actually entails and how dramatically it differs from previous efforts. For the first time in the Iraqi capital, the focus of the U.S. military is not just training indigenous forces or chasing down insurgents, but ensuring basic security–meaning an end, at last, to the large-scale sectarian slaughter and ethnic cleansing that has paralyzed Iraq for the past year.

Tamping down this violence is more than a moral imperative. Al Qaeda’s stated strategy in Iraq has been to provoke a Sunni-Shiite civil war, precisely because they recognize that it is their best chance to radicalize the country’s politics, derail any hope of democracy in the Middle East, and drive the U.S. to despair and retreat. It also takes advantage of what has been the single greatest American weakness in Iraq: the absence of sufficient troops to protect ordinary Iraqis from violence and terrorism.

The new strategy at last begins to tackle these problems. Where previously there weren’t enough soldiers to hold key neighborhoods after they had been cleared of extremists and militias, now more U.S. and Iraqi forces are either in place or on the way. Where previously American forces were based on the outskirts of Baghdad, unable to help secure the city, now they are living and working side-by-side with their Iraqi counterparts on small bases being set up throughout the capital.

At least four of these new joint bases have already been established in the Sunni neighborhoods in west Baghdad–the same neighborhoods where, just a few weeks ago, jihadists and death squads held sway. In the Shiite neighborhoods of east Baghdad, American troops are also moving in–and Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army are moving out.

We of course will not know whether this new strategy in Iraq will succeed for some time. Even under the most optimistic of scenarios, there will be more attacks and casualties in the months ahead, especially as our fanatical enemies react and attempt to thwart any perception of progress.

But the fact is that we are in a different place in Iraq today from even just a month ago–with a new strategy, a new commander, and more troops on the ground. We are now in a stronger position to ensure basic security–and with that, we are in a stronger position to marginalize the extremists and strengthen the moderates; a stronger position to foster the economic activity that will drain the insurgency and militias of public support; and a stronger position to press the Iraqi government to make the tough decisions that everyone acknowledges are necessary for progress.

Unfortunately, for many congressional opponents of the war, none of this seems to matter. As the battle of Baghdad just gets underway, they have already made up their minds about America’s cause in Iraq, declaring their intention to put an end to the mission before we have had the time to see whether our new plan will work.

There is of course a direct and straightforward way that Congress could end the war, consistent with its authority under the Constitution: by cutting off funds. Yet this option is not being proposed. Critics of the war instead are planning to constrain and squeeze the current strategy and troops by a thousand cuts and conditions.

Among the specific ideas under consideration are to tangle up the deployment of requested reinforcements by imposing certain “readiness” standards, and to redraft the congressional authorization for the war, apparently in such a way that Congress will assume the role of commander in chief and dictate when, where and against whom U.S. troops can fight.

I understand the frustration, anger and exhaustion so many Americans feel about Iraq, the desire to throw up our hands and simply say, “Enough.” And I am painfully aware of the enormous toll of this war in human life, and of the infuriating mistakes that have been made in the war’s conduct.

But we must not make another terrible mistake now. Many of the worst errors in Iraq arose precisely because the Bush administration best-cased what would happen after Saddam was overthrown. Now many opponents of the war are making the very same best-case mistake–assuming we can pull back in the midst of a critical battle with impunity, even arguing that our retreat will reduce the terrorism and sectarian violence in Iraq.

In fact, halting the current security operation at midpoint, as virtually all of the congressional proposals seek to do, would have devastating consequences. It would put thousands of American troops already deployed in the heart of Baghdad in even greater danger–forced to choose between trying to hold their position without the required reinforcements or, more likely, abandoning them outright. A precipitous pullout would leave a gaping security vacuum in its wake, which terrorists, insurgents, militias and Iran would rush to fill–probably resulting in a spiral of ethnic cleansing and slaughter on a scale as yet unseen in Iraq.

I appeal to my colleagues in Congress to step back and think carefully about what to do next. Instead of undermining Gen. Petraeus before he has been in Iraq for even a month, let us give him and his troops the time and support they need to succeed.

Gen. Petraeus says he will be able to see whether progress is occurring by the end of the summer, so let us declare a truce in the Washington political war over Iraq until then. Let us come together around a constructive legislative agenda for our security: authorizing an increase in the size of the Army and Marines, funding the equipment and protection our troops need, monitoring progress on the ground in Iraq with oversight hearings, investigating contract procedures, and guaranteeing Iraq war veterans the first-class treatment and care they deserve when they come home.

We are at a critical moment in Iraq–at the beginning of a key battle, in the midst of a war that is irretrievably bound up in an even bigger, global struggle against the totalitarian ideology of radical Islamism. However tired, however frustrated, however angry we may feel, we must remember that our forces in Iraq carry America’s cause–the cause of freedom–which we abandon at our peril.

Mr. Lieberman is an Independent senator from Connecticut.

It’s unlikely, but maybe some Democrats will listen to this plea for reason.

If not, hopefully we will see just how independent Mr. Lieberman can be.