DanKohn.com

Fascinating Kristof column on whether Stephen Hatfill is the anthrax mailer.

Why did it take nine months to call in the bloodhounds, or to read Dr. Hatfill’s unpublished novel, “Emergence,” which has been sitting in the copyright office since 1998 and draws on his experiences in South Africa and Antarctica to recount a biological warfare attack on Congress?

I couldn’t agree more with Kritof’s focus on both presumption of innocence and getting to the truth.

Martin Indyk, Clinton’s ambassador to Israel, has an NYT op-ed with a scathing review of Bush’s Middle East policy, or lack thereof:

None of this would matter much if we were talking about policy toward Benin. But in the Middle East our vital interests in oil and Israel intersect with the war on terrorism. It is a region seething with anger toward the United States. Our credibility is essential to our effectiveness there. But the administration’s lack of coherence, and the widening gap between its rhetoric and its actions, are casting doubt on that credibility.

Of course, you already knew that Benin was bordered by Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Togo.

NYT’s Greece Hopes Arrests Earn It Europe’s Embrace on whether Greece is becoming a mature democracy. When was the last time you heard a beekeeper referred to as “clever and dangerous”?

Superb piece by former CIA head James Woolsey:

The ruling mullahs in Iran are beginning to look like the inhabitants of the Kremlin in 1988 or of Versailles in 1788 — the storm that engulfs them may not be here yet, but it is gathering.

A democratic, capitalist Iran and Iraq would leave Saudi Arabia as the main remaining country in the world that oppresses its people and exports terror by brutally combining religion with the state.

NYT editorial on Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS: “The Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism tactics — secret detentions of suspects, denial of the right to trial and now citizen spying — have in common a lack of faith in democratic institutions and a free society.“

The WSJ blogs this under Dogs of War:

“A pair of hot doggers taking their Wienermobile to the National Capital Barbecue Battle in Washington were pulled over by the Virginia State Police this week for driving too close to the Pentagon. . . . ‘Obviously this was a mistake,’ Virginia State Police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. ‘This hot dog posed no threat to us.’ “–United Press International, June 21

“A pilot busted for July 4th air antics that frightened beachgoers and authorities on heightened terror alert told investigators he and his friend were ‘hot dogging’ when they flew close to boaters and bathers, prosecutors said yesterday.”–New York Post, July 18

In other words, more hot dogs, less hot doggers.

Many commentators suggested that it was not feasible for our civilian judicial system to handle a man like Zacarias Moussaoui. Dahlia Lithwick reports in Slate on the hearing today:

“I don’t have outside legal assistance,” he sputters (apparently forgetting about the five stand-by lawyers she’s appointed). “I didn’t have a printer until today.” He calls his computer “aging” and says it would take him until the trial simply to load all the CD-ROMs the government has produced for his discovery requests. “This is a farce of justice!” he cries.

The man is either crazy or stupid (he tried to enter a plea of guilty, perhaps, as Lithwick speculates, because he though the judge wanted him to plead not guilty). But, he is no threat to the common law system that has been the right of citizens since Habeas Corpus was guaranteed in the fields of Runymede in 1215.

It is time to fix the travesty of not giving Padilla and Hamdi access to counsel. Finally, a Federal District Court judge today ordered the government to explain within a week how they could hold a man without charges.

Slate on the shopping complex that ate the World Trade Center memorial:

“What is [the site] going to say to a 2-year-old that is going to be 7 five years from now? What are we going to say — ‘Your Daddy died right where the Starbucks is?’ ”

To be fair, though, Daddy did die where the Starbucks is — metaphorically, if not literally. The WTC victims were killed in the middle of the city, in the middle of life, in the middle of carrying out mundane tasks like ordering lattes. Unlike most memorials, the one at Ground Zero will pay tribute to people who died right there on the spot. To entirely strip the place of offices, shops, and other hallmarks of urban life would risk abstracting the slaughter.

Here’s a slideshow of the 6 options. I like #5.

My friend Chris Hurley and I have been suggesting a new motto that politicians (of all parties) can end speeches with, echoing Cato the Elder’s “Delenda est Carthago” (Carthage must be destroyed).
It is “Delenda est terror patrocinata gubernatione” (Government-sponsored terror must be destroyed).

Walter Laquer facetiously suggests in a WSJ op-ed an alternative way of dealing with terrorists:

Some U.S. and many European media have become very coy lately about using the term “terrorism,” which they consider loaded and prejudicial, or “tendentious and propagandistic” (to quote the Chicago Tribune). Not that they’ve ever been shy about using the term “guerrilla.” There are books about “guerrilla theater” and “guerrilla marketing” and even, I am told, “guerrilla kindergarten.” The difference? A guerrilla is proud to be called a guerrilla but most terrorists resent the terrorist label. In order not to offend the terrorists there has been a frantic search for synonyms.

We can anticipate, no doubt, a plethora of new entries in Roget’s Thesaurus. “Activists” and “militants” are among the most favored terms, closely followed by “resistants,” “combatants,” “fighters,” “partisans” and others. “Gunman” has been very popular, even though sometimes the gunman does not use a gun but a bomb or a knife, and sometimes it has been a woman rather than a man. (Should “gunperson” be the new correct term?)

On the subject of lexical quibbling with terrorists, also see this Holocaust survivor quote.

An Al Queda recruiting movie, that’s funny if in rather poor taste.