Jun 18, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum: 
CNN reported today: Blair: Al Qaeda worked in Iraq; 9/11 panel finds no link between terror network, Saddam.
Notice the subhead, which asserts no link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Other news outlets used similar headlines giving the impression that the 9/11 commission has dismissed all links between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. But even the CNN article recites links between Al Qaeda and Iraq that are mentioned in the commission's report.
CNN later reported: Bush insists Iraq, al Qaeda had 'relationship'.Bush reiterated that the administration never said that "the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated" between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. "We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda," he said. [...] "I always said that Saddam Hussein was a threat," Bush said. He was "a threat because he provided safe haven for a terrorist like (Abu Musab al-) Zarqawi, who is still killing innocents inside of Iraq."
In a news release, U.S. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made this point:"We don't have evidence that Saddam Hussein helped plan the attack on September 11th, but we do have plenty of evidence that Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden shared a similar view of the United States and were exploring ways to develop closer ties. Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are cut from the same cloth. One leads a terrorist organization, while the other led a terrorist government."
And Andrew C. McCarthy takes a detailed, critical look at the 9/11 commission's report and how the media are presenting it: Iraq & al Qaeda: The 9/11 Commission raises more questions than it answers. (Via Little Green Footballs)This is clear -- if anything in this regard can be said to be "clear" -- from the staff's murky but carefully phrased summation sentence, which is worth parsing since it is already being gleefully misreported: "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." (Italics mine.) That is, the staff is not saying al Qaeda and Iraq did cooperate -- far from it. The staff seems to be saying: "they appear to have cooperated but we do not have sufficient evidence to conclude that they worked in tandem on a specific terrorist attack, such as 9/11, the U.S.S. Cole bombing, or the embassy bombings."
[...]al Qaeda is a full-time terrorist organization -- it does not have the same pretensions as, say, Sinn Fein or Hamas, to be a part-time political party. Al Qaeda's time is fully devoted to conducting terrorist attacks and planning terrorist attacks. Thus, if a country cooperates with al Qaeda, it is cooperating in (or facilitating, abetting, promoting -- you choose the euphemism) terrorism. What difference should it make that no one can find an actual bomb that was once in Saddam's closet and ended up at the Cole's hull? If al Qaeda and Iraq were cooperating, they had to be cooperating on terrorism, and as al Qaeda made no secret that it existed for the narrow purpose of inflicting terrorism on the United States, exactly what should we suppose Saddam was hoping to achieve by cooperating with bin Laden?
Glenn Reynolds has more on the subject here and here.
From CNN: Putin: Russia warned U.S. of Iraq terror.Jun 18, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Rob Tracinski at TIA Daily on the "Arab and Muslim dilemma":
"The recent terror attacks on Westerners in Saudi Arabia reveal a crucial reason why a deadly clash between Islam and the West is unavoidable in the 21st century--and why only one of those civilizations can survive the clash....
...It might seem as if the focus of our civilization is material: industrial production, fueled by oil--while the focus of theirs in spiritual: the 14-century-old Muslim faith centered in the Saudi city of Mecca. In fact, the Arab world's only real strength is its oil wealth--while our strength, a force which the Arabs both depend on and fear, is our ideas.
...Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharaff, in an op-ed for the Washington Post, recently described his vision for "Enlightened Moderation," an article that echoed the same themes as former Malaysian strongman Mahathir Mohammed. The theme of these Islamic "reformers" is this: that the Muslim world needs the economic and technological development that is only possible if they import the education and technical knowledge offered by the West--studying our ideas, adopting our mental habits, and opening the Muslim world up to Western intellectual influence. But both Musharaff and Mahathir are desperately trying to find a way to do the impossible: to open their societies to the benefits of our civilization's science, while maintaining their civilization's traditional religious dogmas."
Read the rest at TIA Daily.Jun 17, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Jun 15, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reported yesterday: Court dismisses Pledge case; Atheist father cannot sue over use of 'Under God'.The Supreme Court preserved the phrase "one nation, under God," in the Pledge of Allegiance, ruling Monday that a California atheist could not challenge the patriotic oath but sidestepping the broader question of separation of church and state. ... The high court's lengthy opinion overturns a ruling two years ago that the teacher-led pledge was unconstitutional in public schools. ... The [overruled] 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the language of the First Amendment and the Supreme Court's precedents make clear that tax-supported schools cannot lend their imprimatur to a declaration of fealty of "one nation under God."...
Congress adopted the pledge as a secular, patriotic tribute in 1942, at the height of World War II. Congress added the phrase "under God" more than a decade later, in 1954, when the world had moved from hot war to cold. Supporters of the new wording said it would set the United States apart from godless communism.
This cartoon was directly inspired by a headline from Robert Tracinski's June 15th TIA Daily: "Supremes Punt on the Pledge". Tracinski wrote:Faced with the need for a controversial decision, the Supreme Court bravely dodges the issue, deciding (somewhat dubiously) that a girl's own father doesn't have standing to sue on her behalf. But when the court finally does make its decision, it is clear that there are at least four votes on the court for weakening the wall of separation between church and state.
From the CNN article: "Justice Antonin Scalia removed himself from participation in the case, presumably because of remarks he had made that seemed to telegraph his view that the pledge is constitutional. [...] Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist agreed with the outcome of the case, but still wrote separately to say that the Pledge as recited by schoolchildren does not violate the Constitution. Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas agreed with him."Jun 15, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Comments Daniel Pipes:
Sultaana Freeman -- the woman suing the State of Florida to win the right to be pictured on her driver's license wearing a niqab and showing just her eyes -- is back in the news today, with a report in the Orlando Sentinel on the arguments yesterday in front of the judges at Florida's Fifth District Court of Appeal. The paper summarizes these:
Howard Marx, Freeman's attorney, argued that the state should not substantially burden his client with the requirement that she appear without her veil on her drivers license. Conversely, Assistant Attorney General Jay Vail relied on the decision last year in an Orange County circuit court that favored the state's argument that 9-11 security concerns must outweigh a person's individual rights.
This case will go some way to deciding whether Saudi norms, with all their implications, will be imposed on the United States or not. (If judges read the opinion polls, there won't be any doubt; see the unscientific but convincing WFTV survey that finds 97 percent of respondents replying "no" to the question "Should the judge allow her to wear her veil in her driver license photo?")
You can see her picture here. The Smoking Gun notes:Turns out the Florida woman who is suing for the right to wear a Muslim headdress in a driver's license photograph has previously been subjected to an, um, unveiled government portrait. Following her 1997 conversion to Islam, Sultaana Freeman (formerly Sandra Keller) was arrested in Decatur, Illinois for battering a foster child. Freeman, 35, pleaded guilty in 1999 to felony aggravated battery and was sentenced to 18 months probation. As a result of the conviction, state officials removed two foster children from Freeman's care.
Previously we wrote:
Sultaana Freeman should not feel too bad--in Saudi Arabia she would not be able to wear a veil to cover her face for a photo ID--in fact, she in Saudi Arabia women are not even permitted to drive. (Postscript: In Muslim countries where women are allowed to drive, such as Iran, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan, women do not cover their faces for a photo ID.) [Freeman Unveiled]
We also wrote:
Freedom of religion doesn't give one the right to a driver's license, which is a privilege granted by the owner of the roads--in this case the government. Freeman's options are to uncover her face, or forgo getting a license. [Islam vs. Driver's Licenses]
Writes Nicholas Provenzo in the Rule of Reason,
A drivers license may serve as a proxy for an ID, but in fact, it is nothing more than a license to operate a motor vehicle on government highways. Such a license should not demand invading an individual's privacy if they wish to maintain it.
If the question before the court was regarding the woman's passport, for example, I would probably side with the woman having to remove her veil if she wished to be issued a passport on the grounds that a passport serves as a form of identification and demands the means to physically identify the person in question.
In response to "libertarian rants" that Sultaana should win because the roads should be private: yes, the government should not build and maintain the roads under capitalism (in which case the state should not be giving licenses to use those roads, and the state should not be setting any rules as how to drive on those roads, i.e., speed limits.)
However, several points are in order: (1) we do not live in a laissez-faire society, we live in a "mixed economy" so in the "short run" the fact that the government does control the roads is a fact (though not a metaphysical one); (2) The transition to laissez-faire will not happen over night, but only after a profound cultural and philosophical change. Until this transition occurs, we need to survive and live with some sort of stability--"a rule of law"--in the present. Sultaana winning her case will not aid that stability or aid the transition to Capitalism; (3) A Florida's drivers license with a picture ID counts as a legal form of physical identification that may be used to enter and leave the U.S. without the need of another form of picture identification.
One can use a Florida's driver license (as a picture ID) in conjunction with a U.S. birth certificate to travel in and out of the United States to a foreign country, like the Bahamas, without owning a passport as many a Spring Breaker can attest. You can also take it to a Florida bank and use it to withdraw money from your bank account as it counts as a valid, legal form of picture identification. If you have been to BestBuy or WalMart and are making a very large credit card purchase they may ask you to show a picture I.D. to physically identify that you say who you are--and yes, they do accept a Florida Driver's license (in fact stores often prefer the Florida's driver's license to a foreign passport that they are not familiar with, i.e., have no means of validating). Given the present context, the Florida driver's license counts as an official government issued legal form of identification.
The Florida driver license laws can be hypocritical and contradictory--this is no grounds to add to that hypocrisy or to add to those contradictions by suggesting that Sultaana win her case on the grounds she is fighting for. Sultaana Freeman, or her lawyer, are not arguing to have the roads privatized. They are not arguing to remove the hypocrisy that may be present in the issuance of such licenses. They are arguing to undermine a legal form of picture identification.
In such cases, the defender of capitalism needs to focus on the essential issue in the short-run, while at the same time keeping an eye on the long run. In this case what is more important? The threat of terrorism from undermining legal forms of identification or the absolute mantra of "privatizing the roads"? Given that national security takes priority over privatizing the roads, the government should enforce the rules regarding picture IDs used as legal identification. (Such a case can be argued where the two--legal identification and privatizing roads--are not facing off against each other, Mrs. Freeman's case is not concerned with either issue).
If Mrs. Freeman were arguing that the government should not own the roads I would tend to be supportive her case. She is not. She should lose.Jun 14, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum: 
CNN reports: Nuclear watchdog criticizes Iran.International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei was critical Monday of Iran's cooperation with his agency as the IAEA board of governors met. Iran's cooperation with U.N. nuclear inspectors is "less than satisfactory," ElBaradei said. [...] But, ElBaradei said, there is "steady progress" in the rest of the agency's work with the Islamic republic.
But as The Wall Street Journal editorial Coddling the Mullahs pointed out:If Iran goes nuclear within the next year or two, don't blame the inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency. Earlier this month Mohammed ElBaradei's U.N. team issued yet another damning report on the mullahs, describing a pattern of deception and non-cooperation that all but screams "bomb program." But the international community, with the apparent acquiescence of the Bush Administration, is treating it all as a matter of indifference.
OK, that's a mild overstatement. IAEA member states have been going through the motions required by their inspection process. But when they meet today in Vienna the consuming issue will be whether to "deplore" Iran's deceptions or note them with "serious concern." The Iranians are protesting that they consider even those words as all but a casus belli, but they are reported to be privately pleased as punch that the IAEA will yet again fail to refer them to the U.N. Security Council for sanction.
