More evidence that the poison of al Qaeda’s Islamist fascism is not a function of poverty, but often of affluence. The Brits have been too tolerant of these fascists operating in plain sight. Michael Portillo disagrees.
ROVE WAS COOPER’S SOURCE: Well, we kinda knew this already, but it’s good to have it confirmed. The salient fact is that Rove appears to have told Cooper about Wilson’s wife working at the CIA before the Novak column appeared. Rove was clearly coordinating a message to discredit Wilson by linking him to his wife, and implying that Wilson had no real authorization from the senior levels of the administration. Rove may not be guilty of a crime, if he did not disclose her name and did not know she was undercover. He is guilty of sleaze and spin. But then that’s also hardly news, is it? Kinsley differs from the NYT in an interesting piece of counter-intuitive reasoning here.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “[M]ore than two years after the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was ousted, there is much we do not know about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. We do know, however, that there was one. We know about this relationship not from Bush administration assertions but from internal Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) documents recovered in Iraq after the war–documents that have been authenticated by a U.S. intelligence community long hostile to the very idea that any such relationship exists.
We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden’s request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television. We know from IIS documents that a “trusted confidante” of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.” – from an article in the Weekly Standard that is well worth reading. Some of the material presented strikes me as unpersuasive – at least beyond a reasonable doubt. But that some relationship existed between Saddam’s government and agents and Osama bin Laden’s operation seems to me indisputable. What’s at issue is the depth or coordination of the relationship. Much of the new evidence makes the connection seem stronger, not weaker. What might have transpired if we had not deposed Saddam is anyone’s guess.
CATHOLICS AND EVOLUTION: A lively debate over at Amy Wellborn’s.
ON THE FAR RIGHT: Not enough attention is paid, I think, to the paleocon attacks on the war against terrorism. The loony left is rightly exposed, but the loony right is more often ignored. This week, they have peddled theories that the Jews knew about the London bombings in advance; and Paul Craig Roberts, writing in the right-wing website, Newsmax, calls Blair “a war criminal under the Nuremberg standard.” The religious right leaders, Falwell and Robertson, as well as Watergate criminal, Charles Colson, have also blamed America’s alleged depravity for 9/11. Fred Phelps, a religious nutcase, delighted this week in the London massacres. I see little to distinguish these people from the Democratic Underground types. Except that the mainstream right is too squeamish sometimes in condemning them. Ever seen one of these guys ripped up on O’Reilly? Thought not.
RURAL METH: More important coverage of how this drug is ravaging rural America – in this case, Kitsap County, Washington.
The Dish 