Gen. Wesley Clark’s entry into the Democratic presidential sweepstakes has led to a whole lot of theorizing about why Bill and Hillary Clinton seem so happy about it.
It runs from what may seem sensible to centrist Democrats – an antidote to Howard Dean’s red-hot appeal to the party’s left wing because what makes him popular with the left may make him unelectable – to theories about Wes-Hillary, or even Hillary-Wes, ticket.
Peter Augustine Lawler, a professor of government, sets out the Wes-Hillary arguments in a commentary at National Review Online:
“Clark has to be regarded as the favorite for the nomination, and it would be a mistake at this point to regard him as an underdog in the general election,” Lawler says. “The main stumbling block to his success would be Hillary entering the race. As far as I can tell, her judgment is that the risk for her at this point is too high. She surely secretly hopes for a narrow Democratic defeat next year to clear the way for her in 2008. But political results can't be engineered that precisely, and don't be surprised if she doesn't adopt the amazingly low-risk strategy of making herself available as Clark's running mate. That would make her the presumptive nominee in either 2008 or 2012, depending on the general's skill and fortune.”
Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post media reporter, has rounded up a bunch of reporting, comment and speculation on Clark and the Clintons.
New terrorists in our midst
Now here’s some bad news. NBC is reporting that Ansar-al-Islam, a terrorist group that was thought to exist only in Iraq – and that we also thought we'd pretty much bombed out of existence early in the war – is now active right here at home:
“We do have an Ansar-al-Islam presence here in the United States,” said Pat D’Amuro, FBI assistant director and one of the agency’s top counterterrorism officials. “There’s enough intelligence information that we know that gives us great concern.”
NBC says it was told by “senior U.S. officials” that Ansar followers are under investigation in several cities, including New York, San Diego and Los Angeles.
The story also notes that, “Ansar used to be a small, mostly Kurdish terror group, operating almost exclusively in Iraq. But in the last few months, experts say foreign Islamic fighters have flocked to its side.” Before the war with Iraq there were many predictions of just such a boomerang effect.
There’s a new nuclear wannabe – Saudi Arabia
If chaos and destabilization of the Middle East are what the neoconservatives responsible for formulating our policy in that part of the world wanted – as Joshua Marshall argues in this piece published in April -- they’re certainly getting it. So far, things are playing out much as Marshall suggested they might.
Regimes in the Middle East are all jittery about the U.S. military presence in Iraq – and they’re doing things about it that are not in their long-term best interests or ours.
Iran is widely suspected of having embarked on a major clandestine nuclear weapons project (even as the Bush administration says it won’t tolerate a nuclear Iran). Now Saudi Arabia, its relationship with the U.S. in perhaps terminal decline, is considering acquiring nukes for “deterrance.” Whether a small nuclear arsenal actually will deter any potential enemy – especially Israel, which has long wanted to pay the Saudis back for their support of Hamas – is, of course, questionable. What is not questionable is that we don’t need any more nuclear-armed countries, especially ones like Saudi Arabia, whose government could collapse like the house of cards it is at any moment, leaving nukes in the hands of probably highly undesirable successors.
The British newspaper The Guardian, which broke the Saudi story, reports that, “United Nations officials and nuclear arms analysts said the Saudi review [of its defense options] reflected profound insecurities generated by the volatility in the Middle East, Riyadh's estrangement with Washington and the weakening of its reliance on the US nuclear umbrella.”
Our enemies the French
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is beginning to sound slightly deranged about the threat from the French. Yeah, they continue to try to thwart our every move on Iraq, which certainly is a kind of dangerous meddling that is likely to ultimately prove at least unproductive, and possibly quite expensive, for them. But are they really our enemies, or just rivals flexing their muscles while we’re preoccupied? (Note: the New York Times site requires free registration.)
Has JetBlue become Big Brother's chief enabler?
The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center has inspired a virtual tidal wave of computerized government attempts to invade the privacy of Americans in hopes of thwarting terrorists. One scary program that the feds plan to deploy next year is CAPPS II, which stands for Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System II. All airline passengers will be required to give airlines their full name, date of birth, address and home phone number before they can purchase a ticket. Then your friendly carrier will send that, and other information related to your travel including your credit card number, frequent flier number and itinerary into a file to the government. Your friends the feds will crunch all this information and give you a color-coded risk level: If you're green, welcome aboard; if you're yellow, be prepared to explain yourself; if you're red you're not going anywhere by air.
Now, it appears, JetBlue – the long-haul, cut-rate but comfortable airline that can take you from Seattle to New York for as little as $139 one-way – already has turned over some 5 million passenger records to the government for system testing.
JetBlue has issued a non-denial denial that is mentioned in the links in this item. But the full report of the government contractor that tested the data as part of the development of CAPPS II is available for download here and it specifically names JetBlue.
The privacy website dontspyon.us is in a state of high outrage.
“TSA [Transportation Security Agency] spokesman Brian Turnmail should stop treating the American people as if they were less intelligent than the seasonal fruits and vegetables he used to peddle,” fumes site editor Bill Scannell. “The 5 million JetBlue passengers whose rights were violated deserve to know the truth.
“JetBlue's CEO David Neeleman has a lot of explaining to do. He needs to stop hiding behind legalistic phrases like ‘currently under design’ and tell his customers exactly what his airline did with his customer's private information.
“As he is not is not being truly honest about the 5 million passenger records his airline gave up to the Feds, why should we believe him when he says he is not collaborating in CAPPS II?”
Personally, I think I’ll stick to the sardine carriers and avoid winding up in yet more government computers until it’s unavoidable.
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