One of the ongoing mantras of the left during the Bush torture years was that, aside from the fact that torture produces little in the way of reliable intelligence, torturing Al Qaeda suspects might cause a future court to throw out the cases against them. There is one wonderful thing and one frightening thing about Eric Holder’s announcement of civilian trials for the main Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo: this development marks the close of the Bush doctrine which argued that terror susp... Read Full Story

On the morning of the [Ft. Hood] shootings, he [Maj. Nidal Hassan] stopped by the home of another neighbor, Lenna Brown, as she was sharing coffee with a friend. He gave them both brand new copies of the Koran… “I asked him where are you going, and he said Afghanistan,” Ms. Brown said. She asked him how he felt about that, and he paused before answering. “I am going to do God’s work,” he replied. –New York Times * * * * * * “It was a pleasure and an honor to serve my God,” said ... Read Full Story

I was just reading a Haaretz story about the orchestrated Israeli government campaign against Human Rights Watch in response to the latter’s support for the Goldstone Report.  The article noted that Elie Wiesel signed a letter to the Guardian which praised Robert Bernstein’s bitter, disjointed diatribe against HRW in the NY Times Op Ed section.  But this passage really stood out: Human Rights Watch said that the criticism has come from right-wing blogs, but also from Israeli non-... Read Full Story

In my first reporting on the Ft. Hood shooting I noted how counter-productive the Army’s regulations seemed in this particular case in which you had an officer desperate to leave the service but who couldn’t because of the service’s financial commitment to him. NPR’s Liz Halloran has taken up a similar angle in a report on the use of conscientious objector status in similar situations.  Apparently, Maj. Hassan contacted the Center on Conscience and War to ask whether ... Read Full Story

Israel formally charged Jack Teitel with two murders, three attempted murders, and two bombings.  It has not yet charged him with other crimes in which he is believed to be implicated, murdering two policemen and aiding the killing spree at the Tel Aviv gay community center. I have heard no evidence that Jack Teitel is mentally insane, but given this statement he’s certainly deranged: “It was a pleasure and an honor to serve my God,” said Teitel at the Jerusalem courthouse.... Read Full Story

Loving the sound of his own voice This is rich, this is really rich: Judge Richard Goldstone Goldstone told Haaretz Thursday that President Shimon Peres’ remarks criticizing him were “specious and ill-befitting the head of State of Israel.” Peres was quoted Wednesday as calling Goldstone “a small man, devoid of any sense of justice, a technocrat with no real understanding of jurisprudence,” who was “on a one-sided mission to hurt Israel.” Shimon Pere... Read Full Story

A little unintended irony as far as Madrona K-8 is concerned (Justin Baeder) The Madison Park Times reports that a Madrona School 7th grader created a hand-made shank and assaulted an 8th grader in the cafeteria.  According to a police report (article available here and here): The victim reported that the suspect walked up to him which what was reported to be a shank.  He walked behind him and grabbed him by the head.  The suspect pulled the victim’s head back and pressed the scissor a... Read Full Story

I noted tonight that Haaretz’s English language website features a banner ad promoting the anti-Muslim propaganda film, Third Jihad.  You’ve got to ask yourself what brought the swamp rats out of the sewer to show their faces in the pages of Haaretz?  Clearly, in the Ft. Hood shooting, with the shooter’s alleged Al Qaeda sympathies, the Muslim-haters Rabbi Raphael Shore and Wayne Kopping of Clarion Fund and Aish HaTorah see a golden opportunity for scoring points in the ant... Read Full Story

Throughout the aftermath of the Ft. Hood shooting, I’ve argued that we shouldn’t rush to judgment blaming Islam for Nidal Hassan’s aberrant behavior.  If anyone was at fault it was Hassan himself and the tremendous stress under which he was placed as an army psychiatrist about to be deployed to the Afghan war zone. Now NPR has broken open a new aspect of this story (audio).  As early as 18 months ago, Hassan’s supervisors at Walter Reed Hospital met regularly and disc... Read Full Story

Lou Dobbs leaving CNN for Mt. Olympus? Is it just me, or did Lou Dobbs signoff statement for his last CNN show sound a bit megalomaniacal? Over the past six months it’s become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us, and some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond the role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem solving as well as to contribute positively to the great understanding of... Read Full Story