Yes, everyone is well aware who the uncharismatic-but-nose-to-the-grindstone frontrunner for the Democratic nomination is… none other than my own state’s Junior Senator (with whom I share a birth day). Ah, but it seems that at least in some circles, especially in the land of his fathers (Kenya) my college class-mate (and Illinois’s Junior Senator) Barack Obama… is the man. Urging citizens of HIV-ravaged Kenya to get themselves tested for AIDS and HIV, Obama gave what amounted to a victory lap of Kenya, including visits to the village from which hailed his late father and grandfather, Obama was greeted with the...

It would appear that German born Turkish national Murat Kurnaz is scheduled to be released from Guantanamo and returned home to Germany, by tomorrow. Kurnaz is one of numerous detainees (the overwhelming majority, actually) against the whom the evidence of terrorism connections is… attenuated at best, and in reality, ludicrous. My interview with Baher Azmy, one of Mr. Kurnaz’s attorneys, is here. Kurnaz is easier to release than most of the prisoners: we’re not likely to see Germany imprison or torture him, unlike, for example, Saudi Arabia or Yemen where many or most of the Gitmo prisoners are from (or,...

The Grey Lady gives us this further discussion and analysis of the President’s press conference, wherein the President made it very clear that “the Democrat Party” wants to cut and run from Iraq, and, let’s face it, if you vote for a Democrat in the mid-term elections, Osama bin Laden will personally follow you home and murder your children. As we come up on the fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001, look for the fever pitch of this kind of argument– which, when you look at it in the light I just presented it, is incredibily asinine. But, in substance,...

For those of you not familiar with it, here is a link to Sy Hersh’s latest in the New Yorker about the really, really special relationship between members of our government and members of Israel’s government that appeared to signal two things: (1) Israel was really peachy keen on having an excuse to take on Hizbollah, and the kidnapping of the two soldiers last month served its interests to do so, and (2) the United States was really peachy keen on Israel having an excuse to take on Hizbollah to show Iran all those handy dandy new bombs that could...

Barbara of Mahablog treats us to this summary of a not-yet-ready-for-prime-online story from Harper’s on the subject of the many forgotten victims of our nation’s current policy in its conduct of the so-called “war on terror”. There is much we all are familiar with from our own queries of some of the same players; there is much that is new even to me, and hence, I commend Barbara for bringing these matters to our attention. Hey everybody: ousting the party controlling Congress that enables these insanely illegal and counterproductive policies is more important than just about anything– including replacing Joe...

While our friends at the Times are telling us about the new force in Lebanese politics and life (hint: it’s called “Hizbollah”) who has promised rebuilding aid with its bulldozers and a blank check drawn on Iran, it seems that our President was giving his own spin-account of how Israel has managed to crush… Hizbollah. I’m trying to think of who it is I’m reminded of…

Fellow New Yorker Julia hits it out of the park with this observation (and remembrance of things past) about the (shall we say) propitious timing of the recent announcement of the thwarting of the purported terror plot involving U.S. bound airliners from Britain. It seems that British and American officials were in a most heated debate about when and whether to “pull the trigger” and announce the interception and thwarting of the current plot. The British officials noted that many of the perpetrators weren’t ready; passports hadn’t been obtained, for example, among numerous other logistical issues. Further, the British believed...

The United States Department of Homeland Security went to its vaunted (and long-awaited) “red alert” for the first time after British authorities thwarted a plot to blow up a number of U.S. bound airliners using liquid explosives, apparently intended for Heathrow based flights on American, United and Continental Airliens. The red alert applies to certain U.S. bound flights. Air traffic on both sides of the pond, especially London’s Heathrow, slowed down to permit additional security measures, including a virtual ban on all carry on items (save insulin and baby formula). American authorities seemed quite willing to jump to the conclusion...

The Grey Lady treats us to this discussion of increasing violence in Baghdad , where it appears that a reduction in American operations has been followed by an increase in violence. Why? Draw your own conclusions. The correlation of these events seems clear enough for American commanders to double the American presence in the capital city from around 7,000 American troops to around 14,000 for what is described as a city of 7,000,000; I should note that I had previously seen Baghdad’s population described as around 5,000,000. (That alone should tell you something– our occupation levels in Germany, for example,...