David Drake

"...there's no doubt that our country is in much more danger now from terrorism than it would have been if we would have done what we should have done and stayed in Afghanistan."

NEW YORK -- A community center investigated after it gave $875,000 to the liberal radio network Air America has reached a financial settlement with New York City over mishandled government funds.

The city's Department of Investigation said the Gloria Wise Community Center in the Bronx has repaid $625,000 it had received from city agencies for its youth programs and nursery school.

A majority of that money was a refund of overpayments the center received from the city's education department, but at least $250,000 was related to "improper expenditures."

"...we were arrested with explosives," he said. "Our aim was to carry out jihad against our enemies."

He was not brainwashed abroad and sent to kill. He made the decision himself to support the Taleban and made contacts - it was as easy as that.

But why did he make that decision? "They have gone against the Koran, shown disrespect to Mohammad and Afghan elders, and abused our women and our dead. I would not be here if they had not done this," he explained quite calmly.

Haji Habibullah, 45, was taken aside to be searched by the Canadian soldiers when the bomber struck. His daughters were nearer to the bomb.

He blames the Taleban, he blames Pakistan, where he says these bombers come from, and although he broadly supports the international help in Afghanistan, he also blames them.

"Things were fine - during the last four years there has been no fighting," he said.

[Then] "the foreigners came and everywhere you go there is war and there is no way out."

* The Taliban has consolidated its influence in Afghanistan over the last five years. Soon the movement will be too strong to urn away from rogue behavior.

* Unfortunately, the Clinton administration has ignored the challenge of the Taliban. Some administration officials tacitly favored the group when it emerged between 1994 and 1995, underestimating the threat it posed to regional stability and to U.S. interests.

* In August 1998, the Taliban gained control over the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, effectively relegating its remaining opponents to the country's hinterlands.

* Many of the militants who invaded Indian-controlled Kashmir in May 1999 were trained in Afghanistan.

Germany's interior minister condemned a leading opera house's decision to cancel a production of Mozart's "Idomeneo" out of concern a scene featuring the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad could provoke a dangerous reaction from Muslims.

After its premiere in 2003, the production by Hans Neuenfels drew widespread criticism over a scene in which King Idomeneo presents the severed heads not only of the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon, but also of Muhammad, Jesus and Buddha.

...above and beyond the acknowledgement that it is regrettable to insult anyone's religion, many questions come to mind in this instance: Will Muslims' feelings really be hurt? What about Christians? Buddhists? And what about people who believe in Greek mythology?

[...director Hans Neuenfels shows] his relations to the role of religion and gods in a scene where the decapitated heads of Jesus, Buddah [sic] , Mohammed and Poseidon are set on chairs.

The scene is generally critical of religion, yet not in any way exclusively critical of, or hostile to, Islam. In other words, there is not the slightest reason to resort to self-censure of this nature, removing the opera from the season's program in a rush of overly hasty obedience. Anyone who chooses to make such a decision clearly has a disturbed relationship to art and the freedom of speech" ‚– the elixirs of an enlightened society. In fact, whoever shakes these foundations is encouraging radicals of all stripes to challenge democracy.

Next weekend in downtown Johnstown, the bitter battle over U.S. Rep. John Murtha’s controversial war stance will come to a head.

Two ideologically divergent but equally vocal veterans groups have scheduled rallies in connection with the congressman’s criticism of the Bush administration and the Iraq war.

A pro-Murtha event is scheduled for Saturday in Central Park. The next day, Murtha critics will occupy Cambria County War Memorial Arena just a few blocks away.

“We have people coming in from as far away as the state of Washington and California,” said Harry Beam, a retired Army veteran and Upper Yoder Township resident who is helping organize the Oct. 1 “Boot Murtha” gathering.

[snip]

The fact that Murtha faces opposition from Republican candidate Diana Irey, a Washington County commissioner, only serves to up the ante.

Leaders of the “Boot Murtha” effort claim they have no connection with Irey’s campaign.

“This is personal, not political,” said Craig Minnick, an Iraq veteran and Upper Yoder resident who is helping Beam coordinate the rally at the War Memorial.

Organizers are touting a full lineup of speakers. They include two fathers who lost sons in Iraq, the father of a Marine and a survivor of the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

Fox News' Chris Wallace claimed on Sunday that Osama bin Laden was emboldened by Bill Clinton's pulling out from Somalia after the 'Black Hawk Down' incident. But Wallace is dead wrong: Clinton kept U.S. troops there for six months...

My post this morning on Salon concerns the accusation voiced this weekend by Chris Wallace in his Fox News interview with President Clinton (a favorite accusation of neoconservatives) that Clinton "emboldened" Al Qaeda when he withdrew American troops from Somalia as soon as we suffered casualties, which (so the neoconservative mythology contends) led Osama bin Laden to believe that we were weak and could be defeated.

BIN LADEN: We believe that the defeat of America is possible, with the help of God, and is even easier for us, God permitting, than the defeat of the Soviet Union was before.

Q: How can you explain that?

BIN LADEN: We experienced the Americans through our brothers who went into combat against them in Somalia, for example. We found they had no power worthy of mention. There was a huge aura over America -- the United States -- that terrified people even before they entered combat. Our brothers who were here in Afghanistan tested them, and together with some of the mujahedeen in Somalia, God granted them victory. America exited dragging its tails in failure, defeat, and ruin, caring for nothing.

America left faster than anyone expected. It forgot all that tremendous media fanfare about the new world order, that it is the master of that order, and that it does whatever it wants. It forgot all of these propositions, gathered up its army, and withdrew in defeat, thanks be to God.

A good Davenloonian therapist would cut to the chase with this man, and believe me, "the real Bill Clinton would stand up."

Over the years, it has been reported that Clinton has quite a temper. However, you wouldn't know it with Clinton mugging for the cameras and his omnipresent smile; and his bowing gracefully to his audience, while the cameras run. There are some people who have a problem with the word "Anger." It has been my experience that people who have a problem with another person exhibiting anger is "Transferring His/Her Feelings On To This Person."

MR. WALLACE: But looking back, sir, and I understand this is 20/20 hindsight, it's more than an individual manhunt. I mean -- what you ended up doing in the end was going after al Qaeda where it lived.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Which is the only way to do it, in my view. I think you simply have to go out --

MR. WALLACE: -- pre-9/11 should you have been thinking more about that?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, we were thinking about what to do about al Qaeda. Any suggestion that the administration was not would just be incorrect. Now, as I think it was Rich Armitage said, were we able to stop that attack? The answer is no. Were we ahead of those particular terrorists and what they were doing? Obviously not. George Tenet put it well, I thought, when he said, "Look" -- they said, "Why did it happen?" He said, "Because we didn't have a source inside that particular terrorist cell." That would have enabled it to being stopped.

MR. WALLACE: Clarke makes one other specific charge that I'd like to give you the opportunity to respond to here today. He says that on September 12th, the day after the attack, that when all the evidence was pointing to al Qaeda that you wanted to hit Iraq. Let's look at this.

MR. CLARKE: Rumsfeld said "There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan, and there are lots of good targets in Iraq." I said, "Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it."

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, true or false?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, I don't know the context that he said that. I said publicly at one stage during our effort in Afghanistan, which was, of course, a highly successful effort to deal with the al Qaeda there and run them out and deny them that haven, that Afghanistan had run out of targets. That is a correct quote. It's out of context here, but it is a correct quote.

If you think about it, the United States government made a decision to go into Afghanistan, not into Iraq, after 9/11. So the implication of what he is saying obviously misunderstands what actually took place.

MR. WALLACE: But, specifically, if I may, sir, what he is saying is on the afternoon of September 12th, when all the evidence was pointing to Afghanistan, that you wanted to hit Iraq, and he compared it to attacking Mexico after the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Yes, he also quotes me as -- September 4th -- as saying some things in a meeting that I didn't attend. So it's hard for me to explain a person who would characterize a conversation in a meeting that I was not even in the room or the building when it supposedly took place.