At The Edge

Via Ed Morrisey at Captain's Quarters comes this particular tidbit of information. Israel is buying two more submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles.

WITH Iran confidently defying pressure to curb its nuclear programme, Israel has signed a contract with Germany to buy two more submarines capable of firing nuclear missiles, it emerged yesterday.

Israeli security sources said the submarines are needed to counter long-range threats from countries such as Iran, whose president has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map".

Israel has been expanding its military in the light of Iran's nuclear ambitions. It already has three Dolphin-class submarines which can fire nuclear missiles, but the newer models can remain submerged far longer.

The deal was signed last month and the submarines will be operational shortly, the Jerusalem Post reported. Germany has agreed to take on the costs of up to a third of the value of the 1 billion deal.

Israel, which has never officially admitted possessing atomic weapons, has an estimated 60-85 nuclear warheads, according to the United States Defence Intelligence Agency.

The country's military planners have a clear preference for submarine-launched nuclear weaponry. Given Israel's small land area, launch sites for missiles would be easy to detect and therefore possible to destroy. Submarine-based missiles give the country a more credible deterrent.

Some details on the Dolphin class submarines are here and  here. Iran may have a bit more to contend with than they think. This is getting pretty ugly right now.

Iran’s Hand

One of the things I have tried to point out is the mistake many people are making right now of compartmentalizing the various hot spots in the Middle East. Journalists, pundits, editorialists and politicians all seem to be able to treat Lebanon as a discreet point. Palestinian problems as another. Iraq as yet another. Syria and Iran, both different. All discreet separate elements, not related to one another.

I think that is both wrong and ultimately counterproductive.

So now I read this article in the Washington Post and despair. Doesn't anyone see the hand of Iran here? Doesn't anyone notice that the "Shi'ite Giant" is doing exactly what Iran wants it to do right now?

Sadr's followers answer as one when his movement calls them, and his organization of social, religious, political and military programs — as well as the young clerics, politicians and fighters around him — has become the most pivotal force in Iraq after the United States.

Millions of Sadr's supporters turned out in December elections to give his movement the largest bloc in parliament, which in turn put him in control of four government ministries. Thousands of male followers abandoned their homes and jobs when a bomb destroyed a Shiite shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22, rallying at Sadr headquarters on a night and day of retaliatory bloodletting that plunged Iraq into sectarian war.

While opposition to the U.S. military presence in Iraq remains one of its core tenets, the Sadr movement's militia, called the Mahdi Army, took heavy casualties in two military uprisings against better-armed, better-trained U.S. forces in 2004. Today, according to Sadr leaders and outside analysts, the movement is husbanding its strength and waiting for American troops to go.

Sadr "clearly is the most potent political figure, and the most popular one," in Iraq, said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "Unless directly provoked, Sadrists will lay low, because they know the Americans' time in Iraq is coming to an end," he said. "Why would they risk another major loss of fighters if it's not necessary? Americans in their eyes are already defeated — they're going to leave."

Do you see the damage that is done in attacking the president of your country? It does not harm him or the Republican party only – it harms America. It emboldens a thug with poor hygiene habits to pull the strings of his puppets to go further and further. They already see the last helicopter – they were counting on the American left to make it happen.

We have got to face Iran down now or it will be incredibly ugly in a very short time. The world is running out of time. Sadr and his followers are puppets doing a dance for their Iranian masters. It isn't a discreet event.

It is part of a single strategy.

Deaf Ears

Jim Hoagland, writing in the Washington Post, sends an open letter to Jacques Chirac asking for support for the UNIFIL peacekeepers. It is a passionate plea, that I suspect will fall on deaf ears.

A French-led force would be a particular target for car-bombers and other assassins from Syria and its client Lebanese guerrilla organization, Hezbollah, you are said to believe. Your determined efforts to eliminate Syria's control over Lebanon, to pursue the Syrian officials who assassinated your friend, former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, and to deny Iran a nuclear weapon — to say nothing of the extraordinary but merited public rebukes you have aimed at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government — lend weight to your concerns.

And the watering down of command arrangements in the U.N. resolution that created the new force did nothing to help you overcome the immediate strong doubts of your own Defense Ministry about the wisdom of a Lebanon operation. This is, of course, deja vu for you: Your first crisis on taking office in 1995 involved making sure French troops were not endangered by the inept and ineffective U.N. command in Bosnia. Your forceful calls for change in the Bosnia operation sparked a new dynamic for ending that butchery.

But those experiences are all reasons why France, and Europe, are essential to making sure this cease-fire in Lebanon does not become just a pause for rearming for an even bloodier round that will widen into a regional conflict reaching into Iran the next time.

The five-week border conflict has created a small strategic opening for avoiding that wider war. Israel — now led by a lawyer, not a general — has attached a new importance to the Lebanese government's controlling its own territory, to U.N. resolutions in general and to international peacekeeping forces for the region. And Europe has been more willing to fix responsibility for the crisis on those who are determined to destroy Israel on any pretext available.

Hoagland mentions several things in this piece that are troubling. The fears Chirac supposedly has of drawing attacks to French troops is one. The fact that Chirac apparently vetoed use of a NATO force is even more so, I have maintained for a long time that NATO might have been able to pull this mission off – the UN is simply, utterly and completely unable to do so.

But Chirac blocked that. Now he won't even make a show of backing the deal he helped broker. And Hoagland thinks his letter will do any good?

No, I fear it is on deaf ears, Mr. Hoagland.

Two Men Ejected From Airplane Speak Out

The two men ejected from a British charter jet have spoken publicly. They say they do not blame the passengers but are worried that people will suspect all Muslims.

Manchester Umist students Sohail Ashraf and Khurram Zeb, both 22, said they sympathised with nervous travellers, but urged people not to be paranoid about Muslims.

"We might be Asian, but we're two ordinary lads who wanted a bit of fun," Mr Ashraf told the Daily Mirror.

"Just because we're Muslim does not mean we are suicide bombers."

The pair were marched off the jet at gunpoint after fellow passengers alerted officials on the flight back from Malaga, Spain.

Holidaymakers on board flight ZB 613 from Malaga to Manchester became alarmed at the men's behaviour, and demanded that air staff remove them from the plane in the incident last week.

That is the first and only time I have read anything about them being marched of 'at gunpoint' – I'm curious to know if that is true. Regardless, it appears that passengers keyed off their dress and behavior. I sympathize with them in one way, but not completely. If they were wearing inappropriately heavy clothing, they are legitimate targets for closer inspection. As I mentioned before, that is something that police officers are taught to look for specifically as warranting further scrutiny.

Felonious Feline

A man in Colorado Springs got a rude introduction to the animal uprising when he came home from work on Tuesday. He heard his dogs barking then got up to see what was bothering them. Whereupon a mountain lion jumped through his window.

He left. Hastily.

"I got up to shut the dogs up and a mountain lion came through my window, it came right through my screen door," Sanches told KKTV.

He went to a neighbor's house to call for help and he and sheriff's deputies waited outside the house. About an hour later, the big cat butted its head against a screened window before breaking through and running away.

Which of course brings up the really important question: Which is the more serious crime? Breaking and entering or breaking and exiting?

(Oddly, I have right here in front of me this month's Smithsonian Magazine which has this fascinating article on the return of the mountain lion – not everyone is happy about it. If you don't subscribe to Smithsonian, why?)

Surprise!

And not a pleasant one, I'll wager. The Jerusalem Post is reporting that a senior Iranian diplomat has promised a "surprise" about Teheran's nuclear program.

A senior official in Teheran said Wednesday that in the next few days, a "surprise" was expected regarding Iran's nuclear program, Al-Jazeera reported.

Teheran's apparent refusal to suspend uranium enrichment set the stage for a showdown at the UN Security Council later this month.

The United States said Wednesday that a proposal by Iran for nuclear negotiations falls short of UN demands for a halt to enrichment, and began plotting "next moves" with other governments.

Diplomats from Europe, the US, Russia and China pored over details of Iran's counterproposal
Wednesday, a day after Teheran presented it.
Initial comments from Russia and China, however, made clear that the US is likely to face difficulty getting at least those nations to agree to any tough sanctions against Iran.

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy made clear that his government was sticking by the UN demand for Iran to halt enrichment by the end of this month as a precondition to further talks.

"I want to point out again that France is available to negotiate, and to recall that, as we have always said … a return to the negotiating table is linked to the suspension of uranium enrichment," Douste-Blazy said.

I am not at all happy with surprises. I suspect I will be even less so than usual with this one. Remember that UN inspectors found traces of highly enriched uranium at Iranian facilities before. As has been speculated in comments here, what if the surprise has to do with North Korea's apparent test preparations? Sleep tight, folks.

Eight Years Lost

A young Austrian woman says she escaped from a sealed garage where she was held for eight years. Police are virtually certain that she is actually Natascha Kampusch, who was kidnapped at age ten. No trace of the girl was ever found despite a massive search effort.

Police said relatives identified the woman as Natascha Kampusch, who vanished in 1998 at age 10 while walking to school, and a major manhunt was under way for a man in his mid-40s suspected of having abducted her.

Herwig Haidinger, head of the Federal Crime Office (BKA), said the woman was undergoing DNA tests to confirm her identity but that investigators were virtually certain she was Kampusch.

Austrian news agency APA quoted them as saying there were no indications the woman might have suffered sexual abuse.

The woman, very pale but in apparently good physical health, told police she had escaped earlier in the day from a house in a village near Vienna where she had been largely confined in an secured garage since her abduction.

But she said her captor allowed her occasional walks with him in the neighbourhood and access to radio, television, newspapers and books, and the garage was equipped with a bed and wardrobe, according to police and local media.

BKA investigator Erich Zwettler, asked why the woman had not fled while on any of her outings, said she seemed to have had "Stockholm Syndrome", a psychological condition in which long-held captives begin to identify with their captors.

"She is white-pale, looking as if she had been out of the light of day for a long time, but she articulated well and could read and write," APA quoted a police investigator as saying.

Police are searching for a 44 year old suspect believed to have fled when the woman escaped. Thankfully she is alive, but think of what this woman has lost. Her childhood and all the experiences of growing up were stolen from her. There are some crimes that deserve harsh punishment. This is one.

Conquistador. It’s What’s For Dinner.

Archaeologists working at the Tecuaque archaeological site near Mexico City have unearthed the remains of approximately 550 men, women and children who were ritually killed and eaten in a slow-motion massacre that took six months to complete. The victims were from a Spanish conquistador army train that was ambushed and captured by Aztecs.

Skulls and bones from the Tecuaque archaeological site near Mexico City show about 550 victims had their hearts ripped out by Aztec priests in ritual offerings, and were dismembered or had their bones boiled or scraped clean, experts say.

The findings support accounts of Aztecs capturing and killing a caravan of Spanish conquistadors and local men, women and children traveling with them in revenge for the murder of Cacamatzin, king of the Aztec empire's No. 2 city of Texcoco.

Experts say the discovery proves some Aztecs did resist the conquistadors, led by explorer Hernan Cortes, before the Spaniards attacked the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City.

History books say many indigenous Mexicans welcomed the white-skinned horsemen in the belief they were returning gods but turned against the Spaniards once they tried to take over the Aztec seat of power in a conflict that ended in 1521.

"This is the first place that has so much evidence there was resistance to the conquest," said archaeologist Enrique Martinez, director of the dig at Calpulalpan in Tlaxcala state, near Texcoco.

"It shows it wasn't all submission. There was a fight."

The caravan was apparently captured because it was made up mostly of the mulatto, mestizo, Maya Indian and Caribbean men and women given to the Spanish as carriers and cooks when they landed in Mexico in 1519, and so was moving slowly.

The prisoners were kept in cages for months while Aztec priests selected a few each day at dawn, held them down on a sacrificial slab, cut out their hearts and offered them up to various Aztec gods.

Some may have been given hallucinogenic mushrooms or pulque — an alcoholic milky drink made from fermented cactus juice — to numb them to what was about to happen.

TEETH MARKS

"It was a continuous sacrifice over six months. While the prisoners were listening to their companions being sacrificed, the next ones were being selected," Martinez said, standing in his lab amid boxes of bones, some of young children.

"You can only imagine what it was like for the last ones, who were left six months before being chosen, their anguish."

A pretty harsh society, I'd say. Wikipedia entry on the Aztecs here. A rather entertaining historical novel about them here.

Deb Frisch, The Meltdown

Wow, this just keeps going. Deb Frisch, the college professor turned internet stalker has no gotten arrested for stalking.

The saga of Deborah Frisch, long-time comment troll and all-around kook, took another troubling, but not exactly unforeseeable turn in the last 48 hours. As far as we know, she is now the first troll of the political blogosphere to face criminal charges relating to such activity. On August 21 she was arraigned in an Oregon courtroom on charges of stalking and telephone harassment (PDF). The docket can be found at the link preceding, but is captured below for your viewing pleasure:

According to Don’t Hire Deb, a blog devoted to documenting Frisch’s outrageous behavior while depriving her own site of traffic, Frisch posted either $4,000 bail or $400 to a bondsman, and must reappear in court on September 25th. As is speculated in DHD comments and elsewhere, this likely stems not from Frisch’s well-publicized Jeff Goldstein-related misadventures (to the best of our knowledge she’s never called him) but rather similar interactions with former colleagues at University of Oregon (where she was denied tenure in 1994 and served as an adjunct until July 2001) including calling, emailing, and a quickly-removed post to her blog. 

There is a huge amount of information in the post at Blog PI (including a lot of links I removed from this post). Don't miss the comments. This is one disturbed unit.

(Earlier posts in the Frisch saga here, here, here, here, here and here.

Allah Pundit Gets Cranky

And spanks heck out of Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor and Publisher for his "defense" of photojournalists. Which isn't a defense at all but rather an attempt to attack us uppity bloggers.

Well, Greg Mitchell wasn’t about to let that stand unanswered. He responded yesterday with a rousing defense of photojournalists in the Middle East, which isn’t a defense at all but an attack on those of us who’ve suddenly made it harder for people in his industry to pass off crap as genuine news. The tone is set right away: photojournalists, says Mitchell, “are risking their lives while bloggers risk nothing but carpal tunnel syndrome.”

That’s a chickenhawk reference, in case you weren’t sure which team he’s on.

Now the meat of it. All emphases mine:

[O]ne American photographer in Lebanon, Bryan Denton, often cited by the blogs as backing their claims, has now apologized for his earlier “irresponsible” assertions at the Lightstalkers site, and stated flatly, “Any one out there who is trying to politicize that is just plain sick, and is moving this further away from the real issue at hand. There are hundreds of photographers working here now. Don’t let a few bad apples take the attention away from what the REAL story is, because by the looks of the blogs, THAT is exactly what is happening.” Don’t expect to find those second thoughts on any of the blogs.

At no point does Mitchell actually describe what Denton alleged — namely, that while in Lebanon he personally witnessed “one case where a group of wire photogs were choreographing the unearthing of bodies, directing emergency workers here and there, asking them to position bodies just so, even remove bodies that have already been put in graves so that they can photograph them in peoples arms.”

Nor does he mention that later in the same thread Denton repeated the allegation and asserted that he’d heard from friends in Lebanon that it wasn’t an isolated incident. To read Mitchell, you would think that Denton had “apologized” and retracted his accusation. Nothing of the sort. Here’s what Denton actually said:

again, i am terribly sorry for rattling the saber so hard….re-reading my words I too should have been a bit more responsible.

He was sorry that his accusation had caused so much commotion. He wasn’t suggesting that what he said was untrue. On the contrary.

Who knows, though? Maybe Mitchell’s planning to explain all this in part two.

Mitchell is wrong here. As his post points out right at the beginning, David Perlmutter's op-ed (from E&P, ironically) is a much more accurate reflection on the state of photojournalism today. He's also fighting out of his league trying to go up against the deity of photoshopping. (Incidentally, David Perlmutter himself commented in the comments of my post and recommends a couple of excellent books on the subject.)

Genius Of The Day

Imagine being in an airport with your mother. You have something in your carry on bag that you really don't want her to know about. So when the TSA inspector asks you what it is, you have to tell him a lie so mom doesn't hear what it really is.

One thing. It's really stupid to tell the inspector that the penis pump is a bomb.

Madin Azad Amin was stopped by officials on Aug. 16 after guards found an object in his baggage that resembled a grenade, prosecutors said.

When officers asked him to identify it, Amin said it was a bomb, said Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Lorraine Scaduto.

He later told officials he'd lied about the item because his mother was nearby and he didn't want her to hear that it was part of a penis pump, Scaduto said.

He's been charged with felony disorderly conduct, said Andrew Conklin, a spokesman with the Cook County state's attorney's office.

The genius faces up to three years in prison.

Pop Culture Gone Wild

The other day I linked to a site with Star Trek "inspirational posters" that was a VERY popular out click. I've had an email from the proprietor of the site, Echo, who let me know that a) there are new posters and b) there there are even more pop culture fun things at this site Echo also runs. Have fun!

US Says Iranian Offer Does Not Meet UN Requirements

The US government, speaking through a State Department spokesman, has stated that Iran's proposal to resume talks "falls short" of UN requirements.

A statement issued by the State Department acknowledged that Iran considered its proposal to be a serious one. "We will review it," the statement said.

But it went on to say that Iran's response to a joint offer by the United States and European countries of concessions if the enrichment program was halted "falls short of the conditions set by the Security Council."

The statement, issued by acting spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos, reminded Tehran that the Council requires full and verifiable suspension of all uranium-enrichment activity.

While elsewhere in the Middle East, Syria is saying that any deployment of UNIFIL peacekeepers near its border with Lebanon would be a "hostile" act. That they are doing Iran's bidding here should be obvious to everyone except the Clue Proof™.

Twelve People Arrested In Flight Turnaround

Reuters is reporting that twelve people have been arrested by Dutch authorities in the turnaround of a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Mumbai. This is now looking like a very serious matter, indeed.

"The 12 people that have been arrested were passengers," a spokesman said. "They will be interrogated in the coming hours by police investigators."

Asked whether a suspected terrorist attack could be ruled out, the spokesman said: "We don't want to get ahead of ourselves."

Earlier post here.

UPDATE: CNN has still more detail. Apparently the activities of the 12 passengers was alarming enough that US Air Marshalls on board broke cover and ordered the people to stop what they were doing. Frankly, if they were doing something that alarmed trained professionals, there is something going on here.

A U.S. government official said that some of the passengers had pulled out cell phones during the flight, and that some appeared to be trying to pass the cell phones to other passengers.

In addition, some passengers unfastened their seatbelts while the light requiring they be fastened was still illuminated, the official said.

That was enough to cause U.S. air marshals aboard the flight to break their cover. Fight attendants ordered the passengers to heed the orders of the marshals, the official added.

An airline source in Amsterdam said the passengers who were arrested were looking into plastic bags and were busy with their cell phones.

The spokesman said the 12 — whose identities have not been made public — face preliminary charges, but did not elaborate.

Flight 42 returned to Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport after "a couple of passengers displayed behavior of concern," according to Northwest Airlines.

"Northwest is cooperating with the appropriate government officials," the company's statement said.

The flight, which originated in Northwest's main hub of Minneapolis-St. Paul a day earlier, landed at Schiphol around noon (6 a.m. ET), about half an hour after it had left, TSA said.

I'll keep following this and update as appropriate.

UPDATE: AFP is reporting a detail I have not seen anywhere else: The pilot of the Northwest aircraft dumped the jet's fuel over the North Sea before landing. That is fairly unusual.

How Weird Is This?

An editorial condemnation of the Democrat's attempt to demonize Wal-Mart coming from the LA Times? Issue the freeze alert for the infernal regions.

But there is no stopping the campaign rhetoric. At an anti-Wal-Mart rally last week in Iowa, Biden noted that the retailer pays people $10 an hour, and then asked: "How can you live a middle-class life on that?" It's clearly the company's fault, at least from a skewed senatorial perspective, that all Americans cannot live a comfortable middle-class life. How dare it pay prevailing retail wages? Bayh, who appeared at another rally, was quoted as saying that Wal-Mart is "emblematic of the anxiety around the country." That may be true. But if it's the emblem he's worried about, he should stay in Washington and work to make healthcare more affordable for working families.

The gusto with which even moderate Democrats are bashing Wal-Mart is bound to backfire. Not only does it take the party back to the pre-Clinton era, when Democrats were perceived as reflexively anti-business, it manages to make Democrats seem like out-of-touch elitists to the millions of Americans who work and shop at Wal-Mart.

The editorial is actually quite harsh on the Democrats for this particularly stupid, cynical campaign targeting Wal-Mart. Why it almost sounds kind of familiar. (See here and here).