The other day, I went to my PO Box for the first time in far too long. Stuffed between a lot of bills was a notice that I had a package.  At the customer service counter, the clerk handed me an amazon package. I wasn’t expecting anything.

When I got back to my office, I tore open the box and inside was an stunning Dean Martin box set.  Only one person on earth could have sent it to me: the inestimable Danno Carpenter.

Danno, you are the greatest baby. I’m having a scotch in honor of Dino and you!

Image via Wikipedia

I won’t provide a link, lest I add more site visits to such utter absurdity, so here’s the key excerpt:

Wednesday is the 10th anniversary of one of the “blackest moments of the war on terror,” says Elizabeth O’Shea at the Sydney Morning Herald: The opening of Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

It will get much less attention than last year’s 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, says Elizabeth O’Shea in Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald, but Wednesday marks a decade since “one of the blackest moments of the war on terror: The opening of Guantanamo Bay detention camp.” Gitmo still holds 171 of the 779 prisoners who have been detained there — without “a fair trial and the presumption of innocence.” Eighty-nine of today’s detainees have been cleared for release, but are stuck in limbo after Congress blocked their transfer. Gitmo “represents an affront to the bedrock principles that underpin Western legal systems,” O’Shea argues, and “as a society, we have paid a hefty price” for this miscarriage of justice. Here, an excerpt:

 The prison has become a vortex of shame. Fundamental legal principles such as the right to due process should be respected regardless of circumstances.

Poorly written, yes. But even more poorly reasoned.  O’Shea misses a few key points. Such as the fact that these are not criminal detainees, these are enemy combatants. They are not US citizens arrested in the States or even abroad for federal criminal violations, they are captured enemies fighting a war they have declared on the United States.

Further, only a far Left-wing writer like O’Shea could reason that Gitmo, not the 9/11 attacks, or the human rights violations in North Korea, Iran, the Sudan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, is the “world’s vortex of shame.” How sickeningly pathetic.

This is the Votex of Shame??? (Image via Wikipedia)

From the New York Times:
“In a naval action that mixed diplomacy, drama and Middle Eastern politics, the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis broke up a high-seas pirate attack on a cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman, then sailors from an American destroyer boarded the pirates’ mother ship and freed 13 Iranian hostages who had been held captive there for more than a month.”

George Monbiot

There is a virus sweeping the world. It infects opponents of the Bush government, sucks their brains out through their eyes and turns them into gibbering idiots. First cultivated in a laboratory in the US, the strain reached these shores a few months ago. In the past fortnight, it has become an epidemic. Scarcely a day now passes without someone possessed by this sickness, eyes rolling, lips flecked with foam, trying to infect me.

FrumForum.com is a site edited by David Frum, dedicated to the modernization and renewal of the Republican party and the conservative movement.

Please check out my story on the anniversary of the Pan Am 103 terrorist attack HERE.

As always, you can visit this blog for more news and commentary.

I learned of Christopher Hitchens’ death just after midnight last night, and for the first time in a very long time, I had a dream that I can remember.  In it, I was seated across a small table from Hitchens and he looked ghastly, and I realized I was watching him die. Looking at his hands as they involuntarily clenched, I tried to look him in the face and kept repeating “What will I read now? There’ll be nothing to read!”  He faded from me and the dream ended.

When I awoke, I posted a message online that said “The best evidence that “god” is not great is that Christopher Hitchens has left us far too soon. What an enormous loss.” A friend–a good man–responded, “He messed with the big guy,” implying that Hitchens’ death was somehow tied to his outspoken stance against religion.  In reply, I asked if this was also “god’s” excuse for killing thousands of innocent children every day.  That ended that exchange, but really started me thinking: if there is a god (and I don’t believe there is) he couldn’t possibly admire any of his creations as much as Christopher Hitchens.

Hitchens bravely called out spectacularly overrated figures like Princess Diana, Mother Theresa, Jerry Falwell, Gandhi, and Henry Kissinger criminals, frauds, and charlatans.  And while many were upset by such undressings, no one could successfully counter his points.  He regularly shamed the Catholic Church for its sins, supported a war that liberated a nation, argued tirelessly on behalf of the right of women around the world, and decried the violence and threat of Islamists.  He despised injustice and had the introspection to change his beliefs. Clearly this was the work, indeed the life, of an honorable man.

Through his writings, Hitchens taught me things I’d never have learned elsewhere, made me consider points of view that could only come from someone with his combination of massive intellect and enviable courage, and entertained me with a writing style that can never, ever be duplicated.  I have come to rely on his articles in Vanity Fair, Slate, and elsewhere, to help shape my own views.   And whenever an important event took place, I found myself counting the minutes until I could hear Hitchens’ angle on the matter.  If that isn’t an essential element of companionship, albeit one-sided, then I don’t know one when I see one.

But now that’s gone.  I’ve lost an ally whom I’ve never met but admired tremendously.  So tonight, I’ll drink some Johnny Walker Black–what he called “The Breakfast of Champions”–and try to console myself with the fact that his books are always there for me, like old friends.

Why the Left Ignores the Success of PEPFAR

Calling it “a day to renew our commitment to use our God-given talents to save lives,” the American president, speaking from Tanzania on World AIDS Day 2011, spoke of the unmistakable success of PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief). This time, the speaker was actually former president George W. Bush, and he should know–PEPFAR was the result of his commitment to fight the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Perhaps no president in history, not even Richard M. Nixon, had as much hate and vitriol directed at him as did Bush 43. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid–a Mormon no less–called the president a “loser” and a “liar.” Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, another darling of the left, called Bush “the devil” and, for that, earned himself the friendship of Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Naomi Campbell (that beacon of egalitarianism, who used the opportunity to call Chavez a “rebel angel.”).

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the left has never given Bush one iota of credit for his commitment to eradicating HIV/AIDS, especially for the poorest amongst us. But, at best, their ignorance of the success of Bush’s efforts is ahistorical. At its worst, it’s nefarious. Why? Because by failing to rally around the work of a conservative president based on ideology, they refuse to bring greater attention to the pandemic and a successful program aimed at eradicating it. Rather than working to building even more support for PEPFAR, they ignore it.

Consider this: when President Bush committed an unprecedented $15 billion over five years to PEPFAR in 2003, only 50,000 people were receiving antiretroviral treatment in the developing world. By 2008, 1.2 million people were getting the ART. Spurred by this success, Bush asked for an additional $5.4 billion for 2008 alone. And because he took up this bold initiative, PEPFAR has been expanded threefold. But will he receive any credit for this from liberals in the United States? Not a chance. Instead, he will continue to be portrayed as ignorant and aloof, without a care for the poor and, as the irresponsible Kanye West said, someone who “hates black people.” Perhaps West and his fellow shallow thinkers should consider that Bush’s program has reduced deaths from AIDS in Africa by at least 10%.

Now President Bush has expanded his efforts on behalf of those fighting this still far-too-deadly disease. In honor of World AIDS Day 2011, he announced that the Bush Institute is partnering with PEPFAR, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, UNAIDS and others for Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon, an initiative that builds upon their successes, leveraging the PEPFAR platform to combat cervical cancer. The alliance was formed with the goal of reducing it by 25% among women who are screened in Africa. As President Bush pointed out, women with HIV are more likely to get cervical cancer. “It is not right to save a woman from HIV, only to let her die from cervical cancer,” he said.

Again, no one in Hollywood will applaud this initiative. Instead, the former president will quietly go about the work of improving and saving lives in the poorest countries in the world. Fortunately, that’s thanks enough for him.

This Blogger’s Books from

Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists
by Anthony M. M. Amore, Tom Mashberg

Follow Anthony Amore on Twitter: www.twitter.com/amoream

City Bomb Plot Suspect Is Called Fan of Qaeda Cleric

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

A Manhattan man who became fascinated by the American-born Muslim militant Anwar al-Awlaki was arrested on charges of plotting to build and detonate bombs in New York, city officials announced on Sunday night.

At a hastily called City Hall news conference, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who appeared alongside Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said the man, Jose Pimentel, 27, had begun in August to plot a bomb attack. But it was the death of Mr. Awlaki, who was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in September, that refocused his efforts, Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Kelly said that Mr. Pimentel, a convert to Islam who was also known as Muhammad Yusuf, had been under police surveillance for more than two years and was arrested on Saturday after he had come close to completing at least three bombs.

Holes had been drilled into pipes, sulfur had been scraped off matches, nails were ready to be used as shrapnel, and wires were used to fashion an ignition device, according to a law enforcement official.

Mr. Pimentel planned to test his abilities by detonating mailboxes before embarking on a bombing campaign around New York City, Mr. Kelly said.

“Pimentel talked about killing U.S. military personnel returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly Marines and Army personnel,” Mr. Kelly said. “He talked about bombing post offices in and around Washington Heights and police cars in New York City, as well as a police station in Bayonne, N.J.

“Once his bombing campaign began, Mr. Pimentel said the public would know that there were mujahideen in the city to fight jihad here.”

Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Kelly said, however, that Mr. Pimentel was not part of a conspiracy, had no known contacts abroad and, in the mayor’s words, “appears to be a total lone wolf.”

A native of the Dominican Republic and a naturalized American citizen, Mr. Pimentel had spent much of his life in Manhattan, except for five years in Schenectady, N.Y., the authorities said. While upstate, his extremist remarks “made even some like-minded friends nervous,” Mr. Kelly said, noting that Mr. Pimentel considered changing his name to Osama Hussein “to celebrate his heroes.”

Mr. Pimentel spoke about traveling to “Yemen for training before returning to New York to become a martyr in the name of jihad,” Mr. Kelly said. While Mr. Kelly noted that Mr. Pimentel never ended up going to Yemen, at one point Mr. Pimentel had e-mailed Mr. Awlaki in an attempt to open a line of communication. The cleric did not respond, the authorities said.

The intelligence division of the New York Police Department routinely asks smaller departments outside the city for help in identifying would-be terrorists, and it was through this network that the New York police learned of Mr. Pimentel around May 2009, Mr. Kelly said. The Police Department then began doing surveillance on him, the authorities said.

In January 2010, Mr. Pimentel followed his former wife back to New York, officials said, and at some point began maintaining a Web site — www.trueislam1.com — that contained bomb-making discussions taken from Inspire, the English-language magazine published online by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the branch of the terrorist network in Yemen.

Along the way, Mr. Pimentel began making incriminating statements to an informant who was working with the police, investigators said, and those conversations were recorded.

The bomb-making began in earnest in October, with trips to a Home Depot in the Bronx and a 99-cent store in Manhattan during which Mr. Pimentel was under surveillance, according to a criminal complaint. There he purchased a clock, elbow piping and Christmas lights — all bomb-making parts, the complaint states. Mr. Pimentel kept the confidential informant up to date on his progress, and at times the bomb-making sessions took place at the apartment of the confidential informant, the complaint says.

On Saturday, the police videotaped him in the informant’s apartment as he was drilling holes in three pipes, according to the criminal complaint. At that moment, the police, including members of the bomb squad, moved in, arresting him in the apartment on West 147th Street, the authorities said.

“We weren’t going to wait around to figure out what he wanted do with his bombs,” a law enforcement official said. “He was in Harlem about an hour from actually having assembled the bombs,” but had all the “unassembled components ready to go.”

Mr. Pimentel lived with an uncle on West 137th Street, in Hamilton Heights. The uncle said in Spanish that the only recent change he noticed in his nephew was his conversion.

A next-door neighbor, Clara Blood, called the arrest “totally shocking and alarming, and it hits very close to home.”

Mr. Pimentel faces charges of criminal possession of a weapon in the first degree as a crime of terrorism as well as other charges, including conspiracy as a crime of terrorism.

At his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Sunday night, Mr. Pimentel, who wore a black T-shirt and baggy pants, was ordered held without bail. An assistant district attorney, Brian Fields, said Mr. Pimentel had been about an hour from completing the construction of his explosive devices when he was arrested.

The case is unusual in that it marks the second time this year that the Police Department and the Manhattan district attorney’s office have brought terrorism-related charges in state court, which in the past have been almost exclusively prosecuted in federal courts.

Mr. Kelly has, since the Sept. 11th attacks, frequently criticized the federal government’s counterterrorism capabilities, and he has built up his department’s counterterrorism program.

On Sunday, Mr. Kelly said that the Justice Department had been aware of the case against Mr. Pimentel. But he suggested that the Police Department had brought the case without the Justice Department because of how quickly the case came together at the end.

“We had to act quickly yesterday because he was in fact putting this bomb together, drilling a hole, and it would have been not appropriate for us to let him walk out the door with the bomb,” Mr. Kelly said.

A person who was briefed on the discussions between the Police Department and Justice Department, however, said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had declined to become involved with the case against Mr. Pimentel because of issues the F.B.I. had with it. The person, who insisted on anonymity, declined to elaborate on what those issues were.

Adam Kaufmann, who heads the investigation division for the district attorney’s office, said, however, that “it was a better state case than federal” because while state law allows for Mr. Pimentel to be charged with a “a conspiracy of one person, the feds cannot charge a unilateral conspiracy.”

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has released a warning that terrorists may be interested in targeting buses during the holiday travel season. This warning was issued as a reminder of the standing general threat against mass transit, not due to a specific threat, explains TSA administrator John Pistole. The bulletin notes that attacks on buses have become more prevalent worldwide, with an approximate total of 725 attacks reported between 2004 and 2009. Buses make attractive targets for terrorists because of their open architecture and accessibility to millions of travelers. A publication by Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has previously called on terrorists to hijack buses and drive them into crowded areas, buildings, or other infrastructure. In order to combat these threats, TSA works with federal, state, and local authorities on Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams, which send federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers, and canine teams to important mass transit locations. Local authorities also make use of their own uniformed officers, canine teams, and closed circuit recording.

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