Judge Sotomayor, Empathize This! (thanks vagabond trader!)

We are told by our betters to accept prima facie Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s quite astonishing statement that the “richness” of her experience and derivative empathy automatically leads to better legal reasoning. Fine, let’s accept it for a moment. But what exactly is so rich about her experience?

The Reeducation of Abu Jandal
Can jihadists really be reformed? Closing Guantanamo may depend on it.

Now that President Barack Obama has pledged to close the prison at Guantána-mo Bay within the year, some Yemeni and American officials want al-Hitar’s help again.

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There is only one problem with all this: al-Hitar’s program doesn’t work. By 2004 at least some of the judge’s graduates had begun showing up in Iraq, American officials warned their Yemeni counterparts. Among al-Hitar’s students, the program was a joke. “To be frank, everyone was making fun of him,” says one former prisoner, who gave his name only as “Abu Hurieh” to avoid drawing renewed attention from the secret police. “We all understood that it was just extortion to take money from the Americans. They were just playing with us.” Even Saleh acknowledges that al-Hitar’s program was only effective about 60 percent of the time. The flaw, in retrospect, seems obvious: a prisoner will say anything to get out of jail. “If Satan himself told me to sign, I would have,” al-Bahri told me. Al-Hitar’s program, he explained, “was completely useless.”

New Memos Reveal President Reagan Ordered Strikes Against Iran If Hostages Being Held by Hezbollah Were Killed…..

President Reagan ordered strikes against Iran if any of the American hostages held by the terrorist group Hezbollah were killed.The order, made during a January 18th, 1985 meeting of the National Security Planning Group, came on the heels of a threat by the terrorists to “try the American hostages as spies and then give them the punishment they deserve.”

Iran hangs 3 over mosque bombing

Three men convicted of involvement in the deadly bombing of an Iranian mosque were hanged on Saturday, Iran’s official news agency reported.

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The men found guilty of supplying explosives used in the attack were executed in public near the mosque.

A Sunni Muslim militant group, Jundallah, claimed responsibility for the bombing, according to Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television.

Chávez Seeks Tighter Grip on Military and everything else

Since February, Mr. Chávez has moved against a wide range of domestic critics, and his efforts in recent weeks to strengthen his grip on the armed forces have led to high-profile arrests and a wave of reassignments.
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In recent months, the crackdown has been extended to the civilian arena. Manuel Rosales, the president’s opponent in the 2006 elections, sought asylum in Peru after being faced with corruption charges, and Mr. Chávez handpicked a new mayor for Caracas after legislators eliminated most of the budget of the elected mayor, Antonio Ledezma.

The government even singled out smaller targets, like an outspoken biologist critical of Mr. Chávez who was fired from his tenured post at the Institute of Advanced Studies, a state-run scientific research group.

N. Korea threatens revenge if punished for nuclear test of course

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Friday vowed to retaliate if punitive U.N. sanctions are imposed for its latest nuclear test, and U.S. officials said there are new signs Pyongyang may be planning more long-range missile launches.

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But officials said the heavily fortified border remains calm and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Washington does not see the situation as a crisis warranting any more troops to augment the 28,000 U.S. forces already in South Korea.

“I don’t think that anybody in the (Obama) administration thinks there is a crisis,” Gates, en route to Singapore for regional defense talks, told reporters aboard his military jet.

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The draft of a U.N. resolution being negotiated in response to the North’s second nuclear test calls on all countries to immediately enforce sanctions imposed after the North’s first test in 2006.

So the response is to finally try to enforce what they called for 3 years ago? Toothless doesn’t begin to describe the UN.

Meanwhile: American Journalists Still Imprisoned In North Korea

Weeks after the release of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi from a prison in Tehran, host Scott Simon reflects on two other journalists detained by a government hostile to the U.S. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were on assignment near the North Korea border when they were arrested March 17. The women have had no contact with the West in the two months since.

Abbas expects progress in talks with Israel by early July

The Palestinian leader said the problem was that Israel has yet to establish clear positions on major issues, but that he understands “this will happen soon.”

Yeah, that’s what has been stopping them. /

State Department’s love affair with Islamists

With the United States battling Islamist extremists, making America’s case to Muslims around the world has never been more of a priority for policymakers. Unfortunately, the State Department continues to take a counterproductive approach: serving as a veritable infomercial promoting Islamist organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) while giving the back of the hand to the very anti-jihadist Muslims that Washington should be cultivating.

The latest example is a State Department booklet issued in March titled “Being Muslim in America.” The 64-page booklet seeks to arm consular officers and diplomats with information they can take to Muslims around the world to rebut slanders about US “persecution” of Muslims. The booklet deluges readers with color pictures, statistical tables and individual profiles in an effort to show the world that American Muslims are a success story, noting that they have become entrepreneurs, professional athletes, entertainers, doctors, soldiers, firefighters, politicians, fashion designers and pianists.

Tested Early by North Korea, Obama Has Few Options

Facing the first direct challenge to his administration by an emerging nuclear weapons state, President Obama declared Monday that the United States and its allies would “stand up” to North Korea, hours after that country defied international sanctions and conducted what appeared to be its second nuclear test.

Mr. Obama reacted to the underground blast as White House officials scrambled to coordinate an international response to a North Korean nuclear capacity that none of his predecessors had proved able to reverse.

Acutely aware that their response to the explosion in the mountains of Kilju, not far from the Chinese border, would be seen as an early test of a new administration, Mr. Obama’s aides said they were determined to organize a significantly stronger response than the Bush administration had managed after the North’s first nuclear test, in October 2006.

Taliban seek return to peace deal in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — The Pakistani Taliban — under pressure in fighting with the military — said Tuesday it wants to return to a peace deal that recently collapsed.

That collapse sparked the ongoing massive military operation, a Taliban spokesman said Tuesday.

Gates Says Taliban Have Momentum in Afghanistan

American public support for the Afghan war will dissipate in less than a year unless the Obama administration achieves “a perceptible shift in momentum,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview.

Mr. Gates said the momentum in Afghanistan is with the Taliban, who are inflicting heavy U.S. casualties and hold de facto control of swaths of the country.

HARDIN, Montana (CNN) — The tiny town of Hardin, Montana, is offering an answer to a very thorny question: Where should the nation put terror detainees if the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is shut down by the end of the year as President Obama has pledged?

Hardin, population 3,400, sits in the southeast corner of Montana, in the state’s poorest county. Its small downtown is almost deserted at midday. The Dollar Store is going out of business. The Hardin Mini Mall is already shut. The town needs jobs — and fast.

Iran’s Ahmadinejad wants to debate Obama at UN

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed on Monday a face-to-face debate with President Barack Obama at the United Nations if he is re-elected next month as Iran’s president.

But he balanced the offer with a sharp rebuke to Washington and its allies over Iran’s nuclear program. He reiterated that Iran would never abandon its advances in uranium enrichment in exchange for offers of easing sanctions or other economic incentives.

The nuclear issue “is closed,” he told a news conference.

Iran Dispatches Fleet of Warships to Gulf of Aden

[Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah] Sayyari, who made the remarks while visiting the development projects and installations of the Iranian Navy here in Tehran, described the measure as “unprecedented in the history of the Iranian Navy”, and added, “This important move indicates the country’s high military capability in confronting any kind of foreign threat along the coasts of the country.”

He expressed hope that the Iranian Navy experts and specialists would continue daily progress in all fields of surface and sub-surface and arms technology and production.

World outraged by North Korea’s latest nuke test

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) — The United Nations Security Council will convene Monday to address North Korea’s second nuclear bomb test, which it conducted in defiance of numerous international warnings.

Pyongyang had threatened to carry out the test unless the U.N. Security Council apologized for imposing sanctions on North Korea after it tested a rocket April 5. In a one-two punch, the secretive communist state also apparently test-fired a short-range missile Monday, the White House said.

France, Germany urge more flexible climate pact

PARIS (Reuters) – France and Germany suggested on Monday that rich nations should collectively guarantee deep cuts in greenhouse gases by 2020 while giving flexibility to laggards such as the United States to catch up later.

France said the idea, floated at talks among 17 top greenhouse gas emitters including China, United States, Russia and India, could help toward a new U.N. climate treaty due to be agreed at a meeting in Copenhagen in December.

Lebanese leaders quiet on Spiegel’s bombshell report

Beirut, Lebanon – A bombshell revelation tying Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah to the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister has generated a rare consensus among rival political camps less than two weeks before crucial parliamentary elections.

The German news magazine Der Spiegel reported this weekend that the Netherlands-based international tribunal established to trace and judge the killers of Rafik Hariri has uncovered evidence that Hezbollah was responsible for the February 2005 truck bomb assassination.