Y'all will enjoy this weekend's Frank Rich column:

Seasoned audiences of presidential scandal know that there's only one certainty ahead: the timing of a Karl Rove resignation. As always in this genre, the knight takes the fall at exactly that moment when it's essential to protect the king.

Frank is more optimistic than I am. But he's a smart guy; maybe there's cause for hope.

 

You'll like this part, too:

... That the investigation has dragged on so long anyway is another indication of the expanded reach of the prosecutorial web.

Apparently this is finally beginning to dawn on Mr. Bush's fiercest defenders and on Mr. Bush himself. Hence, last week's erection of the stonewall manned by the almost poignantly clownish Mr. McClellan, who abruptly rendered inoperative his previous statements that any suspicions about Mr. Rove are "totally ridiculous." The morning after Mr. McClellan went mano a mano with his tormentors in the White House press room - "We've secretly replaced the White House press corps with actual reporters," observed Jon Stewart - the ardently pro-Bush New York Post ran only five paragraphs of a wire-service story on Page 12. That conspicuous burial of what was front-page news beyond Murdochland speaks loudly about the rising anxiety on the right. Since then, White House surrogates have been desperately babbling talking points attacking Joseph Wilson as a partisan and a liar.

Of course, all the Bushies have to do is whisper to National Review and the Wall Street Journal that Joe Wilson is Saddam Hussein's love child and a double secret agent for North Korea, and before long all those reasonable people on the Right Blogosphere will be repeating this as gospel and wondering why us whackjob lefties can't understand simple facts.    

This case is not about Joseph Wilson. He is, in Alfred Hitchcock's parlance, a MacGuffin, which, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary, is "a particular event, object, factor, etc., initially presented as being of great significance to the story, but often having little actual importance for the plot as it develops." Mr. Wilson, his mission to Niger to check out Saddam's supposed attempts to secure uranium that might be used in nuclear weapons and even his wife's outing have as much to do with the real story here as Janet Leigh's theft of office cash has to do with the mayhem that ensues at the Bates Motel in "Psycho."

This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit - the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes - is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who posed for Vanity Fair.

Never forget.

|

I want to know what motivated his followers in Virginia and the four dead bombers in England. Notwithstanding their access to higher living standards and modern education, the British bombers and some of Timimi's followers found violent jihad an attraction. Some of the men who attended a Sept. 16, 2001, meeting in Fairfax -- at which Timimi was reported to have told that "the time had come for them to go abroad and join the mujaheddin engaged in violent jihad in Afghanistan" -- actually left the United States for terrorist training camps. Ponder that.

It seems to me that we will be nearer to understanding terrorism if, instead of looking at what terrorists have in common, we look at what is common to their victims. The targets of terrorism are groups, nations or races. And they are distinguished by their worldly success — either material or social. The original Terror was directed against the French aristocracy — soon supplemented by all kinds of real and imaginary groups supposed to be aiding them. The Russian anarchists targeted people with wealth, office or power. The Great Terror of Stalin, initiated by Lenin, was directed against groups alleged to be profiting from the system that impoverished the rest. The Nazi terror picked on the Jews, because of their undoubted material success, and the ease with which they could be assembled as a group. Even the nationalist terrorists of the IRA and Eta variety are targeting nations thought to enjoy wealth, power and privilege, at the expense of others equally entitled. Islamic terrorists bomb the cities of Europe and America because those cities are a symbol of the material and political success of the Western nations, and a rebuke to the political chaos and deep-rooted corruption of the Muslim world.   

Success breeds resentment, and resentment breeds hate. This simple observation was made into the root of his political psychology by Nietzsche, who identified ressentiment, as he called it, as the distinguishing social emotion of modern societies: an emotion once ordered and managed by Christianity, now let loose across the world. I don’t say that Nietzsche’s analysis is correct. But surely he was right to identify this peculiar motive in human beings, right to emphasise its overwhelming importance, and right to point out that it lies deeper than the springs of rational discussion.

In dealing with terrorism you are confronting a resentment that is not concerned to improve the lot of anyone, but only to destroy the thing it hates.

To ripen a person for self-sacrifice he must be stripped of his individual identity and distinctness. He must cease to be George, Hans, Ivan, or Tadao--a human atom with an existence bounded by birth and death. The most dramatic way to achieve this end is by the complete assimilation of the individual into a collective body. The fully assimilated individual does not see himself and others as human beings. When asked who he is, his automatic response is that he is a German, a Russian a Japanese, a Christian, a Moslem, a member of a certain tribe or family. He has no purpose, worth and destiny apart from his collective body; and as long as that body lives he cannot really die.

There are myriad factors, internal and external, personal and social, that predispose people to fanaticism. These factors are not unique to Muslims. They aren't unique to the Right or the Left. And I'm not sure if there's anything the non-fanatic can do about the fanaticism of others. The hard-core fanatic will perceive reason and kindness as deceit and oppression.

 

However, IMO this doesn't absolve us of all responsibility. Critical analysis of past and present actions and policies, and willingness to acknowledge and correct mistakes, is not "blaming America." Nor is trying to understand the pain and passions that inspire terrorism in any way "making excuses" for it. 

 

And I think anyone who believes he occupies an absolute moral high ground is well on the way to becoming a fanatic himself.

 

Colbert King continues, 

This takes me back to a 2003 column in which I interviewed Jessica Stern, then a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and author of "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill."

Stern didn't think the Bush administration had a clear understanding of the religious extremists we are facing. Poverty in and of itself doesn't cause terrorism, she pointed out. To be sure, terrorist leaders recruit among the disenfranchised and target orphanages -- such as those in Pakistan -- as feeder schools for jihadist organizations.

The ranks of terrorist groups, however, also include young men and women from the middle class. The feelings they seem to share across the board, she said, had to do with humiliation, a desire for a clear identity, and a belief that they can control more through their deaths than through their lives. They have come to see murder-suicide and martyrdom as just rewards for avenging the harm done to their religion and to Muslims in other countries.

A misuse of Islam by terrorist leaders, to be sure. Murderers in the name of an extremist ideology? Yes. But -- and here's the lesson London learned that America cannot ignore -- alienation, blind hatred and fanaticism are not foreign imports. They can be homegrown. And just like firecrackers, they can explode.

And, as I said, these factors are not unique to Muslims.

|

As with yesterday's leaks, there's not really an awful lot here. In fact, the most interesting part of this isn't the content of the leak so much as its very existence. We now appear to be caught in a cycle of competing leaks from the various sides in the Plame case, with this anti-White House tidbit seemingly being leaked in response to yesterday's pro-White House leak.

So suddenly Plamegate -- which no one at the White House will talk about on the record, because it might get them indicted . . . I mean, because it might compromise Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation -- has sprung a whole shitload of leaks.

And whaddya know! They've all appeared on the same day (document dump Friday, no less), they all help shore up Karl Rove's alibi, and they all seem to have come from either Justice Department officials who've been "briefed" on case, or from attorneys who are very familiar with Karl Rove's defense.

Funny how that works.

... what has propelled the investigation -- and led to the extraordinary jailing of the Times’ Judith Miller -- has been the strong belief by federal investigators that Rove, Novak, and others may have misled them and the public, and that one or more of the participants may have devised a cover story with others to avoid public or legal culpability.

I wonder what it would take (if true) for Keller and the gang to come to the conclusion that Miller is a player and not simply a reporter. Her behavior in Iraq should've been enough.

And if this is starting to sound like an intentionally designed game of telephone triangle between someone at State, on to Miller, on to Novak, and then on to Rove, who then told Russert and others that Plame was “fair game”, then you are right.

I don't envy Patrick Fitzgerald.

Some of our best columnists weigh in on Traitorgate today. Paul Krugman writes,

What Mr. Rove understood, long before the rest of us, is that we're not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts. Instead, we're living in a country in which there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth. In particular, there are now few, if any, limits to what conservative politicians can get away with: the faithful will follow the twists and turns of the party line with a loyalty that would have pleased the Comintern.  

And once these GOP operatives ripped the guts out of political discourse, they lament the "breakdown" in civility when we try to take our nation back from over the brink.

The issue now is whether the Karl Rove leak affair marks a tipping point in the way President Bush's administration is viewed by the public, treated by the press and regarded by Republicans in Congress.

The furious counterattacks on Rove's behalf over the past few days suggest that Bush's supporters are worried that unless this wound is cleansed quickly, the president could confront an increasingly skeptical electorate and emboldened media. Both could take a toll on the president's support within his own party.

Juan Cole:

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog brings up the awful possibility, based on an ABC report, that the Public Relations-hungry Bush administration may have interfered with a British and Pakistani investigation of an al-Qaeda plot to bomb London that ties into July 7.

Based on an ABC News report tonight, there is evidence that the Bush Administration's political use of the Terror Threat Advisory System, may have resulted in preventing British authorities from identifying and rounding up many of the individuals responsible for last week's bombings in London.

THE DEADLY MIX OF POLITICS AND NATIONAL SECURITY MAY EXPLODE IN THE GEORGE BUSH’S FACE  If you thought your stomach was sick over Valerie Plame and Karl Rove, your heart will be twisted with the tale coming out about Naeem Noor Khan.  You will remember his name as the explosion over the beginning of the Democratic National Convention last year.  You may remember the heightened security. Now the latest news. Khan is connected to the bombings in London last year. The announcement of his arrest stunned the intelligence here and across the Atlantic. It may have had deadly results in London last week.

Lean Left:

Bush’s re-election campaign is apparently the reason the cell had to be rolled up before the Birts were entirely ready: ...  The Bush Administration leaked information about an ongoing investigation, blew the cover of a double-agent, and caused the British to have to attempt to destroy the cell before they where prepared. As a result, some in the cell got away, and it appears that some of the London bombers where either connected to the original cell or members of that cell. ...  The Bush people apparently wanted to take the spot light away from the Democratic Convention, and so they announced information that they should have announced. And that may very well have lead directly to the bombers in London getting out of a British snare.

We'll never know if the 7/7 bombings might have been avoided had the Bushies not botched the sting operation. And we'll never know if 9/11 might have been prevented had the Bushies not had their heads shoved up their butts in the summer of 2001. But we do know that the Bushies are putting politics above national security. That much is plain.

 

More links:

 

Fistful of Euros:

There are a lot of twists and turns in the story, but it does appear that excessive eagerness to catch the headlines around the time of the Democratic Convention may have inadvertently set off a chain reaction that finally exploded itself in London last Thursday. The suggestion is that when Noor Khan’s name broke in the press, the British police were forced to acted in haste, and that Muhammad Sadique Khan, one of the July 7 bombers, was apparently connected - by a telephone link - to one of the people under surveillance.

Talk Nation: 

The London bombers, per ABC News, are connected to an Al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in Lahore, Pakistan. Pakistani authorities recovered the laptop of a captured Al Qaeda leader, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, on July 13, 2004. On that laptop, they found plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway. According to an expert interviewed by ABC, “there is absolutely no doubt that Khan was part of a worldwide Al Qaeda operation, not just in the United States but also in Great Britain and throughout the west.”

The names in the computer matched a suspected cell of Pakistani Britons, many of whom lived near the town of Luton, England. According to ABC, authorities thought they had stopped the subway plot with the arrest of more than a dozen people last year. Obviously, they did not.

Because BushCo let the cat out of the bag, the media got a hold of Khan’s name, his Al Qaeda contacts found out he was co-opted, and they fled. The Brits had to have a high speed chase to catch some of them as they fled, and, according to press reports, the Brits and Pakistanis both feared that some slipped away.

Those who escaped may have been some of the guys involved with the plot to blow up the London subway last week. Some may have escaped because of Bush administration negligence in keeping such operations highly secret.

Establishment media haven't made this connection yet. Rightie bloggers haven't made this connection yet, either, with the exception of John Cole, who acknowledges it doesn't look good for the Bush Administration. The rest of the Right Blogosphere is dutifully reporting straight news off the wires about those awful British bombers.

 

On the other hand, a dim little light may have dawned in Captain Ed's head:

 The Khan capture didn't just involve plans for an attack on British transportation systems. Khan also had detailed information on American financial institutions, which led to a security alert at the time in Washington DC and New York. AQ waited until the heat died down from Khan's arrest and then executed the British attack anyway. What would keep them from trying the same strategy here in the US?

Thank you, genius, for finally acknowledging what we lefties have been saying for a couple of years--the "flypaper" theory is bunk.

 

If you run into news stories or blog posts with more relevant details, please feel free to add them to the comments. I'll be updating this post throughout the day as new comments come up.

 

|

Officials tell ABC News the London bombers have been connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

The laptop computer of Naeem Noor Khan, a captured al Qaeda leader, contained plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system, as well as on financial buildings in both New York and Washington.

"There's absolutely no doubt he was part of an al Qaeda operation aimed at not only the United States but Great Britain," explained Alexis Debat, a former official in the French Defense Ministry who is now a senior terrorism consultant for ABC News.

Does the name Naeem Noor Khan sound familiar? From the Maha archives, August 9, 2004:

Pakistan, Britain are furious that US officials confirmed name to newspaper.

 

by Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

Reuters reported on Saturday that Pakistani intelligence officers said US officials blew the cover on an Al Qaeda mole last week, when the mole's identity was confirmed to The New York Times. The Times originally identified the source of their information as "senior American officials." The mole, computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, was arrested secretly in mid-July in Pakistan. He had agreed to help authorities track down Al Qaeda militants in Britain and the United States.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The effort by U.S. officials to justify raising the terror alert level last week may have shut down an important source of information that has already led to a series of al Qaeda arrests, Pakistani intelligence sources have said.

Until U.S. officials leaked the arrest of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan to reporters, Pakistan had been using him in a sting operation to track down al Qaeda operatives around the world, the sources said.

Here's another one, from the New Zealand Herald, August 9, 2004:

Outing of spy stuns security experts

By PETER GRAFFLONDON - The revelation that a mole within al Qaeda was exposed after Washington launched its "orange alert" this month has shocked security experts, who say the outing of the source may have set back the war on terror.

Reuters learned from Pakistani intelligence sources at the weekend that computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, arrested secretly last month, was working under cover to help the authorities track down al Qaeda militants in Britain and the United States when his name appeared in newspapers around the world.

And why was the Security Alert raised to orange? To draw attention away from the nomination of John Kerry, that's why.

The Bushies blew what had been a promising promising sting in order to justify raising the terror alert on August 1, 2004. Kerry had accepted the nomination on July 29.

You'll remember this terror alert, too. Tom Ridge announced we had "unusually specific" threats against the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup in Manhattan, Prudential's headquarters in Newark and the headquarters buildings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington. This information had been obtained from Mr. Khan's computer.

A couple of days later, the Bush Administration admitted that the information predated 9/11; it was collected in 2000 and 2001.

Joe Conason wrote last August,

On Aug. 1, as every alert citizen knows, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge held an unusual Sunday press conference to announce that the Bush administration had raised its color-coded threat level from yellow to orange in certain selected places - in New York and New Jersey's financial centers and the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C. In his opening remarks, Mr. Ridge told America that the decision was provoked by "new and unusually specific information."

The stolid bureaucrat went on with boilerplate rhetoric about the administration's brilliant performance in securing the homeland. Somewhat gratuitously, he urged us all to"understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the President's leadership in the war against terror."

Mr. Ridge did not, however, explain what he meant in describing this scary information as "new." His response to reporters who asked for more specifics was opaque and nearly incoherent. Within 48 hours, we learned why he wouldn't give a straight answer.

...Two days after the Ridge press conference, the truth about the "new" threat leaked out. On the front pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post, various unnamed officials revealed that the data cited by Mr. Ridge was actually "three or four years old." According to the newspapers, there is no fresh evidence of a planned assault by Al Qaeda on East Coast financial institutions. 

You will not be surprised to learn that the first Dem to express doubts about the scam was Howard Dean. For this, he was crucified by the "msm," disowned by John Kerry, and Joe Lieberman questioned if Dean was in his right mind. Sigh.

This is why we love you, Howard.

John at AMERICAblog has a lot more detail.

|

By defending the Wilsons, Left Blogostan simply helps Right Blogostan keep the focus on them, instead of Rove and his White House dirty tricks operation. It boggles the mind that more than a year after Fitzpatrick subpoened the records of the "White House Iraq Group," and nearly a week after the Newsweek story highlighted the obvious connection between Plame's outing and the administration's WMD disinformation campaign, virtually nothing about this shadowy committee has appeared in the mainstream press. If Left Blogostan can do anything useful here, it will be to urge (we're not strong enough to intimidate) the corporate media to keep the focus on Rove, and to point the direction we think they should be going to develop the larger story.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. 

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s eleven or so years ago that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. However, in 1998 the IAEA reported that Saddam's nuclear program wasn't going anywhere, and this month IAEA inspectors in Iraq reported that they weren't finding any evidence of an ongoing nuclear program.