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Stephen F. Hayes has written another good article – See No Evil, Hear No Evil – for The Weekly Standard about the evidence of a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq.

AHMED HIKMAT SHAKIR IS A shadowy figure who provided logistical assistance to one, maybe two, of the 9/11 hijackers. Years before, he had received a phone call from the Jersey City, New Jersey, safehouse of the plotters who would soon, in February 1993, park a truck bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center. The safehouse was the apartment of Musab Yasin, brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, who scorched his own leg while mixing the chemicals for the 1993 bomb.

When Shakir was arrested shortly after the 9/11 attacks, his “pocket litter,” in the parlance of the investigators, included contact information for Musab Yasin and another 1993 plotter, a Kuwaiti native named Ibrahim Suleiman.

These facts alone, linking the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, would seem to cry out for additional scrutiny, no?

The Yasin brothers and Shakir have more in common. They are all Iraqis. And two of them–Abdul Rahman Yasin and Shakir–went free, despite their participation in attacks on the World Trade Center, at least partly because of efforts made on their behalf by the regime of Saddam Hussein. Both men returned to Iraq–Yasin fled there in 1993 with the active assistance of the Iraqi government. For ten years in Iraq, Abdul Rahman Yasin was provided safe haven and financing by the regime, support that ended only with the coalition intervention in March 2003.

….

HERE IS WHAT WE KNOW TODAY about Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. In August 1999, Shakir, a 37-year-old Iraqi, accepted a position as a “facilitator” at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A “facilitator” works for an airline and assists VIP travelers with paperwork required for entry and other logistical issues. Shakir got the job because someone in the Iraqi embassy in Malaysia wanted him to have it. He started that fall.

Although Shakir officially worked for Malaysian Airlines, his contact in the Iraqi embassy controlled his schedule. On January 5, 2000, Shakir apparently received an assignment from his embassy contact. He was to escort a recent arrival through immigration at the airport. Khalid al Mihdhar, a well-connected al Qaeda member who would later help hijack American Airlines Flight 77, had come to Malaysia for an important al Qaeda meeting that would last at least three days. (Shakir may have also assisted Nawaf al Hazmi, another hijacker, thought to have arrived on January 4, 2000.)

Malaysian intelligence photographed Shakir greeting al Mihdhar at the airport and walking him to a waiting car. But rather than see the new arrival off, he hopped in the car with al Mihdhar and accompanied him to the meeting. Malaysian intelligence has provided its photographs to the CIA. While U.S. officials can place Shakir at the meeting with the hijackers and several high-ranking al Qaeda operatives, they do not know whether Shakir participated actively. (Also present at the meeting were Hambali, al Qaeda’s top man in South Asia, and Khallad, later identified as the mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole.)

The meeting concluded on January 8, 2000. Shakir reported to work at the airport on January 9 and January 10, and then never again. Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaz al Hazmi also disappeared briefly, then flew from Bangkok, Thailand, to Los Angeles on January 15, 2000.

Shakir, the Iraqi-born facilitator, would be arrested six days after the September 11 attacks by authorities in Doha, Qatar. According to an October 7, 2002, article by Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, “A search of Shakir’s apartment in Doha, the country’s capital, yielded a treasure trove, including telephone records linking him to suspects in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and Project Bojinka, a 1994 Manila plot to blow up civilian airliners over the Pacific Ocean.” (Isikoff, it should be noted, has been a prominent skeptic of an Iraq-al Qaeda connection.)

Piece together the involvement of Iraqis going back to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, with the alleged meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi agent (an allegation rejected by the 9/11 Commission, but still debated), and with the arrest of Iraqi agents in Germany (recall that Hamburg, Germany was the base of Atta’s al-Qaeda cell) in 2001, noted by blogger Ed Morrissey a few weeks ago here, and the presence of Iraqis at the pre-9/11 al-Qaeda meeting in Malaysia in January 2000. It starts to look like a pattern – turn over a rock near some al-Qaeda operation, and an Iraqi crawls out. But the anti-war left just keeps screaming the mantra that Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or terrorism.

It may very well be that the presence of Iraqis in all these situations is mere coincidence, and that the conventional wisdom that Iraq had nothing at all to do with 9/11 is correct. Still, when you see Iraqis in all these places, all over the world, connected to people and events related to al-Qaeda and in some cases specifically to the 9/11 highjackers, it does raise some pretty serious questions. Those who worked on the 9/11 Commission and others looking into what happened that day should be seeking the truth with open minds, not trying to fill in evidence to support a preconceived narrative. But too often they seem intent on ignoring pieces of evidence that don’t fit the story line they think they already have figured out.

More from Captain’s Quarters here.

…would be a surprising headline.

The real headline, “Rap mogul Knight shot in leg at Miami bash” is unfortunately not a surprise at all. Is there a pattern developing here?

Member of NY Philharmonic busted on gun charge…
Fan Claims Beating at Seattle Symphony Concert…

At the awards ceremony Sunday night, one rap star downplayed the shooting.

“I don’t think that what happened was any different than at any other event where you have a lot of people,” said David Banner. “It’s tragic that it happened and that the media magnified this so much.”

But of course that’s complete nonsense. When was the last time we heard about a shooting at a symphony concert, or an opera, or at the Oscars, for example? But the thug culture glorified and promoted by the “hip-hop” genre routinely results in real violence. The first step in helping to solve the problem is to, unlike Mr. Banner, admit to reality. Culture matters folks, and all cultures are not equal.

Jonah Goldberg has another observation about Mr. Banner in The Corner.

From AP:

…nine of 10 people surveyed in an AP-Ipsos poll say it’s OK for war opponents to publicly share their concerns about the conflict.

These entirely unsurprising poll results precipitated strange visions and fantasies from some on the left –

From TalkLeft:

Despite the propogandists who relentlessly proclaim that protest against the war in Iraq is unpatriotic and unsupportive of the troops, the American public overwhelmingly believes protesters have the right to protest.

From the aptly named Crooks and Liars:

…When ninety percent go one way or the other on a particular topic that’s a pretty powerful indication of the overall feelings in America. In this case the “right to dissent” wins out and over the curtailing of free speech in our society.

But who is curtailing free speech in America? Who has proclaimed that any protest against the war in Iraq is unpatriotic? This is pure fantasy. The only question is whether these liberals believe this nonsense or if they’re purposely lying. It’s quite strange for people who post public denunciations of the war on the Internet every day to complain about their speech being curtailed.

What many on the left seem to object to is any criticism or challenge of their statements. Sorry folks, you can’t have it both ways. Your critics have free speech rights too.

From Yahoo News:

Race Disparity Seen During Traffic Stops

WASHINGTON – Black, Hispanic and white motorists are equally likely to be pulled over by police, but blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to be searched, handcuffed, arrested and subjected to force or the threat of it, a Justice Department study has found.

Sounds bad, right? Like cops are just a bunch of racists, right? But let’s jump quickly to the very last paragraph of the story:

The study, first reported by The New York Times, said the interviews did not ask enough questions about circumstances “” such as whether drugs were in plain view “” or about driver conduct to “answer the question of whether the driver’s race, rather than the driver’s conduct or other specific circumstances,” led to the search.

So what we’re left with is enough data for racial demagogues like Al Sharpton or John Conyers to bash America as a racist society, but not enough data to make any real conclusions. If drivers are being treated differently by the police solely because of the color of their skin, of course that’s a problem that needs to be addressed. But this study, as noted in the news account, doesn’t give enough data to make any conclusions. For example, if the minority drivers stopped were more likely to have criminal records, or be on probation, or have warrants, then that alone would account for more arrests and searches.

Jim Lindgren at The Volokh Conspiracy has an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article about an upcoming book by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, titled “Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution.” It sounds like the book will be an attempted defense of deviating from the text of the written laws of the United States in favor of judges’ own views of “the greater good.”

But one sentence in particular jumped out at us. The WSJ quotes Breyer:

“A judge’s task, he says, is construing the Constitution in a way ‘that helps a community of individuals democratically find practical solutions to important contemporary social problems.’”

It seems that this sentence, taken on its own, would lead to jurisprudence more in line with the thinking of Justices Scalia and Thomas than activists like Breyer or Ginsburg. Consider Roe vs. Wade, or the Lawrence vs. Texas anti-sodomy law case in light of Breyer’s thought above. Or to broaden the question of judicial activism from the USSC a bit, consider the recent ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court requiring same-sex marriage. Did the majority of justices in those cases rule in a way “that helps a community of individuals democratically find practical solutions to important contemporary social problems.”?

In fact, those three rulings (and there are many other examples of course) removed decision-making about the issues in question from the democratic process. We don’t know at this point how Justice Breyer would rule on a same-sex marriage, but wouldn’t be surprised to find him sympathetic to the position of the majority of the Massachusetts court. Recall, same-sex marriage was imposed by the court, not decided democratically by the people of Massachusetts.

Justice Breyer wrote the majority opinion in Stenberg v. Carhart in 2000, which overturned Nebraska’s ban on partial birth abortion. Breyer did not argue then that the Constitution should be construed in a way “that helps a community of individuals democratically find practical solutions to important contemporary social problems.” He did not argue that Roe should be reversed to return the issue of abortion, mentioned nowhere in the Constitution, to the democratic process. The Nebraska legislature decided the question democratically, and Breyer voted to overrule them.

Given the opportunity in 2003 to “help a community of individuals” in Texas to “democratically find practical solutions to important contemporary social problems,” Breyer voted instead to remove the ability of the people of Texas to democratically decide by voting with the majority in Lawrence vs. Texas.

Hopefully the release of his book will help clarify the seeming contradictions in Justice Breyer’s thoughts.

Hugh Hewitt adds: “I remain convinced that the Constitution quite clearly did not intend our ‘active liberty’ to be defined by the ‘majority vote of nine unelected judges’ to borrow from a Scalia dissent. Dressing judicial legislation up in excellent rhetoric makes it no less judicial legislation.”

More from Professor Bainbridge.

The Scotsman reports:

CALIFORNIA is planning to offer lucrative tax breaks in an effort to keep its crown as the home of American film making and entice back film companies which have deserted Hollywood for cheaper deals in other US states and foreign countries. The state is increasingly concerned by the fact that it has become an uncompetitive location for film making.

….

Supporters argue that it is not a matter of feather-bedding Hollywood stars but more about ensuring that production staff, such as electricians, make-up artists, wardrobe assistants and set designers have the opportunity to work.

Fabian Núñez, the speaker of the state legislature and a Democrat from Los Angeles, said: “When you start losing middle-class jobs to other states, you’ve got to at some point figure out how to make an investment to keep those jobs in California. The Hollywood industry is a blue chip industry that is based in California. We want to keep it here.”

Imagine that, Hollywood liberals in favor of tax breaks for big corporations. And liberal Democrats in the California legislature claiming that those corporate tax breaks will help create jobs for middle class workers. Aren’t these some of the same folks who decried President Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich”?

Heh, this comparison from Right Wing News is funny – Maybe Krugman doesn’t subscribe to the Times. Understandable, we rarely read it ourselves.

The Washington Post mirrors a left-wing activist group talking point by portraying John Roberts’ opposition to quasi-Marxist “comparable worth” policies as opposition to “women’s rights.” (We previously discussed the “comparable worth” issue here.)

According to the Post headline “Roberts Resisted Women’s Rights”

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. consistently opposed legal and legislative attempts to strengthen women’s rights during his years as a legal adviser in the Reagan White House, disparaging what he called “the purported gender gap” and, at one point, questioning “whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good.”

This is not, repeat not, on the editorial page. This sort of dishonest hit piece shouldn’t be on any page of a respectable newspaper. It reeks like some nutty Daily Kos post.

Incidentally, that line about lawyers is a self-deprecating joke about lawyers. If anything, it’s anti-lawyer, not anti-woman.

More from Captain’s Quarters and PointofLaw.

Also linked on the Indepundit.

From Yahoo News:

Sen. Patrick Leahy says Supreme Court nominee John Roberts holds “radical” views and has been an “eager, aggressive advocate” for policies of the far right.

While stopping short of announcing his opposition to the appointment, the Vermont Democrat’s written statement Tuesday was by far the most critical he has made since President Bush nominated Roberts.

Firing his broadside one day after the release of 5,000 pages of Reagan-era records, Leahy said Roberts’ views were “among the most radical being offered by a cadre intent on reversing decades of policies on civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, privacy and access to justice.”

If Leahy had said, “John Roberts is a poo-poo head, a weenie, and a jerk-face” the maturity and substance of his remarks would have been the same. The word “radical” does not mean “disagreement with Democratic Party policy positions.” But too many on the left seem to believe all they need to do is string together a few epithets and that will end the argument.

There’s nothing “radical” or “far right” about the position that Roe vs. Wade was wrongly decided, or that abortion is a “tragedy.” There’s nothing “radical” or “far right” about the position that affirmative action based on race is impermissible on equal protection grounds. There’s nothing “radical” or “far right” about opposition to government mandated “comparable worth” policies. If Senator Leahy wants to vote against the confirmation of Roberts based on ideology, that is his right, but he ought to stop the name-calling.

More from Confirm Them and Patterico.

Yahoo News reports “Roberts scoffed at equal-pay theory“:

As an assistant White House counsel in 1984, John Roberts scoffed at the notion that men and women should earn equal pay in jobs of comparable importance, and he belittled three female Republican members of Congress who promoted that idea to the Reagan administration.

But this is not an honest portrayal of the opposition to a proposed “comparable worth” policy. The real issue is who decides what an individual should be paid by their employer — their employer, or some federal bureaucrat in Washington. In a free society, the federal government doesn’t tell private employers what to pay their employees.

Of course the comparison of the national average earnings for women and men is essentially meaningless. If an apples-to-apples comparison is done, comparing men and women in the same field, with the same education background, the same number of uninterrupted years on the job, etc., then the average earnings for men and women are substantially the same. Women choose lower paying fields (social worker rather than engineer, for example) more often than men do. That affects the average. Women choose to take time off to raise children more often than men do. That affects the average too. The fact some fields earn more than others is not evidence of gender-based discrimination.

The lefties are in a tizzy about the bombshell that Roberts doesn’t support outright socialism in America:

Kevin Drum at The Washington Monthly writes: “Occam’s razor suggests that the White House must consider the stuff they’re holding back to be more embarrassing than a memo criticizing comparable worth as “radical.” That’s a scary thought.”

It’s scary that Roberts supports the free market in America? Really? Come on. It is a radical idea that federal bureaucrats should set wage rates. This isn’t France or the Soviet Union.

Kos at The Daily Kos headlines one post “Roberts’ support of gender bias” and in a subsequent post opines, “It is simply unacceptable for a Supreme Court possibility to ridicule the notion of gender equity in the workplace as a “radical redistributive concept”. There’s clearly nothing radical with equal pay for equal work…”

But of course this is blatant dishonesty (par for the course, we know). Roberts didn’t object to “gender equity in the workplace.” The objection, again, is to federal bureaucrats setting wage rates for private employers. This isn’t Cuba or communist China.

Judd at the Think Progress blog says, “…in a 1984 memo, Roberts argued wasn’t anything wrong with the fact that women earned 60 percent of what men did for the same work.”

Again, this is spreading the same disingenuous line. This is America, not Sweden. We believe in freedom here. (Well, some of us still do.) It is not the job of the government to compare different jobs and decide which ones are of “comparable worth” and then dictate that those jobs should pay the same.

Opposition to federal intervention in the labor market does not equate to support for purposeful wage discrimination based on gender. If these liberals want to espouse Marxist economic policies for America, they ought to at least do so honestly. Trying to smear Robersts as some kind of misogynist is simply not honest.

More from Professor Bainbridge and Confirm Them.

A couple of useful correctives to the Sheehan reporting today —

From Newsweek, we learn that President Bush may not be a cruel, heartless, unfeeling robot after all:

In emotional private meetings with the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush offers solace””and seeks some of his own.

President Bush was wearing “a huge smile,” but his eyes were red and he looked drained by the time he got to the last widow, Crystal Owen, a third-grade schoolteacher who had lost her husband in Iraq. “Tell me about Mike,” he said immediately. “I don’t want my husband’s death to be in vain,” she told him. The president apologized repeatedly for her husband’s death. When Owen began to cry, Bush grabbed her hands. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” he said, though his choking voice suggested that he had worries of his own. The president and the widow hugged. “It felt like he could have been my dad,” Owen recalled to NEWSWEEK. “It was like we were old friends. It almost makes me sad. In a way, I wish he weren’t the president, just so I could talk to him all the time.”

….

Privately, Bush has met with about 900 family members of some 270 soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The conversations are closed to the press, and Bush does not like to talk about what goes on in these grieving sessions, though there have been hints. An hour after he met with the families at Fort Bragg in June, he gave a hard-line speech on national TV. When he mentioned the sacrifice of military families, his lips visibly quivered.

….

Family members interviewed by NEWSWEEK say they have been taken aback by the president’s emotionalism and his sincerity.

….

Before Bush left the meeting, he paused in the middle of the room and said to the families, “I will never feel the same level of pain and loss you do. I didn’t lose anyone close to me, a member of my family or someone that I love. But I want you to know that I didn’t go into this lightly. This was a decision that I struggle with every day.”

As he spoke, Ascione could see the grief rising through the president’s body. His shoulder slumped and his face turned ashen. He began to cry and his voice choked. He paused, tried to regain his composure and looked around the room. “I am sorry, I’m so sorry,” he said.

A quick trip around the left-wing blogosphere shows a strange silence about the Newsweek account. They can’t let up on the “Bush is an evil, unfeeling #$&*!” meme for even a second apparently.

And from blogger Chrenkoff, a few quotes from a some family members of fallen soldiers who feel different than Cindy Sheehan. He concludes:

Kos and the rest of the left think that exploiting Cindy Sheehan’s exploitation of her loss is the best new secret weapon in the war against George Bush. But both sides can play the “grieving parents” game -– except that it’s not a game, and it shouldn’t be played. The right has not used people like Lynn Kelly, Linda Ryan, or hundreds of others, to make their case in our current war. It would be decent if the left stopped using Cindy Sheehan to make theirs.

To a reasonable person, the president comes across as a thoroughly decent man, a person of strong moral convictions, who cares deeply about the soldiers under his command, and about doing the best for his country. One may disagree strongly with every single one of his policy decisions without acting as if he isn’t even a human being. This is in starkest contrast to the utter viciousness and bile emanating from the left against him 24/7/365, a constant effort to strip him of all humanity. Forgetting party and ideology, just as an American, the utter disregard for any sense of decency from many on the left is really just saddening. Contrast the Newsweek article and the comments Chrenkoff posted with Cindy Sheehan calling the president a “lying bastard” and a “maniac.”

Some fine commentary on the Newsweek article from The Anchoress. More from Michelle Malkin.

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