Saturday Morning News & Notes

Army-Navy today. Go Navy, beat Army!

Anyway, here's what's news:

The steel from two cranes that bore witness to the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville are being used in the hull the USS Somerset; a new Navy San Antonio Class LPD. LPD's are the back bone of the "Gator Navy".
-The Worst Media Quotes of the Year. My personal fave:

We don't know how much Kennedy was affected by [Mary Jo Kopechne's] death, or what she'd have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history.… [One wonders what] Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted's death, and what she'd have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded. Who knows -- maybe she'd feel it was worth it.

And if Kenedy had manned up, tried to save her, not taken a nap while she ran out of air and, you know, didn't allow her to die, we'd be able to ask her about it.

-Stimulus! Gitmo detainees to be held in Illinois. Nice scoop by Breitbart who is quickly becoming the go-to guy for conservative publishing.

-Noted Liberal intellectual drivels on. She's about as bright as anyone else in the lefty establishment. Did she grab her crotch and spit when she said it or make fun of Jews in ovens?


-Sarah Palin gets her revenge on William Shatner.

Obama Turning America Into an Endangered Nation of Pussies

This will not turn out to be in our best interests (via JWF):

THE Pentagon now confirms that at least 74 former Guantanamo detainees have resumed terrorist activities after claiming they weren't terrorists.

Such recidivism points up an alarming intelligence failure.

These dangerous prisoners should never have been cleared for release. Why did interrogators fail to find the cracks in their stories and alibis?

Why indeed. It couldn't be because Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Dems have threatened to bring charges against those who use enhanced interrogation techniques, could it? Why yes, yes it could.

In a word, politics. Gitmo interrogations have been emasculated to placate critics of waterboarding and other "torture," say two senior officials there.

Even known terrorists are spared high-pressure techniques -- tactics that have worked before in squeezing out information.

For that matter, Gitmo doesn't even do "interrogations" anymore. They're now called interviews, and they're voluntary.

You read that correctly, they are "voluntary". I could see it now: "Er, excuse me Mr. Shaikh Mohammed, would you mind if I politely discussed the plot to bomb buildings in California with you? Uh, my mother is a whore and my father licks goat balls, OK sir, I'll take that as a no. Very sorry to bother you sir."

It gets oh so worse:

"We have on numerous occasions gotten literally straight-from-the-schoolhouse interrogators who are being stuck in with these hardened jihadists," a top security official at Gitmo told me. "And they essentially look at them and laugh."

..."They get played by detainees, who end up getting released because the interrogators believe them when they say they don't know anything and just want to go home and be a goat herder," he says.

Yeah, we know what they do with the goats and it ain't herding but I digress.

Anyway, it seems that Gitmo in the age of The One is truly Club Gitmo and it seems to be having a real effect on the jihadi's. Said one former detainee about the documents they signed saying they wouldn't go back to the terror business:

Another Gitmo recidivist, Slimane Hadj Abderahmane, laughed at the anti-violence agreement he signed. Once free, he re-engaged in terror and said, "This document is toilet paper for the Americans if they want it."

So much for the jihadi's buying into the hope and change thing, huh Barack?

Sunday Morning News and Notes

In beautiful Hershey, PA for a baseball tourney.

Here's what's news:

-Gitmo detainees to get computer training including how to use the Internet. What could go wrong?

-Becoming fat, dumb and happy at taxpayers expense. It's a good gig if you can get it.

-While the average American is cutting unnecessary expenses, the Obama's take an unnecessary vacation. The man has a tin ear when it comes to listening to the common man. The GOP will rightly bash the hell out of them for it.

-P.J. O'Rourke on why Americans fell out of love with the American car.

-A charter school in Southern California recruits prospective teachers using words such as this:

"We are looking for hard working people who believe in free market capitalism. . . . Multicultural specialists, ultra liberal zealots and college-tainted oppression liberators need not apply."

The school is scoring unbelievably high on tests and sending poor kids to college. In other words they are hugely successful. The Obama administration and NEA will therefore try to shut them down.

-The country where the Kyoto Protocols were launched is realizing what a scam it actually was.

Obama: You Know Those Bush Military Tribunals Weren't Such a Bad Idea

And another promise goes down the memory hole:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he is restarting military tribunals for a small number of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo though with several new legal protections for defendants.

Obama said in a statement Friday that his approach is “the best way to protect our country, while upholding our deeply held values.”

The decision puts Obama in the position of reviving a Bush-era trial system he once assailed as deeply flawed — and opposed as a senator.

Political expediency at its absolute finest. If anything defines the first four months of the Obama administration, it would have to be the near-daily 180-degree turns. On the stump, the dude was good and sucked in a whole lot of people who should have known better. Now they're ruing their vote in myriad ways.

Savor the schadenfreude my friends; those who were his biggest supporters are being cast aside and their opinions deemed worthless. They are lashing out of course but anyone who didn't get caught up in the hope and change hype saw this coming months ago. Obama is not ready and about faces like this show just how unready he really is.

More thoughts here.

The Continuing Vindication of George W. Bush

President Bush has said on more than one occasion that his legacy can't be judged now and I agree, the battles are still too clear in our memory and the animosity still too fresh to make any type of assessment. I believe he was right in the respect of his handling of the war against international terrorism. It will be noted as a turning point and a model way of dealing with terrorists that don't represent a nation-state when viewed from a different paradigm a decade out.

Here's further proof of what I'm talking about as Obama is rekindling a program he screeched against while campaigning:

The Obama administration is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, which was a target of critics during the Bush administration, including Mr. Obama himself.

Officials said the first public moves could come as soon as next week, perhaps in filings to military judges at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, outlining an administration plan to amend the Bush administration’s system to provide more legal protections for terrorism suspects.

The Times had to give him some cover with that last because we all know that Bush curtailed rights for those who don't have any but now that Obama is doing the same thing it's going to be done in a more legal way. Got it?

It was a good try and the Times is doing their collective best but there's no way to spin the fact that there's zero difference between his policy the Bush policy:

Continuing the military commissions in any form would probably prompt sharp criticism from human rights groups as well as some of Mr. Obama’s political allies because the troubled system became an emblem of the effort to use Guantánamo to avoid the American legal system.

But they'll mute their criticism because, well, Obama is not Bush and he must have a good reason to be pursuing this option. He is taking a nuanced approach unlike that cowboy Bush who was ham-handed at every turn. The circumstance may be the exact same but Obama will do it in a more humane and legal way even though the differences is indistinguishable.

But of course, this sums it up more than anything:

“The more they look at it,” said one official, “the more commissions don’t look as bad as they did on Jan. 20.”

Exactly.

The Bush legacy 1: the Bush haters 0.

Cheney - 1, Obama - 0

The CIA has confirmed that enhanced interrogation techniques--specifically water boarding--led directly to thwarting a plot to slam a plane into a building in LA:

The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) -- including the use of waterboarding -- caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.

Before he was water boarded, when KSM was asked about planned attacks on the United States, he ominously told his CIA interrogators, “Soon, you will know.”

According to the previously classified May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that was released by President Barack Obama last week, the thwarted attack -- which KSM called the “Second Wave”-- planned “ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.”

before the interrogations KSM was mute or cocky, afterward we had the intel that saved perhaps thousands of lives. It wasn't torture but was successful. I think that the majority of Americans can agree with that especially since many fly and many still remember 9/11 like it was yesterday. The can't even begin to imagine the fear that the people trapped on those planes that hit the WTC, Pentagon and the field in PA were experiencing and to make KSM uncomfortable five times as KSM himself said not the absurd 183)to get the info was the cost, I'm sure many would agree it was worth it.

This is a battle Obama doesn't want as Cheney will eviscerate him. When the docs are released that Cheney asked for, Obama will look pretty damn lame and even more amateurish than usual. This has the fingerprints of Rahm Emanuel all over it and he's definitely doing his boss a grave disservice by pushing this line and forcing the release of only the portion of the docs that made the Bush administration look bad.

This make Obama look bad in fact:

Before they were subjected to “enhanced techniques” of interrogation that included waterboarding, KSM and Zubaydah were not only uncooperative but also appeared contemptuous of the will of the American people to defend themselves.

“In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including KSM and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques,” says the Justice Department memo. “Both KSM and Zubaydah had ‘expressed their belief that the general US population was ‘weak,’ lacked resilience, and would be unable to ‘do what was necessary’ to prevent the terrorists from succeeding in their goals.’ Indeed, before the CIA used enhanced techniques in its interrogation of KSM, KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, ‘Soon you will know.’”

More here and here.

On a similar note, Obama is looking like he will allow the prosecution of those who green lighted the water boarding at Gitmo in what will surely be a stunning blow to our intelligence services. The next guy we get with intel that is critical will not be subjected to the enhanced interrogation and Americans will die because we didn't get the info that would have saved them.

Obama has to stop acting on emotion and start acting like a man who has Americas best interests at heart. I'm not holding my breath.

Obama Releases Torture Docs

The day started as one of hope for the anti-Bush, Anti-war lefties who consider us as torturers on a par with Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Sudan:

UPDATE: Here’s a link to the memos (the Times also has them) with three cheers for the FOIA petition from the ACLU. …and on quick inspection of the documents, the redaction rumors are correct, with Obama deserving a lot of credit for allowing the bulk of the information into the light. I said earlier that the burden of proof was on Obama if he decided not to release the OLC memos. Now that he has, with few redactions, credit goes to President Obama. This is definitely change we can believe in.

Congress, you’re up.

However, they quickly became disillusioned when The One said he wouldn't prosecute those who performed the "torture":

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.

Alas for our left-wing friends, they will not see the objects of their scorn strung up because Obama--at least in prosecuting the War on Terror--knows full-well that he may be required to take steps that would have him answering to Congress in 2013 about the tactics he approved. He's now understanding that Bush took actions he deemed appropriate with arch terrorist Zubaydah who probably disclosed important info that we'll never hear about--info that may have saved lives. It seems Obama is realizing that repelling America's enemies and gaining intel is not like reading from a teleprompter in front of 10,000 Obamatons in Sioux City Sioux Falls.

And what of the allegations the alleged torture has been worse and more frequent since Obama took office? Water boarding versus hands-on physical abuse is more disconcerting, don't you think? Of course the source is al-Jazeerah but liberals always took their word when they complained while Bush was in office so I guess they are a legitimate source in their eyes.

Besides, he has been pretty zealous in going beyond the laws on wiretapping so why should BHO supporters be surprised?

Update: B & R had the same thoughts as I did before I did.

Sunday Morning News and Notes

Good morning and a fine early spring one it is here in South Jersey.

Here's some must-reads from around the Internet:

-Pursuing charges against the Bush administration can have serious repercussions.

-Great. Iran fires a new long-range missile. It's from their state TV so take it with a bucket of salt.

-The Most Articluate President Ever can't get away from his tele-prompter crutch.

-Hugo Chavez welcomes Comrade Obama to the light of socialism.

-You know those released Gitmo terrorists? We'll probably be seeing them again thatnks to a French court.

-Treacher dropping Google bombs.

Obama Perpetuates Torture of Terrorists

Oh how sweet it is. Obama is now finding out just what a difficult job it is to deal with those who with America harm. Or as Bush famously noted: "It's hard work".

The libs screamed about the alleged abuses perpetrated by the evil Bush regime and turned all their hopes to BHO because he took a "courageous" stand against torturous tactics like waterboarding and playing the Barney song too loud.

Guess what libs, your man, Mr. Hope and Change (TM) is selling you out:

The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism -- aside from Predator missile strikes -- for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

But, but, but, President Bush used rendition and the left screamed like little girls. Now...I'm deafened by their silence.

Rendition is actually the worse method for dealing with terrorists short of assassination. We effectively give them to their home countries where they are tortured in much more barbaric ways then temperature changes and blaring Christina Aguilera music. The Obama EO effectively ensures that more torture, not less, will occur. Either that or they are released and continue jihad as happens so often in Yemen.

So how is it going to be liberals? Obama, by shutting down Gitmo is setting in motion a scenario whereby we'll see either more torture of suspected terrorists or less security for the US. You can't have it both ways; you either disagree with the president and say so--the intellectually honest choice. Or you remain silent while the president you elected continues to sanction torture world-wide. My guess is you'll select the latter over the former.

It's quite a conundrum, huh? I mean, here's the man who just by taking the oath was going to make the world all happy and sunny again and he seems to be overwhelmed in his first month. He's had to be pragmatic and realistic about the threats we face and in doing so has ditched everything you elected him for. In other words, he's shown that he's more like Bush in dealing with national defense the Jimmy Carter retread you hoped for. Hope y'all enjoy it.

I think I may finally go see the movie Rendition now that it's not only an anti-Bush flick but anti-Obama as well.

Please read Moe Lane at Redstate and at his own site, his take is excellent. Moe won't link to the libs who were most outspoken about renditions but I will:

Andrew Sullivan railed against the practice here. Notably, he wrote the following two weeks ago:

The rationale is not torturing for “intelligence” but protecting the public while evidence is searched for and doubt remains. Equally, some kind of rendition programme that follows the lines of Bill Clinton and the first President Bush — and that eschews any co-operation with regimes that torture — is a reasonable tool in the war against jihadist terror. It’s the Bush-Cheney innovation of “extraordinary renditions” and disappearances that has to end.

Emphasis mine. What nations would these men be sent to that don't use torture?

Nearly every captive at Gitmo is from the Mid-East; mainly Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria and Morocco. According to Human Rights Watch; Pakistan, Syria, Egypt and Morocco practice torture--real torture, not water boarding--while Amnesty International says that the Saudis and Yemenis use torture as well.

So tell me where you fall on this, Sully.

See also Ed Morrisey.

Military Judge Rebukes Obama on Gitmo

Obama may not want to take up this fight against the military:

A military judge in Guantanamo Bay today denied the Obama administration's request to delay proceedings for 120 days in the case of a detainee accused of planning the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole warship, an al-Qaeda strike that killed 17 service members and injured 50 others.

The decision throws into some disarray the administration's efforts to buy time to review individual detainee cases as part of its plan to close the U.S. military prison at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba. The Pentagon may now be forced to temporarily withdraw the charges against Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi citizen of Yemeni descent.

Nashiri is facing arraignment on capital charges on Feb. 9, and Judge James Pohl, an Army colonel, said the case would go ahead.

"We just learned of the ruling here . . . and we are consulting with the Pentagon and the Department of Justice to explore our options in that case," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. Asked at a news briefing whether the decision would hamper the administration's ability to evaluate the cases of Guantanamo detainees, Gibbs replied: "No. Not at all."

Two predictions here: There's no way in hell that Obama will go against this judge because of the sensitivity of the case. Should he opt to fight it out, he'll have a mess on his hands from the survivors of the USS Cole bombing.

The second prediction is that Robert Gibbs will not last the year. The guy is unprepared and if the media attacked him with even an iota of the zeal they did Tony Snow or Dana Perino, he'd have been curled up in the fetal position last Wednesday.

Back to the military judge; the military instinctively loathes Democrats because of their inherent reluctance to make decisions without gauging public preference on an issue. They also distrust Dems because they'll make a decision after long contemplation and then go back on that decision leaving the military to take the bad PR. This is one judge saying to The One that he's not going to play Obama's game, especially since the main case involved deals with the man who helped kill American sailors.

Thank you Colonel Pohl.

Boehner: Send Gitmo Detainees to Alcatraz

The GOP is so much more entertaining as a minority party:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday shrugged off Republican suggestions that the federal government reopen Alcatraz prison in her San Francisco district to house detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President Obama this week signed an executive order calling for the closure of the prison at Guantanamo within the year. Republican Rep. Bill Young then suggested to White House counsel Greg Craig that the prisoners who could not be released back to their home countries or sent to a third country be put up in "the Rock," the famous military installation and prison that closed down in 1963 and is now part of the National Park Service.

Asked whether that was a serious proposal, Pelosi said, "It is -- no."

"Perhaps he's not visited Alcatraz," Pelosi said of Young while displaying little sense of humor. "Alcatraz is a tourist attraction. It's a prison that is now sort of like a -- it's a national park."

..."If liberals believe they ought to go, maybe we ought to open Alcatraz," Boehner, R-Ohio, told NBC "Meet the Press." Being reminded that Alcatraz is a national park, Boehner responded, "It's very secure."

Call it a stimulus plan if you will. San Francisco construction workers would be needed to refurbish the place and would welcome the work I'm sure. Does Speaker Pelosi not care about those out of work people in the Bay Area who would benefit from a re-opened Alcatraz. She must be heartless.

I hope to find video of Pelosi's face when approached with that question. Well, with all the work she's had done, you probably couldn't see the change of expression anyway.

I'm feeling this: we can "rehabilitate" guys like Ramzi Binalshibh and when they are ready to resume life on the outside, we ferry them to Frisco, give them a few bucks and wish them good luck.

We may not have the power to win votes but we sure as hell can yank their chains for a few years.

The Obama Plan on Gitmo: Blame Bush

Obama promised to close Gitmo as soon as he took office. Once he realized the extent to which the inmates were involved with terror organizations, he realized that it wouldn't be feasible--especially since many turn up back with terror group upon release.

So what to do? He couldn't sell out his base and he couldn't not take some action. So he decided to leak a story about how the files were in "disarray" and it would take some doing to pull everything together, thus buying time and breathing space. In other words; blame Bush. The WaPo dutifully took up the meme and this morning published the following:

President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is "scattered throughout the executive branch," a senior administration official said. The executive order Obama signed Thursday orders the prison closed within one year, and a Cabinet-level panel named to review each case separately will have to spend its initial weeks and perhaps months scouring the corners of the federal government in search of relevant material.

Easy enough with a compliant media; just find several "Bush administration officials" who may want to remain in Washington to agree and voila, you have an excuse for Obama not taking immediate action.

Note they included that some officials dispute that but most people read the headline and the lede and that's that.

The Blame Bush scenario will most-likely play out for at least six-months but probably more like a year or more. It's an easy way for a man who has never taken a stand to blame his predecessor who always made a decision and stuck by it. Plus, Obama knows damn well that Bush will not be like Clinton or Carter who broke the presidential tradition of not criticizing their successors or subsequent presidents.

It's a brilliant strategy even if it is underhanded, cowardly and shameless. Truman said the "buck stops here" while the new Obama credo is "blame Bush for all the bad". About what most of us on the right expected.

Jules Crittenden has more.

Released Gitmo Detainee Becomes Yemen al-Qaeda Leader

Under pressure to release Gitmo detainees, President Bush released a big one and it's come back and bite us in the ass:

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official.

Nice, it appears that Saudi rehab program worked just fine. I'd imagine it went something like this:

Saudi Rep: Ali, the rabid dogs in the US have released you to us. We will alllow you to go free so long as you perform your terror acts against them and not the kingdom. Do you agree?

Ali al-Shihri: Yes, I agree. Just attack the Great Satan and Zionist pigs but not any Saudi interests.

Saudi Rep: Good, here' $1-million to get you rehabilitated in Aden.

The NY Times is carrying Obama's water on this because they know full-well that he can't just close Gitmo and send the detainees to all corners of the Earth. It sounded like a good idea back last January in Iowa but now , this January in DC, not so much. The Times knows this and gave him an out. All liberals read the Times and all Liberals still believe what the Times says so they do a story on this guy who was released by Bush, they get to slam the former president and let the world know that Obama is trying to keep his word (through some murky plan) but it could be a problem so give The One some time. They're giving him cover.

Suppose Obama closes Gitmo and one of the detainees he releases comes back to attack America, he'll be destroyed politically and the Times knows that so they run this story and make sure everyone knows that it was a Bush release who is back on the battlefield.

More here, here, here and here where some misguided lefty thinks the Times is in cahoots with the military.

Breaking: Salim Hamdan Found Guilty at Gitmo

He was Osama bin-Laden's driver and now he's the first Gitmo detainee convicted by military tribunal:

A U.S. military jury Wednesday convicted Osama bin Laden's driver of war crimes -- making him the first war-on-terror captive convicted by contested tribunal at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The jury announced the verdict against Salim Hamdan at 10:16 a.m.

It cleared him of the more serious crime of conspiracy but convicted him of multiple counts of providing material support for terror.

Conviction can carry a maximum life imprisonment.

The six U.S. officers who convicted him next will deliberate on his sentence.

This is another successful chapter in the Global War on Terror. President Bush has always said that we would use law enforcement in conjunction with military might and he was right on target. We'll hear the screaming from Amnesty International and others like Ramsey Clark that the fix was in but it seemed to be quite open and straight forward.

Now let's convict that SOB Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and send him to meet his 40- virgins.

Inmates

The New York Times reports:

Syrian military police officers fired on Islamist inmates early on Saturday during a riot at a prison outside Damascus, the Syrian capital, leaving at least nine inmates dead, human rights officials here said.

I think it's pretty safe to say that will be the last you'll hear about this incident from the New York Times. I also don't expect any movies about the incident to be released just in time for the US Elections.

I mean, the inmates were just shot dead. It wasn't anything really bad, you know, like being forced into a human pyramid, or photographed wearing their underpants.

US Nabs bin-Laden Aide

I'm of the belief that George W. Bush has made a conscious effort to step up action in the War on Terror because he knows that if Obama were to win, the gains we made would be in serious jeopardy, as would our collective national security.

We've seen the extermination (probably) of Adam Gadahn and others in Pakistan and the coming spring offensive will be bolstered by the presence of more French troops (damn, never thought I'd write that).

Today comes word that we captured us a good one:

The Pentagon said on Friday it has taken custody from the CIA of an Afghan national who helped arrange Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora in 2001, a spokesman said Friday.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman would not say when or where Muhammad Rahim was captured or how long he was held by the CIA, but said he was transferred to US military custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba earlier this week.

"He is one of UBL's (Osama bin Laden's) most trusted facilitators and procurement specialists. He helped prepare Tora Bora as a hideout for Osama bin Laden. He assisted Al-Qaeda's exodus from the area in late 2001," Whitman said.

I sure hope they don't play Christina Aguilera too loud or keep him up past his bedtime.

Anyway, this is a good get and we seem to be picking them off at steady clip of late. Perhaps we'll get some information from him as he wiles away the days in the Caribbean paradise of Gitmo.

Exit thought: With all the UBL lieutenants we've captured, do you think that we've gotten the info that bin-Laden is dead and haven't released it? Think about it, we've been on the hunt for 6+ years and haven't had a reported sighting of him in nearly that long. Note how the Pentagon's Whitman phrased that last sentence, the terrorist detainee prepared UBL's hideout but he also helped al-Qaeda get out when it got hot. It's odd that he didn't say that he assisted in getting bin-Laden out.

I may reading too much into that but I've generally thought we took him out in 01 or early 02.

Update: It turns out that the Pakistani's may have had him for up to six months.

Report: Six Tied to 9/11 Face Execution

Including the biggest fish caught to date:

The officials said the charges would be announced at the Pentagon as soon as Monday and were likely to include numerous war-crimes charges against the six men, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the former Qaeda operations chief who has described himself as the mastermind of the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

A Defense Department official said prosecutors were seeking the death penalty because “if any case warrants it, it would be for individuals who were parties to a crime of that scale.” The officials spoke anonymously because no one in the government was authorized to speak about the case.

A decision to seek the death penalty would increase the international focus on the case and present new challenges to the troubled military commission system that has yet to begin a single trial.

The murder of three thousand and numerous others by Mohammed seems to warrant his execution. Get ready for the world outrage on this one and the hand wringing by the political left in this country.

It'll be interesting to see what Obama and Hillary think about this. Hillary's home state was attacked and believe me, even normally liberal NY'ers will want to see the perpetrators put down. She'll waver of course and set herself up for a hit from the left, yet Obama will have to play this smart and not seem too defensive of the terrorists who knocked down the twin towers.

If Bush is making this a political issue, it's a smart play.