Bombs From Yemen Equal More War in Afghanistan

Sure, why not:

"(Heritage analyst James Jay) Carafano said that Mr. Obama failed to use his remarks on Friday to justify the troop escalation in Afghanistan in an effort to keep the country from becoming a haven again for Al Qaeda. “The president missed the opportunity to say, ‘And this is why we’re in Afghanistan,’ ” Mr. Carafano said."

This pie is delicious, which is why I always eat French fries!

Perhaps I'm being somewhat uncharitable, but my point is: Tying down forces in Afghanistan isn't really preventing Al Qaeda and like-minded organizations from reconstituting elsewhere -- like, say, Yemen. The whole point of stateless terrorism is that it's stateless. The emergence of more failed attacks from Yemen argues for more flexibility in our counter-terror approach -- following the terrorists where they go instead of setting up shop in one country and declaring it an Al Qaeda-free zone. The terrorists are smarter than to play by those rules. Maybe we should also be smarter than that.

The UPS/FedEx Bombs and the American Al Qaeda

I need to be clear here: I'm not about to engage in a bit of "truther" conspiracy theorizing. But I do have a concern that the Obama Administration will seize on the Friday's interecepted cargo bombs to make the public case for the assassination of an American citizen, Anwar Al-Awlaki, without bothering with due process.

You see hints of this in the New York Times story today:

Reviewing the evidence, American intelligence officials say they believe that the plot may have been blessed by the highest levels of Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, including Mr. Awlaki.

“We know that Awlaki has taken a very specific interest in plotting against the United States, and we’ve found that he’s usually behind any attempted attack on American targets,” said one official.

Still they cautioned that it was still early to draw any firm conclusions and they did not present proof of Mr. Awlaki’s involvement.

We don't need to go through all the arguments against assassinating Awlaki here. The issue I'm raising, I guess, is more political than legal in nature. And the issue is this: I don't trust the Obama Administration -- any more than I would trust any chief executive -- not to wave the almost-bloody shirt in order to smooth over public concerns about the propriety of an assassination program aimed at an American citizen, no matter how loathesome that citizen might (allegedly) be. This case might demonstrate the need to stop Awlaki; it doesn't necessarily follow that we need to drop due process as a result.

Jonah Goldberg: That's A Nice Wikileaks You Got There. Be a Shame If Something Happened To It.

Jonah Goldberg is protesting that his instantly infamous column calling for the assassination of Wikileaks' Julian Assange doesn't actually call for that assassination. Here's how that column ended:

"Even if the CIA wanted to take him out, they couldn’t without massive controversy.

That’s because assassinating a hipster Australian Web guru as opposed to a Muslim terrorist is the kind of controversy no official dares invite.

That’s fine. And it’s the law. Ultimately, I don’t expect the U.S. government to kill Assange, but I do expect them to try to stop him. Alas, as of now, the plan seems to be to do nothing at all."

Goldberg says: "Any fair reading of my column might find it too glib, but it wouldn’t support the conclusion that I call for the guy’s assassination or his murder — because I don’t. Indeed, there’s nothing in the quote ... to justify the claim I call for his murder."

Maybe. But it seems like any "fair reading" of the column would find that instead of calling for assassination, it laments that Assange can't be killed because of all the complications it would raise. Goldberg might not explicitly call for the assassination, but he's not discouraging the idea either. If we take him at his word, he's merely pussyfooting around the idea without coming clean, pro- or con. Either Goldberg's guilty of morally reprehensible policy ideas, or he's guilty of muddy and unclear writing that advances no idea with any effectiveness. There's no reason both can't be true, but I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect the former.

The Death of a High School Football Player

My old stomping grounds of Northeast Kansas have been a brutal place to play high school football this fall. Last a night Spring Hill High School football player died:

"A woman who says her son plays on the Osawatamie team told KSHB that she saw Nathan Stiles intercept an Osawatamie pass and get hit on the play. Her husband, who was standing on the sidelines, says he saw Nathan walk to the sidelines and collapse."

Earlier in the season, a McLouth High School player lost part of his leg after suffering a compound fracture during a game.

I don't know. Maybe teen boys are so full of testosterone that they'll beat the crap out of each other no matter what. But, as I've noted before: Football is a game of violence. It's disturbing to see it kill and maim our young men. Is there any kind of moral upside to the game?

Barack Obama's 'Dude' Moment

Jonathan Chait:

"On the contrary, I think the office of the president has too much dignity. The president is a citizen who serves the public. It is in the interest of the president to make himself into something exalted, a national father figure and symbol of the government. But the public has no interest in this function, which, indeed, can take on monarchical trappings with an insidious anti-democratic undertone. (It's a little disturbing when people who see the president salute -- a military signal that suggests subordination.)

Obviously, I don't want to see presidents cutting their own rap videos or jumping into the ring with professional wrestlers. But at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, out problem is not too little presidential dignity but too much."

On the other hand, the president isn't a 20-year-old frat boy. But if there's a problem here, it's Jon Stewart's, not Obama's.

Maurice Murphy, 'Star Wars' Trumpeter, RIP

The Guardian:

"Maurice Murphy, who died yesterday, is an essential part of the soundtrack to your musical life – even if you don't realise it. Maurice was principal trumpeter of the London Symphony Orchestra for 30 years, from 1977-2007, and you have sung along to his unmistakable, brilliant sound even if you have never knowingly been to the Barbican to hear the LSO in the flesh. It's his trumpet playing you hear blazing over the soundtracks to all six Star Wars films, and it was his playing for John Williams on the first film – his first gig with the orchestra – that made Williams stick with the LSO for his future movies. But Murphy's playing was always cosmic in its splendour, as anyone will know who heard him with the brass section of the LSO in the countless concerts and recordings they made together."

The Big Business of Illegal Immigration

Slate:

"Over the past several months, NPR scoured campaign finance reports, corporate records and lobbying documents to gauge how deeply the private prison industry was involved in passing Arizona's immigration bill. NPR determined that the industry has been staging 'a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070' under the belief that 'immigrant detention is their next big market.'"

Disgusting. But brilliant journalism by NPR, and a reminder to the rest of us: There are very few laws that get passed simply because of a populist uprising. Somebody, somewhere, almost always stands to make a few bucks. The public and media would do well to always ask that question.