[Guest post by DRJ]

The Indian doctors at the Mumbai hospital where the dead Jewish hostages were taken say the hostages were tortured:

“The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.”

The dead terrorists at the Jewish Center were also mutilated:

“The doctors who conducted the post mortem said the bodies of the terrorists were beyond recognition. “Their faces were beyond recognition.”

There was no way of identifying them,” he said. Asked how, if this is the case, they knew the bodies were indeed those of the terrorists, he said: “The security forces that brought the bodies told us that those were the bodies of the terrorists,” he said, adding there was no other way they could have identified the bodies.

An intelligence agency source added: “One of the terrorists was shot through either eye.”

A senior National Security Guard officer, who had earlier explained the operation in detail to rediff.com, said the commandos went all out after they ascertained that there were no more hostages left. When asked if the commandos attempted to capture them alive at that stage, he replied: “Unko bachana kaun chahega (Who will want to save them)?”

One of the reasons terrorism is so dangerous to society is that it targets innocents in ways that are both cruel and public. This not only enrages us but also makes us feel powerless, feelings that are more likely to lead to revenge against the terrorists and those who help them. And who, indeed, will want to save them?

– DRJ

They did everything they could. Except put extra security at the back door:

The Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, India, temporarily increased security after being warned of a possible terrorist attack, the chairman of the company that owns the hotel said Saturday.

But Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata said those measures, which were eased shortly before this week’s terror attacks, could not have prevented gunmen from entering the hotel.

. . . .

However, Tata said the attackers did not enter through the entrance that has a metal detector. Instead, they came in a back entrance, he said.

“They knew what they were doing, and they did not go through the front. All of our arrangements are in the front,” he said.

Who would ever think terrorists would come in the back door?!?!

P.S. Mickey’s friend says the back door was locked. Well, there you have it, then. They must have teleported in.

[Guest post by DRJ]

The Indian government claims that up to 7 of the Mumbai terrorists were British-born Pakistanis from the same area as the 7/7 attackers:

“British-born Pakistanis were among the Mumbai terrorists, Indian government sources claimed today, as the death toll rose to at least 155.

As many as seven of the terrorists may have British connections and some could be from Leeds and Bradford where London’s July 7 bombers lived, one source said.

Two Britons were among eight gunmen being held, according to Mumbai’s chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. At least nine others are reportedly dead.”

British PM Gordon Brown urged caution while the reports are investigated.

Meanwhile, there are continued reports of explosions in Mumbai and of a resumption of gunfire at the Taj Mahal Hotel where “officers were still locked in combat with up to six militants believed to be holed up in the ballroom.” (Other reports say there may be a lone gunman.) There are also stories of heroism by the hotel staff who put their own lives at risk to save innocent guests.

Sadly, there was tragic news from a Mumbai Jewish Center where 5 Jewish hostages were killed including Brooklyn NY Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah. Their 2-year-old son Moshe survived.

It’s too early to know with certainty but it appears terrorists came ashore from boats and moved to pre-designated targets where they used small arms and explosives to terrorize the city. It reminds me of a terrorist version of the Luby’s shooting in Killeen, Texas. If so, it could happen anywhere.

UPDATE: The terror is over after 60 hours and it appears there may have only been 10 terrorists, most or all of whom were from Pakistan. The sole surviving terror suspect (photo at this link) claims they were trying to recreate 9/11 in India.

One photographer claims the police were ineffective at killing or capturing the terrorists. If this is true, I don’t think it would happen in the U.S.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

On December 16, 2005, the New York Times published an article that leaked previously undisclosed information regarding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests, including details of how the Bush Administration authorized intelligence sources to monitor conversations between foreign terrorism suspects and people in the United States beginning in 2002. The article stated that the “secret court has turned down only a small number of requests over the years.”

Bush critics like Jeffrey Toobin suggested the FISA court’s rare refusals showed the Bush Administration had created a rubber stamp process that could be illegal:

“Q: In your opinion is the president on firm legal footing?

TOOBIN: I think he is on questionable legal footing because he did not seek court orders, which are easy to get. The key question is why didn’t the president go to the FISA court? It’s a virtual rubber stamp. The president says he didn’t always adhere to FISA because the terror threat is so fast moving and there’s no time to wait.

But you can actually get a court order from the FISA court retroactively, so it’s hard to see what is slowing things down. Also there have been 19,000 court orders approving wiretaps from the FISA court since it started in 1978, and only five have been turned down.”

The Bush Administration denied the claim but critics continued to question whether FISA was rubber stamp justice. For instance, in a March 2007 PBS interview of James Baker, the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review responsible for preparing and filing all applications for domestic surveillance under FISA, the rubber stamp theme was the subject of one of the first questions:

“People have referred to the FISA court as a rubber stamp. There are thousands of applications, and only a few have been rejected. … What’s the process in dealing with the FISA court?”

Baker responded with details of the FISA process, describing it as robust and far from a rubber stamp, but the critics remained skeptical.

Five days ago, the New York Times weighed in on FISA again, this time to address a dispute between the Bush DOJ and the New York City Police Department set forth in correspondence between them that was leaked to the New York Times. Interestingly, the New York City Police Department claims the Bush DOJ has set an unduly high standard on FISA surveillance:

“In a statement, the Police Department’s deputy commissioner for legal matters, S. Andrew Schaffer, who has advised [NY Police Commissioner] Kelly on the matter, said that [US Attorney General Michael] Mukasey’s contention that Mr. Kelly had proposed an illegal course of conduct was “preposterous and categorically untrue.”

“We have asserted,” the statement continued, “based on actual cases, that FISA warrants were not sought in a timely manner in part because of a self-imposed standard of probable cause which is higher than that required by Supreme Court precedent.”

It’s not clear to me when or how this DOJ-NY City Police disagreement began. It’s conceivable it developed after Congress passed the FISA legislation last Summer but it appears to be an issue that has developed over a longer period of time. If that’s the case, it’s ironic that after years of hearing the Bush Administration created a “rubber stamp” FISA system that violated civil rights, it turns out the system may have been so restrained that only the most clear-cut cases were pursued.

Which means someday we may see the New York Times describe George W. Bush as the President whose unduly rigorous FISA policies jeopardized the safety of New York City and its residents.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

The Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial in Dallas began in August 2007 and ended in a mistrial in late November 2007. We blogged about it in several posts summarized here. At the time, Investors Business Daily argued a new judge and streamlined prosecution could end in a conviction.

IBD was right. A Dallas jury today convicted the Muslim charity and five of its former leaders on 108 charges:

“Holy Land was accused of giving more than $12 million to support the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization in 1995. The seven-week retrial ran about as long as the original, which ended in October 2007 when a judge declared a mistrial on most charges.

Holy Land wasn’t accused of violence. Rather, the government said the Richardson, Texas-based charity financed schools, hospitals and social welfare programs controlled by Hamas in areas ravaged by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The U.S. designated Hamas a terrorist organization in 1995 and again in 1997, making contributions to the group illegal.

Prosecutors labeled Holy Land’s benefactors — called zakat committees — as terrorist recruiting pools. The charities, the government argued, spread Hamas’ violent ideology and generated loyalty and support among Palestinians.

“A womb to the tomb” cycle, prosecutor Barry Jonas told jurors during closing arguments last week.”

The prosecutors had a difficult job with complicated facts that could easily bore or confuse a jury. The report indicates the prosecution tightened its narrative and gave the jury a road map to help them navigate the case. That seems to have made a difference.

I guess it also helps to have a good catch phrase in a complex case. “Womb to the tomb” may not be as good as “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” but it’s close.

UPDATE: Thoughts on the importance of this conviction here.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Last month Saudi Arabia claimed that, over the previous 5+ years, it had arrested 991 alleged terrorists responsible for 30 terror attacks and foiled an additional 160 terror plots aimed at many countries. Now a Saudi official claims one of those plans included a 2003 airplane attack on the US:

“Saudi Arabia foiled a 2003 terror plot by militants who planned to hijack a plane and blow it up over a densely populated American city, a Saudi official said Sunday.

The official said the plan, first reported Sunday in government-guided Al-Watan newspaper, was for the attackers to transit through the U.S. to another destination so they could avoid applying for hard-to-get American visas required for Saudis. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the militants were preparing to execute the alleged plot when it was halted.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, were Saudis.”

The timing of this announcement is interesting but if it’s politically motivated, the Saudis won’t be the only foreign government or entity to try to influence a U.S. Presidential election.

The real question is “Is this true?” and, if so, “How far along was the plot and what happened to the plotters?” And as a bonus question, “Who discovered the plot?”

– DRJ

This is an actual conversation with an unidentified Obama supporter. I am paraphrasing from memory, as honestly as I can recall. I assure you that the last, critical line is a verbatim quote:

Me: So, looks like someone who attended Obama’s coming-out party at Bill Ayers’s home has decided to delete her blog post about it. Her blog post said that Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn were launching Obama’s career in their living room.

Unidentified Obama supporter: So what? There’s no proof he knew the extent of Bill Ayers’s activities, and we don’t even know what he did. For all Obama knew, Ayers was just a 1960s radical who hadn’t done anything violent. Was he required to vet some guy who was throwing him a party?

Me: Somehow I think you’d still be making the same argument even if Obama knew everything Ayers had done.

Unidentified Obama supporter: Well, yeah, because Obama wasn’t really that closely associated with Ayers. Anyway, we don’t really know Ayers was a terrorist.

Me: Ayers set bombs. Members of his group were killed constructing a bomb with nails, intended to kill soldiers. The group is suspected of setting a bomb that killed a police officer in San Francisco. His wife refused to cooperate with an investigation into a robbery in New York State that left two police officers dead. She went to jail for refusing to cooperate. Bill Ayers said in September 2001 that he didn’t regret setting bombs and wished he had done more. He and his wife are unrepentant terrorists.

Unidentified Obama supporter: Ayers and Dohrn had a good intent. In the 1960s people were trying to stop the war. He might have done some things that were wrong, but they had a good intent.

Me: You’ve got to be kidding! Charles Manson had a good intent, in his own warped mind. He thought it would help the country to kill some people and start a race war. But he was a killer. And Bill Ayers was, and in spirit still is, a terrorist.

Unidentified Obama supporter: This country was founded by terrorists.

Me:

END

[Guest post by DRJ]

This may be good news from the tribal areas on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan:

“Pakistani tribesmen are raising armies to battle al-Qaida and Taliban militants close to the Afghan border - a movement encouraged by the military and hailed as a sign its offensive there is succeeding.

The often ramshackle forces lend force to the campaign in the lawless and mountainous region, but analysts question their effectiveness against a well-armed, well-trained and increasingly brutal insurgency.

The extremists are increasingly targeting the militias, an indication they believe them to be a threat.”

Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been targeting these militias, called lashkars, with bombs and beheadings — just as insurgents did in Iraq against US troops and members of the Awakening Council.

If Gen. Petraeus’ theories work in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I assume the next step will be to improve the local infrastructure to make it more likely the lashkars will align themselves with our interests.

UPDATE: Bill Roggio thinks it won’t work because the lashkars don’t have sufficient back-up from the Pakistan military, unlike the Sunnis in Iraq.

– DRJ

My suggestion: release these terrorists into Judge Ricardo Urbina’s living room.

[Posted by WLS]

This correction published in the New York Times yesterday should cause the hair on the back of your neck to stand up — and not simply because the reporting of these “quotes” might have impacted the market.

Here’s what the correction says:

An article about the effect of the Wall Street crisis on Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs cited two sources who were said to have been briefed on a conversation in which John J. Mack, chief executive of Morgan Stanley, had told Vikram S. Pandit, Citigroup’s chief executive, that “we need a merger partner or we’re not going to make it.”

On Thursday, Morgan Stanley vigorously denied that Mr. Mack had made the comment, as did Citigroup, which had declined to comment on Wednesday. The Times’s two sources have since clarified their comments, saying that because they were not present during the discussions, they could not confirm that Mr. Mack had in fact made the statement. The Times should have asked Morgan Stanley for comment and should not have used the quotation without doing more to verify the sources’ version of events.

This correction immediately took my thoughts to this review by Jack Goldsmith of New York Times’ reporter Eric Lichtblau’s book “Bush Law: The Remaking of American Justice.”

Lichtblau was the reporter who broke the story of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, and the story on the cooperation of the international bank consortium SWIFT in tracking terrorist financing through international banking transactions. His book recounts his reporting on both these subjects in detail, as well as his and James Risen’s struggle with the New York Times’ editors to get his blockbusters published on the front page of that paper.

Goldsmith’s is an extremely thoughtful article, and those interested in the implications of the New York Times’s decisions to reveal classified intelligence programs on its front page should take time to read and consider Goldsmith’s thoughts. I only came across this article in the last few days — it was published in The New Republic back in August — but it’s very sobering in its analysis.

(more…)

[Guest post by Jack Dunphy]

As I did last year at this time, I’d like to refer Patterico readers to a piece I wrote for National Review Online back in 2004.

Never Forget
There are thousands of stories to be told about those who died on September 11. This is one.

By Jack Dunphy

At the corner of Hudson and Harrison Streets, in the TriBeca section of Lower Manhattan, there stands neighborhood bar called Puffy’s Tavern. If it has been modernized at all in the last 50 years the proprietors have gone to great lengths to conceal it, for to walk through its doors is to pass into some long-ago, gentler time. Puffy’s is a “joint” in the best sense of the word, a place where pretense is neither offered nor tolerated. One of the few signs of modern life to be found within its walls is the bulletin board near the bar, on which are displayed photographs of some of the many celebrities who have planted their famous keisters on the stools and bent their elbows at the old, mahogany bar. But near the photos of Julia Roberts and Renée Zellweger and the like are some of the not-so-famous—the regular folks who stop in for a cold one or two after work each day before heading to the Subway toward home.

Last year, on September 11, I was looking at those pictures with Greg Sullivan, a sergeant for the New York Police Department. “That’s my little brother Patrick right there,” he said, pointing at one of the ten or so men in one photo. The picture was taken at a wedding in the summer of 2001, and in it the men are standing shoulder to shoulder and smiling at the camera. Even frozen in the two dimensions of a photograph, they are plainly the sort of bright and brash young men whose very bearing says “Wall Street” to anyone familiar with the term. They are young men enjoying life, especially life in New York, to the fullest. “Just about all those guys are dead now,” Greg said. “They worked with Patrick, and that day they died with him.”

(more…)

[Posted by WLS]

With Joe Biden and Bill Clinton on tap to to speak tonight, lets start a contest to see who can predict what cliche’-ridden slobberfest stream of free-association praise and worship Keith Olbermann will have flow from his lips at the conclusion of their speeches. To give you some guidance on what you might anticipate, consider the following from Monday night after Michelle Obama’s speech:

OLBERMANN: Case, I think, closed. If that speech was to be more about tone than content, pitch-perfect. If it was supposed to be more about content than tone, pitch-perfect. If that was supposed to be friendliness and what they call accessibility, couldn’t have done it better. Couldn’t have done it better.

OLBERMANN: And the premise of this speech, to try to erase doubts that now seem difficult to voice aloud because they seem almost foolish, was also done subtly. There was a reference to, they love the country, meaning the troops. There was another one to, I love the country. There were six references to country. But if you went back and listened to that speech again and waited for the moment in which she is supposedly selling herself or redeeming herself, you wouldn’t have noticed it.

OLBERMANN: Yes, case closed. That could not have gone better for them. That could not have gone better for them right to the point with the little girls taking the mikes away and suddenly turning out to be hams. It’s wonderful. It really was terrific. And notice—did you notice that throughout that, especially as it built towards its conclusion, the women in that convention hall, the ones we saw at least, we can’t say every one was this way, but there were tears throughout among the women. And it was not a maudlin speech, it was not a—it was not a salesmanship speech, there was just a—I know, I’m beginning to sound borderline sycophantic on this.

Borderline?? Pal, you lost sight of the border years ago. You’re John-Madden-Monday-Night-Football-RV-Ride away from the border.

But lets also not forget last night after Hillary’s speech:

OLBERMANN: Grand slam. Grand slam, out of the ballpark, across the street.

OLBERMANN: Across the buildings across the street.

OLBERMANN: Five, six, maybe seven campaign slogans in that speech, starting out from the initial get-go, a sock to the jaw of disunity, a speech that started about Barack Obama, a proud American, a proud Democrat, a proud senator, and a proud supporter of Barack Obama, then a lot about her, some about George Bush, twisting it all back to get her supporters to recognize that their goals are now best served by Barack Obama, then Michelle, then Biden, then several key, probably the strongest hits against John McCain we have heard at this convention, and finally tying it all back together. I don’t know how it could have been better. I don’t know how it could have been better, Chris.

OLBERMANN: The usual Hillary approach of listing those things and those people she met who were in trouble and she tried to help, going along in that traditional manner we saw throughout the primaries, and now with a twist at the end: Those are the reasons I ran for president. Those are the reasons I support Barack Obama. And those are the reasons you should, too.

It’s literally what we have been talking about. How do you convert her campaign into their campaign? I don’t know how she could have done it better. At the end of the speech, it is one of those speeches, I would think, for Democrats, at least, that you now charge through the doorway, and, after you are through it, you check to see whether or not it was open. You go through the wall, if necessary, what she just told you to do.

Ok — so that’s what we’ve got so far. Lets have some predictions about what Keith has in store for us tonight.