Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani

From Bloomberg:

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who faces terrorism charges for his role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies, asked a judge to order U.S. prosecutors to surrender information about “black sites” where he was held.

Ghailani faces federal charges over the bombings of U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. Ghailani had been held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006, before being transferred to the U.S. in June. He is the first detainee from Guantanamo Bay to be tried in a U.S. civilian court.

In a legal request filed today, lawyers for Ghailani asked a U.S. judge to compel prosecutors to disclose “material related the government’s decision to detain and interrogate” Ghailani “in CIA ‘Black Sites’ and Guantanamo Bay.” Defense lawyers also want information about his treatment there.

The request indicates that lawyers for Ghailani will highlight his treatment after his capture as part of his defense. A legal brief and supporting affidavit by his defense lawyers is redacted.

The trial of the Bush administration’s detention and interrogation policies has begun. For years, leftist human rights groups and criminal defense attorneys have fought for the day when they could make the Bush administration the center of a federal trial. You can bet that the same types of motions as those filed on Ghailani’s behalf will also be filed during the trial of the September 11 conspirators.

Defense attorneys will say, of course, that information about Ghailani’s treatment while in U.S. custody is crucial to their client’s defense. But that is only true as far as they can show that Ghailani’s interrogators “tainted” his admissions through abuse or “torture.” (Ghailani was subjected to some of the CIA’s so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” but not waterboarding.) To the extent that the case against Ghailani is based on other evidence, that which was not extracted during his interrogations, it is doubtful that the details of Ghailani’s interrogations have any relevance in determining his guilt or innocence.

In fact, we know that substantial evidence against Ghailani was accumulated outside of his interrogations. Ghailani was indicted years ago for his role in the 1998 embassy bombings. Federal prosecutors had begun to build a case against him then--that is, long before he was captured or interrogated.

During his combatant status review tribunal (CSRT) at Gitmo, Ghailani also made a number of admissions in the context of flimsy denials. For example, Ghailani admitted that he purchased TNT that was used in the bombings, but claimed that he thought it was “soap for washing horses.” In addition, Ghailani’s own testimony at Gitmo directly connected him to the truck, fertilizer, detonators, gas cylinders, and cell phone used in the attack.

So, there is really no doubt about Ghailani’s guilt and prosecutors will hopefully be able to convince the court that the details of Ghailani’s interrogations are not necessary--for either the prosecution or defense.

Meanwhile, we should not forget that while Ghailani was held by the CIA he gave up important intelligence on al Qaeda’s operations. According to declassified excerpts of a CIA analysis titled “Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the War Against Al Qaeda,” and dated June 3, 2005 (emphasis added):

“Ahmed Khalfam Ghailani (a.k.a. Haytham al-Kini, a.k.a. Fupi) a Tanzanian al Qaeda member who was indicted for his role in 1998 East Africa US Embassy bombings, has provided new insights into al Qaeda’s skills and networks. As a facilitator and one of al Qaeda’s top document forgers since the 11 September attacks, with access to individuals across the organizations (sic) until his arrest in July 2004, he has reported on how he forged passports and to whom he supplied them.”

The CIA’s files undoubtedly contain more information about the al Qaeda agents Ghailani identified. If Ghailani’s attorneys are successful in getting the courts to demand that documents pertaining to Ghailani’s interrogations are introduced into the record, then the court should also see the intelligence (or summaries of the intelligence) that came out of those interrogations. The CIA and America’s national security establishment will likely object by claiming that this intelligence should not be exposed because it is vital to our counterterrorism efforts. There is certainly some truth in that argument.

But nothing will compromise U.S. counterterrorism efforts more than having al Qaeda’s defense attorneys put on a show trial in which America’s counterterrorism officials are portrayed as the bad guys and terrorists such as Ahmed Ghailani are made out to be innocent victims. And if we are going to hear about how Ghailani was interrogated and debriefed, then we should also be able to weigh the intelligence he gave up in the process.

Reuel Marc Gerecht: Major Hasan and Holy War.

Robert J. Samuelson: Obamacare is the latest assault on the young.

Rich Lowry: Democrats have "talked themselves into the ludicrously self-delusional notion that what ails them and the president is that they haven't yet passed the hundreds of billions of dollars of tax hikes and Medicare cuts that finance (albeit incompletely) ObamaCare."

How toxic is Obamacare? A Zogby poll shows North Dakota senator Byron Dorgan trailing GOP governor John Hoeven 55 percent to 36 percent.

And an incumbent Democrat from Kansas announces his retirement.

Ace: "Fiorina isn't exactly playing identity politics. She's not saying, as Sotomayor did, that she's better qualified due to her sex. Instead, she's saying that her sex might make her more appealing to female voters."

Noah Pollak: Aim for the bull's eye, or at least the center.

Reason.TV: Will Obamacare kill medical innovation?

Eric Holder's decision to bring KSM and his fellow 9/11 plotters to New York City for the "trial of the century" became an issue today in the primary race between Rob Simmons and Linda McMahon who are battling for the chance to take Chris Dodd's senate seat from him in 2010. Simmons blasted out a statement saying McMahon had "hedged her bets," in the words of the New Haven Independent, on whether a federal criminal court in New York was an appropriate venue for the trial of a man who committed an act of war against the United States:

Democrats like Dodd have largely supported the decision. One of Dodd’s leading Republican challengers, Rob Simmons, blasted him for that position.

“I’m trying to do a poll of any politician I can find on this, since I’m from New York, where the trial’s going to actually take place,” [voter Julie Hershon] said.

McMahon hedged her bets on the issue. While New York “has certainly tried other terrorists before,” she noted, this trial will cost New York $75 million.

“I’ll probably have more firm policy statements after the first of the year,” she said.

McMahon spokesman Shawn McCoy responds in a statement to THE WEEKLY STANDARD: "Linda of course believes KSM should be tried in a military tribunal, not in a civilian court. The high cost of a civilian trial, coupled with the disruptions such a trial would create in New York are just two of the reasons Linda opposes Holder's decision on this issue. She is deeply concerned that a trial would make sensitive information public."

Think about how much juice this issue will have in the 2010 election if KSM is actually given the daily opportunity to spew al Qaeda propaganda in front of the media and in open court. Leaving aside the very serious implications for national security that such trials will raise, the political implications for Democrats facing tough races next year are very real.

Any of these pictures of Katie Couric would make a great Newsweek cover, don't you think?

The wires are starting to take an interest in the "landmark" deal that would see the French sell as many as three amphibious assault ships to the peace-loving regime in Moscow. As the AP reports, the Russians aren't being shy about what these ships would be used for:

The head of the Russian navy has said that a Mistral-class vessel could put as many troops in Georgia in 40 minutes as the Russian Black Sea Fleet took 26 hours to land during the nations' August 2008 war. Moscow declared the Russian-allied breakaway Georgian territory of Abkhazia an independent nation after the war and sent thousands of troops there. Russia, Georgia and Ukraine all have Black Sea coastlines, as does Abkhazia.

Meanwhile, the French are trying to get a piece of the Air Force tanker contract through their deal with Northrop. Imagine this scene from 2020: Russian warships, made in France, start landing troops in Georgia just ahead of that country's formal acceptance into NATO. Meanwhile, American tankers, made in France, conduct aerial refueling of U.S. fighters from Incirlik as they head toward Georgia to provide air cover to Georgian troops. Sure, the United States and Russia are on the brink of confrontation -- but the French got paid, oui?

NATO allies like Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania also have coastline on the Black Sea. They can't be happy about the French augmenting Russia's ability to project power into the region.

If the French are allowed to sell warships to the Russians while the Russians don't even bother to conceal what they'll be used for -- aggression against a democratic friend and partner of the United States -- the fallout will be severe. First off, it won't stop at ships. The Europeans will be selling all manner of materiel to the Russians at the earliest opportunity. Next, the Europeans are going to start looking for the quickest way to kill the arms embargo on China. After all, if you can sell amphibious assault ships to a country that invaded a democratic neighbor last year, why wouldn't you be able to sell them to the Red Chinese, who haven't invaded any of their neighbors for a bit longer.

I'm told the sale was discussed pretty critically at the Halifax International Security Forum this past weekend where senior government, military, and defense experts gathered to discuss trans-Atlantic security issues. There will be fallout from this sale here in Washington as well. Congress needs to draw a line in the sand: anyone who sells weapons to Russia or China will not be able to sell weapons to the United States Armed Forces. If France goes through with this sale, the tanker competition should be dead on the spot with the contract awarded to Boeing by default. And there are a whole bunch of Democrats in Congress just looking for an excuse to kill the EADS/Northrop tanker bid. If the French aren't careful, they may find themselves cut out of a far more lucrative U.S. arms market.

I haven’t been to Miami in a while, but it used to be that you could launch World War Three by stopping at a coffee stand in Little Havana and asking patrons sipping their cafecitos in peaceful harmony there, “Who’s worse: Fidel or Raul?” Whether they’d been comrades-in-arms or fellow travelers of la revolución and fallen into disfavor with the Castro brothers for one reason or another, or they’d watched their friends being rounded up for prison and their own properties expropriated because of their unwillingness to sign on to comunismo, or they’d run afoul of the dictatorship for no discernible reason at all and escaped with their lives and the shirts on their backs, you’d need no more than two members of the exile community’s older generation to get the war going, and it might still be going, in the beautiful warp-speed Spanish of the Cubans, long after you’d left.

There were factions within factions among the Cuban exiles I knew and loved as a child in New York, as well: Castro and his minions were corrupt murderers! Por supuesto! But had Batista and his cronies been any better? Had the revolution been necessary? Had it not? Even within families, even during celebrations—where tables groaned with food, gorgeous, outrageous piles of it; fantastically rhythmic music played, with the dancing a tiempo, on the downbeat, or a contratiempo, on the upbeat, and it was impossible not to jump to your feet, either way; folk singing, the very definition of “soul music,” brought guests to tears; and loud conversations punctuated everything—furious exchanges over the minutiae of exile politics and the fate of those left behind could erupt without warning. One year, my best friend’s birthday party was derailed when her father and her uncle had to be separated after one’s sigh of nostalgia for Havana and the other’s disgusted contempt nearly brought them to blows.

That was a long, long time ago. The generation that fled the revolution is growing old; many of their children have never seen the island; their grandchildren are having children of their own, and their political cares are distinctly American. And for the first time, all sorts of people in American politics and policy—with the tacit approval of the president—are advocating for a lifting of the five-decades-old travel ban.

But Fidel and Raul are still there, still imprisoning bloggers, press journalists, and human-rights activists in unspeakable conditions, still running the island like their personal gulag. Even Human Rights Watch says so. There is no liberty in Cuba! How will Americans of conscience travel there?

Nice to see CNN giving Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty its due--and timed just right to mark the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. Besides interviewing the always impressive head of RFE/RL, Jeffrey Gedmin, the CNN reporter also spends time talking with Pavel Pechacek, a journalist who was instrumental during the downfall of Communism in Czechoslovakia. Pechacek was basically the only source of news from behind the Iron Curtain in his country and allowed us insight into the dramatic events that were taking place. I actually shared an office with Mr. Pechacek when I visited RFE/RL headquarters last summer. He was such a soft-spoken fellow that at first I thought he was the IT guy. (I highly recommend watching the video as it also shows RFE’s sleek new headquarters and the very same halls that yours truly roamed--mostly on my way to that terrific cafeteria!)

In case you missed it, former Democratic staffer and Asia note-taker Chris Nelson, author of the eponymous Nelson Report, last week issued yet another missive that might as well have been written by the DNC press shop or an unhinged commenter at the Daily Kos. Blaming Washington “insiders” -- read Republicans -- for Obama’s free-fall in the public opinion polls, Nelson went on to state that “so for all of the concern about Obama's lack of experience now showing up, no 'insider' seriously thinks the country would be better-off with McCain and Palin, respectively an emotional time-bomb and, in policy terms, a functional illiterate.”

Credit to Nelson who has figured out a way to monetize this kind of thing, or that he's found an audience clueless enough to think that you can't get the same quality "insights" for free at any of two or three dozen left-wing blogs. But Nelson's supposed to be an "insider" himself, and even he is struggling to find someone -- anyone -- to blame for a foreign policy that has demonstrated not one result in nearly a year. Obama's Asia trip, where his gladhanding brought no deals, no strengthening of critical alliances, no reaffirmation of American values of democracy and human rights, coincided with the collapse in support for the centerpiece of his domestic policy -- healthcare reform now gets the nod from just 38 percent of the American people, a superminority. In fact, the LA Times reports that Palin’s approval numbers are surging and on their current trajectory will soon surpass Obama’s.

Said one Republican foreign policy expert Nelson seeks to consult regularly, “next time he calls, he’ll enjoy the click of a receiver.”

... is a speedy global recovery. Recently the Wall Street Journal asked the CEOs of Amex, Westpac, and Marriott, and Sen. John McCain, what the global economy needs to rebound. Here's what they said. The panel had five top recommendations, including, in the Journal's words:

(1) "[P]olicies that stimulate sustainable job growth by identifying national competitive strengths, encouraging innovation, reforming tax policy and avoiding regulatory disincentives."

(2) "Encourage entrepreneurship. Be blunt about U.S. competitive strengths and weaknesses. Remove the risk of protectionism. Reduce uncertainty. Don't demonize success or overpenalize failure."

(3) "Reduce uncertainty for consumers and businesses over energy, tax, health and other policies to encourage hiring and capital investment."

(4) "Sign and ratify by the end of 2010 a global free-trade agreement with all willing countries to encourage greater world growth."

(5) "Change tax code, in revenue-neutral fashion, to encourage savings and investment and discourage consumption and debt over the long term."

Judging by these criteria, the Obama administration is 0 for 5 (so far!).

Exit quote, from McCain:

Every day, I encounter somebody who is a small-business person who not only can't get a line of credit but they're losing a line of credit.

Now, you may say that you're trying to get credit to small business; you may say you're trying to help small business. I'm telling you, they don't believe that. They don't believe that at all. ...

I have never seen anything like it. And all I can tell you is that unless something changes pretty quick, you will see an election in 2010, the likes of which we have not seen probably since 1982 or 1994, when there were bigger changes. And this will be bigger than that. So my urgent plea to you is, think of the small-business person who is the engine of the economy, who creates jobs in America, who is literally unable to get a line of credit anywhere.

As David Smick said in a recent speech, the TARP may have been great for the banks' balance sheets, but it hasn't spurred the lending necessary to drive enterprise and job creation. And a jobs summit won't make matters any better.

What's the best way to win in a Republican primary? Well, Charlie Crist is charting the path to victory by reducing the Republican base to a stereotype favored by the likes of Daily Kos, the New York Times, and Chris Matthews:

"It's hard to be more conservative than I am on issues - though there are different ways stylistically to communicate that - I'm pro-life, I'm pro-gun, I'm pro-family, and I''m anti tax. I don't know what else you're supposed to be, except maybe angry too,'' Crist said.

Yes, all prospective Republican voters want is anger. That potent anger exhibited by Marco Rubio in this video clip about health policy. Simply seething, that guy.

The St. Petersburg Times rightly notes:

(Critics will note he voted against abortion restrictions as a legislator and used to call himself "pro-choice," that he supported higher cigarette taxes)

Conservatives are being accused of pushing Crist out for his apostasy on the stimulus alone, but in that case even, it may be the cover-up that gets him, not the crime.

I really enjoyed last week's WWII in HD mini-series on the History Channel. Ten hours of color footage from World War II, all of it digitally restored, and the series was narrated through the voices of soldiers, Marines, and journalists, all of whom had written books about their time in combat -- my Christmas reading list is set. So when I did a bloggingheads debate with Cato's Malou Innocent on Friday afternoon, the battles of Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa were fresh in my mind. The video of this debate was lost to technical difficulties that could not be overcome, but I don't think Innocent would object if I attributed to her the view that America would be stronger for retreating from Afghanistan. I argued the other side -- that the war in Afghanistan is, in the words of President Obama, a necessary war.

As soon as I started comparing the war in the Pacific with the war in Afghanistan, Innocent jumped all over me. "You're not comparing Imperial Japan to al Qaeda?" she asked. "No, of course not," I assured her. Respectable people can't compare the wars America is fighting now with the Great and Good War America fought against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

But, you know what? On second thought, Imperial Japan and al Qaeda have a lot in common -- and so do the Second World War and the war in Afghanistan. The Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor, killing more Americans than any attack on U.S. soil until al Qaeda launched its own sneak attack on 9/11. The Japanese and al Qaeda also share the same fanatical devotion to their "cause." The Japanese had kamikazes and al Qaeda has kamikazes -- with hundreds of passengers on board. Our enemies in both wars shared a suicidal commitment to an impossible delusion of world domination. The war in the Pacific was a bloodbath as a result. Women and children threw themselves off of cliffs on Saipan rather than surrender to U.S. Marines. Only 1,000 Japanese surrendered on Iwo, the other 22,000 died fighting or were buried or burned alive in the island's caves. On Okinawa the Japanese sacrificed 100,000 men in the service of a lost cause.

The American people braced for the invasion of Japan, but Truman wasn't prepared to see a million Americans killed or wounded when there was a chance to end the war quickly with the Bomb. Truman would use nuclear weapons against civilian populations, so committed was his government to total victory and so costly would that victory have been if it was pursued by conventional means.

In Afghanistan today, against a fanatical enemy who attacked the United States and murdered 3,000 civilians, the president and his party seem to be looking for a way out. No more pay any price, bear any burden. They would have us surrender rather than spend another $50 billion to provide McChrystal with the troops he needs. They would have us leave Kandahar and Kabul to the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies rather than lose hundreds, maybe thousands, more American soldiers in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Maybe the great mistake in Afghanistan was to treat it like it was a different kind of war than World War II. If there was a chance to get bin Laden in the caves of Tora Bora, we should have sent in the Marines with flame-throwers just like we did on Iwo. Now the President of the United States considers abandoning the fight against an enemy that attacked America and is determined to attack America again. We could leave and hope for the best, but Truman could have done the same in June of 1945. 'We'll contain them from Okinawa, Iwo Jima and the Philippines, we'll use airpower to disrupt their operations, we'll send the boys home and maintain a flexible, over-the-horizon strike force,' Truman might have said -- and that's essentially what the Democrats are proposing, and Obama is now considering.

Mary Landrieu was awfully upfront about her $100 million vote in Senate debate Saturday:

“I will correct something. It’s not $100 million, it’s $300 million, and I’m proud of it and will keep fighting for it,” Landrieu told reporters after her floor speech. “But that is not why I started this health care debate; I started this health care debate for all the reasons I just mentioned in my statement” on the floor.

She blamed "very partisan, Republican bloggers" for reporting on that section of the bill, but it was first reported by the well-known, right-wing outlet, ABC. The nerve of any of us to insinuate she could be bought for a measly $100 million.

Landrieu's justification for the extra money for Louisiana is that federal emergency aid surrounding Katrina had incorrectly inflated Louisiana's per-capita income for a short time, thus leading to insufficient Medicaid funds for the state, due to the federal government's calculation based on per-capita income.

She followed up with another odd assertion:

"Our state is still as poor as it was, if not poorer."

Perhaps not the thing to highlight so dramatically, when you're a senator who's been serving for 12 years.

Landrieu said her yes vote Saturday, to proceed to debate on Reid's health-care bill, should not be construed as a vote of support for the bill in its current form.

Sen. Mary Landrieu said that Reid wouldn't have 60 votes unless Democrats agree to weaken the government plan so that it is triggered if private insurers don't reach certain benchmarks.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney unloaded on President Barack Obama and his administration in a radio interview Monday morning, saying that Obama's recent bow before the Japanese Emperor was "fundamentally harmful" to the United States and indicates that Obama "doesn’t fully understand or have the same perception of the US role in the world that most Americans have." Obama's behavior on foreign trips is "very upsetting," Cheney added.

The former vice president, who has been far more publicly outspoken out of office than he was in it, discussed the Obama administration's foreign and national security policies in an interview with conservative talk radio host Scott Hennen. Cheney suggested that Attorney General Eric Holder wants a "show trial" for Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and four other terrorists who will be tried in federal court for their crimes. “I can’t for the life of me figure out what Holder’s intent here is in having Khalid Sheikh Mohammad tried in civilian court other than to have some kind of show trial. They’ll simply use it as a platform to argue their case – they don’t have a defense to speak of – it’ll be a place for them to stand up and spread the terrible ideology that they adhere to." Cheney noted that members of Congress are pushing to block those civilian trials and encouraged those efforts.

Cheney said of the recent attack at Fort Hood: "I think it clearly is an act of terrorism. I don’t know any other way to define it. This is a guy who apparently motivated by some of the same sentiments and philosophy that was behind 9/11, takes a weapon and kills thirteen of our soldiers and wounds many, many others. That strikes me as an act of terror. I don’t know of any other way to call it."

The former vice president was very critical of Obama's continued "dithering" on Afghanistan.

I worry that there’s a lack of understanding of what this means from the perspective of the troops. You know, if you’re out there on the line day in and day out and putting your life at risk on a volunteer basis for the nation and you see the Commander in Chief unable to or appearing to be unable to make a decision about the way forward here – you know that raises serious doubts. Nobody wants to think of volunteering to be participate in that kind of operation.

It may in part be inexperience on Obama’s part. It may be that there’s confusion on the staff. But I’m not encouraged by it. Presidents are the ones we pay the big bucks to to make these kinds of difficult decisions and it’s not as though he had not addressed this before. Remember, he announced a new strategy in March. He was given a strategy that was pretty well put together at the end of our administration as just recommendations. He adopted many of them, announced a strategy in March, reinforced it in August before the speech at the VFW, and then in the fall when it was time to decide based on McChrystal’s recommendations, you know, he’s dithered.

And Cheney warned that there would be consequences for the drawn-out decisionmaking process. "The delay is not cost-free," he said. "Every day that goes by raises doubts in the minds of our friends in the region about what you’re going to do. Raises doubts in the minds of the troops…I worry that the delay and that time that it’s taken to come to the decision will be very costly."

Audio of the interview is here.

Goldfarb mentions Andrew Revkin's decision not to publish "private" -- though publicly available -- emails which cast the purveyors of climate change in a bad light. Just in case you were inclined to give Revkin the benefit of the doubt, here's another small data-point on him.

Revkin's blog is called Dot.Earth. Here's his explanation of it:

About Dot Earth

By 2050 or so, the world population is expected to reach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where, scientists say, humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. In Dot Earth, reporter Andrew C. Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits. Conceived in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Dot Earth tracks relevant news from suburbia to Siberia. The blog is an interactive exploration of trends and ideas with readers and experts.

How does Revkin know that the world's population will peak at 9 billion? That figure comes from the United Nations Population Division which does really good, serious work on demography. Revkin is using their annual population survey, the most recent edition of which is from 2008. In it, the U.N. projects population forward based on a number of factors, particularly changing mortality and fertility rates. They use a range of assumptions and give multiple projections based on different variables. For the 2008 edition, for instance, they give three variant projections for world population in 2050:

* 7.959 billion (low variant)
* 9.150 billion (median variant)
* 10.461 billion (high variant)
* 11.030 billion (constant--that is, if all current conditions remain unchanged)

But here's the important part: The subject which has dominated most demography discussions for the last several years isn't population growth, but population decline. Fertility rates are falling all around the world. Only one or two countries have positive fertility-rate growth. Fertility rates have fallen below replacement levels in almost all industrialized nations but the rate of decline is actually fastest in developing nations.

The noteworthy part of the U.N.'s population report isn't that peak number in 2050 -- it's that after 2050, the U.N. sees world population shrinking. By 2048, the U.N. projects that 76 percent of the world will have a fertility rate below replacement level (that's 2.1 children born per woman). Only 22 percent of the world will have a fertility rate as high as 3.0.

All of which means that around 2050, we'll be hitting the high-watermark for world population. At that moment, the demographic momentum built up since the 1950s will have petered out and -- because the average age will have increased markedly -- people who haven't replaced themselves will begin dying off in large numbers. Thus, when the U.N. did a long-range population study in 2003, they projected that after peaking at 9.2 billion, the world would spend the next century shedding bodies, drifting back down to 8.3 billion by 2175.

There are too many caveats to list here -- demography is barely science, let alone destiny. But do understand that the discussion in demography circles isn't "How do we cope with two extra China's?" Rather, it's "How do we manage one of those extra China's disappearing?" And that's because throughout history, only bad things have happened when population declined. As Mark Steyn puts it, “There is no precedent in human history for economic growth on declining human capital.”

Mmm, Mmm, Mmm. No breast exams for mama.

"Not that it matters politically because obviously she's a female Republican dunce and he's a male Democrat genius. But Sarah Palin's poll numbers are strengthening. And President Obama's are sliding. Guess what? They're about to meet in the 40s."

"The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday."

Lagging the French: "A concern for not giving offense to Muslims would never prevent the French internal-security service, the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST), which deploys a large number of Muslim officers, from aggressively trying to pre-empt terrorism."

"There are 'many' Democratic senators who would vote against a Senate health bill lacking a strong public option, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asserted Monday."

SNL presents "Palin-Beck 2012," from the mind of Keith Olbermann.

NYT on GlobalWarmingGate: "'The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.' And they don’t contain any obvious state military secrets as well, unlike say the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War or more recently, the secrets of War on Terror, or any of a number of other leaked documents the Times has cheerfully rushed to print."

Dear young people: Kiss your earning potential good-bye with health-care overhaul. Hopenchange!

NYT: "With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019." A TARP a year.

The politics of engagement: "Unlike during previous trips by US leaders, China made no goodwill gestures for Obama such as freeing dissidents despite appeals from the US Congress to free Liu and other prominent inmates. 'The Chinese government does not reciprocate when it is given things for free. It simply takes them and moves on,' Zhang and Jiang wrote."

Israel's targets: "The new strategy of creating proxy terrorist groups endowed with the potency and sophistication of armies, but with none of their restrictions or responsibilities, is racking up points. The goal is not to defeat Israel on the battlefield, but to wage a war of attrition that erodes its national confidence, challenges its moral clarity, and transforms it into a pariah among democratic peoples. Yet this model of warfare depends for its success on one important factor: Israel's willingness to fight on the battlefields that Iran and Syria have assigned to it."

The Foreign Policy Initiative has produced a very helpful fact sheet that makes the case for a fully resourced counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan. Read it here.

Among the many taxes and fees that the Senate's health care bill raises is the Medicare payroll tax. CBS: "The Senate measure also raises the Medicare payroll tax on income above $200,000 annually for individuals and $250,000 for couples." At the same time, the bill creates the unelected IMAB panel that will cut $400 billion from Medicare.

The folks at e21, busily shaping a free-market agenda for the new century, have some choice words to describe Harry Reid's tax hike gambit:

While the person who devised this scheme has no doubt received hearty congratulations from the rest of the Senate Democratic caucus, the cynicism embedded in this strategy is breathtaking. Each dollar raised from the tax increase gets counted by the Joint Committee on Taxation as offsetting new health spending at the same time that very same dollar is treated by the Medicare Actuaries as being deposited in the Medicare Trust Fund. But if this sort of double counting is such a good idea, why stop at $54 billion? Why not pay for the entire health care reform bill through HI tax increases that also extend the solvency of the HI trust fund?

Astonishingly, this may not even be the most cynical element of this tax increase strategy. The proposed HI tax increase is not indexed for inflation. This means that as inflation pushes up household income, more and more families will be subjected to the tax even though their standard of living remains the same. If you don’t think this is a problem, consider the lengths Congress must go each year to extend the so-called “patch” that ensures more households are not subjected to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

Originally designed for the same households now targeted by the Democrats’ HI tax increase, the AMT was never indexed to inflation because the costs of doing so were too high given all of the revenue it was expected to generate from “bracket creep.” As a result, exemption levels that once seemed sufficiently high to exclude all but the richest households would now ensnare over 21 million middle class households absent the annual inflation patch. The same would be true of the new HI tax increase, as families living in high-cost states, struggling to pay their bills, suddenly find themselves subjected to another tax ostensibly designed for someone in a far different circumstance. And, once enacted, repealing the tax would be “too expensive” given that it would be expected to apply to most of the population over the long-run projection window.

The Democratic health care bills pile burden on top of burden on start-up businessmen, who create the lion's share of new jobs, at a time of 10 percent unemployment.

A better idea? Let's try a payroll tax cut instead.

Michael Barone devotes his latest column to immigration in the world of the Great Recession:

[T]he flow of immigrants into the United States is slowing dramatically and may be reversing. The Pew Hispanic Center notes that the number of immigrants from Mexico in 2008-09 is down three-quarters from four years before. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the number of illegals in the U.S. declined by 1.7 million, or 14 percent, in 2007-08. Government figures show that border apprehensions, a statistic that is often taken as a proxy for illegal crossings, fell 23 percent in 2008-09 from the previous year and was only one-third the number in the peak period of 2000-01.

Those numbers obviously reflect a response to deep recession as well as the effects of tougher enforcement.

They suggest a much smaller immigration flow and significant reverse migration back to countries of origin in the years ahead.

How to deal with these changing circumstances? Barone suggests that the place to start is "Breaking the Immigration Stalemate," a report from the Brookings-Duke Immigration Policy Roundtable.

Via Hot Air, Saturday Night Live had a remarkable opening sketch this weekend that took aim at Obama's policies from the right and was actually funny. In a press conference between Obama and Hu Jintao, the Chinese leader inquires about whether the U.S. will pay back its debt and asks, "How exactly is extending health care coverage to 30 million people going to save you money?"

"I ... don't know," replies Obama.

"You know as I listen to you, I am noticing that each of your plans to save money involves spending even more money," says Hu. "This does not inspire confidence."

Watch it here:

Peter Beinart:

[I]n voting to allow debate, Landrieu and Lincoln hammered some nails in the coffin of a robust “public option” that would allow the government to compete with private insurers. Both senators stressed that if the Senate bill includes a public option, they will ultimately oppose the whole thing. And since apostate Democrat-turned-independent Joseph Lieberman and moderate Republican Olympia Snowe have said something similar, and since health-care reform requires 60 votes, that means that liberals will likely face a choice: between a robust public option and a health-care reform bill that can pass.

In my view, the health care bill faces three hurdles in the Senate. The first is the public option. The second is the abortion language included in the bill. And the third is the Medicare cuts that in the coming weeks will drive seniors to light up the Capitol switchboard. If Beinart is right, then the Democrats will clear the public option hurdle. We'll see about the other two.

I gather Rasmussen will report today that its latest survey shows support for the Congressional health reform legislation falling to a new low -- 38 percent favor, 56 percent oppose. The lowest support level prior to now has been 41 percent.

The polling data will have an effect. But it needs to be supplemented by citizen activism. Senators are especially responsive to their constituents in their home states. Senators are home this week for Thanksgiving break. If you live in Nebraska, Louisiana, Arkansas, or Connecticut -- but also Florida, Maine, Colorado, and elsewhere (quiet nervousness by Senators can have an effect along with public opposition) -- or if you have friends, relatives, and colleagues in those states, you and they might want to weigh in on this tax-and-spend-and-Medicare-cutting monstrosity.

The QotD(SF!) comes from Mark Shields. I was happy to discover that he and I share a favorite holiday: Thanksgiving. Here's Shields:

Do you know why Thanksgiving is my very favorite holiday? Because since 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln first declared it a national holiday, no robber baron or swindler has figured out a way to commercialize Thanksgiving. No expensive gift purchases required, no credit-card debt incurred, no fancy costumes to be paid for, no semi-mandatory and painful hangover the next morning.

Thanksgiving belongs to everybody. It is not the property of any one religion or faith tradition. You need not belong to any particular religion — or any religion — to celebrate fully.

Even with the nation's economy in tatters and millions among us suffering the pain of forced unemployment, there are still reasons in 2009 to be thankful.

Excellent points. Pass the pumpkin pie!

(In other Thanksgiving news, see this week's Parody.)

I still haven't seen the new disaster flick 2012, but NPR's Ken Rudin did and discovered the movie's fatal flaw:

It wasn't the fact that the movie was about an hour too long. Or that the plot and dialogue were inane. Or that John Cusack managed to make every traffic light as his car was improbably escaping the apocalypse. And as far as the implausability of having an African-American as president (in this case, Danny Glover) -- well, don't you remember David Palmer on "24"? That proves that a black president is possible.

I could live with that stuff. But what really destroyed, for me, any chance of credibility was the scene in which the governor of California, whose accent and physical presence made it clear it was Arnold Schwarzenegger, was telling residents about the impending horrors they were going to face.

Folks, this was taking place in 2012. Arnold Schwarzenegger is TERM LIMITED, and will be out of office after 2010.

Exit question: How would the end of the world affect Barack Obama's reelection chances?

Lost in the media focus on health care and Asia over the past week is the growing scandal surrounding the shootings at Fort Hood.

Within four hours of the shootings, the FBI told Fox News that the terrorism angle was "not being discussed." They continued to downplay terrorism as a motive throughout that first weekend and when the public first learned about emails between the shooter and an al Qaeda cleric named Anwar al Awlaki, the FBI told reporters on background that the communications were "benign." The bureau had failed to open an investigation of the emails -- which were intercepted in real time -- because their content was determined to be consistent with the kind of research the shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, was conducting in his capacity as a psychiatrist at Walter Reed.

This alone is a scandal. The fact that Hasan was communicating with Awlaki at all should have triggered an investigation. Awlaki had ties to three 9/11 hijackers, had twice been investigated for his connections to al Qaeda over the past decade, had been imprisoned in Yemen at the request of the US government, and was concern enough that the US government was monitoring his communications when Hasan reached out to him. So emails between Hasan and Awlaki could not have been "benign."

Over the past several days we've learned more about the content of the emails. According to reports by ABC News and the Washington Post, Hasan specifically asked Awlaki about jihad, about the permissibility of killing innocents in attacks, and about confronting American soldiers who were killing Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. In one email, Hasan tells Awlaki he can't wait to discuss these matters and others in the afterlife.

Now, the Post reports

In the months before the shootings, the two discussed how Hasan could make several transactions of less than $10,000, a threshold for reporting to U.S. authorities, according to the source who spoke extensively. Hasan did not explicitly vow to fund terrorist activities or evade tax and reporting laws for contributions, the source said.

"I believe they were interested in the money for operational-type aspects, and knowing that he had funds and wouldn't be around to use them, they were very eager to get those funds," he said.

Hasan, of course, wouldn't need to "explicitly" vow to fund terrorist activities to be a concern. He had emailed with a known al Qaeda radicalizer and recruiter with a history of inspiring attacks on American soldiers.

More disturbing, though, is the second comment from a source familiar with the content of the emails. Why does this source believes that the money was meant to be used for operations? And why does the source believe that both Hasan and Awlaki understood that Hasan "wouldn't be around to use them?"

One could certainly speculate, just given the information that is now public, that Hasan was contemplating an attack of one kind or another. But is there more? Is there information beyond Hasan's questions about the afterlife and about jihad that confirms that Awlaki could have understood that Hasan planned to die?

Those are just the problems on the FBI/law enforcement side of things. Then there is the Army. It is now clear that many of Hasan's colleagues expressed serious concerns about his behavior and his jihadist rhetoric. But other colleagues, including those in positions of leadership, failed to act -- some of them out of concern that focusing on Hasan would be discriminatory.

Then, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, with 13 people dead and 40 injured, Army chief of staff George Casey said publicly that his greatest worry was that the "diversity" of the Army would be compromised if they focused on Hasan's radical Islamic views. "I think the speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here," Casey said.

Instead, leaks from the Army and speculation from many in the media focused on PTSD -- post-traumatic stress disorder -- as the main reason behind Hasan's attack. That Hasan hadn't actually seen combat was a pesky detail, explained away by the fact that he had counseled soldiers who had been in combat -- the transitive property of PTSD or something.

Now comes the news that the Army has chosen General Carter Ham to lead the investigation of the Army's handling of Hasan. Perhaps Ham has unique insight into the flow of information in military bureaucracies. It's possible that he is an expert on rhetoric of jihad. But Ham is best known for his views on -- PTSD. However admirable Ham's willingness to discuss his own experiences, let's hope they don't color his review of Hasan and the shooting.

Ham's review is one of several being conducted by the Obama administration. The Army is reviewing the Army's handling of Hasan. Elements of the intelligence community are examining the community's work related to Hasan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has named former Army Secretary Togo West and former Navy chief Vernon Clark to take a big-picture look at the shooting. Meanwhile, however, the administration is stonewalling congressional requests for information. And demands for an outside investigation go unanswered.

All this as the evidence continues to mount of a significant intelligence failure before the attacks and gross incompetence after the attacks. George Casey worries aloud about diversity. The FBI downplays damning emails between the shooter and an al Qaeda cleric.

These are serious problems. They deserve a serious inquiry.

Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats claim that the cost of the Senate's health care bill is $849 billion over the first ten years. But, as Jeffrey Anderson pointed out in the New York Post on Friday, they get this figure by using "the same accounting trick as past versions: 99 percent of the costs don't kick in until the fifth year of that "10-year" period. The true 10-year costs are well over twice what Reid's advertising: $1.8 trillion."

Here's a chart Anderson made using CBO projections to show that the Senate health care bill costs $1.8 trillion during the first ten years that the program is up and running (download the PDF here):

With the release of hundreds of emails by scientists advocates of global warming showing obvious and entirely inappropriate collusion by the authors -- including attempts to suppress dissent, to punish journals that publish peer-reviewed studies casting doubt on global warming, and to manipulate data to bolster their own arguments -- even the New York Times is forced to concede that "the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists." But apparently the paper's environmental blog, Dot Earth, is taking a pass on publishing any of the documents and emails that are now circulating. Andrew Revkin, the author of that blog, writes,

The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.

This is the position of the New York Times when given the chance to publish sensitive information that might hinder the liberal agenda. Of course, when the choice is between publishing classified information that might endanger the lives of U.S. troops in the field or intelligence programs vital to national security, that information is published without hesitation by the nation's paper of record. But in this case -- the documents were "never intended for the public eye," so the New York Times will take a pass. I guess that policy wasn't in place when Neil Sheehan was working at the paper.

As a journalist, there is no greater glory than publishing materials that were not meant to be published. If I could, I would only publish emails and documents that were never meant to see the light of day -- though, unlike the New York Times, I draw the line at jeopardizing the lives of American troops rather than jeopardizing the contrived "consensus" on global warming.

If Revkin's position is that he will not reproduce publicly available emails simply because they put the authors -- whom he happens to agree with and whose increasingly questionable agenda he happens to support -- in a bad light, than he ought to consider another career.

It's a fair question from a man who lost his son on 9/11:

Mr. Holder said that he and his boss had not spoken in person about this decision. This matter only involves upholding the constitutional rights of Americans, establishing a precedent with battlefield impact, and the safety and security of our citizens in a time of war. What are the criteria to make something a priority with President Barack Obama? How can it be that this matter didn't make the cut?

The Obama administration decided to trash the detainee policies of its predecessor before the inauguration -- and before they'd even looked at the case files of the detainees being held at Gitmo. But when Obama came into office and signed the executive order setting a January 2010 deadline for closing Gitmo, detainee policy was placed under the purview of Obama's White House counsel Greg Craig. That is, detainee policy was to be set by the White House, not the Department of Justice. Now Craig is gone and all of a sudden the American people are to understand that these decisions need to be made independently of the White House, by an attorney general who isn't even asked to bounce his new policies off the president before announcing them to the public.

Beamer wants to know why Obama has shirked a decision with obvious implications for U.S. national security. There is no precedent that demands the president maintain distance from this process, and, of course, the administration had, for most of the last year, run this process out of the West Wing. Ultimately, Obama will be held responsible for whatever fallout comes from this decision -- from the spectacle of KSM berating the American people and calling for ever more jihad from his stand in federal court to the legal ramifications of giving full due process rights to terrorists picked up on foreign battlefields -- whether he was in the room or not.

So why wasn't he in the room? Obama has plenty of time for golf, failed Olympic bids, fundraisers, dozens of meetings on Afghanistan in which no decision is made, and apology tours on three seperate continents. Was Obama too busy even to vote 'present' on one of the most important national security decisions of his presidency?

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has taken another shot at the administration's war on terror policies with a letter yesterday to AG Eric Holder and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates questioning the decision to put the terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks on trial in federal criminal courts rather than military tribunals:

Skelton, a fellow Democrat of President Barack Obama, asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to brief the committee about the decision to use the criminal courts instead of the revamped military commissions.

"As a former prosecutor, I am not yet convinced that the right decision was made in these cases, nor that the presumption in favor of federal criminal trials over military tribunals for these detainees should continue," Skelton said in a letter to the two officials.

You have to think that Gates isn't particularly pleased about getting caught up in Holder's ill-conceived plan to make American great again by giving terrorists a microphone and a platform in New York City. Skelton has already broken ranks with his party to support McChrystal's call for more troops in Afghanistan, giving Gates (and Obama) much-needed cover in in the fight to fund any additional forces. Now Holder is mucking things up and putting Gates in the position of defending a policy that, by all accounts, he has no interest in defending.

Mark Hemingway: Won't somebody think of the trustafarians?

Worse than waterboarding: Iraqi detainees use Favre to taunt Wisconsin soldiers.

Jay Cost: Of course 60 Democratic senators will vote yes on Saturday night's motion to proceed to debate on the health care bill.

Wesley Smith: Senate health care bill is assisted suicide friendly.

Sarah Palin is concerned that panels made up of health care bureaucrats recommend scaling back on mammograms and cervical cancer screenings.

Obama campaign calls Palin "dangerous" in fundraising letter.

Jim Geraghty: Fox finds no significant wrongdoing in henhouse.

Ace: Gallup shows Obama is under 50 for first time; Cook Political Report says he's "beyond radioactive" in many districts held by Democrats.

Ed Morrissey: Do hacked e-mails show global-warming fraud?

Andrew Malcolm wrote this up yesterday, news from the last stop of Obama's Asia trip:

Even President Obama himself during his just-concluded trip to Asia admitted that he was surprised to receive the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year without actually producing any peace.

In fact, the rookie American president ordered his own troop surge, boosting U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan to 68,000. Now, the Democrat may be preparing to send more. And a Gallup Poll showed 61% of Americans didn't think he deserved the prize either.

Anyway, there he was in Seoul, the last stop of his journey.

And out of the Seoul sky, President Lee Myung-bak hands over to the American leader a tae kwon do outfit. And then Lee, who practices tae kwon do himself, presents Obama with a coveted black belt.

After zero long years of study.

A friend sends along this picture, which has been making the rounds and goes quite well with the story: