Terrorism

At Least They Caught Them

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Strategypage reports that someone was caught trying to sell nuclear material….

“Ukrainian police arrested three men trying to sell eight pounds of plutonium, for $10 million. It turned out that they did not have plutonium, but the less radioactive (and not suitable for nuclear weapons) Americium (which could be used for a dirty bomb). The three arrested (a politician and two businessmen from Western Ukraine) had obtained the radioactive material (which was originally produced inside Russia) from someone outside Ukraine.”

Seems this happens on a fairly regular basis.

The essay goes on to discuss how much nuclear material is floating around out there. It is unlikely that terrorists could cobble together a nuclear bomb, but a dirty bomb is certainly something within their capabilities.

Just thought I’d brighten up your Monday.

Bravo, U.S. Navy SEALs

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Three dead pirates.

It’s a start.

Good to have the captain back alive.

These jokers have messed with the wrong people.

Quote of the Day

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Quite aside from the nuances of counterinsurgency warfare, nothing would so advance the cause of peace as the fall of the regime in Tehran, and its replacement by a government designed and elected by the Iranian people. I have long believed that can be accomplished peacefully, by supporting a non-violent democratic revolution in Iran. No American president in the last thirty years has attempted it, and most of them have acted as if they were actually afraid of supporting freedom for Iranians. A young Iranian blogger, upon hearing Obama’s love video to the mullahs, reacted with an elegant mixture of sadness and pride:

…people have been tortured on the charges of having connections with the United States. Some have been silent thinking you will come to their rescue. At least Bush had the honesty to separate this regime from the people. How easy you play with the people card. Please do not talk about our people anymore. Engage the regime and leave us alone. We will free Iran, even when you are helping this occupying regime…

That’s the key issue. It should come naturally to any American president, but it doesn’t. I fear we’re going to pay a terrible price for this deliberate refusal to see evil right in front of our noses. Negotiations are a very long shot, and sanctions have never compelled an enemy to change its policy. If we do not support revolution, we will most likely get war, a war far greater and far more lethal than the one the mullahs have been waging against us since 1979.

–Michael Ledeen

UPDATE: See this Melanie Phillips column (via David Foster).

A Vacuum of Will

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Significant piracy has been so long gone from the world that the very word “pirate” evokes only images of 17th-century sailing ships armed with blackpowder weapons. Now pirates have returned to the choke points of the world’s oceans. What has changed? Why could we deal with pirates 150, 100 or 50 years ago but we can’t deal with them today?

I think that, as with terrorism, the return of piracy indicates the collapse of international law and the liberal order it establishes. It tells us how  dysfunctional  international law has become.  

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