CAPT. ED REPRINTS A LONG LETTER FROM A CONTRACTOR IN IRAQ — it’s worth your time.

LOTS OF GOOD STUFF over at Donald Sensing’s. Just keep scrolling.

OLIVER STONE, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Oxblog has a roundup on Cuban officials’ beating of an NGO representative at the UN in Geneva. This doesn’t make the UN look too good, either.

KERRY AND THE PATRIOTS: Over at GlennReynolds.com.

MORE ON OLIVER STONE’S FOOLISHNESS, over at Virginia Postrel’s place. Best line: “At times, it’s hard to tell who is less lucid, Stone or Castro.”

WHERE’S THE WMD? In Europe!

KERRY SLAMMED FOR LACK OF DIVERSITY:

Seizing on the nation’s diversity — the country is almost one-third non-white — Bush has appointed African-Americans, Asians, Latinos and women to senior and non-stereotypical roles: Secretary of State, national security adviser, Transportation Secretary, White House Counsel.

Unlike Al Gore whose campaign manager, political director and finance director were African-American, the Kerry campaign, as of yet, has no one of color in the innermost circle, including Kerry’s campaign manager, campaign chairperson, media adviser, policy director, foreign policy adviser, general election manager, convention planner, national finance chairman, and head of VP search team.

First Air America, then Chris Dodd, now this. What do the Democrats have against people of color? (Via Capt. Ed).

UPDATE: More on the Democrats’ growing race problem here.

A BAD REVIEW FOR BEN VENISTE: “When reliable pundits of the center-left are throwing bricks at ben Veniste, then it’s clear he’s not fooling anyone. But it’s too late to stop him from sabotaging the commission.”

IT’S TAX DAY, so here’s a link to TaxProf, a new blog about, well, taxes.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT: The Government of Canada is reportedly trying to shut down a blogger who — in what might be just a coincidence — has been deeply critical of the government’s serious corruption scandals.

I’d like to see this — and the underlying scandals — get more attention here in the States. The Canadian government’s increasing disrespect for free speech is deeply disturbing. More here.

UPDATE: A Canadian reader thinks this is overblown:

I’m Canadian. There is no crushing of dissent here.

If you look at any government of Canada website and compare it with “blogscanada” it is immediately apparent that he is infringing on copyright and trademark. I noticed it the one time I went to his site and wondered how long it would last before he was told to change it. There is plenty of vitriolic comment on the government and its handling of everything all over the web and no one there is being asked to cease and desist. I think blogscanada’s “theory” about the letter being linking to the sponsorship scandal is merely a red herring.

In fact, if you want scathing commentary on the government that is far better than blogscanada, you just have to go to columnist Andrew Coyne’s Blog at AndrewCoyne.com to see that there is no crushing of dissent.

Except where “hate speech” is concerned, I guess. (And it doesn’t look like a violation to me, but I’m certainly not an expert on Canadian copyright law. ) But thanks for the perspective.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Canadian reader Alexei Nordell emails:

Yes, it would be nice if your mainstream media would give greater coverage to our current round of scandals. But then, if we are honest, were Canada to discover cold fusion or suddenly spawn a race of mutant chickens, chances are your media would still barely cover my country. Something that ironically pisses off many Canadians(see Rick Mercer’s “Talking to Americans”).

However, you have a chance to spread the word(as it is). Canadian blogs and bloggers are growing at a faire pace. I am sure links from your website would not hurt. A few suggestions. All three have covered, from various point of views, the latest scandal’s and the somewhat amusing disintegration of Paul Martin’s party.

Yes, why is that? I’m interested in what happens in Canada. One of the blogs he sends was Andrew Coyne’s, just linked above, but he also includes links to blogs by Warren Kinsella and Paul Wells. And, of course, blogosphereans are familiar with the likes of Colby Cosh and Damian Penny. And don’t forget Ghost of a Flea!

WINDS OF CHANGE has its War News Roundup posted.

MORE SUCCESSFUL PROSECUTIONS in the United States:

Two American Muslims were sentenced yesterday to 20 and 15 years in prison, respectively, for their roles in support of a Virginia-based conspiracy to engage in holy war against nations deemed hostile to Islam, including the United States.

Randall Todd Royer, 31, and Ibrahim al-Hamdi, 26, were among nine men who either pleaded guilty or were convicted of charges related to their participation in what prosecutors called a “Virginia jihad network.” Two others were acquitted on all counts. . . .

Royer, as part of a plea agreement, admitted helping other members of the conspiracy join a militant Pakistani group called Lashkar-e-Taiba in the days after the September 11 attacks. Three of the men who received Royer’s assistance said they intended to train with Lashkar-e-Taiba so they could fight for the Taliban, but several trained with Lashkar-e-Taiba, which the U.S. government designated a terrorist organization in December 2001.

I’ve been critical of Ashcroft here in the past, and I still think that he shouldn’t be Attorney General. But I have to admit that these prosecutions and convictions just keep coming.

UPDATE: They may be lucky to have been caught. Here’s the latest on Lakshar-e-Taiba: “3 top Pak militants killed without firing a single shot.” They hid in a tunnel, and Indian police flooded it with water, removing the bodies for identification after they drowned.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Daniel Pipes notes a CAIR connection. I’m beginning to have doubts about those guys.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, the prosecution of Guantanamo military chaplain James J. Yee has imploded in embarrassing fashion:

The appellate decision by Gen. James Hill, the Army Southern Command chief who oversees military operations at Guantánamo, wiped the slate clean for Capt. James J. Yee, who ministered for 10 months to foreign terrorism detainees at the United States naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

“This means there will be no official mention of it in his military record,” General Hill said.

The decision ended what one of Captain Yee’s lawyers, Eugene Fidell, called a “hoax” case. Mr. Fidell said that Captain Yee was “obviously very pleased” at the decision but that the military owed him an apology.

I’m not that familiar with the ins and outs of the case, but it appears that they do.

SUSANNA CORNETT HAS THOUGHTS ON JAMIE GORELICK AND THE 9/11 COMMISSION:

But while I think her conflicts are a major concern, and the attention is warranted, I’m today most annoyed at Commission Chair Thomas Kean, former Republican governor of New Jersey (which is to say, not much of a Republican at all). When questioned on Fox News about Gorelick and other possible conflicts in the commission, Kean said that everyone should “Stay out of our business.”

Stay out of our business??

Excuse me?!

What this commission decides is my business, as an American and a taxpayer. If conflicts bias the commission to find that certain things are not problems – when really they are – then yes, it’s definitely my business because my safety and the future of my country are at risk. His attitude is damaging, and certainly makes me think his point is more about arrogance than transparency.

Read the whole thing.

MORE THOUGHTS on the latest Administration moves regarding the Palestinians:

Bush looked in vain for a reciprocal gesture from the Palestinians. He got nothing. Worse then nothing, the Palestinians have been busily discussing how to bring Hamas into their government. Result: political rewards for Sharon, a cold shoulder for the Palestinians. It was almost two years ago that Bush made it clear that he would judge the Palestinian leadership by one criteria: its willingness to fight terrorism. Why, two years and no willingness to fight terrorism later, it expects “evenhandedness” from Bush shows that they simply don’t understand the man.

Indeed. The Palestinians have been acting as — and often proclaiming themselves as — our enemy. Expecting evenhandedness is a bit much.

“STUPID REPUBLICANS.” Bill Hobbs offers some valuable advice for non-Internet-savvy campaigns.

VIETNAM? IT’S NOT EVEN MOGADISHU. Wagner James Au sends this email, noting the Marines’ success at killing attackers without suffering casualties in two recent engagements:

2 firefights x 0 US casualties + 120 dead militants = Vietnam?

Glenn, check out these Times and Post accounts of firefights in and around Falluja on Tuesday. (The Post story recounts a daring rescue of an APC crew who lost their way into hostile territory.) In both of them, US Marines were surprised by surprisingly fierce, well-organized attacks-and then proceeded to kill a tremendous number of insurgents, while suffering zero deaths.

Link:

American forces killed more than 100 insurgents on Tuesday in close combat in a small village in central Iraq, Marine commanders said Wednesday… Marines fought house to house, roof to roof, doorway to doorway. They repelled attacks of machine-gun fire, volleys of rockets and repeated charges by masked fighters, Colonel McCoy said. Two marines were shot but their injuries were not life-threatening.

Link:

Marine officials said the three-hour battle that erupted at dusk Tuesday on the streets of Fallujah, and was recounted Wednesday by several of the key officers involved, exemplified the bravery and resourcefulness that Marines are known for, even when surprised and surrounded by a host of enemy fighters on alien urban turf. By the end of the tumultuous encounter, the charred personnel carrier had been towed to safety by a tank and most of its 17 crew members — several of them wounded — had been rescued from a house where they had taken shelter… The rescue squad rushed four tanks and six Humvees to the area, where they fought their way through several blocks to reach the burning carrier. Surrounded by 25 Marine riflemen on foot, the armored vehicles advanced, firing machine guns from their turrets. Overhead, Air Force attack planes repeatedly strafed the area. Marine officials here said at least 20 insurgents were shot dead during the fighting…

“This is a story about heroes. It shows the tenacity of the Marines and their fierce loyalty to each other,” said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. “They were absolutely unwilling to leave their brother Marines behind.”

To me, the most interesting quote was this one: “It showed not only the intensity of the resistance but an acute willingness among insurgents to die.” You can always find something to agree on, if you look hard enough.

What this really underscores, of course, is that the real problem is political, not military, as this item from DefenseTech pointed out last week. And unfortunately, it’s harder to tell how things are going on that front since much of the negotiation is behind closed doors, and dissembling is part of the game. Will Iraqis rise to the occasion? This is a big test, not only for us, but for the proponents, and skeptics, of Arab democracy.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg:

As Glenn points out, Fallujah isn’t Tet, and it’s not Mogadishu either. It does appear that the next attempt at dressing it up in old clothes (though not so old this time) will be to resurrect the myth of the Jenin “massacre,” and to try to make it appear of similar kind.

Yep. It’s the old game: Play fearsome warrior until you get your ass kicked, then play victim.

IT’S BUY A GUN DAY in the blogsphere!

THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD ECONOMIC NEWS:

Trade Gap Shrinks as Imports, Exports Hit Record

U.S. exports leapt four percent — the highest monthly increase since October 1996 — to a record $92.4 billion, while imports rose 1.6 percent to a record $134.5 billion.

The politically sensitive trade gap with China fell nearly 28 percent in February as imports from that country slipped to $11.3 billion, the lowest level in nearly a year, and exports to China rose 17 percent to $3.0 billion.

Good.

HMM: “A senior Iranian diplomat has been shot dead in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.”

CHRIS DODD HAS (SORT OF) APOLOGIZED FOR HIS REMARKS — but interestingly the AP report doesn’t report his actual words, just a rather sanitized version.

Just for the record, Dodd said that Sen. Byrd “would have been a great senator at any moment. He would have been right at the founding of this country. He would have been in the leadership crafting this Constitution. He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this Nation.”

Some people were offended by the notion that a former Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan would have been good during the Civil War. Go figure. In a way, though, Dodd’s apology does him more credit than it might have, since it took place after the storm of criticism had died down.

MORE ON THE OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL (my favorite proposed name: “UNSCAM”) — along with other U.N. problems.

NOAH SCHACHTMAN writes that it’s back to the future in Iraq.

OLIVER STONE suffers an in-person Fisking at the hands of Ann Louise Bardach. Read the whole thing.

ROBERT TAGORDA looks at some 1995 Congressional testimony by Jamie Gorelick and concludes that her problems are worse than is being reported:

Given the circumstances back then, Gorelick probably made the right decision. But that’s beside the point. The issue is whether the media should be examining more closely her past statements and current commission acts. It’s whether her hypocrisy — being “especially aggressive in questioning Bush administration witnesses,” as the Times points out, while having a history of staunchly defending the wall — is undermining the credibility of the proceedings. It’s whether she’s unfairly using the benefits of hindsight to attack Republicans while saving herself from similar scrutiny. It’s whether she, in fact, should also testify before the panel.

Indeed. Meanwhile Tom Kean seems conflicted, vowing transparency while telling people to stay out of the Commission’s business.

READER STEVE SMALLSHAW EMAILS:

You probably have seen this already (my issue just arrived this week for some reason) but the recent special Masters issue of Sports Illustrated includes an article on the NY Times’ obsession over the Martha/Hootie story, and mentions how the blogosphere brought it to the fore. Unfortunately, they somehow butchered your site name into “histaPundit”…seems like a lifetime of free swimsuit issues would be an appropriate compensation.

Yeah, that’s an excerpt from Alan Shipnuck’s book, The Battle for Augusta National.

Unforgivable error. Well, almost unforgivable: I think they should invite me along to blog about a swimsuit-issue photo-shoot! Then I’d forgive ’em. . . .

But “histaPundit” sounds like an allergy-blog. Though considering the state of my sinuses at the moment, that’s probably appropriate.