MORE LOOTING:

The decision to make the cafeterias into “no pay zones” spread through the 40-acre complex like wildfire. Soon, the hungry patrons came running. “It was chaos, wild, something out of a war scene,” said one Aramark executive who was present. “They took everything, even the silverware,” she said. Another witness from U.N. security said the cafeteria was “stripped bare.” And another told TIME that the cafeteria raid was “unbelievable, crowds of people just taking everything in sight; they stripped the place bare.” And yet another astonished witness said that “chickens, turkeys, souffles, casseroles all went out the door (unpaid).”

The mob then moved on to the Viennese Café, a popular snack bar in the U.N.’s conference room facility. It was also stripped bare. The takers included some well-known diplomats who finished off the raid with free drinks at the lounge for delegates. When asked how much liquor was lifted from the U.N. bar, one U.S. diplomat responded: “I stopped counting the bottles.” He then excused himself and headed towards the men’s room.

An Aramark executive estimated the food “removed” from the U.N.’s main cafeteria at between $7,000 and $9,000 not including the staff restaurant, the Viennese Café or the Delegate’s Bar. The value of the missing silverware has yet to be estimated.

Obviously, the problem is that there weren’t enough U.S. Marines to maintain order.

ROGER SIMON HAS SOME THOUGHTS on how to deal with Iraqi war criminals.

HOMELAND SECURITY: Here’s a guy who was never charged with a crime, but who lost his job because of a call from law enforcement telling his employer that he was on a Homeland Security memo naming suspicious persons.

Who will speak out against this resurgence of McCarthyism?

Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent John Lang, who was assigned as a threat analyst to the Department of Homeland Security, saw the memo and decided making note of the information was not enough. He called the gun shop owner and told him about the memo concerning his employee. Wynn was fired.

Wynn, who has been mostly unemployed since he was laid off from Lucent Technologies in late 2001, did not know why he lost his job until last week when he was told by a reporter. He said he has never advocated violence against the police or government officials.

He was angry when he learned why he was fired. He said he “was done plain dirty and the system is still trying to set me up in order to make their blunders look as though they have some semblance of truth.”

Funny that we haven’t heard more about this case, while we’ve heard so many cries of “McCarthyism” when all that was involved was criticism of Tim Robbins.

You don’t think it’s all political, do you?

STEVEN DEN BESTE HAS THOUGHTS on network effects, blogrolls, and Rolls-Royces.

I DON’T REALLY HAVE MUCH TO SAY about this plagiarism scandal at the New York Times. In general, I’m slower to call things plagiarism than some people, but this seems to be a classic case. I’ll just note that this sort of thing happens both in the blogosphere, and in Big Media, which at any rate is evidence that having editors isn’t any guarantee that it won’t happen.

UPDATE: Susanna Cornett and Laurence Simon blame affirmative action. Well, maybe — but I seem to recall seeing a post somewhere to the effect that Johnny Apple had an even higher percentage of corrections. So maybe the problem goes deeper.

THE ROAD OF THE BONES: David Carr reports.

EVERYBODY’S LOOKING FOR PROBLEMS IN IRAQ, but what might things be like if the U.N. were in charge? Hmm, let’s see:

Despite the arrival of UN peacekeepers, there are new reports of tribal killings in northeastern Congo. Uganda reports a surge of refugees entering the Ugandan district of Bundibugyo (DRC border area). One source says Lendu tribal warriors attacked a refugee group near the Semliki River, and killed 60 to 100 civilians. One Ugandan official as reported that 10,000 refugees are inside the DRC, just across the border from the Ugandan town of Paidha (West Nile province).

Funny how these killings aren’t getting as much attention.

BAD REPORTING IN BAGHDAD: Jonathan Foreman reports that most reporters there are missing the story:

There are frequent small demonstrations in the blocks outside the Palestine and Sheraton hotels–partly because that is where the press corps is congregated, but also because it’s an area that many Baath party officials fled to after the war began. Anyone who assumes that the atmosphere of that downtown area is in any way representative of the city would be gravely mistaken. However, many reporters have chosen to do just that rather than venture further out to places where they would have seen that far more typical and frequent “demonstrations” involve hundreds or even thousands of Iraqis gathering to cheer U.S. troops. Admittedly, some of those crowds include people begging for money, desperate for aid, or just curious about these strange-looking foreigners. “Most children here have never seen a foreigner” one Iraqi civilian explained to me, “that is why they are so excited.” Another told me with a smile, “Everyone here wanted to go to America; now America has come here!”

Then there’s this:

To an amazing degree, the Baghdad-based press corps avoids writing about or filming the friendly dealings between U.S. forces here and the local population–most likely because to do so would require them to report the extravagant expressions of gratitude that accompany every such encounter. Instead you read story after story about the supposed fury of Baghdadis at the Americans for allowing the breakdown of law and order in their city.

Well, I’ve met hundreds of Iraqis as I accompanied army patrols all over the city during the past two weeks and I’ve never encountered any such fury (even in areas that were formerly controlled by the Marines, who as the premier warrior force were never expected to carry out peacekeeping or policing functions). There is understandable frustration about the continuing failure of the Americans to get the water supply and the electricity turned back on, though the ubiquity of generators indicates that the latter was always a problem. And there are appeals for more protection (difficult to provide with only 12,000 troops in a city of 6 million that has not been placed under strict martial law). But there is no fury.

Given that a large proportion of the city’s poorest residents have taken part in looting the Baathist elite’s ministries, homes, and institutions, that should tell you something about the sources preferred by the denizens of the Palestine Hotel (the preferred home of the press corps). Indeed it’s striking that while many of the troops I’ve accompanied find themselves feeling some sympathy for the inhabitants of “Typhoid Alley” and other destitute neighborhoods and their attempts to obtain fans, furniture, TVs, etc., the press corps often seems solidly on the side of those who grew fat under the Saddam regime. (That said, imagine the press hysteria that would have greeted a decision by U.S. troops to use deadly force against the looters and defend the property of the city’s elite.) Even in the wealthiest neighborhoods–places like the Mansoor district, where you still see intact pictures of Saddam Hussein–people seem to be a lot more pro-American than you could ever imagine from reading the wires.

Foreman names names and, in some cases, pretty much calls some big-time correspondents liars. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: I’m watching CNN’s Rym Brahimi, who’s going on about the difficulties Iraqis are facing getting passports and drivers’ licenses. Drivers’ licenses?

ANOTHER UPDATE: By the end of her report, Brahimi actually got to some real complaints about water, etc. But her tone was, frankly, hysterical: astonishingly high-pitched and breathless in her delivery, and saying things that are entirely at odds with what Foreman reports above. Who’s right? I can’t know firsthand, of course, but CNN’s track record in Iraq doesn’t exactly build confidence.

AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING LIKE DR. JOSH MARSHALL, I have to wonder “What the Hell is CNN doing flacking for Mark Geragos?” I’ve had the TV on here in the palatial InstaSuite at the hotel, and they keep mentioning that he’s representing Scott Peterson.

So what? That’s not news. Certainly not this kind of news. Is CNN pulling an Eason Jordan in exchange for access?

Back later. In the meantime, read the many Iranian updates over at Jeff Jarvis’s blog.

WELL, I ACTUALLY DID VISIT THE WHITE HOUSE IN 1974, but I don’t remember anyone taking this picture. But I was there with the National Spelling Bee, so I guess I was just too hyped for the competition to notice. . . .

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON writes about the future of Europe.

WHEN IRAQIS RIOT, it’s supposed to be a sign that the United States is blowing it, and doesn’t know how to operate in that part of the world.

The alternative explanation, of course, is that it’s the critics who don’t understand how things tend to work out in that part of the world:

BINGOL, Turkey, May 2 — Security forces clashed with earthquake victims protesting the government’s relief response today, but an uneasy quiet hung over a flattened boarding school on the outskirts of this regional capital as rescuers continued poring through the rubble for surviving students.

Gunfire filled the air outside the governor’s office as heavily armed troops tried to disperse rampaging protesters, upset at what they said was inadequate assistance for quake-affected residents.

Maybe the Turks just don’t have enough troops. As for the notion that Iraqi Shiites are turning against the United States, Amir Taheri begs to differ:

Throughout Arba’in, small bands of militants, some freshly arrived from Iran, were posted at the entrance of streets leading to the two main shrines. They carried placards and posters calling for an Islamic republic and shouted anti-American slogans. But it soon became clear that few pilgrims were prepared to join them.

All the pilgrims that this reporter could talk to expressed their “gratitude and appreciation” to the US and its British allies for having freed them from the most brutal regime Iraq had seen since its creation in 1921.

Needless to say, however, most television cameras were focused on the small number of militants who had something “hot” – that is to say, anti-American – to say.

After days of talking to Shiites in Karbala and Najaf, it is clear that there is virtually no undercurrent of anti-Americanism in the heartland of Iraqi Shiaism. Even some clerics who have just returned from exile in Iran were keen to advertise their goodwill towards the US. All that, however, could quickly change.

That last warning is something we need to take to heart, of course, but it’s hardly a harbinger of disaster, or a sign of bungling. Meanwhile, both Hossein Derakshan and Charles Paul Freund argue that a Khomeinist Iraq isn’t in the cards.

OKAY, SO BLOGGING WAS LIGHT ALL DAY: My flights — Knoxville to lovely Minneapolis, Minneapolis to San Jose — were both comfy and on time, with minimal security hassle. As luck would have it, the weather in Minneapolis was better than the weather is in California at the moment. But air travel does seem to be getting its act together. That may just be because fewer people are flying — neither plane was close to full — or it may be that they’ve moved up the learning curve. Either way, I’m grateful.

BLOGGING WILL BE LIGHT FOR THE MORNING: As this ungodly hour demonstrates, I’m catching an early flight for the West Coast, and the Foresight Institute’s nanotechnology conference. I’m taking the laptop, but sadly inflight blogging isn’t yet feasible.

Scroll down as several posts have been updated. And go read Lileks, whose enthusiasm for the Macintosh is so crazed that he doesn’t mind traumatizing small children while in the throes of ecstatically worshipping his machine god. (Am I trolling? You betcha! And boy are people snapping at the bait.)

SURPRISE:

The two British suicide bombers who blew up a seafront bar in Tel Aviv, killing three people, had posed earlier as peace activists, acting as “human shields” for Palestinians, sources in the Gaza Strip said yesterday. . . .

A Western pro-Palestinian activist said the two later took part in a protest march in Rafah to commemorate Rachel Corrie, an American “human shield” killed by an Israeli bulldozer last March.

At least the story says “pro-Palestinian activist” instead of the manifestly-untrue “peace activist.” And the Israelis have noticed:

Israel will from now on bar pro-Palestinian activists from entering the country and will try to expel at least some of the dozens of activists who are already here, according a new plan drafted by the Israel Defense Forces and the foreign and defense ministries.

Most of the activists, who come from Europe, Canada and the United States, belong to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

Yes, and they’re not “peace” activists, they’re just on the other side.

SURPRISE:

RAGEH OMAAR, the BBC’s star correspondent in Baghdad during the Iraq war, developed a close and potentially embarrassing relationship with the director of Iraq’s Ministry of Information, who was responsible for controlling foreign correspondents.

Documents retrieved by The Times from the ministry show that Mr Omaar wrote effusive letters to Uday al-Taie, who was close to Saddam Hussein and once expelled from France for spying. . . .

Mr Omaar, who was nicknamed the “Scud Stud” for his vivid reports, declined to comment on the letters, but the BBC said that they showed him behaving in an entirely professional manner.

“These are the kind of letters that a journalist sends when he is building up a relationship with an individual who controls the access to allow him to report,” a spokesman said. “He is asking for something and doing so in an entirely professional manner.”

So there.

CLAYTON CRAMER POINTS to a story of FBI Crime Lab incompetence in the McVeigh case, and notes that it makes him skeptical of the death penalty.

LOOTING UPDATE: Ken Layne explains math to the New York Times. But what’s 169,975 out of 170,000 among friends?

UPDATE: Rand Simberg suggests that the ever-shrinking toll from the Baghdad looting incident resembles the bogus Jenin “massacre.”