One point I should make as I talk about Flight 327 and screening Arabs is that while I think that the Islamist jihadis are walking point, there are other anti-moderns who we will be dealing with in the near future as well. And they won’t be holding convenient-to-label foreign passports.

Kevin Drum posted this the other day:

WHO’S THE ANIMAL?….A British animal rights activist has called for the assassination of scientists working in biomedical research:

I don’t think you’d have to kill too many [researchers]. I think for five lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives.

Charming as always, those animal rights folks….

Take a look at the comment stream on this post; substitute a few words, and we’re talking about Islamist terror instead. Have the PETA folks been stocking up on ANFO? Not yet…but when you’re moved by irrational passion and absolute, clear-eyed moral conviction, it’s not too far a step, once someone’s shown you the way.

We need an anti-terror regime that is generalizable, flexible, and somehow not oppressive. Otherwise, ten years from now when some home-grown animal-rights jihadi has killed 10,000 by contaminating meat as it leaves a packing plant, the Congressional commission will be talking about the ‘failure of imagination’ that led to this tragedy.

There has been a lot of interesting reaction to my (and others’) criticism of Anne Jacobsen’s story of terror on flight 327. I want to take a moment to set out what the critics seem to be saying (or what issues they are focusing on) and make sure that my replies are clear. I think that this opens a window into the central issues that will be facing us in the next year or so, politically and in terms of securing ourselves against the real threats of terrorism, so it’s worth taking some time and having a serious talk.

So let’s go through the issues.

First, and foremost, the general tenor of “We’re at war, dammit! The old rules of civility and political correctness are out!”

Um, actually, no we’re not.
Other than in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re in an armed conflict which we’re trying hard to win without turning it into a war, for the simple reason that as soon as it becomes a real war all kinds of really bad things will happen – to us as well as to the objects of our hostility. I’ll suggest going back to the founding 4th generation war document:

In broad terms, fourth generation warfare seems likely to be widely dispersed and largely undefined; the distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point. It will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts. The distinction between “civilian” and “military” may disappear. Actions will occur concurrently throughout all participants’ depth, including their society as a cultural, not just a physical, entity.

We need to figure out how to live in a society where this is the case. And there’s a subtle conflict here – because winning the cultural conflict in which our openness and freedom are the powerful tools conflicts with the secrecy and control that are needed to face some of the military (or terroristic) threats.

This is, as the 9/11 commission correctly pointed out, a war where our values are as important as our weapons; we have to win on both fronts.

Second, visas and border control. There are conflicting reports over whether the Syrians overstayed their visas or not. There’s a series of questions about whether they should have been granted visas in the first place. I don’t think we’re nearly at a point yet where we’ll lock our borders to Arabs, and where we’ll start ‘processing’ Arab immigrants. There are, obviously a number of levels of action between doing nothing and that, and while I think a certain amount of TLC should be given to visitors from obvious states (Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt as well as the gimmes of Iraq and Afghanistan), the problem is that we have limited resources and attention, and we have to choose where to spend it. When we devote total attention to tracking the whereabouts of visitors from one of those countries, we have less attention to spend on visitors from Indonesia, the Philippines, Sudan, etc. etc. And further, that by building impenetrable walls – or walls so high that no one bothers to come through them – we risk losing the other half of the war, the war of ideas.

Third, the issues of airport security. There’s a great scene in ‘Parenthood’ where a mother is looking at photos her teenage daughter has taken of herself having sex with her boyfriend. “There are just so many things wrong with this…” she says. I say that pretty much every time I fly. Airport security is just bad, and it’s frustrating to me that this is the case. Clearly, if what Patterico and other claim – that there is a de fact or de jure regulation prohibiting searching more then X Arab-appearing passengers, it’s idiocy. But it’s a small idiocy that’s a part of a much larger one we’re all living with today; and the question I’ll ask is how we will decide our priorities as we set out fixing our idiocies.

I believe that the core defense against hijacking today is a) that it’s fairly hard to get weapons or bombs onto planes (as it was pre-9/11); and b) passengers aren’t going to let anyone hijack a plane.

Or at least I believed that until I read Anne Jacobsens’ story (more on that in a bit).

So in terms of the two of the broad issues raised by Anne Jacobsen’s story (visa control and passenger screening) we’ve got three points to make:

1) it’s not clear what the visa status of the musicians was, and it’s far from clear that it matters. Fixing our systems so that no one overstayed a visa – or that no Arab overstayed a visa would be difficult if not impossible, and I’m unclear on the value that we’d receive.

2) it’s also not clear whether they went through secondary screening, and what advantage going through secondary screening really brings. Again, I’m so mental about what I perceive as the weakness of airport security that I want to get started…but in this specific case, let’s ask the question – how does Jacobsen or anyone else know what screening they went through when they entered the sterile area? It appears that they weren’t re-screened when they boarded the plane, but that’s a procedure of such limited usefulness (they took a kitchen knife from the restaurant!) that I can’t get exercised about it.

3) their behavior on the plane – wandering around, congregating – is exactly the behavior I’ve engaged in when traveling in groups and I’ve seen dozens of times while traveling. I won’t even get to the ‘Muslim prayer’ issues. Now I wasn’t there, and I’m judging what happened based on what she wrote – but the breathless prose and self-acknowledged terror make her an unreliable narrator at best.

So do I think we ought to do a closer scan on visitors and immigrants from threatening places? Hmmm. Maybe. A lot depends on what it will cost – what other measures won’t be done, and how it will effect our ability to ‘sell’ our society effectively. The problem is that – like the attacks themselves on 9/11 – it isn’t failures in our procedures that worry me, but failures in our doctrines.

Do I think that we ought to automatically do secondary searches on Arab men? No. And I don’t say that because I have dark skin and could be mistaken for an Arab. I’m not worried about their feelings; I’m worried that the resources it will take to do this are resources that we ought to be using more intelligently, rather than blindly. I’d rather that airport personnel took an extra minute with each passenger to do an Israeli-style interview than that we picked 2% of the passenger stream out, stripped them naked and ran fiber-optic probes into every orifice. Mainly because it might be the wrong 2%, and secondarily because (as above) we need to win the battle of ideas and we won’t do that once we indiscriminately treat every Arab as a proto-hijacker.

One of the things about the article that most set me off was her tone. I have a long history of taking bloggers and other people to task for this, because I believe, above all, that attitude and mindset drive performance.

And what does her mindset show?

She was scared in the beginning, got more scared in the middle, and was scared at the end. In between, the only thing she did to ensure her and her family’s safety was to share her alarm with the cabin crew.

What I would have looked for was some determination, some planning, some measure of critical thinking. And I didn’t see any of that…

We’ll win this thing with determination, planning, and critical thinking. When someone finds those in Anne Jacobsen’s work, let me know.

OK, here’s an article that explains why I keep reading the New York Times (you’ve seen Okrent’s column this week, right? – and if you don’t want to register, just cut-and paste the URL into Google or use this link):

Wiring the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, by Matt Bai

I met Rappaport, who is 46, in early June in his firm’s offices on Sand Hill Road, Silicon Valley’s answer to Wall Street. As we talked in a plush conference room flanked by a sunlit terrace on one side and a pool table on the other, events in the world outside seemed to be tilting strongly in the Democrats’ favor. Public support for President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq was dropping precipitously. The price of oil had shot up to $42 a barrel. Only hours earlier, voters in South Dakota sent a Democratic woman, Stephanie Herseth, to the U.S. House in a special election — a race widely viewed as a potential harbinger for November.

But if all of this made John Kerry a good bet to become the next president, it did nothing, in Rappaport’s view, to solve the Democrats’ underlying problems. When I asked if he was skeptical about the direction of the party, he smiled, then said dryly, ”If you’ve been able to discern a direction on which to be skeptical or optimistic, then you’re doing pretty well.”

In fact, Rappaport was surprisingly downcast about the party’s prospects, which, he said, would not be improved simply by winning back the White House. Though he sat and thought about it, he said he was unable to name a single Democratic leader in the years since Bill Clinton left Washington who he thought was articulating a compelling new direction for the party. ”There is a growing realization among people who take very seriously the importance of progressive politics that the Democratic Party has kind of failed to create a vision for the country that is strongly resonant,” he said. ”And our numbers” — meaning Democrats as a whole — ”are decreasing. Our political power has been diminishing, and it’s become common knowledge that the conservative movement has established a very strong, long-term foundation, whereas we’ve basically allowed our foundation, if not to crumble, to at least fall into a state of disrepair. So there are a lot of people thinking, What can we do about this?”

Actually, Rappaport says he may be on to an answer.

That answer – an effort to build a network of Democratic think tanks, and to try and come up with some kind of a meaningful Democratic ideological core – something other than ‘pro-woman, pro-black, pro-union, pro-trial lawyer’ – may be the best news I’ve seen all month.

Read the whole thing, I’ll be writing up something extensive in response by tomorrow night.

OK, who was the threat?

LOS ANGELES | July 22, 2004 – Undercover federal air marshals on board a June 29 Northwest airlines flight from Detroit to LAX identified themselves after a passenger, “overreacted,” to a group of middle-eastern men on board, federal officials and sources have told KFI NEWS.

The passenger, later identified as Annie Jacobsen, was in danger of panicking other passengers and creating a larger problem on the plane, according to a source close to the secretive federal protective service.

(hat tip Patterico)

Read the whole thing.And I’ll go back to my earlier comment about

Similarly, there are two competing narratives we can construct out of Jacobsen’s story.

On one hand, a dry run or failed mission by a group of terrorists, as she suggests.

On the other, a group of foreign musicians, already somewhat out of place, being bad-vibed beyond belief by the rest of the passengers, and so acting with a less-then affable demeanor, and doing what I’ve done in the past when flying with large groups of people, which is to walk around and congregate so we can chat.

What makes me anxious is the level of blind fear and rage that this story provoked. Comments like “eject them midair” were made, which makes me worry both out of concern for the innocent (except of being Middle Eastern) who will be affected by this (and I’ll note, whose opinions of the West will be lowered) but because when we start acting out of unthinking rage, we risk losing the fight.

I’ll refer readers back to this post:

…in the actual conflict, in the actual decision to fight and fighting, I’ll take Cooper’s ‘concentration’ and Musashi’s ‘settled yet unbiased’ spirit. Showing anger – standing in front of the enemy or potential enemy, and frothing at the mouth in rage – does two bad things. First, it helps create a fight where it might have been possible to avoid one. And second, if your enemy is at all strong, it shows weakness.

Update: I forgot to include the best quote from the article at all…in fact, I think it’s so good it ought to be a national motto:

“We don’t freak out in situations like this,” the air marshal responded.

I’ll buy that guy a beer anytime.

“We Don’t Freak Out In Situations Like This.” You betcha.

Donovan Janus, the Dutch programming god behind Exposure Manager (disclosure: I have an interest in the business) has created two galleries to consolidate the “Citizen’s Media” view of the election and of the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One, going live today, is “www.electionphotos04.com” a photo gallery of images from the bloggers covering the conventions and campaigns. It’s a free service which we’re offering to try and encourage those taking photos of the campaigns to publish their images. A RSS feed will be available at (www.electionphotos04.com/rss.xml).

The other, going live late next week, will be “www.photosfromiraq.com“, which is actually for pictures from serving military in both Iraq and Afghanistan (“picturesfromiraqandafghanistan.com” gave me carpal tunnel just thinking about it). Again, the goal is to provide a broader view of what’s going on there than the “if it bleeds it leads” coverage we get from the mainstream media. Similarly, a RSS feed will be available.

More as things develop (as they say).

Much of the blog world has gone medieval on Joseph Wilson (not in the pipe-wielding sense of Ving Rhames, but in the sense of medieval scholars carefully parsing sacred texts and crafting lengthy analyses of subtle wordings).

Recently, Kevin Drum posted something that suggested that his – misrepresentations?? – had been unclear and insignificant:

Wilson’s central claim was that there was virtually no evidence to back up the idea that Saddam had sought uranium from Niger. The CIA agreed with that assessment before the war, it agreed with it after the war, and it still agrees with it — and the Senate Intelligence report backs them up.

…

Wilson may be guilty of overembellishing his case on several minor points, but on the central question he brought up — should the president have made those claims about African uranium in his State of the Union address? — he was right. The CIA admits it, the White House admits it, and the Senate Intelligence committee admits it. Republicans ought to keep this in mind.

That’s pretty confusing to me, and I say this with respect to Kevin and Dan all the others who have made close textual analyses of the Senate report. Because here’s what it says:

The intelligence report indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997-1999) or Foreign Minister (1996- 1997). Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure, he would have been aware of it. Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999, [redacted] businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted “expanding commercial relations” to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that “although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq.” (page 43)

The reports officer said that a “good” grade [for Wilson’s report – ed.] was merited because the information responded to at least some of the outstanding questions in the Intelligence Community, but did not provide substantial new information. He said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerian officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerian Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting. (page 46)

So Wilson directly confirmed to the CIA that Iraqi officials had met with Nigerian officials, and that they had – in the view of the Nigerian officials – attempted to broach the subject of uranium sales.

Now the claim the President made wasn’t that Iraq had gotten uranium, or that it was even likely to get uranium. It was that:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Now skipping over the ‘gimme’ that Bush is saying that the British are saying etc. etc., the question is whether Wilson – who accused Bush of lying in that statement – was himself telling the truth in making that accusation.

And the problem I have, as a kind of simpleminded person, is that Wilson’s own words, as expressed in the consensus, bipartisan Senate report, also support the charge that Iraq was seeking uranium.

So what is it that I am missing, exactly?

Michelle Malkin does a gracious climbdown and sends Donald Sensing the facts on the “Wayne Newton of Syria” who gave Anne Jacobsen heart failure on flight 327.

Buckaroo Banzai, anyone? Or maybe just paranoia, which, as I note isn’t a very useful state for people who have real enemies. There is a better way.

I forgot to mention that yesterday was the anniversary of the first human footstep on ground that is not Earth (July 20, 1969).

Go get Quicktime if you don’t already have it installed, and then go get this.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg of Transterrestrial Musings had a good roundup, and some thoughts of his own.

I shared Donald Sensing’s original skepticism about Anne Jacobsen’s Flight 327 nightmare in my post below. Today, Donald has a post up that amplifies his skepticism in the face of people who would take his position (and mine) as being ‘objectively pro-terrorism’.

They’re wrong.

They’re wrong both because we obviously aren’t (look at our oeuvre, folks, puh-leese), but because the kind of kneejerk, fact-free reactions they are encouraging in fact will make us objectively less safe from terrorist attacks.

They’re demonstrating exactly the kind of hysteria that gets used to justify bad policies – like the limit on the number of Arab flyers that can be put through secondary screening.Sensing says, quite reasonably:

…what does Annie herself actually relate? Only this:

# My husband and I noticed Arab men boarding the airliner and that made us scared.

# Before and during the flight, the Arabs did some things that made us even more scared, especially their trips to the loo. At least some of the other passengers and crew expressed or displayed concern or fear also. These fears compounded until the plane landed.

# There were federal air marshals aboard, but they didn’t do anything.

# The plane landed safely and normally. We all egressed as rapidly as possible.

# Agents from multiple LE organizations met the plane and detained the 14 men. They were investigated and released. FAMS identified them as a band playing a gig in a casino near LA.

# We were interviewed by the FBI and gave sworn statements, then went on our way.

That’s pretty much it, folks. That is what is in the text about what actually occurred. Annie does a lot of dot connecting from one TSA alert or warning to another, then connects them all to the 14 men, who were in fact guilty of nothing except stupidity or inexcusable unconcern/arrogance at how their fellow passengers were reacting to them.

As I’ve noted, a lot of narratives can be strung over that skein of fact. As someone who has a close, personal relationship with Mr. Occam, I do tend to look at the simplest possible explanation unless there’re grounds not to – and while this event is a data point that should be noted with interest, I have a hard time buying into the complex when the simple hangs together just as well.

But beyond that, here’s the rub.

Keith Code, an author and (great) instructor who teaches about motorcycle racing, talks about the notion of limited attention: “Each person has a fixed amount of attention while riding a motorcycle. This is represented as a $10 bill worth of attention. If you spend five dollars of it on one aspect of riding, you have only five dollars left for all the other aspects. Spend nine and you have only one dollar left, and so on.”

If we’ve made up our minds that the terrorist threat is going to be from groups of Arab men, we’ve spent all of our attention in one place. What’s going on elsewhere?

We will have created a single-purpose, brittle defense mechanism that is both going to wear out quickly, as the overwhelming number of false positives drains the resources and credibility of the system, and is going to keep us watching Penn’s right hand while Teller picks our pocket.

So let’s not do that, OK?

The Telegraph has a story that the Max Planck Institute has released a report on global warming, suggesting that solar cycles are responsible for global warming (with some interaction between increased solar energy and increased greenhouse effect).

Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.

A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.

…

Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of “greenhouse gases”, such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth’s temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.