USAF Pilots on Speed: (TalkLeft)

"Not only is the Air Force making the amphetamines widely available to combat pilots, it also has informed them they could be considered unfit to fly certain missions if they don't voluntarily take the amphetamines."

"It's not that we object to the pilots taking speed. It's the unbelievable hypocrisy of the goverment which on the one hand puts people in jail for taking amphetamines without a legitimate medical prescription, and now it appears, with the other hand, dispenses the pills for no reason other than to increase alertness and stamina--which is not a recognized medical use for the drug.

"Terminally ill cancer patients can't smoke pot to relieve unbearable pain, but pilots can (must?) take an upper to do their job? Give us a break."

    

The inner sanctum (Ha'aretz)

A hidden part of Haredi society can be monitored on the Internet.

    

Fiction: Passages in the Void (Kuro5hin.org)

"This story is what happened when I read a review of the provocative book Rare Earth which stated that, if the authors are correct, it means "the end of science fiction."

"This story combines every worst-case assumption from the Rare Earth theory with a nearly total absence of new high-tech modalities. Even if we are alone in the Universe, trapped by the speed of light, and beset by catastrophe, there will be stories to tell."

    

Speed kills: Did amphetamines play a role in friendly fire attack on Canadians? (CBC via GlobalSecurity.org)
    

Targetting a high-ranking Al Qaeda member(LA Times)

Senior Pakistani and American intelligence officials say the operational commander of Al Qaeda, the man believed to have planned the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, narrowly avoided capture during a raid in which authorities took his two young sons into custody.

It was one of at least half a dozen missed opportunities over eight years to seize Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is described by intelligence analysts on three continents as the man most responsible for Al Qaeda's continuing terrorist attacks.

Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency has had Mohammed's two sons, ages 7 and 9, in custody since September.

    

PM: Iraqi weapons may be in Syria (Ha'aretz)

Israel has information that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction to be sent to Syria for hiding, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said last night. Sharon added that the Americans were also examining this intelligence information, which he said had yet to be verified.

Also yesterday, Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Aharon Ze'evi told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that an American assault on Iraq is unlikely before February.

    

The official line: Home Page of defendamerica.mil: U.S. Department Defense News About the War on Terrorism

Current top stories include:

U.S. Military Readies Forces, Works With Iraqi Opposition

Iraqi Plane Shoots Down  U.S. Unmanned Aircraft

Defense Officials Report Increased Enemy Activity

    

War critics critique: No-Fly Zones: Rhetoric and Real Intentions (MERIP)
    

Report: Iraqi document fails to account for 6,000 bombs (Ha'aretz)
    

Did the United Nations Authorize "No-Fly" Zones Over Iraq? (Slate)

Following the Gulf War, no-fly zones were set up north of the 36th parallel to protect Iraq's Kurdish minority and, later, south of the 32nd parallel to protect the country's Shiite Muslims. They were implemented by the United States (under President George H. W. Bush), Great Britain, and France. As justification, the trio of nations cited U.N. Security Council Resolution 688, adopted in 1991 to condemn Iraq's brutal repression of the Kurds and Shiites. The resolution demanded that Iraq cease its "repression of the Iraqi civilian population."

However, the New York Times editorialized at the time that Resolution 688 provided a "dubious justification" for setting up the no-fly zones because it did not authorize the use of force to stop Iraqi abuses. And in 1993, the U.N. legal department announced that it could find no existing Security Council resolutions authorizing the United States, Britain, and France to enforce the no-fly zones. They are never explicitly mentioned in Resolution 688 or elsewhere. Furthermore, Resolution 688 was not enacted under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, the section that is used to authorize and legitimize the use of force.

France later backed away from its involvement in the no-fly zones, leaving the United States and Britain to enforce them. Other U.N. Security Council nations have never accepted their legitimacy. So the dispute over whether Iraq's firing at planes over the no-fly zones constitutes a "material breach" actually exposes a long-standing divide at the United Nations. No wonder the administration has been hesitant to cite Iraq's recent anti-aircraft fire as cause to demand further military action from the Security Council.

    

So much for a merry Xmas: In U.S., Terrorism's Peril Undiminished (washingtonpost.com)

The elements of the U.S. "security deficit," as another current official termed it recently, are varied. In their own fields of responsibility, across a wide range of government functions, nearly all of those interviewed acknowledged laboring under threats for which they have no present answer. In some cases they described the challenge as unavoidable. In others they said they had lost opportunities to respond. In still others, implicitly and explicitly, the officials raised questions about the president's choices in the war on terrorism.

• Thirteen of 20 men that The Post could identify on the government's classified roster of "high value targets" remain unaccounted for. Bush's overriding objective, a high-ranking official at the heart of the effort said Friday, is to capture or kill the small cadre of leaders he sees as uniquely responsible for al Qaeda's potent threat. "We want to get that inner core more than anything," the official said, describing their number as roughly 30. The Post identified the 20 (see box) from interviews and a set of notes made by a participant in the hunt. Called "HVTs" in the argot of government, the 13 men believed at large include four of the five in the uppermost tier. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, in a brief interview for this report, said "we are hunting down systematically members of terrorist networks, but that said, this is not just a numbers game."

• Some of those involved in the hunt said the government lost many and perhaps most of its best chances to kill the top targets in the critical first month of the war in Afghanistan. Disputes at the time over rules of engagement and lines of command, some of which have not been described before, are more significant in retrospect. In October and November 2001, they said, the most wanted enemies were concentrated in Afghanistan. Struggles within the CIA and U.S. Central Command, and between them, prevented operators of the armed Predator drones from opening fire on terrorist targets with Hellfire missiles at least 15 times, according to sources directly involved. The disputes persisted through two changes of the rules of engagement, with more missed opportunities to fire, until spring.

• Now scattered, al Qaeda's network remains capable of global command and control. As it did with box cutters and jetliners on Sept. 11, al Qaeda makes innovative use of ordinary technology to frustrate U.S. efforts to get "inside the plot," the term used by Tenet.

• Of all the uncertainties about al Qaeda operators, the most serious one for the Bush administration is whether there are undiscovered "sleeper cells" now present in the United States. That concern, expressed widely among those interviewed, results from a common belief that there may have been in-country conspirators in the Sept. 11 plot who have not been identified by the FBI. Director Robert S. Mueller III has expressed the view that there were none.

• There are at least two important disagreements among the officials interviewed for this story, one of fact and one of policy. They have no consensus on whether al Qaeda is replacing its top operatives with competent successors as fast as it loses them, which has important implications for the success of the president's strategy. And they do not agree on how soon, and with how much priority, U.S. policy should turn to addressing sources of grievance in the Arab and Islamic worlds -- a difference that leads them to different views on whether the war on al Qaeda will be enhanced or set back by war against Iraq.

"These guys continue to go back after targets they have tried to get before," Downing said. "That's why I expect they're going to go back to Washington and why I expect they're going to go back to New York, both because of the symbolic impact of those attacks and the economic effect."

The strongest expression of that view came in very personal terms from a participant in efforts against al Qaeda whose office is adjacent to Pennsylvania Avenue.

"They are going to kill the White House," the official said. "I have really begun to ask myself whether I want to continue to get up every day and come to work on this block."

...

In the months after Sept. 11, one of the CIA's most important South Asia resources was a man named Bob, then station chief in Pakistan, who will be identified here by first name only. Conversant with local languages, he was immersed in the people and institutions of the nation that arguably remains most important to the war on al Qaeda.

Recently he returned to headquarters in Langley. His new assignment: "issue manager" for Iraq.

"He completed his tour," said a senior intelligence official. "When you have something like Iraq come up, you want to put your best guy on it."

    

North Country Fear: In the Party of God: Are terrorists in Lebanon preparing for a larger war? (Jeffrey Goldberg in The New Yorker)
    

Radio Rays: Good morning Baghdad, this is Washington calling (Ha'aretz)

Results of the latest listeners poll, released last week, caused a ruffle of excitement in the Radio Sawa studios in Washington. After six months of broadcasts, it seems that the station, which is owned by the U.S. government and broadcasts music and news to the Arab world, is now the most popular radio station among young people in Amman, the capital of Jordan. It has pulled ahead of the government FM station and has even earned accolades for its news broadcasts.

On the eve of a possible war with Iraq, directors of Radio Sawa are trumpeting the fact that for the first time ever, the U.S. has managed to penetrate the Arab world. In addition to the survey held in Amman, there is evidence of high listenership in other countries of the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and Africa.

    

20:20 Hindsight The Oslo Peace Process - Lessons Learned (Gershon Baskin in Ariga)

Lesson Learned: Agreements must be as explicit as possible.

Too much of the Oslo Agreements was open to too many varied and opposing interpretations. Several of the best examples relate to territorial and settlement issues. Palestinians understood that upon signing the DOP Israeli settlement activity would cease in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians believed that Israeli agreement to specify that the process was based on UN Security Council Resolution 242, that the process would not prejudice the outcome of final status agreements, that the Israelis agreed to mention the integrity of Palestinian territories and that the Palestinian Council would have authority over all areas of the West Bank and Gaza "except external security, settlements, Israelis, foreign relations...." meant that Israel would sustain from the construction of new settlements or from expanding existing ones. This, however, did not happen. The Israeli claimed that no where in any of the agreements did Israel agree to cease settlement construction. Israel further claimed that the construction of new settlements, by-pass roads or the enlargement of existing settlements did not prejudice the outcome of the permanent status agreements because their construction did not impinge on the possibility that these would either remain under Israeli sovereignty by agreement or be transferred to Palestinian sovereignty, by agreement. According to the letter of the agreements, Israel is correct. On the other hand, there is little doubt that the continuation of the settlement construction, the continued confiscation of Palestinian lands by Israel, and the construction of by-pass roads was one of the major factors that led to the end of the Oslo Process. One can only ponder why then did the Palestinians not demand an explicit reference to the cessation of all settlement construction in writing as part of the agreement?

    

Why are we about to be in Iraq?

There are lots of reasons, some good, some bad. Personally, I'm convinced by Josh Marshall's arguments. But it's worth noting that the groundwork was laid a while back, in this PDF document, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. It was published in September, 2000, and the authors include familiar names in the current administration like Dov Zakheim and Paul Wolfowitz. If you don't want to read all 90 pages, here's a rather breathless piece from the British Sunday Herald that provides such juicy quotes as 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.' A more American take on it comes from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, where deputy editorial page editor Jay Bookman writes about "The President's Real Goal in Iraq."