From http://OpinionJournal.com

Best of the Web Today - December 18, 2001
By JAMES TARANTO
Osama bin Hidin'  http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/12/18/ret.afghan.attacks/index.html

Afghan fighters are conducting "cave by cave" searches for terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, CNN reports. Although anti-Taliban forces, with U.S. help, have more or less taken control of the Tora Bora region, there are hundreds of caves and "it's possible he could be dead in the bottom of one of them," says Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

Some have suggested that bin Laden has slipped across the border to Pakistan, and  United Press International  http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011218-29450475.htm  reports that country's border with Afghanistan remains porous, despite reassurances from officials in Islamabad that they've "sealed the border tight." "Pakistan's tribal areas are free-passage zones for Taliban and al Qaeda's foreign legionnaires escaping from Afghanistan," reports UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave. "A visiting reporter was stopped once and when the U.S. passport was produced, the civilian security official made clear that Americans were 'not welcome.' When asked whether that went for Taliban, too, he answered, 'Taliban always welcome.' "

Wolfowitz issued a warning to Pakistan or any other country that might harbor bin Laden: "Any country in the world that would knowingly harbor bin Laden would be out of their minds. I think they have seen what happened to the Taliban and I think that is probably a pretty good lesson to people not to do that."

InstaPundit.com offers some additional, if fanciful, theories on Osama's whereabouts:

*** QUOTE ***

Alternate where's Osama theories: We killed him. We know he's dead. But there are lots of reasons for not telling the world. (1) we don't want to trigger any "sleepers" who might be waiting for just that news to act; (2) we don't want to anger the Saudis; (3) we want to maximize confusion among al Qaeda survivors--perhaps we were the ones broadcasting phony orders in Osama's voice to increase this--while we continue to round 'em up; (4) Osama's head, in brine, has been delivered to King Fahd with a message--if this happens again, it'll be yours; naturally, that's best not spread around.

Alternate alternate theories: he's alive and being interrogated on a U.S. warship; he's alive and being interrogated in Pakistan; he's alive and being interrogated in India.

Evidence for the above scenarios: none. But hey, they're all plausible and fun.

*** END QUOTE ***

A  Time  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101011224-188561,00.html  article suggests one further theory:

*** QUOTE ***

Afghanistan was such a cozy home base for al-Qaeda. The network enjoyed luxuries like its own air-shuttle service, using the national airline Ariana to ship terrorist cargo and personnel, including Osama bin Laden's bodyguards and their families, between Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf or East Africa. Sometimes al-Qaeda agents would even slip in and out of other countries disguised as Ariana flight attendants, according to aviation sources.

*** END QUOTE ***

Next time you fly, especially if it's on Ariana, take a very close look at the stewardesses.

The Crying Game  http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/36992.htm

The New York Post, its front page blaring  CRYBABIES  http://www.nypost.com/images/front121801.gif , reports that "Osama bin Laden's vaunted al Qaeda fighters broke down in tears yesterday and begged not to be turned over to the Americans." The Post quotes a 17-year-old Kuwaiti named Khudaifa: "I haven't had a drink for two days. If you don't give me water, I will die." Ah what the heck--give the baby his bottle.

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever Omar  http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/12/18/walq118.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/12/18/ixhome.html

Also still missing is top Talib Mullah Mohammad Omar. London's Daily Telegraph reports he "is thought to holed up with hundreds of heavily armed men at a mountain hide-out in southern Afghanistan":

*** QUOTE ***

In the first detailed report of Mullah Omar's possible whereabouts, Haji Gullalai, a senior anti-Taliban commander, said witnesses' accounts placed the fugitive leader and up to 500 fighters in an area of hills and caves near Baghran village, 100 miles north west of Kandahar.

He said they had taken all their weapons, ammunition, vehicles and even office equipment as they fled Kandahar 12 days ago, when the city surrendered.

*** END QUOTE ***

As if it wasn't bad enough Omar ran his country into the ground and gave shelter to Osama bin Laden's gang of mass murderers, now he's pilfering too. Talk about adding insult to injury! Gullalai says he expects to hunt down Omar within a few days if the maniacal mullah doesn't surrender first.

Praise the Lords  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57448-2001Dec17.html

Britain's Law Lords, the country's highest court, have approved the extradition of Khaled al Fawwaz and two associates to the U.S. The men are accused of involvement in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Euro-weenies, however, could still delay justice; the alleged terrorists could appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

When Life Gives You Yemen, Make Yemen Aid--II  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011218/wl/attacks_yemen_al_qaida_1.html

Yemeni special forces have attacked an al Qaeda hideout in Marib province, some 100 miles east of the capital of San'a. "The bombing came after members of the Adida tribe refused to hand over to authorities at least five men suspected of belonging to bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network," the Associated Press reports. The  Arabic News  http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/011217/2001121708.html  reports that Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh "has stressed he has got guarantees during his visit to Washington that Yemen is not targeted in the terrorism fighting campaign." Those guarantees, we assume, are predicated upon Yemeni cooperation.

Our Friends the Saudis  http://www.dawn.com/2001/12/17/int2.htm

Yemen may be cooperating, but the Saudis are as useless as ever. Agence France-Presse reports the Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayef ibn Abdel Aziz, is insisting there is no proof of Saudi involvement in the Sept. 11 hijackings--even though 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. "It's true that Saudi citizens were in the planes, but who can be certain whether they were behind the attacks?" Nayef says. "Until now, no one has found me any proof of this."

The New Republic  http://www.tnr.com/122401/kaplan122401.html  traces Saudi efforts to divert attention from its culpability and toward Israel:

*** QUOTE ***

During July and August, [Crown Prince] Abdullah sent Bush several letters, each more shrill than the last, beseeching the president to "pull the reins on Mr. Sharon," as an Abdullah spokesman describes the correspondence. According to a White House adviser, one of these letters threatened a return to the "summer of 1973," a reference to the Arab front that united against Israel prior to the Yom Kippur War. . . .

Then came September 11. Given that 15 of the hijackers were Saudi, one might have expected the monarchy to be somewhat chastened. Far from it. "After September 11," a senior administration official explains, "[the Saudis] just wanted to change the topic from themselves. So they turned the volume up even louder."

*** END QUOTE ***

It was partly in response to Saudi pressure, TNR's Lawrence Kaplan contends, that Colin Powell made a speech endorsing Palestinian statehood and the Bush administration sent a special envoy, Anthony Zinni, to the Middle east in hopes of negotiating a cease-fire. But the Saudis appear to have overplayed their hand. After the latest round of Arab barbarity, the administration had little choice but to join Israel in its fight against terror.

But were the Saudis ever interested in resolving the Palestinian problem? This  Reuters  http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters12-18-023115.asp  dispatch suggests not. It reports that a Saudi newspaper--presumably reflecting the government's views--denounced Yasser Arafat for giving a speech calling for an end to violence against Israel:

*** QUOTE ***

"In his speech, he (Arafat) pledged to pursue those behind the martyrdom operations which he called suicide attacks. He also pledged to pursue Palestinian fighters and to close down Hamas and Islamic Jihad institutions," al-Watan said in an editorial, referring to two militant Palestinian groups.

"Is there a name for all of this other than surrender?" it asked.

*** END QUOTE ***

Arafat's speech is plainly a desperation move, and it may come too late to make a difference. But the Saudis' reaction to it both reflects a blind hatred of Jews and suggests they may want to keep the Palestinian conflict alive so as to divert attention from their own repressive policies at home and support for terror and Islamic fundamentalism abroad.

The Terrorists Aren't Listening  http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/12/18/News/News.40139.html

The Jerusalem Post reports Arafat's speech didn't go over well among Palestinian terrorist groups either. Hamas and Islamic Jihad issued a leaflet rejecting Arafat's "call for an end to all armed activities and terror attacks and called for a continuation of the intifada until the end of the occupation. They also vowed to continue suicide attacks and denounced the US as the enemy of the Palestinian people, threatening to target US targets in the future."

CNN reports  http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/12/18/iraq.conference/index.html  Saddam Hussein is also trying to get a piece of the Palestinian action, urging a meeting of Arab leaders in Mecca "to discuss the issue of aggression on Palestinians." In National Review Online,  Victor Davis Hanson  http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson121801.shtml  pens a dyslogy to Arafat and Saddam:

*** QUOTE ***

The bleak situation for these walking anachronisms is worse than the mere fall of Communism and the end to state-organized anti-Americanism. The United States not only defeated Marxists, but successfully spread its own culture abroad. The result is that South America, Asia, and Eastern Europe rather like free elections, capitalism, and secular tolerance. For all the brutishness of the new globalism, even its most recalcitrant critics welcome international banking, communications, air travel, and intellectual exchange.

In other words, outside of Mr. Arafat's own close circle and a few sycophants in Baghdad, hardly any worker in any state wishes to see continual suicide bombers and poison gas plants on the evening news when there is a chance to catch a Schwarznegger movie, read spirited newspapers over coffee, and put a little away for a VCR. Indeed, even individual Arabs at Ground Zero in Jerusalem and Baghdad--if they could speak freely without repercussions--would perhaps prefer an end to their own state's sanctioned terror and a chance to join the rest of the world in the effort at living comfortably and securely.

*** END QUOTE ***

Real Soon Now  http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011218/ts/mideast_dc_470.html

President Bush has signed a waiver delaying for six months the congressionally mandated move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. But he "said he was committed to the move in the future," Reuters reports.

Ayatollah You So  http://www.irna.com/newshtm/eng/26132659.htm

Bill Clinton says Iran is a democracy. That at least is how the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, spins a  speech  http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/news_comment/dimbleby/print_clinton.shtml#  he gave on Sunday.

Cheers for Chelsea  http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=swift20011204

Chelsea Clinton can't be all bad. After all, The Nation has published an article attacking the erstwhile first daughter, who "has been waging war from behind the newly reinforced bullet-proof glass windows of her Oxford dorm room. She and her Secret Service guards disrupted an antiwar rally in the town hall, heckling the speakers and waving American flags."

Well, bully for Chelsea (though does she really still have Secret Service protection nearly a year after her father left office?). We guess attacking her was not that high a priority at The Nation, though, since the assignment fell to one  Daniel Swift  http://www.thenation.com/directory/view.mhtml?handle=swift_daniel , a lowly "former Nation intern" and "freelance writer."

Britain's Fifth Column  http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001570010-2001582454,00.html

The delightfully named Hassan Butt, a British Muslim who says he's recruited hundreds of Taliban fighters, "could face prosecution under anti-terrorism laws," the Times of London reports. Hmm, could Marin mujahid John Walker's father have been referring to this character when he said he wanted to give his son a "little kick in the butt"?

The Answer, My Friend, Is Blowing in the Wind  http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991697

Here's a possible explanation for those two mysterious anthrax cases: The victims may have inhaled wind-blown spores. Debora MacKenzie writes in The New Scientist:

*** QUOTE ***

Two of the five US anthrax deaths so far had no known association with contaminated mail. The two women lived in the Bronx in New York City, and in Oxford, Connecticut. But both places lie on a straight line running 47 degrees northeast from Trenton.

Martin Furmanski, a researcher based in Newport Beach, California, says this exactly matches the wind bearing on 9 October--220 and 230 degrees--the day the anthrax-laced letters were processed in Trenton. The wind was also "brisk", he says, between 11 and 21 kilometres per hour [seven to 13 miles an hour].

*** END QUOTE ***

Where's Geraldo?  http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,321552-412,00.shtml

CBS News reports that Geraldo Rivera, Fox News Channel's most obnoxious on-air personality, "was hundreds of miles from the site of a friendly fire incident he reported on":

*** QUOTE ***

Rivera reported in a Dec. 6 piece that he became emotional and choked up while standing on the "hallowed ground" in Afghanistan where "friendly fire took so many of our, our men and the mujahedeen yesterday." Rivera said he had recited the Lord's Prayer.

But, according to a report on the  Baltimore Sun  http://www.sunspot.net/features/bal-to.geraldo15dec15.story 's Internet site, Rivera admitted that he was several hundred miles from the site--outside Kandahar--where three Americans were killed on Dec. 5 by an errant U.S. bomb.

*** END QUOTE ***

Rivera told the Sun he had mixed up the incident he report on with another "friendly fire" incident, in Tora Bora. "But, according to the Sun, Pentagon information shows the Tora Bora incident occurred at least three days after Rivera's Dec. 6 report."
 
Meanwhile,  The Weekly Standard  http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000/700auxyl.asp  notes that Geraldo made a cameo in a news photo from Afghanistan.

Stupidity Watch  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/common/FullStory.html&cf=tgam/common/FullStory.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&date=20011217&dateOffset=&hub=columnists&title=Columnists&cache_key=columnistsNational&current_row=1&start_row=1&num_rows=1

Writing in the Toronto Globe and Mail, Spider Robinson, a Canadian science-fiction author, opposes antiterrorism laws on the grounds that some of his best friends are  terrorists:

*** QUOTE ***

One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter: Nelson Mandela would still be considered a terrorist, if he hadn't won. Just about every friend I had in the 1960s would have qualified as a potential threat to national security under the vaguely defined parameters of [Canadian antiterror bills] C-36 and C-42; today they are, without exception, assets to their community, society and culture. The ones who aren't in jail, anyway.

*** END QUOTE ***

Justice Delayed  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60204-2001Dec18.html

Honorary Paris citizen Mumia Abu-Jamal, who murdered Philadelphia policeman Daniel Faulkner, won't be executed anytime soon. Judge William Yohn, a federal trial judge, has thrown out Abu-Jamal's death sentence and ordered a new sentencing hearing.

Correction
Jenna Bush wasn't offered $12 million to appear in an "antiterrorism movie," as we  said yesterday  http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001610#jenna . Twelve million dollars is the budget for the entire movie. Sorry about that, Jenna.

Rogue Elephant Trainer?  http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/stories_news/circus_20011218.htm

The courts in San Jose, Calif., continue to break new ground in the protection of fauna.  Earlier this year  http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95000827#dog  a San Jose judge sentenced a man to three years in prison for killing a dog. Now, the Contra Costa Times reports, an elephant trainer is on trial in San Jose, charged with violating "a unique California law that prohibits elephant handlers from inflicting 'physical punishment resulting in damage, scarring or breakage of skin.' "

Mark Gebel allegedly "lunged at a 30-year-old Asian elephant with a hooked stick known as an ankus, or bull hook," the paper reports. "Investigators later found a 'nickel sized red bloody spot on her skin behind her left front leg.' " Gebel's lawyer notes that the elephant in question weighs 8,000 pounds and stands more than eight feet tall. The wound, he says, "is the size of a pin prick."

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Shelley Taylor, Raghu Desikan, Jim Orheim, Damian Bennett, S.E. Brenner, C.E. Dobkin, Brian Wilkes, Michiel Visser, Paul Music, Nathan Wirtschafter, Hazen Dempster, Howard Fienberg, Janice Lyons, Marc Bielec, Rosslyn Smith, Jeannette Boot and Brian Otey. If you have a tip, write us at  opinionjournal@wsj.com  mailto:opinionjournal@wsj.com , and please include the URL.)

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Also on OpinionJournal:
- Christopher Buckley  http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001613 : The Osama tape, as heard by Al Jazeera (link requires registration).
- Pete du Pont  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=95001612 : Bush's freshman grade? A-minus.
- Tom Bray  http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/tbray/?id=95001611 : Taking on big government, one state at a time.
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