PROCÈS-VERBAL

Well, she went there.

Jennifer Rubin, writing for The Washington Post, didn’t wait for facts to emerge, couldn’t restrain her impulse to giver her inner demons sway, but went right for the jugular—her own as it turns out:

Norway Bombing:

A massive explosion rocked a government district in Norway’s capital Friday, killing seven people and injuring many more, and a shooter at a political convention on an island north of Oslo appeared to have inflicted more casualties, in incidents police are treating as connected, a police spokesman said.

Thomas Joscelyn explains at the Weekly Standard Web site:

Just one year ago, authorities in Oslo broke up an al Qaeda-directed bomb plot that originated in northern Pakistan. Good intelligence, including intercepted emails between an al Qaeda planner and the Oslo cell, prevented the plotters from assembling and launching their bomb. . . .

Oslo was not as fortunate today. . . .

We don’t know if al Qaeda was directly responsible for today’s events, but in all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra. Prominent jihadists have already claimed online that the attack is payback for Norway’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan.
(Emphasis mine.)

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The Arabic speaking world has again become politically articulate, and it is exhilarating to behold.

First of all, let me offer my congratulations to the protesters, my thanks to the Egyptian Army for the way it fulfilled its role thus far (regardless of the indifferent period when the NDP’s thugs were unleashed on the protesters) and my appreciation to Al Jazeera, who, more than any other news outlet, refused to let this protest be crushed in secret.

All of you have good reason to recall your roles in these events with a well earned pride for the rest of your lives. Your grandchildren will have reason to brag about what you’ve done in the last 17 days.

Keep it up. The hard part is about to begin, and Egypt doesn’t have a democracy quite yet. The police and SSI are still employed.

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I usually stay away from stories concerning terrorism because they’re just too predictable, but I found this one interesting, and as I consider the implications on the idea of legitimacy of the positions and acts of the US government, I thought I’d share it. From July 15 to August 31, World Public Opinion conducted a survey in 17 countries asking the open-ended question, Who do you believe was behind the 9/11 attacks?. The topline results here.

The results surprised me. On average, 46% of respondents thought Al Qaeda was guilty, and in no country outside of Africa, did an overwhelming number of people say they believed Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks. In some cases, a significant number of people thought the US government was behind the attacks. Particularly in Mexico and Germany, where 30% and 15% respectively of the people who were asked said they thought the US government itself was responsible.

All of which seriously undermines the perception of legitimacy of our invasion of Afghanistan (forget Iraq, I’m not even going there). To take matters a little further, all of this is something Indian officials should give serious consideration to in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, and their aggressive stand against Pakistan. Especially in light of of the possibility that this story in the Economist may have more than a grain of truth.

Here’s what you get when you give classics scholars a little leeway. The Crimson reports that the Hapsburgs may be asked to reign over the student body at Harvard.