MAYSAN PROVINCE, Iraq — A Royal Air Force Merlin helicopter swoops low over the marshes of southern Iraq, over the heads of fishermen poling narrow boats along winding channels. Reeds bend and water ripples under the chopper’s rotor blast. The fishermen shield their eyes to gaze up at the roaring machine. It’s a typical encounter in the remote province of Maysan on the border with Iran. Here, more than 10,000 crude fishing boats ply the wetlands that straddle the border, providing sustenance to hundreds of thousands of Shiite “Marsh Arabs” who populate teeming villages that aren’t marked on any map. [...]
The issue of Muslim women wearing veils in public has ignited an unprecedented national debate on the subject and on multiculturalism generally across Britain. This time the debate pertains to Islamism as a political and cultural movement rather than the usual narrower discussion of Islam as religion. When former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made plain his views on asking Muslim women to remove the veil in his constituency consultations a few weeks ago, he must have known the furor he risked. But it appears to have been an issue troubling Straw for some time. And his comments have clearly laid [...]
As I write, CNN is reporting the breaking news that a threat about the planned simultaneous detonation of seven “dirty bombs” at this weekend’s National Football League games, posted Oct.12 on an Internet chat site, is not considered credible by U.S. authorities. Although the Department of Homeland Security initiated prudent security measures by informing and advising the NFL, it has determined the threat is unreliable. How and why did DHS determine the threat is empty? Is it technically and organizationally feasible to launch such an attack with radiological dispersion devices (RDDs) — so called “dirty bombs” — on the U.S. [...]
