Remedial Mask Training is Indicated

The Mexican government has distributed more than six million masks, according to President Felipe Calderon, but are they actually effective or just a feel-good measure?

The cloth patches in green, blue and white are everywhere, clamped tight over the mouth and nose of teachers, toddlers, policemen and drunks. Even the statue at the church of St. Jude, patron of lost causes, has been fitted with a light-blue surgical mask to ward off swine flu.

But do they work?

After looking at a few news photos, I believe I can answer that question: they work better if you cover your nose as well as your mouth.

Green Cards for the GITMO Gang?

National Review's The Corner has a post today from Andy McCarthy concerning the Obama administration's announced intention to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay by January 2010, and to admit to the United Sates any jihadists made homeless by the closure (Detainees Cleared for Landing ... and You Get to Pay for It!). He asks a question that's been puzzling me, too.

The administration claims it is committed to restoring the "rule of law" that the Bush administration purportedly flouted. The law of the United States provides that aliens are excludable from the United States if they have been affiliated with terrorist organizations or have received terrorist training. How is admitting trained alien terrorists into the United States consistent with the rule of law?

Exactly what legal status will these ex-detainees have if they are admitted? Can they qualify for Lawful Permanent Residence? If not, then what?

Arrests Made in Lansdowne Murder, No Chinese Involvement

It looks like the murder of retired U.S. Army officer and CIA contractor William Bennett, and the near-fatal beating of his wife Cynthia, was a case of street crime and not Chinese retaliation for the mistaken targeting of their Belgrade embassy.

The Loudoun County Sheriff announced today that the four suspects he has in custody are ordinary domestic criminals who have committed a string of violent robberies and burglaries in the Northern Virginia area.

Two men with possible gang affiliations have been charged with capital murder and two other suspects are expected to be charged in the beating death of a Loudoun County man during a morning stroll with his wife last month, authorities said yesterday. The attack was a "random robbery gone bad," Loudoun Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson said.

Police began to home in on the four suspects while executing search warrants in connection with a flurry of burglaries, robberies and assaults in Loudoun County. Some suspects appear to be either members of or associated with a regional street gang, but it does not appear that the attacks were part of a gang initiation or ritual, authorities said.

Cynthia Bennett reportedly is recovering and is increasingly able to cooperate with police, so I expect we'll eventually learn her account of the attack.

This Never Happened to James Bond

What's up with all the mishandling of sensitive information over in the UK? Two weeks ago a counterterrorism police action was almost compromised when a senior official walked past press photographers holding an uncovered briefing memo, and now we learn that a British narcotics liasion officer in Colombia has mislaid a flash drive loaded with a ton of highly sensitive stuff.

British spy loses secrets in a handbag:

A BRITISH agent has thrown the war against drug traffickers into chaos by leaving top secret information about covert operations on a bus in South America.

In a blunder that has cost taxpayers millions of pounds and put scores of lives at risk, the drugs liaison officer lost a computer memory stick said to contain a list of undercover agents’ names and details of more than five years of intelligence work.

It happened when the MI6-trained agent left her handbag on a transit coach at El Dorado airport in Bogota, Colombia [TSB note: Bogota must have really cooled down since my years there, if she was allowed to ride around in an airport bus instead of an armored car]. Intelligence chiefs were forced to wind up operations and relocate dozens of agents and informants amid fears the device could fall into the hands of drugs barons.

-- snip --

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, said: “This is an extremely sensitive part of Home Office operations and is the latest in a series of big data errors. It underlines why this government, and Jacqui Smith in particular, has to get to grips with security protocols.”

I have one word of advice for my fellow civil servants in the UK - Ironkey. (I'm loving mine).

Note to New Yorkers: Don't Bring a Grenade to a Gun Buyback

The program is 'no questions asked' for guns. For hand grenades, not so much.

NYPD: Man Brings Grenade To Gun Buyback:

New York City police were holding a suspect Saturday who they say tried to turn in a live hand grenade to police at a gun-buyback program in the Bronx.

Authorities say the NYPD's bomb squad responded to a church where guns were being collected at around 4:30 p.m. and left 15 minutes later with the grenade, carrying it out in a special carrier. The program, which offers $200 for guns no questions asked had started Saturday across the Bronx.

Police were questioning the man, who they didn't immediately identify, and it wasn't clear if he would face any charges.

Saudi Pin-up Girl

While in Riyadh last week I had occasion to visit a barracks that was used by Saudi security forces. It was like any other barracks: spartan bedrooms with wall lockers, phone numbers to pizza delivery joints scribbled here and there, a mattress placed on the roof by some sunbather, and so on. A few pictures were taped to the walls, but I noticed the curious absence of any pin-ups of women.

Then I saw it. Photos cut out of a glossy magazine depicting lavishly made-up and sensuous female eyes. Nothing but eyes. Evidently, this is what Saudi soft-core looks like.

SODDI on the High Seas

Gee, Officer Krupke, don’t treat that boy rough!
His country's a mess, and he don’t eat enough.
Them pirates ain’t delinquents,
They’re just misunderstood,
Deep down inside them there is good!

-- Not from the Lyrics to West Side Story


Judging by today's post in Passport (Pirate Overkill) it sounds like someone is ready to break out in tears over the plight of Abdul Kadhir Muse, the Somali pirate who is now in U.S. custody. Muse, it seems, is merely a victim of his environment, a “malnourished 16-year old” who was produced by a “hellish situation” (which he certainly isn’t responsible for, since Somalia went to hell before he was even born), and who is now in big trouble for “participating in a criminal act.”

Muse was just participating in the violent seizure of a vessel, you see, which somehow sounds a bit more passive than saying that he committed a criminal act by firing on a vessel and threatening to kill the crew. For all we know, he might even have been an unwitting participant who was just hanging around with some other people when they seized the Maersk Alabama, in a maritime application of the trusty SODDI defense that courts hear every day.

Being born in Somalia and hungry all the time could turn anyone into a pirate, I suppose. When you put it that way, it sounds like he’s not fully responsible for his actions. He’s probably a good person at heart who, through no fault of his own, never had a positive role model and can’t be expected to know any better than to hijack ships and hold hostages. And the heartbreaking thing about it all is that the goofy kid broke out in a big grin when they put him in jail in New York because he knows that now he’ll finally get three square meals a day.

The poor boy! First, the sailors on the Maersk Alabama beat him up and took his AK-47, and now a bunch of mean scowling white men in the NYPD and FBI are – sniff, sniff – treating Muse like he’s a real criminal instead of someone who just needs a little direction in life.

It's the kind of sob-mongering I'd expect to hear from Muse's mother, not from a foreign policy journal. Personally, I’m holding back my tears. I’ll bet that Muse looked a lot more threatening to the sailors who saw him coming at them with an AK or an RPG.

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Update (or maybe the word is predate):

I see that the extremely relevant Eagle Speak had a post yesterday with much more on the sympathetic treatment that young Mister Muse is getting from the news media, and that he also anticipated my 'Officer Krupke' bit. In my jet-lagged state I hadn't been keeping up with him often enough and didn't see that post until just now.

I should have known better than to write anything on the subject of Somali pirates before checking Eagle Speak. Lesson learned.