O-Tay! U.S. Consulate Tijuana Has A New Home

They just cut the ribbon today.

Here's a nice video from the Consulate web site that introduces TJ's many clients to its new office compound, which is located next to the Otay Mesa crossing, practically straddling the border.



Consul-General Steven Kashkett gave an interview with a San Diego newspaper that covers the basics, like the cost of the new compound ($120 million), its size (100,000 square feet in the main building), staffing (50 U.S. and 100 local employees), number of visas issued annually (190,000) and resident U.S. citizens (250,000).

The new compound is an antiseptic and boring bit of standard embassy architecture, of course. But that's a big improvement over the old consulate, a ratty little hovel located a few steps away from the Agua Caliente racetrack, a greyhound and horse racing joint that was like a living fossil from the 1930s culture of border sleaze.

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The Hidden Side Of A Soul Revealed

I feel that unique kind of nausea that arises from learning that someone you might have worked with, or next to, has been arrested on child pornography charges.

A co-worker called this sad news to my attention today - Undercover FBI Porn Site Snares Federal Agent:

The bureau’s operation last month snared a Department of State diplomatic security officer, according to court records. James Cafferty, 45, who was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in London, was named in an August 29 felony complaint charging him with possession of child pornography.

-- snip --

During a search last month at his Florida home, Cafferty reportedly confessed to using his PayPal account to purchase subscriptions to about 10 child porn web sites. He also admitted to “having approximately 10,000 to 15,000 files of child pornography” and accessing the FBI undercover web site, according to the confidential affidavit. Cafferty, a federal investigator noted, “provided a hand written confession to agents wherein he admitted to having child pornography on the computer media seized from his residence that he had transported home from London.”

-- snip--

As detailed in a confidential affidavit, recipients of the e-mail were provided the undercover web site’s url and a unique password (which was needed to advance beyond the site’s home page). Site visitors are met with a greeting welcoming them “to the hidden side of your soul, where you view the yung and innocent.”

-- snip --

Free on $50,000 bond, Cafferty has been placed on home incarceration by a federal magistrate who has barred him from using the Internet or having any unsupervised contact with minors.

Just wow.

"Massachusetts Man" Plotted To Bomb The Pentagon And Capitol Building

That's how all the news media are reporting it, anyway. Just a "Massachusetts man" of no special interest. And if his name happens to be "Rezwan Ferdaus," it would be very wrong of you to infer from that any foreign national origin, non-Western civilization, or religious identity.

You can take it from U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz herself that Ferdaus's actions do not reflect on any particular culture, community, or religion. She says so right there in the FBI press release announcing Ferdaus' arrest:

“Our top priority is to protect our nation from terrorism and national security threats. The conduct alleged today shows that Mr. Ferdaus had long planned to commit violent acts against our country, including attacks on the Pentagon and our nation’s Capitol. Thanks to the diligence of the FBI and our many other law enforcement partners, that plan was thwarted,” said U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz. “I want the public to understand that Mr. Ferdaus’ conduct, as alleged in the complaint, is not reflective of a particular culture, community, or religion,” she added. “In addition to protecting our citizens from the threats and violence alleged today, we also have an obligation to protect members of every community, race, and religion against violence and other unlawful conduct.”

But wait. What about this statement in the very same press release?

During various recorded meetings, Ferdaus envisioned causing a large “psychological” impact by killing Americans, including women and children, who he referred to as “enemies of Allah.” According to the affidavit, Ferdaus’ desire to attack the United States is so strong that he confided, “I just can’t stop; there is no other choice for me.”

Enemies of Allah? Are they a big problem in Massachusetts?

The affidavit and complaint filed in the case says the same thing:

"Ferdaus ... began planning to commit violent "jihad" against the United States, which he considers an enemy of Allah."

Why don't we just come clean and say that a "Muslim man in Massachusetts" was plotting to commit terrorism against the United States? That's what happened, after all.

Back to the press release, we learn that the FBI toyed with Ferdaus for a year before hooking him up with the weapons and explosives that are the basis for most of the charges against him:

According to the affidavit, at today’s meeting the [FBI's undercover agent] allowed Ferdaus to inspect the explosives and firearms (a quantity of C-4 explosives, three grenades, and six fully-automatic AK-47 assault rifles) that the [undercover agents] delivered, and that Ferdaus had requested for his attack plan. After inspecting the components, Ferdaus brought them to his storage unit, took possession of the explosives and firearms, and locked them in his storage unit. Ferdaus was then immediately arrested.

Maybe Ferdaus didn't read chapter seven of the al Qaeda manual, which instructs the jihadi on precautions he should take when buying or transporting weapons. In particular:

"Prior to purchasing, the seller should be tested to ensure that he is not an agent of the security apparatus."

Good advice, that.

All in all, Ferdaus ought to have stuck with his bitchin' Freestyle Americana band, the Silk Road. He made a better drummer than terrorist.

That's An Excellent Point, LTC Peters

While channel-surfing TV news programs this morning, I caught a few seconds of the retired Army officer and writer/columnist Ralph Peters commenting on the Afghanistan situation and how it forces us into a highly troubled relationship with Pakistan.

Quoting him from memory, he said this:

“When I went to Command and General Staff College, I would have flunked out if I proposed to put 100,000 troops at the end of a single supply line that ran through a thousand miles of hostile territory.”

That is an excellent point. After ten years, we still haven't found an alternative to routing all our Afghan-bound truck convoys from the port of Karachi through the Khyber Pass, thereby putting ourselves at the mercy of Pakistan's ISI and its Taliban allies. Shouldn't the CGSC have revoked some diplomas by now?

Take A Hike, Shane

The WaPo photo, above, had the caption: "Shane Bauer, center, greets fiance Sarah Shourd."

I'm glad they indicated which one was Shane, since otherwise I would have been at a loss. I guess it's true that some couples start to look like each other over time.

Anyway, this remark in the WaPo story on the release of the two U.S. hikers from Iran is what prompts me to comment on Mr. Bauer:

“Two years in prison is too long,” Bauer said. He expressed hope that Wednesday’s release would lead to “freedom for political prisoners in America and Iran.”

How's that again? Who are these political prisoners in America? Later in the story we get a clue:

News of the release was welcomed Wednesday by officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who were part of a delegation of U.S. religious leaders and American Muslims who traveled to Iran to ask that the hikers be allowed to leave.

“We believe the efforts of the recent interfaith delegation to Iran offer a positive example of bridge-building initiatives that may be undertaken to help promote mutual understanding and cooperation between nations,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement. “We hope our government will now address the issue of Iranian citizens detained in the United States with the same spirit of compassion.”

Apparently these unnamed detainees are persons convicted of illegally exporting U.S. military equipment and restricted items to Iran, like this guy, plus a few who have gone missing in other countries. The first group belongs in prison, and the second group is not under our control.

Maybe Shane was suffering from some kind of late onset Stockholm Syndrome when he made that remark about political prisoners. Or maybe he's just a jerk.

Shane's freedom was purchased by a $1 million bail payment sent by Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman to the account of the Iranian judiciary. Is it too late for the Sultan to return Shane and get his money back?

So I Asked Starbucks For The Government Discount ...

... and they charged me $16 for a muffin.

Congress and the Washington media are in a frenzy over MuffinGate, and Foreign Policy's Blake Hounshell has had about enough of it:

The latest tempest in a teapot in this season of austerity? Congressional outrage over the Justice Department's spending on food and beverages at one of its conferences in 2009. An inspector general's audit report [here] found that the department paid $4,200 for 250 muffins and $2,880 for 300 cookies and brownies.

"By itemizing these costs, with service and gratuity, muffins cost over $16 each and cookies and brownies cost almost $10 each," the report reads.

-- snip --

OK, let's stipulate that spending $16, or even $10, for a muffin is excessive, and a waste of taxpayer money. But give me a break -- this kind of spending is hardly the problem.

Not only are spiraling health-care costs the real cause of America's long-term budget woes -- something Congress has done hardly anything to address -- but defense spending is by far the biggest chunk of annual discretionary spending. The Pentagon can't even pass an audit, and won't be able to do so until 2017, according to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's Senate testimony today. With the enthusiastic patronage of Congress, the U.S. military spends tens of billions of dollars on weapons systems that either don't work as adverstised (Future Combat Systems, anyone?), cost far more than budgeted (all of them), or are wholly unnecessary (remember the Kafkaesque fight over the Joint Strike Fighter's "alternate engine"?).

The Justice Department's entire budget request for 2012 is $28 billion -- less than what the U.S. spends in Iraq and Afghanistan in three months. Before it was cut to only $200 million in July, the Pentagon's budget for military bands was $325 million. Military bands!

But by all means, rant about the muffins...

Truth to tell, the $16 muffin meme is a bit off-base anyway since DOJ was really paying for hotel meeting space rather than fancy noshes, as the New York Times calmly explained yesterday:

A five-day conference in August 2009 at the Capital Hilton in Washington to train immigration lawyers saved money by serving only snacks. But it still cost $4,200 for 250 muffins and $2,880 for 300 cookies and brownies, more than $16 a muffin and nearly $10 per cookie and brownie.

- snip --

Moreover, the department told auditors that some food costs were exaggerated because of the way deals with the hotels were often structured: the hotels provided “free” meeting space in exchange for an agreement to use their pricey food and beverage services.

Planners often did no cost-benefit analysis to determine whether it would have been thriftier to pay for the meeting space directly and obtain cheaper catering, the report said. But it noted that the conferences often ended up spending tens of thousands more on food and beverage than the minimum necessary to secure the “free” meeting rooms.

DOJ was spending other people's (tax) money on this training conference, and they spent it with predictable abandon. But how much damage can they possibly do with their comparatively small budget?

Meanwhile, Congress has appropriated $1.283 trillion in the last ten years for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no end in sight.

This Could Have Made Me Go For A Ph.D.

What a bummer that this was removed from the staff directory:

Trinity College Dublin has said it is taking seriously an incident in which a profile page, complete with image, was inserted on its website for a fake staff member named ‘Dr Conan T. Barbarian’.

-- snip --

His full title and academic qualifications were given as: “Dr Conan T. Barbarian, B.A.(Cimmeria) Ph.D. (UCD). F.T.C.D. (Long Room Hub Associate Professor in Hyborian Studies and Tyrant Slaying).”

His profile indicated he had been “ripped from his mother's womb on the corpse-strewn battlefields of his war-torn homeland, Cimmeria, and has been preparing for academic life ever since”.

“A firm believer in the dictum that ‘that which does not kill us makes us stronger,’ he took time out to avenge the death of his parents following a sojourn pursuing his strong interest in Post-Colonial theory at the Sorbonne.”

The profile went on to say Dr Barbarian completed his PhD, entitled ‘To Hear The Lamentation of Their Women: Constructions of Masculinity in Contemporary Zamoran Literature’ at UCD and was appointed to the School of English in 2006, “after successfully decapitating his predecessor during a bloody battle which will long be remembered in legend and song”.

“In 2011/12, he will be teaching on the following courses: ‘The Relevance of Crom in the Modern World’, ‘Theories of Literature’, ‘Vengeance for Beginners’, ‘Deciphering the Riddle of Steel’ and ‘D.H. Lawrence’.

Whoever put that profile up is just the kind of academic mentor I'd like to have.