“Son of Hamas” Mosab Hassan Yousef had his deportation hearing yesterday—and our government had an epiphany. Somehow DHS came to its senses and realized that he is not a terrorist threat, but, as everyone from Israeli Security to the US Congress has been pointing out, an asset in the war on terror. I wish I could say I believe the minions of Napolitano came to realize they’d made an honest mistake, but it’s hard to escape the more likely prospect that they finally knew they couldn’t get away with it—that what perhaps they’d hoped to do in secret was now being shouted from the rooftops. According to the report in The Weekly Standard,
[US] Attorney Kerri Calcador gave no explanation for the government’s change of heart.
*** *** *** *** *** *** ***
There were a couple of other hints over the past few days that there is still a little sanity in the wide wonderful world of geopolitics. Both an analysis by The Washington Institute and a similar one by JINSA suggest that the Great Gaza Flotilla Affair has been somewhat more of a fiasco than a benefit to Hamas (and thereby to Iran). Maybe that has something to do with why Iran keeps backpedaling on its threats to dispatch more vessels, with or without an armed escort. Last I heard, the deal was off. Then again, with crazy people like ol’ Mahmoud, you just never can tell.
*** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Meanwhile, since Israel did go ahead and increase the flow of goods into Gaza via the legitimate crossings, the merchants making a killing (no pun intended) on the sale of goods smuggled in through tunnels have been complaining about the competition. Yes, I know that’s a little hard to believe; maybe the world’s craziness quotient is still at a respectable level.
*** *** *** *** *** *** ***
And maybe we ourselves are just a little crazy–or at least non-discerning–to swallow whole all the disinformation and downright distortion being fed to us by the more prominent (though less honest) media. Do you remember the thing about Reuters cropping photos from the flotilla confrontation? Well now we find the Daily Telegraph passing off photos from a year and a half ago as current information.
*** *** *** *** *** *** ***
And speaking of uncovering deception, it turns out that the Free Gaza movement’s own documents, seized in the flotilla raid, make it clear that they had planned from the beginning to deceive the public by shouting one thing through their megaphones while doing something completely different behind the scenes.
Ah well, you knew that, and I knew that, but I keep hoping there are honest people out there who didn’t know that and would like to. So I’ll just keep doing my job here, and I continue to invite others to join in.
Lineman 