by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, December 10, 2001 3:07 P.M. EST

Attack on the Capitol?
Anyone still entertaining a civil-liberties fetish after Sept. 11 should take note of this report in the new issue of Newsweek:

A complex network of Qaeda operatives remains at large, including U.S.-based cells. One of those cells, Newsweek has learned, nearly launched an attack on a major target in Washington, D.C., after September 11.

Intelligence sources told Newsweek that a Qaeda "sleeper cell" in the United States was poised to launch the attack--perhaps against the Capitol Building--not long after the 9-11 atrocities. The sources believe that the FBI, in its sweep against visa violators and other suspects of Mideast backgrounds, picked up members of a "support cell" tasked with providing logistics help to the people actually carrying out the mission. The would-be terrorists then went underground or fled the country, intelligence sources say. Yet it is not clear whether investigators have been able to identify the plotters from among the hundreds of people caught in the FBI dragnet.

Are we too harsh when we refer to civil-liberties fetishists? Well, check out this Dec. 7 article in Newsweek competitor U.S. News & World Report. The breathless headline reads: "EXCLUSIVE: Muslim Behind Bars, Despite a Judge's Order." The Muslim in question, Atila Kula, is a Turk who lives in White Plains, N.Y., and was picked up Nov. 20. You have to read to the sixth paragraph to find out that this is an utter nonstory:

This week, in a hearing closed to the public, an immigration judge ordered Kula immediately released. But when immigration lawyers said they intended to appeal the decision, the judge's order was automatically stayed, and Kula was sent back to jail.

In other words, Kula's case is going through the normal process of judicial review. Why is U.S. News spinning it as if it authorities were acting in contempt of court?

Osama's Unfunniest Home Videos
American officials have obtained a videotape of Osama bin Laden discussing the Sept. 11 attacks. On the tape, found in a home in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, "bin Laden praised God for far greater success than he expected, using language that indicated he was familiar with the planning of the attacks," the Washington Post reports. A New York Times report (link requires registration) adds that "Mr. bin Laden seemed amused that many of the hijackers in the attacks apparently had not known they were on suicide missions."

"There is a lot of laughter on the tape," one administration official tells the Times.

Better Never Than Late
Rediff.com reports that Mohammed Afroz, an alleged terrorist conspirator being held in India, has told Bombay police that the Sept. 11 attacks had originally been planned for 367 days earlier--Sept. 9, 2000--and that "Islamic militants had planned to strike simultaneously in India, US, United Kingdom and Australia." Two conspirators, he says, planned to hijack a London-to-Bombay flight, but there was no such flight on Sept. 11, so they got on a London-to-Manchester one instead. "However, the plan eventually failed because all flights were grounded immediately after the attack on the WTC, Afroz's interrogation report said."

Couldn't Have Happened to a Nicer Guy
Robert Fisk of London's Independent says he was set upon and beaten by a mob of Afghan refugees in the Pakistani town of Kila Abdullah. He says he was the victim of a hate crime, attacked simply because he was a Westerner. And he is in favor of hate crimes: "If I were the Afghan refugees of Kila Abdullah, close to the Afghan-Pakistan border, I would have done just the same to Robert Fisk. Or any other Westerner I could find." Fisk claims that the people in the crowd were angry about America's bombing campaign in Afghanistan, though he offers no evidence and was scarcely in a position to conduct interviews.

Does anyone else find this story a little fishy? Granted, Fisk is notoriously anti-American and has written a lot of stupid and obnoxious things since Sept. 11. But this just seems outside the realm of normal human experience. Can someone really be so blinded by hatred that he cheers on an assault on himself because the assailants are motivated by the same hatred that animates their victim? We suppose it's possible, but color us skeptical.

Even granting Fisk the benefit of the doubt and assuming the attack actually happened as he describes it, Fisk's explanation still seems too convenient. Why should we believe that his attackers share his ideological outlook? Maybe someone in the crowd recognized Fisk as a reporter who's written sycophantic pieces about the Taliban, whose oppression the refugees had fled. Or maybe the attack had nothing to do with politics. Here's how Fisk describes the attack's onset, after he got out of his broken car:

Amanullah went off to find another car . . . and Justin [the translator] and I smiled at the initially friendly crowd that had already gathered round our steaming vehicle. I shook a lot of hands--perhaps I should have thought of Mr Bush--and uttered a lot of "Salaam aleikums". I knew what could happen if the smiling stopped.

The crowd grew larger and I suggested to Justin that we move away from the jeep, walk into the open road. A child had flicked his finger hard against my wrist and I persuaded myself that it was an accident, a childish moment of contempt. Then a pebble whisked past my head and bounced off Justin's shoulder. Justin turned round. His eyes spoke of concern and I remember how I breathed in. Please, I thought, it was just a prank. Then another kid tried to grab my bag. It contained my passport, credit cards, money, diary, contacts book, mobile phone. I yanked it back and put the strap round my shoulder. Justin and I crossed the road and someone punched me in the back.

Isn't it possible that the refugees took all those "Salaam aleikums" as mockery, coming as they did from a smug Brit? And what about the guy trying to rob Fisk? This sounds more like a band of common criminals than a political movement.

Of course, we could be wrong. Maybe Fisk should go back to Kila Abdullah to do some more research.

Why We Must Try Walker for Treason
Marin County Talib John Walker gets support in his hometown newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle. Columnist Louis Freedberg describes the 20-year-old traitor as "a product of Bay Area culture"--which of course he is, but Freedberg thinks that's a good thing:

Instead of labeling him a traitor, as we did to Aaron Burr, Tokyo Rose and Ezra Pound, President Bush should allow Walker's parents to fly him back to Fairfax, and let him get his life back on track. We'd want nothing less for our own children, who could easily have found themselves in a similar mess.

Also in the Chronicle, Glenn Sacks (who actually comes from Northridge, in Southern California) praises Walker on the grounds that "those willing to sacrifice for their beliefs deserve respect--even if what they believe in is foolish":

As a teenager, American Taliban fighter John Phillip Walker gave up a comfortable life in Marin County and traveled halfway around the world to put his life on the line for his religious convictions. How many of us are that courageous?

One wonders if Sacks has as much "respect" for, say, neo-Nazis or antiabortion zealots who are "willing to sacrifice for their beliefs." For that matter, Mark Steyn observes:

Imagine that the Marinated Muslim had instead announced that he was going to do what the late Mike Spann did at his age: enlist in the Marines. Would [mother] Marilyn Walker have seen that as a valid part of his "self-discovery"? Or would she have got out her joss sticks and wailed, "Oh, my God, where did we go wrong?"

Gen. Richard Meyers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told "Fox News Sunday" that Walker, now in captivity at a Marine base in Afghanistan, had been providing "useful information" to American questioners. If so, this may be a mitigating factor if Walker is tried for treason--perhaps enough to justify a life sentence instead of capital punishment. But those columns in the San Francisco Chronicle underscore why it is so important to throw the book at Walker. One of the purposes of the law is to instruct citizens in matters of right and wrong. It sounds as though the Bay Area needs to be taught a lesson: that treason is not an acceptable "alternative lifestyle."

Our Friends the Pakistanis
Remember last month when we were in a "quagmire" in Afghanistan and the Taliban looked unbeatable? Next thing we knew, city after city was liberated. A New York Times report (link requires registration) offers an intriguing explanation for the turnabout:

One month after the Pakistan government agreed to end its support of the Taliban, its intelligence agency was still providing safe passage for weapons and ammunition to arm them, according to Western and Pakistani officials.

On Oct. 8 and again on Oct. 12, Pakistani border guards at a dusty checkpoint in the Khyber Pass waved on convoys headed into Afghanistan. Western intelligence officials said that under the trucks' tarpaulins were rifles, ammunition and rocket-propelled grenade launchers for Taliban fighters. . . .

A senior Pakistani intelligence official acknowledged that the Oct. 8 shipment did contain arms for the Taliban, but he said that it was the last officially sanctioned delivery and that the Pakistanis have since been living up to their commitment to the Americans.

Even around that time, there were signs of a change. Pakistani military advisers were withdrawn from Afghanistan over the following weeks, a move that Western intelligence officials say may have been a crucial factor in the surprisingly swift collapse of Taliban forces when confronted by the Northern Alliance.

One Man's Suicide Bombing Is Another Man's Prayer
Reuters, the British wire service that in the wake of Sept. 11 adopted the motto "One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter," is even worse when it comes to bias against Israel. Check out these two captions, from photos of an identical scene:

"A group of Hamas suicide bombers, with fake dynamite strapped around their chests, parade at the el-Hilweh refugee camp near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on Sunday, Dec. 9, 2001, during an anti-Israel demonstration organized by Hamas to mark the 14th anniversary of its founding. The group said they hoped to join their Hamas colleagues in Palestinian areas to carry out suicide attacks against Israel."--Associated Press

"Members of Hamas pray during a rally held at Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp near the port-city of Sidon in south Lebanon, December 9, 2001. Palestinians poured into the streets in Lebanon on Sunday to mark the 14th anniversary of the founding of the the militant Palestinian Islamist group Hamas."--Reuters

The AP caption appears clearly accurate; you can see the "dynamite" strapped to the chest of the Hamas member in the foreground. Now consider these headlines, on dispatches about the same Israeli attack:

"Israel Hits Militant Suspect's Car"--Associated Press

"Israeli Helicopters Kill Palestinian Toddler, Youth"--Reuters

Stupidity Watch
"Round Up the Jews!" That's the headline Salon put on a piece by the usually sensible Ron Unz, who goes off the deep and and argues that "if it's OK to racially profile Muslims and Arabs now, it should have been fine to single out Jews during the 1950s Communist-spy panic."

The reliably obnoxious Eric Alterman attacks ABC News head David Westin, who apologized for suggesting that the Pentagon may have been a "legitimate target" for terrorists. "Of course the Pentagon is a legitimate target for an attack for those at war against us," Alterman opines. "Hello? War is the Pentagon's entire reason for being. It's where we plan our wars and figure out how to carry them out. By what conceivable definition of war could the Pentagon be excluded as a potential target?"

Along similar lines, United Press International quotes Scott Ritter, the United Nations weapons inspector turned Saddam Hussein apologist: "The meeting in Prague between [top hijacker] Mohammad Atta and Iraqi intelligence was to discuss blowing up Radio Free Europe, which broadcasts messages aimed against Saddam Hussein. It is a legitimate target."

And up at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., they've passed a resolution condemning America for defending itself and liberating Afghanistan. "Military action will never put an end to international terrorism, which often stems from forces that have previously received the support of the American government," declares a college press release. "In its place, we must, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., 'rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter--but beautiful--struggle for a new world,' a world where hunger, war, and economic injustice, the root causes of terrorism, are eliminated."

The New York Post notes that "the resolution was pushed by a group called Students for a Peaceful Response--and antiwar organizers counted the ballots." The college's Web site notes that "Hampshire College's primary mission is to graduate men and women with the skills and perspectives needed for understanding and participating responsibly and creatively in a complex world." Alas, it would appear this mission has been an abject failure.

'French Civilization': An Oxymoron
"A Paris court ruled last week that disabled children can sue doctors over not having aborted them," the Christian Science Monitor reports. And these people call us barbaric because we execute murderers?

(Thanks to C.E. Dobkin, Joe Voiland, Damian Bennett, Raghu Desikan, Joe Singh, S.E. Brenner, David Merrill, Daniel Levine, James Rhilinger, Andrew Fox, Asla Aydintasbas, Michael Rubenstein, Matthew Wright, Ronald Ramsay, Seth Gitell, Daniel Harrington, Tom Wolf, Bart Adler, George Wasserstein, Joshua Trevino, Joseph Chronister, Nicholas Echelbarger, Don Burton and Peter Shipman. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Shelby Steele: John Walker, Marin's Radical Sheik (link requires registration).
• Robert Bartley: Suddenly, Clinton's defenders cry about the "rule of law."
• Tunku Varadarajan: Geraldo Rivera goes to war.