The Washington Post reports that the U.S. is unprepared to stop the rise of an anti-American, Islamic fundamentalist government in Iraq.

Bush adminstration officials now say they underestimated the strength of the Shiites, who make up 60% of the Iraqi population. The U.S. goal of a "crescent of democracies" among Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied territories and Saudi Arabia is even more doubtful now. The U.S. is hoping that differences between the Persian Shiites and the Iraqi Shiites will keep fundamentalism in check.

Some U.S. intelligence analysts and Iraq experts said they warned the Bush administration before the war about vanquishing Hussein's government without having anything to replace it. But officials said the concerns were either not heard or fell too low on the priority list of postwar planning. ...."This is a 25-year project," one three-star general officer said. "Everyone agreed it was a huge risk, and the outcome was not at all clear."

A 25 year project? How many of those supporting the war knew we might be in this for 25 years? This war is beginning to sound less and less like a victory and more and more like a foolish, expensive gambit.

The ACLU filed suit today against the federal government's secret "no fly" list at San Francisco Airport.

In papers filed with the court, the ACLU said that at least 339 passengers have been stopped and questioned at San Francisco International Airport since September 2001.

"At the San Francisco airport alone, hundreds of passengers were stopped or questioned in connection with the so-called ‘no fly’ list," said Jayashri Srikantiah, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California. "If that number is any indication, it is likely that thousands of individuals at airports across the country are being routinely detained and questioned because their names appear on a secret government list."

....The scant public information that is available about transportation watch lists confirms that the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) maintains at least two watch lists: the "no fly" list and a "selectee" list that establishes which air passengers are singled out for additional security measures.

The case is Rebecca Gordon et al., v. FBI et al., filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The legal complaint is available here. A chart of "no fly" incident lists is available here.

Programs such as these threaten our liberty but don't make us safer. We are grateful to the ACLU for watching out for all of us. If you can afford a donation to support their work, visit here.

In between his rants at everyone in the criminal justice system, Moussaoui is raising a credible defense. We wrote about it, as well as the Government's creative new "5th hijacker" theory, in detail last week here, so we won't repeat ourselves. But the new details today of Moussaoui's striking out are too classic to pass over:

Legal experts say they're fascinated by the handwritten pleadings that place demands for access to witnesses and documents alongside insults and bizarre statements. Recently Moussaoui suggested the need to bang the judge's head against the wall, derided Attorney General John Ashcroft's Christianity, described one defense lawyer as fat and others as the racist, the Kamikaze and the Jew.

Moussaoui doesn't cooperate with the court-appointed lawyers, who were retained to represent his interests against terrorism charges that carry the death penalty.

...Other experts praised Brinkema for doing her constitutional duty despite a stream of insults directed toward her by Moussaoui. Moussaoui often addresses her as "death judge" and recently referred to Ashcroft as a "natural born liar" who "claim to be a Christian who will not announce my death on Good Friday."

We too praise Judge Brinkema for having the stamina to stay with the case, make sense of Moussaoui's hand-written demands and order the Government to produce the witnesses that could help his defense.

Moussaoui's complaints that prosecutors are withholding crucial information have persuaded the judge to question whether the government can give the acknowledged al-Qaida member a fair trial in open court.

In one recent motion, Moussaoui cited news reports that suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had told interrogators the defendant was not part of the conspiracy to attack the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

He asked the judge "to force the United Satan to give me the exculpatory statement of my brother Mohammed," because "brother Mohammed has told to the U.S. official that I was not 9/11."

Reportedly, Ramzi Binalshibh will do the same. If the Government doesn't have the goods to tie Moussaoui to Sept. 11 after all this time, they ought to acknowledge it and let him plead to a non-capital offense. We suspect, however, that Ashcroft couldn't stand the loss of face that would entail--to be beaten by a pro-se member of Al Qaeda with no legal training and for whom English is a second or third language. This case is indeed a farce, but its a farce of the Government's making.

Via Atrios, who as usual got the news first, we learn that 4 American soldiers are accused of trying to steal almost $1 million of the $700 million in cash found hidden in Iraq.

The four have not been identified as of now, but they will face court-martials. Three of them are members of an engineering unit attached to the 4th Battalion.

We thought it was a bad idea to have young members of the armed forces guarding money when we first heard about it. The temptation is too strong and many of them are too young to resist a sudden impulse. One lousy mistake and these kids military careers and futures get a black mark forever.

Why wasn't this job assigned to Treasury Department agents? Dumb move, Rumsfeld, Dumb. It's not too late, send the IRS, or some federal accountants or money laundering specialists in to finish the job.

The Senate Democrats' political organization has called for Republican Sen. Rick Santorum to resign his leadership position due to his comments yesterday comparing homosexuality to "bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery."

The DSCC called Santorum's remarks "divisive, hurtful and reckless" and said they "are completely out of bounds for someone who is supposed to be a leader in the United States Senate."

Three cheers for Bill Clinton and his recent comments criticizing the Administration for its approach to foreign affairs:

Former US President Bill Clinton blasted US foreign policy adopted in the wake of the September 11 attacks, arguing the United States cannot kill, jail or occupy all of its adversaries. "Our paradigm now seems to be: something terrible happened to us on September 11, and that gives us the right to interpret all future events in a way that everyone else in the world must agree with us," said Clinton, who spoke at a seminar of governance organized by Conference Board. "And if they don't, they can go straight to hell.

...Since September 11, it looks like we can't hold two guns at the same time," Clinton said. "If you fight terrorism, you can't make America a better place to be."

Clinton said that if he were at the White House right now he would scrap a 726-billion dollar tax cut proposal made by the president in January to stimulate the flagging economy.

Update: This article is from April 16 but for some reason is listed today under Yahoo's top news. Sorry if you are already familiar with it, we weren't.

We love this editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, Naturalizing the dead. Go read the whole thing, but here's a quote:

SIX IMMIGRANT soldiers from California have been granted citizenship for their heroic contributions to the U.S. victory in Iraq. Too bad they were in body bags when they received the honor. The posthumous awards come as small reward to the families of the dead. To many immigrants -- and to us -- the whole idea is an insult. The New York family of fallen U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Riayan Tejeda, a native of the Dominican Republic, even spurned the offer. "He fought for this country for eight years, and they want to give him citizenship now?" his younger brother asked mournfully. "It doesn't matter anymore."

The Chronicle calls on Bush to truly honor the dead by granting citizenship to all who serve in our armed forces who want it, and reopening amnesty negotiotiations with Mexico for undocumented workers from Mexico.

A framed naturalization certificate that can be displayed at a soldier's funeral is not enough. Not nearly enough.

Hesiod of Counterspin is looking for a new, improved name for radical right-wing radio. Our suggestion is Radical Right Radio. As we posted in the comments at Counterspin

That's our name of choice for the Radical Right--they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves the "Christian Right" because their values certainly are not Christian, and by referring to them as such, we only imbue them with legitimacy. Their ideas are far outside the mainstream, and constitute right-wing extremism. Most people connote "radical" with undesirable, which is exactly the appropriate appellation for conservative talk radio. So we vote for "radical right radio."

The Iraqi National Congress says it is only 12 to 24 hours behind Saddam and closing in on him.

The Iraqi National Congress said yesterday that it has received several credible reports of sightings of Saddam Hussein and that it is hunting the ousted president in an area between Baghdad and the Iranian border. "We are 12 to 24 hours behind him, but we are getting closer," said Zab Sethna, the chief spokesman for the group, which is expected to be a major player in Iraq's interim government. "We are convinced he is alive and on the run."

Thousands of Peruvian coca farmers, fighting to end restrictions on their coca crops, marched on the Peruvian capital Monday. The marchers left their homes and crops in the mountainous jungle valleys and set out for the captial ten days ago.

Mike Hawash has written a letter from his jail cell in Oregon.

The Supreme Court Monday agreed to revisit the issue of Miranda warnings in a Colorado case, U.S. v. Patane. The 10th Circuit opinion is here.

Update: The issue is whether physical evidence derived from unmirandized statements, such as guns or drugs, can be used in court.