Alexander Litvinenko was a hero in the mold of Mosab Hassan Yossef, the so-called “Son of Hamas,” who the US is sickeningly threatening to deport.  In fact, their fates may be quite similar if this is to happen, as in 2006 Litvinenko as you may recall was poisoned with Polonium-210, an extremely rare radioactive substance, and essential ingredient to early nuclear bombs.

Why was he poisoned?  Litvinenko, a former KGB/FSB agent who left the service and defected to London was a staunch critic of the Putin regime, and apparently knew too much for the Kremlin to bare.  For Litvinenko implicated the Russian government in a variety of terrorist attacks, abroad for example through their training of Al-Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri in 1998, and disgustingly at home through an attempted bombing of an apartment complex in 1999, and the infamous 2002 Moscow theater and 2004 Beslan school attacks.

I recently read his book Allegations, which in light of recent events is proving quite prescient.

One argument he makes that should resonate with all of us regards political resistance to the criminal Russian government:

There is no need to break any law, even most cruel one, in order to remain humans and citizens.  All we need to do is to take a civic stance, to demand that the authorities strictly obey the constitution.  Putin and his propaganda team know this, so they try to divide us, to set us against each other.  In doing so, the Kremlin strategists appeal to the lowest instincts, using every ethnic, religious or property differences we may have.  That is exactly why we must understand that our common enemy now is Putin’s regime (Allegations, 100).

Is this not precisely what we are witnessing today?  Our citizens are peacefully demanding a return to the Constitution, while our Progressive Putins try to spark racial and class warfare to divide and conquer us.

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I was thinking about opening up a Japanese cultural center across the water from the sunken USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor. Just as soon as I lay the cornerstone of a new German Brauhaus on the grounds of Auschwitz. What’s the problem? After all, not all Japanese attacked us on Dec. 7. And I reckon most Germans are genuinely ashamed and horrified by the crimes of the Holocaust committed in their  name. Insensitive nonetheless? Even insulting, despite the passage of time and goodness of these two nations far removed from their WW2 past? Of course it is. Which is why no one in their right mind would propose such hypothetical projects.

I guess the key phrase here is “in their right mind” because wouldn’t you know it, a plan to build what would, at 15 stories, be the largest community center/mosque in New York City is being hotly debated at the moment. Why the debate? Because its location will be only two blocks from the World Trade Center Ground Zero site. Yes. You read that correctly. And just like in my hypothetical examples I set forth above, the obvious question arises: why there?

First, a little background on the mosque’s sponsors helps frame the discussion. The imam leading the project is Faisal Abdul Rauf. Like many imams, Rauf seems to be a split personality. If one were to pull up CNN’s website or open up the NY Times, one would be dutifully fed the story of a soft-spoken introspective man. A respected religious and community leader who is dedicated to reaching across the chasm of religious animus to achieve peaceful co-existence with his Western hosts. A man with a sonorous voice and hypnotic charm who, according to his book What’s Right With Islam wants the mosque to be a place where inter-faith understanding is fostered. Aww shucks!

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The reported Pakistani capture of Taliban founder and overall leader Mullah Omar is potentially a game changing event in the Afghanistan war, with profound implications for the stabilization of Pakistan.

If the report is correct, and if Omar is persuaded to talk (which is not at all assured) the information he has could reduce the Taliban networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan to a level at which – for a time – they were no longer an existential threat to both governments.  And, equally important, he could expose the details of the Iranian support of the Taliban, naming people in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan who give and receive arms, funding and training.

But let’s not celebrate too quickly.

First and foremost, we need to get the Pakistanis to delay giving him into US custody.  That is contrary to our normal instincts, but this man – taken alive and brought to any US detention facility other than Guantanamo Bay — would be Mirandized and pushed into the civilian criminal justice system where he, and his ilk, manifestly don’t belong. We would be forfeiting months of probable success in interrogating him.

The other reason to keep Omar in Pakistani custody is the Iran question.  The Obama administration still hasn’t formed the so-called “high-value detainee interrogation group” promised as the alternative to the now-banned “enhanced interrogation techniques” which proved so valuable in the Bush era.

If Omar can be persuaded to give up information on Iran, it should be either to CIA or US military intelligence personnel or to the Pakistanis.  US civilian interrogators would be more susceptible to Administration pressure to ignore information about Iran which might put them in the position of having to do something serious in response to the information.  Obama wants no inconvenient truths interrupting his “open-hand” strategy to Iran.

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