Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise

The administration is hoping that Petraeus can replicate his Iraq miracle. This includes Democrats who, when Petraeus testified to Congress about the Iraq surge in September 2007, accused him of requiring "the willing suspension of disbelief" (Sen. Hillary Clinton) or refused to vote for the Senate resolution condemning that shameful "General Betray Us" newspaper ad (Sen. Barack Obama).
However, two major factors distinguish the Afghan from the Iraqi surge. First is the alarming weakness and ineptness -- to say nothing of the corruption -- of the Afghan central government. One of the reasons the U.S. offensive in Marja has faltered is that there is no Afghan "government in a box" to provide authority for territory that the U.S. military clears.
In Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, after many mixed signals, eventually showed that he could act as a competent national leader rather than a sectarian one when he attacked Moqtada al-Sadr's stronghold in Basra, faced down the Mahdi Army in the other major cities in the south and took the fight into Sadr City in Baghdad itself. In Afghanistan, on the other hand, President Hamid Karzai makes public overtures to the Taliban, signaling that he is already hedging his bets.
But beyond indecision in Kabul, there is indecision in Washington. When the president of the United States announces the Afghan surge and, in the very next sentence, announces the date on which a U.S. withdrawal will begin, the Afghans -- from president to peasant -- take note.
This past Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel reiterated that July 2011 is a hard date. And Vice President Biden is adamant that "in July of 2011 you're going to see a whole lot of people moving out. Bet on it."
Now, Washington sophisticates may interpret this two-step as a mere political feint to Obama's left -- just another case of a president facing a difficult midterm and his own reelection, trying to placate the base. They don't take this withdrawal date too seriously.
Problem is, Afghans are not quite as sophisticated in interpreting American intraparty maneuvering. This kind of Washington nuance does not translate into Pashto. They hear about an American departure date and they think about what will happen to them when the Americans leave. The Taliban will remain, and what it lacks in popular support -- it polls only 6 percent -- it makes up in terror: When Taliban fighters return to a village, they kill "collaborators" mercilessly, and publicly.
The surge succeeded in Iraq because the locals witnessed a massive deployment of U.S. troops to provide them security, which encouraged them to give us intelligence, which helped us track down the bad guys and kill them. This, as might be expected, led to further feelings of security by the locals, more intelligence provided us, more success in driving out the bad guys, and henceforth a virtuous cycle as security and trust and local intelligence fed each other.
But that depended on a larger understanding by the Iraqis that the American president was implacable -- famously stubborn, refusing to set any exit date, and determined to see the surge through. What President Bush's critics considered mulishness, the Iraqis saw as steadfastness.
What the Afghans hear from the current American president is a surge with an expiration date. An Afghan facing the life-or-death choice of which side to support can be forgiven for thinking that what Obama says is what Obama intends. That may be wrong, but if so, why doesn't Obama dispel that false impression? He doesn't even have to repudiate the July 2011 date, he simply but explicitly has to say: July 2011 is the target date, but only if conditions on the ground permit.
Obama has had every opportunity every single day to say that. He has not. In his Rose Garden statement firing McChrystal, he pointedly declined once again to do so.
If you were Karzai, or a peasant in Marja, you'd be hedging your bets too.

In his letter to the membership, President Barack Obama said, "Our highest priority in Toronto must be to safeguard and strengthen the recovery. ... This means that we should reaffirm our unity of purpose to provide the policy support necessary to keep economic growth strong."
Contrast this with Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper's letter, "... advanced countries must send a clear message that as their stimulus plans expire, they will focus on getting their fiscal houses in order. This requires credible plans for fiscal consolidation to dispel the uncertainty and financial volatility that can impair our future growth prospects."
Canada advocates reducing deficits and putting finances on a sustainable path. The U.S. advocates additional spending to ensure global recovery continues. Who's right, and what does it mean for the markets?
Let's state the obvious; no one is going to grow their way out of their deficits. Given that the sovereign debt crisis shut out Greece from the capital markets, every country with a deficit is nervous that it could be next. Worse, the crisis has forced the markets to re-evaluate whether the entire structure of the European Monetary Union is valid and sustainable. It's this near-death experience that has brought Europe to the church of fiscal rectitude.
Greece plans to cut 30 billion euros from its budget while kept on life support by the loan bailout package from the IMF and European Union. Spain's austerity plan is to cut its deficit from 11.2% down to 3% by 2013 with an increase in its value-added tax (VAT) and its retirement age.
Therefore, the call by President Obama to keep stimulating is a best ignored and at worst scoffed at by the G20. But it's worse than that.
The U.S. is not only calling for more spending, but it is also failing to reduce its own deficit, which will reach $1.4 trillion in 2010. Now, the question becomes when will this come back to hurt the country?Immediately. The U.S. loses its leadership position with the G20 when it advocates measures that would harm those countries that followed its advice. Can any European nation risk additional stimulating or even delaying action on deficit reduction without a negative repercussion from the markets?
Soon the global markets will turn their ire back on the U.S. for not addressing the fiscal problem. It is the one G20 country not engaged in cutting its massive deficit. Worse, the Congressional Budget Office has said that the newly enacted health care bill will not help reduce the deficit.
The new U.S. crisis will take the same form that other crises throughout history have taken: It will start with the currency. Yes, it's difficult to see the U.S. dollar losing value at this point with the European sovereign crisis in full bloom. However, we have to think two to three years down the road when fully implemented health care and financial regulatory reform laws will be in effect and nothing will have been done to reduce the deficit.
At this G20, the U.S. is advocating spending while Canada advocates restraint and Europe runs for fiscal cover. At the 2012 meeting the U.S. is likely to be doing the sprinting.

After a secret multiyear investigation, the Justice Department announced the arrests Monday in a blockbuster spy case that could rival the capture of Soviet Col. Rudolf Abel in 1957 in New York.

There was no clue in initial court papers how successful the agents had been but they were alleged to have been long-term, deep cover spies, some living as couples. These deep-cover agents are the hardest spies for the FBI to catch because they take civilian jobs with no visible connection to a foreign government, rather than operating from government jobs inside Russian embassies and military missions. Abel was just such a deep cover agent; he was ultimately swapped to the Soviet Union for downed U-2 spy pilot Francis Gary Powers in 1962.

The court papers described a new high-tech spy-to-spy communications system used by the defendants: icy.

"Try to outline their views and most important Obama's goals (sic) which he expects to achieve during summit in July and how does his team plan to do it (arguments, provisions, means of persuasion to 'lure' (Russia) into cooperation in US interests," Moscow asked, according to the documents.

Moscow indicated that it needed intelligence reports "which should reflect approaches and ideas of" four sub-Cabinet U.S. foreign policy officials.

It is not clear from the filings how successful the Murphys were in obtaining such information.

One intercepted message said Cynthia Murphy, "had several work-related personal meetings with" a man the court papers describe as a prominent New York-based financier who was active in politics.

In response, intelligence headquarters in Moscow described the man as a very interesting target and urged the defendants to "try to build up little by little relations. ... Maybe he can provide" Murphy "with remarks re US foreign policy, 'roumors' about White house internal 'kitchen,' invite her to venues (to major political party HQ in NYC, for instance. ... In short, consider carefully all options in regard" to the financier."

Each of the 10 was charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison on conviction. C'est tout?

The two criminal complaints outlining the charges were filed in U.S. District Court for the southern district of New York.

Federal law prohibits individuals from acting as agents of foreign governments within the United States without notifying the U.S. attorney general.

Nine of the defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum 20 years in prison on conviction.

According to the court papers, the defendants have been operating in the United States for years.

One of the defendants living in Boston made contact in 2004 with an unidentified man who worked at a U.S. government research facility.

"He works on issues of strategic planning related to nuclear weapon development," the defendants' intelligence report said of the man.

The defendant "had conversations with him about research programs on small yield high penetration nuclear warheads recently authorized by US Congress (nuclear 'bunker-buster' warheads)," according to the report.

One message back to Moscow from the defendants focused on turnover at the top level of the CIA and the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

The information was described as having been received in private conversation with, among others, a former legislative counsel for Congress. The court papers deleted the name of the counsel.

In the papers, FBI agents said the defendants communicated with alleged Russian agents using mobile wireless transmissions between laptops computers, which has not previously been described in espionage cases brought here: They established a short-range wireless network between laptop computers of the agents and sent encrypted messages between the computers while they were close to each other.

The papers also said that on Saturday an undercover FBI agent in New York and another in Washington, both posing as Russian agents, met with two of the defendants, Anna Chapman at a New York restaurant and Mikhail Semenko on a Washington street corner blocks from the White House.

The two most prominent cases involving the SVR in the past decade may have been those of Robert Hanssen, the FBI counterintelligence agent who was convicted of passing along secrets to the agency, and Sergei Tretyakov, deputy head of intelligence at Russia's UN mission in 1995-200.

Tretyakov, who defected in 2000, claimed in a 2008 book that his agents helped the Russian government steal nearly $500 million from the U.N.'s oil-for-food program in Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein. He said he oversaw an operation that helped Saddam's regime manipulate the price of Iraqi oil sold under the program and allowed Russia to skim profits.

The comments were reported by the New York Post, which provided details about a five-day class President Obama's former pastor taught at the Chicago Theological Seminary.

In the seminar, Wright reportedly told those in the class they will never "be a brother to white folk," describing racial divisions in the country as entrenched -- as he did as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ.

The civil rights movement "was always about becoming white," Wright said at the seminar.

At another point, he said: "White folk done took this country. You're in their home and they're going to let you know it."

According to the New York Post, Wright also alleged that the American education system is built to poorly educate black students "by malignant intent" and criticized civil rights leader Martin Luther King for advocating nonviolence.

"We probably have more African-Americans who've been brainwashed than we have South Africans who've been brainwashed," he said.

Obama left Wright's church during the 2008 presidential campaign, after his fiery sermons shook up the Democratic primary race and compelled Obama to distance himself from the pastor.

Click here to read the full story in the New York Post.

"This is an outrage," Brewer said in a new reelection campaign ad.

The ad shows the governor standing next to one of the warning signs in the middle of the Arizona desert, 80 miles from the border and, according to the ad, 30 miles from Phoenix. The signs have in recent weeks drawn attention from border-state lawmakers who say they demonstrate how unsafe the region has become. In the ad, Brewer noted that she recently met with President Obama, who "promised that we would get word" on the administration's border security plan.

"Well, we finally got the message -- these signs. These signs, calling our desert an active drug and human smuggling area. These signs warning people of danger and telling them to stay away," Brewer said in the ad. "Washington says our border is as safe as it has ever been. Does this look safe to you?"

The ad ended with a confrontational message: "Washington is broken, Mr. President. Do your job. Secure our borders. Arizona and the nation are waiting."

One of the signs warns visitors that "smuggling and illegal immigration may be encountered in this area." Another says "travel not recommended" due to "active drug and human smuggling" routes.

Though warning signs have been placed in certain areas of Arizona, broad swaths of federal land are considered dangerous because of the smuggling routes.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., brought up the signs on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. Calling for stepped-up border security, he said "the rise of violence and the influence of the drug cartels and the human smugglers" compelled the government to put up the signs.

After the Obama administration met with border-state governors Monday to detail plans to deploy 1,200 National Guard to the region, Brewer told reporters that the influx of more than 500 National Guard troops to her state would not be enough.

Brewer has said she wants 3,000 National Guard troops sent to her state and 6,000 total sent to the border. The Obama administration has also faced criticism for planning to assign the National Guard to surveillance and support positions, as opposed to in-the-field work.

Obama has asked Congress, however, to approve $600 million in new spending for more Border Patrol, immigration officers and drones.*1
*1 Des lors, tout baigne!

Al Franken, the onetime comedian and current Democratic senator from Minnesota, used his position on the vaunted Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to doodle a lifelike bust of Sen. Jeff Sessions, the committee's ranking Republican, as Sessions raked Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan over the coals.

But it wasn't all fun and games for the former "Saturday Night Live" star — Franken also found time to get in a good nap during the first day of hearings Monday.

Live video from Senate chambers shows a woozy Franken getting some much-needed shuteye as Kagan explains her intellectual approach to life and teachings in her opening statement to the Senate.

But Franken, the most junior member of the Judiciary Committee, had already been forced to sit through an endless round of statements from his senior colleagues on the 19-member panel as they droned on and on and on in the crowded Washington chamber.When it finally came time for Kagan herself to speak, Franken had apparently had enough.

"I've learned that we make progress by listening to each other," said Kagan hopefully, as Franken slowly closed his eyes and appeared to doze off.

"I've learned that we come closest to getting things right when we approach every person and every issue with an open mind," she said, Franken now apparently lost to the living.

Kagan herself has expressed a profound scorn for Senate confirmation hearings, which she described as empty "lessons of cynicism" — a "vapid and hollow charade" that replace important legal discussions with repetitive platitudes.

It is unclear whether Franken shares that sentiment about the hearings or was simply bored by the proceedings. Sen. Franken's office did not return calls or e-mails seeking comment.

Kagan's questioning will continue for a third day on Thursday morning.

The jaw-dropping court testimony by Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, singlehandedly undermines Obama administration efforts to ignore the dangers of Islamism.

Shahzad’s statements stand out because jihadis, when facing legal charges, typically save their skin by pleading not guilty or plea bargaining.

Consider a few examples:
• Naveed Haq, who assaulted the Jewish federation building in Seattle, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

• Lee Malvo, one of the Beltway Snipers, explained that “one reason for the shootings was that white people had tried to harm Louis Farrakhan.” His partner John Allen Muhammad claimed his innocence to the death chamber.

• Hasan Akbar killed two fellow American soldiers as they slept in a military compound, then told the court: “I want to apologize for the attack that occurred. I felt that my life was in jeopardy, and I had no other options. I also want to ask you for forgiveness.”

• Mohammed Taheri-azar, who tried to kill students on the University of North Carolina by running over them in a car, and issued a series of jihadi rants against the US, later experienced a change of heart, announced he was “very sorry” for the crimes and asked for release so he could “reestablish myself as a good, caring and productive member of society” in California.

THESE EFFORTS fit a broader pattern of Islamist mendacity; rarely does a jihadi stand on principle.

Zacarias Moussaoui, 9/11’s would-be 20th hijacker, came close: His court proceedings began with his refusing to enter a plea (which the presiding judge translated into “not guilty”) and then pleading guilty to all charges.

Shahzad, 30, acted in an exceptional manner during his appearance in a New York City federal court on June 21. His answers to Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum’s many questions (“And where was the bomb?” “What did you do with the gun?”) offered a dizzying mix of deference and contempt.

On the one hand, he politely, calmly, patiently, fully and informatively described his actions. On the other, he in the same voice justified his attempt at cold-blooded mass murder.

The judge asked Shahzad after he announced an intent to plead guilty to all 10 counts of his indictment: “Why do you want to plead guilty?” A reasonable question given the near certainty that guilty pleas will keep him in jail for long years. He replied forthrightly: I want to plead guilty and I’m going to plead guilty 100 times forward because – until the hour the US pulls it forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing Muslims and stops reporting the Muslims to its government – we will be attacking [the] US, and I plead guilty to that.”

Shahzad insisted on portraying himself as replying to American actions: “I am part of the answer to the US terrorizing [of] the Muslim nations and the Muslim people, and on behalf of that, I’m avenging the attacks,” adding that “we Muslims are one community.”

Nor was that all; he flatly asserted that his goal had been to damage buildings and “injure people or kill people” because “one has to understand where I’m coming from, because... I consider myself a mujahid, a Muslim soldier.”

[i]WHEN CEDARBAUM pointed out that pedestrians in Times Square during the early evening of May 1 were not attacking Muslims, Shahzad replied: “Well, the [American] people select the government. We consider them all the same.”

His comment reflects not just that American citizens are responsible for their democratically elected government, but also the Islamist view that, by definition, infidels cannot be innocent.

However abhorrent, this tirade does have the virtue of truthfulness. Shahzad’s willingness to express his Islamic purposes and spend long years in jail for them flies in the face of Obama administration efforts not to name Islamism as the enemy, preferring such lame formulations as “overseas contingency operations” and “man-caused disasters.”

Americans – as well as Westerners generally, all non- Muslims and anti-Islamist Muslims – should listen to the bald declaration by Faisal Shahzad and accept the painful fact that Islamist anger and aspirations truly do motivate their terrorist enemies.

The writer (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

- I'm a member of an off-the-record list-serv called "Journolist," founded by my colleague Ezra Klein. Last Monday, I was deluged with angry e-mail after posting a story about Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-N.C.) that was linked by the Drudge Report with a headline intimating that I defended his roughing-up of a young man with a camera; after this, the Washington Examiner posted a gossip item about my dancing at a friend's wedding. Unwisely, I lashed out to Journolist, which I've come to view as a place to talk bluntly to friends.

- Below the fold are quotes from me e-mailing the list that day--quotes that I'm told a gossip Web site will post today. I apologize for much of what I wrote, and apologize to readers.Most of the quotes were silly insults--e.g., "This would be a vastly better world to live in if Matt Drudge decided to handle his emotional problems more responsibly, and set himself on fire." The apology left us scratching our head; possibly excepting a reference to "Paultard Tea Party people," we didn't see anything worth troubling oneself to get offended over.

It turned out, however, that Weigel's apology was incomplete. On Friday The Daily Caller published excerpts from Weigel's Journolist messages on other days, and some of them were considerably worse than the quotes he had revealed himself. He used a Watergate-era obscenity to describe opponents of ObamaCare, referred to Sarah Palin's "death panel lie," and made baseless accusations of racism.

Weigel's beat at the Post was the conservative movement. Yet here he was on an ideologically exclusive list--conservatives need not apply--insulting and denouncing the subjects of his coverage to a supposedly off-the-record audience of some 400. The Post had initially stood by him, but the Caller's revelations made it impossible to take him seriously as a fair-minded chronicler of the right. He resigned on Friday, and his second apology appeared yesterday on BigGovernment.com.

We wish Weigel well, and far be it from us to criticize another journalist for expressing opinions. He obviously was ill suited for his old job as a straight news reporter, but we're sure he'll land on his feet in a position that allows him to be polemical.
One quote from the Caller piece, however, went too far even for an opinion journalist:

- After Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat, threatening to kill the health care legislation by his presence, Weigel stressed how important it was for reporters to highlight what a terrible candidate his opponent Martha Coakley had been.

- "I think pointing out Coakley's awfulness is vital, because it's 1) true and 2) unreasonable panic about it is doing more damage to the Democrats," Weigel wrote.

Remember, Weigel's supposedly off-the-record audience consisted of hundreds of journalists, both left-wing and purportedly objective. What it appears he was doing was not merely expressing an opinion but engaging in partisan politics--i.e., advising other journalists on how they should tailor their coverage so as to avoid "doing more damage to the Democrats."

We surmise that this was not an isolated occurrence--that a lot of the discussion on Journolist consisted of this sort of blatantly partisan strategizing. We're certainly open to being proved wrong, if Journolist founder Ezra Klein--who still is at the Post--or any other member of the now-defunct list would like to supply us with a copy of its archives.

We're willing to promise our source anonymity and even buy a round of drinks, though we're afraid we are not in a position to match Andrew Breitbart's offer of $100,000.

The Weigel kerfuffle has prompted a bit of confusion about journalistic ethics. Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic wrote last week: "I've been leaked postings from JournoList before--wonderfully charming things written about me, as you might have guessed--and I haven't had the opportunity to use them, but would be happy to if the need arose." This prompted a John Cole to denounce Goldberg (publicly, on his blog) for his willingness to use his "perch at the Atlantic to publish someone's private emails to viciously destroy their character and career."

But of course all Goldberg is threatening to do is commit journalism.

The Journolist member or members who forwarded the emails in question to Goldberg might have violated a confidentiality agreement, but Goldberg was not a party to that agreement. Neither were the guys at the Daily Caller. In fact, Ezra Klein revealed last week on the Post's website that he had blackballed the Caller's editor, Tucker Carlson, on ideological grounds.

If a group of professionals in any other industry were conspiring to serve the interests of a political party in the way that Weigel's Coakley post suggests the Journolisters were, no journalist would deny that the public had a right to know. Why should that be any less true in this case--especially since in this case, such partisan activity would be a violation of professional ethics?

Along with Breitbart, blogress Ann Althouse--who says Klein defamed her last year on Twitter--would like to see the Journolist archives:

- If I were to bring a defamation suit based on Ezra Klein's lie "Ann Althouse sure has a lot of anti-semitic commenters," I would seek access to the Journolist archive, and I believe I would get it. There is no privilege that would shield this information from discovery. Lawyers, argue with me if you think I'm wrong.

Seems to us it would depend on the venue. Most states have some sort of shield law protecting reporters from having to disclose confidential sources, but the specifics vary from state to state. In federal court, however, there is no such privilege.

There have been efforts in Congress of late to change that by enacting a federal shield law, but the Journolist scandal is another reason to think this is a bad idea. If journalists frequently act as partisan activists, as seems to have been the case among some Journolisters, what conceivable public interest could there be in extending them special legal privileges?

They should, of course, have all the legal protections of the First Amendment, which among other things mean that Althouse almost certainly would not win her defamation suit against Klein. His offending tweet, it seems to us, is a constitutionally protected opinion rather than a false statement of fact.

A corollary: In January the U.S. Supreme Court held, in Citizens United v. FEC, that corporations have a First Amendment right to speak about politics. Managers at many corporations, such as the New York Times Co., were outraged by this, and used the corporate resources to express their views in the form of editorials. The irony escaped these corporate managers because the law the court struck down had included an exception allowing "media corporations" to speak.

If journalists are acting like partisan activists, that is all the more reason why it is vital to protect the First Amendment interests of partisan activists who do not claim to be journalists.

What Can Brown Do for You?

Sen. Scott Brown "is today the most popular officeholder in Massachusetts, according to a Boston Globe poll," the Globe reports:

- After less than five months in Washington, Brown outpolls such Democratic stalwarts as President Obama and US Senator John F. Kerry in popularity, the poll indicates. He gets high marks not only from Republicans, but even a plurality of Democrats views him favorably.
We think pointing out Obama's and Kerry's awfulness is vital, because it's 1) true and 2) unreasonable panic about it is doing more damage to the Democrats.

Butterfield Beinart

Peter Beinart--whose definition of a humanitarian is someone who tells Jews, "Go back to Auschwitz"--strikes comedy gold again with a Daily Beast column titled "Obama's Unbelievable Winning Streak." You won't believe it either:

- The larger truth is this: Even as Republicans claim political momentum, the country is in the midst of a major shift leftward when it comes to the role of government. That shift is playing itself out from infrastructure to health care to finance and perhaps eventually to the environment.

Remember Fox Butterfield, the old New York Timesman who every year would puzzle over how even as crime rates were falling, more people were in prison? It never occurred to him that putting more people in prison was the reason crime was falling. Beinart's error in logic is exactly the same.

(Hat tip: blogger Russ Tibbits.)

Compare and Contrast

The men who rank first and third in the list of longest-serving U.S. senators, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, both died this decade. That's not the only thing they had in common. Both began their careers as segregationist Democrats but later repented and supported civil rights legislation. Both had obituaries in the New York Times written by Adam Clymer--but therein lie some differences:

The Thurmond obit, published June 27, 2003, was headlined "Strom Thurmond, Foe of Integration, Dies at 100."

The Byrd obit, published today, is headlined "Robert Byrd, a Pillar of the Senate, Dies at 92." (The early online headline said "Respected Voice" rather than "Pillar.")

The Thurmond obit mentioned the senator's opposition to civil rights in the third paragraph.

The Byrd obit, doesn't get to his opposition to civil rights--and his membership in the Ku Klux Klan--until paragraph 16, the topic sentence of which is, "Mr. Byrd's perspective on the world changed over the years."

James Taranto on Sen. Byrd's death and the Obama agenda.

Now it is true that Thurmond ran for president in 1948 as a "States' Rights Democrat," so that he was a more important figure in the reaction against civil rights than Byrd was. On the other hand, compare and contrast these details from deep in the two men's obits:

Byrd, paragraphs 17-18: "Mr. Byrd's political life could be traced to his early involvement with the Klan, an association that almost thwarted his career and clouded it intermittently for years afterward. In the early 1940s, he organized a 150-member klavern, or chapter, of the Klan in Sophia, W.Va., and was chosen its leader."

Thurmond, paragraph 16: "In 1940, he called on the grand jury in Greenville to be ready to take action against the Ku Klux Klan, which, he said, represented 'the most abominable type of lawlessness.' "

There was one other big difference between the two superannuated senators: Whereas Byrd remained a Democrat until his death yesterday, Thurmond became a Republican in 1964. That may account for the somewhat different treatment they got from Clymer.

The radar could bolster Syria's defenses by providing early warning of Israeli air-force sorties. It could also benefit Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group based in Lebanon and widely believed to receive arms from Syria.

Any sharing of radar information by Syria could increase the accuracy of Hezbollah's own missiles and bolster its air defenses. That would boost Hezbollah defenses, which U.S. and Israeli officials say have been substantially upgraded since 2006, the last time Israel fought the southern Lebanon-based group.

The mid-2009 transfer was described in recent months by two Israeli officials, two U.S. officials and a Western intelligence source, and confirmed Wednesday by the Israeli military. Though they didn't name the system's final recipient in Syria, these and other officials described it as part as a dramatic increase in weapons transfers and military coordination among Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.

Iran and Syria both denied that a radar transfer took place.

The increased sophistication of the weapons transfers and military cooperation among the three signal an increased risk of conflict on Israeli's northern border. U.S. officials worry any new fighting would be more likely to include Syria, which hasn't directly engaged Israeli in combat since 1974.

The radar transfer could potentially violate a 2007 United Nations Security Council resolution that bans Iran from supplying, selling or transferring "any arms or related materiel."

Though officials say the transaction took place about a year ago, Israel and the U.S. haven't publicized it, a departure from years past when Israeli officials were often eager to trumpet Iranian arms transfers to Syria and Hezbollah as violations of Security Council resolutions.