" 'You should remember what you have done to our sister Abeer in the same area,' the statement said, referring to five American soldiers who were charged in the rape and killing of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the killings of her parents and her younger sister last year."

This doesn't look good.

Gruesome background of the al-Janabi case from USA Today.

"In the April 11, 2007, issue, The Source printed a page entitled "Islam: Arabic Translation: Submission." The page carried quotes from the Koran juxtaposed with facts about certain adherents of Islam -- their involvement with terrorism, discrimination against women, and the slave trade, among others."

The MSA cried that the piece was a "deliberate psychological attack," which is against the college's harassment policy.  The Source argued it was participating in "free and open discussion of ideas and opinions," which is protected under the student handbook.

Guess who won.

A press release from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) details it all:

"Showing profound disregard for free speech and freedom of the press, Tufts University has found a conservative student publication guilty of harassment and creating a hostile environment for publishing political satire. Despite explicitly promising to protect controversial and offensive expression in its policies, the Tufts Committee on Student Life decided yesterday to punish the student publication The Primary Source (TPS) for printing two articles that offended African-American and Muslim students on campus...."

And...

"The Committee also held that the parody of Islamic Awareness Week 'targeted members of the Tufts Muslim community for harassment and embarrassment, and that Muslim students felt psychologically intimidated by the piece....' "

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if, as Shapiro says, that "intimidation" constitutes "harassment" under the Tufts' student handbook, isn't Tufts' Committee for Student Life engaging in exactly the sort of behavior it's supposedly condemning?  Since when does silencing your opposition through "show-trials" not constitue intimidation?

Michelle Malkin also picked up the story and has more coverage here.

Here is how the chair of the Student Commmittee, drama professor Barbara Grossman, explained the decision to silence The Source:

"'The Primary Source can continue to print what it chooses, but it should not have the shelter of anonymity from which to launch hurtful attacks,' she said in a written statement."

Based on the recommendation from the committe, however, it appears that The Source, if it continues to engage in "attacks" of this kind, will at least have funding cut off, and may cease to be as an organization:

"We ask that student governance consider the behavior of student groups in future decisions concerning recognition and funding."

To see what The Source truly stands for, visit their website here.

"My sense when I look at what young voters tell pollsters is that they assume that everything is going to be just fine if things roll along pretty much as they are. They have grown up in an era, lasting nearly 25 years now, when we've had low inflation coupled with economic growth 95 percent of the time. They may grouse about gas prices or paying off college loans, but they're able to get jobs that mostly pay pretty well and often are more interesting and less backbreaking than the vaunted factory jobs of the past. They have grown up in an era when personal choices that were stigmatized as immoral not so long ago are accepted and even respected. You can live with your girlfriend or boyfriend before you get married; you can be gay: Nobody is going to give you a very hard time. In fact, young people are delaying childbearing until marriage more than they used to and seem to be divorcing somewhat less often. We're learning as a country to balance freedom with responsibility.

"Iraq exception. The one issue on which young people seem dissatisfied with things as they are is the military conflict in Iraq-that would be with the exception of most of the young people who have served there and who are re-enlisting at higher than projected rates. The attitude of those without military ties seems to be: If we just get out of Iraq, if we just get rid of George Bush, then everything will be all right. We won't see suicide bombers and IEDs on our television screens; we won't see mass demonstrations by Europeans and Muslims against us; we won't have all this controversy and bitterness in our partisan politics."

Are youths today too comfortable with the way things are, as Barone seems to suggest?  Do young people really think that getting rid of Bush will result in "world peace"?  If so - why do they have to vote Democrat to achieve this, as has been the tendency?

I tend to agree with Barone's analysis - thoughts?

While patrolling a Sunni insurgent stronghold near Mahmoudiya (20 miles south of Baghdad) Saturday, seven U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter came under attack, as reported by the AP.

Four U.S. soldiers along with the interpreter were killed - the question is, what happened to the three soldiers who are now missing?

The Islamic State in Iraq is claiming responsibility.  The group's establishment was announced in November of 2006 under the guise of "serving and protecting the Sunni people" in Iraq.  But why Iraq?  According to the released video, "Iraq's unique geographical location" is the perfect "starting point 'for the Islamic nation['s] fighters in the battle to liberate Palestine from the Zionist entity.'"

Meanwhile, Iran continues to detain American citizens for no reason.

Fox News reports on the latest in the case of Haleh Esfandiari, held captive by Iranian authorities since late December 2006 after traveling to Iran to visit her mother.  Esfandiari, according to Fox, "has for years brought prominent Iranians to Washington to talk about social change, some of whom have been detained and subsequently questioned back home."

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, for whom Esfandiara works, released this statement on May 10 on the matter:

"Despite numerous quiet and diplomatic efforts by many countries, organizations, and individuals ever since she was robbed of her passports December 30, 2006 and prevented from leaving Iran, she has been unable to obtain permission to leave Iran and join her family here.

"Those efforts to obtain her release will continue and will be redoubled. She will be in our thoughts and prayers every day."

Not that this behavior is anything new on the part of Iran:
 
- on January 25th, U.S. citizen and journalist Parnaz Azima, while visiting a sick relative in Iran, was approached by Iranian authorities and her passport was seized.  She remains in Iran to this day without her passport, as no clear reason has been given as to why it was taken.

- former FBI agent Robert Levinson has not been heard from since March 8th after visiting the Iranian resort of Kish Island.  According to the Washington Post, though Levinson was a former FBI agent, he was not assigned to Middle East issues.  Reuters reported that Iran was not holding Levinson as of April 22, but FOX reported that Levinson was released May 1, something U.S. officials have yet to confirm.

Tammy Bruce: "Iran is a criminal regime which has always used kidnapping and terror as its primary foreign policy approach. The fact that we have been winking at and meeting with them in any capacity, as Rice did in Egypt, is outrageous."

It seems as if we're going to do more "winking and meeting" in the near future.

Here are two sides of the same coin:

"...Hossein Shariatmadari, editor in chief of the hardline Kayhan newspaper, called negotiations 'a big and strategic mistake,' according to the semi-official ISNA news agency.

"While authorities are glad to have arrested them, the individuals are 'hardly hard-core terrorists,' one law enforcement source said.

"Another source said that while the allegations are 'troubling,' they are 'not the type that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.'"

What "unnamed sources" would say these things - or even think them?  And why would CNN choose to publish what they said without naming them?  And then, why would CNN leave these quotes as the lasting image of the piece - since when are Muslim individuals planning to "kill as many American soldiers as possible" not "hard-core terrorists"? - Because one "unnamed source" says so?  And CNN believes that?  Doesn't the description of "Muslim individuals who want to kill as many American soldiers as possible" parallel any description of Muslims who killed 3,000 innocent Americans on 9/11?  Does CNN really find this terror plot merely "troubling" and not "horrifying"?

I don't get it.

Second, CNN does not address the issue of 10 young men in the video that initially surfaced.  Should American citizens be concerned that there are still 4 members of this group at large?

I would be - because, apparently, there's not enough evidence to charge them in this plot:

"'We know where they are and the investigation continues,' Jerri Williams, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told Cybercast News Service. 'However, at this time we do not have evidence that would link them directly to the [Fort Dix] plot. We are aware of their participation in the firearms training but the investigation to date does not provide us evidence to charge them.'"
 
Let's hope the FBI finds some evidence - and real soon.

One aspect of the story for which I applaud CNN, though, is their mentioning of the illegal status of three of the plotters: Eljvir Duka, Shain Duka, and Dritan Duka.  The liberal open-borders crowd predictably got this wrong, led by Politico:

"There is no indication that any of them snuck over the border from Mexico or that a fence, barbed wire, guard dogs or vigilantes on that border would have kept them from gaining entry to this country."

Though CNN didn't mention how the Duka brothers entered the country, Fox News did: via Brownsville, Texas.  Brownsville is right on the Mexican border.

Bill O'Reilly examines the criminal past of the three brothers and wonders how these men were still in the country:

"There is no doubt that the Duka brothers were allowed to violate U.S. law over and over again with no consequence. Again, this happens when a justice system collapses as it has over immigration law.

"Now, thank God these guys didn't kill anybody because they easily could have. Even though New Jersey authorities had 54 chances to stop them."

Who could be for open borders after this case?

CNN also reports on a possible defense for the Fort Dix Six:

"Defense lawyers for some of the men said they are considering attacking the prosecution's reliance on two paid informants who infiltrated the group more than a year ago and recorded conversations with the defendants."

In other words, entrapment.

The AP practically makes the informants out to be terrorists themselves, painting it this way:

"He railed against the United States, helped scout out military installations for attack, offered to introduce his comrades to an arms dealer and gave them a list of weapons he could procure, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

"These were not the actions of a terrorist, but of a paid FBI informant who helped bring down an alleged plot by six Muslim men to massacre U.S. soldiers at New Jersey's Fort Dix.

"And those actions have raised questions of whether the government crossed the line and pushed the six men down a path they would not have otherwise followed."

Bail has been denied in the case, as the men have been viewed as a flight risk.  Surely there will be much more on this case in the upcoming days.

"The bags give shoppers an alternative to paper or plastic without sacrificing style."

Vogue's contributing editor Sarah Mouer encourages "the power of fashion to change the way the nation shops."

Don't worry, Ms. Mouer.  The government is already trying to do that.