Dot # 1: A Growing Threat in the Tri-Border Area of South America. (Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of South America. A Report Prepared under an Interagency Agreement by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, July 2003.)

[. . . . ] The TBA terrorist haven also operates an immense money-laundering project, reaping profits from their partnerships with the FARC and narcotics traffickers in the widespread South American drug trade. Government estimates place the total amount of money laundered since 1992 at more than 172 billion dollars. [. . . . ]

Dot #2: Increased Terrorism in northern Venezuela (U.S. News & World Report, 10/6/03, pp. 18ff.) [. . . . ]

Dot #3: Illegal Immigration at the Southern Border…Not Just Hispanics, Anymore. (“U.S. seizes 77 Mideastern aliens in southern Arizona,” World Tribune, 8/2/04; “Two groups of middle-eastern invaders caught in Cochise county in past six weeks,” Tombstone Tumbleweed, 7/18/04; “Breaking silence over possible terror threat,” Defense Watch, 7/23/04.) [. . . . ]

U.S. forces on the trail of Osama bin Laden and the leaders of the Taliban in late 2001 didn't worry much about elderly, pious-looking men like Haji Juma Khan. A towering tribesman from the Baluchistan desert near Pakistan, Khan was picked up that December near Kandahar and taken into U.S. custody. Though known to U.S. and Afghan officials as a drug trafficker, he seemed an insignificant catch. "At the time, the Americans were only interested in catching bin Laden and [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar," says a European counterterrorism expert in Kabul. "Juma Khan walked."

That decision has come back to haunt the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan. Western intelligence agencies believe Khan has become the kingpin of a heroin-trafficking enterprise that is a principal source of funding for the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists. A Western law-enforcement official in Kabul who is tracking Khan says agents in Pakistan and Afghanistan, after a tip-off in May, turned up evidence that Khan is employing a fleet of cargo ships to move Afghan heroin out of the Pakistani port of Karachi. The official says at least three vessels on return trips from the Middle East took arms like plastic explosives and antitank mines, which were secretly unloaded in Karachi and shipped overland to al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Khan is now a marked man. "He's obviously very tightly tied to the Taliban," says Robert Charles, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. Mirwais Yasini, head of the Afghan government's Counter-Narcotics Directorate, says, "There are central linkages among Khan, Mullah Omar and bin Laden." [. . . . ]

Just picture it: The innocent imam and pure pizza man are walking down a street in Albany one day, when suddenly a sly undercover agent approaches the pair and entices them into buying a shoulder-launched missile.

Agent: "Like to buy a Stinger? Great for taking out Pakistani ambassadors or killing infidels."

Mohammed and Yassin: "Gosh, we’d never thought of that! Hmmm, that might not be a bad idea. Say, it could come in handy, if the Zionist entity ever invades America."

I thought of comedian Jackie Mason last week, when two leaders of an Albany, New York, mosque were arrested and charged with trying to buy a shoulder-launched missile to assassinate Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S.

What better way for disciples of a Religion of Peace to celebrate harmony and coexistence than with a Stinger missile?

Two weeks ago, Mason got in hot water (a place where he seems quite comfortable) by telling a radio audience that "the whole Muslim religion" is a "murderous organization" that instructs its followers in "hate, terrorism and murder."

[. . . . ] In a letter to Westwood One, which syndicates Bohannon’s show, CAIR decried Mason’s "Islamophobic smears." [. . . . ]

[. . . .] I want to talk a bit about the extremists, the enemies that we are facing in this global struggle between civilized nations and extremism, and also touch on a few other issues of importance.

Everyone in this room knows that our free system is rooted in trust -- in each other, in our personal lives, in our free political system, our free economic system. It is that trust which is the glue of our society that enemies hope to shatter. And it is the freedom that that trust gives us that they hope to deny us.

[. . . .] The rise of a free, self-governing Afghanistan and Iraq will deny terrorists a base of operations, discredit their extremist ideology and give momentum to reformers across the region, and they are determined to try to prevent that.

[. . . .] If one had the impression that one gets from the television and the media, I think that you would have to be discouraged. And you can't see the steady drumbeat of problems on the front page of the paper and on the television, day after day, and not feel that it's a very tough situation.

[. . . .] In the case of Iraq, we currently have 123,000 folks there, and it is -- you can't see a day go by that you don't say, "Gee, the border's porous with Iran or with Syria, and if we had a few more, might not that help?" And the military commanders on the ground say: No, we want the effort to go into building the Iraqi forces. We do not want to become an occupier; we do not want physical presence all over that country which creates greater resistance than exists today. We want to have enough so that we can train and equip and support the Iraqi forces, build them up and transfer the responsibility to them. And I am persuaded they're right, but the debate goes on.

[. . . .] So much information is now traded as to how the civilized countries collect intelligence. A series of spies have revealed a great deal. The press reveals a great deal. People leak things, make mistakes. And it's increasingly easy for people to learn about how they can manage their affairs in a way that they cannot be observed and not be known. And they go to school on us; they watch what we do. [. . . .]

FRANKLY, I think most of us will be a lot more impressed when the Ontario Court of Appeal tells judges to get tougher on all criminals and not just the black, poor and female ones.

When the white, male killers of Matti Baranovski are up for a parole hearing less than five years after helping to stomp the innocent 15-year-old to death, it's really no big deal to me whether or not a black single mom spends a few months in jail, as opposed to house arrest, for being a drug mule for cocaine smugglers.

If the Court of Appeal really wants to get tough on crime, it should start by raising the bar on sentences for all violent criminals.

As it is, even our best and most sensible judges are often left scrambling to find ways to impose at least minimally tough sentences on violent felons, without being overturned on appeal. [. . . . ]

For more than a decade Muslim women activists in India have been demanding a ban on what is known as "triple talaq" or instant divorce.

It is a system wherein a Muslim man can divorce his wife in a matter of minutes.

The issue has been highlighted recently after several Indian Muslims have taken to divorcing their wives by mail, over the phone and even through mobile phone text messages.

The practice of instant divorce is banned in several Islamic countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia.

But it continues in India. [. . . . ]

Regardless of the reason, the data confirm one fact obvious for generations: Formal education does not necessarily make you "street smart."

Much has been written about slippery scam artists, callous "caregivers," and greedy family members who bilked senior citizens out of their life's savings. This has created the impression senior citizens are especially vulnerable to financial fraud.

And why shouldn't this be? The anecdotal evidence is compelling. As a group, older Americans tend to have more money, more property and greater savings and investments than others. So they would seem ripe for the picking.

[. . . . ] But the data don't confirm the picture of the overly gullible oldster. What the data indicate — a story virtually unreported by the media — is that young college-educated professionals are far likelier to be fleeced than their less-educated grandparents. If you can be too smart for your own good, America's "20-and 30-somethings" seem to fit the bill. [. . . . ]

What do an immigration advocate who claims that San Diego County is an open-air jail for Latinos and a radical Islamist who fights for the introduction of Shariah law worldwide have in common? Both have been chosen to participate in the State Department’s International Visitors Program (IVP).

The IVP has been used for more than 50 years to bring thousands of foreign politicians, scientists and other influential individuals to the United States in order to “experience America firsthand. Understandably, after 9/11, the amply-financed program has been focused on bridging the gap with Muslims worldwide and showing that the Islamic community in America also benefits from the freedoms that all Americans enjoy. However, while the program has scored some successes in achieving these goals, on more than one occasion it has proven to be poorly organized and even counterproductive. The State Department does not always appear to have a good understanding of who it is inviting to the U.S. and who it is choosing to represent America. [. . . . ]

Last week's convention of minority journalists was the largest ever-- 7,000 strong. Kerry spoke, and got a standing ovation. Bush spoke: no ovation. Traditionalists in the press said: unprofessional! Critics on the right cried foul. Unity, the coalition that created the event, didn't know what to say. And group think appealed to all.

[. . . . ] Writing in the Philadelphia Daily News, Michelle Malkin had a similar point:

The diversity being sought is, by definition, skin-deep. They call themselves "journalists of color." Not journalists of substance. Or integrity. Or independent thought.