The Justice Department has released new information on its detainment of enemy-combatant Jose Padilla. He is alleged to have targeted apartment buildings and hotels. According to Fox News:

"Padilla and the accomplice were to locate as many as three high-rise apartment buildings which had natural gas supplied to the floors," the government summary of interrogations revealed. "They would rent two apartments in each building, seal all the openings, turn on the gas, and set timers to detonate the buildings simultaneously at a later time," the papers alleged.

Yesterday morning my family and I had the honor of touring the World War II Memorial on its inaugural Memorial Day. As we expected, the site was crowded and its stone already adorned with faded pictures and old letters, wreaths, ribbons, and spangled flags in memoriam. But most importantly, and arguably the best reason my wife gave for taking our two young sons out in the dampening rain on opening weekend, the Memorial was decorated with the living remnant of that conflict, giving us the opportunity to thank those men personally. Whatever we may think of the new Memorial itself, its architecture and its locus, nothing could detract from the privilege of walking among those heroes and shaking their aged hands.

I will forever remember yesterday morning as the day I tried, as best I could, to explain the sacrifice of war to my three-year-old son. I had told him that we were going to a serious place, a sad place, and that anything less than his best behavior would come with dire consequences. Upon arrival, we met a man with "D-Day, June 6 1944 Veteran" emblazoned across his baseball cap. I thanked him for his service and he graciously bent down to talk to my son. My son shook his hand and, at my prompting, said thank you to the elderly veteran. As the man walked away, I began a surreal kind of history lesson, explaining to my boy that the old man had been very brave and that many of his friends had died. "Why did his friends die?" he asked, prompting a short lesson in war-theory that I doubted he’d ever understand. But my answer to his question was considered and distilled all the way back to our room, and when I asked him in the elevator why he had said thank you to that old grandpa, he paused only slightly before saying, "Because his friends died and made us free."

Yesterday, the men of Forward Operating Base Bernstein gathered in the hot mid-day sun to honor those Americans who had fought and died in uniform. They assembled near a sign commemorating the base’s namesake, 1LT David R. Bernstein, who was killed in action on October 18, 2003 in Taza, Iraq. Words were spoken about the historical origins of Memorial Day, about soldiers in the Civil War fighting to secure the liberties guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence, and about the bravery of their grandfathers, who stormed Normandy and freed a continent. Then Lt. Col. Stevens of the 120th Infantry said a few words. His voice cracked as he remembered one of his own who had fallen—Spc. Jocelyn Carrasquillo, killed by an IED near Baghdad on March 13, 2004. There was not a day that he did not think of the soldier, and of the cowardice of the soldier’s attacker.

For these men, today was not a day for barbeques with family and friends. There was work to be done. During the day, villages were visited, and plans were made to improve roads and to provide water. At night, a raid was conducted, in an effort to apprehend a man who was believed to be a source of IEDs, like the one used to kill Spc. Carrasquillo.

Lakhdar Brahimi just announced the composition of the hydra-headed caretaker/transitional Iraqi government:

Ayad Allawi, Prime Minister Designate; Sheikh Ghazi Al-Yawar, President; Dr. Ibrahim Jaafari, Deputy President; and Dr. Rowsch Shaways, Deputy President.

A headline in this morning’s edition of the Mansfield News-Journal (sometimes referred to colloquially as the News-Urinal) reads, "Poll shows Kerry favored by Ohio voters." Technically it’s a true statement; according to the article, 41 percent of voters in this critical swing state say they will cast their ballot for John Kerry.

But here’s the first sentence of the story, provided by the Associated Press: "President Bush has a 6 percentage point lead over John Kerry in Ohio...." In 2000 Bush won the state by a 4.4 percent margin.

The June issue of Harper’s (not available online), a one-proud magazine now lost to editor Lewis Lapham’s increasing dementia, contains perhaps the worst article yet on Leo Strauss. The article, "Ignoble Liars: Leo Strauss, George Bush, and the Philosophy of Mass Deception," by one Earl Shorris (who writes books on Mexico, so he is obviously well-suited to comment on Strauss) is so full of mis-statements and flat-out goofy assertions about Strauss and his followers that it is impossible to convey how bad it is with a few samples. To quote an old saying (that may come from Yogi Berra), You have to read it, not to believe it.

But here’s one small sample of its awfulness: "The only alternative to the last man is the will to power, which Nietzsche said is the will to life itself, the will to overcome, to control, to be master of all things. This is the will of the Bush Administration."

Hat tip to Instapundit for bringing the following article from The Spectator (UK) [free registration required to access article] to my attention. In the column, Toby Harden relates an encounter he had with an American magazine journalist with impeccable credentials. Here is a key excerpt from their discussion:

Not only had she ‘known’ the Iraq war would fail but she considered it essential that it did so because this would ensure that the ‘evil’ George W. Bush would no longer be running her country. Her editors back on the East Coast were giggling, she said, over what a disaster Iraq had turned out to be. ‘Lots of us talk about how awful it would be if this worked out.’ Startled by her candour, I asked whether thousands more dead Iraqis would be a good thing.

She nodded and mumbled something about Bush needing to go. By this logic, I ventured, another September 11 on, say, September 11 would be perfect for pushing up John Kerry’s poll numbers. ‘Well, that’s different — that would be Americans,’ she said, haltingly. ‘I guess I’m a bit of an isolationist.’ That’s one way of putting it.

Mark Steyn compares us to those who lived through 1863, and finds us wanting. Good, but hard, too hard. Our corrupted elites and their epigones may participate in this victim culture he describes, but our towns our full of citizens who do not see themselves as victims. I will be speaking tomorrow at our ceremonies in Ashland, and am working on the speech. I came across something I wrote for Memorial Day in 1997, and another in 1998. Maybe I’ll just crib from these. Honor, duty, country are hard things to write about, especially when dozens of old warriors sit in the front, looking at an unworthy speaker trying to thank them. Here is President Bush at yesterday’s dedication of the World War II Memorial:

"On this Memorial Day weekend, the graves will be visited, and decorated with flowers and flags. Men whose step has slowed are thinking of boys they knew when they were boys together. And women who watched the train leave, and the years pass, can still see the handsome face of their young sweetheart. America will not forget them, either.

At this place, at this Memorial, we acknowledge a debt of long-standing to an entire generation of Americans: those who died; those who fought and worked and grieved and went on. They saved our country, and thereby saved the liberty of mankind. And now I ask every man and woman who saw and lived World War II -- every member of that generation -- to please rise as you are able, and receive the thanks of our great nation.

Sgt. Stryker opines that Sci-Fi conventions are a lot more fun than political conventions.

In the hierarchy of coolness, politics sits at the absolute rock-bottom. I would rather be caught wearing a hooded brown robe and casting a 10th Level Spell of Enchantment against a chaotic good half-elven Ranger, than be standing in a sea of uptight dorks and declaring to the world, "Mr. Chairman, the Great State of Nebraska, home of the Cornhuskers and latent sexual frustration, nominates John Kerry to be the next President of the United States!"

Yup. By the way, I’ll be at Origins in Columbus June 26th. Like, can you believe, SEAN ASTIN is totally gonna be there!

The base recently hosted the muqtars (village political leaders) and sheiks (tribal leaders) in the area to the base to discuss concerns in the region. Sitting around one table were approximately 30 Arabs, Kurds, and Turkimen—an accomplishment in itself.

The primary concern for the leaders was getting a reliable source of water. There are still a few villages in the area that do not have a good well, and this was the top priority. The next big issue was access to electricity. It is interesting to note that among the villages in this region is Davac, a Sunni village which was a favorite of Saddam. While it is not in as bad of shape as some of the villages, it nonetheless shared many of the same problems as its neighboring village, demonstrating once again how run down much of the country had become.

The officers also view the meeting as something of a neighborhood watch” group. Lt. Col. Miller thanked the attendees for their help in making the region more secure by not tolerating insurgents in their villages. And the region is safer: since the major firefight just over a month ago, the base has not been subject to a mortar or rocket attack, and there have been fewer IEDs on the roads.

The meeting provided the opportunity for me to meet one of the Turkimen muqtars. As I understand it, the Turkimen are simply Turks who remained in Iraq after the borders were drawn by the British. If you ask them, they still claim to be Turkish. The muqtar from the Turkimen village was an old man, who spoke Arabic, Kurdish, and Turkish—and probably a little English, although he doesn’t let on to that. He has a quick wit, and a devilish grin. He was a clear minority in the room, but you would not have known it from how he handled himself.

Dexter Filkins’ report in The New York Times about Iyad Alawi, seems much better to me than the one in today’s Post. From what little I know, this seems to me to be a good turn of events for three reasons: First, and most important, this guy is a politician--and a resonable one--with some base. And, he knows how to get others to support him. Note that two Shiite parties, each wanted a different person, and neither would compromise; yet both were willing to go with Alawi. And Sistani approves. Second, this puts an end to the UN’s Brahimi’s attempt to pick a non-politician, a so called technocrat, to be PM. That would have been a bad move. Third, The Iraqis themselves seemed to have pushed Alawi. This means that he seems to not have been imposed by either the Coalition or the UN. The fact that UN was surprised amuses me. They underestimated the Iraqis ability to do politics. They are going to need that ability in the coming years.