I never believed the hopeful myth that Osama bin Laden was just a smear of DNA in a cave in Tora Bora. I mean, this was a guy who’d survived the war with the Soviets and then years of being tracked by Western and Arab intelligence services, long before 9/11, not to speak of surviving years of being a thug in a gang of thugs. He has powerful friends in Iran and Pakistan, and he’s shown he is resourceful and adaptable dozens of times. And that he’s able to learn. That’s what makes him so dangerous.
But what I want to especially highlight in this post is the way in which OBL’s rhetoric towards the West has changed over the ten years or so since he’s been issuing such statements.
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Just a very quick post, to draw attention to Julia Baird’s op-ed column in today’s Sydney Morning Herald, which quotes yours truly a couple of times, one from my book In Hollow Lands, once from my controversial piece the other day. It’s generally about Halloween; and she has interesting things to say. (By the way, she’s the Herald’s opinions editor).

"Cute kittens grow up to be cute cats" writes Arthur Chenkoff. They sure do! Take Private Hammer for example. Hammer is a brave tabby cat who provided some much appreciated support to American soldiers in Iraq:

"He was born at the site," said Staff Sgt. Rick Bousfield. "There were two other kittens in the litter, but they ran away. He stayed and kept mice out of our living quarters and out of our dining facility."

Adopted by the troops, the young cat provided warmth and companionship in an otherwise hostile environment. When the unit was attacked by mortar fire, Hammer ran to the bunkers, where the nearest soldier scooped him inside his body armor to wait out the attack.

"He was like our stress therapist over there," Bousfield recalled. "You’d come in off raids where we’d been kicking in doors and guys would be sitting outside by themselves. He’d come over and take their minds off the war."

After neutralizing 5 mice his Army buddies promoted him to private first class. "He should have been major," said Bousfield, "he caught a rat as big as he was."

When it was time to come back home Bousfield didn’t want to leave any of his men behind – and that included pfc Hammer. In an interview with CNN’s Daryn Kagan he explained "I’ve always been taught, you know, you never leave someone behind. And he’d been with us for so long, you know, and been such a benefit to us, you know, we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t leave him behind."

The trouble was, the army don’t let troops take pets on their flights. But Bousfield wasn’t about to give up. He started sending email messages to people he thought might be able to help. One of those messages reached Becky Robinson at Alley Cat Allies. "We had to say yes to an American soldier in Iraq," said Robinson. "We had to do it for the animal’s sake and the men’s sake. They were over there, fighting, doing their job – and rescuing a kitten."

Thanks the big hearted folks at Alley Cat Allies, and some help from Military Mascots, Hammer now shares a house in Colorado Springs with his buddy Rick, his wife Sheri, their children Tiffany, 15, and Jeffrey, 13; and their five cats, the dog, some hamsters and two geckos.

Meanwhile, back in Australia, John Quiggin is complaining that Tim Blair doesn’t get irony. What is irony anyway?

I’ve been reading two very different, but equally extraordinary books recently. One’s a huge, sprawling novel–the amazing first novel of English author Susanna Clarke–’Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.’ The other’s a huge, sprawling combination of history and intelligence investigation, anti-terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky’s astounding new book, The Secret History of the Iraq War. Just wanted to give my thoughts on them, and ask if anyone else had read them, and what they thought. And if you haven’t read them, they are both highly recommended.
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It’s the trinity of spring in our productive garden, in our cool highlands climate where the traditional seasons really mean something. By the time eagerly-awaited spring rolls in, we’re all heartily tired of eating those hardy winter stalwarts, leeks, ‘a toutes les sauces’ , as my mother would say. The frostbitten look of the winter garden too, in that spare, gaunt New England landscape, is enough to give you the willies–though mind you, I quite enjoy winter, at least for a while–Fires! Soup! Stews! Long evenings where you can read long books or watch heaps of movies! But then comes the first sign of spring: the first asparagus, popping its neat paintbrush head up through winter mulching..
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