THE MIDDLE EAST THEN AND NOW, a blogwatch-type thing.

The Rat gives us a hilarious story from the Arabian Nights.

And NoWarBlog (aka Stand Down–what’s up with the URL vs. title thing? “The blog is called ‘NoWarBlog,’ but the name of the blog is called ‘A-Sittin’ on a Gate’…”) provides interesting commentary on the Turkish elections. Especially if you read the comments as well as the posts. Here and here. And via various NWB links, this LA Times op-ed. What, precisely, does THIS mean?: “Rumsfeld’s influential Defense Science Board 2002 Summer Study on Special Operations and Joint Forces in Support of Countering Terrorism says in its classified ‘outbrief’ — a briefing drafted to guide other Pentagon agencies — that the global war on terrorism ‘requires new strategies, postures and organization.’

“The board recommends creation of a super-Intelligence Support Activity, an organization it dubs the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group, (P2OG), to bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence, and cover and deception.

“Among other things, this body would launch secret operations aimed at ‘stimulating reactions’ among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction — that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into action and exposing themselves to ‘quick-response’ attacks by U.S. forces.”

The NWB people assumed this meant acting as agents provocateurs to prompt terrorists to actually, you know, do terrorism–blowing people up and such. There are other prompt-able “actions” that could be useful though–setting up meetings between terrorists and arms suppliers; financial transactions that could trace links in the terror chains; unwise attempts to seek help from hostile powers/groups; you can probably make up more. I want to know whether that’s the sort of thing this supersecret group is supposed to do, or whether they have the evil purpose of fostering terrorism in order to fight it. The vague language of “stimulating reactions” is, how do you say, not reassuring.