In the '60s and '70s, it largely gave way to a new Left counterculture, where again Quadrant served as a beacon of free and sceptical thought against fashionable leftist views on social, foreign policy and economic issues. In the eyes of the new Left, the Cold War became a struggle defined by moral equivalence, where the Soviet bloc and the American-led West were equally to blame, each possessing their own dominating ideologies. It became the height of intellectual sophistication to believe that people in the West were no less oppressed than people under the yoke of communist dictatorship.

In time, the world would luckily see the emergence of three remarkable individuals whose moral clarity punctured such nonsense: Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II. All of us here tonight owe a particular debt of gratitude to these three towering figures of the late 20th century.

To those who want to portray the West as anti-Muslim, I would say that it was not the Arab League who went to war in the '90s on behalf of Muslim minorities in the Balkans. It was the governments of the US, the UK and their NATO allies. Let me also remind people who talk as if Iraq was some island of pro-Islamic tranquillity before 2003 that the person who probably killed more Muslims in history is Saddam Hussein.

There are people who legitimately opposed the original action to oust Saddam, but it remains an inconvenient truth that if countries such as the US, the UK and Australia simply abandon the people of Iraq, this would be a victory for the forces of terror and extremism.

This man gives one helluva speech!

Businesses and people around the country are digging into their pockets to help four Alaska villages whose tribal leaders rejected a heating-fuel gift from the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, a critic of President George Bush.

Donations, including a huge one from several fishing companies, have been so numerous there might be enough to replace the gift -- and then some.

"The response has been overwhelming," said Dimitri Philemonof, president of the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, a nonprofit representing villages in Southwest Alaska.

Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect believes this will be Mohammed ibn Hasan, regarded as the 12th Imam, or righteous descendant of the Prophet Mohammad.

He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the ninth century, at the age of five. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed. After a cataclysmic confrontation with evil and darkness, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.

This is similar to the Christian vision of the Apocalypse. Indeed, the Hidden Imam is expected to return in the company of Jesus.

Mr Ahmadinejad appears to believe that these events are close at hand and that ordinary mortals can influence the divine timetable.

The prospect of such a man obtaining nuclear weapons is worrying. The unspoken question is this: is Mr Ahmadinejad now tempting a clash with the West because he feels safe in the belief of the imminent return of the Hidden Imam? Worse, might he be trying to provoke chaos in the hope of hastening his reappearance?

Sure we can trust this man with nuclear weapons, Ted?

Thanks to aggressive redistricting in the 1990s and early 2000s, fewer than three dozen House seats are seriously in contention this election cycle, compared with more than 100 in 1994, the year Republicans swept to power with a 54-seat pickup in the House. Then there's what political pros call the ground game. For most of the 20th century, turning out voters on Election Day was the Democrats' strength. They had labor unions to supply workers for campaigns, make sure their voters had time off from their jobs to go to the polls and provide rides to get them there.

Now, though, Democrats are the ones playing catch-up when it comes to the mechanics of Election Day. Every Monday, überstrategist Karl Rove and Republican Party officials on Capitol Hill get spreadsheets tallying the numbers of voters registered, volunteers recruited, doors knocked on and phone numbers dialed for 40 House campaigns and a dozen Senate races. Over the next few weeks, the party will begin flying experienced paid and volunteer workers into states for the final push. The Senate Republicans' campaign committee calls its agents special teams, led by marshals, all in the service of the partywide effort known as the 72-Hour Task Force because its working philosophy initially focused on the final three days before an election.

Time does a great job (too good a job really) illustrating the GOP's formidable ground game. Hopefully it can live up to the reputation it is beginning to earn. Speaker Pelosi is a scary, scary thought.

Can the detainees be reasoned with? I asked. Or is their indoctrination so complete that there’s just no reaching them? Are there any of them who are reasonable enough that Stashiu would feel safe if we were to let them go free?

Although soldiers on the ground may welcome the agreement, it is likely to raise new questions about troop deployment. Last month Sir Richard Dannatt, the new head of the British Army, warned that soldiers in Afghanistan were fighting at the limit of their capacity and could only “just” cope with the demands.

So what happened? I think that someone confused "Taliban" with "Taliban supporters" at some point, and whether that was Frist or the reporter will probably remain a point of contention between the two. At any rate, Bill Frist is not calling for the return of the Taliban and an end to democracy in Afghanistan.

However, it does bring up an important point about the eventual end game in Afghanistan. If we want a representative democracy in Afghanistan, it will probably be heavily influenced by the Pashtuns, who have a strong Islamist bent. They did, after all, push the Taliban into power. At some point, we have to find a way to convince these Islamists to buy into democracy, and we have to be willing to allow that democracy to develop its own laws and customs. Otherwise, we will have to prop up a strongman who can keep the Pashtuns oppressed, which will create an even greater Islamist impulse in Afghanistan.

As for being emaciated, it's the only death camp in history where the soi-disant torture victims put on weight. In contrast to the undernourished thesp in the movie version, the average gain at Gitmo is 18 pounds. The Afghan detainees were the chunkiest Afghans I've ever seen. If they ever make it home, their old comrades -- the lean wiry warriors of the Hindu Kush -- will wonder why a party of Florida retirees has suddenly shown up. These Pushtuns are pushing a ton.

And, if you do start losing weight suddenly, don't worry. As one of the camp's medical staff explained, they offer free colon-cancer testing for jihadis over 50. If President Hillary decides to have another crack at socialized medicine in 2009, there are worse slogans than "Every American should have the right to the same health-care plan as a Sudanese terrorist who put his arm out stabbing a prison guard."

The expansion will consolidate military command under top NATO leader British Lt. Gen. David Richards and phase out the role of U.S. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, whose troops will be transferred to NATO, said Mark Laity, an alliance spokesman in Kabul.

Of 40,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, only 8,000 U.S. troops will function outside NATO control: those tracking al-Qaida terrorists or involved in air operations, Laity said. The overall level of American forces will remain around 20,000.

This makes me a bit nervous to be honest. This is to the best of my knowledge, the first time in history NATO has been involved in a heavy ground combat situation. Granted, Nato was designed with a major ground war with the Warsaw Pact in mind, but that never materialized. My second misgiving is the training level of the troops involved. Oakleaf at Polipundit speaks well an this point here and here. Lastly there seems to be a lack of will in many NATO countries.

Don't get me wrong. This is still winnable. Eradicate the poppies to steal the Taliban's biggest source of funding, declare all of Waziristan a hot pursuit zone and inject some backbone into the Alliance.That I think would do it. My hope is that this deal can solve the backbone problem. I continue have my doubts that we will fulfill the other two.