by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, October 19, 2001 2:35 P.M. EDT

The Ground War Begins
U.S. Special Forces have arrived in Afghanistan. Unnamed Pentagon officials tell the Washington Post that the troops are "operating in small numbers in southern Afghanistan in support of the CIA's effort in the Taliban heartland." Yesterday Iranian radio said "informed sources report that US helicopters from the Pakistani-Afghan border have entered Afghan territory and deployed troops around Kandahar."

Reuters reports a bin Laden aide, Abu Hafs al-Masri, has issued the following threat: "America will only be certain about its mistaken calculations after its soldiers are dragged in Afghanistan as they were in Somalia." Talk about mistaken calculations! Bin Laden's comrades succeeded in driving America out of Somalia, but few Americans understood why we were there in the few place. Apart from a few clueless intellectuals, everyone understands why we're in Afghanistan. We'd hate to see American soldiers dragged through the streets of Afghanistan, of course, but if al Qaeda's thugs managed to pull off such a stunt, there's no doubt it would only stiffen American resolve.

Anthrax Hits Post Office, Post Office
An employee at the New York post has tested positive for skin anthrax. So has a postal worker in Trenton, N.J., source of anthrax-laden letters sent to NBC and Sen. Tom Daschle. The Post employee is recovering and has already returned to work. Meanwhile, a letter from Malaysia to a Microsoft office in Reno, Nev., which had initially tested positive for anthrax, turns out actually to contain only other unspecified bacteria, the Associated Press reports.

The FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, in cooperation with the "America's Most Wanted" TV show, are offering a reward of "up to" $1 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for mailing letters containing anthrax. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control have issued a notice warning health-care providers to be on the lookout for the symptoms of pneumonic plague, smallpox, botulism and "Hemorrhagic fever (such as would be caused by Ebola or Marburg viruses)."

USA Today's Walter Shapiro denounces the House for shutting down amid a Senate anthrax scare, while the upper chamber remained in session. The House shutdown does seem an overreaction, but Shapiro doesn't help his case with his opening anecdote: the tale of how Abraham Lincoln, en route to Washington for his inauguration in 1861, was warned of a plan to assassinate him as he went through Baltimore:

Lincoln sneaked into Baltimore in the middle of the night in a sleeper berth reserved for an "invalid passenger." . . . When newsmen learned of Lincoln's deception, the president-elect was derided for his cowardice. . . . One hundred forty years later, the same principle applies: Political leaders invite ridicule when they give way to fear.

Hey Walter, correct us if we're wrong, but we seem to remember that Lincoln actually was assassinated a few years later.

Here's a man-bites-dog story: Reuters reports Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has condemned the anthrax attacks on America. "I cannot imagine that humans can use germs against other humans, whatever the degree of animosity between them," Gadhafi said in a statement. "It is a cowardly, evil and irresponsible action putting in danger the whole of humanity."

Bombs of Butterfingers?
Abu Baseer al-Masri, a top aide to Osama bin Laden, is dead. Initial reports said he was killed by an American bomb, but now the Islamic Afghan Press, a Pakistan-based agency, says he died when his own grenade exploded.

Germany Seeks Essabar
German authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Zakariya Essabar, a 24-year-old Moroccan man charged with "founding a terrorist group and mass murder in connection with the September 11 attacks," CNN reports. "Specifically, he is accused of founding a terrorist group with Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah, all named by the U.S. Justice Department as suspected hijackers--and Ramzi Omar bin al-Shibh, who is also being sought by German authorities for mass murder and was also associated with Atta."

Terrorist Welfare Queens
Sheikh Abu Qatada, a resident of London, says he "would be honored" to meet Osama bin Laden and "cannot have much sympathy" for the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. A court in Jordan has sentenced him to life in prison for his role in bombing incidents and the financing of a terror plot, but Britain, which tried to ship Augusto Pinochet to Spain a few years back, hasn't extradited him. But the British government has suspended Abu Qatada's welfare benefits. Why? They discovered that the sheikh, who has been unemployed and on the dole since arriving in Britain in 1993, has a bank account of £180,000, or roughly $259,000.

The Jews Did It!--II
Syria's Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass has become the latest Arab leader to endorse the canard that Sept. 11 was a Jewish conspiracy. The Jerusalem Post reports Tlass made the claim last week at a Damascus meeting with a delegation from the British Royal College of Defense Studies. Reader Phil Boas makes some good points about this preposterous theory:

Let's assume the Israelis masterminded the Twin Towers and Pentagon terrors. Their most amazing feat was getting five Arab men to get on each of those four airliners. (OK, one plane only had four.) Are Arabs that easily duped?

Also, someone needs to get the word to Bin Laden. If indeed Israel is responsible, he's been applauding the work of the Mossad and suggesting Allah blesses it. I don't know much about Islam, but that sounds darn near blasphemous to me.

Also, on 9/11 there was cheering in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. Are they dupes, too? Or did the Mossad just buy them off?

Mysterious Videotaping
Our Peggy Noonan has stirred a bit of controversy with her column this week, in which she reports having seen two "Mideastern-looking men" videotaping St. Patrick's cathedral. She relates two similar anecdotal accounts, one from a limousine driver and one from an Internet chat room.

Do these stories reflect real danger or mere paranoia? Two news stories point in opposite directions. The Pottstown Mercury reports that federal immigration authorities in Plymouth, Pa., detained two men "described as Middle Eastern" after local police found them "with detailed video footage of the Sears Tower in Chicago," America's tallest skyscraper. The men came under suspicion after someone at a local restaurant complained that they were dumping furniture from their truck behind the restaurant. The driver of the truck, Moshe Elmakias, told police that "his destination was New York and that he was also coming from New York."

On the other hand, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that a Washington Times story (which we noted Wednesday) turns out to have been a false alarm:

The [Times] said it had obtained a copy of a message from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service about suspicious activity near ports and bases before Sept. 11. The message purportedly notes that "three Arab males" checked into an Island County motel near the naval air station. The men are part of a crew of six men of Middle Eastern descent. They were on Whidbey Island to work on a commercial roofing job in downtown Oak Harbor, [Sheriff Michael] Hawley said.

The newspaper also said Navy intelligence reported that "three Arabic males" may have been surveying the air station. They had been seen videotaping the 180-foot-high Deception Pass Bridge. Hawley said the men were part of the roofing crew. They were visiting the sites and taking videotape as tourists do, the sheriff said.

Bush Beats Clinton by a Landslide
A new Zogby poll asks: "Who would you rather have sitting in the White House during this time of crisis, George W. Bush or Bill Clinton?" A whopping 72% of respondents say Bush, vs. just 20% for Clinton.

Burning the Flag at Amherst
"Amherst College students were stunned moments after a pro-America rally involving more than 100 people ended yesterday when several protesters emerged from the crowd to set fire to a U.S. flag," reports the Union News of Northampton, Mass. Most of the cowardly little America-haters "declined to be interviewed," but one, who identified himself as 19-year-old Dan Griffin, apparently a student at nearby Hampshire College, said that, as the newspaper puts it, "the United States has helped continue a spree of genocide that dates back to Columbus in 1492."

The Center Folds
Yesterday we noted the case of Zewdalem Kebede, a student at San Diego State University, who reportedly confronted a groups of Saudi students who were speaking in Arabic and expressing their satisfaction with the Sept. 11 atrocities. Kebede received a letter from SDSU's Center for Student Rights warning him that he faced "severe disciplinary sanctions" if something like this happened again. Now James Kitchen, SDSU's vice president of student affairs, has issued a statement acknowledging that the incident took place:

Since a student had registered a complaint against Mr. Kebede with Public Safety, the university followed standard procedure and had Mr. Kebede meet with a representative from the SDSU Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities. The Center took no disciplinary action against Mr. Kebede and notified him in writing with a standard letter. The standard letter also warned him to abstain from engaging in behavior that could be considered aggressive or abusive.

Sometime after we published yesterday's column, the Web page of the Center for Student Rights, which had been here, vanished from the SDSU server. Will they take down James Kitchen's page next?

Gotta Love Those Uzbeks
Here's a lovely quote from a story in the New York Times (link requires registration), dateline Denau, Uzbekistan. Ismat Islamov, a bus driver, on the prospect of a Taliban takeover of his country: "They would prohibit us from drinking vodka, and to make love to another man's wife would become a dangerous thing, with maybe a chance at execution. Uzbeks don't want that."

(Ira Stoll helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michiel Visser, Jonathan Adler, C.E. Dobkin, Jim Orheim, Christian Peck, Raghu Desikan, Yehuda Hilewitz, Christine Klein, Jon Boone, Lindsey Echelbarger, John Pearce and Danielle Crittenden. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)