Time for another three-dot column, to clear up some odds and ends. [As always, genuflect to the late, great Herb Caen before reading.]

. . . More good news for the ACLU was reported this week. Seems the Pentagon will be scrapping its TALON database. This is the one that the U.S. military was using to keep track of anti-war protesters in the guise of "fighting terrorism." But the bad news is that the data's not going to just get thrown out. From the AP article:

It will be closed on Sept. 17 and information collected subsequently on potential terror or security threats to Defense Department facilities or personnel will be sent by Pentagon officials to an FBI database known as Guardian, according to Army Col. Gary Keck, a Pentagon spokesman.

Keck said the Pentagon database is being shut down because "the analytical value had declined," but not because of public criticism of how it was used. Eventually the Pentagon hopes to create a new system -- not necessarily a database -- to "streamline such threat reporting," according to a brief statement issued Tuesday.

Keck said that after the TALON database is shut down in September, a copy of the data it contains will be maintained at the Pentagon for record-keeping purposes but not for further analytical use.

So they are handing the data to the FBI, they're upgrading the program itself, and they'll keep a copy of the database around just in case... maybe this isn't such a big victory after all.

. . . The military, meanwhile, is apparently beginning to plan for a withdrawal from Iraq. Yes, that's right -- beginning to plan. From the AP article: "The military has not yet developed a plan for a substantial withdrawal of forces next year."

Hmm... that's strange, considering Hillary Clinton's war of letters with the Pentagon not too long ago. She politely asked, you will recall, to see the Pentagon's withdrawal plans for Iraq. The Pentagon responded that she was aiding the enemy by even asking for such a thing. Then the new Secretary of Defense apologized to her and told her that of course the Pentagon had plans for withdrawal, since they plan for every contingency (ignoring the fact that we're still stuck in Iraq precisely because they failed to plan for such a contingency as an insurgency).

But now the Pentagon admits that they haven't yet developed a plan for withdrawal? So which is it? And did the Secretary of Defense lie to Senator Clinton?

. . . For those of you who treasure first-person reporting, there are two articles about Iraq worth reading. The first is fairly optimistic, written for Salon by a former Marine, and looks at the situation in Fallujah. The second is extremely pessimistic, written for the New York Times by a group of mostly sergeants -- a real "soldiers' view" of the whole situation. Reading these two articles probably won't change anybody's preconceived notions of what's going on in Iraq, but I thought I'd provide links to both views for you.

. . . In other military news, the Pentagon can apparently afford a million dollars shipping for two 19-cent washers, but they can't afford to keep Purple Heart medals in stock. Shameful.

. . . If you're wondering what sort of an Iraq our troops are fighting to create, a story from the Hartford Courant tells of the Iraqi government enforcing a law that requires any woman applying for a passport to have the approval of a "male guardian" family member. Our troops are dying so that adult Iraqi women can be treated like children by their government? Funny, I don't hear President Bush bragging about this very often.

. . . Over at the State Department, however, you would think that calm and rational diplomacy would be more prevalent than, say, a KKK meeting. But you'd be wrong.

One of the most stunning articles about any American diplomat I have ever read in my life tells the story of Patrick Syring, who shows just why America (and her diplomats) are held in such high esteem in the Muslim world. From the Reuters article:

Syring is alleged to have made the comments in a series of e-mails and voice mails to officials the Arab American Institute, including its president James Zogby, when Israel was at war with Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas in July 2006.

"The only good Lebanese is a dead Lebanese. The only good Arab is a dead Arab. Long live the IDF. Death to Lebanon and death to the Arabs," Syring said in a voice mail recorded at the institute on July 17, 2006. IDF stands for Israel Defense Forces -- the Israeli military.

"Fuck the Arabs and Fuck James Zogby and his wicked Hizbollah brothers. They will burn in hellfire on this earth and in the hereafter," he wrote in an e-mail to Zogby and another institute employee on the same day.

No mention of whether he was wearing a sheet and white hood at the time.

-- Chris Weigant