With the latest release of classified military files on Guantanamo Bay detainees, The Weekly Standard’s Thomas Joscelyn seems to think he’s stumbled upon some real breaking news:

[T]here is a new piece of information that has not received any press attention. Omar Khadr was determined to be of “high intelligence value.” His connections to senior al Qaeda terrorists, including his father, gave him insights into how al Qaeda and the Taliban operate.

Wow! The U.S. military thought Omar Khadr had “high intelligence value”? So that’s why he was shipped to Guantanamo Bay and held for all these years. Despite Joscelyn’s great investigative work, it turns out this information isn’t so new, as the New York Times’ Charlie Savage notes:

But it wasn’t among the initial files that The New York Times selected to publish, because it is relatively uninteresting. First, the basic narrative of what the government believed about Mr. Khadr’s actions had already come out — in far greater detail — as a result of his prosecution before a military commission on war crimes charges, which resulted in his guilty plea. Moreover, unlike some other assessments, the one of Mr. Khadr does not reveal previously undisclosed reasons or sources for the government’s beliefs about him.

Yes that’s right. As Canada’s Globe and Mail reported, “The newly released assessment sheds few new details about Mr. Khadr, who was captured as a 15-year-old al-Qaeda fighter in Afghanistan in 2002.”

It seems that Joscelyn is upset that “many advocates have turned him into something of a false martyr, however, claiming that Khadr is the real victim of American wrongdoing.” So that by uncovering this (not so) new evidence, Joscelyn seems to be claiming he has the goods on how Khadr deserved what he got. And as a kicker, he points to one instance in which a judge ruled that a specific piece of evidence against Khadr would be admissible in court because it was not the product of torture. Therefore, Joscelyn concludes, “there is no evidence” Khadr was ever tortured (this is not true).

And Khadr’s detention and ultimate conviction aren’t as simple as Joscelyn makes it seem. Khadr’s prosecution was “unusual” not only because child soldiers are normally not prosecuted (Khadr was 15 years old when the U.S. military apprehended him), but also because the main charge against him was killing a soldier on the battlefield, an action, again, that is not traditionally prosecuted. But the irregularities of Khadr’s saga don’t end there. While questions of illegitimacy also surround Khadr’s legal proceedings, Dennis Edny, Khadr’s Canadian lawyer, said the U.S. military even added charges “that we’d never heard of” during his plea hearing. “The Americans have made up the new rules in the laws of war,” Edny said. Apparently, that’s all just fine for the folks at the Weekly Standard.

In an interview last night with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin criticized the President for engaging in a military conflict in Libya, then almost immediately contradicted herself, telling Van Susteren it is America’s “responsibility to help freedom fighters”:

PALIN: He’s been extremely inconsistent in the reasons given for our involvement in Libya. … Why aren’t we intervening in Syria, why not Yemen, Egypt, Bahrain? We cannot afford to be engaged in any of these military interventions unless America’s interests are being challenged. And we need to hear from our President, what is our interest there in Libya?

VAN SUSTEREN: Do we have an interest in Libya, what’s your answer?

PALIN: Well, you know, to whom much is given, much is required. America is such a blessed and prosperous nation, we are that beacon of hope for those who seek freedom. So yes, I believe it’s our responsibility to help freedom fighters.

Watch it:

Palin seems to tacitly acknowledge that she agrees with the President’s rationale for intervening. It’s unclear, though, if Palin is willing to back up her insistence that the U.S. has a “responsibility” to help freedom fighters, or whether it’s just empty talk.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Palin has used the conflict in Libya as an excuse to publicly admonish the President. He had barely finished his Oval Office Address on the intervention when Palin was on TV, describing the speech as “profoundly disappointing.” In both instances, Palin complained that the President has failed to explain America’s interest in Libya, when he has in fact explicitly done so on several occasions. As ThinkProgress reported, Palin also dramatically exaggerated the cost of the Libyan conflict in that interview.

Palin has consistently demonstrated that her only interest is attacking the president, regardless of whether she actually disagrees with his positions. Ironically, on Van Susteren’s website, the segment is described as “Palin: Make Up Your Mind, Mr. President.” A more accurate title would be “Palin, Make up Your Mind.”

Earlier this week, there was a tragic shooting at a checkpoint in Nablus, in the West Bank section of the Palestinian Occupied Territories. A group of religious Israelis, en route to Joseph’s Tomb, attempted to enter the city of Nablus unauthorized.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the Israelis tried to break through a checkpoint, and that the governor of Nablus said that Israeli settlers began to pelt Palestinian police officers with stones when they wouldn’t let the group into the city. The Palestinians responded with live fire, and an Israeli was tragically killed and four other Israelis were wounded:

During the incident Sunday, Livnat, a Jerusalem resident, was killed and four other Israelis were wounded when a group of Hasidim tried to break through a Palestinian police checkpoint in Nablus. The worshippers entered the city, contrary to orders by the Israel Defense Forces, to pray at Joseph’s Tomb.

According to the Nablus governor, settlers arrived at the scene and threw stones at the Palestinian police. He said the policemen fired in the air to disperse the Israelis and that one of the vehicles carrying Hasidim tried to break through a checkpoint, not heeding calls to stop after the officers had fired in the air.

Yet as Mondoweiss notes, the shooting was portrayed a little differently in the New York Times (NYT). Under the headline “Palestinian Police Kill Israeli Visiting West Bank Holy Site,” the Times wrote only that the shooting may have been “the result of a lack of coordination between the worshipers and the Israeli Army,” glossing over the fact that the Israelis had tried to break through the checkpoint. The Times also included numerous quotes by Israeli officials calling the shooting a “murder“:

The shooting occurred outside Joseph’s Tomb in the West Bank city of Nablus after three carloads of religious Israeli Jews visited the site to pray, without coordinating their plans through the Israeli Army. Twice-monthly trips to the tomb have been organized with army escorts for the past four years without incident. … The Palestinian governor of Nablus, Jibril al-Bakri, told Israel Radio that the shooting was a result of lack of coordination between the worshipers and the Israeli Army. [...]

A statement from Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is responsible for Israeli security in the West Bank, also used the term “murder,” adding, “No failure of coordination can justify an event of this kind and firing on innocent people.”

Mondoweiss points out that there is actually a major conflict of interest in the NYT reporting. The article’s author, Ethan Bronner — who is also the paper’s Jerusalem bureau chief — actually has a son in the Israeli Defense Forces. Additionally, Bronner actually lives in the upper story of a building that was seized from Palestinians during their exodus. This is a major conflict of interest that may explain why the article was slanted in the way that it was.