For the first time today, I saw a man I have covered for nearly seven years.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is nothing like the mug shot we have all seen. No dark hair. No white T-shirt. He is now in full warrior mode. A long white and grey beard. Traditional head covering. Thick military issue glasses. As we waited for the hearing to begin, I was struck by how quickly Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) took control of the group. He had not seen them in years, his four fellow accused, but they smiled and laughed like old friends.

The five defendants sat in single file, each at this own desk with military and civilian attorneys and they delighted in mocking the military commissions, as imperfect as they are. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed leaned over and whispered to his fellow defendant Wallid Bin Attash, accused of running a training camp for the hijackers. Quickly, Bin Attash leaned over to Ramzi Binalsheib and whispered the message. It was passed down the line. All of them knew to follow KSM’s lead and today each one said they did not want any government are choosing to represent themselves. In other words, they will use these commissions, for their own purpose, to showcase Al Qaeda and their wish to die.

Click here to read the story from foxnews.com >>

KSM showed today, that after five years of captivity, after spending time in a CIA secret prison where he was waterboarded, he still has the drive to control the men around him. He still has the desire to make a mockery of this country.

This is just the beginning. Even military lawyers assigned to the case are questioning its legitimacy, their lack of access to their clients, their inability to establish a working relationship. But what we saw in court today, a small slice of history, questioned whether KSM and the others just want to be martyrs.

High gas prices could be a good thing for America.

That’s what one Middle East expert told me as he tried to explain that the high price of oil might force America to rethink its energy policy.

But is it possible to never pay for gas ever again?

Shai Agassi, ceo of Project Better Place, says, Yes.

He convinced the Israeli government that electric cars are the future. Israelis will get a significant tax break for buying electric. Renault-Nissan has agreed to build them. And the Israeli government has also approved building charging stations throughtout the country.

Agassi hopes that the U.S will follow.

This wasn’t my first time in the Gaza smuggling tunnels. Back when the Fatah led Palestinian Authority still controlled the Gaza strip, the police (controlled by Fatah) made an effort to combat the smuggling. So, I had a chance to explore a tunnel after it had been discovered and shut down.

That was more than a year ago. This time, I got into a tunnel that was still active. Smuggling has become a cottage industry on the Gaza/Egypt border. Two factors are causing the business to boom: 1) Hamas benefits from the smuggling and therefore does not stop it. 2) Since Israel has sealed the borders around the Gaza strip, people there need everything from bullets to bandages and boots and the smugglers deliver.

Contacts led me into what looked like a tent city in the no-man’s land on the border with Egypt. Once, inside I realized that each of the tents concealed the entrance to a tunnel. The top of the tunnel looked like a water well. Sandbags at the top kept the sand from eroding and collapsing the entrance to the tunnel. A metal structure held a pulley over the center of the hole. A thin steel cable ran through the pulley. One end was attached to an electric winch. The other hooked to a makeshift boson’s chair in which I sat then swung out over the tunnel. There was a light at the bottom allowing me to see 90 feet down into the desert. The splintered steel cable didn’t give me much confidence but I was committed at that point. A man with a Palestinian kafiyeh wrapped around his face hit the button on the electric winch, and down I went into the smugglers’ workspace. I sent the chair back up and cameraman Chris Jackson joined me.

With no one stopping the smuggling efforts, the tunnels have improved. They are big enough now that you can walk in them crouched over. They have electricity and lighting. There is a telephone and electric winch at each end of the tunnel. Instead of hauling goods across by hand, the smugglers just phone their collegues on the Egyptian side. They hook plastic barrels to the cables load the goods in them, hit the switch and the winches pull the goods under the border. This eliminates the risk of losing people in a tunnel collapse and speeds up the operation.

The smugglers themselves had a very mater-of-fact attitude. They didn’t see themselves as soldiers in the fight against Israel. They are just freelancers making a buck. Someone wants weapons, they’ll haul weapons. Someone wants diesel they’ll haul that as long as someone is paying. The way one of the smugglers put it to me, “There are no jobs on the ground. We have one choice; working in the tunnel to provide people with their needs and to make money.”

They are a complicating factor in the brutal politics of the Gaza strip. Israeli intelligence told Fox News, the smugglers haul tons of weapons, hundreds of thousands of bullets, thousands of guns, rocket propelled grenades and anti-tank rockets. Remember when President Bush was in

Israel a couple of weeks ago and the Popular Resistance Commitee fired a rocket out of Gaza that reached all the way to the Israeli town of Ashkelon? That was a medium-range rocket smuggled through these tunnels.

While Egypt attempts to mediate a cease-fire for the Gaza strip, Israel is demanding that something be done to combat the smugglers. But the smugglers don’t care. I asked one of them what he would do if his tunnel was discovered and destroyed. He said, “I’d dig another.” He then hooked a plastic barrel to the winch cable; ready to be hauled under the border. 

From time to time my Italian friends will criticize the United States, which I understand. We’re not above criticism. But I always ask those who live in Rome if they’ve ever made a visit to the American cemetery at Nettuno, home to nearly 8,000 graves of young American soldiers who died in World War II.

Left-wing Italians like to propagate the idea that it was the “Partigiani” or Partisans, who liberated the country. That’s the politically correct version of things. I’m sure the Partisans did what they could, but let’s not fool ourselves. The might of the American Armed Forces and a lot of kids from Oklahoma, Illinois and Missouri freed this country.

Here’s a video from when Rome producer Mario Biasetti and I visited Nettuno, about 40 miles south of Rome. Most of the video is silent, which is fitting for a cemetery, although it starts with cemetery superintendent Joe Bevilacqua talking about just how young these heroes were.

It’s a bit disconcerting dropping in here for a visit. And I do mean ‘dropping’. The gigantic Air Force C-17 that dropped us here offers no windows, so it’s difficult to know exactly what’s going on. But I could tell we were at a substantial altitude—I’m guessing 20,000 feet or so—when the pilot dropped the gear.

Suddenly the roar of an already-loud aircraft notched up another dozen decibels as the outside air screamed past the landing gear now hanging out in the airstream. A pilot will ‘fly dirty’ (meaning the airframe isn’t smooth and clean) if he wants to get down in a hurry. The exposed gear creates a huge amount of drag that helps the jet fall out of the sky.

I could feel the giant craft tip nose down for our steep approach to the runway. The C-17 is a huge target, and with a 4-star general onboard, the Air Force was taking no chances. There would be no low flybys of the jagged peaks surrounding Kabul, just in case some lucky-shot insurgent might be waiting with a shoulder-launched missile.

Once on the ground it was a mad scramble to get off the plane, but executed with military precision. I can honestly say that the worst part of this entire trip—repeated over and over again—is donning the mandated body armor for any trips outside secure NATO installations. The “bulletproof” vest is heavy and of course, doesn’t allow air movement, so almost as soon as I’ve put this thing on in the 90-plus degree heat, I’m drenched with sweat. That’s not so bad; I can deal. What’s absolutely awful is the heavy protective “one size fits none” helmet. The thing weighs about five pounds with virtually no padding, only a taut spiderweb of nylon webbing that grinds into my scalp. More journalists should be required to wear this stuff when dispatching stories about battlefield conditions; I have new respect for our troops, fighting in conditions like these wearing much heavier gear than the cumbersome load now burdening me. I’m told mine is the “old style” helmet; the new ones are more comfortable. Yeah. Right.

We piled in the back of a convoy of British military vehicles, sitting sideways on bench seats, knees interlocked with whoever’s sitting on the opposite bench. We’re given a briefing about the drive ahead, how to react if we should come under fire. Somehow it seems a bit less ominous delivered in a crisp British accent. I notice mine is the last vehicle of the convoy. Great. When insurgents do attack—not that I’m expecting such a thing—they like to go for the either the head or tail of the procession. How comforting.

We tear off, weaving through the dusty streets of Kabul. Even on straight stretches of road, our driver constantly makes “S” turns using all available lanes—if these so-called roads actually had lanes. Not because traffic is a problem–which it is. The constant change of course is a protective maneuver designed to make us harder to hit in case our convoy should come under attack.

The vehicle commander in the right seat is talking into a radio headset, keeping up a constant chatter with the rest of the convoy. Eyes peeled on nearby traffic, looking for anything out of the ordinary, hoping to spot any potential car bombers that should happen upon us. It’s all very professional and executed with cool caution; but a smooth ride, it is not. Accelerate sharply, hit the brakes, clutch, gas, swerve, bounce—the helmet feels like it’s shaving my scalp at the follicles as we lurch along these potholed paths.

The Brits’ delivery mission is successful, and after what seems like a very long fifteen minutes we are pulling up to the ominous concrete barricades and blast walls marking the entrance to the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) compound in Kabul. Once inside, I-D’s are checked, more gates are lifted, the armed soldiers traveling with us climb out to clear their weapons of live ammunition.

We drive past a mustard-yellow building, a fairly grandiose structure for this impoverished and war-ravaged country. I’m told it now serves as the headquarters of the ISAF forces. In a delicious (and deliberate) bit of irony, it was the headquarters of the Taliban when that repressive regime ran this nation a scant few years ago.

We’re given another briefing and dispatched to our rooms. We’re safe.

Welcome to Kabul.

I just returned from Naples, and unfortunately, it seems that every time I go there it’s to report on problems. Mostly organized crime, or more recently, trash.

Granted, Naples is not all pretty. But a lot of it is absolutely stunning, as anybody who’s ever been there can tell you. And the people are lovely. Make that lovely and lively. In fact, there’s so much action there that it feels a bit like a movie set.

The city has had its trash crisis – dumps full, no collection – for years now. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is talking tough about fixing the situation. We’ll see if he can follow through where the others have failed.

Here’s a short video I did with producer Mario Biasetti. We try to show just a bit of the other side of Naples. You’ll recognize me, although we start with an interview with Tricia Reynolds, an American who has lived in the city for more than 30 years.

We are six miles above Prague, more or less, about an hour into our flight to Kabul, Afghanistan.

Seven hours to go. This cavernous US Air Force C-17 Globemaster roars along at 33,000 feet—and I do mean roars. We’ve all been issued foam earplugs for the flight and I’ve topped mine with a pair of those noise-cancelling headphones. (Great packer and trip-planner than I am, I neglected to bring an Ipod to pump any music through them — but I do have some nifty headphones keeping my eardrums happy.)

Liftoff from Brussels, Belgium came around 7:30 this morning. Brussels, of course, is heaquarters of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I’m onboard a NATO flight and find myself in very esteemed company. Four-star General John Craddock—the Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe–is onboard. Gen. Craddock is responsible for roughly 50,000 NATO troops on the ground in Afghanistan, and of those, about 21,000 are U-S forces. He’s headed back to Afghanistan to check on his people and the progress they’re making in stabilizing a country wracked by years of war and hardship.

Also onboard are 18 members of the Council on Foreign Relations. They’ll shadow General Craddock as he crisscrosses Afghanistan to see for themselves this nation at the nexus of so many foreign policy debates raging around the world today. There’ll be briefings from NATO personnel and U.N. and Afghan officials.

And me? I’m onboard to report those stories, yes, but also something a little more concrete and perhaps even more meaningful for a dozens of deserving people—especially children– in Afghanistan. More on that in a moment.

Earplugs in, headphones on, nothing to watch out the window because essentially there are no passenger windows in this flying freighter. Not much talking because we have to shout to be heard; we’ve been warned we’ll be hoarse by the end of the flight if we keep that up. So I sit, and think, and type.

I think of what it must feel like to be in Gen. Craddock’s shoes, to know that 50,000 men and women are depending on the decisions he makes each day. I’m a guy who often finds it overwhelming to maintain a handle on our four children. Once I (temporarily) left behind our 8-year-old daughter at a park after her brother’s baseball game because I can be a scatterbrained doofus (who also forgets his iPod). To be charged with the care of 50,000 others? I’m in awe of the responsibilities of this general and the men and women like him who lead our forces throughout the world.

That gets me thinking about our oldest son, now almost finished with his “plebe” year at West Point. I’ve blogged about his experience before and I owe you some retro-blogging about how his year has progressed. Assuming he makes it through graduation, he could be leading troops somewhere in the world a scant three years from now. A couple of blinks ago I was battling with him to turn off the video game, clean up his room and finish his homework; a few more blinks in the future and he might have some young private’s life depending on his leadership. Pride, patriotism, excitement, fear — a father’s emotions are wrestling one another for dominance at 33,000 feet.

Keep Reading …

We were embedded with the 24 MEU, (Marine Expeditionary Unit) in Southern Afghanistan.

Charlie Company was involved in a fire fight with a Taliban insurgents hold up in a Madrassa just down the road. Cameraman Malcolm James (left) and I dodged bullets whizzing past, a rocket propelled grenade detonated a couple hundred feet away, and marines from Charlie Company were ducking and returning fire with a 50 cal machine gun.

Now picture this … it’s in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, nowhere. No power. Just a lot of dust and dirt and searing hot temperatures as the fighting is going on.

From our backpacks, Mal and I pulled out what are known as a stream box and BGAN terminal, two little lap top computer sized gizmo’s that changed the way you saw TV this week (below).

Keep Reading …

A Marine captain sweats. I could see it plainly but maybe his troops didn’t.

They were nervous and he didn’t want to show them he was too. Captain John Moder was more than sweating a little when he called his men together to give them a “pre” battle pep talk in the middle of the desert in Helmand, Afghanistan.

This young Marine had a lot on his mind. It was his first combat mission as a commander of the Charlie Company of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. It was his first combat mission of a company of soldiers, period.

That “pre” mission rally with a prayer by the Chaplin is more than just talk. For a young captain, you see, the weight of command weighs more than the hundred pound packs the marines carry in one hundred degree weather. The weight is if he make a bad call, one of his men potentially doesn’t come home alive.

Mission - clear an area called Garmsir of Taliban.

Keep Reading …

In the last six months the U.S. Coast Guard along with the U.S. Navy have found 42 submersibles headed north towards the United States and off the coast of Central America.

That is double the number found in the previous five years combined. These subs can carry as much as 10 tons of drugs or even weapons and some of the latest models can move 15 knots. This is obviously troubling and makes our war on the cartels that much more difficult.

We are currently at Coast Guard Island in Alameda California, where the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Sherman is located. The ship has recently returned from operations off of Central America, where finding these subs is proving difficult. They are primitive but effective and built similar to the subs used in the civil war. Usually about six inches or so sticks above the water, which is almost impossible to spot.

During the day the subs sit, preserving their cover for movement at night. Here is some great raw video provided by the U.S. Coast Guard.