First they shut down an Iraqi newspaper “because of an article that U.S. occupation authorities and Iraqi officials considered an incitement to violence and a threat to human rights in Iraq,” and now 500 Iraqi detainees have been held incommunicado from families and 90 percent of them have not been allowed to consult a lawyer.

Best of all, they are being housed in one of Iraq’s most notorious prisons.

Iraq’s desaparecidos may simply be a cost of maintaining order before the civil justice system is up and running, U.S. authorities say.

Good thing Dubya’s against nation building.

Be prepared for TSA screeners to begin cluelessly examining your cell phone, PDA, digital camera, etc. the way the apes at the beginning of “2001” investigated the mysterious monolith.

Sure, Homeland Annoyance boss Tom Ridge admits, “there’s no indication” Al Qaeda has actually used any electronic devices to smuggle weapons onto airplanes.

Still, he adds helpfully, “if you have these electronic devices in your carry-on baggage, pull them out, because if we find them in the X-ray machines, we’ll pull you aside and take a look.”

Sigh. If airport screening is going to continue to focus on detecting weapons instead of terrorists, on disarming everyone instead of arming pilots, flight attenders and employing air marshals, then it was only inevitable that our electronic necessities would eventually join the parade of passenger possessions to be prodded and poked.