SUPPOSE THE CAPTURED WORKED FOR THE MIRROR?:

Britain's Daily Mirror Hires Peter Arnett (The Associated Press, 3/31/03)

A British tabloid newspaper said Tuesday it had hired veteran reporter Peter Arnett, who was fired by American TV network NBC after he said the U.S.-led war effort in Iraq had failed.

"Fired by America for telling the truth," said the Daily Mirror in a front page headline, adding it had hired the "legendary war reporter" to carry on telling the truth.

"I am still in shock and awe at being fired," Arnett wrote for the newspaper, which is vehemently opposed to the war. "I report the truth of what is happening here in Baghdad and will not apologize for it."

With two of his colleagues apparently being held prisoner by the Iraqis, Mr. Arnett yesterday praised the exemplary co-operation the regime has given him and the members of his profession. In what sense was his statement true?

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THE WAR ON TERROR REGIMES IS THE WAR ON TERROR (cont.):

Raid finds al-Qaida tie to militants (Dafna Linzer and Borzo Daragahi, March 31, 2003, AP)

A U.S.-led assault on a compound controlled by an Iraqi-based extremist Islamic group has turned up a list of names of suspected militants living in the United States and what may be the strongest evidence yet linking Ansar al-Islam to al-Qaida, coalition commanders said Monday.

The cache of documents, including computer discs and foreign passports belonging to Arab fighters from around the Middle East, could bolster the Bush administration's claims that the two groups are connected, although there was no indication any of the evidence tied Ansar to Saddam Hussein as Washington has maintained.

There were indications, however, that the group has been getting help from inside neighboring Iran.

Kurdish and Turkish intelligence officials, some speaking on condition of anonymity, said many of Ansar's 700 members have slipped out of Iraq and into Iran -- putting them out of reach of coalition forces.

The officials also said a U.S. missile strike on Ansar's territory on the second day of the war missed most of its leadership -- which crossed into Iran days earlier.

U.S. officials said the government had reports some Ansar fighters could have made it into Iran and have been shuttling back and forth with fresh supplies.

According to a high-level Kurdish intelligence official, three Ansar leaders -- identified as Ayoub Afghani, Abdullah Shafeye and Abu Wahel -- were among those who had fled into Iran. The official said the three were seen being detained by Iranian authorities Sunday.

"We asked the Iranian authorities to hand over to us any of the Afghan Arabs or Islamic militants hiding themselves inside the villages of Iran," said Boorhan Saeed, a member of the pro-U.S. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. "We asked them about it Sunday, and still don't have a response."

So, when do Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Tom Daschle, etc., explain to us why it's wrong to be breaking up these camps?

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SO FEW HOLD SO MANY HOSTAGE:

Praying to survive: Iraqi deserter tells of desperation across the line (AP, 3/31/2003)

"The army knows I ran away. They could come and take revenge," he said in the central police barracks in Kalak, about 20 miles northwest of the Kurdish administrative center Irbil. "My only hope is that I'm not alone. There are so many deserters and those who want to run. They cannot attack all these families with a war going on."

War for this foot soldier was one of desperation. "We only prayed we'd stay alive long enough to get a chance to escape," Ali said through an interpreter....

"The spirit of the soldiers is very low," he said. "We were not really mad at the Americans. We just want to save our lives."

He and four other soldiers decided to run. But they had to pick their moment. Their unit and most others include Baathist agents given orders to execute any deserters, he said....

"The people know that any uprising against Saddam now would mean terrible things to them and their family. They force them to chant `Down with America,' but not everyone means it. Saddam's people are afraid for the future."

That's when he started to cry.

The war is terrible, but only because the evil of Saddam's regime makes it so. Many have likened the war to a giant hostage rescue. We are rescuing the civilian hostages, but many of the soldier-hostages are dying.

Totalitarian dictatorships survive because of 'divide-and-rule' tactics, coupled with the cowardice and lack of cooperative spirit among their populace. If a few soldiers could only band together, they could easily kill their Baathist minders. But they fear betrayal, and don't dare suggest even to their friends an attack on their captors. Courage and cooperativeness are the cultural prerequisites of freedom. Only the home of the brave, and the community of the associative, can hope to become a land of the free.

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FILE UNDER: COLLABORATION:

Russian Agents Are Meeting With Iraqis, Newspaper Says (The Associated Press, Mar. 31, 2003)

Russian intelligence agents are holding daily meetings with Iraqi officials in Baghdad, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Friday and suggested they are interested in gaining control of Iraqi secret service archives if Saddam Hussein's regime falls.

The report, which said that the meetings include agents of the SVR, the foreign intelligence service, did not specify its sources. But the newspaper is believed to have well-placed contacts in military and intelligence spheres.

Telephone calls to the SVR press office were not answered Friday evening.

The newspaper said the archives could be highly valuable to Russia in three major areas: in protecting Russian interests that remain in a post-war Iraq; in determining to what extent the Hussein regime may have financed Russian political parties and movements; and in providing Russia access to intelligence that Iraqi agents conducted in other countries.

If they can get the files on what the French and Germans were up to for the past twelve years, Russia will be admitted to the EU by the end of the year.

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NOTHING LEFT TO PROVE:

Surprise, Mom: I'm Anti-Abortion (ELIZABETH HAYT, March 30, 2003, NY Times)

FOR her high school class in persuasive speech, Afton Dahl, 16, chose to present an argument that abortion should be illegal. She graphically described the details of various abortion techniques, including facts about fetal heart development.

"The baby's heartbeat starts at around 12 to 18 days, so it's murder to kill someone with a heartbeat," Miss Dahl said recently, recalling the argument she used in class in January. "I don't believe in abortion under any circumstances, including rape. I think it would be better to overturn Roe v. Wade."

Miss Dahl, a sophomore, attends Red Wing High School in Red Wing, Minn., a small city that is the home of Red Wing shoes and a town where a majority voted for Al Gore for president. Miss Dahl's abortion views are not something she learned from her parents: her mother, Fran Dahl, 47, maintains that abortion should be a woman's choice.

"Nowadays kids don't grow up knowing or being aware of what was going on when abortion was illegal," said Ms. Dahl, a former nurse. "It's not a choice that I would have taken personally, but for the future of women I want to see the right to an abortion maintained."

This contrast between mother and teenage daughter illustrates a trend noted in polls: that teenagers and college-age Americans are more conservative about abortion rights than their counterparts were a generation ago. Many people old enough to have teenage children and who equate youth with liberal social opinions on topics like gay rights and the use of marijuana for medical purposes have been surprised at this discovery. Miss Dahl was one of numerous students in her class who chose to make speeches about abortion, and most took the anti-abortion side.

"I was shocked that there were that many students who felt strong enough and confident enough to speak about being pro-life," said Nina Verin, a parent of another student in the class (whose oral argument was about war in Iraq). "The people I associate with in town are pro-choice, so I'm troubled--where do these kids come from?"

A study of American college freshmen shows that support for abortion rights has been dropping since the early 1990's: 54 percent of 282,549 students polled at 437 schools last fall by the University of California at Los Angeles agreed that abortion should be legal. The figure was down from 67 percent a decade earlier. A New York Times/CBS News poll in January found that among people 18 to 29, the share who agree that abortion should be generally available to those who want it was 39 percent, down from 48 percent in 1993. [...]

Some parents trace their teenagers' anti-abortion views to sexuality education programs that stress abstinence as the only way to prevent pregnancy and disease, and in the process sometimes demonize abortion. Since 1996 the federal government has budgeted $50 million annually to "abstinence only till marriage" programs, which are taught in 35 percent of public schools in the country, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group affiliated with Planned Parenthood. [...]

If today's teenagers and young adults maintain their views on abortion into older adulthood, and if succeeding waves of students are also conservative, the balance could tip somewhat in the America's long-running abortion war, some experts speculate.

It's unclear whether the shift will ever be substantial enough to change the centrist position of the majority of Americans of all ages: that abortion should be legal, but with restrictions. In Red Wing, the certainty of the youthful opinions of the students reminded their speech-class teacher, Jillynne Raymond, of an earlier generation's certainty--her own.

"Teenagers have strong opinions," Ms. Raymond, 41, said. "It's no different than the 70's when I was a teenager, but the difference is that the majority of speeches then were pro-choice. I wanted the right to an abortion as a woman. The focus then was not having the government tell me what to do with my body.

"Today," she said of her students, "the majority is pro-life."

Ms Raymond nearly gets to the unmentionable point in this whole discussion: the association of abortion in the minds of prior generations with their womanhood. Whether you accept the truth of the argument or not, feminism was premised on the notion that women had been an oppressed minority for thousands of years. The Woman's Movement therefore represented an assertion of power on their behalf. And what is the ultimate power in any society, the power so awesome that it is normally reserved only to the state itself?: the power of killing with impunity. Little surprise then that the newly empowered majority sought to demonstrate their newfound heft by demanding this final authority. And over whom would such a power be granted but over the most helpless members of society.

But now we find ourselves about a century into the process of women's liberation and the coming generations of young women have never known the "oppression" of which their mothers and grandmothers complained and feel themselves, with good cause, equal or superior to men. The idea that they need to be able to kill someone to prove themselves powerful must inevitably sound bizarre and so they look at abortion as simply a moral issue rather than an exercise in political claim-staking. Given that abortion had been the only realm in human affairs where women came down on the side of freedom over security, favored the powerful over the helpless, it was a certainty that once the artificial reason for advocating "freedom of choice" had passed, they'd tend back towards a position that the state should intervene to protect those who can't protect themselves. This trend will be greatly accelerated when it becomes more common knowledge that abortion is being used throughout the world to gender-select for male babies. The prospect that what began as an assertion of power is going to turn women into a genuine minority in the political sphere, presumably for the first time in human history, seems likely to kick out the last prop supporting the case for abortion among women.

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AND A DOVE SHALL LEAD THE HAWKS:

Powell Warns Syria, Iran Not to Aid Terrorists (Peter Slevin, March 31, 2003, Washington Post)

In strong and accusatory language, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell called on Syria and Iran last night to stop supporting terrorists. He warned that Syria's leadership "faces a critical choice" and will be held responsible for help it gives to the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Powell became the second Cabinet secretary in three days to warn the two countries, which the United States considers state sponsors of terrorism. On Friday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld charged that Syria is shipping military supplies across its border to Iraq, calling the move a hostile act.

"Syria can continue direct support for terrorist groups and the dying regime of Saddam Hussein, or it can embark on a different and more hopeful course," Powell said in an address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. "Either way, Syria bears responsibility for its choices and for the consequences."

While President Bush named Iran to his "axis of evil" last year, Powell called on other countries that have closer relations with the country to pressure Tehran to withdraw its sponsorship of such groups as Hezbollah, a principal foe of Israel.

"It is now time that the entire community step up and insist that Iran end its support for terrorists," Powell told AIPAC, the country's most influential pro-Israel lobby.

Drawing a distinction favored by Bush between the Iranian leadership and activist citizens, he said the administration would "continue to support the aspirations of the Iranian people to improve their lives and live in peace and security with their neighbors."

The more aggressive language Powell and Rumsfeld used suggests a greater determination by the administration to play a role in the Middle East beyond Iraq, whose government Bush has pledged to remove by force. Powell's comments drew a standing ovation from his audience, but are likely to worry Arabs in the region already nervous about U.S.

After a year and a half of hearing how Colin Powell is the only brake on the hawks in the Bush Administration, it's pretty amusing to listen to him set up the next phases of the war on terror: heightened political pressure on Iran and Palestine to reform from within and preparations for the march on Damascus.

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GUANTANAMO OR THE SWORD?:

By Flouting War Laws, U.S. Invites Tragedy (Erwin Chemerinsky, March 25, 2003, LA Times)

On Sunday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld quickly invoked international law in condemning Iraq's treatment of American prisoners of war and its use of civilians as human shields. As soon as the Americans were shown on television, Rumsfeld denounced Iraq for violating the Geneva accords, which govern the treatment of prisoners of war.

But Rumsfeld's hypocrisy here is enormous. For two years, the Bush administration has ignored and violated international law and thus has undermined the very legitimacy of the treaties and principles that constitute the law of nations. Though we all hope, of course, for the quick and safe return of the American prisoners of war, the fact is that -- unfortunately -- Iraq and other nations may feel much freer today to violate international law in the way they treat war captives and the way they wage war.

One clear violation by the United States is taking place in Guantanamo Bay, where for the last 15 months the U.S. has held more than 600 captives in clear violation of international law.

Under the third Geneva Convention, those who were caught in Afghanistan are deemed prisoners of war if they were fighting for the Taliban. International law prescribes the way they can be questioned, how they are to be treated and when they are to be repatriated. The U.S. government has ignored all of these requirements.

Rumsfeld has asserted that those held in Guantanamo are "enemy combatants" and thus the rules for prisoners of war do not apply. International law draws a distinction between "prisoners of war," who were soldiers fighting for a nation, and "enemy combatants," who were not acting on behalf of a country; enemy combatants are accorded fewer protections than prisoners of war. Under well-established principles of international law, only those who fought for Al Qaeda and not the Taliban government are enemy combatants. The Geneva accords are clear that there must be a "competent tribunal" to determine whether a person is a prisoner of war or an enemy combatant.

This is nonsense. No one is going to accept "repatriation" of these guys. And if we did send them back to Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan or wherever, they'd most likely be executed--the Saudis hate them and the Afghans have nowhere to put them. We've no problem with that, but is this what the "humanitarians" want?

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WE'RE FROM MISSOURI, SHOW US:

Why Iraq Might Be a Better Candidate for Democracy than You Think (Eric Davis, History News Network)

Americans share two misperceptions of Iraqi politics and society. One is that ethnic conflict is endemic to Iraqi society. Another is that Iraqis lack a tradition of civil society, cultural tolerance, and political participation. Both perceptions are contradicted by the historical record. These faulty premises lay behind Washington's unwillingness to support the Iraqi uprising of 1991, which came close to ousting the Ba'athist regime. It would be a great tragedy if the United States were to make the same mistake in 2003. [...]

An Arabic proverb states that, "The Egyptians write, the Lebanese publish, and the Iraqis read." Iraq has the capability to become one of the most advanced countries of the Middle East. It has a large and highly educated middle class, a tradition of a flourishing civil society (which can be documented in school history textbooks after Saddam and the Ba'ath are ousted), an agricultural sector whose potential is greatly underutilized, one of the world's great civilizational heritages (after all, history as we understand it began in ancient Mesopotamia), and a rich base of oil wealth, which can provide the resources for ambitious development projects. Once no longer at odds with its neighbors in the Gulf region, it will be able to cooperate with them to produce serious economic development. The demonstration effect of a functioning Iraqi democracy can have a salutary impact on neighboring authoritarian regimes.

What would an Iraqi democracy look like? Because Iraq is a multi-ethnic society, it would undoubtedly have a "rough and tumble" quality. However, countries like Italy also have such democracies and have remained relatively stable over time. To the riposte that Italian governments are constantly changing, Italians often respond that this only means that many people have access to governing the country. After all, they point out, Italy has one of the world's most prosperous economies and a strong civil society. Numerous Iraqi political parties will also vie for power in a post- Saddam Iraq. However, a federated country in which Iraq's main ethnic groups, the Sunni and Shi'i Arabs and the Kurds, as well as other minorities, can feel that their traditions are respected and not subject to state repression, and in which economic development assures every citizen a decent standard of living
will work to offset the strife that facilitated the rise of the Ba'ath Party. Taking democracy seriously in Iraq will go a long way toward winning the hearts of minds of Iraqis.

It's interesting how from one article or one interview to the next you get completely different opinions about the prospect for some kind of relatively stable and representative governance in Iraq after the war. We remain agnostic about Iraq's future, but certain it will be better than its Ba'athist present and immediate past.

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YA' GOTTA FIGHT TO WIN...:

Saddam's guerrillas will run out of supplies (Lawrence Freedman, March 30 2003, Financial Times)

A tank battle fought by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards last Thursday was described as the "biggest since El Alamein". It involved 14 British tanks taking out an equivalent number of Iraqi tanks, without losing any of their own.

The incident sums up much of what has been happening in this war. Iraqi sorties are often being crushed by superior force, but such episodes, including many more bothersome to the coalition, are being reported without much sense of proportion.

Alamein is an instructive comparison. Against the 8th Army of 195,000 men, the Afrika Corps had about 105,000. The ratio of tanks was two to one in Britain's favour (1,000 to 500). This single battle took as long as this war has so far lasted. [...]

Now that things are moving more slowly than originally hoped, comparisons are being made with Vietnam, as if the Americans face becoming bogged down for years in guerrilla warfare. The comparison is invalid. The problem for the Americans in Vietnam was not only that they were trying to defend a deeply unpopular regime against a wily enemy, but also that they never found an answer to the Communists' ability to stay supplied. North Vietnam itself was never invaded, but sustained by support from Russia and China. It used the famous Ho Chi Minh trail to get provisions through to the fighters in the south.

The Iraqis, by comparison, have no sanctuaries and no demoralised enemy from whom they can obtain weapons and ammunition. Eventually key units will be effectively cut off and unable to sustain themselves.

The issue with the Iraqi resistance is not its evident ability to cause frustration, but whether it can prevent reinforcements and the continuous resupply of coalition forces. That appears to be beyond its capabilities. Furthermore, many of its divisions defending Baghdad are pointing to the north, and will be difficult to redeploy safely.

Politically, this will remain a difficult war for the coalition to fight. The early traumas of street fighting in Baghdad could be severe, especially as the Iraqis will have stocked up for the defence. The key to success there, as in the wider campaign, will lie in the ability to isolate the defending forces, politically as well as physically, and to deny them fresh men and arms.

The drama of war lies in combat but the source of victory lies in logistics.

It's rather amusing reading all the journalists, like Sy Hersh, who would normally be contemptuous of the military but suddenly consider their word gospel. If you left war up to the generals they'd never fight because they'd always be waiting for one more box of ammo, one more platoon, one slightly more favorable weather forecast, etc., etc., etc..., something that would increase their advantage in some fashion, even if esoteric. That's all the Powell Doctrine really consists of is a desire to have the odds so overwhelmingly in your favor that the actual combat is almost superfluous.

As Mr. Freedman's article suggests, the war is unlosable on the ground, but we could do ourselves some damage by waffling around and bickering back in Washington. Gotta suck it up and go fight.

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FIRST TIME AS TRAGEDY, SECOND TIME AS TRAGEDY:

Korea's 'lucky' triplets seized (Melbourne, Australia Herald Sun, 3/30/2003)

ALL triplets in North Korea are being forcibly removed from parents after their birth and dumped in bleak orphanages.

The policy is carried out on the orders of Stalinist dictator Kim Jong-il, who has an irrational belief that a triplet could one day topple his regime.

This reminds me of Matthew 2:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him." When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem was with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet."...

Then Herod ... was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under.

Those who believe mankind is making moral progress have a difficult case.

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OUR ONLY HOPE IS RETREAT:

Offense and Defense (Seymour Hersh, New Yorker, 3/31/2003)

“It’s a stalemate now,” the former intelligence official told me. “It’s going to remain one only if we can maintain our supply lines.... The Marines are worried as hell,” the former intelligence official went on. “They’re all committed, with no reserves, and they’ve never run the lavs”—light armored vehicles—“as long and as hard” as they have in Iraq. There are serious maintenance problems as well. “The only hope is that they can hold out until reinforcements come.”...

The planner agreed, saying, “The only way out now is back, and to hope for some kind of a miracle"... “Hope,” a retired four-star general subsequently told me, “is not a course of action.”...

Scott Ritter ... noted that much of the bombing has had little effect or has been counterproductive. For example, the bombing of Saddam’s palaces has freed up a brigade of special guards who had been assigned to protect them ...

The New Yorker had a tough task writing a persuasive "we're losing the war" piece. They had to explain why, as we inflict casualty rates of more than 100-to-1 on the Iraqis, and steadily seize key targets such as airfields, highways, bridges over the Tigris and Euphrates, the Umm Qasr port, and oilfields, these apparent victories are actually defeats. The 'experts' willing to support this line for attribution were the likes of Scott Ritter.

My own view is that the war plan has been brilliant. Things have gone better than I dared hope. As we develop the airfields (Tallil, H2, H3, and others), re-open the Umm Qasr port, and open additional highways, we'll be able to step up the flow of supplies and press the battle more aggressively. It's not clear that more troops would help us, because right now we appear to be supply-limited, not force-limited, and water and food for additional troops would take the place of fuel and ammunition for the existing forces. Existing forces are steadily destroying the struts that keep the regime standing, and sooner or later the whole regime is going to crash, probably with as little warning as the Taliban fell. Working with half the forces may lengthen the war, but it's unlikely to increase our casualty count -- in fact, by easing logistical problems and avoiding heavy concentrations of forces, it probably reduces the risk of large casualties from ammunition-short forces or lucky WMD hits. We have no time constraints, and can afford to patiently weaken the regime until it falls.

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OMEGA MEN:

Will Baghdad Fight to the End? (MARK BOWDEN, 3/27/03, NY Times)

With Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard dug in on the outskirts of Baghdad and thousands of his most loyal defenders no doubt armed and waiting in the city's neighborhoods, he might be on the verge of delivering the "mother of all battles" he promised 12 years ago.

He has ceded the majority of his country to the rapidly moving American and British forces, but has left pockets of determined loyalists in cities large and small. These troops, many dressed in civilian clothing, will shoot at coalition forces from densely populated areas, daring return fire that might kill the very Iraqis whom President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain hope to liberate.

It is a strategy both cunning and cruel, and it may work. The outcome will depend in large part on the people of Baghdad, each of whom has a decision to make. What they decide could mean either a quick defeat of the regime or a protracted mess that would amount at best to a Pyrrhic victory for allied troops.

Saddam Hussein is betting that his people will rally around his crack troops. The allies are betting they will betray the dictator and flush out his enforcers. I'm afraid the odds at this point favor Saddam Hussein. Even those Iraqis eager to turn against the regime are still caught between the guns, and won't dare make a move until they are sure one side has the upper hand. Neighborhood by neighborhood, they will have to decide when it is safe to make their move.

If Saddam Hussein wins his bet, then coalition forces could face fighting reminiscent of the 1993 battle of Mogadishu.

To a certain extend you can understand the entire Ba'athist side of this war so far just by referring to Mr. Bowden's book, Black Hawk Down, which describes the type of battle that (along with Stalingrad) would seem to provide the archetype for what Saddamn is trying to achieve by these tactics, and his profile of Saddam, Tales of the Tyrant, which explains what he's trying to accomplish with his life. The latter is particularly interesting because, in a way that those who think him merely a secular figure have never comprehended, it depends on his delusion of being revered half a millenium from now in an Arabic-Islamic world:

If Saddam has a religion, it is a belief in the superiority of Arab history and culture, a tradition that he is convinced will rise up again and rattle the world. His imperial view of the grandeur that was Arabia is romantic, replete with fanciful visions of great palaces and wise and powerful sultans and caliphs. His notion of history has nothing to do with progress, with the advance of knowledge, with the evolution of individual rights and liberties, with any of the things that matter most to Western civilization. It has to do simply with power. To Saddam, the present global domination by the West, particularly the United States, is just a phase. America is infidel and inferior. It lacks the rich ancient heritage of Iraq and other Arab states. Its place at the summit of the world powers is just a historical quirk, an aberration, a consequence of its having acquired technological advantages. It cannot endure.

In a speech this past January 17, the eleventh anniversary of the start of the Gulf War, Saddam explained, "The Americans have not yet established a civilization, in the deep and comprehensive sense we give to civilization. What they have established is a metropolis of force ... Some people, perhaps including Arabs and plenty of Muslims and more than these in the wide world ... considered the ascent of the U.S. to the summit as the last scene in the world picture, after which there will be no more summits and no one will try to ascend and sit comfortably there. They considered it the end of the world as they hoped for, or as their scared souls suggested it to them."

Arabia, which Saddam sees as the wellspring of civilization, will one day own that summit again. When that day comes, whether in his lifetime or a century or even five centuries hence, his name will rank with those of the great men in history. Saddam sees himself as an established member of the pantheon of great men—conquerors, prophets, kings and presidents, scholars, poets, scientists. It doesn't matter if he understands their contributions and ideas. It matters only that they are the ones history has remembered and honored for their accomplishments.

It is incumbent on us to consider whether men who think this way--as Osama would seem to also and presumably many followers of both--have so convinced themselves of their superiority over the West and are so certain that episodes like the Battle of the Black Sea showed our true colors, that they are incapable of making rational decisions where the clash of our respective civilizations is concerned. What other conclusions can we draw from Saddam's apparent belief that he can win this war and Osama's apparent belief that he and al Qaeda would survive the aftermath of 9-11 but that they are divorced from reality? The length, scope, and lethality of the war on terror must depend on how widely this psychosis is shared in the rest of the Middle East.

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THE MISSING STEP:

The Two Essential Steps Needed to Turn Iraq into a Peace-Loving Country (Jonathan Dresner, 3-31-03, History News Service)

The disarmament of Iraq is our aim, we say. And surely even if there's some slippage between our public statements and true motives, reducing the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) seems like a good idea.

Previous inspections for WMD in Saddam Hussein's Iraq failed because the Iraqis refused to cooperate and the inspectors were too few and too weakly supported to overcome Iraqi resistance. But even if the inspections had succeeded in the short term, a high-cost, intrusive inspection program could not have continued indefinitely.

So now we're going to try something else: regime change through conquest. Forcing out Hussein and his loyalists should allow the United States and its coalition partners to eliminate Iraq's present WMD capacity. But disarmament is difficult to sustain, even with total victory. What's necessary is the creation of a social and political aversion to weapons of mass destruction in New Iraq like that which developed in Japan after World War II.

Japan today could easily produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in large quantities in short order, but it has not done so. The Japanese population is deeply opposed to such weapons, owing to its unique experience as the targets of the only nuclear weapons ever used in war and to its suffering from conventional bombing. As a result, Japanese politicians have found alternative methods of defense through alliance and diplomacy.

There are two principal components to creating a WMD-averse environment, both essentially psychological: a sense of the humanity of opposing forces or neighboring populations, and confidence that one's defensive situation is not desperate. The United States fostered this attitude in Japan after 1945 by demonstrating the inhumanity of WMD, by creating a popular democratic and antiwar constitution for Japan, by committing itself to defend Japan, by supporting economic growth and by working to promote regional stabilization and democratization.

The vast majority of the Japanese public still believes that WMD -- and aggressive wars -- are unacceptable, and Japanese political leaders work hard to maintain strong diplomatic relationships with the United States and with the other Asian nations.

Both of those elements are fundamentally lacking in Iraq and have been since before the first Gulf War. This leaves us the question of whether we can replicate the dramatic turnaround of Japan in Iraq.

Every once in awhile, if you're lucky, you stumble upon a column so obtuse it glitters with a gem-like quality of near perfect unreason. Here's the Hope Diamond.

Depite having noted the unique use of WMD on Japan, Mr. Dresner then argues that: "There are two principal components to creating a WMD-averse environment, both essentially psychological: a sense of the humanity of opposing forces or neighboring populations, and confidence that one's defensive situation is not desperate." Might he not better have considered the possibility that the singular factor that made the Japanese so averse to WMD was having two nuclear weapons dropped on them, several cities quite intentionally incinerated in systematic fire bombings, and the certain knowledge that the United States would be only to happy to keep up the process idefinitely against a Japanese people who most Americans had genuinely come to think of as sub-human. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, the prospect that one's homeland will be reduced to a charnel house concentrates the mind wonderfully.

We're not suggesting this lesson need be applied to Iraq, but it's a tad disingenuous to minimize it, is it not?

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AN ANGLOSPHERE, IF YOU CAN KEEP IT:

UN should have sanctioned attacks: poll (ABC au, March 30, 2003)

A new international poll suggests the majority of people from Britain, the United States, Australia and New Zealand believe the United Nations should have supported military action against Iraq. [...]

Of those surveryed, 61 per cent of Australians said the UN should have sanctioned the action, as did 81 per cent of Americans, 66 per cent of Britons and 50 per cent of New Zealanders.

It's probably appropriate to consider Canadians to be at least honorary Francophones at this point.

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BOUGHT:

Arnett, On Iraq TV, Praises Treatment Of Reporters (Joe Flint, March 31, 2003, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)

Veteran television correspondent Peter Arnett, who has been covering the war with Iraq for NBC News through an arrangement with National Geographic Explorer, went on Iraq's state television network and praised Iraq's treatment of journalists.

In a transcript of Arnett's comments during the interview, he seemed to praise Iraq's Ministry of Information, saying it has "allowed me and many other reporters to cover 12 whole years since the Gulf War with a degree which we appreciate and that is continuing today." [...]

Arnett's comments are sure to stir controversy since some media outlets, including CNN, Arnett's former employer, have been booted out of Baghdad. Also, two reporters from the Tribune Co.-owned (TRB) newspaper Newsday are missing after being expelled from Baghdad and the paper has said it believes its journalists are being held by the Iraqi government.

Mr. Arnett is a traitor to his adopted country, his profession, and simple human decency. For the second time in twelve years he's serving as a propaganda mouthpiece for our enemy in wartime. He is our Lord Haw Haw and should be tried and shot.

MORE:
Iraq May be Holding Newsday Journalists (1010 WINS, Mar 30,
2003)

Two Newsday journalists who disappeared from Baghdad may have been detained by Iraq's government, the newspaper's editor said Saturday.

Reporter Matthew McAllester and photographer Moises Saman were last heard from Monday, and the newspaper has been unable to obtain information about their whereabouts from Iraqi officials, said editor Anthony Marro in a statement.

Journalists expelled from Iraq have told Newsday that security officials on Monday came to the Baghdad hotel where they were staying and questioned reporters. Some were taken from the hotel.

---

CAPTURED OR BOUGHT?

Coalition forces capture two Iraqi generals

In southern Iraq, British Royal Marine commandos captured five high-ranking Iraqi paramilitary leaders and a senior officer Sunday in a village southeast of Basra, said Capt. Al Lockwood, a British military spokesman.

"One of them is an Iraqi general," Lockwood said. "We are hoping very much that he will be able to assist us, now that he is no longer a member of the regime, to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime."

U.S. forces in western Iraq have captured another Iraqi general, who led them to a cache of weapons that included 26 surface-to-air, anti-aircraft missiles and six anti-aircraft guns, according to Central Command.

Hmm, we just happen to capture two generals we expect to help us with defeating their own army. Isn't it more likely that our negotiations, rumored since before the war began, are starting to bear fruit? If this wasn't a capture, then note how the press' scepticism plays into the administration's hand. Unwilling to suggest that the administration has done something right, they spread disinformation.

---

THE MOTHER OF BATTLES.

Have the Islamists decided to make their last stand in Iraq?

As Orrin has posted below, al Quada and Palestinian suicide bombers are converging on Iraq while Iran and Syria are most likely providing surreptitious support to the Iraqi regime. (And there goes the argument that the "secularists" and the fundamentalists can't make common cause.) The Saudi people are cheering on Saddam and the government is trying to broker a deal to end the war. It is an article of faith on the US right that Iraq is only the first step in a campaign to remake the entire middle east. Does the middle east agree?

The war in Afghanistan was a wake up call for many militaries around the world, from the Russians to, one has to imagine, the Iraqis, the Syrians and the Iranians. Although almost any other government in the region will have more of an air defense than the Afghans and the Iraqis, none can be under any misapprehension about their chances against the US. It is now clear that their functional allies in the UN cannot be depended upon to deter the US. Deciding to all hang together now against the chance that they will hang seperately later would not be their worst tactic.

This war would be horrible. There would be, I'm afraid, many dead Americans from terror tactics. There would be thousands upon thousands of dead Arabs and Persians, to which I am not at all indifferent. If the clash is inevitable, however, it would be better to have it now than postpone it. That is the biggest lesson we should take from Gulf War I.

Such a war would also put to rest some of the world's misunderstanding of the United States. We are a difficult people to understand, so I symphathize with the incorrect lessons learned by Osama, et al. Our toleration for dissenting speech, for example, is taken as a sign that we value talking over action; in fact, to borrow an observation from Solzhenitsyn, we barely value speech at all as we have so much of it. "Actions speak louder than words" might as well be our national motto. Similarly, our inexplicable reluctance to respond to the terror attacks of the last ten years -- which was, of course, disasterous -- is also misunderstood. It may be that the lines we draw at the America's borders are not obvious to those whose concern is the umma. One lesson of American history is that, when prodded, we are not overly concerned with who gets hurt. I've long suspected that the Israeli response to Palentinian terror tactics is the model of restraint compared to our response if similar tactics were tried against us. We might be about to find out. (Speaking of the Israelis: Do we really expect them not to take a hand if Palestinian terrorists are gathered in Iraq?)

Finally, we might also be able to put to rest, both in the US and abroad, one of the misreadings of Vietnam. It is true that a sufficiently bloody war, fought for a long time, without any direct threat to the US, will ultimately be unpopular. Too much is read into this. In the Iraqi war, let alone our war with the Islamists, American's are convinced that we are directly threatened. More importantly, this war is not likely to continue for years and, of course, like all wars we've fought since Hiroshima, it will only go on at all because we choose to let it. Also, once the war is perceived as over, we really don't pay too much attention to the lives lost or money spent (see, e.g., Afghanistan, Korea, Germany, Japan.)

If all of our enemies in the middle east do decide to ban together, this would be an unanticipated (?) expansion of the war. The President may not have been able to justify such an expansion to the country at his choosing. If it is forced upon us by the tactics of our enemies, we will take action and that action will be popular.

What sort of middle east will be left after this war is over? I would like to see a chain of democracies, more or less on the Japanese/Korean model, throughout the region. But so long as they're quiet, I'm not overly concerned.

More: Militants call Israel suicide bomb 'gift to Iraq', At least 49 injured in Netanya attack (CNN).

A suicide bomb that injured dozens in northern Israel Sunday was "a gift to the Iraqi people," according to a Palestinian militant group that claimed responsibility for the attack.

The bombing, which took place at a busy cafe in the coastal town of Netanya, injured at least 49, five of them seriously, Israeli police and ambulance services said. Ten Israeli soldiers were among the injured.

If our enemies see this as one seamless war, can we really afford to disagree with them?

---

HEARTS AND MINDS:

Iraqis Must Share in Their Liberation (Kanan Makiya, March 30, 2003, The Washington Post)

The United States is failing to make use of what should be its most valuable asset in this war: the many Iraqis who are willing to fight and die for their country's liberation.

Those who imply that a rising surge of "nationalism" is preventing Iraqis from greeting American and British troops with open arms are wrong. What is preventing Iraqis from taking over the streets of their cities is confusion about American intentions -- confusion created by the way this war has been conducted and by fear of the murderous brown-shirt thugs, otherwise known as Saddam's Fedayeen, a militia loyal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who control the streets of Iraqi cities and who are conducting the harassing attacks on American and British soldiers.

The coalition forces have not yet sent clear and unmistakable signals to the people of Iraq that, unlike in 1991, there will be no turning back before Hussein's
regime has been overturned. In order to do this effectively they must count on the Iraqi opposition, which has so far been marginalized. [...]

Hanging over the head of every Iraqi like a sword of Damocles is the memory of March 1991, when the uprising of the people of southern Iraq was
mercilessly suppressed -- with particular brutality in Basra. If Hussein came back from the grave after 1991, Iraqis are thinking to themselves, what
guarantees do they have that he will not do so this time? Phone calls that the Iraqi opposition has received over the past two days from sources in southern Iraq confirm this sense of ambiguity and hesitation. A group of rebels in Nasiriyah called the leadership of the Iraqi opposition in the north. They wanted to know what to do with a number of abandoned military vehicles they had found, including a tank and some armored personnel carriers. Should they sequester
them and turn them against the regime? The answer was no, they would be shot by coalition forces because they had not been given the special device necessary to be identified as friend, not foe. Such is the state of coordination between the opposition and the coalition forces.

No American or coalition soldier can quell the perfectly legitimate fears of ordinary Iraqis living in places such as Basra and Baghdad. Only other Iraqis,
attentive to the nuances of their own society and culture, can do this. Communication with Iraqis about such things cannot be reduced to an index card listing
rules of engagement. Only Iraqis can get messages distributed through the local social networks, and only Iraqis can reassure other Iraqis that they are truly
to be liberated this time.

Hussein's image and the images of his henchmen have been visible throughout the fighting. Hussein rules through his face, through his ubiquitous presence in
daily life. That is what his millions of larger-than-life wall posters are about. Every day that aired image reinforces an aura of invincibility. That is why Iraqi state TV must be put out of commission, permanently.

But eliminating his image is not enough. An alternative image must be projected -- and by Iraqis, not Americans. Give them the equipment inside Iraq to do
it immediately. The INC has been trying to get TV and radio belonging to free Iraqis on the air in Iraq since 2000. Members of Congress and other powerful
friends of the INC have proved helpless against the remarkable machinations of those who have fashioned entire careers around hobbling the INC as an
organization and fighting force in Iraq.

The coalition needs the Iraqi opposition -- Iraqis who can sneak into cities and help organize other Iraqis, who know how to communicate with their entrapped compatriots, who can tell them why Hussein really is finished, and who are able to root out his cronies when they try to melt away into the civilian population.

One cannot liberate a people -- much less facilitate the emergence of a democracy -- without empowering the people being liberated.

The veiled reference to "those who have fashioned entire careers around hobbling the INC" means the Arabists in the State Department who have consistently shown themselves opposed to anything that might destabilize the regimes of the Middle East. But, in case they haven't noticed, George W. Bush is embarked on a programn of systematic destabilization--in Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq and Iran so far--and it's too late for them to save their dictator friends. Time to turn Mr. Makiya and his cohorts loose and let them fight for their own freedom.

---

QUIET PLEASE, WE'RE DYING:

Europeans have opted for the quiet life - but they are in for a big shock: The EU will remain politically impotent - my greater concern is that it will lose the economic game too (Hamish McRae, 19 February 2003, Independent)

The argument that [it] s right to prefer a quiet and comfortable life has been well made by Adair Turner, the former director general of the CBI, in a lecture at the LSE earlier this month. His argument is that if you allow for shorter hours worked, European productivity is not much below that of the US. GDP per head in the EU is lower, but that is largely because we choose to take more leisure. And our take-home pay is further reduced relative to the US because we pay for more of our services through the tax system rather than paying for them directly. (The UK, as usual, is somewhere in between the continental and the US models.)

"Europe" argues Adair Turner, "is making social choices which are rational and natural for human beings in mature, already rich, and peaceful societies." His main doubt is whether the world can be peaceful enough to sustain these choices - he hopes and believes it can be, but he acknowledges that this is debatable. His is a powerful argument which cuts to the very core of the clash between Europe and America, at the moment over the Middle East. But the division is not just about what should be done about Iraq. It is about what sort of society we want to live in.

Many of us would find it pretty tough to have to work in the US. Having only two weeks holiday a year would not go down too well. It would not be much fun to have to worry about the adequacy of one's medical insurance. And while it might be harder to find a job in much of continental Europe than in the States, at least when people lose their jobs in Europe (and for that matter the UK) there is usually a better cushion to tide them over than there would be in most US states.

But is the European model sustainable? Adair Turner has two caveats. One follows from Europe's ageing society: the implications for pensions and so on, the other is that point about global power.

It seems to me that the power game is already lost. It is very hard to see any set of circumstances where Europe collectively will be able to exert much military or even political power in the world over the next generation. In another quarter century, when the US population is expected to pass the EU one, the imbalance of power will become even wider. For the time being, the larger European nations can individually have some modest influence - Tony Blair really does have more influence over the US than most Britons would give him credit for - but the EU as a body is and will remain impotent. If we have not yet learnt that harsh lesson we soon will.

My greater concern is that Europe will lose the economic game too - its model is simply not sustainable. There are two broad reasons for believing that. One is the ageing point made by Adair Turner; the other, the implications of labour mobility - particularly of the highly-skilled - for high-tax, high-benefit societies.

The implications of ageing on the European social welfare model, where the current generation of working people pay the benefits of the current generation of retirees, have been so widely recognised that there is a danger of "pension fatigue" overtaking electorates. The core problem is that welfare systems that were developed at a time when there were more than four workers for every pensioner cannot function when there are fewer than two. (In the case of Spain and Italy, there will actually be fewer workers than pensioners when the present 20-somethings retire.)

But that is a known problem. Europe has not done much about it, but at least people are aware of the problem. Europe is much less aware of the problem created by the increased mobility of the highly-skilled - and the increased demand for such skills.

Setting aside the fact that productivity is an hourly measure, not one of how much a worker produces per calendar year, this piece also seems to lose track of the choosing "quiet" argument that it raises. Quiet, or what we here would call "security", is one of the two great human values that we've long argued drives all of human history. From socialism to atheism to pragmatism to theocracy and on, all are philosophies of governance that seek to minimize conflict and instill a sense of security in the populace. Freedom tends to be rather more tumultuous and to entail greater risks. The problem for Europe is that "quiet", or security, leads to a moribund society, which it's not all clear can ever produce sustained economic growth, whilst freedom and tumult, at least in the American model, lead to creativity and mobility. It appears that what Mr. Turner refers to as "rational choices" may in fact be suicidal, though a pleasant enough way to go. This is why it is so urgent that we break Britain away from the EU and save it from this fate.

---

COMMON CAUSE:

Anglosphere: End of transnational illusion? (James C. Bennett, 3/23/2003, UPI)

So many times in the run-up to the second Gulf War President Bush's diplomatic skills were contrasted detrimentally to those of his father. The broad coalition and unequivocal U.N. backing for the first war was an example, according to this theory, of the right way to do things.

The unilateralist cowboy approach of George W., failing to gain the military aid of the French Foreign Legion and the blessing of that final U.N. resolution, critics claim, doom the current war to -- well, exactly what it isn't clear, but obviously something not nice. Not military defeat, certainly. But victory without the blessings of certain European intellectual quarters, which they assume to be an equally traumatic outcome.

It's worth considering, however, that exactly these features of the first Gulf War contributed to the need for its successor. In particular, the fatal pause before Baghdad and the survival of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein were to some degree the result of the broadness of the coalition, some of whose members preferred a strong leader in Iraq because of fear of its fragmentation.

In a larger sense, the first Gulf War, coming in the middle of the Cold War endgame, marked the opening of a period, which we are coming to understand was a transitory interlude, in which a certain vision of transnational order was thought to be possible and desirable. Sept. 11, 2001, began the closing of this period. The second Gulf War may come to be seen as the final act of that closure, the two wars thus serving as bookends for the period. [...]

The core of the coalition of the willing assembled to pursue the liberation of Iraq demonstrates the difference between broadly inclusive organizations and more limited ones that, because they share certain understandings of the world, are able to move more quickly and effectively. The task for the coming period is to construct a set of more permanent structures along similar lines to pursue important security, economic trade and development, and political goals.

American Jacksonians can learn from the second Gulf War that, unlike the universalist organizations they have come to despise, a more select group of nations can work together effectively increase their mutual security. American Wilsonians and their cousins, the British Gladstonians, can learn that the international order they crave will more likely grow from successful collaboration of more limited partners with strong civil societies and like assumptions than the morally compromised international bodies, which have tended to lower themselves to the lowest common denominator of morality, rather than raising, as they had hoped, the lower to a higher standard.

Britain, America, Australia and their allies have accomplished what is needed in Iraq, where a decade ago the broader coalition failed, with painful consequences for the Iraqi people and others. Now is the time to explore how to apply these lessons to the broader issues of international order.

The key question in this regard is whether Tony Blair and John Howard can lead the British and Australians respectively to the conclusion--which Mr. Blair himself may not yet share--that the Anglosphere is more important to the development and maintenance of a stable and democratic world order than the EU and the UN.

MORE:
Operation Anglosphere: Today's most ardent American imperialists weren't born in the USA. (Jeet Heer, 3/23/2003, Boston Globe)

EMPIRE IS A DIRTY word in the American political lexicon. Just last summer, President Bush told West Point graduates that ''America has no empire to extend or utopia to establish.'' In this view, the power of the United States is not exercised for imperial purposes, but for the benefit of mankind.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, however, many foreign policy pundits, mostly from the Republican right but also including some liberal internationalists, have revisited the idea of empire. ''America is the most magnanimous imperial power ever,'' declared Dinesh D'Souza in the Christian Science Monitor in 2002. ''Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets,'' argued Max Boot in a 2001 article for the Weekly Standard titled ''The Case for American Empire.'' In the Wall Street Journal, historian Paul Johnson asserted that the ''answer to terrorism'' is ''colonialism.'' Columnist Mark Steyn, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, has contended that ''imperialism is the answer.''

''People are now coming out of the closet on the word `empire','' noted Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer. ''The fact is no country has been as dominant culturally, economically, technologically and militarily in the history of world since the Roman Empire.'' Krauthammer's awe is shared by Harvard human rights scholar Michael Ignatieff, who asked earlier this year in The New York Times Magazine, ''What word but `empire' describes the awesome thing America is becoming?'' While acknowledging that empire may be a ''burden,'' Ignatieff maintained that it has become, ''in a place like Iraq, the last hope for democracy and stability alike.''

Today's advocates of American empire share one surprising trait: Very few of them were born in the United States. D'Souza was born in India, and Johnson in Britain - where he still lives. Steyn, Krauthammer, and Ignatieff all hail from Canada. (Krauthammer was born in Uruguay, but grew up in Montreal before moving to the United States.) More than anything, the backgrounds of today's most outspoken imperialists suggest the lingering appeal and impact of the British empire.

''I think there's more openness among children of the British Empire to the benefits of imperialism, whereas some Americans have never gotten over the fact that our country was born in a revolt against empire,'' notes Max Boot, currently afellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ''But lots of people who are advocating pro-imperial arguments - such as Bill Kristol and me - are not Brits or Canadians.'' (Boot, who was born in Russia, moved to the United States as a baby.)

Imperialism is often seen as an expanding circle, with power radiating outward from a capital city like London or Paris to hinterlands. But a quick review of history shows that imperial enthusiasm doesn't emanate only from the center. Often, the dream of empire is nursed by those born on the periphery of power, precisely because empire would give them a place in a larger framework. Alexander the Great, for example, was born in Macedonia and went on to create an Hellenic empire. And France's greatest empire-builder was the Corsican Napoleon. [...]

The promotion of ''Anglo-Saxon unity'' was particularly attractive to transnational business leaders like the Canadian-born newspaper tycoon William Maxwell Aitken (later known as Lord Beaverbrook). In 1910 Aitken moved to Britain, where he used his newspapers, Daily Express and the Evening Standard, to argue for free trade and the strengthening of imperial ties. In recent years, Beaverbrook's ideas have been given new currency by another newly ennobled Canadian-born newspaper magnate, Conrad Black, also known as Lord Black of Crossharbour.

While he has recanted his belief that the English-speaking provinces of Canada should join the United States, Black has been campaigning for the inclusion of the United Kingdom into the NAFTA trade accord. For Black, Britain's destiny is to be primarily an Atlantic power, not a European one.

Among conservative intellectuals, Black's dream of an Anglo-American concert of nations is part of a larger desire to strengthen ''the Anglosphere.'' Apparently coined by science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson in his 1995 novel ''The Diamond Age,'' the term has been popularized lately by journalists like James C. Bennett, who writes a weekly column covering ''The Anglosphere Beat'' for United Press International, and Andrew Sullivan, as well as by the English historian Robert Conquest. The proponents of an anglosphere want a loose and informal alliance of English-speaking peoples, modelled on the ''soft'' imperialism that governed Britain's relationship with dominions like Canada and Australia, not the ''hard'' imperialism of the Raj.

The enthusiasm for the old Pax Britannia has been bolstered by the revisionist scholarship of Scottish historian Niall Ferguson, whose new book ''Empire'' argues that the British Empire was a progressive force in world history that lay the foundations of our current global economy.

But the idea of a new American empire remains controversial on the American right, and not just among isolationists. Take the case of David Frum, the Canadian-born former Bush speechwriter who famously helped coin the term ''axis of evil.'' Though his writing shows touches of imperial nostalgia (among other thing, he has argued that Canada should jettison the nationalist Maple Leaf flag and return to the Union Jack), he rejects the imperial analogies drawn by writers like Max Boot. ''If `empire' means anything, it certainly does not describe what the US is proposing to do in Iraq,'' notes Frum. ''The big story, it seems to me, is the ascendancy of neo-Wilsonianism on the political right, not neo-imperialism.''

For Boot, that's just a language game. ''I don't think David and I disagree on any substantive point of foreign policy,'' Boot says. Another name for ''`hard' Wilsonianism,'' he points out, is liberal imperialism. After all, Wilson, who took over Veracruz, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, was one of our most imperial presidents. Boot adds: ''I prefer the more forthright if also more controversial term American Empire - sort of like the way some gays embrace the `queer' label.''

Mr. Boot's right here and the entire seeming discrepancy on the Right clears up if you just think of the new imperialism as cultural rather than territorial. The point is not to take over and admninister every corner of the globe but to have a forceful enough ideological message and muscular enough foreign policy to extend Anglo-American ideals throughout the world.

---

AFRICA SCREAMS:

Mugabe 'runs amok' as world watches the war (Brian Latham and Basildon Peta, March 30 2003, Independent Online)

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has unleashed a wave of terror on his political opponents in Harare's poverty-ridden townships while world attention is diverted by the war in Iraq.

Mugabe appears to be taking revenge on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for organising a successful two-day general strike last week - and also trying to intimidate MDC supporters planning further mass action.

Mugabe is also trying to prevent MDC voters from voting against him in two parliamentary by-elections in the Harare townships this weekend, the MDC believes.

The wave of violence appears to be derailing a tentative new peace initiative by President Thabo Mbeki.

A report by the independent Human Rights Forum tells of devastating violence against residents of the Harare townships, which are largely MDC strongholds.

"People taken by police for questioning were handed over to Zanu-PF youths and taken behind police stations where they were assaulted severely, using weapons such as baton sticks, chains, hosepipes and rifles.

"In most cases [the assaults involved] groups of between 20 and 50 individuals," reads the report.

The Human Rights Forum believes the new wave of violence is worse than that which preceded the June 2000 parliamentary general elections and the presidential elections in March last year. Its report details a horrific list of tortures, which include beatings, blindfolding, rape and electric shocks.

And according to the Human Rights Forum, the terror campaign is not aimed only at MDC supporters. Allegations of elderly parents and young children being blindfolded, taken to torture camps and then dumped in the bush have also surfaced.

One case study tells of a woman who was raped with the barrel of an AK47 while the rest of her family stood by helplessly.

The attack, carried out by 16 men in army uniform and four civilians loyal to Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, continued with a savage assault on the woman's son, who was beaten and burnt with cigarettes before being dumped in the bush.

Others told of electric wires attached to their noses, ears and genitals and current switched on whenever they were asked a question.

You don't have to think that the Iraq war is "all about oil" to believe that if Zimbabwe had oil reserves we'd pay more attention to it. Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush should turn the world's full focus on Mugabe's reign of terror post haste and drive him from office by any means necessary.

---

FRANCE IS AS FRANCE DOES:

French anti-Semitism reports surge (BBC, 27 March, 2003)

There was a dramatic rise in reported racist and anti-Semitic acts in France last year, according to the French Government's human rights watchdog.

The National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) said there had been more than 300 registered instances of violence, and almost 1,000 cases of abuse or threats.

Two-thirds of them were anti-Semitic - six times as many as in 2001.

The CNCDH said the incidents, often blamed on young men of Arab descent, were largely connected with the escalation in the Middle East conflict.

The attacks on America of 11 September 2001 are also thought to have fuelled tensions.

It would be naive to think that French support for the PLO and Saddam Hussein is unrelated to historic French anti-Semitism and to a desire to assuage the anti-Semitic immigrant population.

---

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME:

Let the Hate Begin: There's no greater pleasure than the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. (RUSS SMITH, March 28, 2003, Wall Street Journal)

One spring day last year I was at Yankee Stadium, sitting in the loge section, when suddenly during the third inning a chant erupted from the upper deck: "Boston sucks, Boston sucks!" This is normal when the Red Sox play in the Bronx, but on this occasion the Yanks were slamming the hapless Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

My two young sons, decked out in Bosox uniforms (we're diehard Boston fans but as Manhattan residents attend about 25 games at the stadium each season) were confused. My nine-year-old said: "Dad, are those guys too drunk to know what teams are on the field?" They'd endured the jibes of Yankee partisans before, but this commotion was just too taxing on their developing minds. It didn't help that it was soon followed by the inevitable "1918!, 1918!"--for some, the year that ended World War I, for others, the year the Boston Red Sox last won the World Series.

My baseball "facts of life" speech to the boys included the "Curse of the Bambino," Boston's astonishing choke against the Mets in the '86 World Series and, most painfully, Bucky Dent's cheap homer in the '78 one-game playoff for the American League East title that again left the Yanks victorious over the Sox.

The durable New York-Boston baseball feud is an anomaly today. Decades ago, before league expansion, before owners spent huge sums on free agents, before theme parks became more important than the game itself, there were legendary rivalries--famously, the Yanks and Dodgers of the 1950s, when they faced off in several World Series. The Giants and Dodgers created a riveting clash of fans, too, which survived even the move of both teams to California. But these rivalries died away, along with others, and attempts to gin up lesser pairings into an admirable viciousness--St. Louis and Kansas City? the Cubs and White Sox?--have always failed.

There is obviously something different about Boston and New York, making the competition bitter from the day Babe Ruth was sold to New York after the 1919 season. Both cities are unusually sports-centric, for one thing, with a rabid collection of journalists eager to stoke the emotions of lifelong fans. Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium were built before the Depression, in urban settings, and many spectators still use mass transit, often reading the tabloids, to reach the games. And the Sox and Yanks were part of the original eight-team American League, back when players traveled by train and fans listened to games on the radio.

All this tradition matters.

Baseball returns at an especially opportune moment this year. Because at a time like this it's reassuring to know that "tradition matters". As Terence Mann says, in Field of Dreams:

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.

And consider that quote in conjunction with this one:

There are those who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American Dream.
-Archibald MacLeish

As we've seen in the bitter divisions over the current war on terror, not everyone in America shares the same dreams, not everyone cares for its traditions and the things it stands for, but enough of us still do and those who do tend to be especially wedded to the continuities in American life. Among those continuities are the belief that we have a special duty to make America a city upon a hill, that if we build it all mankind will come, and also a belief that the Yankees are the focus of evil in the modern world. Go Sox!

---

BOOKNOTES:

Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First by Mona Charen (C-SPAN, March 30, 2003, 8 & 11 pm)

In Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First, Mona Charen holds liberals accountable and reveals the horrifying crimes that these liberals helped defend and cover up for the Communists. Meet the useful idiots:

Jane Fonda, Dan Rather, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, and all the other liberals who were and are always willing to blame America first and defend its enemies as simply misunderstood. These are the liberals who flocked to Castro?s Cuba and called it paradise, just as a previous generation of liberals visited the Soviet Union and proclaimed its glorious future. They are the liberals who saw Communist Vietnam and Cambodia in fact, Communism everywhere as generally a beneficial force, and blamed America as a gross, blind, and blundering giant.

Now that the Cold War has been won, these liberals, amazingly, are proud to claim credit for the victory conveniently forgetting their apologies for the Communists and their spluttering attacks on Cold Warriors like Ronald Reagan.

But nationally syndicated columnist Mona Charen isn?t about to let them rewrite history.

In her shocking new book, Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First, she exposes:

-Prominent Clinton administration officials such as Madeleine Albright, Sidney Blumenthal, and Strobe Talbott who turned a blind eye to the Soviet Evil Empire, but who now want to be counted as Cold Warriors
-Media figures who clucked with praise for Communists and smirked with snide disdain for America including Bill Moyers, Phil Donahue, Bryant Gumble, and Katie Couric
-Professors who poisoned the academy with anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism at top universities such as Princeton, Brown, Columbia, and Georgetown
-Entertainerssuch as Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, Meryl Streep, Martin Sheen, and Ed Asnerwho used the megaphones of their fame to blame America first

It's your proverbial target rich environment.

MORE:
-The Conservative Chronicle - Biography of Mona Charen
-ARCHIVES: Mona Charen (Jewish World Review)

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NOT WAR BUT FREEDOM:

Assyrians want Saddam out (DAVE NEWBART, March 30, 2003, Chicago Sun-Times)

"We want Saddam overthrown by any means,'' said Sam Dibato, 66, a retired geologist who fled Iraq two years ago when he learned he was going to be arrested on false charges. "We are not supporting war. We are supporting a free Iraq.''

The mostly older men are part of Chicago's Assyrian-American community, which numbers nearly 100,000. Members of the community are holding a rally today at Warren Park in support of the U.S. troops. Organizers said they canceled the annual Assyrian New Year's parade scheduled for next week because of the war.

Like Dibato, thousands of Assyrians--who boast of being some of the oldest Christians in the world--have been persecuted and killed by Saddam Hussein's Baath party. Despite their religious beliefs, the men said using force to oust Saddam is the only option to save their country. They say that even knowing that innocent civilians have died and more will die because of the war. But they believe more people would perish if Saddam remained in power.

"He is cutting the ears off the people, cutting the tongues, killing people to stay in power,'' Dibato said.

That includes 10 members of Dibato's extended family, who disappeared from a village in northern Iraq in 1988 and are thought to have been burned alive when Saddam accused them of opposing his regime. Dibato was forced to leave when he was accused of the same. His mother, two daughters and two brothers remain in Iraq.

The men believe most in Iraq shares their feelings about Saddam but are too afraid to speak out. But they also think many Iraqis aren't convinced the United States will back them if they rebel, considering they were abandoned following the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

"They don't trust anybody, not Saddam Hussein, not the American government,'' said Khoshiaba Jaba, 50.

One wonders if the Administration has considered putting the President on TV to demand the Ba'athist regime's "unconditional surrender". It would have the advantages of tying this war to WWII, making it clear that we consider victory inevitable and imminent, and helping to convince Shi'a, Assyrians, etc., that we're in it until the end...this time.

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ALL EVILS CONVERGE (part 3):

Kurds, Americans battle suspected terrorist positions (BORZOU DARAGAHI, March 30, 2003, ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Kurdish guerrillas working with U.S. special forces attacked well-trained Islamic militants allegedly linked to al-Qaida-- an operation that one Kurdish
leader said left at least 120 militants dead and dealt "a very serious blow" to terrorism.

Heavy machine gun fire and bombardment were reported Saturday around the northeastern city of Halabja near positions of the Ansar al-Islam extremists, who have been under
sporadic attack by U.S. forces for a week.

Barham Salih, prime minister of the Sulaymaniyah-based Kurdish government that is a U.S. ally, told The Associated Press the attack on the militants was important in the war against terror. He added that many of those killed were Afghan Arabs who had fought and trained in Afghanistan.

"It was a very tough battle," said Salih. "You're talking about a bunch of terrorists who are very well-trained and well-equipped."

On Friday, thousands of Kurdish rebels swept through Ansar's stronghold, dislodging many of the militants from mountain villages they controlled.

Seventeen Kurds and between 120 and 150 Ansar militants were killed, Salih said.

Two suspected al-Qaida militants were also killed in a separate shootout earlier this week near Halabja, about 50 miles southeast of Sulaymaniyah, Kurdish officials said.

The war on terror regimes is the war on terrorism is the war on terror.

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ONE TIN SOLDIER RIDES AWAY:

The Palestinian morning after (Khaled Abu Toameh, Mar. 20, 2003, Jerusalem Post)

"[US President George W.] Bush insists that the regime change in the Arab world should start in Ramallah," says a senior PA official. "He wants to get rid of all Arab leaders who refuse to dance to American and Israeli music."

Indeed, the US, with the help of the European Union, United Nations and Russia, has already forced Arafat into accepting the idea of sharing his "bedroom" with another Palestinian leader. Palestinians who have worked with Arafat for the past four decades say the move is tantamount to forcing the Palestinian leader to dig his grave with his own hands.

"Bush is trying to bury Arafat alive, and that's not fair," complains one official. "Now, he is trying to bury Saddam Hussein in a more brutal manner. What's going on here? Has the man gone mad?"

Saddam is the only Arab leader whose posters are raised together with those of Arafat during demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. By all accounts, he is the second most popular Arab leader among the Palestinians after Arafat.

He is admired in the refugee camps and villages mainly because he is the only Arab leader who defied Israel and made good on his promise to launch Scud missiles at Tel Aviv during the first Gulf War. The rest of the Arab leaders are usually condemned for only paying lip service to the Palestinian issue instead of sending their armies to fight Israel.

The Iraqi dictator's popularity skyrocketed during the current intifada when he started paying thousands of dollars to the families of Palestinian victims, including suicide bombers [see box]. Once a week, Saddam's representatives in the tiny Arab Liberation Front hold a ceremony in the Gaza Strip or West Bank to hand out checks to Palestinian families. Hence by losing Saddam, the Palestinians would not only lose a major political and military ally, but a significant financier.

"The downfall of Saddam's regime is going to be a major loss for the Palestinians," says a university lecturer from an-Najah University in Nablus. "It will send home the message that unless Uncle Sam is happy with you, you have no room in this world. This is a very serious matter because it gives Bush the power to decide who's good and who's bad. This applies also to the Palestinians, who will have to choose leaders favored by Bush and [US National Security Adviser] Condoleezza Rice.

"I believe that the defeat of Saddam will only complicate the situation because it will increase bitterness and frustration not only in the Palestinian street, but also throughout the Arab world. The Arabs will go around with the feeling that their dignity has been badly hurt. This creates a strong desire for revenge."

PALESTINIANS HAVE different opinions as to the post-Saddam era. While some believe that Washington is expected to focus its efforts on finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, others say that the US would need several more years to rid itself of the quagmire in Baghdad and therefore won't have time for the problems here.

In any case, the Palestinians are fully aware that they would have to play the American card after the war is over. Senior Palestinian officials in Arafat's entourage are openly talking about the possibility that a triumphant Bush, who in their eyes represents an administration that is 100 percent biased toward Israel, would try to impose a solution that only a few Palestinians would accept.

"We have red lines that no Palestinian leader, not even Arafat, can cross," explains a senior official. "These include, first and foremost, the right of return for the refugees and a full withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including Arab Jerusalem. Any attempt to impose a solution that does not include these factors will be doomed to failure. Even the most moderate Palestinian leader wouldn't dare cross the red lines. An enforced solution would only lead to more anger and violence in the Palestinian street."

It's hard to see how crushing the heroes of radical Islam can possibly be a bad thing. It should help to drive home the idea that Islamicism is an abyssmal failure and has no future. As for imposed statehood, that's the best option available right now, but it's not going to include the right of return nor all of the territory they want. It could though include much of what they're asking including much of Arab Jerusalem and a pullback of Israeli settlements.

MORE:
-Facing reality: There Will Never be a Palestinian Democracy (Barbara Lerner, 3/27/03, National Review)

srael's Natan Sharansky is one of the intellectual godfathers of President Bush's new "democracy first" approach to the Palestinian question. Sharansky's influence is hard to miss. His influence on the views of his countrymen is another matter. Twenty-nine months of suicide bombings, shellings, and machine-gun attacks aimed at civilians have decimated the ranks of Israelis who still believe a Palestinian state could ever be anything other than the same old terror-warriors, with new and more lethal powers. When I interviewed Sharansky in Jerusalem on February 12, his political party had just lost two of its four seats in Israel's 120-member parliament, but his faith that democracy was the answer remained unshaken.

Natan Sharansky has a big Russian soul, but he carries it on a small frame, and slumps in his seat. When I sat at his soon-to-be-vacated desk in Israel's Ministry of Housing and Construction, I had to scrunch down to be at eye-level with him. When I forgot, I would find myself looking instead into the eyes of his mentor, Andrei Sakharov, in a large photo above Sharansky's head. The man once known as Anatoly wants it that way. He believes the principles he and his fellow Soviet freedom fighters went to prison for are universal principles - as real and right in the Middle East as they were and are in what was once the Soviet Union. He also believes that in the terror war, as in the Cold War, appeasing tyrants can never bring lasting peace - only the spread of democracy can. And he believes, too, that democracy is for everyone, that neither Arabs nor Palestinians are exceptions to the rule.

I offer up the Israeli everyman's objection at the outset: Polls show that 80 percent of Palestinians approve of suicide bombings. Anyone they elect will be a murdering thug. "Of course," Sharansky explodes. "It's primitive to think democracy is about elections. It's not. It's about freedom. Freedom is the key." First, he explains, you have to free people from the all-pervasive fear that is the sine qua non of all tyrannies. Give people the freedom to express themselves, to say what they really think, over time - without the fear that government goons will come and get them. That's the start of the democratization process. Elections are at the other end. They come last, after people have experienced what it's like to live free, because that - not elections - is what democracy is about. Once people know freedom, Sharansky argues, they vote to keep it. And because rulers in a democracy can't ignore what majorities vote for if they want to stay in office, they have powerful incentives to respect freedom at home and to pursue peace abroad. For tyrants, the situation is quite different. Freedom is their nemesis, and to negate it they need to demonize enemies, both at home and abroad - justifications for their brutal, suffocating control. [...]

But it's unrealistic, I think, to expect anything like democracy in the southern half of the Middle East any time soon - and a dangerous illusion to expect a Palestinian democracy ever.

-Laundering Abu Mazen: A Holocaust revisionist, a conspiracy theorist, and a promoter of terrorism. (Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, 3/19/03, National Review)

Mahmoud Abbas, known by his nom de guerre Abu Mazen, has been tapped by PLO leader Yasser Arafat to be the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. Merely the fact that he has been selected by arch-terrorist Arafat to take on the mantle of authority should already give pause to those committed to fighting terrorism. In fact, anyone involved with the corrupt, duplicitous terrorist organization called the PLO - Abu Mazen is the head of its executive committee - should by now be considered unfit to lead anything but a prison-work detail. Beyond his senior position in the PLO, however, Abu Mazen is also a Holocaust revisionist, a conspiracy theorist, and a promoter of terrorism.

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REDEEMING THE MAPLE LEAF:

Rain can't halt pro-U.S. rally on the Hill: 4,000 gather to support Iraq operation (Paula McCooey, March 30, 2003, The Ottawa Citizen)

Supporters of the war in Iraq grabbed their opportunity yesterday to voice their approval of the U.S.-led coalition forces' efforts to remove Saddam Hussein from office and liberate the Iraqi people, while a smaller crowd rallied for peace outside the U.S. Embassy.

Nearly 4,000 supporters of the U.S. and coalition forces weathered the rain to relay their opposition to Prime Minister Jean Chretien's decision to exclude Canada from the 45 nations listed as allies.

Signs piercing the sea of red, white, and blue read "God Bless America" and "Shame to Chretien."

The ralliers, many of them more senior than their "peace" opponents, stood before the Peace Tower to hear words that validate their convictions.

"We have to stand by the people of operation Iraqi Freedom," Debbie Jodoin told the crowd.

Ms. Jodoin, a member of an anti-Liberal group "Free Dominion," organized the rally. Strong backers of Free Dominion and the pro-war rally included members of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties, as well as personalities such as CFRA talk show host Lowell Green.

Mr. Green stood with his hand on a boy's shoulder in front of the soaked crowd.

"I want to introduce to you to Ahmed," he said, as the crowd cheered.

"Ahmed is an Iraqi who had to flee his own country. And with God's will and the allies of the coalition, Ahmed may soon be able to go back to his own land and live in freedom."

The ralliers responded by yelling "free Ahmed."

Ontario Conservative Ottawa-West Nepean MPP Gary Guzzo said speakers and citizens alike were standing on the parliamentary lawn to differentiate "what is right and what is wrong in this world."

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the coalition forces who are today in danger, protecting our freedom, and our thoughts and prayers are more importantly with the captured soldiers and we hope and pray for their safe return," Mr. Guzzo said, emphasizing his approval of Ontario Premier Ernie Eves' and Alberta Premier Ralph Klein's support of the war.

Thank goodness...Mr. Martinovich had to be feeling lonely.

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WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN:

Saddam sacks commander of air defenses (AP, 3/29/2003)

Saddam Hussein has fired his commander of air defenses as U.S.-led forces claimed control of 95% of Iraq's sky, the British government said Saturday.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said Saddam had sacked his cousin, Musahim Saab al-Tikriti, and replaced him with Gen. Shahin Yasin Muhammad al-Tikriti.

The spokesman also said new, unspecified intelligence indicated that U.S. and British bombing may not have been to blame for explosions in two marketplaces in Baghdad this week.

MORE WAR NEWS:
British officers say Iraqi general captured (The Associated Press, 3/30/03)

A general from Saddam Hussein's army has been captured in southern Iraq and is being pressed to provide strategic information, British officers said Sunday. An Iraqi official said 4,000 Arab volunteers have arrived, eager to carry out more suicide attacks against U.S. and British forces. [...]

Group Capt. Al Lockwood, a British spokesman, said an Iraqi general was captured in the besieged city of Basra - the highest-ranking Iraqi prisoner of war thus far.

"We'll be asking him quite politely if he's willing to assist us to continue our operations against the paramilitary forces in Basra," Lockwood said.

Lockwood also said Royal Marine Commandos killed a Republican Guard colonel who apparently was sent to Basra to strengthen the resolve of the defense forces, who are encircled by British troops.

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FUNDAMENTALISM BEFORE THE FUNDAMENT?:

Islam vs. Democracy (Martin Kramer, January 1993, Commentary)

For most of the 1980s, those who saw Islamic fundamentalism for what it is saw groups as violent and dogmatic as any in the world. These were people who mixed nostalgia with grievance to produce a millenarian vision of an Islamic state - a vision so powerful that its pursuit justified any means. Angry believers invoked this Islam when they executed enemies of the revolution in Iran, assassinated a president in Egypt, and detonated themselves and abducted others in Lebanon. Their furious words complemented their deeds. They marched to chants of "Death to America" and intimidated all opponents with charges of espionage and treason. They did not expect to be understood, but they did want to be feared, and feared they were, by Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Yet their violence failed to overturn the region. While fundamentalists did seize the state in Iran, in most Arab countries they lurked about the edges of politics. They were often dangerous, and always fascinating, but they posed no mortal threat to the established order.

By the decade's end, however, many of these same groups had managed to transform themselves into populist movements, and even win mass followings. They did so by riding a huge tide of discontent, fed by exploding populations, falling oil prices, and economic mismanagement by the state. While governments fumbled for solutions, the fundamentalists persuaded the growing numbers of the poor, the young, and the credulous that if they only returned to belief and implemented God's law, the fog of misery surrounding them would lift.

"Islam is the solution," ran the fundamentalist slogan. What that meant, no one would say. The treatises of those billed as first-rate theoreticians seemed vague, by design. Here and there, fundamentalists organized model communities. Although billed as successful experiments in self-reliance, they were actually Potemkin mosques, built and supported with money from oil-rich donors. Fundamentalists also organized Islamic investment banks, which were supposed to prove that market economics could flourish even under the Islamic prohibition of interest. The most extensive experiment in Islamic banking, in Egypt, produced Islamic financial scandal in fairly short order.

But most of new followers read no theory and lost no money. They stood mesmerized by the rhetorical brilliance of men like the Sudan's Hasan al-Turabi, Tunisia's Rashid al-Ghannushi, and Lebanon's Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah. These preachers did not intone musty Islamic polemics against the unbelievers. Often they sounded more like the tenured Left, venting professorial condemnations of the West's sins.

Indeed, many of them issued from the academy. Turabi, schooled at the University of London and the Sorbonne, had been a professor of law and a dean; Ghannushi, a teacher of philosophy. They had overheard the West's self-incrimination, uttered in Left Bank cafés and British and American faculty lounges. This they reworked into a double-edged argument for the superiority and inevitability of Islam, buttressed not only by familiar Islamic scripture but by the West's own doomsday prophets, from Toynbee onward. These wise men of the West had confessed to capital crimes: imperialism, racism, Zionism. If they felt the tremors of the coming quake, could Muslims not feel them? Those who listened long enough to words pumped from pulpit amplifiers did begin to feel a slight tremor, and the mosques filled to overflowing.

A great deal of solid scholarship on these movements appeared during the 1980s, making it difficult to view them benignly. Their theories of jihad and conspiracy, embedded in wordy tracts, received critical scrutiny. True, Edward Said, Columbia's part-time professor of Palestine, presented a contrary view in Covering Islam, a book which bemoaned the Western media's treatment of Islam. The book was much admired by the Islamic Jihad in Beirut, prolific deconstructionists (of U.S. embassies) who circulated it among Western hostages for their edification. But the violence of the fundamentalists made them a difficult sell, and when in 1989 they filled the streets to demand the death of Salman Rushdie, they bit the hands even of those few Western intellectuals who had tried to feed them. As the decade closed, Islamic fundamentalism could count on few foreign friends.

While Islam's fundamentalists demanded the death of Rushdie, a longing for democracy (and capitalism) swept across Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, rulers took fright at the scenes of revolution from Romania and East Germany, and proceeded to initiate tightly controlled experiments in political pluralism. At the time, the architects of these experiments had no sense of the fundamentalists' appeal; they thought that the openings would work to the benefit of parties advocating liberal reform.

It was the fundamentalists, though, who led the dash through the newly opened door. The first of a succession of surprises had occurred in Egypt's parliamentary elections in 1987, when a coalition dominated by the fundamentalist Muslim Brethren emerged as the biggest opposition party in a contest gerrymandered to assure victory for the ruling party. The fundamentalists also outdistanced all other opposition parties in the 1989 elections for Tunisia's parliament, although a winner-take-all system gave every seat to the ruling party. That same year, the fundamentalists nearly captured the lower house of Jordan's parliament, in that country's first general election since 1967. Then, in 1990, the fundamentalists swept the country-wide local elections in Algeria.

Given these successes, almost overnight fundamentalist movements became the most avid and insistent supporters of free elections - an unpatrolled route to the power that had hitherto eluded them. Liberal Arab intellectuals, who had lobbied for democratic reforms and human rights for much of the 1980s, now retreated in disarray, fearful that freer press and elections might play straight into the hands of fundamentalists.

For Western theorists of democracy, it was as if the Arabs had defied the laws of gravity. Few admitted the bind as frankly as Jeane Kirkpatrick, who said:

"The Arab world is the only part of the world where I've been shaken in my conviction that if you let the people decide, they will make fundamentally rational decisions. But there, they don't make rational decisions, they make fundamentalist ones."

Most theorists, however, refused to be shaken. In order to synchronize the Arab predicament with the march of democracy, they developed a convenient theory - the theory of initial advantage.

The fundamentalists, according to this theory, enjoyed an advantage in the first stage of democratization: they knew how to organize, to stir emotions, to get out the vote. But "as civil society is enlivened," announced one political scientist, "it is only natural that the influence of the Islamist groups will be challenged." Then their appeal would fade, once the people enjoyed a full range of options. In the privacy of the voting booth, the voters would become rational actors, and elect liberals and technocrats who proposed serious answers to the crisis of Arab society.

This is why the failure of the Iranian Revolution and the theocracy it created is so important, because it serves as a warning to others that the answer to Islam's problems do not lie down the road of fundamentalism. If Iran can reform itself from within and move in a more Westerly direction, as it is trying to do now, it will establish a vital precedent.

Then, though, questions arise as to whether a revolutionary period is inevitable in the rest of the Middle East--is this a necessary phase that the states will all or almost all pass through, just to get it out of their systems?--and, more importantly, will countries that did not have long experience of a pro-Western liberalizing dictator like the Shah (or like Attaturk in Turkey) be able to shuck off the revolution as quickly as Iran has? Support for freedom, constitutionalism, liberation of women, etc., predates the Revolution in Iran and has apparently remained strong. Is there any reason to believe that a nation like Egypt--after it descends into its fundamentalist epoch, as surely it will--which seems to have few of these foundations upon which liberal democratic society is built, can develop them during a period when Islamic fundamentalism reigns? It seems at least somewhat dubious.

And it is here that Iraq comes in. For the new Iraq to succeed it will require a constitution that diffuses political power, a secular government, a free market economy, an independent judiciary, vibrant mosques and churches, a depoliticized military, and myriad social and community organiztions. Can all of these things be developed before it submerges into chaos or fundamentalist enthusiasms? Can it serve as an example of how democratic institutions might be built and revolution avoided? Here too it's necessary to be skeptical. But we have to help both Iran and Iraq make the efforts, don't we?

---

A TACTIC, NOT A STRATEGY:

Town becomes horrific battleground: Hundreds of Iraqis reportedly die in`chaos you cannot imagine' (NBC NEWS, March 29, 2003)

The suicide bombing that killed four U.S. soldiers Saturday happened just outside a dusty town that saw hundreds of Iraqis literally drive themselves into U.S. positions during a four-day battle that started with a swirling sandstorm and ended with nightmarish scenes.

WHEN U.S. tanks from the 3rd Mechanized Infantry first rumbled into this town on the Euphrates river on Wednesday, irregular Iraqi forces set up sniper nests up and down the main street, opening fire from doors, windows, market stalls and patches of open ground.

A crimson sunset painted the street red and visibility fell to less than 15 feet as a swirling sand and dust storm kicked up when the guerrilla units attacked.

U.S. officers said fighters in minivans, pick-up trucks and cars drove straight at the oncoming tanks. Others took to canoes, rowing down the river and trying to fix explosives to the main bridge in this town about 80 miles south of Baghdad.

But the guerrilla-style forces were vastly outgunned by the tanks of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, and hundreds of Iraqis have died in this town over the last four days. [...]

"It was mad chaos like you cannot imagine," said the tank unit's commander, who identified himself as "Cobra 6" as he did not want friends and neighbors back home to know what he had been through.

Missile Strike Kills 200 Iraqi Paramilitary Fighters (Fox News, March 29, 2003)

U.S. warplanes firing laser-guided missiles destroyed a two-story building in the Iraqi city of Basra Friday, killing some 200 Iraqi paramilitary fighters, the U.S. military said.

The attack targeted the Saddam Hussein loyalists who British officials say have clamped down on a restive population in Basra.

Earlier Friday, the paramilitaries -- known as "Saddam's Fedayeen" -- had fired mortars and machine guns on about 1,000 Iraqi civilians trying to leave the southern city, British military officials and witnesses said.

British forces surround the city -- Iraq's second-largest, with a population of 1.3 million -- and want to open the way for badly needed humanitarian aid. But they have yet to move in, facing what would likely by tough street-by-street resistance from the militiamen.

Friday night's airstrike went after what Central Command called "an emerging target." The pair of F-15E Strike Eagles fired laser-guided munitions fitted with delayed fuses -- meaning they penetrated the building before detonating to minimize the external blast effect. The Central Command statement said a church 300 yards from the two-story building was undamaged.

The statement did not say how it was known that 200 paramilitaries were holding a meeting.

US Helicopters Kill 50 Elite Iraqi Troops -Officer (Reuters, March 29, 2003)

U.S. helicopters attacked units of Iraq's elite Republican Guard on Saturday, killing at least 50 Iraqi soldiers and destroying some 25 vehicles, a senior officer said.

"We fired 40 missiles and we had 40 hits. We had a confirmed kill of at least 25 vehicles including tanks, armored personnel carriers and trucks, and at least 50 dead," Major Hugh Cate told Reuters.

As scary as these suicidal attacks are to us, and as much scarier as they must be to the men facing them, nothing much has changed in warfare since General Patton said: "Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." The ultimate fact of these attacks is nothing more that dead Ba'athists.

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ALL EVIL CONVERGES (part 2):

Fatah sending suicide bombers to Iraq (Khaled Abu Toameh, Mar. 30, 2003, Jerusalem Post)

Hundreds of Palestinians living in Lebanon have been sent to Iraq to carry out suicide attacks against American and British soldiers.

Col. Munir Maqdah, one of the top commanders of the Fatah movement in Lebanon, said his men were already in Baghdad, prepared to launch suicide attacks. Another group of Fatah suicide bombers are due in Iraq shortly, he added.

Fatah, the largest faction of the PLO, has several thousand militiamen in Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps. Most of the Fatah gunmen continue to receive their salaries from the PLO.

Maqdah, a former senior officer in Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's elite Force 17, is based in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Although he belongs to Fatah, Maqdah has openly challenged Arafat by criticizing him for signing the Oslo accords with Israel.

This is the first time that a senior Fatah official has announced that his men have decided to join the fighting in Iraq. Palestinian sources said the Fatah volunteers entered Iraq through Syria.

Maqdah told the Nazareth-based A-Sennarah weekly that Fatah has decided to "strike at American interests all over the world."

"Resisting the American aggression on Iraq supports the Palestinian people and the intifada," he added. "What is happening in Iraq is the battle of the Palestinian people first and the Arab and Muslim nation second."

One doubts this appears anywhere on the "road map".

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I SEE QUAGMIRES:

A Military Quagmire Remembered: Afghanistan as Vietnam (R. W. APPLE Jr., October 31, 2001, The New York Times)

Like an unwelcome specter from an unhappy past, the ominous word "quagmire" has begun to haunt conversations among government officials and students of foreign policy, both here and abroad.

Could Afghanistan become another Vietnam? Is the United States facing another stalemate on the other side of the world? Premature the questions may be, three weeks after the fighting began. Unreasonable they are not, given the scars scoured into the national psyche by defeat in Southeast Asia. For all the differences between the two conflicts, and there are many, echoes of Vietnam are unavoidable. Today, for example, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disclosed for the first time that American military forces are operating in northern Afghanistan, providing liaison to "a limited number of the various opposition elements."

Their role sounds suspiciously like that of the advisers sent to Vietnam in the early 1960's, although Mr. Rumsfeld took pains to say of the anti-Taliban forces that "you're not going to send a few people in and tell them they should turn right, turn left, go slower, go fast." The Vietnam advisers, of course, were initially described in much the same terms, and the government of the day vigorously denied that they were a prelude to American combat troops.

In the most famous such denial, Lyndon B. Johnson vowed that he would not send American boys in to fight the war for Vietnamese boys.

Despite the insistence of President Bush and members of his cabinet that all is well, the war in Afghanistan has gone less smoothly than many had hoped. Not that anyone expected a lightning campaign without setbacks; indeed, both Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld have often said the effort would be long and hard. [...]

At least at first, American public opinion would present no problem. The latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows that a majority of Americans are prepared to accept the deaths of several thousand American troops there, although there were the first suggestions that many Americans think that the war is not going too well.

Bush's Peril: Shifting Sand and Fickle Opinion (R. W. APPLE Jr., March 30, 2003, NY Times)

Though the scion of a family steeped in politics and public service, George W. Bush remains a young president who came to the White House with relatively limited knowledge of the world and its ills. Yet for two years he has ridden high in public esteem, thanks to confident leadership after Sept. 11 and a surer political touch than his detractors give him credit for.

Is his luck about to turn in the winds and sands of Iraq? [...]

For the moment, Mr. Bush seems secure. People like him. None of his possible Democratic opponents loom as a major threat, not so far.

Still, for presidents, especially for wartime leaders, political capital can drain quickly from the White House account. After the guns fall silent, voters' eyes turn elsewhere, often to social and economic needs. It happened to Winston Churchill late in World War II, and as this president remembers better than most, it happened to his father, too.

Mr. Apple better get to work on his Syrian and North Korean quagmire stories. Actually, all he really has to do is swap out the names, eh?

MORE QUAGMIRISM:
Back Off, Syria and Iran! (MAUREEN DOWD, March 30, 2003, NY Times)

We're shocked that the enemy forces don't observe the rules of war. We're shocked that it's hard to tell civilians from combatants, and friends from foes. Adversaries use guerrilla tactics; they are irregulars; they take advantage of the hostile local weather and terrain; they refuse to stay in uniform. Golly, as our secretary of war likes to say, it's unfair.

Some of their soldiers are mere children. We know we have overwhelming, superior power, yet we can't use it all. We're stunned to discover that the local population treats our well-armed high-tech troops like invaders.

Why is all this a surprise again? I know our hawks avoided serving in Vietnam, but didn't they, like, read about it?

"The U.S. was planning on walking in here like it was easy and all," a young marine named Jimmy Paiz told ABC News this weekend with a rueful smile. "It's not that easy to conquer a country, is it?"

We will conquer the country, and it will be gratifying to see the satanic Saddam running like a rat through the rubble of his palaces. But it was hard not to have a few acid flashbacks to Vietnam at warp speed.

-Iraq and the Lessons of Lebanon: 'Don't Forget to Leave': Israel's experience in Lebanon - an ambitious invasion that turned into a draining quagmire - is a cautionary tale for the American war in Iraq. (ETHAN BRONNER, 3/30/03, NY Times)
-As a Quick Victory Grows Less Likely, Doubts Are Quietly Voiced: After 10 days of watching smart bombs, sandstorms and stiff resistance from the Iraqi regime, a capital that usually embraces a president at war is beginning to show fissures. (DAVID E. SANGER, 3/30/03, NY Times)

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BAGHDAD BY BUS:

Dozens of volunteers crossing Syrian border into Iraq to join fight against allied troops (Ze'ev Schiff, 28/03/2003, Ha'aretz)

Syria is granting free passage across its border with Iraq to volunteers who wish to join the fight against the U.S. and British forces. Thus far, dozens of volunteers, primarily Palestinians from the refugee camps in Lebanon, have crossed over into Iraq through Syrian-controlled border posts.

The passage of volunteers with Damascus's consent has given rise to the theory that the U.S.-fired missile that struck a Syrian bus traveling in Iraq was an intentional attack on a busload of such volunteers. The bus left Damascus on Sunday and was hit by the missile some 50 kilometers inside Iraqi territory. The missile strike left five people dead and dozens injured.

Speaking on the subject, the Syrian military analyst, Hitham al-Kilani, said in an interview on Al Jazeera, on 24 March, that "the Syrian border was opened to Syrian, Arab and Muslim volunteers wishing to reach Iraq and participate in the fighting against the American invasion." [...]

Syria's active support for Saddam Hussein has been particularly evident in recent months, with Damascus even purchasing military equipment on behalf of the Iraqi army. The equipment was reportedly delivered from its country of origin to the Syrian port of Latakia and then carried on trucks to Iraq. The purchases were made from a number of East European countries, and the equipment included engines for Russian-made tanks and aircraft. Also purchased were tank carriers, probably from Germany.

It seems more and more plausible that the bus attack was a message to Assad.

---

DUH-FENDANTS:

Defendents in trial lend helping hands (February 4, 2003)

A pair of helpful defendants lent District Attorney Bruce Roberson an unexpected hand, or actually a show of hands, last month during their trial for aggravated assault and robbery at district court in Perryton.

The female victim was tearfully testifying that she had been beaten and robbed by two men.

The district attorney listened intently.

"And are the two perpetrators of this terrible crime present in the courtroom today?" Roberson asked.

Both defendants immediately raised their hands.

"Here, your honor."

The French juror asked for more proof.

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NOT WITH HATE, BUT WITH LOVE:

Thousands Across Mideast Protest, Urging Holy War Against Allies (NEIL MacFARQUHAR, March 29, 2003, NY Times)

Protesters took to the streets by the thousands across the Middle East today after Friday Prayers, with calls for a holy war against the American and British forces in Iraq ringing out from minarets throughout the region.

One of the most remarkable demonstrations was in the Iranian capital, Tehran, where tens of thousands of marchers turned out in a government-organized rally to denounce the war against Iraq even though President Saddam Hussein is still reviled in Iran for starting the 1980-88 war between the two countries.

Demonstrators in Tehran chanted both "Death to Saddam" and "Death to America." They also shattered windows in the British Embassy, pelting the building with stones while shouting for its closing.

"Will bombs and the use of force bring democracy and freedom?" asked Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi, delivering the Friday sermon broadcast on Iranian television. "It will definitely not." [...]

Even Kuwait, which Iraq invaded in 1990 and which the allies have used as a jumping-off point for the war, heard harsh criticism of the Americans in some mosques.

"America does not want freedom for the Iraqi people," said Saleh Jawhar, a Shiite cleric who also called Americans evil. "It wants to install its puppets and subdue Muslims until we become a voice for America." He conceded, though, that Iraq would obliterate Kuwait if American forces withdrew.

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." Sometimes, these folks make you want to imminentize the Eschaton. Then you read something like the following and are brought back to yourself, Haunting Thoughts After a Battle (STEVEN LEE MYERS, March 29, 2003, NY Times):

WITH THE THIRD INFANTRY DIVISION, in central Iraq, March 28 - It troubles him, now that the battle is over. Sgt. Mark N. Redmond remembers shouting "qiff," Arabic for halt, but they did not halt. The Iraqi fighters just kept coming.

Sergeant Redmond's unit spent three days and nights fighting for the bridge at Kifl, a village on the Euphrates River about 75 miles south of Baghdad. By any military definition - the territory seized, the number of enemy killed, the mission accomplished - the unit's fight ended in victory. After victory, though, comes rest. And with rest comes reflection.

"I mean, I have my wife and kids to go back home to," he said, sitting atop a box of rations back at his base camp, whiling away a lull as unexpected as it was appreciated. "I don't want them to think I'm a killer."

The fighting around Kifl subsided today, officers here said, as it did around much of Najaf, the holy city on the Euphrates that the Third Infantry Division struggled to encircle in an unexpectedly fierce battle that began late Monday night when Sergeant Redmond's unit - Troop C, attached to the First Brigade of the Third Infantry - first crossed the river.

The division's commanders said today that the withering effects of an expanding armored ring around the city, coupled with airstrikes and artillery barrages, had at last halted Iraq's efforts to reinforce Najaf, though the situation in the city itself remains unclear.

By tonight, there was still no complete count of the enemy who died there, though soldiers and officers said there were scores, at least. And for some, like Sergeant Redmond, the memory remained haunting.

"They just came up to us," he said, describing irregular Iraqi militiamen who began fighting as soon as Troop C crossed the two-lane bridge over the Euphrates. "It seemed to me they were trying to test us, but it was suicide." [...]

The brigade's Graves Registration Team began to fan out across the village and its surroundings to collect the remains of Iraqi fighters, which they packed in black bags along with any personal items that might help identify them.

"Basically we did the same thing with the Iraqi dead that we would have done with American dead," said Capt. Andrew J. Valles, the brigade's civil affairs officer.

From the manner in which the Ba'athists are pursuing this war it would be easy for our troops to descend into a fury of hatred and murder. That they do not is a testimony to them and to the superiority of the culture they are fighting for, as witness this:

Shoeless enemy: Marine Lance Cpl. Marcco Ware carries an Iraqi soldier who was shot three times while trying to ambush a convoy of the 3rd Battalion, Fifth Regiment, in central Iraq. The attack left one Marine and about 40 Iraqis dead.

It is a great privilege to be a fellow citizen of men like Lance Cpl. Ware, Sgt. Redmond, Capt. Valles, and all the rest who continue to demonstrate the very best of which our civilization is capable. Who can doubt they will leave Iraq a better place than they found it?

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WHY NOT VICTORY?:

Facing Up to North Korea (Joshua Muravchik, March 2003, Commentary)

[T]he fix we are in is the fruit of a long pattern of appeasement and of North Korea?s canny manipulation of our illusions and fears. Once we discovered that Pyongyang was indeed building a nuclear reactor, we spent five or six years getting it to sign the NPT, then another seven years securing its signature to a "safeguards" agreement, then three more vainly trying to induce it to abide by that agreement. We finally abandoned the effort in favor of a "framework," which eight years later it admitted it had been disregarding all along. At the core of this pathetic tale was our reluctance to consider that the goal of the North Koreans' nuclear-weapons program was to possess nuclear weapons-an that diplomatic and economic incentives to avert this goal might be of no avail. In place of a frank recognition of this reality, we substituted our vain hopes that North Korea?s rulers could be softened by concessions, and that what they really wanted was economic aid, political legitimacy, and "respect."

How, then, do we get out of the fix? [...]

Ultimately, the world is likely to be safe with North Korea, as with Iraq, only through the demise of its current government. In 1994, we believed that the Kim dynasty was likely to fall of its own dead weight, just as we thought that Saddam Hussein would fall in 1991 after his humiliating defeat in the "mother of all battles." Predicting the fall of dictators is clearly a chancy business. In the hope of opening fissures in the closed polity of North Korea, a group of neoconservative intellectuals, including Max Kampelman, R. James Woolsey, and Penn Kemble, have suggested adding human-rights issues to the diplomatic agenda. A fine idea; but the only way to assure regime change in North Korea is through military action.

But war, we have been told by numerous analysts as well as implicitly by the Bush administration, is "unthinkable." The North Koreans have hundreds of thousands of soldiers and thousands of artillery pieces arrayed in and around the DMZ. Their shells can reach Seoul. Any war would mean the deaths of many thousands of South Korean soldiers and civilians, and many of the 37,000 American troops stationed on the front lines. This is not even to mention whatever harm the North might manage to inflict with its nuclear devices.

Horrible, war would be. But to say that it is unthinkable is once again to hide our head in the sand. Pyongyang itself suffers under no such illusions and no such inhibitions. For its part, it insists that economic sanctions will be taken as an act of war, implying that it would respond with military strikes. Indeed, far from having viewed war with us as unthinkable, the North has calculated its demands on us over the years-that we remove our tactical nuclear weapons, that we persuade the South Koreans to forswear nuclear weapons of their own, that we cancel joint military exercises with Seoul-precisely in order to weaken our ability to resist its own military power. These demands we have systematically granted.

Not only does the North's belligerence leave us no choice but to "think" about war, we cannot exclude the possibility of initiating military action ourselves. Part of the cause of our present predicament is that we ruled out the use of force at earlier points in this saga-when, however painful, it would have been less costly than today. And today it may be less costly than a few years from now, when North Korea will have dozens of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles (it has tested one that could reach Alaska) or when it will have shared them with al Qaeda and others.

IS THERE anything to be learned from the appalling choices we find ourselves facing? The New York Times editorialized in January that Pyongyang's confession had "blown apart the Bush administration's months-long effort to portray Saddam Hussein as uniquely dangerous." The implication was that the North Korean menace spoke against the policy of disarming Iraq by force. What it really did was the opposite. It illustrated how such threats grow ever worse if they are not dealt with resolutely. Contrary to those who airily put their trust in "containment," it gave us a glimpse into how much more dangerous the world would be if we allowed Iraq to join North Korea in the nuclear club. Since appeasement has only emboldened the North Koreans, perhaps making an example of Saddam Hussein may take some of the wind out of their nuclear sails.

In short, our experience with North Korea confirms anew the folly of appeasement and the frailty of "parchment barriers"-not to mention the wisdom of missile defense. Above all, it points up the error of lowering our guard. Since the cold war ended, we were living in something of a fool?s paradise. All of the conflicts in which we were embroiled after the fall of Communism-Kuwait, Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo-were minor in comparison to our decades-long tussle with the Soviet empire. Although the issues were real, the dangers were always contingent, and we enjoyed a wide margin for error. Accordingly, we progressively reduced the size of our military and our spending on weapons until we abandoned, first in practice and then in doctrine, the capacity to wage wars simultaneously on two fronts. The result was, and is, that our ability to confront North Korea is constrained by our mobilization around Iraq-a fact that by itself helps to explain the brazenness of the North Koreans.

With the fall of the Soviet empire, as Francis Fukuyama eloquently explained more than a dozen years ago, no ideology remained to rival our own. Neither was there any foe on the horizon that could hope to vanquish us. Modern weapons, however, endow even a minor power with the capability of wreaking terrible damage, and of killing Americans in larger numbers than Hitler or Tojo. That such weapons can be fielded by North Korea, a country so miserable that infinitely more of its people are eating grass than are shopping at "Wal-Marts," underscores how far removed we are from the old calculus in which military potency derived from industrial might.

The ideological competitors with democracy and capitalism have indeed faded. But these were mostly phenomena of the 20th century. What has remained is something older and deeper: the atavistic impulses of self-aggrandizement and nihilism. How else to classify the motor force behind the dynasty-Communism of the Kims, the Baathism-cum-Islamism of Saddam, the twisted preachings of bin Laden? When there are no longer powerful men like these, then we may truly begin to speak of the end of history. Until then, the preservation of all we hold dear will require unillusioned clarity, vigilance, courage-and, it is to be feared, sacrifice.

This, I think, has to be the bedrock of our national security posture: that we will no longer tolerate the combination of political primitavism and weapons of mass destruction. Containment no longer suffices, if it ever did, when we can not count on a policy of mutual assured destruction to reign in our enemies. At a minimum, regimes like those in Iraq and N. Korea should be deposed and disarmed. This requires the application of military force, not negotiations. The one unlearnable lesson of international negotiations is that at the point you sit down at the table, one side has already lost. No more losses.

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ROUTINE IRAQI POLICY - IT'S IN ALL THE MANUALS:

Iraqi Vice President Predicts More Suicide Attacks on G.I.s (Wall Street Journal, 3/29/2003)

At a news conference, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan threatened more suicide attacks and identified the bomber as Ali Jaafar al-Noamani, a father of several children. A detailed statement would be issued later, he added.

"This is just the beginning. You'll hear more pleasant news later," Mr. Ramadan said.

Asked whether suicide bombings will now be used regularly by the Iraqi military, Mr. Ramadan said, "It will be routine military policy. We will use any means to kill our enemy in our land and we will follow the enemy into its land."

I don't get it. How can Iraq be promising suicide attacks on our own land, i.e. America, if it has no connections to international terrorism?

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WHERE ARE THE POWs - IN TV STUDIOS:

U.S. POWs held by Saddam's inner circle (Washington Times, 3/29/2003)

Seven American prisoners of war have been taken from southern Iraq to Baghdad and are under the direct control of people close to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

One Pentagon official said the expectation is that Saddam's regime will use the captives to score propaganda points by putting them on Iraqi television or forcing them to do an interview with the Arab-language Al Jazeera television network, based in Qatar.

OR SHALLOW GRAVES:

Victims of Success (Jed Babbin, National Review Online, 3/29/2003)

Reports earlier today of Marines finding the bodies of four of their comrades in shallow graves near An Nasiriyah may confirm [Iraqi brutality] yet again. It is unlikely that the Iraqis would bury enemy dead unless they have something to hide. These may be more murdered POWs. We must never forgive, or forget, Iraqi war crimes.

Marines Find Remains of 4 Soldiers Lost in Iraq Ambush
(New York Times, 3/29/2003)

The bodies of four American soldiers were found by Marines on Friday in a shallow grave in the battle-worn town of Nasiriyah, near the Euphrates River.

U.S. Military officials said they believe the four were executed by Iraqi paramilitary forces after being seized in an ambush on Sunday....

On Friday, a Marine unit found the four bodies in a freshly dug grave near a house in the northeast corner of the town of al-Jazeera. An Army official said the four bodies were clothed in U.S. military uniforms.

Finding the POWs has become one of the top tasks for Delta Force and other special forces. Godspeed, fellas.

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STOP THE WAR.

Protesters Arrested In Northampton (Siobhan Skye Rohde, Daily Hampshire Gazette)

You will all be horrified to hear that the main intersection in Northampton, Massachusetts was blocked for fifteen minutes yesterday in order to stop the war. The war, when last heard from, had not yet stopped. When will the madness end?

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LETTING SADDAM MAKE YOUR DECISIONS FOR YOU:

Relations with U.S. doomed until PM goes: MP 'Things won't change until our leadership changes,' Pratt says (Jack Aubry, March 29, 2003, The Ottawa Citizen)

Damaged Canada-U.S. relations can not be repaired until Prime Minister Jean Chretien is replaced, says the Liberal chairman of the Commons defence committee.

Nepean-Carleton MP David Pratt said relations have now fallen to a level not seen since Richard Nixon referred to Pierre Trudeau as that "a--hole" in the early 1970s and John F. Kennedy and John Diefenbaker sparred over Cold War missiles in the early 1960s.

"I don't think things will change until our leadership changes," Mr. Pratt said bluntly. [...]

[M]r. Pratt said it is important that Canada "patch this up just as quickly as we can."

He said one way to do that is for Canada to join the coalition of the willing if the Iraqis use chemical or biological weapons in the war.

There's something almost criminal about the way Germany, France and Canada are practically hoping that Saddam uses chemical weapons so they can get out of the amoral corner they've painted themselves into. How many dead Allied troops and/or Iraqi civilians is it worth just so that they can avoid saying they were wrong? And why doesn't Saddam attacking Kuwait with scuds count as a use of WMD? If Saddam hit Canada with missiles would they not come grovelling to us for help?

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THE FINEST GERMAN ENGINEERING:

Bombs Can't Bust Saddam Bunker, Builder Says (Reuters, 3/28/2003)

The German architect of one of Saddam Hussein's main bunkers in Baghdad said on Friday the Iraqi leader can survive anything short of a direct hit with a nuclear bomb if he stays within its four-feet-thick walls.

"It could withstand the shock wave of a nuclear bomb the size of the Hiroshima one detonating 250 meters away," said Karl Esser, a security consultant who designed the bunker underneath Saddam's main presidential palace in Baghdad.

U.S.-led troops will also find it hard to fight their way in through its three-ton Swiss-made doors, Esser told Reuters in an interview....

Esser said he had no qualms about having helped to protect a dictator likened to Hitler.

"It's not just one person getting protection, it's several people, it's the palace staff as well. I just see it as an achievement of bunker technology," said Esser.

Mr. Esser is proud of his handiwork -- after all, it continues two German traditions, engineering excellence and the support of murderous tyrants.

Europe's gathering crisis is moral at its roots. They are drowning in selfishness. They pursue only their own profit, whether it be measured in money or leisure or comfort. Any profitable deed can be justified, no matter how vicious the consequences. Any burden is too great to bear, be it children or armed conflict or the duties of religion. Action is warranted only to postpone the costs of narcissism. But the bill is growing, and it will sooner or later come due. On that day, Europeans will find they have few friends. The evildoers they have aided will turn on them in contempt; the erstwhile friends they have betrayed will mourn their decay but not, ultimately, their passing.

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ADMIRAL POINDEXTER, WHERE ARE YOU?

Email traffic patterns can reveal ringleaders (Hazel Muir, 27 March 03, New Scientist)

By looking for patterns in email traffic, a new technique can quickly identify online communities and the key people in them. The approach could mean terrorists or criminal gangs give themselves away, even if they are communicating in code or only discussing the weather.

"If the CIA or another intelligence agency has a lot of intercepted email from people suspected of being part of a criminal network, they could use the technique to figure out who the leaders of the network might be," says Joshua Tyler of Hewlett-Packard's labs in Palo Alto, California. At the very least, it would help them prioritise investigations, he says.

Hence, the Total Awareness program, which "civil libertarians" got ditched.

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"I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE, AND IT WORKS" (via EF Brown):

Ukrainians: Revoke famine denier's Pulitzer (Natalia A. Feduschak, 3/29/03, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

"It has become a world action," said Tama Gallo, executive director of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of
America, a New York-based group that began the effort to have the prestigious prize awarded to Walter Duranty in 1932
withdrawn.

Mr. Duranty, who was the Times' Moscow correspondent from 1921 to 1934, won the Pulitzer for a 1931 series of reports
about Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's five-year plans to reform the economy.

His stories appeared in the Times before the Ukrainian famine of 1932-1933, which left 5 million to 10 million dead.

Western historians now generally agree that the famine was the result of Stalin's industrialization effort and an
attempt to break the will of the independence-minded Ukrainian people.

In his 1932-1933 dispatches, Mr. Duranty denied that a famine was occurring in Soviet Ukraine, although he has been
quoted in several books as privately telling friends he had never seen such misery.

That "now" may be the saddest three letter word ever to appear in newsprint. However, the idea of revoking the Pulitzers of every apologist for the Soviet Union who's won one at the Times really may go to far. Who'd be left, Red Smith?

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THE MISSION:

U.S. Teams Seek to Kill Iraqi Elite: Covert Missions Target Hussein's Inner Circle (Dana Priest, March 29, 2003, Washington Post)

U.S. covert teams have been operating in urban areas in Iraq trying to kill members of President Saddam Hussein's inner circle, including Baath Party officials and Special Republican Guard commanders, according to U.S. and other knowledgeable officials.

The covert teams, from the CIA's paramilitary division and the military's special operations group, include snipers and demolition experts schooled in setting house and car bombs. They have reportedly killed more than a handful of individuals, according to one knowledgeable source. They have been in operation for at least one week. [...]

As conventional U.S. and British forces have encountered fiercer than expected Iraqi resistance, the CIA and the Pentagon's covert units are under increasing pressure to fire the "silver bullet" that will kill Hussein and bring down his government, thereby bringing the ground war to a quick conclusion. The agencies have stepped up a fierce psychological operations campaign to rattle key members of Hussein's government in an effort to get them to turn on the Iraqi leader.

The covert teams are just one feature of the largely invisible war being waged in Iraq by the CIA's and Pentagon's growing covert paramilitary and special operations divisions.

CIA units and special operations teams are also involved in organizing tribal groups to fight the Iraqi government from the north. They are secretly hunting for weapons of mass destruction and missiles sites, and are looking to interrogate Iraqi defectors and prisoners of war. The CIA, the National Security Agency and foreign intelligence services cooperating with the agency are helping to identify "leadership" targets; the homes, offices and other sites inhabited by the officials who make up the government's infrastructure.

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CATHOLIC CHURCH DIVIDED OVER WAR:

Two cathedrals, two world views (John Allen, National Catholic Reporter, 3/28/2003)

Anyone who knows the Catholic world must realize that the present anti-war chorus from church leaders is a better index of the force of John Paul II’s personality than of any genuine consensus on the Iraq conflict. Under the papal banner are grouped Catholics with very diverse ideas about the causes of this war, its rights and wrongs, and what its implications are for global geo-politics.

Example: Italy’s left-leaning Catholic Action movement is marching under the slogan “no to the war, yes to peace”; the right-wing Communion and Liberation movement says “no to the war, yes to America.”...

These divisions were transparent in two public events in Rome on Monday evening, March 24. All one had to do was to move across town, from the Basilica of the Holy Apostles to the Cathedral of St. John Lateran, to move in two different Catholic worlds.

Holy Apostles was the site of a Mass commemorating the 23rd anniversary of the murder of El Salvador’s fabled Archbishop Oscar Romero, long a hero to progressive Catholics....

The rainbow peace banner, along with a sky-blue United Nations flag, was carried at the head of the offertory precession during the Mass to bring up the gifts.... The first prayer at the Mass was a meditation which, among other points, stated that the Church “repudiates” the war....

[The Lateran hosted] a lecture on “Work, Solidarity, Liberty: A Global Society in a Humanistic Key?” by Cardinal Diogini Tettamanzi of Milan. The event was part of a series called “Dialogues in the Cathedral” sponsored by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the pope’s vicar for the Rome diocese and John Paul’s personal choice as president of the Italian bishops’ conference....

I bumped into Bishop Rino Fisichella, rector of the Lateran University and a trusted Vatican advisor. Fisichella was one of the primary contributors to the 1998 papal encyclical Fides et Ratio. Fisichella, an auxiliary bishop of the Rome diocese, is also considered the “chaplain” of the Italian parliament.

Fisichella, whose English is exceptionally good, is a long-time friend of the United States. He was the main celebrant at last December’s Immaculate Conception Mass at the North American College, the feast that also marks the foundation of the American seminary in Rome during the pontificate of Pius IX.

Fisichella told me that “this direction we are moving in, of isolating the United States, is terrible.” He said that in Italy there are forces “manipulating” the anti-war humor of the moment to grind ancient ideological axes against the United States and against the West....

Ruini struck a similar note in an address earlier in the day to the Italian bishops’ conference. He called for “constant discernment … in order that the commitment to peace not be confused with markedly different objectives and interests, or polluted by arguments that are really based upon conflict.”

To those with ears to hear, it’s clear what kind of “pollution” Ruini had in mind — a secular leftist peace movement that shades off into opposition to the Atlantic alliance.

Ruini later made an explicit plea for solidarity with the United States....

There are signs that the Vatican, especially in the Secretariat of State where the diplomatic heavy lifting is done, is becoming sensitive to the risk that its peace message could be construed as an ideological choice against the U.S.-led coalition.

Well they should be sensitive, because an ideological choice is apparently what it was.

As I pointed out earlier, the Vatican's anti-war stance has few roots in the Christian tradition, and is arguably contrary to tradition. It is no surprise, therefore, that the Vatican stance is dividing the Church. Moreover, the divide is clearly along ideological lines. The Church's left is not only turning away from tradition, but sacralizing the United Nations. The "peace" they seek is not genuine peace, as the Church has always understood it, but passivity on the part of the West in the face of continued violence from Saddam and his terrorist allies. Their beloved "peace" is merely perpetual warfare.

In light of this ideological divide within the Church, it is hard to understand why the Vatican took such an aggressive stand on an issue about which, tradition says, duly constituted public authorities are the appropriate and best-informed decision-makers. Church officials are creating a deep muddle in the moral theology of war and public governance, and they are going to be increasingly embarrassed by it.

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ROCKET IN MY POCKET:

MADONNA VIDEO ENDS WITH IMAGE OF PRESIDENT BUSH WITH GRENADE IN HIS LAP (DRUDGE REPORT, MARCH 28, 2003)

A final shock scene in the video of AOLTIMEWARNER recording artist Madonna's upcoming release -- is that of the singer throwing a grenade in the lap of President Bush!

"It is not me being anti-Bush, it's me being ironic and tongue in cheek," Madonna explains to NBC's ACCESS HOLLYWOOD this weekend.

"My kind of wish for peace and my desire to sort of turn a weapon of destruction, which is a grenade, into something that is completely innocuous."

Madonna uses a Bush look-alike in the final scene of AMERICAN LIFE. The "president" picks up the lit grenade that Madonna throws --and lights his cigar with it!

The image is "my wish to find an alternative to violence to war and destruction," the singer says.

Of course, anyone who cares about personal hygiene would much prefer to have a grenade than a disease vector like Madonna in their lap.

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VOUCHERS NOW:

Students want out of Muslim culture class (DARLA L. PICKETT, 3/26/03, Blethen Maine Newspapers)

Some students at Madison Area Memorial High School are objecting to studying the Arab and Muslim culture and religion while the United States is at war with Iraq.

About three dozen students have signed a petition that calls for seniors to be given the option to take alternative assignments in the senior English class project, according to 18-year-old senior Richard Poulin, who circulated the petition. [...]

"I'm a Christian," Poulin said. "How come we can't sit down and study why we worship what we do, but we can sit down and study what another country does?" [...]

School Administrative District 59 Superintendent Anthony Krapf said the school board and teachers must follow educational guidelines.

"It's up to us to follow the adopted curriculum," Krapf said. "As a public school we must prepare students to go out into different types of culture - because our job is to help the students, these young adults, to fit in and understand other cultures."

You'd be hard pressed to find a situation that better sums up the problem with public education in America: Western civilization is at war with at least a radical interpretation of Islam, yet the schools won't teach our kids about their own civilization and want to sensitize them to that of the enemy.

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DASCHLE'S NO LINDBERGH:

Remaining true to history (THOMAS ROESER, March 29, 2003, Chicago Sun-Times)

All arguments against the war--including mine--are moot now. The decision has been made, and our job is not to nurse misgivings but to win in Iraq.

Compared to what occurred 62 years ago, the anti-war movement in the United States is scanty and timorous. In 1941, it was of enormous influence. The ''America First'' movement was based in this city, and its rallies featured the hero Charles Lindbergh and Sears Roebuck tycoon retired Gen. Robert Wood, among others. The movement extended throughout the nation and included young John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. But Dec. 7 brought an end to all that. The issue became a ''time for unity.'' As indeed it should be today, as our troops are engaged in the struggle in Iraq. [...]

One job remains uncompleted now that we are resolved to win this war. It involves the senior senator from South Dakota, Tom Daschle, who has said that the death of a single soldier would be the fault of President George W. Bush.

Daschle should resign as Senate minority leader. No one should lead a party who is so insensitive to the demands of national unity. Whether or not Daschle steps down or his party removes him, any additional words from him should be regarded as irrelevant. What is important now is that we triumph and show the world that Iraq's chamber of horrors will not stand.

Mr. Roeser, though well-intentioned, apparently doesn't get the difference between "America First" and "Me First".

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WHAT TIES TO TERRORISM?:

Terror team tried to sneak into Texas through Mexico (JAMES GORDON MEEK, 3/29/03, NY DAILY NEWS)

An Iraqi terror team armed with millions of dollars tried to get smuggled into the U.S. through Mexico to Crawford, Tex. - the site of President Bush's ranch, a law enforcement source said yesterday.

The alarming attempt to infiltrate the country occurred this month, the source said.

It is not known what the Iraqis planned to do in Crawford, but Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein tried to assassinate Bush's father, the former President George Bush, in 1993.

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LET A MILLION MOGADISHUS BLOOM:

Columbia professor's anti-U.S. military call (AP, 3/29/03)

A Columbia University professor told an anti-war gathering that he would like to see "a million Mogadishus" -- referring to the 1993 ambush in Somalia that killed 18 American servicemen.

At Wednesday night's "teach-in" on the Columbia campus, Nicholas De Genova also called for the defeat of U.S. forces in Iraq and said, "The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military." And he asserted that Americans who call themselves "patriots" are white supremacists.

De Genova's comments about defeating the United States in Iraq were cheered by the crowd of 3,000, Newsday reported. But his mention of the Somali ambush -- "I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus" -- was largely met with silence.

I agree with Mr. De Genova. This is a war of Western (therefore largely, but certainly not exclusively, white) supremacy over primitivism and we should keep it up for as many Mogadishus as it takes. Mogadishu after all was not a tactical loss--though the deaths of 18 American men is always a terrible thing, they did complete their mission and killed thousands of Somalis--but a strategic one--because we then bolted the country rather than face another such incident. By the end of a million Mogadishus there'd hopefully be no one left to fight and any question about our willingness to vindicate Western Civilization would be laid to rest. Of course we'd mourn the loss of 18 million Americans, but folks are always hailing the sacrifices of the Soviets in WWII, who spent 20 million lives to fend off Hitler. If the war on terror requires something similar of us are we unwilling to win it?

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THE NADIR:

U.S. Forces Out of Vietnam; Hanoi Frees the Last P.O.W. (Joseph B. Treaster, 3/29/73, The New York Times)

The last American troops left South Vietnam today, leaving behind an unfinished war that has deeply scarred this country and the United States.

If this was not the low point in American history, then this surely was: Senate Rejects Vietnam Aid Rise (John W. Finney, May 7, 1974, The New York Times). Yet few Americans have ever come to grips with the fact that the supposedly artificial South Vietnamese government and unwilling people fought on for over two years after we bugged out and a year after Ted Kennedy pulled the rug out. Regardless of whether you think we should ever have been there in the first place or how you think we conducted ourselves once there, you can't help but be ashamed that we not only refused to help defend them from the North but even refused to help them defend themselves.

If the Shi'a of Iraq are slow to rise and the Ba'athist believe they can win just by making the war bloody enough, much of the blame lies with ourselves, because the lessons of Vietnam (and of the Battle of the Black Sea, which Saddam seems to have gone to school on) are that we're an uncertain ally and a squeamish foe. Such is the price we continue to pay for the victory of the anti-war forces as regards Vietnam.

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THE 21ST HIJACKER?:

Evidence links Moussaoui to possible second attacks (John Solomon, 3/29/03, Associated Press)

U.S. authorities have gathered detailed evidence in southeast Asia that links accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui with the Sept. 11 hijackers and planners as well as a broader al-Qaida plan for a second wave of attacks, according to foreign and American officials and intelligence documents.

The evidence, according to those familiar with it, reinforces U.S. authorities assessment that al-Qaida began shifting some operational planning and fund-raising to southeast Asia well before the 2001 attacks and that Moussaoui was part of a terrorist plot that was broader than the suicide hijackings in New York and Washington.

A key link, the officials say, is a captured Malaysian chemist named Yazid Sufaat who authorities believe hosted both the hijackers and Moussaoui in Malaysia at different times in 2000 and provided Moussaoui with fake papers to make his way to the United States.

The evidence and timelines have led authorities overseas and here to explore whether Moussaoui and Sufaat "were tasked to set up a network to prepare for the second wave of attacks after Sept. 11," one senior foreign intelligence official in southeast Asia said, speaking only on condition of anonymity.

The alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, has also told U.S interrogators since his capture a month ago in Pakistan that Moussaoui was supposed to prepare for a second wave of attacks that were to follow Sept. 11.

Given all that we know, it still seems likely that Mr. Moussaoui, had he not been in custody, would have been the 20th hijacker on 9-11. But, whatever the case, the folks who have been complaining about the weakness of the circumstantial evidence linking him to al Qaeda have some soul searching to do.

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IT'S ALL IN OUR MINDS:

Iraq latest: At-a-glance: BBC News Online charts the latest developments in the Iraq conflict. (Saturday, 29 March, 0930)

A suicide bomber has killed five Americans soldiers in an attack near the city of Najaf in central Iraq, US military officials say.

So the analyst on the BBC was asked if this was to be expected: "Only if you believed the Americans when they said there were Iraqi links to terrorism.

Q: "Might it support the Administration's case in that regard?"

A: "No, only Americans will believe this is terrorism, because they wish to. But this is nothing unusual--suicide bombings have been used in Sri Lanka and by the Kamikazes in WWII."

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ATROCITY WATCH PT 2 (via Volokh Conspiracy):

Iraqis greeting invaders being shot (Shyam Batia, Rediff.com, 3/29/2003)

Civilians who greet US and British troops are being executed on President Saddam Hussein's orders, according to a former chief scientist of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission, Dr Hussein Shahristani.

The most recent outrage was carried out in the small town of Khidr, between Nasiriyah and Samawa, where some families were accused of cheering the US soldiers who drove through their locality, Dr Shahristani who is now chairman of the Iraq Refugee Aid Council, told rediff.com

Their executions started as soon as the US soldiers left, the scientist, who is now based in Kuwait, said.

"These [coalition] troops pass through local towns and villages and do not stop for long enough to clean up Saddam's terror apparatus.

"When they depart, the civilian families are left to the mercy of Ba'ath party officials and the thugs in charge of Saddam's fidayeen militia.

"Those Iraqis who refuse to serve on the frontline are also being shot," he said.

Dr Shahristani said he had been informed of the killing of a tribal leader, Rahim Karim, who was late by five minutes for a meeting with Saddam's cousin and local governor, Aly Hasan Al Majeed.

Karim had come to discuss how members of his tribe could be mobilised for frontline duty, but Majeed lost his temper and had him shot.

Soon, we have to begin systematically going through towns and villages, working with the local citizenry to identify the regime's agents, and killing or imprisoning them.

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ATROCITY WATCH:

More Evidence (Jed Babbin, National Review Online, 3/27/2003)

There are apparently two versions of the tape shown by Al Jazeera. The second, shown over and over on Egyptian TV, shows both the murder of American POWs and the desecration of their bodies. Though the tape has been shown over and over in the Middle East, congressional requests for access to it have so far been denied. One source told me that some of what he saw reminded him of the murder of Danny Pearl. The public doesn't need to see all these tapes. But more people in government do, and they need to tell the press. The lack of public reaction to these horrors troubles me greatly. Maybe it's because there's so little knowledge of any of the details.

The networks are too busy telling us that the war's going badly to thoroughly report Iraqi atrocities. It's important that we understand our enemy; because terror attacks and more conflicts lie ahead of us, and we have to know there is no alternative to victory.

Marines Out to Avenge Blood of 'Executed' GIs (New York Post, 3/25/2003)

THE Marines at this chopper base near the Iraqi border are seething with rage and talking revenge over the treatment of American POWs - paraded on TV and some possibly executed.

"OK, they want to play that way. We can play that way," vowed one enraged pilot.

Marine after Marine had the same message - many of them warning that there would be "no second chances for those Iraqis now."...

"We want to help these people and look what they're doing to us," said more than one shocked Marine....

During an air raid yesterday ... one Marine's muffled swearing was heard above the din.

Repeating the sneering nickname used for Saddam Hussein, he kept saying, " 'So damn' insane, 'so damn' insane. I'm going to come up there myself and kill you."

There are times, St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, when righteous anger is good -- otherwise God would not have created us capable of this emotion. This is one of those times. Cold, relentless anger.

One caveat: our guys have to know who their enemy is. They have to know that most Iraqis are terror victims just as we are.

Go get 'em, guys. Keep the pressure on.

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DEJA VU:

Iraq: U.S. Missile Kills 58 in Baghdad (HAMZA HENDAWI, 3/28/03, Associated Press)

Iraq's information minister said at least 58 people were killed Friday in a crowded market in northwest Baghdad by what local officials called a coalition bombing.

The market was strewn with wreckage and there were bloodstains on a sidewalk. Crowds of mourners wailed and blood-soaked children's slippers sat on the street not far from a crater blasted into the ground.

The U.S. Central Command in Qatar said it was looking into the report. Iraqi officials have blamed U.S. forces for explosions at another market that killed 14 people on Wednesday. The Pentagon had denied targeting the neighborhood.

What the heck, the last one they blamed on us worked so well they decided to do it again, even down to using a marketplace.

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A KEEPER OF SHEEP AND A TILLER OF GROUND:

-ESSAY: Not in our name: this is a left-wing conflict and Conservatives should not support it (Peter Hitchens, 3/29/03, The Spectator)

There is nothing conservative about war. For at least the last century war has been the herald and handmaid of socialism and state control. It is the excuse for censorship, organised lying, regulation and taxation. It is paradise for the busybody and the nark. It damages family life and wounds the Church. It is, in short, the ally of everything summed up by the ugly word "progress".

If you're a policy wonk, this war nearly justifies itself simply by the delightful spectacle of the conservative Hitchens brother opposing it and the Marxist Hitchens supporting it.

MORE:
THE BRUTES OF BAGHDAD: IF SADDAM RAISED HIS TWO SONS TO BE AS VICIOUS HE IS, THEY'RE DOING HIM PROUD (BARBARA LAKER, 3/28/03, Philadelphia Daily News)

ONE IS a sadistic playboy who rapes 12-year-old girls and tortures friends for amusement.

The other is a methodical, ruthless enforcer who kills for political power, then has his victims buried in mass graves.

They are Saddam Hussein's infamous sons - two evil brothers with blood on their hands.

The Brutes of Baghdad.

Well, as Peter Hitchens has said: "as far as I am concerned Conservatism depends entirely upon the family and family values."

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AT WAR WITH TERRORISTS (via Rantburg):

Bus attack a suicidal new tactic (Sydney Morning Herald, 3/28/2003)

United States troops say they are dealing with a new tactic from Iraqi soldiers - a willingness to use civilians in suicide attacks to halt the American advance.

As coalition soldiers drove through a dust storm on Wednesday afternoon, fighters believed to be from Saddam Hussein's Baath Party drove a bus, the passengers still aboard, into a Bradley fighting vehicle.

The brief and vicious firefight left the road littered with bodies, all Iraqis, and wrecked vehicles. Small-arms fire cracked and popped overhead even as medical personnel attended the Iraqi wounded.

US commanders said they expect suicide attacks to become more commonplace as coalition forces move toward Baghdad.

"They have decided on suicide missions to get at us," said Charlie Company commander Captain Jason Conroy, 30. "We need to be really careful about any civilian vehicles approaching us."

He said the 7th Cavalry had lost two Abrams tanks to attacks by civilian fuel tankers. "They are just running the trucks into the tanks and exploding them. They could do the same with cars loaded with [munitions]."

Among the Iraqis captured in Wednesday's battle was one who appeared to be wearing an American-style desert camouflage uniform.

No tactic is too depraved for Saddam's regime. Careful, guys, and God bless.

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ME STAND ON GUARD FOR ME:

Deporting a woman to torture? (Uwe Siemon-Netto, 3/24/2003, UPI)

Has Canada indirectly condemned an Iranian woman to be persecuted, tortured or even killed because of her conversion from Islam to Christianity?

The Canadian authorities ordering her deportation back to her homeland on April 24 do not believe this will happen in Iran, even though the U.S. State Department declared last year: "The (Iranian) government does not ensure the right of citizens to change or renounce their religious faith. Apostasy, specifically conversion from Islam, can be punishable by death."

Sylvie Duval, examiner for the Canadian Government's Pre-Removal Risk Assessment, denied that a nurse from Tehran seeking asylum in Montreal would face much peril if sent home.

"There is no serious reason to believe that her life would be endangered or that she might fall victim to torture or other cruel punishments," Duval concluded in a 15-page summary. This differed significantly from the view on which U.S. immigration appeals boards base their decisions in similar cases.

Attorney Patti Lyman, who handles asylum cases for Just Law International, a Virginia-based firm, told United Press International Monday of Board of Immigration Appeals decisions stating that a convert to Christianity "is more likely than not to be persecuted in Iran."

"By definition, a Muslim convert (to Christianity) meets the standard convention against torture and will more likely than not be subjected to torture," she added.

Since it doesn't affect the National Health service, Canadians don't care, eh? At least American conservatives fought to keep Elian Gonzales here.

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UNDER GOD:

House Approves National Day of Prayer (AP, Mar 27, 2003)

The House passed a resolution Thursday calling for a national day of humility, prayer and fasting in a time of war and terrorism.

The resolution, passed 346-49, says Americans should use the day of prayer "to seek guidance from God to achieve a greater understanding of our own failings and to learn how we can do better in our everyday activities, and to gain resolve in meeting the challenges that confront our nation."

Under the resolution, President Bush would issue a proclamation designating a specific day as a day of "humility, prayer and fasting." [...]

A similar resolution approved on March 17 said it was the sense of the Senate that that day should be a national day of prayer and fasting.

What about Jefferson's wall, we hear them whine....

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HALF RIGHT, SURPRISINGLY:

A Bad Remake of Vietnam? (Eleanor Clift, 3/28/03, Newsweek)

Nearly every prediction about this war has proved wrong. Americans were led to believe it would be over in a weekend, that U.S. air power would "shock and awe" the enemy, that Iraqi troops would lay down their arms and civilians would welcome us as conquering heroes. Instead we're embroiled in a conflict that looks like a bad remake of Vietnam with an enemy that fights in civilian dress. The bravado of a week ago is gone. "It's out of our hands," sighs a White House aide. In an echo of Vietnam, military leaders say they are hamstrung by the rules of engagement. [...]

Congress will vote every penny for the war, but Democrats dealt the White House a blow when they teamed up with a handful of moderate Republicans to cut Bush's proposed tax cut from $727 billion to $350 billion. It's a pyrrhic victory because when the Senate bill is reconciled with the more generous House version, most of the money will almost certainly be restored. Democrats are clueless about how to challenge Bush. Voting for half a massive tax break instead of the whole thing isn't a winning message. "WE'RE SLIGHTLY MODERATING THE ADMINISTRATION'S EXCESSES doesn't fit on a bumper sticker," says a Democratic aide. GOP moderates aren't faring much better. If past history is any guide, they will capitulate and Bush will get what he wants.

The Vietnam comparison is inane, but she's the first pundit we've seen who writes sensibly about the Democrats' illusory tax cut "victory".

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SEEKING A PROMOTION:

Rumsfeld Warns Syria on Iraq Equipment (MATT KELLEY, 3/28/03, Associated Press)

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned Syria on Friday to stop sending military equipment to Iraqi forces, a charge that Mideast nation called "absolutely unfounded."

Rumsfeld said he had "information that shipments of military supplies have been crossing the border from Syria into Iraq, including night vision goggles."

"We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments," he told a Pentagon press conference. He didn't say what the other equipment was, and several senior Defense Department officials said they didn't know.

Syrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Bouthaine Shaban rejected Rumsfeld's statement as "unfounded and irresponsible."

"He only brings problems for his country and humanity at large," she told Britain's Channel 4 television in a telephone interview from Damascus. "It is an absolutely unfounded, irresponsible statement, just like his statements that brought his country and the allied countries into a terrible war, unnecessary war on Iraq."

Syrian President Bashar Assad has described the military action against Iraq as "clear occupation and a flagrant aggression against a United Nations member state."

Aware of an imminent opening on the Axis of Evil, Syria is making its bid to be added.

N.B.--Hey, Mr. Murtaugh, note how we're already doing the spadework for a future Tonkin-like episode with Syria?

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DUKAKIS REDUX:

Kerry tries to clarify Southern campaign strategy to colleagues (Nedra Pickler, 3/28/2003 , Associated Press)

Presidential candidate John F. Kerry has been passing notes on the Senate floor, assuring his Southern Democratic colleagues that he plans to compete in their home states.

The Massachusetts senator distributed verbatim text of remarks he gave earlier this month at a fund-raiser in California when he was asked about his chances in the conservative-leaning South.

Kerry slipped the note, a copy of which was obtained by the Associated Press, to a few colleagues Wednesday while the Senate deliberated the budget. He was prompted by a story Monday in The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C., titled, ''Kerry might have written off the South,'' that referred to his speech.

''Al Gore proved that you can get elected president of the United States without winning one Southern state - if he had simply won New Hampshire or West Virginia or Ohio or Colorado or a number of other states,'' Kerry said at the fund-raiser. ''We are the leaders. Democrats have to stop looking at the small solution that the country is compartmentalized in that way.''

The prospective nomination of John Kerry risks not only handing the election to George W. Bush but driving Democratic numbers in Congress to lows not seen since before the Depression.

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WHAT'S THE BAD NEWS?:

And Now, the Good News: The administration should have prepared the country better for the cost of war, but at least this war will be won, and won decisively. (Michael O'Hanlon, 3/28/03, NY Times)

Last week's euphoria over a quick start to the invasion of Iraq has now been almost entirely overtaken by gloom. Pentagon officials are on the defensive when discussing their war plan; images of sandstorms and black-masked Iraqi irregulars and American prisoners of war fill TV screens here and abroad; the looming battle for Baghdad has made many feel a deep sense of foreboding.

Perhaps the Bush administration deserves it. It did not begin to emphasize the potential for a difficult war until hostilities began. Pentagon advisers like Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman have been promising a cakewalk to Baghdad for 18 months; in the late 1990's, Paul Wolfowitz, now the deputy defense secretary, argued that a small American force fighting in conjunction with the Iraqi opposition could quickly overthrow Saddam Hussein.

But despite this week's proof that war is not always easy, the invasion is not going badly.

Maybe cakewalk means something different to different people, but it seems fair to judge the current campaign against a couple of prior "cakewalks": the First Iraq War and the Afghan War. The first lasted only about thirty days and the second lasted about two months, if you consider it to have begun on 9-11. Here in the Second Iraq War we're in the second week. Certainly many of us thought that Saddam and his regime were so despised that, particularly after the decapitation strike, the Ba'athists would have trouble maintaining the regime. we underestimated how much more the benighted people of Iraq fear Saddam than just hate him. In some sense, we failed to believe our own rhetoric, failed to reckon with the willingness, even eagerness, of Saddam loyalists to kill the Iraqi people themselves if they wouldn't fight. The Ba'athists are as bad as we said, so we were wrong about how likely it was that people would or could defy them. This has indeed slowed a conflict that seemed like it could end in a week. Still, if it ends within the next two weeks or so it will surely qualify for cakewalk status, won't it?

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THEY CAN BE FREE OR WE CAN BE LIKED:

Hearts and Minds (NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, 3/28/03, NY Times)

Americans should be able to find common ground, for all sides dream of an Iraq that is democratic and an America that is again admired around the world.

There is no evidence that the doves care about the former, that the hawks care about the latter, or that Iraqi freedom is compatible with America being admired in France.

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BE GONE:

N Korea solution possible, says envoy (Andrew Ward, March 27 2003, Financial Times)

North Korea fears it could be the next target of US military action after Iraq but a diplomatic solution to the communist country's dispute with Washington is within reach, according to the United Nations envoy who held talks in Pyongyang earlier this week.

The solution to the North Korea crisis can be detailed in two words: regime change.

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HAWKISH IN HANOVER:

Military Strategy Update (Laura Knoy, 03/28/2003, The Exchange)

We'll look at the military's war plan on the battlefield in Iraq: what's working, what's not, and what we learned from the first Gulf War. Laura's guests are Daryl Press, assistant professor of Government at Dartmouth College [http://www.dartmouth.edu], and William Martel, professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College [http://www.nwc.navy.mil]

Good discussion includes one of our local stars: Daryl Press, whose piece on urban warfare from the Times we discussed below. And more reasonable guests produce a less hysterical reaction to a bloodthirsty question from the Right-Wing Whacko of the Upper Valley (about 31 minutes in).

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THANKS FOR NOTHING (via Rantburg):

I refused to help Bush: PM (Hindustan Times, 3/27/2003)

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Thursday told the media how George Bush thrice sought his help in the war on Iraq, and how he refused the American President.

"The US President George Bush has spoken to me three times saying that India must help the USA as Sadaam Hussein had left him with no option but to go for the attack," he told journalists after a dedication programme of the Chakara Nala Patni Watershed Management Plan prepared by the Deendayal Research Institute run by Nanaji Deshmukh here.

Vajpayee told Bush that India believed war was not a solution to any problem and so could not help. India is also trying to consolidate the support of many countries to prevent escalation of the battle between US and Iraq, Vajpayee said.

India's hostility to the U.S. has always puzzled me. Our common language, shared democratic values, and commercial ties, I would have thought, would unite us with India more than with other countries of the region. But it hasn't worked out that way.

Just as India's socialist ideology is in retreat, its Hindu nationalism is rising and may deepen the ideological gap that divides us.

I hope that the U.S. and India can grow closer, but this may prove to be one of those friendships that just never develops.

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META-MERICA:

Medic made famous in photo enlisted after 9-11 (Robert Hodierne, March 27, 2003, Air Force Times)

The war in Iraq is only a week old and one photograph has already become an icon: A young, grimy soldier in full battle gear, a look a deep concern on his face, carrying a wounded Iraqi child to safety.

The photograph has been on newspaper front pages around the world and broadcast on most American television networks. The military brass has mentioned it when briefing the press.

The soldier in the picture, Pfc. Joseph P. Dwyer, 26, is still in the field, about 80 miles outside Baghdad with his outfit in the 3rd Infantry Division. [He was misidentified by a superior in the field and in the original caption.] Until today, he hadn’t a clue that he was famous. His reaction when he found out?

He laughed.

And couldn’t stop laughing. He was both amused by this and embarrassed.

“Really, I was just one of a group of guys. I wasn’t standing out more than anyone else,” he said in a telephone conversation during some rare down time.

Dwyer has lived the past six years in Wagram, N.C., where his parents moved after his father retired as a New York transit policeman. Dwyer grew up in Mt. Sinai on New York’s Long Island. His three older brothers are New York City policeman. One brother lost a partner when the Trade Center towers collapsed.

“I mean everyone lost someone, a lot of good people,” he said. Dwyer was sure that he had lost someone, too; he believed that his brother had been killed. “I thought he was gone.”

But when he talked to him the night of Sept. 11 and learned his brother was safe, “I knew I had to do something.”

Two days later, Dwyer enlisted in the Army to become a medic.

“It was just what I could do at the time,” he said.

An almost perfect metaphor for America: we're attacked; he wants to do something; he ends up saving a child of our enemy. We fight that one day soon an Iraqi version of Pfc. Dwyer may return the favor for another oppressed people somewhere in the world.

MORE:
British troops attempt to rescue civilians under fire (NICOLE WINFIELD, March 28, 2003, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
And, at our sides, thanks to Tony Blair and Ian Duncan Smith, the nation that birthed us and, thanks to John Howard, our Australian brothers.

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A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT:

Seeing blacks in lead boosts confidence (MARY MITCHELL, 3/27/03, Chicago SUN-TIMES)

While getting dressed for work, I noticed that the man on TV standing at the podium taking tough questions from cranky journalists was a black man.

I almost poked myself in the eye with a makeup brush.

This is huge. As huge as Secretary of State Colin Powell taking questions from members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the State Department budget on Wednesday.

As huge as National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's role was in shaping America's policy toward Saddam Hussein.

Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy director of operations at the U.S. Central Command headquarters in Qatar, is the man whose words must reflect the truth about this war. [...]

He is the kind of leader that is critical to the military today.

African-American soldiers account for more than 35 percent of the Army's troops. Half the Army's enlisted women are black. In fact, African-American soldiers represent 21 percent of all military branches, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Many of these men and women did not expect to go to war. For most of them, the military was a refuge or a second chance.

At a time like this, blacks should not be tearing these people down, they should be holding them up for people like Jacqueline Atkins.

Although Atkins has exchanged e-mails with her son, Dequan Atkins, 25, she hasn't seen him since he enlisted in the Navy four years ago.

As far as she knows, her son could be in Iraq because he is stationed on a U.S. Naval ship. What she does know is that she really doesn't want him "over there."

"He got himself in the Navy. He was running with the wrong crowd. He made the decision. But he had to do something or he had to get out of the house," she said.

Now she is confused about why young men like him are involved in a war.

"I don't think they should be over there. There are people here who are homeless and people here who are suffering," Atkins said.

There won't be any peace for these mothers until their sons and daughters come home.

But leadership from honorable people such as Powell, Rice and Brooks should give them hope.

Try re-reading this one with "white" substituted for "black" and "Bush", "Rumsfeld", "Franks" substituted for "Powell", "Rice", "Brooks", so that the gist becomes: it's okay, though they'd be justified in opposing it otherwise, for white men to support the war, because white men are running it. Now tell me what mainstream publication would run the column?

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ALL EVIL CONVERGES:

Al-Qaida fighting alongside Saddam's forces: British interrogators say POWs reveal members of bin Laden's group in Basra (WorldNetDaily.com, March 28, 2003)

Captured Iraqi soldiers have told British military interrogators that members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network are fighting alongside Saddam Hussein's forces against U.S. and British troops near Basra.

Specifically, the Iraqi POWs claim that about a dozen al-Qaida members are in the town of Az Zubayr, coordinating grenade and other attacks on coalition positions, according to a Scotsman report carried in several papers, including London's Financial Times.

"The information we have received from POWs today is that an al-Qaida cell may be operating in Az Zubayr," a senior British military source inside Iraq said in the report. "There are possibly around a dozen of them and that is obviously a matter of concern to us."

If true, and it's far too preliminary to say that it is, the folks, at least here in the U.S., who opposed the war are going to have some big time back-pedaling to do. Even they concede the need to wipe out al Qaeda and if they were an impediment to that, there'll be a cost to pay at the polls.

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THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL ARAB NATION:

I was intrigued by Nelson Ascher's March 24 post at Europundits suggesting that the European and Arab mindsets were converging:

I don’t know how the antiwar Europeans will react to Anglo-American-Australian victory, but one thing is sure: they won’t identify with it and from this to a feeling of also having been defeated is just a small step. Their sense of impotence after so many protests might be overwhelming. I wouldn’t be too surprised at seeing the Western European psyche beginning resemble, in many significant ways, the Arab one....

Actually, it is the two psyches, the European and the Arab, that are on the move, a convergent move.... I also think (though this would need factual research) that the pro-Palestinian European left's influence on the Arab masses, giving legitimacy to anti-Semitism under the guise of anti-Zionism, has been at least as decisive as the rather cruder propaganda one finds in the Arab press and the mosques. It is easy to note that, when speaking in Western languages, the Arabs use the left's anti-Zionist vocabulary and are conscious of politically correct conventions. Thus, it is not a simple matter of Europeans influencing Arabs or vice-versa, but rather a case of two convergent mentalities discovering through anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism lots of common ground as well as what Goethe would have called their "elective affinities".

I have always felt there were strong affinities between all philo-tyrannic ideologies. In his brilliant The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek pointed out that in the post-WWI era Nazis and Communists united to drive out all that was liberal, and recruited members from among each other's ranks. They only turned upon one another once liberalism was defeated and the question was who would rule. The European left and the Islamofascists may be uniting in a similar fashion today.

The observation of Muslim-European convergence, particularly in France, is appearing elsewhere:

Hating "l'Oncle Sam" (Christopher Caldwell, Weekly Standard, 3/31/2003)

Chirac ... has long been something of a hero in the Arab world.... Palestinian families have begun to name their newborn boys "Chirac." When he visited Algeria early this month, crowds estimated at over a million turned out to acclaim him. And a new book that arrived in Paris bookstores last week--"L'Orient de Jacques Chirac," written by the Egyptian journalist and literary critic Ahmed Youssef--compares Chirac to Alexander the Great and Aladdin. Indeed, Youssef meekly expresses his hope that he might serve as Cicero to Chirac's Caesar, or Stendhal to his Napoleon....

French public opinion has come into sync with the opinion of its Arab immigrants and their children. On such matters as American militarism and the Middle East, its poll numbers resemble those of an Arab country. When the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) asked citizens whether they approved of the American attacks on Iraq, the answer was Non, by 87 percent to 12 percent. Voters do approve of Chirac's position by 92 percent to 8 percent. Under such circumstances, Muslims feel themselves much more part of the country.

I do not think this is just a temporary war-driven phenomenon. Iraqi citizens are united with American soldiers to drive out Saddam, but they are clearly suspicious of us and believe our interests will diverge at some point. There seems to be no such suspicion in the Muslim fondness for Chirac.

France abandoned Christianity long ago. Will it embrace aspects of modern Islam? It is possible that France will soon be the world's most powerful Arab nation.

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LOOSE THE FATEFUL LIGHTNING:

Pacifist says 'I was wrong' (Rev. Ken Joseph Jr., March 27, 2003, United Press International)

I was wrong. I had opposed the war on Iraq in my radio program, on television and in my regular columns -- and I participated in demonstrations against it in Japan. But a visit to relatives in Baghdad radically changed my mind.

I am an Assyrian Christian, born and raised in Japan, where my father had moved after World War II to help rebuild the country. He was a Protestant minister, and so am I.

As an Assyrian I was told the story of our people from a young age -- how my grandparents had escaped the great Assyrian Holocaust in 1917, settling finally in Chicago.

There are some 6 million Assyrians now, about 2.5 million in Iraq and the rest scattered across the world. Without a country and rights even in our native land, it has been the prayer of generations that the Assyrian Nation will one day be restored.

A few weeks ago, I traveled to Iraq with supplies for our Church and family. This was my first visit ever to the land of my forefathers. The first order of business was to attend Church. During a simple meal for peace activists after the service, an older man sounded me out carefully.

Finally he felt free to talk: "There is something you should know -- we didn't want to be here tonight. When the priest asked us to gather for a Peace Service, we said we didn't want to come because we don't want peace. We want the war to come."

"What in the world are you talking about?" I blurted.

Thus began a strange odyssey that shattered my convictions. At the same time, it gave me hope for my people and, in fact, hope for the world.

George W. Bush should put him on the air for a national address.

---

WE LOST THE REPUBLIC, BUT SAVED PART OF ONE AMENDMENT TEMPORARILY!:

Al-Jazeera Web Site Faces Continued Hacker Attacks (Reuters, March 27, 2003)

Hacker attacks continued to plague the Web site of Arab satellite TV network al-Jazeera on Thursday, as cyber-vandals replaced the news site with a stars-and-stripes logo saying "Let Freedom Ring".

Both the Arabic site, at (http://www.aljazeera.net), and the English-language version at (http://english.aljazeera.net) could not be accessed Thursday. Users who tried to log onto the site found a message that read, "Hacked by Patriot, Freedom Cyber Force Militia" beneath a logo containing the U.S. flag.

"This broadcast was brought to you by: Freedom Cyber Force Militia," the site said. "God bless our troops!!!"

Libertarians and civil libertarians--the former are broadly of the Right, the latter of the Left--never sound more foolish than when they insist on the absolute nature of rights that were never intended to be ends in themselves but merely means to a greater end. Thus we have a right to freedom of the press not because there's anything intrinsically worthwhile in a free press but because the Founders, in their wisdoom, understood it to be important for a competing institution to be able to hold the State accountable. This is one of the means they created of ensuring that our own government does not become too great a threat to our freedom, that freedom which allows us to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice and all the rest.

But the press too is an institution and can become a threat to our freedom and when it does so it is appropriate to deal with it accordingly. To do otherwise it to elevate the means above the ends. And where, as in the case of al-Jazeera, you have a press that--whether directly or indirectly--serves the purposes of terrorists and terror states with whom we are at war, the suggestion that they are entitled to full freedom is simply absurd. It is comparable to complaining that patriots were shredding Der Angriff during WWII. We should, in fact, make al-Jazeera a military target, just as would any other enemy propaganda operation in time of war.

The willingness to accept risks to the very existence of the Union in order to fetishize subsidiary rights that it protects, but which it need protect only where they perfect the Union, is an almost suicidal instance of putting the cart before the ass. If folks succeed in protecting al-Jazeera from interference at the cost of letting it spread the lies of Osama and Saddam until the Arab world is whipped into a homicidal frenzy and we end up in an ever widening war, who will thank them for their actions?

---

NO BLOOD FOR IRAQI FREEDOM:

See men shredded, then say you don't back war (Ann Clwyd, 3/18/03, Times of
London)

"There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein's youngest son] personally supervise these murders."

This is one of the many witness statements that were taken by researchers from Indict (the organization I chair) to provide evidence for legal cases against specific Iraqi individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. This account was taken in the past two weeks.

Another witness told us about practices of the security services towards women: "Women were suspended by their hair as their families watched; men were forced to watch as their wives were raped . . . women were suspended by their legs while they were menstruating until their periods were over, a procedure designed to cause humiliation."

The accounts Indict has heard over the past six years are disgusting and horrifying. Our task is not merely passively to record what we are told but to challenge it as well, so that the evidence we produce is of the highest quality. All witnesses swear that their statements are true and sign them.

For these humanitarian reasons alone, it is essential to liberate the people of Iraq from the regime of Saddam. The 17 UN resolutions passed since 1991 on Iraq include Resolution 688, which calls for an end to repression of Iraqi civilians. It has been ignored. Torture, execution and ethnic-cleansing are everyday life in Saddam's Iraq.

Kind of puts the deaths of civilians--as collateral damage--into perspective doesn't it? Whether the opponents of war choose to accept the responsibility or not, to be pro-peace is to be pro-shredder.

---

OUT OF THE THIRD SHADOW:

Roy Jenkins would have been so proud to hear Tony tell Gordon where to go (Mary Ann Sieghart, March 28, 2003, Times of London)

At Roy Jenkins’s memorial service in Westminster Abbey yesterday, shafts of sunlight streamed over the heads of a congregation containing pretty well every surviving political figure from the second half of the 20th century. Three former prime ministers shared the front pew of the quire. The only notable absentee, the man who was supposed to give the address, was Tony Blair, the adopted political son of Lord Jenkins of Hillhead.

In normal circumstances, the current Prime Minister would not have dreamt of missing such an event. He was fond of Jenkins, and saw him as his mentor, his father figure. It was therefore particularly poignant that a council of war — that most adult of tasks — had drawn Mr Blair to Washington.

For the Prime Minister, in the past few months, has grown up immeasurably. He seems to have undergone the transformation that many men, particularly oldest sons, experience when their father dies. John Mortimer describes the process in Clinging to the Wreckage: “Sudden freedom, growing up, the end of dependence, the step into the sunlight where no one’s taller than you and you’re in no one’s shadow.”

When Mr Blair won power, he seemed like a boy pretending to be a man. He had no experience of even the lowest rung of ministerial office. It didn’t help that the youngest premier for more than a century looked even younger than he was.

As experience has taken the place of innocence, a new Blair has emerged.

Mr. Blair has yet to shed the one disastrous aspect of his mentor's legacy: Mr. Jenkins' dangerous attachment to a unified Europe. If he can do so--and what better impetus could there be for chucking internationalism than the despicable behavior of its institutions in the current crisis?--and if he can fully embrace the meaning behind his Third Way rhetoric, reducing the role of government in peoples' daily lives, then he stands to be one of the truly historical men of British history, a savior in some sense, rebuilding national sovereignty after too many years of transnationalism and rebuilding social capital after too many years of Das Kapital. As Ms Sieghart says, pursuing such visions runs the risk of losing him the support of his own party, but we've long argued that Mr. Blair is destined to achieve such great things--and avoid the dire fate of continental Europe (see below)--only by becoming the leader of the Tories or of a goodly portion thereof in a third party. Hasten the day.

---

RECESSIONAL:

Europe shrinking as birthrates decline (Mark Henderson, March 28, 2003 , Times of London)

EUROPE’S population will continue to decline for decades even if birthrates improve significantly, researchers have calculated.

Trends towards smaller families and later motherhood mean that there are too few women of childbearing age to reverse the decline in the near future, according to an Austrian study. The year 2000 marked a turning point, with the population’s “momentum” becoming negative; there will be fewer parents in the next generation than in this one. [...]

They show that Europe’s population could decline by as much as 88 million people if present trends continue for another 15 years. The population of the European Union was about 375 million in 2000.

The decline made Europe the scene of a significant social experiment, Dr Lutz said. “Negative momentum has not been experienced on a large scale in world history so far,” he added.

The truly astonishing thing about this is that the Europeans were trying to do this and it was only by the Grace of God, the genuis of the Founders, the determination of conservatives, and the good sense and character of the American people that we've avoided a similar fate. The experiment, advocated by our own Left too, was a rational effort to control population and it has worked. But now come the unintended consequences that they were warned about but refused to listen to. Here are a few:

(1) At a time of rising animus towards Muslim immigrants, Europe will be increasingly dependent on ever greater immigration just to fund the retirement and health systems of the aging "European" population. Yet, over time, as the immigrants become the majority and the tensions keep torquing up, who seriously thinks will they pay the extortioniate tax rates that the elderly require of them? (I don't know the similar numbers for Europe, but: in 1935, there were 37 workers for every retiree. Today, the number of workers per retiree is 3.4 and falling. What is a system that requires recent immigrants to support elderly natives but a form of modern slavery?) And as these societies reach that tipping point, where "Europeans" perceive that their nation is about to become predominantly Islamic, imagine the potential for even genocidal violence that will exist. The argument that Germany and France are too advanced to exterminiate a hated minority refutes itself.

(2) Given the adaptability of humans it is, of course, possible that Europe will surprise us all, but consider that we have no, or few, examples of societies being able to maintain a healthy and growing economy while their populations declined. Folks have come up with all kinds of explanations for the fact that the American economy has so outperformed those of other Western countries in recent decades. But perhaps the easiest explanation is that their growth has slowed--in the case of Japan it's reversed--as their populations have first stabilized and then headed into real decline. Meanwhile, the U.S. which experienced unimagined economic growth during the '90s--sufficient even to pull Europe along somewhat in our wake--also experienced an unexpected population surge and is now predicted to be in for a doubling of its population over the coming century. Suffice it to say, it seems at least imprudent for Europe to count on an ability to defy human history.

(3) It has been possible in recent decades for Europeans to imagine that they were done with war forever. America protected them after WWII and asked nothing in return--in fact transferring money to them--both directly (in things like the Marshall Plan) and indirectly, by covering defense costs--which helped them restart and artificially prop up their welfare states. The fall of the Soviet Union brought dreams of an href=http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/742>End of History, which might see all the nations of the world tend toward pacific liberal democracy. Here was a future which would require neither the young men nor the expenditures of public money that make national defense and war possible. And so, there are no young men and those monies are spent on social programs for the aging.

But, 9-11 at least deferred the dream that History was at an end. The Islamic world may well end up reforming toward liberal democracy, but it looks like we're in for some number of years of bloodshed first. Worse, the reluctance of Europe to shed blood--its own or that of others--and the seeming eagerness of America to do so in their stead, has led to a quite acrimonious break between the parties who were already drifting away from each other as Europe declined and America continued to rise in economic affluence and military power. So now the Europeans talk of developing their own defense apparatus and some kind of standing military, but at a time when they are utterly incapable of either funding or manning such a force.

In the cold gray light of dawn, for all the Franco-German chest-beating, they face a choice between accepting--openly or with a grudging wink and a nod--the status of American client-states or of shredding the social contract that has defined their welfare states and thereby causing massive disruptions (imagine telling a 58 year old Frenchman, one year away from retirement and working a 35 hour week, that you're adding five hours to his workweek and six years to his retirement age?). Or, they could just roll over and play dead, hoping the danger passes but unable to control their circumstances at all. It's a menu of unpleasant choices.

(4) European Civilization, like Islamic Civilization, was once great but now finds itself eclipsed and in decline. As with Islam, it's easy enough to see how to rectify the situation, but much harder to do. Where Islam must relax the death grip that religion has on governance and the economy, Europe must abandon the statism that has atomized society and must restore religion, civil society, community and family so that they can provide the social network to replace transfer payments from the government. In effect, both must become more like us--though we too face problems similar to Europe's if we aren't vigilant. But, understandably, both abhor the idea. Still, look at the psychic damage that the Muslim world's inferiority complex has caused it and imagine what lies ahead for Europe as it sinks into similar despondency and rages against the dying of the light (though, luckily for us, unless old ladies take up the hobby, there'll be no suicide bombings--they can't spare the young men).

I hope none of this sounds triumphalist, for I regret the passing of Europe, as well as the continuing self-inflicted agony of Islam, and would like nothing better than a revival, a reawakening, a renaissance, a reformation, what have you. But I fear that Kipling long ago wrote the epitaph:

Recessional (Rudyard Kipling)

GOD of our fathers, known of old--
   Lord of our far-flung battle-line--
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
   Dominion over palm and pine--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies--
   The captains and the kings depart--
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
   An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

Far-call'd our navies melt away--
   On dune and headland sinks the fire--
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
   Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
   Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
   Or lesser breeds without the Law--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
   In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
   And guarding calls not Thee to guard--
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!

---

RED STAR SETTING:

China readies for future U.S. fight (Willy Wo-Lap Lam, 3/24/03, CNN)

The Iraqi war has convinced the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership that some form of confrontation with the U.S. could come earlier than expected.

Beijing has also begun to fine-tune its domestic and security policies to counter the perceived threat of U.S. "neo-imperialism."

As more emphasis is being put on boosting national strength and cohesiveness, a big blow could be dealt to both economic and political reform.

That the new leadership has concluded China is coming up against formidable challenges in the short to medium term is evident from recent statements by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.

Hu indicated earlier this year Beijing must pay more attention to global developments so that "China make good preparations before the rainstorm ... and be in a position to seize the initiative."

Wen also pointed out in the first meeting of the State Council, or cabinet, last Saturday the leadership "must keep a cool head."

"We must boost our consciousness about disasters and downturns -- and think about dangers in the midst of [apparent] safety," he said. [...]

Chinese strategists think particularly if the U.S. can score a relatively quick victory over Baghdad, it will soon turn to Asia -- and begin efforts to "tame" China.

It is understood the LGNS believes the U.S. will take on North Korea -- still deemed a "lips-and-teeth" ally of China's -- as early as this summer.

These developments have prompted China to change its long-standing geopolitical strategy, which still held true as late as the 16th CCP Congress last November.

Until late last year, Beijing believed a confrontation with the U.S. could be delayed -- and China could through hewing to the late Deng Xiaoping's "keep a low profile" theory afford to concentrate almost exclusively on economic development.

"Now, many cadres and think-tank members think Beijing should adopt a more pro-active if not aggressive policy to thwart U.S. aggression," said a Chinese source close to the diplomatic establishment.

He added hard-line elements in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had advocated providing weapons to North Korea to help Pyongyang defend itself against a possible U.S. missile strike at its nuclear facilities. [...]

What is China doing to forestall the perceived U.S. challenge?

Firstly, the CCP leadership is fostering nationalistic sentiments, a sure-fire way to promote much-needed cohesiveness.

While not encouraging anti-U.S. demonstrations, Beijing has informed the people of what the media calls "increasingly treacherous international developments."

This explains what analysts including Beijing scholars considered the unexpectedly virulent official reaction to the start of the Iraq war. [...]

The corollary of boosting national cohesiveness could be the suppression of dissent, particularly politically incorrect views expressed by "pro-West" intellectuals.

The warning and punishment that party authorities recently meted out to several Beijing and provincial publications may augur a relatively prolonged period of ideological control in the interest of promoting "unity of thinking."

On the economic front, the authorities may play up the imperative of concentrating resources to boost China's "economic security" and "energy security." [...]

It is instructive that in his 90-minute long interview with the international media last week, Wen was quite reticent about boosting economic reform such as the liberalization of state-owned enterprises.

In accordance with the theory of "the synthesis of [the needs of] war and peace," civilian economic projects in areas including infrastructure may be planned will the requirements of the defense forces in mind.

Good. We should have done them at the time of Tiananmen Square, though one would note how self-destructive all of the counter-measures they're taking are. Apparently the one thing they haven't studied is why the USSR fell.

---

CASTING PERLE BEFORE SWINE:

Defense Adviser Perle Resigns (Walter Pincus and Christopher Lee, March 27, 2003, Washington Post)

Richard N. Perle, a key figure inside the Bush national security team who has been dogged by conflict of interest allegations, resigned today as the unpaid chairman of an influential Pentagon advisory board but intends to stay on as a member.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who announced the move in a written statement late this afternoon, praised the 61-year-old Perle as a "man of integrity and honor" who has a "deep understanding of our national security process."

"I am grateful for his willingness to continue to serve on the board," Rumsfeld wrote.

Perle, a former assistant defense secretary under Ronald Reagan, has been the subject of several published reports describing his ties to companies that have business before the Defense Department.

He drew fire, in particular, for agreeing to represent Global Crossing, a telecommunications business that sought his help in overcoming the Pentagon's national security objections to the firm's proposed sale to a foreign firm controlled by investors from China and Singapore. Under the arrangement, Perle was to be paid a $125,000 retainer and would earn another $600,000 if the deal was approved by a government review panel that includes Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the New York Times reported last Friday. [...]

Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a government watchdog group, agreed. And he said the advisory board's ethical failings reach beyond Perle.

At least 10 of the panel's 31 members are executives or lobbyists with private companies that have tens of billions of dollars' worth of contracts with the Defense Department and other government agencies, according to a report to be released by the center Friday.

"The problems of the Defense Policy Board run much deeper than Richard Perle," Lewis said. "To the public it looks like you have folks feathering their nest. . . . I'm shocked and awed by audacity of who has been selected and who is serving on this board. There really is a tin ear when it comes to ethical appearance considerations."

The panel, which meets at least quarterly, brings together academics and former government and military officials to advise Pentagon officials on a wide range of strategic issues and defense policy matters. Agendas from recent meetings list discussions on Iran, North Korea and the Pentagon's controversial Total Information Awareness initiative.

Members of the board are appointed to one-year terms, are unpaid and serve as special government employees. They are covered both by federal ethics laws and regulations known as the Standards of Ethical Conduct, which, among other things, prohibit financial conflicts of interest and using one's public position for private gain.

Mr. Perle is too smart and has been around Washington too long not to have known that he had to be purer than Caesar's wife or his enemies would get to him. Still, there's no accusation in any of this that he did anything wrong, only that the appearances are bad, and it's hard to see how you could have a board like this--which maybe we shouldn't--without putting guys on it who have inherent conflicts of interest. Who is there that can advise the President on Defense matters but has no ties to the Defense industry?

---

HAMADAMEEN, WE ARE HERE!:

Kurdish fighters ready to link with US and challenge Iraq: 1,000 US troops arrived by air in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq Wednesday night. (Cameron W. Barr, March 28, 2003, The Christian Science Monitor)

US and British forces may be disappointed with their welcome in the rest of Iraq, but the US paratroopers who have dropped into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq are surrounded by a population happy to see them.

The 1,000 members of the US 173rd Airborne Brigade who arrived at an airstrip here Wednesday night are part of a widening "northern front" that may soon complement the US-led advance in southern and central Iraq.

Until now, the US presence in the Kurdish zone has consisted primarily of scores of Special Forces and intelligence operatives who have kept their activities secret and shirked media attention. The more-or-less open presence of the paratroopers seems to indicate that the US will assemble at least a limited invasion force to enter the parts of Iraq controlled by President Saddam Hussein. [...]

In the town of Harir, set in the hills above the airstrip where the paratroopers landed, residents are delighted to welcome the US troops. "From the [1991 Kurdish] uprising until now we have waited for them to come," says Taha Hussein Hamadameen, who owns a teashop in Harir. "They come to free us from this oppression," he says, referring to Hussein's regime.

A former Kurdish militia member, or pesh merga, Mr. Hamadameen is ready to come out of retirement. "If they distribute rifles, we are ready to go to the front ... we will go in front of them."

Given our past betrayal, they're better allies than we deserve. Time to redeem ourselves and justify their faith.

---

ELOQUENT SILENCE:

FRANCE SNUBS COALITION (Sky News, 3/27/03)

French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin gave a talk at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies in his first visit to Britain since the outbreak of war.

During a question and answer session at the end of his speech he refused to answer the question: "Who do you want to win the war?"

That pretty much sums it up. France can't differentiate between us and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Of course, Americans can no longer differentiate between France and a fistula, so one suppose we're even.

---

SUNDAY MORNING VALUES, SATURDAY MORNING FUN:

'Veggie Tales' soup it up with silly humor (Leslie Gray Streeter, March 27, 2003, Palm Beach Post)

The way Phil Vischer sees it, the key to making children's entertainment positive without being unbearably dull comes down to making an apple taste like a Twinkie.

"You assume that everything that is good for you is boring. Which one do the kids want? They need the apples, but they want the Twinkies," says 36-year-old co-founder and president of Illinois-based Big Idea Inc., from which sprang the Veggie Tales series.

There's no sure recipe for making biblically based entertainment, well, entertaining. Vischer and co-founder Mike Nawrocki's list of ingredients include Old Testament stories, a dash of Monty Python, a little bit of Meatloaf, equal parts silliness and sweetness and limbless vegetables that sing and dance.

It seems an incongruous mix at best, but the combination has made Veggie Tales wildly popular with preschoolers and adults, conservative Christians and people of other faiths or no faith.

If you're not hip to Veggie Tales, especially if you have kids, you're really missing the boat. Here's an especially amusing tune, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything:

Narrator: "Joining Larry are Pa Grape and Mr. Lunt, who together make up the infamous gang of scalliwags, the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything!"

Larry, Pa, Mr. Lunt: "We are the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything! We just stay home and lie around. And if you ask us to do anything, we'll just tell you ..."

Larry: "We don't do anything!"

Pa: "Well, I've never been Greenland and I've never been to Denver, and I've never buried treasure in St. Louis or St. Paul, and I've never been to Moscow and I've never been to Tampa, and I've never been to Boston in the fall."

All: "'Cuz we're the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything! We just stay home and lie around. And if you ask us to do anything, we'll just tell you .."

Mr. Lunt: "We don't do anything. And I never hoist the mainstay and I never swab the poop deck, and I never veer to starboard 'cuz I never sail at all, and I've never walked the gang plank and I've never owned a parrot, and I've never been to Boston in the fall."

All: "'Cuz we're the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything! We just stay at home and lie around. And if you ask us to do anything, we'll just tell you .. We don't do anything!"

Larry: "Well, I've never plucked a rooster and I'm not too good at ping-pong, and I've never thrown my mashed potatoes up against the wall, and I've never kissed a chipmunk and I've never gotten head lice, and I've never been to Boston in the fall!"

Pa: "Huh? What are you talking about? What's a rooster and mashed potatoes have to do with being a pirate??"

Mr. Lunt: "Hey, that's right! We're supposed to sing about pirate-y things!"

Larry: "Oh ..."

Pa: "And who ever kissed a chipmunk? That's just nonsense! Why even bring it up? Am I right? What do you think?"

Mr. Lunt: "I think you look like Cap'n Crunch!"

Pa: "Huh? No I don't!"

Mr. Lunt: "Do too."

Pa: "Do not!"

Mr. Lunt: "You're making me hungry."

Pa: "That's it, you're walkin' the plank!"

Mr. Lunt: "Says who?"

Pa: "Says the captain, that's who!"

Mr. Lunt: "Oh, yeah? Aye aye, Cap'n Crunch!"

Larry: "And I've never licked a spark plug and I've never sniffed a stink bug, and I've never painted daisies on a big red rubber ball, and I've never bathed in yogurt and I don't look good in leggings ..."

Pa: "You just don't get it!"

All: "And we've never been to Boston in the fall!"

---

MEDIA 101:

Shaab blasts: What happened? (BBC, 27 March, 2003)

The world's media continues to focus on the controversial explosions which, according to the Iraqi authorities, caused the deaths of at least 14 civilians and injured 30 more in northern Baghdad on Wednesday.

But it is still not clear exactly what caused the blasts in a shopping street in the Shaab district.

The Iraqis say the coalition forces have been targeting civilians in their bombing.

The US - which says it is doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties - has not admitted responsibility for the deaths.

Our correspondents in Baghdad who visited the scenes of devastation and spoke to eyewitnesses were unable to find an obvious military target in the area.

This is an interesting example of how the institutional demands and structures of the press tend to shape a story in unfortunate ways. There are really only two possibilities here: it was either Iraqi ordnance or ours. If it was ours it was accidental and this kind of collateral damage is inevitable even in a high-tech war. It would be appropriate for us to be sorry, but not ashamed. However, the media have now framed the story in such a way that were definitive proof to come to light that it was our missiles that caused the blasts it would be a "gotcha" moment, which would be wielded like a weapon itself and freighted with far more meaning than it deserves. We should have declared that "while there are some inconsitencies with what we now know, we are perfectly willing to assume for the sake of argument that it was ours and we take full responsibility". Then just play coy when the press asks about the inconsistencies and they'll go nuts trying to prove it wasn't ours.

---

RAVINGS:

Fortuyn killer 'acted for Muslims' (CNN, 3/27/03)

The man accused of assassinating Dutch anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn has told judges he acted on behalf of the country's Muslims.

Volkert Van der Graaf, 33, said during his first court appearance in Amsterdam on Thursday that Fortuyn was using "the weakest parts of society to score points" and gain political power.

Van der Graaf, who is charged with premeditated murder, pleaded guilty to illegally possessing firearms and sending Fortuyn threats before carrying out the attack, the Associated Press reports.

Although he allegedly confessed to the killing, under Dutch law prosecutors must present their case to a panel of judges. There are no jury trials in the Netherlands.

"(The idea) was never concrete until the last moment, the day before the attack," the news agency reported Van der Graaf as saying.

"I saw it as a danger, but what should you do about it?" he said. "I hoped that I could solve it myself."

Given the evil totality of Mr. Fortuyn's views, his violent death was almost inevitable, and not clearly tragic, while Mr. Van der Graaf seems too unstable for us to accept anything he says as having much meaning. All these statements can do is foment more hatred of Dutch Muslims.

---

JUST TURN LEFT, GENERAL:

Syria's mufti calls for suicide attacks (News 24, 27/03/2003)

Syrian mufti Sheikh Ahmad Kaftaro, the country's top Muslim religious authority, called on Thursday for suicide bombings against the US and British troops in Iraq.

"I call on Muslims everywhere to use all means possible to thwart the aggression, including martyr operations against the belligerent American, British and Zionist invaders," he said in a statement, a copy of which was faxed to AFP.

"Resistance to the belligerent invaders is an obligation for all Muslims, starting with (those in) Iraq," the mufti said. [...]

Separately, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad predicted the United States and Britain would never be able to bring Iraq under their full control and would face "popular Arab resistance", in an interview published on Thursday in Lebanese daily As-Safir.

Bashar al-Assad should be made to join his Ba'athist pal Saddam Hussein in Hell.

---

JUST ONE BATTLE:

Bush's Grand Strategy: Iraq is one move in a bigger game. (Jeffrey Bell, 03/24/2003, Weekly Standard)

THE FOCUS for the past six months on obtaining United Nations approval for the invasion of Iraq has obscured a simple, logical American strategy based on a clear premise. The premise is that the mass civilian killings of 9/11 triggered a world war between the United States and a political wing of Islamic fundamentalism, sometimes called Islamism.

This world war would not be happening on the scale it is were it not the case that the rise of Islamism is part and parcel of a convulsive upheaval destabilizing the billion-member world of Islam as well as neighboring countries and--at least potentially--countries with Islamic minorities. In a war of such reach and magnitude, the invasion of Iraq, or the capture of top al Qaeda commanders, should be seen as tactical events in a series of moves and countermoves stretching well into the future.

If this premise is true, then just about everything the Bush administration is doing makes sense. So do the actions and announcements of our various adversaries and non-well-wishers in this far-flung war.

The most shocking thing about 9/11 was the willingness of Islamists to carry out indiscriminate mass killing of noncombatant Americans. The attacks that day laid bare the desire of our enemies to obtain weapons of mass destruction to inflict vastly greater destruction on our country and people.

The day after 9/11, there existed four deeply anti-American rogue states, clearly open to helping Islamists achieve the mass murder of Americans. They were Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. The invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 removed one of these four regimes. The coming invasion of Iraq will remove a second.

Is it any wonder that the two remaining anti-American rogue states are doing everything in their power to race toward clear-cut possession of nuclear weapons?

This is the big picture that the Democrats in particular have not processed yet. They think it's all over when Baghdad falls and they can get back to the prescription drug boondoggle.

---

AND STAY OUT.

U.S. envoy walks out as Iraqi speaks (MSNBC.com)

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations walked out of a debate on the Iraqi war Thursday after Iraq's ambassador accused the United States of trying to exterminate the Iraqi people. "I did sit through quite a long part of what he had to say but I'd heard enough," U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said.

First of all, good for Negroponte. Second of all, from where does the UN's vaunted moral authority come?

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ELVIS YOUR TV:

A breathtaking achievement (Mike Dewar, 3/29/03, The Spectator)

More than anything else we need to recognise that the military achievement to date has been breathtaking. The fact that within six or seven days virtually all of southern Iraq is now under allied control (control, not occupation); that the western desert is also under the control of British, US and Australian special forces; that an armoured thrust is within 20 to 30 miles of the capital; and that there are sufficient forces in northern Iraq to protect the Kurdish population, is a feat of arms that will be recorded in military history as a classic example of offensive armoured warfare, on a par with Guderian’s blitzkrieg armoured thrust through the Ardennes into northern France in 1940.

Remember, too, that there has never been a war when a coalition has so willingly and thoroughly hedged itself about with self-inflicted constraints: the imperative to cause the minimum number of civilian casualties; to target only military or regime assets; and, perhaps most importantly, to achieve the military aim with the least amount of allied casualties. There have been remarkably few casualties: some hundreds of civilians and mercifully few coalition troops. It is astonishing that the first British fatality in combat was announced only last Monday when some 45,000 British servicemen had been engaged in battle on land, sea and air for five days.

Of course the capture of Baghdad is not going to be easy. Only three US divisions will be attacking six Republican Guard divisions in prepared positions. Such odds go against all the rules of war. There are going to be more casualties and we will need to learn to accept the unexpected . One thing, however, is certain: the coalition is going to win.

There needs to be a little more faith. Servicemen expect accurate and intelligent reporting. Yet if one watches the television, listens to the radio or reads either the broadsheet or tabloid press, one might be forgiven for forming the impression that things are going badly astray. Is this the result of media prejudice, political correctness, or just plain ignorance? I don’t know. But, if the media are not going to get egg on their faces, they need to change their tune.

Does anyone else notice that if you watch TV--especially press conferences--they scare the bejeezus out of you, but if you read, it looks like we're doing fine, though not moving quite as quickly as we hoped? And isn't it odd that the "imbeds" think things are going well but the correspondents and anchors back home act like we're about to run up the white flag.

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LETTER FROM A FRIEND:

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Support the War (Bryan Francoeur)

Well, this is a day late and a dollar short, but seeing as the peace activists in San Francisco have expressed their desire to follow the teachings of Ghandi and King by rioting and destroying private property, (here's betting they're not Libertarians) I figured I'd send this anyway.

In 1991, the US promised Iraqi rebels and resistance fighters that if they revolted against Saddam, we would support them. They revolted and we let them dangle and as many as 50,000 Iraqi civilians died in the first year after the war as Saddam put down the revolts. We didn't get involved in Iraq back then because there wasn't a UN blessing for it, the French weren't behind it, there wasn't a coalition for it, the "Arab Street" was against it - does this sound familiar? We broke a promise to the Iraqi people and they have suffered for twelve years. Now we have the opportunity to make things right. The US has given a lot of people the shaft in its history and it's incredibly difficult to atone for these things. We can't go back in time and prevent FDR and California Governor Earl Warren from interning Japanese-Americans and we can't go back to the 1860's and prevent the Supreme Court from allowing the Jim Crow laws to be inacted. But in this one case in our history, we have the opportunity to atone for a national sin and to make things right for a people that we've grievously wronged. No other country can take responsibility for this.

Is this war really all about oil? I don't know, but I would suggest that the burden of proof rests on the accusers, rather than the accused. To echo the cry of the anti-war protesters, "Where's the smoking gun?" If you really, really want to believe that George Bush is the nefarious head of a super-secret cabal of oil magnates who have manipulated world events to their own evil purposes then you will find evidence that fits your purpose and be damned with common sense and contradictory evidence. Common sense such as: If the Bush Administration was really so hot to get Iraq's oil, why wage a war that is going to cost more money than will be gained from oil production? Contradictory evidence like: If the Bush Administration wants the oil so bad and doesn't care who has to die to get it, why not just press the UN to drop the sanctions and cut a deal with Saddam? We could leave him in power, he can kill as many Iraqi civilians as he pleases, and the Bush Administration gets the oil and the bonus of the blessings of the anti-war left (who want the sanctions lifted) and the French (who want Saddam left in power). Of course all of this proves nothing; I can't prove a negative. It's up to the "No Blood for Oil!" folks to come up with some hard evidence to support their case. Not a nebulous connection of dots; any five-year old can easily demonstrate that dots can be connected to form any pattern one chooses. I keep asking myself, "If the No Blood for Oil types are correct, then Bush is committing treason. Do I really believe that a sitting president is fomenting war and putting American troops in harm's way merely to line his pockets? Or is it more likely that he is merely trying, as all other presidents have before him, to do the right thing for his country as he perceives it?" Occam's Razor favors the latter and not the former.

Some folks are saying that this military action is unconstitutional. Evidence to support this lies in much-wrangled over interpretations of the Constitution and goes way back to the old arguments on whether or not the South should have been allowed to secede from the Union. They say that only Congress can declare war, but I have three little words for them: "War Powers Act." Passed in 1973 during the closing days of the Vietnam War, the War Powers Act gives the President 90 days to send troops anywhere he damned well pleases before he asks Congress for authorization. President Bush wisely asked Congress for authorization back in November before any troops were sent. Congress gave its authorization and so this is a done deal. The President is not required to declare war before he sends troops anywhere. Ask Truman, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton; they all sent troops
overseas without a formal declaration of war. Now, the Constitutionality of the War Powers Act is something that can certainly be debated; the Constitution is one of those funny documents that, like the Bible, can be interpreted to mean whatever the reader wants it to mean. But that doesn't change the fact that the War Powers Act has been in force for 30 years and is, right now, the law of the land. Don't like it? OK, that's fine that's your right. Call your Congressman and start the ball rolling to get it repealed. Just don't forget that the War Powers Act was enacted to prevent decade-long quagmires like the Vietnam War, and without it, the Constitution is silent on the President's authority to use the military without Congressional authority. One more point on the Constitutionality of the current conflict: I think it's pretty funny that most of the same people who encourage an extremely liberal interpretation of the Constitution are the same people who are up in arms over this conflict being "unconstitutional." Well, gang, that sword cuts both ways. If you're going to encourage a strict, by-the-book interpretation of the Constitution, that also means a strict, by-the-book interpretation of the Second Amendment, the Electoral College and other lefty boogeymen. Also a strict, almost Libertarian interpretation means no Civil Rights Act of 1964, no EPA, no Social Security, no National Endowment for the Arts and none of the other feel-good federal programs of the last 75 years. This would be, of course, a Libertarian utopia, but I'm betting that the anti-war Libertarians and Buchannanites would have an ideological clash with the anti-war Leftists and Naderites on this topic.

I'm continually amazed at the peace activists who claim they want to save Iraqi civilians. A historical analogy would be if the isolationist America Firsters of the 1930's had claimed that they wanted to keep the US out of European affairs because of concern for the fate of German Jews. If the modern incarnation of the America Firsters really had the welfare of the Iraqi people at heart, they would want them to be free. Instead, what seems to be happening is that the peace activists subscribe to the idea that "war should be avoided at all costs" except that they do not think about what the phrase "at all costs" actually means. If more people die under the peace than would die under the war, does that still mean that war should be avoided? What the peace activists really want is to be able to say that their hands are clean. Iraqi civilians dying by the millions under the boot of a brutal tyrant thousands of miles away don't make the news and are very easy to forget. Iraqi civilians dying by the hundreds on our nightly news and caused by our own weapons cause uncomfortable feelings of guilt. Well, friends and neighbors, sometimes doing the right thing feels bad. Yes, we have all seen enough episodes of MASH to know that war is bad. But there are worse things than war, and screwing these people over again right when they need our help most is one of them.

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GOD SAVE US FROM THE HUMANITARIANS:

Aid shipment to hungry Iraqis called propaganda (MARK MacKINNON, Mar. 26, 2003, Globe and Mail)

The International Committee of the Red Cross has condemned the arrival of the first aid shipments into southern Iraq — and a possible future route for Canadian aid — as a propaganda exercise.

Three trucks of aid arrived in the southern Iraqi town of Safwan yesterday afternoon, which led to chaos as hungry crowds mobbed the trucks chanting "Food! Food!" while unidentified workers tossed relief packages into the crowd. The whole episode unfolded in front of rolling television cameras, while armed American soldiers stood watch.

Mui'n Kassis, the head of communications for the ICRC in Jordan, said he was appalled as he watched the scene on television. "That was disgusting; that was propaganda," he said, shaking his head angrily.

He said he didn't know who co-ordinated the aid shipment, which came overland via Kuwait, although news reports said it was the Kuwait Red Crescent Society, an affiliate of the ICRC. Mr. Kassis said whoever organized it seemed more interested in appearances than in those they were supposed to be helping.

"We have to think about the dignity of the recipients in these situations," he said.

So, let's see if we have this straight--he's denouncing his own organization, worrying about the "dignity" of people who are starving to death, and calling the dangerous attempt to feed them propaganda? Disgusting indeed.

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STAR SEARCH (via John Resnick)

Stand Up for America Rally Speech (Alabama State Auditor Beth Chapman)

I'm here tonight because men and women of the United States military have given their lives for my freedom. I am not here tonight because Sheryl Crowe, Rosie O'Donnell, Martin Sheen, George Clooney, Jane Fonda or Phil Donahue, sacrificed their lives for me.

If my memory serves me correctly, it was not movie stars or musicians, but the United States Military who fought on the shores of Iwo Jima, the jungles of Vietnam, and the beaches of Normandy.

Tonight, I say we should support the President of the United States and the U.S. Military and tell the liberal, tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, hippy, tie-dyed liberals to go make their movies and music and whine somewhere else.

After all, if they lived in Iraq, they wouldn't be allowed the freedom of speech they're being given here today. Ironically, they would be put to death at the hands of Sadam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden.

I want to know how the very people who are against war because of the loss of life, can possibly be the same people who are for abortion? They are the same people who are for animal rights but against the rights of the unborn.

The movie stars say they want to go to Iraq and serve as "human shields" for the Iraqis. I say let them buy a one-way ticket and go.

No one likes war. I hate war! But the one thing I hate more is the fact that this country has been forced into war-innocent people have lost their lives - - and there but for the grace of God, it could have been my brother, my husband, or even worse my own son.

On December 7, 1941, there are no records of movie stars treading the blazing waters of Pearl Harbor.

On September 11, 2001; there are no photos of movie stars standing as "human shields" against the debris and falling bodies ascending from the World Trade Center. There were only policemen and firemen - -underpaid civil servants who gave their all with nothing expected in return.

When the USS Cole was bombed, there were no movie stars guarding the ship - - where were the human shields then?

If America's movie stars want to be human shields, let them shield the gang-ridden streets of Los Angeles, or New York City, let them shield the lives of the children of North Birmingham whose mothers lay them down to sleep on the floor each night to shelter them from stray bullets.

If they want to be human shields, I say let them shield the men and women of honesty and integrity that epitomizes courage and embody the spirit of freedom by wearing the proud uniforms of the United! States Military. Those are the people who have earned and deserve shielding!

Throughout the course of history, this country has remained free, not because of movie stars and liberal activists, but because of brave men and women who hated war too. However, they lay down their lives so that we all may live in freedom. After all -- "What greater love hath no man, that he lay down his life for his friend," or in this case a country.

We should give our military honor and acknowledgment and not let their lives be in vain. If you want to see true human shields, walk through Arlington Cemetery. There lie human shields, heroes, and the BRAVE Americans who didn't get on television and talk about being a human shield -- they were human shields.

I thank God tonight for freedom - - those who bought and paid for it with their lives in the past - - those who will protect it in the present and defend it in the future. America has remained silent too long! God-fearing people have remained silent too long!

We must lift our voices united in a humble prayer to God for guidance and the strength and courage to sustain us throughout whatever the future may hold.

After the tragic events of Sept. 11th, my then eleven-year-old son said terrorism is a war against them and us and if you're not one of us, then you're one of them.

So in closing tonight, let us be of one accord, let us stand proud, and let us be the human shields of prayer, encouragement and support for the President, our troops and their families and our country.

May God bless America, the land of the free, the home of the brave and the greatest country on the face of this earth!

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PRE-EMPT NOW:

Kim Jong-il Scarce, Conjectures Plentiful (Kim In-gu, 3/28/03, Chosun Ilbo)

The North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has not appeared in public for 43 days, observers said, triggering speculation that he putting his country in a war posture. Mr. Kim was absent from the Supreme People's Assembly meeting on Wednesday; his last public appearance was Feb. 12 at the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang. Experts on North Korea say Kim's withdrawal is deliberate and that North Korea has gone into a semibelligerent state since the outbreak of the Iraqi war. Sixty-one other top-level officials were absent from the assembly meeting.

One expert, Cho Myung-chul at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, who was a professor at Kim Il Sung University before defecting to the South, said that the 61 absentees would be commanding officers and that it seemed North Korea was in a state of war. Another North Korea expert said that North Koreans would take Kim's absence from the assembly meeting to mean that they are under an emergency situation.

Experts pointed to other signs that Pyongyang is getting unsteady: that excluded from the meeting were the cabinet minister's report and mention of this year's budget, and that the government is selling loans to the public for the first time in its existence. Also, Pyongyang hiked its military spending as a ratio of the budget by 0.5 percentage points this year, to 15.4 percent, and has told the public to increase its preparedness.

We are apparently prepared to destroy the N. Korean nuclear facitilities and missile installations, and should do so immediately, before it's too late.

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MORE COMPLAINTS FROM EXTRA-NATIONAL AUTHORITIES (via Rantburg):

U.S. Failed To Get A Fatwa Legalizing War On Iraq (Islam Online, 3/27/2003)

The U.S. government has been unable to find any Muslim American organization to issue a Fatwa, a religious ruling, ascribing legality to the war against Iraq....

The Muslim American anger continues to simmer, although it has not boiled over into the streets because of the intimidating laws [such as the USA Patriot Act]....

CAIR warned against an indefinite occupation of Iraq because it will fuel anti-American sentiment.... “Such an occupation could quickly turn into a political and military quagmire.”

They have a point. Surely we need a fatwa to go to war just as much as we need permission from the UN and the International Criminal Court and the Belgian judicial system.

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COOKIE PUSHER PROTEST:

U.S. Mongolian Diplomat Resigns Over Iraq (MICHAEL KOHN, 3/27/03, Associated Press)

A senior diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia has resigned in protest over Washington's decision to wage war in Iraq and U.S. policy toward the Middle East and North Korea.

Ann Wright, who as deputy chief of mission was the embassy's second-in-command, also criticized the "unnecessary curtailment of civil rights" in the United States since Sept. 11.

"I believe the administration's policies are making the world a more dangerous, not a safer, place," she said in a resignation letter addressed to Secretary of State Colin Powell.

We're sure Ms Wright is a fiine public servant and a decent enough person, but it seems unlikely that we assign our best people to the Mongoloid desk.

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THE SPECIAL FORCES WAR:

The triple war (David Warren, 3/27/2003)

[A key front of the war is the] almost invisible airborne and special forces campaigns, in which British, Australians, Poles and others, including local forces, not yet acknowledged, have been playing very important roles, seizing and destroying or disabling the Iraqi regime's most lethal military and terror assets, and hunting for the "leadership targets"....

The Pentagon planners have, thus, enlisted the media without their full knowledge in exhaustively covering what I suspect may be a series of feints. And Saddam's remaining loyalists, cut off from most of their own sources of information in the field, are obliged to focus their attention only on what they can see -- more and more exclusively through the eyes of the media....

[The coalition] is using tactics much like those which were so successful in Afghanistan. Indeed, the overall strategy in Iraq is beginning to resemble the Afghan one ...

They take out the struts upon which the regime is supported, and seem to make no dramatic progress until the moment when suddenly the whole thing comes down, almost simultaneously in many different cities.

Special-ops guys are having disproportionate effect (Jed Babbin, NRO, 3/27/2003)

[Iraqi leaders] don't want to go out [of their bunkers], because they--and the Saddam Fedayeen--are being outfought inside Baghdad. A small--how small I didn't even ask--bunch of special-ops guys are doing their job exceedingly well. Which is to say that for their small number, they are having a disproportionate effect on the enemy. That's a polite term to describe the work of the scout-sniper. Reconnaissance is always the prime mission, and locating targets for immediate and later strikes is very important. But if we can kill a few Fedayeen every time they stick their noses above ground, pretty soon they won't want to. A suppressed sniper's rifle can drill you from several hundred yards away or across the street, and the guys near you won't know where it came from.

When the war is over, we will likely learn that special forces and the Iraqi resistance working with air power were the heart of the war effort.

AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR:
The IO Options (Martha Brant, MSNBC, 3/26/2003)

Every day coalition forces are bombarding Iraqi cities and towns with leaflets, nearly 30 million of them since October and counting. The latest message: Stay Home!

THEY WANT CIVILIANS off the roads and bridges. With Iraqi paramilitary troops dressing as civilians and, in some cases, using them as human shields, it is even more imperative that the United States get that message out.

The more civilians stay home, the easier it is to take out the bad guys.

All in all, the war seems to be going fabulously well.

MORE: Help Iraqis Arise (William Safire, New York Times, 3/27/2003)

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LIBERATION THEOLOGY:

President Rallies Troops at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa: Remarks by the President to Socom and Centcom Community (President George W. Bush, Macdill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida, 3/26/03)

Our entire coalition has a job to do, and it will not end with the liberation of Iraq. We will help the Iraqi people to find the benefits and assume the duties of self-government. The form of those institutions will arise from Iraq's own culture and its own choices. Yet, this much is certain: The 24 million people of Iraq have lived too long under a violent criminal gang calling itself a government.

Iraqis are a good and gifted people. They deserve better than a life spent bowing before a dictator. The people of Iraq deserve to stand on their feet as free men and women -- the citizens of a free country.

This goal of a free and peaceful Iraq unites our coalition. And this goal comes from the deepest convictions of America. The freedom you defend is the right of every person and the future of every nature. The liberty we prize is not American's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity.

The Army Special Forces define their mission in a motto, "To liberate the oppressed." Generations of men and women in uniform have served and sacrificed in this cause. Now the call of history has come once again to all in our military and to all in our coalition. We are answering that call. We have no ambition in Iraq except the liberation of its people. We ask no reward except a durable peace. And we will accept no outcome short of complete and final success.

The path we are taking is not easy, and it may be long. Yet we know our destination. We will stay on the path -- mile by mile -- all the way to Baghdad, and all the way to victory.

Thank you, all. And may God bless America.

This is the President of whom Paul Berman says the following:

[Q:] So you think the way he's presenting this war to the world is really where he's gone wrong.

[A:] Yes, it has been wretched. He's presented his arguments for going to war partly mendaciously, which has been a disaster. He's certainly presented them in a confused way, so that people can't understand his reasoning. He's aroused a lot of suspicion. Even when he's made good arguments, he's made them in ways that are very difficult to understand and have completely failed to get through to the general public. All in all, his inarticulateness has become something of a national security threat for the United States.

In my interpretation, the basic thing that the United States wants to do -- overthrow Saddam and get rid of his weapons -- is sharply in the interest of almost everybody all over the world. And although the U.S. is proposing to act in the interest of the world, Bush has managed to terrify the entire world and to turn the world against him and us and to make our situation infinitely more dangerous than it otherwise would have been. It's a display of diplomatic and political incompetence on a colossal scale. We're going to pay for this.

[Q:] Then what is it that the public doesn't understand? What hasn't he been able to get across?

[A:] One thing he hasn't gotten across is that there is a positive liberal democratic goal and a humanitarian goal here. Iraq is suffering under one of the most grotesque fascist tyrannies there's ever been. Hundreds of thousands, maybe a million people, have been killed by this horrible regime. The weapons programs are not a fiction. There's every reason to think that Saddam, who's used these weapons in the past, would be happy to use them in the future. The suffering of the Iraqi people is intense. The United States is in the position to bring that suffering to an end. Their liberation, the creating of at least the rudiments of a liberal democratic society there, are in the interests of the Iraqi people and are deeply in the interests of liberal society everywhere. There are reasons to go in which are those of not just self-interest or self-defense, but of solidarity of humanitarianism, of a belief in liberal ideals. And Bush has gotten this across not at all.

If you can tell how Mr. Bush is failing to meet Mr. Berman's standards you're wiser than I.

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THE RAMBUNCTIOUS 51ST:

Liberal senator: 'Screw the Americans':Laurier LaPierre ready to quit over disputed quotation in Senate transcript (Jack Aubry and Robert Benzie, March 27, 2003, The Ottawa Citizen)

A Liberal senator has been thrown into the firestorm of shaky U.S.-Canada relations after the Senate's Debates quoted him shouting "Screw the Americans" during a Senate sitting this week.

The quote was attributed to outspoken Senator Laurier LaPierre, who has expressed anti-American sentiments in the past, in the official transcript of Tuesday's Senate sitting. Opposition MPs and senators were quick to jump on the quote as another example of the Liberal government's strong anti-Americanism.

Mr. LaPierre told the Senate yesterday that he had been misquoted in the transcript and that he had in fact shouted: "So did the Americans." But his attempt to correct the Debates, which requires unanimous consent, was blocked by opposition members who said they wanted to listen to a tape of the sitting first.

A shaken Mr. LaPierre said he would offer his resignation to Prime Minister Jean Chretien since "his honour" was being challenged by the opposition members.

Honour? Would he know honour if it bit him on the auss?

MORE:
Some Liberals want Cellucci censured:Chretien insists Canada is not anti-American (Joan Bryden, March 27, 2003, The Ottawa Citizen)

Prime Minister Jean Chretien insisted Wednesday that his government is not anti-American even as some Liberal backbenchers called on him to censure or expel U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci for publicly denouncing Canada's refusal to participate in the war on Iraq.

Mr. Chretien's assurances that Canada-U.S relations have not been damaged by the Iraq crisis were further undermined by American officials, who disclosed that the White House authorized Mr. Cellucci's unusually blunt remarks.

Mr. Cellucci's expression of "disappointment" in Canada and his hints of economic retaliation were deemed warranted after Mr. Chretien last week failed to rebuke Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal for levelling personal criticisms at President George W. Bush.

Mr. Dhaliwal told reporters that Mr. Bush let down the world by failing to act like a statesman, an affront that American officials said should have been immediately repudiated by Mr. Chretien.

The ambassador's remarks continued to reverberate on Parliament Hill yesterday. While Mr. Chretien and most of his Liberal caucus tried to downplay the significance of Mr. Cellucci's intervention and the extent of the rift between the Canadian and American administrations, several government backbenchers said the ambassador stepped over the line of diplomatic protocol.

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ME GENERATION:

Iraqi opposition leader Chalabi rejects British assertions linking Israel with Iraq (Douglas Davis, Mar. 27, 2003, Jerusalem Post)

Leader of the opposition Iraqi National Congress Ahmad Chalabi has emphatically rejected British assertions that hostility toward the coalition forces is an expression of anger over the West's supposed "double standards" in its approach to Iraq and Israel.

"This is science fiction," said US-backed Chalabi, who is Washington's choice to head a future administration in Baghdad. "The Iraqis are stuck between the allied bombs and Saddam's repressive apparatus.

"The issue of Palestine is not the reason why they have not demonstrated. It is fear of Saddam and that the coalition has told them to do nothing."

In an interview from the northern Iraq town of Dokan, published in London's Daily Telegraph on Thursday, Chalabi was also critical of the proposal by British Prime Minister Tony Blair that the UN should play a major role in post-war Iraq.

"The UN is too weak to deal with de-Ba'athification, the destruction of weapons of mass destruction and the dismantling of Saddam's security services," he said.

"The UN would be hamstrung. Iraq is far too big and important."

He noted that "the UN's record on Iraq has been abysmal and the Iraqi people has little confidence in the UN."

Instead, Mr Chalabi wants allied troops to remain until a referendum, followed by elections, to establish democracy and independence.

You ever notice how the Palestinian situation is the most important issue in the Arab world...until, that is, any other nation's own self-interest is at stake, then it's Pale...who? That's why we believe that fostering internal reform and giving Arabs (including Palestinians) a stake in the improvement of their own societies will serve to defuse much of the violence and hatred currently directed at Israel.

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THOSE WHO CAN'T TEACH TEST:

Scorecard for the War: To know whether the allied forces are winning, there are six things one could watch out for. (THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, 3/26/03, NY Times)

(1) Have we occupied Baghdad--without leveling the whole city? [...]

(2) Have we killed, captured or expelled Saddam? [...]

(3) Have we been able to explain why some Iraqi forces are putting up such a fierce fight? [...]

(4) Have we won this war and preserved the territorial integrity of Iraq? [...]

(5) Has an authentic Iraqi liberal nationalist emerged from the U.S. occupation to lead the country? [...]

(6) Is the Iraqi state that emerges from this war accepted as legitimate by Iraq's Arab and Muslim neighbors? [...]

(1) Obviously, otherwise we could have just MOABed it.

(2) Duh?!?

(3) Who cares as long as they're dead?

(4) Yes and no. There's no such thing as Iraq and there's going to be a Kurdistan, whether independent or federated within Iraq is merely a matter of aesthetics.

(5) We can't guarantee a post-Saddam Iraq will be a liberal nation, only that it will be more liberal than it is now.

(6) If we were by some chance to achieve #5, isn't the real question whether that Iraq and we accept the anti-liberal regimes in the rest of the Arab world? Why would we let Syria determine the legitimacy of Iraq instead of vice versa?

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AT LEAST THEIR IDIOTS ARE CONVENIENTLY LABELED.

One rule for them (George Monbiot, The Guardian)

A friend living in England sent me this article and asked what I think.

Suddenly, the government of the United States has discovered the virtues of international law. It may be waging an illegal war against a sovereign state; it may be seeking to destroy every treaty which impedes its attempts to run the world, but when five of its captured soldiers were paraded in front of the Iraqi television cameras on Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, immediately complained that "it is against the Geneva convention to show photographs of prisoners of war in a manner that is humiliating for them". . . .

This being so, Rumsfeld had better watch his back. For this enthusiastic convert to the cause of legal warfare is, as head of the defence department, responsible for a series of crimes sufficient, were he ever to be tried, to put him away for the rest of his natural life.

His prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, where 641 men (nine of whom are British citizens) are held, breaches no fewer than 15 articles of the third convention. The US government broke the first of these (article 13) as soon as the prisoners arrived, by displaying them, just as the Iraqis have done, on television. In this case, however, they were not encouraged to address the cameras. They were kneeling on the ground, hands tied behind their backs, wearing blacked-out goggles and earphones. In breach of article 18, they had been stripped of their own clothes and deprived of their possessions. They were then interned in a penitentiary (against article 22), where they were denied proper mess facilities (26), canteens (28), religious premises (34), opportunities for physical exercise (38), access to the text of the convention (41), freedom to write to their families (70 and 71) and parcels of food and books (72). . . .

It is not hard, therefore, to see why the US government fought first to prevent the establishment of the international criminal court, and then to ensure that its own citizens are not subject to its jurisdiction. The five soldiers dragged in front of the cameras yesterday should thank their lucky stars that they are prisoners not of the American forces fighting for civilisation, but of the "barbaric and inhuman" Iraqis.

Here is my response:

First, this is not "an illegal war against a sovereign state." Security Council resolution 687 explicitly authorizes action by member states to enforce all current and future resolutions concerning Iraq. As no one seriously claims that Iraq is not in breach of these resolutions, the action is justified under the UN charter. As far as picking and choosing is concerned, every permanent member of the Security Council has waged an external war without UN approval. Most recently, the US did so in Kosovo, along with France and others, to protect the Muslim population against the Serbs.

Nor is the United States "seeking to destroy every treaty which impedes its attempts to run the world." What bugs the left is three particular treaties, two of which the US never ratified. Kyoto, in its current form, was rejected while being negotiated by the Senate during the Clinton Administration without a dissenting vote. Nonetheless, the other nations refused to amend it to make it acceptable. The ABM treaty specifically allowed the signatories to cancel it on six months' notice. The Russians seem to care about this a lot less than the Europeans. The ICC is plainly unconstitutional as applied to US nationals and the other signatories refused to address this concern. Interestingly, France sought -- and was granted -- some of the same concessions the US was not given.

As for the Geneva Conventions, he's just smoking dope. He starts off by ignoring the possibility, raised by the tv pictures, that some of the captured US soldiers were executed after they surrendered. Next, the distinction between legal and illegal combatants is not as ambiguous as he implies and, sensibly, it does not turn on whether the war is "legal" under international law. There is a specific test. Among other things, illegal combatants don't wear uniforms and don't answer to a command structure. There is no question but that the captured al Queda fighters are not legal combatants. Nor is there any requirement that the "competent authority" be either judicial or civilian. Military tribunals, answerable to the President, are perfectly appropriate under both international law and the Constitution. More to the point, photographs of unidentified AQ fighters were released to show how they were being treated. They were not humiliated. The other rights he mentions are not applicable, though some are being respected. The food they are given is kosher, you should excuse the expression. They have access to US Army Imams. They are given some exercise, though not a lot. Finally, I have no idea why he thinks hostilities have ended. We're still actively engaged fighting AQ in Afghanistan and throughout the world.

As for Doran's documentary [alleging American complicity in Afghan atrocities], it has been vastly oversold. Here is a snippet from an interview with Doran by the World Socialist Web Site (found via Travelling Shoes):

WSWS: Is there any other evidence, apart from the testimony of these witnesses, on the involvement of the American military in the deaths of these 3,000 prisoners?

JD: Absolutely not. The reason the story has been released early is that I received a warning from Mazar-i-Sharif that the graves in the desert were being tampered with. All the evidence is in the graves, and it is essential that those graves are not touched! [....]

WSWS: Is there any evidence to point to the participation of American soldiers in shooting victims in the desert?

JD: I have absolutely no evidence that American troops were involved in the shooting that took place in the desert. . . .

Dostum is an evil guy, but the evidence that he acted with the help of Americans is almost nonexistent. I am, however, perfectly willing to offer Monbiot a deal. He can choose whether to spend some time as a prisoner of the US Army, or he can go wandering through Iraq ahead of the US Army.

MORE: The article, found via Instapundit, gives what seems like a pretty good overview of conditions at Guantanamo, even if the headline does oversell the evidence of beatings.

---

SNAFU:

Allies Adapt to Setbacks: While the campaign has not produced the swift victory for which the Bush administration clearly hoped, the American military is moving to adapt. (MICHAEL R. GORDON, 3/27/03, NY Times)

The Iraqis threw the allies a curve ball by deploying thousands of fedayeen and paramilitary forces in southern Iraq to engage in guerrilla-style hit-and-run attacks. Indeed, the Iraqis are not shrinking from the fight: columns of vehicles carrying more paramilitary forces were heading south tonight from Baghdad to join the fray, according to American officials. Later, much fighting, including a fierce clash at Nasiriya that resulted in casualties on both sides, was reported.

The allies, however, are now countering by putting off the battle of Baghdad for at least some days and focusing their efforts on attacking the paramilitary groups in and around Najaf, Nasiriya, Samawa, Basra and other southern and central Iraqi cities.

With the limited ground forces the Bush administration has allocated for the initial phase of the campaign and the need to take care of threats in their rear, the United States military can hardly do anything else.

The planning and preparations for the drive to Baghdad, however, are very advanced. The next phase of the campaign is to take the fight to the Republican Guard divisions that are on or approaching the outskirts of the Iraqi capital and then begin ground attacks against key strongholds in Baghdad itself.

There seems to be no doubt among American commanders that this battle will take place relatively soon and that their forces will ultimately prevail.

"We have achieved several of our strategic objectives, the first of which was to seize the oil fields before destruction for the Iraqi people," said Maj. Gen. William Webster, the deputy commanding general of the allied ground command. "The enemy adjusted. The conditions changed. And we are staying on the balls of our feet."

The ultimate goal of the allied invasion is the overthrow of Mr. Hussein and his government. But there are also several important secondary objectives.

One was to seize Iraq's oil fields to ensure that they were not set aflame, either as a means of obscuring the battlefield or as an act of vengeance, by retreating Iraqi forces.

Indeed, intelligence reports that just seven of the oil wells in the Rumaila oil fields were on fire triggered last Thursday's land attack, a ground assault that in contrast to the 1991 Persian Gulf war, began before the air strikes began in earnest.

Besides ensuring that very few of the oil wells were set alight, allied warplanes and special forces also have been successful so far in preventing Iraq from launching Scud missiles at Israel, also a considerable undertaking and one that is a high priority given the United States desire to keep Israel out of the war.

The allies have not been able to stop the Iraqis from firing surface-to-surface missiles at American forces in Kuwait, including some aimed at the land war command center here. But the Patriot antimissile batteries deployed by the allies have shot down the vast majority of the missiles, while the remainder have fallen harmlessly in the desert or the Persian Gulf.

In terms of the invasion itself, allied forces have penetrated deep into Iraq and have managed to get across the Euphrates River. The key port of Umm Qasr has been taken.

The main focus now is eliminating the fedayeen and other paramilitary groups in southern Iraq or at least reducing them to the point where they become a mere nuisance, not a major threat.

Because our press is so hysterical and so many of the opinion-making class in the West oppose the war, these rather miinor setbacks are being conflated into catastrophe, when, as Mr. Gordon says, much has already been accomplished, we're adapting quickly to a fluid situation, and the final results are in no doubt.

---

TAKE IT, DON'T CIRCLE IT:

How to Take Baghdad (DARYL G. PRESS, March 26, 2003, NY Times)

Recent history suggests that well-equipped armies, especially if their soldiers are taught to exercise initiative, can seize urban areas at surprisingly low cost. In 1967, Israeli soldiers defeated the approximately 6,000 Jordanian troops who held East Jerusalem; 200 Israelis were killed. The following year, American marines fought roughly 4,000 North Vietnamese soldiers south of the Perfume River as part of the battle to retake the city of Hue; 38 marines died in the fighting. And in 1989 the United States Army fought against approximately 5,000 Panamanian Defense Forces for control of Panama City; 23 Americans were killed in action.

The fatality ratios are especially revealing. In Jerusalem the Israelis lost three men for every 100 Jordanians deployed to defend the city; in Hue the ratio was one marine for every 100 enemy soldiers killed, wounded, captured or driven away. In Panama the fatality ratio was half that suffered by the marines at Hue.

What do these numbers suggest for a battle in Baghdad? To estimate coalition losses one must first estimate how many Iraqis might fight. The Iraqi fedayeen militia has at most 40,000 men. The paramilitary Special Republican Guard has another 20,000. Add several thousand more from the palace guard and the intelligence services, and the combined forces in Baghdad would total about 65,000 men.

In addition, Mr. Hussein might pull one or two Republican Guard divisions into Baghdad, adding 10,000 to 20,000 troops to his defenses.

With their technological advantages, coalition forces in Baghdad should perform at least as well as the Marines in Hue; the poorly trained Iraqis can be expected to fight less effectively than the North Vietnamese did. Depending on how many Iraqis resist, total coalition deaths might be in the 400 to 800 range. However, if the Iraqis perform as poorly as the Panamanians, coalition fatalities would be only half as high. But if the Iraqis are as skillful as the Jordanians were in 1967--which seems unlikely because the Jordanians at the time were the best soldiers in the Arab world--then coalition losses could rise to between 1,000 and 2,000 dead.

Even if a battle for Baghdad "only" claims several hundred coalition lives, it would be terrifying for the combatants and horrifying to watch on television. Coalition infantry companies that are ordered to clear well-defended buildings, or that are caught in ambushes, will pay dearly. And the number of injuries will be several times higher than fatalities. Soldiers will be taken prisoner.

While images from the battle are likely to shock us, they are also likely to inflame much of the world. Civilians will be caught in the crossfire. Images of the dead will be broadcast around the world. The Israeli assault on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank last spring, portrayed by the world's press as a massacre, claimed the lives of fewer than 30 noncombatants. An assault on Baghdad will be far worse.

We're increasingly of the opinion that such a level of lethality may be just what is required at this moment in time. First, because Islamicists must be shown, in the most brutal fashion possible, that they are on the wrong side of history and must accept either reformation or death on our terms, not theirs. Second, and most unfortunately, because they must see that we are willing to accept casualties ourselves and inflict casualties on them. It's not enough to show that they can't win; we also have to show that we have the will to win.

MORE:
Allied blockade of Baghdad is best (John Keegan, March 26, 2003, Chicago Sun Times)

The Americans shrink from street fighting precisely because tanks and armored vehicles are of limited use in cities. What is true for them is, however, is also true for the Iraqis. If they decide to withdraw their tanks from the countryside to shelter them in the city, they are effectively taking them out of the battle altogether.

If that analysis is correct, then it may be to the allies' advantage for the Iraqis to avoid battle outside Baghdad and to withdraw the Republican Guard armor into the city, both of which would effectively be self-neutralizing moves.

The moves would absolve Franks of the need to send American troops into the streets, at least in the immediate term.

They could wait outside, imposing a blockade and watching to see how long resistance would continue. Frustration at the allied refusal to engage in street fighting might provoke Saddam into launching forays, which would prove costly to him.

On the other hand, the allies cannot allow this war to drag on. Protraction will have a depressing effect on the markets and on economies in general, while fueling the anti-war movement.

Franks needs an outcome without serious delay and that increasingly seems to mean that he needs more troops, quickly.

Whatever the truth of differences of opinion in the Pentagon last year between supporters of a "light" and "heavy" war, and whether there is indeed a "Rumsfeld doctrine" vs. a "Powell doctrine," the truth has to be faced that the allies are trying to capture a country the size of California with one heavy division, one airborne division, and a U.S. Marine force or roughly two light divisions.

---

MOTH TO THE FLAME:

Blair plan for Iraq at odds with U.S. (David R. Sands, March 27, 2003, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

A central point of contention in the Camp David discussions is expected to be Mr. Blair's proposal that the United Nations take a prominent role in the oversight of Iraq after the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime.

U.S. officials have been vague about the constitution of a postwar administration in Iraq. But there is deep skepticism in the administration about including the United Nations after the failure of the Security Council to approve a second resolution sought by Washington and London explicitly authorizing the war.

At a London press conference yesterday before leaving for Washington, Mr. Blair said, "I can assure you that it is our desire to make sure the United Nations [is] centrally involved" in the Iraq reconstruction project.

Nile Gardiner, a visiting fellow in Anglo-American security policy at the Heritage Foundation, said Mr. Blair runs a risk if he presses the point too hard.

"I think Blair might be underestimating the tremendous opposition to going down the U.N. route again inside the Bush administration," Mr. Gardiner said.

Mr. Blair also has been far more outspoken than Mr. Bush in urging a renewed international effort to revive peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, in large part to mend fences with Arab states.

Mr. Bush's Rose Garden pledge two weeks ago to release the Middle East "road map" — a phased peace plan drafted by the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia — was widely seen as a gesture to Mr. Blair.

The British prime minister, answering questions in Parliament yesterday, insisted, "There is no difference between us at all on the basic principles" in the Middle East peace process.

If Mr. Blair has not been weaned from his multilateralism by the complete failure of international institutions over the past six months, then our interests diverge.

MORE:
PATRIOT ACT:
George & Tony – friends forever? (Pat Buchanan, March 24, 2003, Creators Syndicate)

Even conservatives who prefer that the cousins across the pond choose Tory leaders find much to admire in Tony Blair. He is arguably America's best friend.

One of the things that makes Mr. Buchanan so likable is that he's so easily wooed back to the conservative mainstream when the rubber hits the road. Thus he too has gone dewy eyed for Tony on the basis of the aid he's giving us for a war Mr. Buchanan "opposes". But he's right in the rest of the column that there are tougher times ahead for the Special Relationship if Mr. Bush has to choose between Britain or Israel.

---

FROM ERIC THE RED TO OLAF PALME IN ONE GENERATION?:

Time for Muslim world to prove the West wrong (David D. Perlmutter, March 27, 2003, Jewish World Review)

As a college professor, I regularly conduct a class exercise to illustrate that the "national character" of peoples isn't genetically fixed.

I pick out an inoffensive coed with a Scandinavian name and ask her if, when she passes by a prosperous-looking town, she feels compelled to burn it down, kill the inhabitants and steal their cattle. Usually, the reply is a chuckled "No!" I comment that her predatory Viking ancestors would be displeased with her lack of bloodlust.

Now, many commentators tell us that the Iraqi people (and, by implication, all Muslims and Arabs) are intrinsically unable to sustain a participatory democracy and a civil society. The postwar aims of the United States and the world – even those who oppose the second Persian Gulf War – must be to prove them wrong.

The prescription for a transformation from a nation governed by genocidal tyranny must be drastic and immediate. In a world of proliferating madmen and weapons of mass destruction, we can't wait a millennium or even a generation. [...]

It is fair to say the pre-Gulf War II Saddam Hussein was a minor military threat to his neighbors. Ironically, a democratic, civil-minded Iraq would be a moral threat to the ruling castes of many Middle East and Near East theocracies, kingdoms and tyrannies. The temptation for those players to try to sabotage the rule of law in Iraq will be great. The United States must make the costs of such adventurism unacceptable.

In such strategies, almost everyone has a role to play, not just the Marines, Iraqi-Americans and the White House. For example, the many millions in the West who have taken to the streets opposing the war have assured us that they are doing so for humanitarian reasons – such as saving the children of Iraq from the fallout of battle. After the war is over, they can prove the sincerity of their concerns by directing time, energy and money to helping rebuild the country for those children.

An Iraq that is saved by its own people and by the good will of foreign soldiers and citizens isn't a fantasy but a necessity. If a postwar Iraq fails, and if we fail a postwar Iraq, we will condemn the region and the world to many more wars with no hope of a positive outcome.

But the $64,000 question is does the Arab world want peace, prosperity and democracy more than it hates the West. The jury is still very much out.

---

TV WISDOM:

QUOTE OF THE DAY

I know Principal Flutie would have said, 'Kids need understanding, kids are human beings.' That's the kind of woolly-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten.
--Principal Snyder ('The Puppet Show' - Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

---

THE TERRORIST WAY OF WAR (via Lucianne):

Iraqi Soldiers Say It Was Fight or Die (New York Times, 3/27/2003)

[T]he Iraqi private with a bullet wound in the back of his head suggested something unusually grim. Up and down the 200-mile stretch of desert where the American and British forces have advanced, one Iraqi prisoner after another has told captors a similar tale: that many Iraqi soldiers were fighting at gunpoint, threatened with death by tough loyalists of President Saddam Hussein.

Here, according to American doctors and Iraqi prisoners, appeared to be one confirmation. The wounded Iraqi, whose life was ebbing away outside an American field hospital, had been shot during the firefight Tuesday night with American troops. It was a small-caliber bullet, most likely from a pistol, fired at close range. Iraqi prisoners taken after the battle said their officers had been firing at them, pushing them into battle.

"The officers threatened to shoot us unless we fought," said a wounded Iraqi from his bed in the American field hospital here. "They took out their guns and pointed them and told us to fight."

If we could communicate enough with the Iraqi soldiers, we might be able to persuade them to fight their officers rather than us. Fighting us is certain death, and they greatly outnumber their officers. As Orrin suggests in TURN 'EM LOOSE, the length of this war is going to depend on how long it takes Iraqis to turn on their terror masters.

---

U.S. OUT OF U.N. NOW:

Resolution at U.N. human rights body avoids condemning Cuba (JONATHAN FOWLER, March 26, 2003, Associated Press)

A resolution presented Wednesday to the top U.N. human rights body does not include a condemnation of Cuba's record, a rare move that immediately drew protests from rights campaigners.

The activist groups charged that just last week Cuba arrested scores of dissidents, accusing them of conspiring with American diplomats in Cuba to encourage opposition to the communist government.

The annual meeting of the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission has censured the communist island for its lack of democracy and free speech every year over the past decade except 1998.

But in wording that will likely draw U.S. protest as well, the draft measure produced by Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Peru and Uruguay simply asks Cuba to accept a visit by a U.N. monitor appointed earlier this year by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. [...]

A spokesman for the U.S. mission to U.N. European offices in Geneva said only that the United States supported the efforts of the sponsoring nations to address the human rights situation in Cuba.

"The United States needs a resolution against Cuba like a fish needs water," Perez Roque, the foreign minister, told reporters in Geneva last week.

Washington is running out of ways to justify its 40-year-old embargo against Cuba, which most other nations oppose, he said.

It should not be necessary to explain a praiseworthy revulsion.
-Mark Helprin, Chanukah in the Age of Guys and Dolls

---

TURN 'EM LOOSE:

Lessons on how to oust Hussein: Kurds who fought in the 1991 uprising say involving them and encouraging civilian revolts are key. (Cameron W. Barr, March 27, 2003, The Christian Science Monitor)

Kurdish strategist Noshirwan Mustafa, standing at a conference table in his book-lined study, points out Iraqi troop deployments marked in red on a glassed-over map of the country.

He traces with his finger the arc of the US-led advance toward Baghdad, admiring how American forces have largely bypassed Iraqi troops around Basra. "I think the war is going very well," he says.

But a week into the fighting, Mr. Mustafa is critical of other aspects of the US battle plan, asserting that the US has allowed the Iraqi leadership to maintain internal communications, has only belatedly targeted the country's mass media, and so far has neglected the "political dimension."

"Until now, the Iraqi population has no [reason for] confidence that this is a permanent change of the political system," Mustafa says.

Mustafa, a gray-haired eminence in the Kurdish movement, was the architect of the Kurds' 1991 uprising against the regime of President Saddam Hussein, which culminated in their seizure of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

The Kurds only held Kirkuk for eight days, in part because the US declined to prevent Mr. Hussein's forces from crushing their rebellion, but their experience seems to offer lessons that might be useful today.

Mustafa recounts how the Kurds determined that the regime's power was centered in four key institutions in every collective camp, town, and city in northern Iraq: the branch of the ruling Baath Party, the local offices of the Iraqi intelligence, military intelligence, and security services.

As they did in other towns and cities in 1991, the Kurds targeted these four institutions in Kirkuk. "If you can crush them," Mustafa says, "you can control the cities."

The idea of letting the Kurds, Shi'ites and other opposition groups take up arms has several advantages, including their greater knowledge, their willingness to be ruthless in ways we can't be, and the long term spiritual benefit of their having contributed to their own liberation.

---

ONE OUTRAGE AFTER ANOTHER (via PejmanPundit):

Iraqis Fire on Aid Queue (SkyNews, 3/26/2003)

[T]roops had established a strong but not yet secure foothold in the town - a known Iraqi militia base - and were to begin distributing aid to its people.

The troops were greeted by cheering crowds of several hundred people as they arrived western edge of the town, he said.

But before any food or water could be handed out, snipers opened fire and two mortars shells fell into the crowd.

The civilians scattered to escape a hail of bullets and mortar rounds which followed in quick succession and the relief effort was abandoned.

We're not fighting a nation, we're fighting a band of terrorists.

I hope we have enough Arabic speakers to get help from the local populace in rooting out these thugs.

MORE: Marines discover Iraqi 9/11 Mural (CNN, 3/26/2003)

MORE: Iraqi paramilitaries using human shields (SkyNews, 3/26/2003)

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THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING...:

War Could Last Months, Some Military Officers Say (Thomas E. Ricks, March 26, 2003, Washington Post)

Despite the rapid advance of Army and Marine forces across Iraq over the past week, some senior U.S. military officers are now convinced that the war is likely to
last months and will require considerably more combat power than is now on hand there and in Kuwait, senior defense officials said today.

The combination of wretched weather, long and insecure supply lines, and an enemy that has refused to be supine in the face of American combat power has led to a broad reassessment by some top generals of U.S. military expectations and timelines. Some of them see even the potential threat of a drawn-out fight that sucks in more and more U.S. forces. Both on the battlefield in Iraq and in Pentagon conference rooms, military commanders were talking today about a longer, harder war than had been expected just a week ago, the officials said.

"Tell me how this ends," one senior officer said today.

James Fallows was on NPR today comparing Iraq to Vietnam. It sounded familiar, A Military Quagmire Remembered: Afghanistan as Vietnam (R. W. APPLE Jr., October 31, 2001, The New York Times):

Like an unwelcome specter from an unhappy past, the ominous word "quagmire" has begun to haunt conversations among government officials and students of foreign policy, both here and abroad.

Could Afghanistan become another Vietnam? Is the United States facing another stalemate on the other side of the world? Premature the questions may be, three weeks after the fighting began. Unreasonable they are not, given the scars scoured into the national psyche by defeat in Southeast Asia. For all the differences between the two conflicts, and there are many, echoes of Vietnam are unavoidable. Today, for example, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disclosed for the first time that American military forces are operating in northern Afghanistan, providing liaison to "a limited number of the various opposition elements."

Their role sounds suspiciously like that of the advisers sent to Vietnam in the early 1960's, although Mr. Rumsfeld took pains to say of the anti-Taliban forces that "you're not going to send a few people in and tell them they should turn right, turn left, go slower, go fast." The Vietnam advisers, of course, were initially described in much the same terms, and the government of the day vigorously denied that they were a prelude to American combat troops.

In the most famous such denial, Lyndon B. Johnson vowed that he would not send American boys in to fight the war for Vietnamese boys.

Despite the insistence of President Bush and members of his cabinet that all is well, the war in Afghanistan has gone less smoothly than many had hoped. Not that anyone expected a lightning campaign without setbacks; indeed, both Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld have often said the effort would be long and hard.

Within two weeks, if not on first reading, Mr. Apple's column looked idiotic, Eyewitness: The liberation of Kabul: The Northern Alliance moved in at dawn (John Simpson, 13 November, 2001, BBC)

Hopefully it won't take two weeks to make Mr. Fallows and Mr. Ricks seem as silly, but if it does or if it takes months, so be it. Let it last: "Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."

MORE:
-The making of a hawk: From Kuwait to Kosovo to Kabul, American firepower has been on the right side of history. The odyssey of a former dove. (David Talbot, Jan. 3, 2002, Salon)
-Blundering Into Afghanistan: The Great Game has repeatedly foiled the great powers. (David Greenberg, September 20, 2001, Slate)

---

STILL TO DARE:

-OBIT: Robert Frost Dies at 88; Kennedy Leads in Tribute (The New York Times, January 30, 1963)

Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874. Here's his poem, The Trial by Existence:

Even the bravest that are slain
Shall not dissemble their surprise
On waking to find valor reign,
Even as on earth, in paradise;
And where they sought without the sword
Wide fields of asphodel fore'er,
To find that the utmost reward
Of daring should be still to dare.

The light of heaven falls whole and white
And is not shattered into dyes,
The light forever is morning light;
The hills are verdured pasture-wise;
The angle hosts with freshness go,
And seek with laughter what to brave;--
And binding all is the hushed snow
Of the far-distant breaking wave.

And from a cliff-top is proclaimed
The gathering of the souls for birth,
The trial by existence named,
The obscuration upon earth.
And the slant spirits trooping by
In streams and cross- and counter-streams
Can but give ear to that sweet cry
For its suggestion of what dreams!

And the more loitering are turned
To view once more the sacrifice
Of those who for some good discerned
Will gladly give up paradise.
And a white shimmering concourse rolls
Toward the throne to witness there
The speeding of devoted souls
Which God makes his especial care.

And none are taken but who will,
Having first heard the life read out
That opens earthward, good and ill,
Beyond the shadow of a doubt;
And very beautifully God limns,
And tenderly, life's little dream,
But naught extenuates or dims,
Setting the thing that is supreme.

Nor is there wanting in the press
Some spirit to stand simply forth,
Heroic in it nakedness,
Against the uttermost of earth.
The tale of earth's unhonored things
Sounds nobler there than 'neath the sun;
And the mind whirls and the heart sings,
And a shout greets the daring one.

But always God speaks at the end:
'One thought in agony of strife
The bravest would have by for friend,
The memory that he chose the life;
But the pure fate to which you go
Admits no memory of choice,
Or the woe were not earthly woe
To which you give the assenting voice.'

And so the choice must be again,
But the last choice is still the same;
And the awe passes wonder then,
And a hush falls for all acclaim.
And God has taken a flower of gold
And broken it, and used therefrom
The mystic link to bind and hold
Spirit to matter till death come.

'Tis of the essence of life here,
Though we choose greatly, still to lack
The lasting memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the wrack
Nothing but what we somehow chose;
Thus are we wholly stipped of pride
In the pain that has but one close,
Bearing it crushed and mystified.

---

ON THE OTHER HAND:

Former Sen. Moynihan Has Died (Martin Weil, March 26, 2003, Washington Post)

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the scholar and senator, the orator and author, whose intellectual and political leadership did much to shape national policy on the major issues of his time, died today, his successor, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton announced on the Senate floor.

The cause of death was not immediately announced but Sen. Moynihan, 76, had been ill for several months. This month he had been hospitalized at the Washington Hospital Center after an emergency appendectomy.

A Democrat, Sen. Moynihan represented New York in the Senate for four terms. He decided not to seek reelection in 2000.

Throughout his 24 years on Capitol Hill, he was one of the most trenchant and memorable voices in the ongoing national debate on such issues as national security and Social Security, as well as on welfare reform and family matters.

Beyond that, he gained honor, recognition-and often ignited controversy-in many roles: Harvard teacher and lecturer, ambassador to India and to the United Nations, adviser to presidents.

He was an advocate of renewing and preserving cities and their downtown buildings, winning renown in Washington as a champion of restoring Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the U.S. Capitol. His use of the phrase "benign neglect" to characterize an approach to racial policy that he was advocating set off a firestorm that smoldered for years

A blend of the ivory tower and the big city streets, he combined gifts and qualities that were in many ways unique in American public life: a propensity to lecture fellow senators on sometimes abstruse topics and a proven ability to win the votes of an often fractious and fragmented constituency on election day.

An orator with an easy mastery of statistical fact and telling anecdote, he was a pungent phrasemaker, formidable in debate. In diagnosing the nation's social ills, he warned in an oft-repeated phrase, that America was "defining deviancy down." [...]

Throughout his career he maintained a vigorous interest in protecting the long-term vitality of American society by shoring up Social Security and reforming welfare.

But he was also notable for his opposition to aspects of the welfare reform measures passed during the Clinton administration.

He expressed the fear that it penalized helpless children, and when it was signed he said: "Shame on the president." [...]

Speaking in August, 1980, at the Democratic National Convention that renominated Jimmy Carter, he warned that the "Soviet empire" had begun again to expand, extending influence into Central America while bolstering its nuclear forces in a manner that was "mad and relentless."

The next year, the first year of the Reagan administration, he expressed his opposition to cuts passed by the Senate Budget Committee. "We have undone 30 years of social legislation in three days," he complained.

As that last quote reminds us of Mr. Moynihan's desertion of the very ideas that he made famous once he got to the Senate, the following profile reminds us of his promise, Moynihan of the Moynihan Report (THOMAS MEEHAN, July 31, 1966, NY Times):

The degree of fame that Moynihan has attained recently stems mainly from the fact that he is the author of a much-discussed Government paper entitled "The Negro Family: The Case For National Action," now commonly referred to as the Moynihan Report, in which he urged that the Federal Government adopt a national policy for the reconstruction of the Negro family, arguing that the real cause of the American Negro's troubles is not so much segregation, or a lack of voting power, but the circumstance that the structure of the Negro family is highly "unstable and in many urban centers. . .approaching complete breakdown." This is so, stated Moynihan, because of the increasingly matriarchal character of American Negro society, a society in which a husband is absent from nearly 2 million of the nation's 5 million Negro families and in which, too, some 25 per cent of all births are illegitimate. Moreover, Moynihan pointed out, children, especially boys, who grow up in fatherless homes tend not to adjust to this country's essentially patriarchal society, particularly when their problems are complicated by poverty and racial prejudice.

"From the wild Irish slums of the 19th-century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles," wrote Moynihan a few months ago, enlarging on his report for the Jesuit magazine, America, "there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: a community that allows large numbers of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future--that community asks for and gets chaos. Crime, violence, unrest, disorder. ..are not only to be expected, they are very near to inevitable. And they are richly deserved."

Here having warned of welfare dependency, when the opportunity came to end that dependence, he voted to maintain it. Similarly, having coined the phrase "defining deviancy downward", he found himself incapable of voting for Bill Clinton's impeachment.

Mr. Moynihan was by all accounts a genial man and he did raise some issues in provocative ways. But, unfortunately, he left the heavy lifting on those issues to others and thereby squandered much of his four terms in the Senate, falling back often on the most purely partisan position. No Senator ever did less with more.

MORE:
-Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Retrospective: With News and Reviews From the Archives of The New York Times
-Pat Moynihan, RIP (Steven Hayward, No Left Turns)
-Clinton's Democratic Support Slips Further (CNN All Politics, 9/06/98)

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) said on ABC's "This Week" program that he thinks if Clinton perjured himself in the Paula Jones' sexual harassment suit about an affair with Monica Lewinsky, it would constitute an impeachable offense, even without additional evidence of obstruction of justice.

-More Moynihan Malarkey (Jonathan Chait, June 1, 2000, Slate)

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DANIEL MOYNIHAN IS DEAD:

Former Sen. Moynihan dies - New York Democrat known for intellect (CNN, 3/26/2003)

Former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat from New York who enjoyed a reputation as an intellectual giant among his peers, died Wednesday after battling an infection stemming from a ruptured appendix. He was 76.

Moynihan came from a generation that is already fading from memory, so foreign is it from modern sensibilities. It was a generation that spoke often of "roots," and seemed to think it was the greatest of catastrophes to be uprooted. Moynihan was always Irish Catholic, but being a Democrat seemed as much -- perhaps more -- a part of his identity as Irishness and Catholicism. To Moynihan, it was almost unthinkable that a working-class boy would not be a lifelong Democrat.

Moynihan did influential work in sociology and public policy, and his research prepared the way for welfare reform. But as so often happens, the more powerful Moynihan became, the less he led. In the 1980s, Moynihan's ideas on welfare reform found a receptive audience in the Reagan administration and the Republican side of Congress, and Moynihan often mused in the press whether he should follow his conscience and vote with Republicans, or stick with his fellow liberals out of party loyalty. Party loyalty always won.

I suspect that Peggy Noonan will have a fine obituary online at OpinionJournal.com tomorrow, and I look forward to reading it. May God bind up all Senator Moynihan's wounds; may he rest in peace.

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EXTERMINATE THE BRUTES:

For centuries, we've been 'liberating' the Middle East. Why do we never learn? (Robert Fisk, Belfast Telegraph)

Once more, we, the West, were going to protect the Middle East from tyranny. Anthony Eden took the same view of Egypt, anxious to topple the "dictator" Gamal Abdul Nasser, just as Napoleon had been desperate to rescue the Egyptians from the tyranny of the Beys, just as General Maude wanted to rescue Iraq from the tyranny of the Turks, just as George Bush Junior now wants to rescue the Iraqis from the tyranny of President Saddam.

And always, these Western invasions were accompanied by declarations that the Americans or the French or just the West in general had nothing against the Arabs, only against the beast-figure who was chosen as the target of our military action. "Our quarrel is not with Egypt, still less with the Arab world," Anthony Eden announced in August of 1956. "It is with Colonel Nasser."

So what happened to all these fine words? The Crusades were a catastrophe in the history of Christian-Muslim relations. Napoleon left Egypt in humiliation. Britain dropped gas on the recalcitrant Kurds of Iraq before discovering that Iraq was ungovernable. Arabs, then Jews drove the British army from Palestine and Lloyd George's beloved Jerusalem. The French fought years of insurrection in Syria. In Lebanon, the Americans scuttled away in humiliation in 1984, along with the French.

And in Iraq in the coming months? What will be the price of our folly this time, of our failure to learn the lessons of history? Only after the United States has completed its occupation we shall find out. It is when the Iraqis demand an end to that occupation, when popular resistance to the American presence by the Shias and the Kurds and even the Sunnis begins to destroy the military "success" which President Bush will no doubt proclaim when the first US troops enter Baghdad. It is then our real "story" as journalists will begin.

It is then that all the empty words of colonial history, the need to topple tyrants and dictators, to assuage the suffering of the people of the Middle East, to claim that we and we only are the best friends of the Arabs, that we and we only must help them, will unravel. Here I will make a guess: that in the months and years that follow America's invasion of Iraq, the United States, in its arrogant assumption that it can create "democracy" in the ashes of a Middle East dictatorship as well as take its oil, will suffer the same as the British in Palestine. Of this tragedy, Winston Churchill wrote, and his words are likely to apply to the US in Iraq: "At first, the steps were wide and shallow, covered with a carpet, but in the end the very stones crumbled under their feet."

Someone wiser than we will have to explain why it's arrogant to liberate Arabs from a brutal dictatorship, but somehow humble to dismiss the possibility of their ever governing themselves. If Mr. Fisk is right in all he says here, we may as well find out quickly because the combination of primitive violent culture and high tech weapons can not be allowed to stand. We hope and believe he's wrong.

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IN GOD THEY DOUBT:

In God We Trust...Canadians Aren't So Sure (CLIFFORD KRAUSS, March 26, 2003, NY Times)

The French Canadian writer Yann Martel has acknowledged that he rearranged chapters in the Canadian edition of his new novel, "Life of Pi," because he feared that Canadians would be offended by its religious content.

"America is a very religious, almost puritanical country," he told Publishers Weekly last year. "In Canada, secularism is triumphant, and to talk noncynically, nonironically about religion is strange."

Mr. Martel's comments have been much quoted of late as a sign that in at least one vital respect, Canadian and American societies are moving in opposite directions despite their common language and geographical proximity.

In a recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in Washington, only 30 percent of Canadians said religion was very important to them, compared with 59 percent of Americans. Twenty-one percent of Canadians said they attended religious services regularly in another survey taken in 2000 - about half the rate for Americans (although still a bit higher than the rate for most of Western Europe).

The statistics would be far more skewed if it were not for the growing number of devout Muslim, Sikh and Hindu immigrants to Canada. In Mr. Martel's city of Montreal, which is crowned by a giant illuminated cross atop Mount Royal, to commemorate the piety of its founder, Paul de Chomedy de Maisonneuve, church attendance is plummeting so fast that at least 18 churches in the last three years have been boarded up and abandoned or converted into condominiums and, in one case, even a pizza parlor. Meanwhile, rural churches are closing across the western prairies.

"This is a society where religion no longer wields cultural authority," Marguerite Van Die, a theology professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, wrote recently.

Hence, it's a dying nation, with a dwindling population, no serious conservative movement, no sense of a national purpose other than to prop up the Health Care system it has nearly sacralized, no future.

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WHERE WOULDN'T YOU FOLLOW HIM:

Troops urged to avoid 'mark of Cain': Combat leader's words draw tears (Peter Almond, March 24, 2003, Chicago Tribune)

Tim Collins, a 42-year-old lieutenant colonel in the British army, has become a media hero, famous not for deeds performed in battle in Iraq but for words delivered to his men before they moved against the forces of Saddam Hussein.

Collins, commander of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment, addressed his troops at their camp in Kuwait. His words, which reportedly had many of his men close to tears, left admirers calling to mind President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the "band of brothers" speech by William Shakespeare's Henry V character before the 1415 Battle of Agincourt.

According to a pool report, Collins told his men:

"The enemy should be in no doubt that we are his nemesis and that we are bringing about his rightful destruction. There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls and they are stoking the fires of hell for Saddam. He and his forces will be destroyed by this coalition for what they have done. As they die they will know that their deeds have brought them to this place. Show them no pity.

"There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. It is my foremost intention to bring every single one of you out alive, but there may be some among us who will not see the end of this campaign. We will put them in their sleeping bags and send them back. There will be no time for sorrow.

"Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others, I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle, remember to be magnanimous in victory. It is a big step to take another human life. It is not to be done lightly.

"I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts. I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them. If someone surrenders to you, then remember they have that right in international law and ensure that one day they can go home to their family. The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please.

"If you harm the regiment or its history by over-enthusiasm in killing or in cowardice, know it is your family who will suffer . . . .

"We go to liberate, not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. ... Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there."

Reportedly, Collins said the conflict was vital if the West was to curb the threat of Muslim fundamentalists, but he made clear that his men were to respect Iraqi culture and religion.

"You will see things that no man could pay to see and you will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis," he told his troops. "You will be embarrassed by their hospitality even though they have nothing."

No wonder they were upset when some of our guys planted an American flag.

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YOU'VE HEARD OF THE FORTUNE 500, NOW SEE THE FORBES 20:

Best War Blogs (Forbes, 3/26/2003)

[B]loggers are now going to war. Not all of them like it, although many are cheering.

In choosing the best of the best, we excluded "meta-blogs" like Warblogs.cc and Warblogging, which are essentially compilations of other blogs, many of them opposed to the war.

We were careful that the five we've selected represent a diversity of opinions.

Forbes also does Best Tech Blogs, Best Media Blogs, Best Economics Blogs. Somehow they overlooked Orrin again. Question for commenters: what category could they add in which Brothers Judd Blog would land in the top 5?

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WAR MAKES HEROES:

Sex symbol in the White House (Telegraph, 3/25/2003)

He's currently working hours the rest of us have nightmares about, but there is consoling news for Ari Fleischer. The balding White House spokesman, Spy hears, has females the length and breadth of the States a-swoonin' with his no-nonsense specs and straight bat denials.

You don't believe me? OK, well here goes with some comments on the new Ari Fleischer internet fan site: "Some people don't understand how a hot blonde 24-year-old NYC girl could have such a major crush on Ari Fleischer - but I DO!!" writes one groupie. "I think it is so cool the way he can walk into a room full of press sharks and completely control the room and never ever flinch."

Yeah, Ari's OK, but what about bloggers who fearlessly face their monitors and completely control their living rooms?

AND EXPOSES ENEMIES:

US defeat in Iraq 'inevitable' (News24, 3/26/2003)

The United States does not have the military means to take over Baghdad and will lose the war against Iraq, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter said.

"The United States is going to leave Iraq with its tail between its legs, defeated. It is a war we can not win," he told private radio TSF [in Lisbon Tuesday evening]....

"Every time we confront Iraqi troops we may win some tactical battles, as we did for ten years in Vietnam, but we will not be able to win this war, which in my opinion is already lost," Ritter added.

I wonder if he's still getting Iraqi money.

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NO MORE VIETNAMS:

AMERICA, THE MIDDLE EAST AND VIETNAM (Edward Driscoll)

Since, as Rod Dreher recently noted, for the left, "every war is Vietnam", let's look at how Vietnam has led directly to our current state of affairs. Reading this recent post by The Volokh Conspiracy, and watching the protestors last night, I figured I'd discuss a geopolitical theory that I'm surprised I didn't post yet (and because this a blog, this is going to be grossly simplified--I'm just trying to connect the dots, not paint a detailed landscape): how Vietnam is related to our current war on terrorism.

On TV last night, I saw a guy in his late 40s or 50s (he looked trim, clean shaven, with a nicely cut shock of graying hair) asked by an interviewer, "why are you here"? He replied, "Well, we made a difference during Vietnam, and I think we're making a difference now."

As for the latter, it's hard to say how--except, as Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds have recently noted, making your cause look distinctly bad to the rest of the country. As to the former, yes, you may have made a difference, but it wasn't the one that you think.

Its possible to tie 9/11 all the way back to Vietnam if you wanted to...

As Mr. Driscoll points out, what made a difference was Congress cutting off funding to our S. Vietnamese allies, who it's easy to forget hung on until 1975, even though we betrayed them.

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WAR SUCKS...GET OVER IT:

US raid 'may have caused deaths' (BBC, 3/26/03)

A bombing raid in Baghdad may have caused civilian casualties, the United States central command has acknowledged.

It said the US-British coalition used precision-guided weapons to target Iraqi missiles and launchers on Wednesday.

However the missiles were placed in a residential area less than 100 metres (300 feet) from homes, the US central command said in a statement.

Iraqi officials say at least 14 people were killed in a busy residential area of northern Baghdad during an air raid on the city.

The reality is that if we were trying to take out Iraqi missile positions, the civilians are acceptable collateral damage.

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WHEN WE GET BEHIND CLOSED DOORS:

Senate Votes to Reduce Bush's Tax Cut Plan (DAVID E. ROSENBAUM, 3/26/03, NY Times)

Capitalizing on concerns about the costs of war in Iraq, Senate Democrats won a vote today to reduce President Bush's proposed tax cut by half, a rare political defeat for a wartime president.

The vote, 51 to 48 with three Republicans breaking ranks and voting against the president, complicates the prospects for enactment of the main element of his economic program, a $726 billion tax cut over 10 years.

The Senate's action showed the willingness of Democrats, even during a war, to challenge the president head-on over domestic priorities. And it was evidence of unease within the president's own party about cutting taxes in the face of rising budget deficits and the unknown cost of disarming, occupying and rebuilding Iraq.

Senator George V. Voinovich of Ohio, one of the Republicans who voted to limit the tax cuts, said: "I happen to believe that we'll have to have troops in there for one year or two years. You're going to at least probably have to spend $2 billion a month next year or next budget just to provide security there."

Both Bill Frist and the media biffed this one. Frist should have kept the Senate in session this weekend, as the White House asked, to get the Budget done with the full cuts. However, amendment will add back some tax cuts and then the conference committee--and here's where the November wins matter--which will be GOP dominated, will crank the actual cut back up at least over $500 billion. That's more than anyone thought the President could get when he made his initial proposal and a big, big victory, particularly given the mammoth cut of 2001.

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ANOTHER RACIST RIGHT-WING INITIATIVE THAT HELPS THE POOR:

English-only students do better on state test: Number of proficient speakers tripled after Prop. 227 passed (Nanette Asimov, March 26, 2003, San Francisco Chronicle)

Five years after voters approved English-only classrooms across California, the popular ballot measure seems to be working.

The number of students who speak English well despite having learned a different language at home tripled last year.

Thirty-two percent of California students learning English -- more than 862, 000 -- were able to speak it "proficiently" as measured by the California English Language Development test in the fall of 2002.

The rate was just 11 percent in fall 2001. About 1.8 million students took the test for the first time that year.

State schools chief Jack O'Connell announced the test results Tuesday, offering the first measurable evidence of whether students were making progress in English.

"These results are very exciting for our state," O'Connell said, noting that California had more students learning English than any other state -- about one in four. "Public education is on the right track."

Like Welfare Reform, a case where when you raise your expectations of people they rise to meet them. Let any willing immigrant with a clean background come, but require much of them--we'll not be disappointed.

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SHEEP TO THE SLAUGHTER?:

Republican Guard heads toward U.S. troops; British brace for fight for Basra (DAVID CRARY, 3/26/03, Canadian Press)

A large contingent of Iraq's elite Republican Guard, including 1,000 vehicles, headed Wednesday toward U.S. marines in central Iraq - an area that already has seen the heaviest fighting of the war.

Intelligence officers with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force said the Iraqi forces were headed south from Baghdad on a route that avoids advancing U.S. army forces and leads them directly to the marines who have been fighting in recent days around Nasiriyah. The intelligence officers said about 3,000 Republican Guard troops were spotted in one town along Highway 7 and 2,000 more at another.

What would they be thinking? Nothing could make our job easier than for them to come out and fight us.

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WE, THE PEOPLE:

This war is showing the world who we really are (Tony Blankley, March 26, 2003, Jewish World Review)

The American personality might be characterized as an easygoing, sentimental, fair-minded ruthlessness.

We tie yellow ribbons 'round the old oak tree at the same moment we dispatch a wing of B-52s to carpet-bomb the enemy. No murderer in the world gets as many appeals from his conviction as an American murderer. But when we have finished being fair (about the same length of time that a French murderer has to spend in prison before being released), we fry him.

More recently, to show our gentle side, we have taken to killing our murderers with a painless lethal injection. Even amongst our law-abiding citizens, we shock the Europeans with both our generosity and ferocity. We provide for every kid with a pulse to go to college, and then let them sink or swim in the workplace. American workers are lucky to get two weeks of vacation a year, and if an American is out of work, he is, after a few months, out of luck.

In 1996, we repealed the right to welfare payments. Poor people in America have the choice of going to work or going to hell. A few nitwit school boards have outlawed dodgeball: but for most Americans dodgeball is a way of life -- and we aim at the head. Europeans, on the other hand, only permit a fraction of their students to go to college, but then coddle their lazy population with lifetime-guaranteed maintenance and a month and a half of vacation for those who choose to work. Americans consider it a compliment to be called a cowboy. The French take it as an insult.

The current war with Iraq will bring out all these aspects of our national personality. We started by spending six months asking nicely for Saddam to obey the law. When he refused, we asked nicely for our friends to help us enforce the law. When many of them refused, we appealed to their sentiment -- after all, we had helped them out for most of the last century. But when we found out they had a lump of coal where a heart ought to be, we still politely told them we would do it ourselves.

Nothing so clearly defines who we are as when a Tony Blankley, an Andrew Sullivan, a Christopher Hitchens, a Youssef Ibrahim, or a Fouad Ajami refers to "we Americans".

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LEADERSHIP MAKES A DIFFERENCE:

How Blair Defused The Anti-War Movement (Nader Hasan, Wall Street Journal Europe, 3/26/2003)

[A]s fighting in Iraq intensifies, all of Britain seems to be falling in behind the prime minister....

The "Stop the War Coalition" and other anti-war groups in Britain were always more enthusiastic about opposing U.S. imperialism and less concerned with the welfare of the Iraqi people. At the demonstrations and on the talk-show circuit, U.S. hegemony took center stage and denunciations of Washington always received the most rousing applause. The climax of the Feb. 15 demonstration was a speech delivered by U.S. civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, who gave an impassioned critique of a U.S. government trying to "divert attentions from problems at home to a war no one wants."...

We preferred to demonize U.S. President George W. Bush rather than appeal for sympathy for the children of Baghdad and Basra.

Mr. Blair understood that the British opposition to the war was more about sticking it to the Yanks and less about the perils of war. Over the past month, he has repeatedly attempted to downplay the American-ness of this war, declaring that he was "truly committed" to disarming Iraq and that "if the Americans were not doing this, I would be pressing for them to be doing so." Mr. Blair knew that by staking his credibility and career on the rightness of this war, he was turning the war into a British domestic issue. No longer was the war only a U.S. war; it was also Mr. Blair's war. By imbuing the war with a distinctly British flavor, the prime minister deflated an anti-war movement that was ostensibly built around the mantra of anti-Americanism.

Mr. Blair did not stop there. In light of the opposition's inability to articulate the plight of the Iraqi people, he cunningly turned the tables and seized the humanitarian argument for the pro-war camp. Borrowing from Mr. Bush's rhetoric, he told us (with solemn conviction) that this war was about "liberating" the people of Iraq. Sure, a few hundred civilians would die from wayward bombs, but in the end, Iraq would be free from a barbarous dictator. Mr. Blair had no qualms about claiming to care about a people whose misery he had neglected during his tenure as prime minister....

If the anti-war movement had wanted to remain relevant, it should have re-examined its stance and shown that lifting sanctions, not making war, was the way to liberate Iraq. It didn't and it is too late now, as war has begun. The movement showed it could make noise, but Mr. Blair's quieter, reasoned delivery won the argument.

Mr. Hasan, a Ph.D. student at the University of Cambridge, is a former member of the Stop the War Coalition.

Mr. Hasan is one of the good left: a decent person who genuinely want to save lives and make the world better, but who disagrees with us regarding methods. It is well that he sees the faults in anti-American hatred and efforts to demonize opponents, and that he prefers reasoned argument to sloganeering. Now, if he can only learn that the Iraqi people are better off liberated by war than unliberated under sanctions, he'll be well on his way to conservatism.

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NOBODY KNOWS NOTHING.

Focus: Israeli military experts assess the U.S.-led invasion (Amnon Barzilai, Haaretzdaily.com).

There's not usually much point in reposting something that's been up on Instapundit, but this article on Israeli military experts makes a point that can't be overemphasized:

There has never been a war with such a high level of disinformation about what exactly is happening on the battlefield as the present conflict in Iraq, according to Israeli researchers and senior military officers. . . .

According to Shahak, Israelis are "frustrated that the Iraqi regime has still not collapsed, which would suit us. You don't hear such frustration expressed in the U.S. over the pace of the campaign. [Ha - dgc] I didn't think that it was possible to win a war like this and bring about the collapse of a regime within three days. I would counsel patience. The Americans are very determined to go all the way." . . .

Most of those interviewed agree that, paradoxically, despite the unprecedented media coverage of the war, including the many correspondents who are embedded in fighting units, nobody knows what is really happening in Iraq. Yossi Peled, former GOC Northern Command, thinks the U.S. has shown great skill in its control of the media. "You have lots of television crews in the field, yet as someone watching TV you have no overall picture."

Military historian Prof. Martin van Creveld goes further: "Everyone is lying about everything all the time, and it is difficult to say what is happening. I've stopped listening. All the pictures shown on TV are color pieces which have no significance."

"There is a lot of disinformation," he concludes. "Every word that is spoken is suspect."

Shahak says that until now the American's have managed to conceal their true battle plan. "Do you know what the Americans have planned? I don't. They also never said (what they were planning to do). How do you topple a regime in 48 hours? In a week? Seventeen days? If we don't want to make fools of ourselves, we should wait patiently. It would just be arrogant to judge from what we see on TV."

The embedded correspondents give us the impression that we know each little thing that happens. But this is misleading. From NPR this morning, for example, I know about a Marine who, though a trumpeter in a Marine band when stateside, is providing perimeter security in Iraq. I know that between the sand and rain last night, the lack of visibility, and the resulting sense of being alone in enemy territory, he was miserable. This is good reporting and gives me a sense of what it's like to be a Marine in Iraq, but it tells me nothing about the war. If I know little about this particular Marine detachment, I know nothing about the many Special Forces teams in Iraq (including, reportedly, in Baghdad) and, by the way, what ever happened to the rumored division attacking from the west?

For example, right now there are reports of a large column of Republican Guard heading south from Baghdad, skirting the advancing army units, towards "Marines, who are worn from intense fighting around Nasiriyah." CentCom is denying the report, albeit somewhat ambiguously (there are no "significant movements" of troops leaving Baghdad). What could be going on here? Does the column exist? Are they marching in good order or are they fleeing? Could they be defecting? Have they already been decimated by air support? We have no idea and may never know, even though we think we've got up-to-the-minute information.

Recent military history is full of arm chair generals making fools of themselves. About one week into the first Gulf War, Dick Cheney held up a newspaper at a press conference. The headline was "War Drags On." The moaning in Afghanistan as the Taliban was crumbling is fresh in our memories. Right now, all we can do is trust the professionals to know what they're doing. We don't have nearly enough information to act upon. Patience and prayer is all we have to offer now.

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AS VENEZUELA GOES, SO GOES BRAZIL:

Strike action tells Lula the honeymoon is over (Raymond Colitt, March 25 2003, Financial Times)

Metalworkers in Sao Paulo are to begin an indefinite strike--on Wednesday--to demand wage increases amid growing indications that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's honeymoon is coming to an end.

With 20,000 workers of a 750,000-strong union picketing on Wednesday, it is the first large-scale industrial action since Mr Lula da Silva, himself a former Sao Paulo metalworker and union leader, took office on January 1.

Although the strike is primarily directed at employers, it reflects growing dissatisfaction with the new government over high unemployment and inflation. The Sao Paulo metalworkers' union, which belongs to the opposition Forca Sindical union federation, usually renegotiates wages in November but is claiming that consumer price increases have already eroded the last increase. "With that kind of inflation, we couldn't wait," said Eleno Jose Bezerra, the union president.

The strike comes after growing criticism in recent days that the Lula da Silva administration, despite good intentions, is moving too slowly to tackle key social and economic problems.

While the government has earned plaudits for its fiscal and monetary austerity, critics say too many meetings and discussions are holding up tax and social security reforms and hampering its flagship anti-famine project.

"The government has the right analysis of what this country needs . . . but administratively it is still stumbling on many issues," Horacio Lafer, the head of Fiesp, the influential Sa~o Paulo industry federation, said this week.

Only Nixon can go to China, but what happens when he doesn't do much once he's there?

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WHY WE'LL BE FRIENDLY TO THE FRENCH - FOR A WHILE:

Oil for Iraqis, Not the French (Wall Street Journal editorial, 3/26/2003)

A good place for the U.S. to start rebuffing ... European conceit would be to throw over the side the U.N.'s corrupt oil-for-food program.

U.N. Security Council members have been haggling this week over the fate of that program and the $40 billion said to be sitting in its escrow accounts....

But while Secretary-General Kofi Annan has proposed a resolution that would give him interim authority over the program and allow him to start the flow of humanitarian supplies, France and Russia have declared they will block anything acknowledging that the status quo has changed. Jacques Chirac says he will "not accept" any resolution that "would legitimize the military intervention" and "give the belligerents the powers to administer Iraq."

As usual, the French and Russian position has more to do with commercial interests than any principled opposition to "legitimizing" the use of force. Oil-for-food has been a giant racket whereby Saddam has rewarded the firms of friendly countries with U.N.-approved contracts and kept most of the food for his Baathist allies.

The U.N. is notoriously corrupt - third world elites routinely join the U.N. bureaucracy poor and go home wealthy, after living it up at New York's finest restaurants - but the oil-for-food program created an entirely new kind of corruption. First, the U.N. got to skim off "expenses" from a flow of cash that approached $10 billion a year for much of the 1990s, bathing the U.N. in virtually limitless cash. Second, Saddam got to negotiate all the contracts for both oil sales and goods purchases, and he routinely paid above-market prices while directing deals to the companies of France, Germany, and Russia -- and what he received in return, we do not know.

Now, the French are apparently trying to use their U.N. powers of veto over the disposition of the $40 billion in escrow to obtain a continuation of Saddam-era contracts. (See here for signs of French confidence.) Meanwhile, Kofi Annan apparently wants authority to spend the whole $40 billion himself, not just $1 billion or so in "expenses."

During the run-up to the Iraq war, the U.N. failed to show it could play a positive role in international events. If it withholds the $40 billion escrow accounts from the Iraqi people, the U.N. will show that it plays a negative and obstructionist role. I think the Bush administration can reasonably take a hard line in these negotiations.

I assume they have good intelligence on Kofi Annan's Swiss bank accounts, and will soon have proof of French and Russian collaboration with Saddam. I expect they will negotiate by publicly making nice while privately threatening to expose malfeasance and to suspend U.S. contributions to the U.N. I expect they'll succeed in getting the $40 billion to its rightful owners, the Iraqi people.

---

DYNAMO DYNASTY:

From yesterday's New York Times (Paul Cella, , March 25, 2003)

Friend Paul Cella noted a fact about one of our casualties that somehow seems especially poignant. Where else but America have so many successive generations fought, and died for the same ideal: "You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments: rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the universe."

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SOUTH KOREA JOINS IN:

Roh Justifies Decision to Send Troops (Chosun Ilbo, 3/26/2003)

President Roh Moo-hyun said Wednesday that the government's decision to send troops to Iraq is in line with its plan to deal wisely with the nuclear crisis on the peninsula and secure peace. "The decision was made based on strategic and practical reasons," he said. "Logic or justice was not the top consideration."

Speaking at the commencement ceremony for the 3rd Military Academy, President Roh said, "When Korea-U.S. relations are steadier, it will be possible to solve the nuclear problem and improve relations between the North and the United States."

Roh promised that no war here disapproved by South Korea would occur, and said that Korea-U.S.-Japan relations must be strengthened. "Because of practical reasons like these, the government decided to send troops to the Iraq war," he said.

Roh asked for the public's understanding, saying, "Peace on the peninsula was given top priority in making the decision."

In other words, if we won't help the U.S., why should the U.S. help us?

Roh doesn't sound very gung ho, but as Harry points out, we'll need infantry in the months ahead to keep the country secure, and all help is appreciated. Thanks, Korea.

---

SPINNING THE FOG:

British forces support Basra 'uprising' (Guardian, 3/26/2003)

After a series of setbacks, and with the advance on Baghdad delayed by sandstorms, the invasion forces were badly in need of some positive developments yesterday.

It's a quagmire!

The first success of the day - which came just at the right moment for prime-time television news in the UK - was a claim by the British military that a "popular uprising" against Saddam Hussein's regime had broken out in Basra....

Until now, Shia organisations in southern Iraq have been very wary of getting involved in the war. In 1991, the US encouraged them to rebel but then abandoned them to their fate at the hands of Saddam's merciless men.

Given the reluctance of the native population to rebel, it's quite plausible, as I noted yesterday, that the uprising was initiated by a Shiite militia that had trained with U.S. and British troops in Qatar for just this purpose. If so, the uprising would have begun at evening Iraq time, 5 p.m. in Britain, when night gives the allies their greatest advantage.

In Nassiriya yesterday, US officers said they had found 3,000 chemical protection suits and large quantities of nerve gas antidote at a hospital which had been used as a base by Iraqi soldiers fighting the invasion. This is being interpreted as evidence that Iraq may be prepared to use chemical weapons.

However, the "antidote" - atropine - also has routine medical uses for treating heart patients and some respiratory conditions.

Yes, 25-year-old Iraqi soldiers often need to treat themselves for heart conditions.

---

NY TIMES LIKELY TO RAISE QUESTIONS:

Resistance by Militia Is Delaying Baghdad Battle, Officers Say (NY Times, 3/26/2003)

Allied forces have shifted the focus of their land campaign in Iraq to concentrate on defeating the fedayeen and other militias serving Saddam Hussein in the south before beginning the battle for Baghdad, senior officers said tonight....

"We will go to where the enemy is," a senior American military official said tonight....

The British moves came amid reports of rebellion in the Shiite-dominated city and harsh reprisals by security forces loyal to Mr. Hussein's government.

A woman who waved to British forces on the outskirts of the city was later found hanged, an American officer said, and the Iraqis moved D-30 artillery in place to shell rebellious residents....

The turn of events in Iraq is likely to raise questions about the influence of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on military planning. Mr. Rumsfeld had rejected the doctrine of overwhelming force promulgated by Colin L. Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the current secretary of state.

The Times's incessant efforts to portray a rift between Rumsfeld and Powell grow tiresome. I'm sure Rumsfeld and Powell both want the bastards who hanged that woman drawn and quartered.

---

DOG BITES MAN:

BBC's own man blasts his bosses over 'bias' (TREVOR KAVANAGH, 3/26/03, The Sun)

THE BBC was last night sensationally condemned for “one-sided” war coverage — by its own front line defence correspondent.

Paul Adams attacks the Beeb for misreporting the Allied advance in a blistering memo leaked to The Sun.

And he warned the BBC’s credibility is at risk for suggesting British troops are paying a “high price for small victories”.

On Monday, he wrote from US Central Command in Qatar: “I was gobsmacked to hear, in a set of headlines today, that the coalition was suffering ‘significant casualties’.

“This is simply NOT TRUE. Nor is it true to say — as the same intro stated — that coalition forces are fighting ‘guerrillas’.

“It may be guerrilla warfare, but they are not guerrillas.”

Adams’ memo was fired off to TV news head Roger Mosey, Radio news boss Stephen Mitchell and other Beeb chiefs.

It adds stunning weight to allegations that BBC coverage on all its networks is biased against the war.

In one blast, he storms: “Who dreamed up the line that the coalition are achieving ‘small victories at a very high price?’

“The truth is exactly the opposite.

“The gains are huge and the costs still relatively low. This is real warfare, however one-sided, and losses are to be expected.”

In related news, night follows day.

---

PAYING FOR PAST FECKLESSNESS:

Baghdad Empties, but Fills With Foreboding (JOHN F. BURNS, March 26, 2003, NY Times)

Even Iraqi loyalists, at least at the level of common men and women, say privately that, this time, the long years may be up. But they, and other Iraqis who do not support Mr. Hussein, have found themselves in something like an accord in recent days over the nightmare than could lie ahead.

In one family today, among professional, middle-class people who have long yearned for a freer Iraq unburdened by sanctions and repression, there was one obsessive concern. It was similar to the one that mesmerized this and similar families after President Bush gave Mr. Hussein and his two sons an ultimatum last week to quit Iraq within 48 hours, or face war.

Then, it was how long Iraqis had to wait for the first American airstrikes and the ground assault from Kuwait. Today, with the invaders more than 300 miles closer to Baghdad, the question was the same: How long would America take to close its account with Mr. Hussein?

The family members, fearful of being described in any way that could make them identifiable, said that they were scared to death by the success that Iraqi irregular troops, among them the most fanatical of his zealots, have had in delaying and harassing the American troops on their drive up the Euphrates River valley.

If similar groups make a fight for Baghdad, as most Iraqis believe they will, the family said, the new freedoms they had hoped to celebrate could come at too high a price in shattered Iraqi lives. [...]

But much more than that, they said, they feared what might befall Iraqis like themselves if, faced with continued stiff resistance by Mr. Hussein's troops, Mr. Bush did what his father did at the end of the Persian Gulf war in 1991, and decided that a settlement was preferable to a long and grisly campaign to topple Mr. Hussein.

"That is our nightmare," one of the men said, "and we ask, `What will Mr. Bush do to help us then?' "

Even before the war, Iraqis had begun to borrow from an imagined future, speaking out, here and there, as though new freedoms had already arrived. After the conflict started, this continued for a few days, encouraged by the fact that Mr. Hussein had disappeared from view after the American attempt to kill him with the cruise missile attack that began the war before dawn on Thursday. But then, on Monday, he reappeared with a lengthy television speech calling for Iraqi militiamen to "cut the throats" of the Americans, and the old anxieties were back in full measure, all over town. [...]

If it is a conundrum how Mr. Hussein has maintained his power in a capital where the government appears to have just about shut down, the answer lies in the pattern that American troops ran into on their drive north from Kuwait.

Although the Iraqi leader has always had iron control of the government and the army, the heart of his power has lain outside the formal institutions of the state, and especially in the shadowy network of irregular militia units and security agencies that report to members of his family. It is those elements that have now become crucial to sustaining his power.

In the neighborhoods of Baghdad, Iraqis have been observing for weeks the dispersal of those militias with strong personal loyalties to Mr. Hussein. Heavily armed, and often traveling in white pickup trucks, those men — from the militia formations of the ruling Baath Party, from fanatical groups of fedayeen, or martyrs for God, who wear black coveralls and black face masks, and from the private armies of tribal leaders who have sworn fealty to Mr. Hussein — are likely to be among the last groups to desert him, Iraqis say. For similar reasons, they have been the shock troops of the Iraqi leader's resistance, so far, to the American troops advancing from the south.

One of the things you keep seeing repeated by the Iraqis limns one of the oft-dimissed reasons that we had to fight this war--to convinvce the Arab world that we're serious. Many have belittled this line of reasoning as mere machismo, but if you read about Osama bin Laden you discover the genuine, and largely justified, contempt he had for America's vaunted power, because the First Iraq War, Somalia, and a host of unanswered terrorist attacks had shown we'd not use that power if it meant killing and being killed. The determined pursuit of this war against Saddam could go a long way to dispelling that notion, though it will be important to follow this victory, no matter how expensive, with an equally resolute confrontation with N. Korea and/or another Middle Eastern terror state--preferably Syria--and/or a joint operation with India to remove Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

---

CANCELLED PROGRAMMING:

Iraqi TV Goes Off Air; U.S. Troops Repel Iraqi Attack (Fox News, March 25, 2003)

Coalition aircraft hit the Iraqi TV station in Baghdad, knocking the state-run TV off the air, U.S. officials told Fox News.

The state-run TV signal was lost after 4 a.m. after large explosions were heard in and around Baghdad. The pre-dawn raid came after a several-hours-long lull in allied bombing.

U.S. military officials told Fox News they were optimistic Iraq's state TV was down for the count. The channel could not be seen in Baghdad after the raid, but satellite transmissions continued with periodic breakups.

U.S. officials also told Fox News that the station's proximity to the Ministry of Information, which also houses foreign media and is located a block away, raised concerns about collateral damage. But the TV station was a necessary target, they said, because it was believed the facility was being used as a meeting place by regime leadership and may have played a dual military/civilian role.

Fox is also reporting that taking the TV off the air was a presidential level decision. Apparently there's some concern that they were using it to broadcast coded messages and anger that they were broadcasting their own violations of the Geneva convention.

---

FALLS THE SHADOW:

7th Cavalry inflicts heavy casualties in running battle (USA Today, 3/25/03)

The fighting began at 8:30 p.m. Monday local time (12:30 p.m. ET Monday) when about 200 Iraqi troops ambushed the 500-vehicle convoy at night along the western bank of the Euphrates.

Red tracers arched back and forth as the Iraqis, dug in a hundred yards back on each side of the road, traded fire with the U.S. troops. The U.S. forces poured high-explosive shells into the Iraqi positions, and the Iraqis responded with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, hitting two U.S. trucks and a Humvee.

The encounter ended soon after squadron commander Lt. Col. Terry Ferrell ordered his soldiers to fire howitzers at the Iraqis. The radio crackled with taut voices barking grid references, then six orange fireballs blossomed over the Iraqi positions. A pair of A-10 Warthog jets delivered the final blow, dropping bombs, then strafing the enemy position.

That was just the start.

Just before midnight local time (about 4 p.m. ET) in the streets on the edge of Al Faysaliyah, just west of the Euphrates, the Iraqis attacked again.

Dozens of Iraqi militiamen hit the convoy with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. The convoy dispersed up side streets, but the leading elements headed for a bridge that seemed to offer an avenue of escape.

The bridge held up under the first five vehicles but buckled under the 70-ton weight of an Abrams tank, plunging the tank into a gulch. The crew escaped uninjured, but Ferrell had no choice but to turn all 500 vehicles in the convoy around to find another route.

In the darkness and confusion, with Iraqis continuing to fire on the convoy, two more tanks and a fuel truck rolled into ditches. Of the three tanks that had fallen into ditches, Ferrell managed to put two back on the road, but he had to abandon the other tank and the fuel truck. The squadron then retraced its way through the town, knocking out Iraqis, some firing rocket-propelled grenades.

Once out of town, the convoy continued pushing north toward Baghdad. A few hours later, as dawn approached, U.S. soldiers spotted Iraqis armed with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades about 1,000 yards from the road on each side.

The fight was on again.

With his convoy strung out for many miles behind him and his troops weary from almost 10 continuous hours of combat, Ferrell called in airstrikes. Within minutes, two more A-10s dropped eight 500-pound bombs and raked the Iraqi positions with cannon fire, setting two tree lines ablaze.

"It looks like 'Apocalypse Now,'" Air Force Tech. Sgt. Michael Keehan, Ferrell's senior enlisted tactical air controller, said with a look of pride.

The troops watching the burning tree lines could now see buildings among the trees. A man came running from one house, waving a white cloth and screaming that his family had been hurt.

He was told to bring his family to the road, where a medical team patched up a 4-year-old boy, a pregnant woman and two men, one in his late teens, the other in his 30s. All had shrapnel in their legs.

Maj. Todd Albright, a doctor, predicted a full recovery for all the victims except one man who would probably lose a foot. The family was driven away in an Iraqi ambulance.

Ferrell gave his troops two hours to catch their breath. He estimated his squadron had killed 150 Iraqi militia troops — not including those killed by the A-10s — with no casualties among his own soldiers.

To a sickening degree, this war is really just a question of how many Iraqis Saddam will take with him.

---

COMPETING GOODS:

Bloody uprising in Basra (Martin Bentham with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, 26/03/2003, Daily Telegraph)

Iraqi troops fired artillery pieces horizontally into crowds of their own people last night after a civilian uprising in Basra, the second city.

Watching British troops encircling the city of 1.3 million inhabitants said there were "horrific" scenes. One officer said: "We have seen a large crowd on the streets. The Iraqis are firing artillery at their own people. There will be carnage."

Last night Maj Gen Robin Brims, commander of the British forces surrounding Basra, was making plans to move tanks of the 7th Armoured Brigade into the city centre today to help the rebels and try to prevent slaughter.

British commanders were cautiously optimistic about a sudden collapse of the Iraqi regime in Basra. Maj Gen Peter Wall, deputy British commander in the Gulf, said that although the uprising seemed to be in its "infancy" the allies were planning to exploit the situation. [...]

Western intelligence officials said the trouble started when Ali Hassan al-Majid, one of Saddam Hussein's closest aides, who is in charge of the south, ordered the execution of a Shi'ite Ba'ath Party leader.

The rebels were later observed by British troops. The Army said its artillery spotting equipment also picked up Iraqi weaponry being fired at short range at targets within Basra.

British artillery targeted the Iraqi emplacements, and the Ba'ath Party headquarters, home of pro-Saddam forces within the city, was destroyed by laser-guided bombs from US aircraft.

Later British forces took "significant action" against mortars and artillery pieces in Basra. An official said: "They have all been destroyed."

Tank commanders from the Black Watch battle group, part of the 7th Armoured Brigade, the Desert Rats, had been urgently seeking permission to intervene. But British commanders decided to wait for daylight.

One officer said: "If we were to go in darkness that is not a good time to be able to identify civilians and distinguish them from people fighting for Saddam. That is not an easy task in daylight but it will be much easier than when it is dark and difficult to see clearly."

The decision to delay intervention disappointed the troops, with several expressing frustration that they were unable to go to the immediate assistance of the protesters.

That's "Chemical" Ali, for those of you who don't recognize the name Ali Hassan al-Majid. He led the gassing of Kurds in Halabja. Men like him are why there was never any alternative to regime change.

MORE:
Shiites Rise Up Against Saddam (AP, March 25, 2003)

In a telephone interview with Al-Jazeera television, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed al-Sahhaf denied any uprising in Basra.

"The situation is stable," he said. "Resistance is continuing and we are teaching them more lessons."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he had not seen reports of an uprising in Basra, but was aware that fedayeen guerrillas loyal to Saddam were infiltrating the city.

Rumsfeld said he was "reluctant" to encourage uprisings explicitly. "I guess those of us my age remember uprisings in Eastern Europe back in the 1950s when they rose up and they were slaughtered," he said. "I am very careful about encouraging people to rise up. We know there are people in those cities ready to shoot them if they try to rise up."

But he added: "Anyone who's engaged in an uprising has a whole lot of courage and I sure hope they're successful." [...]

"The humanitarian situation in Basra is difficult, and very, very tense," said Muin Kassis of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in neighboring Jordan.

Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Basra residents by telephone were unsuccessful, but international relief agencies had satellite-phone contact with aid workers in the city and expressed deep concern about the fate of trapped civilians.

"It's very alarming, very critical," said Veronique Taveau of the U.N. humanitarian office for Iraq.

War is critical you stupid cow!

---

WILL NO ONE RID US...:

Weaknesses and moral inconsistency led us to war: International alliances must be rebuilt so the world does not fragment again (Rowan Williams, March 25, 2003 , Times of London)

The decision to embark on military operations in Iraq last week produced something unfamiliar in our politics: the sense of the genuinely tragic — by which I mean not the sad or the catastrophic, but the awareness of desperately constrained choices, profound moral risk, the knowledge of the cost of what we do, even when we do it from conviction.

I heard an excellent line tonight, though I didn't hear who it's credited to: when good and evil oppose one another it's merely melodrama; when good opposes good then it's tragedy. The great flaw of the Left (which sadly includes the Churches) as regards their arguments on the war is that they do view it as a tragedy. This is because they--and it's particularly odd for the Church--no longer have access to the idea of evil. In every conflict they see only opposing goods, though some of the parties may be misunderstood or may be behaving badly at the moment. In America, evangelical churches and other conservative denominations are displacing the older liberal mainline churches in large part because of this demoralization. This has much of the character of a Third Great Awakening, reinvigorating American society with a religious moralism that many thought would never be seen again after the '70s and which is thoroughly moribend in the rest of the West. From this phenomenon derives the vast and growing split between America and Europe on issues like war, abortion, capital punishment, homosexuality, adultery, welfare, and a host of other political/social issues. It also makes it extremely improbable that America and Europe can be reconciled in the long run. The very bases of our societies are becoming too different.

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TARNISHING HIS OWN GLORIOUS LEGACY:

Pope cites peace movements in opposing war (AP, Mar 25, 2003)

The vast antiwar movement in the world shows that a "large part of humanity" has repudiated the idea of war as a means of resolving conflicts between nations, Pope John Paul II said in a message released Tuesday.

Yes, and when the part that slaughters its own people and invades its neighbors repudiates violence we can all sit around and sing Kumbaya. Although, one would expect a theologian not to be eagerly anticipating the end of evil as an aspect of mankind.

---

WE HAD TO DESTROY THE GLOBAL VILLAGE TO SAVE IT:

Thank God for the death of the UN: Its abject failure gave us only anarchy. The world needs order (Richard Perle, March 21, 2003, The Guardian)

Saddam Hussein's reign of terror is about to end. He will go quickly, but not alone: in a parting irony, he will take the UN down with him. Well, not the whole UN. The "good works" part will survive, the low-risk peacekeeping bureaucracies will remain, the chatterbox on the Hudson will continue to bleat. What will die is the fantasy of the UN as the foundation of a new world order. As we sift the debris, it will be important to preserve, the better to understand, the intellectual wreckage of the liberal conceit of safety through international law administered by international institutions.

As free Iraqis document the quarter-century nightmare of Saddam's rule, let us not forget who held that the moral authority of the international community was enshrined in a plea for more time for inspectors, and who marched against "regime change". In the spirit of postwar reconciliation that diplomats are always eager to engender, we must not reconcile the timid, blighted notion that world order requires us to recoil before rogue states that terrorise their own citizens and menace ours. [...]

In the heady aftermath of the allied victory, the hope that security could be made collective was embodied in the UN security council - with abject results. During the cold war the security council was hopelessly paralysed. The Soviet empire was wrestled to the ground, and eastern Europe liberated, not by the UN, but by the mother of all coalitions, Nato. Apart from minor skirmishes and sporadic peacekeeping missions, the only case of the security council acting during the cold war was its use of force to halt the invasion of South Korea - and that was only possible because the Soviets were not in the chamber to veto it. It was a mistake they did not make again.

Facing Milosevic's multiple aggressions, the UN could not stop the Balkan wars or even protect its victims. It took a coalition of the willing to save Bosnia from extinction. And when the war was over, peace was made in Dayton, Ohio, not in the UN. The rescue of Muslims in Kosovo was not a UN action: their cause never gained security council approval. The United Kingdom, not the United Nations, saved the Falklands.

This new century now challenges the hopes for a new world order in new ways. We will not defeat or even contain fanatical terror unless we can carry the war to the territories from which it is launched. This will sometimes require that we use force against states that harbour terrorists, as we did in destroying the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The most dangerous of these states are those that also possess weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is one, but there are others. Whatever hope there is that they can be persuaded to withdraw support or sanctuary from terrorists rests on the certainty and effectiveness with which they are confronted. The chronic failure of the security council to enforce its own resolutions is unmistakable: it is simply not up to the task. We are left with coalitions of the willing. Far from disparaging them as a threat to a new world order, we should recognise that they are, by default, the best hope for that order, and the true alternative to the anarchy of the abject failure of the UN.

Mr. Perle has been advising George W. Bush for a good four or five years now, yet people continue to believe that the President failed to understand the meaning of his own actions when he held the UN to its own purported standards and showed it incapable of meeting them. Oh, to be underestimated...

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THE HOUR OF LIBERATION HAS COME:

Dr.Chalabi addresses Iraqi people (Iraqi National Congress, 3/25/2003)

Dr Ahmed Chalabi addressed the Iraqi people from Northern Iraq on the arabic language of Radio Sawa, which is widely listened to throughout Iraq. He spoke shortly after the announcement of the Coalition action to liberate Iraq saying:

“The hour of liberation has come. Your dark night is coming to an end.”

Iraqis may one day remember Dr. Chalabi as the French remember de Gaulle or the Poles Lech Walesa.

---

WHO ELECTED KOFI ANNAN?

Mickey Kaus asks "Would an invasion by the U.N. have been less resented by Iraqis? I'd say clearly yes. It's a higher-order power. And nobody's resented like the U.S. is resented." I respect Kaus, although I find his dithering schtick incredibly annoying. (I don't think that not being able to make up your mind is quite the selling point for a professional opinionater that he thinks it is.) But what could he possible mean by calling the UN a higher order power?

From the context, he seems to be saying that the UN is, or is seen to be, superior to the US government. A US/Iraq conflict is a conflict of equals -- if I'm not reading too much into a casual comment -- but the voice of the UN is the voice of moral authority. I just don't understand this point of view, which is fairly common in the leftish commentariat these days. The whole point of the UN is that, with the exception of the five permanent members of the Security Council, all de jure regimes are equal. In fact, the Syrian ambassador reminded the UN just today that Iraq is still a full member, entitled to the respect due all UN members. As has been remarked many times, the UN is a gentleman's club for dictators, giving them at least the forms of respect, a podium before the world and some say in world affairs. It is not at all democratic because it does not particularly value democracy over other governments, other than in the empty words that mark the homage vice pays to virtue.

The UN is a tool of foreign policy; our's, France's and even Iraq's. It is a wrench for use on nuts of a particular size. The nut of regime change was simply too big for it, but you don't stop changing the tire because one of your wrenches refuses to help. In fact, it was pretty clear from the start that the UN was not the right tool to use. It was designed so as not to interfere in the internal affairs of its members. Many of the members, and a few of the permanent members, have a strong interest in maintaining that noninterference directive (Chechnia, anyone? Tibet?). Those members will make sure that the UN never makes a practice of regime change. Would the Iraqis prefer to be invaded by the UN? I think the question is moot, but in a few weeks we'll be able to ask them, no thanks to the UN.

The UN structure was developed in a much different world, one just coming out of WWII and entering the Cold War. The UN was designed for that world and does not fit very well into the modern world. It is not a higher order power; it is not a power at all. It is a somewhat obsolete tool that the President thought might still have some use left in it. But if we conclude it has finally become useless, we should not hesitate to abandon it.

---

SERVANTS OF LIGHT:

Lucky Break for Jordan (Arnaud de Borchgrave, 3/21/2003, UPI)

A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip "had shocked me back to reality." Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."

On reading this story, John Resnick writes:

Information's free flow is a great treasure of true liberty. Merely forming and voicing an opinion is NOT what makes free speech so valuable. The protected right itself is surely sacred, but it is powerless or even harmful without truth (e.g. yelling "fire" in the crowded theater or words from the Iraqi "Information" minister). Like all rights, free speech exists in a tenuous vacuum unless counterbalanced by a correlative responsibility.

Mindless slogan chanting, while clearly free speech, is indicative of exercising a right in the absence of its responsibility. One could argue that it is freedom - but only for personal freedom's sake. It surely is not freedom for truth's sake. It's like running an engine on dirty or improper fuel.

Freedom to form and voice an opinion based on access to unimpeded information or that which would lead to deciphering the truth -- now THAT's liberty's treasure at its fullest.

In Iraq's case, there are surely 100's of thousands if not millions who would trade their oil for truth. They know the only way to operate their burgeoning engine of free speech is on truth's cleanest fuel. After all, they've lived under the antithesis for generations. They embrace anybody who will listen with the truth about the evil oppression in their country rather than stories of untold oil riches that could be plundered.

In the end, as from the beginning, fully embracing the Truth is the only way to real freedom - physically and spiritually.

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32, KJV)
————---
We pray without ceasing for Victory: Swift, Clean, Decisive and Liberating

John Resnick

Unfortunately, this also is true:

And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil.
-John 3:19-21

Look at the folks cited in various posts below--Ron Brownstein, James Carroll, Martin Indyk--presumably all decent men personally, who are apparently incapable of accepting that our cause is right at all or that it is right without UN approval. Like the peoples of France, Russia, Canada, Germany, the Arab World, etc., we too are all too close as a society to falling in love with the darkness and ignoring stories like the one above and like this one, Son of Saddam: As Iraq's top Olympic official, Uday Hussein is accused of the torture and murder of athletes who fail to win (Don Yaeger, 3/24/03, Sports Illustrated).

But, for the nonce, it is a great honor to be a citizen of one of the few countries that are taking our responsibilities as seriously as our rights, fighting against the darkness, and hopefully helping the Iraqi people to find their voices, speak the truth, and see the light after a long, long night.

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FRENCH DREAMS:

France Seeks Big Role in Post-War Iraq (AP, 3/25/2003)

France is drawing up plans to win French companies access to lucrative oil and reconstruction contracts [in postwar Iraq], officials said Tuesday....

Officials in Paris say French firms' experience in working in Iraq would be an advantage....

Munier said he believes American companies will have difficulties in Iraq because of widespread anger against the U.S.-led bombing campaign.

"I don't see how American executives can work when their lives will be at risk," he said. "There will be such hatred toward Americans."

Munier criticized French companies for negotiating with American companies for a piece of their businesses in Iraq, saying that such "collaboration" would damage the image of French business among Iraqis.

Chortle, chortle, giggle.

---

BABY WIPES, PLEASE:

In Iraqi Desert, Marines Pitch
A Busy Pit Stop for Helicopters (Wall Street Journal, 3/25/2003)

"Food, water, sleeping bags -- we don't really ask for a whole lot more than that," says Lt. Antonelli. In less than an hour, only a few white landing pads remained.

But Cpl. Justin Palmer, of Tracy, Calif., points out one more essential: baby wipes. The moist, disposable cloths are the only means of bathing for troops without access to showers, and are especially welcome at this sandy outpost where the labor is strenuous and the constant exposure to fuel adds to the mess. Asked what he'd like to say to the people back home, Cpl. Palmer immediately replies: "Please send more baby wipes."

I'm not sure how to send baby wipes, but David found a number of other ways to help.

---

TALK ABOUT A TARGET OF OPPORTUNITY:

The Russians Love Their Children Too (Kevin Whited, Reductio ad Absurdum)

Friend Kevin Whited comments on an essay by former assistant Secratary of State Martin Indyk which, I kid you not, contains the following sentence:

It's too late to salvage the Security Council consensus that would have legitimized this war against Iraq.

Ready, aim, fire...

---

SHIITE MILITIA IN BASRA:

First Basra, Then Baghdad (Debka, 3/25/2003)

Franks counteracted by throwing into the arena a secret weapon, a 3,000-man opposition Shiite militia organized by Majid al-Khoei, the 34-year old son of Ayatollah Khoei, the legendary spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiites. The militia, trained and funded by the US war command, waited in Qatar for the signal to go into action.

Monday night, March 25, the Shiite militiamen reached the southern outskirts of Basra ...

This sounds like a plausible explanation for the Shiite "uprising."

BUT THE BRITS ARE MUM:

Iraqis shoot into crowd (International Herald Tribune, 3/26/2003)

Major General Peter Wall, the second in command of British troops, confirmed the reports but said the situation was not yet fully understood.

"I'm confirming that there are events in Basra," Wall said. "We don't know what has spurred them, we don't know the scale, we don't know the scope of it. We don't know where it will take us."

---

THE GENERAL ON THE MARCH:

High Court Won't Rule on Terror Surveillance (Dan Eggen, March 25, 2003, Washington Post)

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene yesterday in an ongoing argument over the proper boundaries for federal surveillance of suspected terrorists, rebuffing an attempt by civil liberties advocates to challenge the Bush administration on the issue.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Arab American groups had asked the high court to consider whether the government had gone too far in permitting information gathered with secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to be used in criminal prosecutions.

The justices declined to allow the groups to intervene in the case, but they did not issue a decision on the merits of either side.

The ACLU had taken the novel step of filing an appeal on behalf of people who did not know they were being monitored in an attempt to bring the case before the high court. The organization said it was disappointed but not surprised by the justices' decision to reject that effort.

"It was an unusual case because there was no one able to appeal the government's power to spy on ordinary Americans," said Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director. "We are not going to give up on our many different attempts to challenge these new spying powers."

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft praised the decision and defended "the government's lawful actions to detect and prevent international terrorism and espionage within our borders.

"Civil libertarians" have challenged nearly every action that Mr. Ashcroft's Justice Department has undertaken and have routinely portrayed him as an extremist. Yet, he's racked up an almost uninterrupted series of wins in court. If the justice system sides with him almost every time, then who really are the extremists here?

---

SO DOES THE SON REAP THE SINS OF THE FATHER:

Popular support held back by suspicion, fear and patriotism (Richard Beeston, March 25, 2003, Times of London)

OPPRESSED by decades of brutal dictatorship, Iraq's Shia Muslim city of Basra was supposed to rise against Saddam Hussein and greet US and British soldiers as liberators.

But nearly a week into the campaign, there is little evidence so far that the coalition forces are welcome in the southern Iraqi capital, and even fears that they are regarded as invaders by locals.

Although no major population centre has yet been captured and secured by American and British forces, anecdotal evidence suggests that ordinary Iraqis have decidedly mixed views about the war, and regard the new arrivals with deep suspicion.

The view was confirmed at Safwan, scene of one of Saddam's most brutal purges in 1991, and the first settlement reached by British and American forces. Although some villagers clapped and cheered at the sight of the first coalition armour, others demanded to know why the troops had come. One asked: "Are you going to steal our oil?" [...]

The Americans and British are blamed for failing to overthrow Saddam after the Gulf War in 1991 and allowing him brutally to suppress uprisings by Shias and Kurds.

Kurds clap as coalition bombards enemy lines (Anthony Loyd, March 25, 2003, Times of London)

[T]he US-Kurdish relationship is strained by differences regarding Kirkuk. The Kurds see the oil-rich city, Iraq's fourth-largest, as a traditional Kurdish settlement and thus a primary war objective. Turkey fears that Kurdish control of such a vital economic asset would provoke separatist unrest among its own Kurdish population. The Americans want to assuage both parties for the short-term war effort.

Mullah Sheikh, a senior commander of the peshmerga guerrillas in Chamchamal, said: "We are being told that Kirkuk may not be an objective until after Baghdad is encircled. This is an American idea, not a Kurdish one."

Others were even more derogatory, despite yesterday's airstrikes. "The Americans are being slowed in the south for the same reasons they are delayed in the north," Saddiq Ahmad, 34, of the communist opposition in Chamchamal, said. "They have embraced no Iraqi opposition into their war, so the people of al-Nasiriyah see them only as a foreign army and will not rise up to help them, just as the people of Kirkuk see the Americans.

"We are hearing reports from the media that our peshmerga are to operate under US command, but so far few commanders on the ground are being told to co-operate."

You can't blame them. Time for Poppy to go on TV, apologize for betraying their respective uprisings twelve years ago, and urge them to believe is son is a far different man.

---

REQUIEM FOR A LIGHTWEIGHT:

The Moral Idiocy of James Carroll (H.D. Miller, March 25, 2003, Travelling Shoes)

He Who is Sensibly Shod chastises the insufferable James Carroll for essentially declaring Saddam Hussein's Iraq morally equivalent to George W. Bush's Washington.

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BLACK HAWK UP:

Somali leader 'seeks Iraq victory' (BBC, 3/25/03)

The president of Somalia's transitional government has condemned the United States-led attack on Iraq as naked aggression.

Abdulkassim Salat Hassan said he was praying for an Iraqi victory.

Somalia has denied repeated accusations that it is harbouring members of the al-Qaeda network.

Time to finish the Battle of the Black Sea. There are a bunch of Rangers who wanted to settle the score then.

---

BROWN OUT:

Bush Displays Tenacity and Obstinacy (Ronald Brownstein, March 24, 2003, LA Times)

Blair was just as focused as Bush on disarming Iraq but showed more genuine interest than Bush in building international cooperation to combat the threats of terrorism and weapons proliferation.

Bush, in his address, was dismissive of nations that resisted the war. "These governments share our assessment of the danger," he said, "but not our resolve to meet it."

Blair recognized that the conflict between the United States and Europe over Iraq draws on deeper currents: Europe's failure to understand how dramatically the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have "changed the psychology of America," and America's failure to recognize the fear in Europe and elsewhere that the U.S. now intends to flex its muscle without much regard for the views of others.

To heal the breach, Blair offered Bush good advice. The best way to reduce resentment of America's preponderant power, he suggested, is to channel that power into an international system of shared responsibilities and common priorities.

Confronting Iraq, Blair argued, should be part of "a larger global agenda," with new initiatives "on poverty and sustainable development, democracy and human rights" and an international effort to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace. In words that seemed to be aimed at Bush and French President Jacques Chirac, Blair offered the U.S. and Europe a guidepost for reconciliation: "Partners are not servants, but neither are they rivals."

McCain had some equally wise counsel for Bush on the home front. In a statement on the Senate floor, McCain made a point that should be obvious. With the federal budget already groaning under massive deficits and the nation facing unknown costs from the war-- plus the costs of helping rebuild Iraq while strengthening our defenses against terrorist attacks at home -- this is no time for the huge additional tax cuts Bush has proposed.

"No one," McCain said, "can be expected to make an informed decision on fiscal policy at this time ... with the near, mid- and long-term costs of defending this country unknown."

All evidence suggests Bush isn't listening much to Blair or McCain. The White House is still pressing Congress for a tax cut of at least $725 billion. And the administration is drawing plans to maximize American, rather than international, control over a post-Hussein Iraq.

Such obstinacy, amid persuasive criticism, is the flip side of Bush's commitment to defanging Iraq. The rapid progress of U.S. forces through the Iraqi desert seems almost a physical manifestation of Bush's determination to impose his will. But so do the suspicion of America abroad and the mounting deficits at home.

Mr. Brownstein just doesn't get it. Tony Blair was, of course, wrong. The international community--at least the Franco-German and Arab branches--was never serious about taking on Saddam, which is why there'd been twelve years of inaction. Nor is there any reason to believe that it is in Britain's best interest to get mired in the EU and it sure as heck isn't in Americva's interest to see Britain, our best ally, destroy itself that way.

Meanwhile, even after the tax cut the budget defecits are negligible in historic terms and should be considered separately from the question of the war. Mr. McCain pushes things like scrapping the tax cuts because journalists like Mr. Brownstein lap it up, not because it would be good for the economy, which could use a stimulative shot in the arm.

---

AS SPECULATED:

U.S. allows broadcasts to continue Pentagon wants to use networks to keep eye on enemy leadership (Dave Moniz, 3/25/03, USA TODAY)

Six days into the war against Iraq, the United States has yet to knock Iraqi TV off the air.

Defense officials and military experts say the Pentagon made a calculated decision to keep Iraq's state-run network running so it could monitor broadcasts and follow the activities of Saddam Hussein and Iraq's political leadership.

U.S. officials also feared civilian casualties if they destroyed transmitting equipment, defense officials say.

On Monday, a Pentagon official said the United States would eventually take over Iraq's TV network once Saddam is removed from power to keep the Iraqi people informed of developments.

Another possible factor in the decision: The Bush administration wants as little damage to the country's infrastructure as possible because the United States will have to foot the bill for rebuilding Iraq.

Why take them out if we're going to have to them up again this weekend?

---

BUSTED:

Syria Claims U.S. Missile Strike Deaths (Associated Press, Mar. 24, 2003)

A U.S. missile hit a passenger bus on the Iraqi side of the border as it carried Syrian civilians fleeing the war, killing five people and wounding 10, Syria's official news agency reported Monday.

The bus was transporting 37 passengers when it was struck by the air-to-surface missile Sunday near the border of the two countries, the agency reported. Syrian officials refused a request by The Associated Press to go to an area near the site Monday.

A U.S. Central Command spokeswoman had no information on the report. She said, however, that U.S. forces do not target civilians and that they fire very carefully, using precision-guided missiles against military targets.

The Syrian agency said the wounded were taken to a Syrian hospital near the border and the dead were sent to a hospital outside the Syrian capital, Damascus. Officials reported relatives had retrieved the bodies.

Reading between the lines of a couple different reports, it sounds like this was actually a bus full of volunteers who wanted to fight for Saddam, headed from Syria to Iraq, and we likely bombed them on purpose to send a message to the Syrians to stop it.

---

F-BOMBING SADDAM:

First Stop, Iraq: How did the U.S. end up taking on Saddam? The inside story of how Iraq jumped to the top of Bush's agenda—and why the outcome there may foreshadow a different world order (Michael Elliott and James Carney, March 23, 2003, TIME)

"F___ Saddam. We're taking him out." Those were the words of President George W. Bush, who had poked his head into the office of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. It was March 2002, and Rice was meeting with three U.S. Senators, discussing how to deal with Iraq through the United Nations, or perhaps in a coalition with America's Middle East allies. Bush wasn't interested. He waved his hand dismissively, recalls a participant, and neatly summed up his Iraq policy in that short phrase. The Senators laughed uncomfortably; Rice flashed a knowing smile. The President left the room.

A year later, Bush's outburst has been translated into action, as cruise missiles and smart bombs slam into Baghdad. But the apparent simplicity of his message belies the gravity at hand. Sure, the outcome is certain: America will win the war, and Saddam will be taken out. But what is unfolding in Iraq is far bigger than regime change or even the elimination of dangerous weapons. The U.S. has launched a war unlike any it has fought in the past. This one is being waged not to defend against an enemy that has attacked the U.S. or its interests but to pre-empt the possibility that one day it might do so. The war has turned much of the world against America. Even in countries that have joined the "coalition of the willing," big majorities view it as the impetuous action of a superpower led by a bully. This divide threatens to emasculate a United Nations that failed to channel a diplomatic
settlement or brand the war as legitimate. The endgame will see the U.S. front and center, attempting to remake not merely Iraq but the entire region. The hope is that the Middle East, a cockpit of instability for decades, will eventually settle into habits of democracy, prosperity and peace. The risks are that Washington's rupture with some of its closest allies will deepen and that the war will become a cause for which a new generation of terrorists can be recruited.

F___ them too. Bring it on.

---

POLAR OPPOSITES:

Democrats' Deja Vu: By welcoming antiwar and anti-Bush vitriol, the party is again losing its bearings (David Frum, March 24, 2003, LA Times)

Has there ever been a president who worked harder than Bush to conciliate and befriend his opponents? He appointed a Democrat, Norman Mineta, to his Cabinet, and put another Democrat, John DiIulio, in charge of his signature faith-based initiative. He signed a bill that affixed Robert Kennedy's name to the Justice Department building; renominated Clinton judges whose nominations had lapsed when President Clinton's term ended; compromised his education bill to accommodate Democratic ideas; and rarely, if ever, criticized any Democratic officeholder.

Yet all this symbolic and substantive bipartisanship has done Bush no good. Joe Lieberman, the would-be Mr. Nice Guy of American politics, said in December that Bush had made Washington "more partisan" than ever before. Bush, the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne reported in January, "has become a deeply polarizing figure, winning near-universal support within his own party while sowing deep resentment in the opposition."

"Resentment" isn't the half of it. In a Feb. 12 speech on the Senate floor, West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd damned Bush as "reckless and arrogant." In December, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry accused Bush of "making a conscious decision to ... dominate the discussion with Iraq" in order to divert attention from the nation's economic difficulties. Ted Kennedy -- whom Bush courted and lavishly praised in 2001 -- on March 4 accused Bush of rushing into an "unnecessary war."

As Kennedy's words suggest, leading Democrats are now stepping beyond criticism to lend aid and comfort to the antiwar movement in the United
States and Europe. By adopting the movement's rhetoric, they blur the distinction between the mainstream Democratic Party and the far left. It's important to understand that today's antiwar movement is a very different beast -- more ambitious and more sinister -- than the antiwar movement of the 1960s.

I attended the first of the big antiwar marches in London in October 2002 and was struck by the prevalence of radical Muslim groups and chants. All that was missing were the facsimile suicide-bomber belts.

Now, the antiwar movement is turning to more direct action. In Europe, Italian antiwar protesters have blocked train stations in an effort to halt the transport of military equipment; here in the United States, the protesters are tying up traffic and trying to shut down cities.

The Democratic Party nearly destroyed itself in the 1970s and '80s by inviting in the anti-Vietnam radicals of the '60s. In the '90s, moderate Democrats vowed never to repeat the previous generation's mistake: Bill Clinton chose Al Gore as his running mate in 1992 very largely because Gore was one of the few Democratic senators to have cast a vote in favor of the Gulf War resolution. Gore, in turn, selected Lieberman as his running mate on the strength of Lieberman's reputation as a foreign-policy hawk.

The Democrats' hatred of Bush, though, is leading them to forget this painfully earned wisdom and revert to the bad habits of the recent past.

This essay does a disservice to the Democrats, who are not just adopting this radical anti-war position because they hate George Bush, but because the party's sacred domestic programs are threatened by the maintenance of a serious military capability and the expenses of war and the party's core belief, in security, is incompatible with the fight for the freedom of others. The critics cited are correct: the war is, in fact, polarizing, reckless, arrogant, unnecessary, and the road to war has indeed been dominated by the President. It is a war of his choosing, waged on the basis of certain ideals--"[F]reedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity."--that the GOP believes in and the Left does not. We happen to be arrived at a moment in time--because of 9-11--when Americans
are willing to march under the banner of freedom, but such moments tend to be fleeting. In the long term, the Kerrys & Deans are likely on the right side politically, though hopefully that's the wrong side of history.

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SIEGE AND CONQUER:

No 'Baghdad Bloodbath' (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 3/25/2003)

Once our forces are ringing Baghdad ... the world is going to witness the first post-modern siege....

Once the last die-hard Saddamites are corralled in Baghdad (and, perhaps, in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, a city that just brings out the nuclear side of my character), we're going to work 'em like history's biggest cat batting around a blind, three-legged mouse.

Allied special operations forces - already in Baghdad - will be prowling the hallways and alleys, taking direct action against the regime's remaining supporters, collecting information for precision strikes and working with the growing Iraqi resistance.

As David Warren noted, the Iraqi resistance will have saved many allied lives.

MORE: Uprising in Basra(BBC Reporters' Weblog, 3/25/2003)

There is a popular uprising in the city of Basra.

People are rising up against the ruling Ba'ath regime, we are being told by military intelligence officers there that they have had enough.

Iraqi soldiers in the city are actually firing mortar rounds on their own people.

God bless the Iraqi people.

MORE: Don Rumsfeld says that the main fighting is between Saddam's Fedayeen secret police, wearing civilian clothes, trying to kill Iraqi soldiers who want to surrender.

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FASTER, PUSSYCAT, KILL, KILL:

WINNING BIG (RALPH PETERS, March 24, 2003, NY Post)

[W]e've taken casualties and American soldiers have been captured - doesn't that mean we're in trouble? No. I wish it were otherwise, but, in any war - especially one of this magnitude - soldiers die, suffer wounds, or fall into enemy hands. We cherish every servicemember and mourn every loss. But, to be frank, our losses thus far are remarkably low, given the scale of our enterprise.

We may lose considerably higher numbers of casualties before this war is over. But I can promise you that our military commanders are relieved by the low level of our losses to date.

Are the Iraqis really trying to lure us deep into their country so they can spring a trap on our forces? The Iraqis have no choice in the matter. Our troops go where they want to go.

Yes, the Iraqis are probably planning a large military confrontation, an operational-level ambush, close to Baghdad - while forces remaining in our rear area attack our supply lines. They may even have left some of the bridges across the Euphrates standing on purpose.

If so, it was a grave error. If those Republican Guards divisions confront our forces, they simply will not survive. Even if their plan includes the use of chemical weapons.

Thus far, our troops have performed magnificently, seizing an ever-growing list of airfields, bridges, roads, oil fields and other critical infrastructure, enabling us to maneuver swiftly and freely, while preserving the backbone of Iraq's economy for its people. And we prevented an ecological catastrophe, although those on the left will never credit us for doing so.

Even if the Iraqis have some ambitious master plan they still believe they can spring on us, they never expected to lose so much of their country so quickly. They are reeling; any plan could only be executed piecemeal, at this point.

After less than four days of ground operations, the Iraqis have lost control over half their country, they have lost control over most of their military, and allied forces are closing in on Baghdad.

But what about the "Battle of Baghdad"? Will it be a bloodbath? Haven't the Iraqis already lured us into urban warfare in the south? No. The Iraqis haven't lured us into anything. We have consistently imposed our plan and our will upon the enemy. While there have been some incidences of urban combat to date, with friendly casualties, our forces are far better prepared for such encounters than are the Iraqis. The Marine Corps, especially, has been training intensively in urban environments.

We are not going to be lured into a "Stalingrad" in Baghdad. Ignore the prophets of doom, who have been wrong consistently. As this column has steadily maintained, we have time, but Saddam doesn't. If we have to sit in a ring around Baghdad for several weeks while the last resistance is dismantled in innovative ways, then that's what we'll do.

Grave dangers lie ahead. Only a fool would underestimate them. But this war is not being run against a clock. The counsel that we must all be patient and let our troops do their jobs remains the best a former soldier can offer.

As long as the American people keep their perspective - which they will - it really doesn't matter how many journalists lose theirs.

One notion that seems especially odd is that those forces most loyal to Saddam, those Republican Guards and Special Republican Guards, are the best fighting forces in Iraq and will represent heightened danger. Is Saddamism really an indicator of worth?

---

DID THEY CLEAR THIS WITH PETA? (via Blogs of War):

Morocco offers US monkeys to detonate mine (UPI, 3/24/2003)

The weekly al-Usbu' al-Siyassi reported that Morocco offered the U.S. forces a large number of monkeys, some from Morocco's Atlas Mountains and others imported, to use for detonating land mines planted by the Iraqis.

Doesn't sound like the kind of offer we'd accept, but, hey, we appreciate the thought.


MORE:

Sea Lions, Porpoises Deployed to Protect US Military (ABC News, 1/30/2003)

K-Dog the Minehunter (This is London, 3/25/2003)

With a camera strapped to his fin, the bottle-nose dolphin is one of about 100 dolphins and sea lions helping to clear shipping lanes in the Gulf to ensure a safe passage for vessels.

Seems to me there's a movie script in here somewhere.

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COMPETITION:

Under-pirate division (Jayson Stark, ESPN)

Meanwhile in Bradenton, the Pirates also have played a couple of exhibitions against college teams this spring. In one of them, they were held to four hits and one run in a four-inning stint by Duquesne walk-on freshman Bob Hartle -- a guy who had actually been cut from the team last fall.

Hartle, whose fastball peaked at 75 mph, told the Beaver County Times' John Perrotto: "I'd like to tell you I fooled them, but I don't think they were really used to my speed."

Well, after that spectacle, pitcher Salomon Torres was determined that he wasn't going to get embarrassed in a charity game against Manatee Community College. So he used his whole repertoire in two shutout innings.

"Guys were getting on me for throwing those college kids too many curveballs," Torres said. "Hey, I'm trying to make the club. I'd throw curveballs for my little 18-month-old daughter if she stepped into the batter's box:"

Roger Angell tells the story of visiting Bob Gibson and watching him thrash his young daughter in checkers. Mr. Angell asked him if he always won. Mr. Gibson said yes. Mr. Angell asked why not let her win one. "She'll win when she can beat me."

---

USEFUL IDIOTS, UNPUBLICIZED EVILDOERS, AND UNSUNG HEROES:

Shields & lances (David Warren, 3/25/2003)

The larger question of human shields is still under debate. My own view is the one I think will prevail: that allied armies should more-or-less ignore such people, in the selection of targets. For the use of such cover is itself among the illicit weapons of the terror regimes, who will abandon the weapon only when it ceases to work. Those who agree to be used as shields, can hold themselves to account for their fates; those who had no choice are tragically unlucky.

Life is unfair, as my mother so often said. The innocent suffer for the sins of the guilty. We cannot allow the taking of hostages to render the guilty immune from punishment. This is tragic for the hostages, but it must be so.

[A]s we shall soon learn, many of the most accomplished of Saddam's defenders behind the lines are, indeed, members of Al Qaeda, Hamas, and other terrorist groups who have received training in Iraq. We are unlikely to hear much about this, or about the capture of biological and chemical weapons sites, until the war is over (despite several interesting independent reports). This is because the allies are still benefiting from Saddam's hesitation to use weapons that may immediately cost him the support of his few remaining foreign friends.

The left has been a real asset to us. They have given Saddam hope that we may abandon the war; and so he has curled up in Baghdad and defends like a porcupine. This has allowed us to capture much of the country, obviate many dangers, and greatly weaken his regime. The period of greatest danger now approaches. As we begin to prod the porcupine, the Iraqis may conclude that we will fight to the end and so too must they. One Palestinian terrorist was killed when Saddam's leadership bunker was hit on the first night of the war; there are surely many more, and they may have carried some of Iraq's worst weapons to Israel.

[T]he general population ... has greeted invading forces with wary enthusiasm wherever they have appeared, and open enthusiasm wherever they have clearly prevailed. I have now seen several accounts of Iraqi civilians, voluntarily risking their lives to help allied soldiers locate Saddamite gunmen in concealed positions. The Iraqis themselves are, alas thanks to media attitudes in the West, America's most unsung allies.

It is the brave cooperation of Iraqis behind enemy lines that may enable this war to be won without great bloodshed. The CIA has clearly made connections -- most impressively, the bodyguard who gave us Saddam's sleeping quarters on the first night of the war. Let us hope they have many more.

---

RUSSIAN TECHNOLOGY:

Best moment from today's Centcomm briefing: someone asked if the GPS jammers were causing us problems. The briefer could barely contain his amusemt as he responded that we'd actually used a GPS weapon to destroy one of the jammers, than ended with" Ironic, eh?"

---

THE COSTS OF WAR:

Republican Guard Scatters, Moving Into Civilian Areas (Wall Street Journal, 3/25/2003)

Pentagon planners once dreamed Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard might lay down arms rather than fight superior U.S. forces. But now two divisions of his army's elite -- roughly 20,000 Iraqi troops -- await the Americans on the approaches to Baghdad from the south.

To make the confrontation more complicated, those troops are dispersing. The U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq pledging to spare its citizenry of hardship and death as much as possible -- a pledge the Republican Guard is taking to heart.

"They're not in their final fighting position," one senior U.S. military official in the region says. "They're either mixed into civilian areas or they're dispersed to areas where there's religious shrines or antiquities or things like that."...

Amatzia Baram, a professor and former Israeli army battalion commander who has studied Iraq's military for years, says the Guard will take advantage of U.S. pledges to limit civilian deaths and is prepared to fight a war in populated areas. "Their tanks are not as good as American tanks but they'll hide their tanks behind houses," he predicts. "The soldiers will be inside houses. They know this is America's weak point." He added U.S. forces should expect them to use chemical weapons....

The Special Republican Guards and the Special Security Service are based in the capital of Baghdad itself.... Analysts say Special Republican Guard troops have the closest ties to Saddam Hussein, and the best pay and perks. Gen. Kamal Mustafa, believed to be the head of the Special Republican Guard, is related by marriage to Mr. Hussein. These troops are living with their families in Baghdad, which may give them more of an incentive to defend it.

One defect of visibly promising to avoid civilian casualties is that it tempts the enemy to use human shields and makes civilian casualties more likely. We should absolutely strive to minimize civilian casualties, but we should avoid advertising this commitment. Best, in most negotiations, to leave the other side in uncertainty.

Saddam is working hard to assure that we cannot win the war without taking many civilian lives. He hopes we will decide that victory is not worth it. His hope is vain.

---

COACH'S CORNER:

Cherry's rant not a hit in Canada (The Sporting News, March 24, 2003)

Don Cherry's pro-American rant on the war in Iraq wasn't a hit with Hockey Night In Canada viewers nor apparently with the CBC itself.

"The CBC does not feel Hockey Night In Canada is the appropriate place for discussion on the war in Iraq," CBC spokeswoman Ruth-Ellen Soles said Monday. [...]

It started with Cherry commenting on Montreal Canadiens fans booing the American national anthem last Thursday before a game against the New York Islanders.

Cherry, wearing a tie emblazoned with U.S. colors, apologized on behalf of Canadians, saying that "years of pride went down the drain" with Habs fans' behavior.

Cherry also went at it with MacLean over the war in Iraq, chiding the Canadian government for its "lack of support to our American friends."

"I hate to see them go it alone. We have a country that comes to our rescue, and we're just riding their coattails," Cherry said.

MacLean stood firm that it was Canada's right not to go.

"Why attack Iraq if they haven't attacked you?" MacLean said.

Other than overstating "years of pride", what's the big deal? What's more important, the war, and Canada's cravenness, or a hockey game?

---

HI-LO:

Democracies and double standards (Bret Stephens, Mar. 20, 2003, Jerusalem Post)

"You are one of us. We expect from Israel more than we expect from Cambodia or Colombia."

So said Giancarlo Chevellard, the European Union's ambassador to Israel, in answer to a question I asked him last May with respect to the EU's failure to insist on the end of Syria's occupation of Lebanon. It was a telling remark, an honest one, and one that gets to the heart of much of what currently informs "world opinion" - meaning that segment of the public who think, with greater or lesser sophistication, that the world has more to fear from George Bush than it does from Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il.

"This crowd has the fear part down cold," writes New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd of the Bush administration's effect on the world. In a "news analysis," her colleague David Sanger observed that "Mr. Bush's speech [on Monday] almost certainly confirmed some of the world's worst fears about George Bush's America: that when the United Nations will not bend to its will, when the allies will not go along, Mr. Bush will simply break away and pull the trigger." And then there was syndicated cartoonist and Pulitzer Prize-finalist Ted Rall: "By launching an illegal, unsanctioned invasion of a sovereign nation," he wrote, "the US has abandoned its moral standing. We are, by definition, a rogue state."

SO HERE'S the US, about to end a regime that puts dissidents feet-first through plastic shredders and uses their corpses for fish food, and it stands accused of abandoning its moral standing. A while back, when the US was air-dropping food and medical supplies into Afghanistan, Britain's Guardian saw fit to ponder the questions: "Who asked Mr. Bush to 'save civilization'? Which bits of the planet does Mr. Bush term uncivilized? Some would say Afghanistan; others might nominate west Texas."

No doubt, if the US succeeds in installing a progressive regime in Baghdad, Bush will be accused in some quarters of installing an American puppet.

"Pardon the sardonic giggle," writes Nicholas von Hoffman in the New York Observer, "it arises from the thought that George W. Bush, the unelected president, is going to teach democracy to the Iraqis." Presumably, if Bush were to go to Baghdad personally to hand out Oreo cookies to Iraqi orphans, he'd be seen as a shill for Nabisco.

It's entirely appropriate to hold superior societies to a higher standard, so long as that means that we are not only forbidden the basest behaviors but expected to act out of the highest ideals. For precisely the same reasons that we must wage war as morally as possible, we must, to be moral, wage some wars, must even invade and civilize some places. We shpuld expect more of ourselves, but that requires not just that we don't do some things but that we do others.

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FRANCO-GERMAN ANIMOSITY RISES:

Meanwhile, a Cold War Festers (Frederick Kempe, Wall Street Journal Europe, 3/24/2003)

I'd done it a dozen times before, rushing at the last minute to catch the high-speed train from Paris to Brussels, then paying on board. I knew the routine: I bowed before the French conductor, mumbled something about bad traffic, and appealed to his ultimate authority.

This time, however, the conductor wouldn't let me pass. An American woman behind me showed even more agitation that I did at being turned away. She wanted the man's name so that she could lodge a complaint with his superiors.

"George Bush," he spat. He turned his back on her and climbed aboard the departing train.

A few days earlier, I had a similarly unsettling experience on a German TV talk show. The Social Democratic president of the German parliament, Wolfgang Thierse, refused to let me interrupt his practiced rhetoric against U.S. policy in Iraq with a question. He called me a "fanatic" for trying to do so. The studio audience egged him on, applauding each successive attack on Washington more enthusiastically....

I sense among many Europeans a desire to see America fail and even smug self-satisfaction at some of the weekend's bloody setbacks. It's telling that perhaps the most popular American in Germany is Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning filmmaker whose Bush-bashing is always a runaway best seller. My German schoolteacher-friend Gerhard Stockheim now greets me with the title of Mr. Moore's latest book: "Hello, you stupid white man."...

A senior German diplomat says only Americans dare talk and think about such far-fetched Utopian notions as remaking the Middle East. Perhaps that is the smartest of America's smart bombs -- the continuing American belief in their country's ability to create a better world. Yet he also worries about a mean streak in this administration that will make it look for ways to punish those that have opposed it rather than new ways to win them over.

I argued in the Berman thread below that the French-German view is neo-Hobbesian. They see a state of nature as prone to irreconcilable conflict that makes life nasty, brutish, and short; with Hobbes they see the best outcome as mutual submission to a unitary authority (the 'social contract'); failing that, the important thing is to avoid violence by agreeing to a least-common-denominator solution I'll call the 'social truce.'

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THE AGONY OF PAUL BERMAN (via Kevin Whited and Evelynne):

Bush is an idiot, but he was right about Saddam: Paul Berman, one of the most provocative thinkers on the left, has a message for the antiwar movement: Stop marching and start fighting to spread liberal values in the Middle East. (Suzy Hansen, March 22, 2003, Salon)

On Sept. 11, Paul Berman, political and cultural critic and author of "A Tale of Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the Generation of 1968" watched from his roof as the World Trade Center towers collapsed. That day, Berman says, he "woke up" to the threat of what he calls Islamic totalitarianism. Berman lives in Brooklyn, just around the corner from the Al Farooq mosque on Atlantic Avenue where a Yemeni cleric was recently convicted of funneling $20 million to Osama bin Laden.

During the last year and a half he has picked his way through the Islamic bookstores in his neighborhood, hunting down volumes by Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian intellectual whose "In the Shade of the Qur'an" is the groundwork for Islamic fundamentalism. Berman finds Qutb's analysis of the "hideous schizophrenia" of modern society "rich, nuanced, deep, soulful, and heartfelt." Qutb's work also convinced Berman that in Islamism we face a threat
not unlike such 20th century totalitarian movements as fascism and communism. Berman feels similarly about Baathism, the nationalist ideology of Iraq's ruling party.

In fact, Berman believes that Islamism and Baathism emerged from the same great rift in liberal society, the First World War. "Terror and Liberalism," Berman's bracing new book, suggests that just as liberal-minded Europeans and Americans doubted the threats of Hitler and Stalin, enlightened Westerners today are in danger of missing the urgency of the violent ideologies coming out of the Muslim world.

The argument put forward by Berman, who is one of the most elegant and provocative thinkers to emerge from America's New Left, will both infuriate and engage those on all sides of the political spectrum. In a recent interview with Salon, Berman insisted that while he does not support the Bush administration -- actually, he detests how President Bush has handled the case for war and warns "we will pay for it" -- he thinks it was also
dangerous for the antiwar movement to ignore the threat that was posed by a ruthless Iraqi regime that killed a million people and threatened the stability of the world. [...]

[Q:] It seems that you are more critical of what Bush says -- how he presents the war on Iraq -- than what he's actually doing.

[A:] Well, I thought I was criticizing what he's doing.

[Q:] You do think there are reasons for going to war, though.

[A:] Yes.

[Q:] So you think the way he's presenting this war to the world is really where he's gone wrong.

[A:] Yes, it has been wretched. He's presented his arguments for going to war partly mendaciously, which has been a disaster. He's certainly presented them in a confused way, so that people can't understand his reasoning. He's aroused a lot of suspicion. Even when he's made good arguments, he's made them in ways that are very difficult to understand and have completely failed to get through to the general public. All in all, his inarticulateness
has become something of a national security threat for the United States.

In my interpretation, the basic thing that the United States wants to do -- overthrow Saddam and get rid of his weapons -- is sharply in the interest of almost everybody all over the world. And although the U.S. is proposing to act in the interest of the world, Bush has managed to terrify the entire world and to turn the world against him and us and to make our situation infinitely more dangerous than it otherwise would have been. It's a display of diplomatic and political incompetence on a colossal scale. We're going to pay for this.

[Q:] Then what is it that the public doesn't understand? What hasn't he been able to get across?

[A:] One thing he hasn't gotten across is that there is a positive liberal democratic goal and a humanitarian goal here. Iraq is suffering under one of the most grotesque fascist tyrannies there's ever been. Hundreds of thousands, maybe a million people, have been killed by this horrible regime. The weapons programs are not a fiction. There's every reason to think that Saddam, who's used these weapons in the past, would be happy to use them in the future. The suffering of the Iraqi people is intense. The United States is in the position to bring that suffering to an end. Their liberation, the creating of at least the rudiments of a liberal democratic society there, are in the interests of the Iraqi people and are deeply in the interests of liberal society everywhere. There are reasons to go in which are those of not just self-interest or self-defense, but of solidarity of humanitarianism, of a belief in liberal ideals. And Bush has gotten this across not at all.

[Q:] Do you believe Bush has such motives?

[A:] It's not right to utterly dismiss these motives. A lot of people look at Bush and sneer a little too easily and think that these motives cannot possibly have anything to do with him or his policies. This is a mistake too.

In Afghanistan, everybody sneers at the achievements of the United States and its allies because we see the warlords in the provinces, we see the extreme suffering, we see all the things that haven't been done. But what has been done has really been quite magnificent. A hideous tyranny was overthrown, a new government was established in more or less the way that any liberal democrat would advise: Afghans were consulted from around
the country, more or less democratic councils led to the forming of a new government with a new leader for Afghanistan who is not a warlord or a corrupt figure or a friendly religious fanatic but who is in fact a man of modern liberal democratic ideals.

Bush announced that the war in Afghanistan was going to be fought on behalf of women's rights. Everybody deeply laughed at that and for reasons I can understand because in the United States Bush has not been a promoter of women's rights. Still, the result of the war was in fact that women's rights in Afghanistan have made a forward leap larger than anywhere in the world in history. From a certain point of view this has been the first feminist war in all of history.

He's unable to do that partly because the man is fatally inarticulate and he's also unable to do that, I'm sure, because he's confused ideologically about whether he's really in favor of the do-good aspect of his program or indifferent to it. [...]

[Q:] I want to be clear on something. Do you support this military invasion?

[A:] I can certainly imagine how the whole thing can be done better. Bush is probably the most inept president we've ever had in regard to maintaining foreign alliances and presenting the American case and convincing the world. He's failed in every possible way. The defeat and overthrow of Saddam Hussein is in the interest of nearly the entire world and although it is in the interest of nearly the entire world, nearly the entire world is against Bush. That situation is the consequence of Bush's ineptness.

At the same time, I think that getting rid of Saddam is in our interest and in the interest of Iraq and in the interest of the Arab world. Saddam is a mad tyrant.

So I wish Bush had gone about it differently. But now that the thing is getting under way, I fervently hope it goes well. And I think that the attitude of everyone with the best of motives who have opposed the war, should now shift dramatically. The people who have demanded that Bush refrain from action should now demand that the action be more thorough. The danger now is that we will go in and go out too quickly and leave the job half-done. The position of the antiwar movement and of liberals should be that the United States fulfill entirely its obligations to replace Saddam with a decent or even admirable system. We've done this in Afghanistan but only in most halfhearted way. We should now do more in Afghanistan and do a lot in Iraq. The people who've opposed the war should now demand that Bush do more.

Kevin Whited pointed this one out to us--the third in a trio of pieces where Paul Berman allies himself to
George W. Bush ideologically but declares the President unfit intellectually to lead the argument. Here, on the other hand, is part of Mr. Bush's speech at AEI:

The first to benefit from a free Iraq would be the Iraqi people, themselves. Today they live in scarcity and fear, under a dictator who has brought them nothing but war, and misery, and torture. Their lives and their freedom matter little to Saddam Hussein — but Iraqi lives and freedom matter greatly to us.

Bringing stability and unity to a free Iraq will not be easy. Yet that is no excuse to leave the Iraqi regime's torture chambers and poison labs in operation. Any future the Iraqi people choose for themselves will be better than the nightmare world that Saddam Hussein has chosen for them.

If we must use force, the United States and our coalition stand ready to help the citizens of a liberated Iraq. We will deliver medicine to the sick, and we are now moving into place nearly 3 million emergency rations to feed the hungry.

We'll make sure that Iraq's 55,000 food distribution sites, operating under the Oil For Food program, are stocked and open as soon as possible. The United States and Great Britain are providing tens of millions of dollars to the U.N. High Commission on Refugees, and to such groups as the World Food Program and UNICEF, to provide emergency aid to the Iraqi people.

We will also lead in carrying out the urgent and dangerous work of destroying chemical and biological weapons. We will provide security against those who try to spread chaos, or settle scores, or threaten the territorial integrity of Iraq. We will seek to protect Iraq's natural resources from sabotage by a dying regime, and ensure those resources are used for the benefit of the owners — the Iraqi people.

The United States has no intention of determining the precise form of Iraq's new government. That choice belongs to the Iraqi people. Yet, we will ensure that one brutal dictator is not replaced by another. All Iraqis must have a voice in the new government, and all citizens must have their rights protected.

Rebuilding Iraq will require a sustained commitment from many nations, including our own: we will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more. America has made and kept this kind of commitment before — in the peace that followed a world war. After defeating enemies, we did not leave behind occupying armies, we left constitutions and parliaments. We established an atmosphere of safety, in which responsible, reform-minded local leaders could build lasting institutions of freedom. In societies that once bred fascism and militarism, liberty found a permanent home.

There was a time when many said that the cultures of Japan and Germany were incapable of sustaining democratic values. Well, they were wrong. Some say the same of Iraq today. They are mistaken. The nation of Iraq — with its proud heritage, abundant resources and skilled and educated people — is fully capable of moving toward democracy and living in freedom.

The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life. And there are hopeful signs of a desire for freedom in the Middle East. Arab intellectuals have called on Arab governments to address the "freedom gap" so their peoples can fully share in the progress of our times. Leaders in the region speak of a new
Arab charter that champions internal reform, greater politics participation, economic openness, and free trade. And from Morocco to Bahrain and beyond, nations are taking genuine steps toward politics reform. A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.

It is presumptuous and insulting to suggest that a whole region of the world — or the one-fifth of humanity that is Muslim — is somehow untouched by the most basic aspirations of life. Human cultures can be vastly different. Yet the human heart desires the same good things, everywhere on Earth. In our desire to be safe from brutal and bullying oppression, human beings are the same. In our desire to care for our children and give them a better life, we are the same. For these fundamental reasons, freedom and democracy will always and everywhere have greater appeal than the slogans of hatred and the tactics of terror. [...]

I've listened carefully, as people and leaders around the world have made known their desire for peace. All of us want peace. The threat to peace does not come from those who seek to enforce the just demands of the civilized world; the threat to peace comes from those who flout those demands. If we have to act, we will act to restrain the violent, and defend the cause of peace. And by acting, we will signal to outlaw regimes that in this new century, the boundaries of civilized behavior will be respected.

Protecting those boundaries carries a cost. If war is forced upon us by Iraq's refusal to disarm, we will meet an enemy who hides his military forces behind civilians, who has terrible weapons, who is capable of any crime. The dangers are real, as our soldiers, and sailors, airmen, and Marines fully understand. Yet, no military has ever been better prepared to meet these challenges.

Members of our Armed Forces also understand why they may be called to fight. They know that retreat before a dictator guarantees even greater sacrifices in the future. They know that America's cause is right and just: liberty for an oppressed people, and security for the American people. And I know something about these men and women who wear our uniform: they will complete every mission they are given with skill, and honor, and courage.

Much is asked of America in this year 2003. The work ahead is demanding. It will be difficult to help freedom take hold in a country that has known three decades of dictatorship, secret police, internal divisions, and war. It will be difficult to cultivate liberty and peace in the Middle East, after so many generations of strife. Yet, the security of our nation and the hope of millions depend on us, and Americans do not turn away from duties because they are hard. We have met great tests in other times, and we will meet the tests of our time.

We go forward with confidence, because we trust in the power of human freedom to change lives and nations. By the resolve and purpose of America, and of our friends and allies, we will make this an age of progress and liberty. Free people will set the course of history, and free people will keep the peace of the world.

One wonders how many more times Mr. Bush would have to explain the point of the war on terror so eloquently and how much more he'd have to achieve how much faster than the liberalization of Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq, which have all begun in just the eighteen months since 9-11, to demonstrate his seriousness to Mr. Berman. Far be it from us--skeptical about Freud as we are--to psychoanalyze someone and I've no idea what Mr. Berman's life story is, but he certainly seems to be a classic case of someone caught in the grip of the love that dare not speak its name--that's right; a reflexively liberal youngster who finds to his own horror that as a grown-up he's tending conservative. [Here, for example, is his positive but resistant review of Philip Roth's American Pastoral, in which Mr. Roth himself implicitly joined the VRWC.] Well, not to worry, many have faced the same realization and come through okay. One day we'll all look back on these incoherent fulminations against the President and laugh at the lingering immaturity they demonstrated. In the meantime, someone please teach Mr. Berman the secret handshake and give him his Fox News coffee mug.

UPDATE:
David Horwitz seems to have issues with Mr. Berman.

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AL-JAZEERA GOES ENGLISH (via MSNBC):

Al-Jazeera has a new English-language news service. They don't seem to have invested much money in Web hosting, though. I haven't been able to get through.



HERE'S WHY: Al-Jazeera Site Experiences Hack Attack (Washington Post, 3/25/2003)

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THE MAIN FIGHT LOOMS: