11.30.2002
11.29.2002
11.28.2002
Ted Nugent wants us to remember that America Rocks! Duly noted.
Chi-Dooh Li is thankful for The Sweet Taste of Freedom
Stephen Moore says Stop Whining and Start Thanks Giving
11.27.2002
America spends less of its GNP on defense than it did during the last five decades. And most of our military outlays go to training, salaries, and retirements — moneys that support, educate, and help people rather than simply stockpile weapons and hone killers. The eerie thing is not that we have 13 massive $5 billion carriers, but that we could easily produce and maintain 20 more.
(via American Realpolitik)
If the moderate voices of Islam cannot or will not insist on the modernization of their culture — and of their faith as well — then it may be these so-called "Rushdies" who have to do it for them. For every such individual who is vilified and oppressed, two more, ten more, a thousand more will spring up. They will spring up because you can't keep people's minds, feelings and needs in jail forever, no matter how brutal your inquisitions. The Islamic world today is being held prisoner, not by Western but by Islamic captors, who are fighting to keep closed a world that a badly outnumbered few are trying to open. As long as the majority remains silent, this will be a tough war to win. But in the end, or so we must hope, someone will kick down that prison door
11.26.2002
Muatsin-age 16, used to kiss the grenades he carried on his back before throwing them at IDF soldiers: "Allah, make this explosive as powerful as a ball of fire so that it burns the hearts of the Jews" he would say. Witnesses said that the young 16 year old "threw at least 50 grenades at IDF soldiers. Other children fought alongside him, defending the camp. They succeeded in damaging five tanks and destroying one". Palestinian terrorists in the Jenin refugee camp seemed to have studied the IDF's operational strategies, and taught the young children in the camp how to counterattack. The children of Jenin refugee camp had been taught at a very young age to throw stones at IDF soldiers but they had begun to replace their stones and rocks with hand grenades and small explosive charges. " We traded stones and rocks for hand grenades because the impact is so much stronger" explained Rami, a young child in Jenin refugee camp…
Just something to keep in mind the next time you hear some CAIR spokesman equivocating about casualty numbers.
(via Lynn B)
The BBC: The United Arab Emirates has held its first national beauty contest for camels with a prize fond of about $27,000 and various trophies for winners.
"The aim is to mark the respect and love the UAE have for the camel," member of the UAE's National Federal Council Faraj bin Hamouda told the Khaleej Times newspaper.
In a special statement, Mr bin Hamouda stressed that the camel was the best companion of his countrymen during the pre-oil era, and the competition in Abu Dhabi would help to pass that feeling of respect to the younger generation.
(via No Left Turns)
11.25.2002
This is a regime that will hold a nursing baby at arm's length from its mother and allow the child to starve to death to force the mother to confess. This is a regime that will burn a person's limbs off to force him to confess or comply. This is a regime that will slowly lower its victims into huge vats of acid. . . .This is a regime that practises systematic rape against the female victims. This is a regime that will drag in a man's wife, daughter or other female relative and repeatedly rape her in front of him." And if he has fled the country, it will send him the video.
In some cities — notably Isfahan, traditionally the epicenter of political unrest in Persia — the regime's thugs attacked the demonstrators, only to be driven out. Over the weekend, it was unclear just who was in control in Isfahan, Tabriz, Shiraz and Mashad. By Sunday, the fanatical Basij — the volunteer thugs who are responsible for "order" in the streets — were busily attacking and arresting anyone who did not meet their standards, and the regime's top leaders were issuing warnings to the nation — and to us. Contrary to what little you have been able to read in the popular press, these demonstrations were not limited to Tehran, but spread all over the country, with amazing results. And it was particularly noteworthy that there were very large numbers of female participants; in Tehran, some people I spoke to estimated that between one-half and two-thirds of the demonstrators were women.
It's hard to tell what the administration thinks of all this. Except for a strong statement by Bush a little while back, expressing support for the people over the mullahs, there hasn't been much said, and it seems like State hasn't exactly been playing the same tune. I did read a piece in Debka a little while ago that claimed that the CIA was helping the students covertly, but that's not much.
(via Instapundit)
This will take time. It will be difficult. But I think we need to say to both the terrorists and the dictators and also to the autocrats who from time to time are friendly with us, that we know, we understand we are going to make you nervous. We want you to be nervous. We want you to realize now for the fourth time in 100 years, this country is on the march and we are on the side of those whom you most fear, your own people. We didn’t choose this fight, but we’re in it. And being on the march, there’s only one way we’re going to be able to win it. It’s the way we won World War I fighting for Wilson’s 14 points. The way we won World War II fighting for Churchill’s and Roosevelt’s Atlantic Charter and the way we won World War III fighting for the noble ideas I think best expressed by President Reagan, but also very importantly at the beginning by President Truman, that this was not a war of us against them. It was not a war of countries. It was a war of freedom against tyranny. We have to convince the people of the Middle East that we are on their side, as we convinced Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel and Andrei Sakharov that we were on their side.
I strongly suggest you read the whole thing.
The margin and the confidence level are usually chosen in advance, at some acceptable level, so the pollster can determine x, the amount of people that he will need in his sample. Trying to get the margin of error down, or the confidence level up, will make x prohibitively large. But the whole thing is a joke, because the pollsters are violating the first rule of statistics, by starting with a sample that is anything but random. It's not their fault really, getting an actual random sample of a population, say of a state, would cost the pollsters a fortune. So they do the best they can. A random sample is usually defined as everyone in the population having the same chance of being in the sample. There is really no way of making it work that way, but here is how they try. They start by assuming everyone has a telephone (and just one), and then start calling numbers randomly.
There have always been problems with this approach, like the people who don't have phones, or the different amounts of people who may share a single phone line. Far more seriously, there are some new problems that are causing the samples to be even farther from random. The pollsters don't call cell phones, and as more and more people use their cell phones as a replacement for landlines, they drop out of the pool completely. Then there are the people who use the TeleZapper, and in some states, you can put your name on a no-call list and unsolicited calls become illegal. In Connecticut, for example, 29% of people are on the no-call list, and the list gets larger every year. This is bad enough by itself, but according to Gibson, even when the pollsters do get through, about 50% of people refuse to talk to them. So only a small self-selecting portion of the population has a chance of getting into the survey, the definition of a non-random sample. The "margin of error" takes none of this into account; it assumes a perfect random sample. The polls, in other words, shouldn't even pretend to be scientific, but who's going to tell you that, the Media? Don't bet on it.
11.24.2002
11.22.2002
Maybe that's because the Democrats have made it clear that their fears about the future of the country are focused not on militant Islamists, but on fat, white, mostly Protestant guys who drive SUVs and vote Republican.
The Democrats' self-criticism is that their officeholders voted for a war, or declined to be vocal in opposition, even though they were really against it. Have Democrats stopped to consider what this critique says about them? It says that they thought that an Iraq campaign would throw American lives away while undermining Americans' security — but gave it a green light for political reasons. That their chief regret about this behavior is that it backfired as a political tactic. The Democrats are making an indictment of themselves more damning than they realize.
11.21.2002
(via Rantburg)
In the 20th century, the open society of liberal modernity faced and surmounted a great internal challenge. Totalitarians of the left and right sought to substitute top-down control for bottom-up trust as society's central organizing principle; they did so in a mad quest to replace open-ended dynamism and growth with static, utopian perfection. Now in the 21st century, that internal rebellion has been put down, but utopian delusions continue to crop up in the periphery — in the broken lands of the underdeveloped world, and the broken souls of fringe groups in the West. These new rebels have no realistic prospect of gaining power over the society they hate, but they can inflict damage upon it — grievous damage. This is the enemy we face today: utopians turned nihilist, totalitarians turned barbarian.
11.20.2002
(via InstaPundit)
(via Volokh)
11.19.2002
We face, now and for the foreseeable future, the threat of a new barbarism. The new barbarians, like those of old, consist of groups in which every member is a potential warrior. Like their predecessors, the new barbarians rely on their ability to outmaneuver their civilized adversaries, to concentrate deadly force at vulnerable spots. But unlike the old steppe nomads, the new barbarians seek neither booty nor conquest. Our new barbarian adversaries pursue a strategy of pure and perfect nihilism: They seek destruction for destruction's sake. Their strategy, in other words, is terrorism.
Update: Okay, here are the links: Part I , Part II (Thank You, Nelson)
11.18.2002
It ought to go without saying that ---- students have been silenced on this campus.... There is only one ---- among this year's faculty.... A number of crimes have been perpetrated against ----s in recent years as a result of their ... orientation.
What is it that leads people of goodwill and liberal conscience to make common cause with people who are not only fighting to destroy the very liberal, human values they espouse but are also murdering their children?
11.17.2002
(via Instapundit)
11.15.2002
Greatly influenced by Baghdad’s Greek heritage in philosophy that survived the Arab invasion, and especially the writings of Aristotle, Farabi adopted the view — utterly heretical from a Moslem viewpoint — that reason is superior to revelation. He saw religion as a symbolic rendering of truth, and, like Plato, saw it as the duty of the philosopher to provide guidance to the state. He engaged in rationalistic questioning of the authority of the Koran and rejected predestination. He wrote more than 100 works, notably The Ideas of the Citizens of the Virtuous City. But these unorthodox works no more belong to Islam than Voltaire belongs to Christianity. He was in Moslem culture but not of it, indeed opposed to its orthodox core. He examples the pattern we see again and again: the best Moslems, whether judged by intellectual or political achievement, are usually the least Moslem.
(via LGF)
Charles Krauthammer thinks the UN resolution was a horrible thing for us to get into. He does, however, see some upside.
This window of legitimacy also makes it easier for countries neighboring Iraq to cooperate with the United States in war planning. Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf states have been hesitant to do or say anything too publicly. Now they can easily justify their cooperation: They too are acting in the service of the United Nations by giving substance to the "serious consequences" that might compel Hussein to comply and thus vindicate the United Nations. Resolution 1441 creates a window of legitimacy for the war option. That window allows an accelerated and open buildup of American military power around Iraq. Until now, we have been quietly expanding our air base in Qatar, moving troops into Kuwait, sending our bombers to Diego Garcia. No more need to tiptoe. We can pour everything in openly, indeed ostentatiously. It is, after all, the muscle behind the United Nations.
All this will change when we actually try to go to war, but we'll see if Bush can find his way out of that trap.
11.14.2002
(via InstaPundit)
(via Instapundit)
(via Meryl, who has her own things to say on the subject)
11.13.2002
By this I don't mean uneducated, or bereft of cleverness, or lacking in determination. Rather, al Qaeda and those who support them have no sense or concept of strategy whatsoever. At a time when America was having trouble building a coalition against them (and against their potential friends in Iraq), they have done the United States a great service by reminding our friends and allies that groups like al Qaeda are indiscriminately ruthless, focused only on rejoicing in the immediate suffering their attacks create, and more interested in widespread violence than in actually furthering their supposed goals. Their recent attacks have been strategic blunders of the first order — just as was September 11.
"They told us they could fix the Bosnian mess all on their own. Wrong." "They told us the Russians would never accept NATO enlargement. Wrong.""They told us that the Russians would never accept National Missile Defense. Wrong." "They told us that if we withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 the whole structure of international arms control agreements would come crashing down. Wrong." "They told us that the Kyoto Protocol was a good and worthwhile treaty, more than just cosmetics. Wrong.""They told us that the European Union's new common security and defense policy would improve the military abilities of the NATO allies in Europe. Wrong." "These were also the people who were wrong about Ronald Reagan and the Evil Empire, the same 'friends' who helped vote us off the United Nations Human Rights Commission. These are the people who whine about our Farm Bill when they are the world's prime protectionists. They are not just repeatedly wrong; they are also a bunch of hypocrites. So why should we pay attention to a single thing they say?" The official, a career diplomat who speaks fluent French and likes to vacation in Italy, sat back and took an appreciative sip from his glass of good red wine from Bordeaux. "One more thing," he added. "Whenever I use the word Europeans, I don't mean the Brits." "You want to know what I really think of the Europeans?" asked the senior State Department official. "I think they have been wrong on just about every major international issue for the past 20 years."
I may have to stop making fun of State.
(via InstaPundit)
The point here is that weapons inspections are not the only tool at our disposal. If Iraq is in violation of UNSCR 986 or another export-related resolution - and it is - then the US will have the right to press for military action and the UN will find itself in a snare trying to excuse it. Unlike weapons inspections, the oil smuggling is difficult to conceal. Actually, that's an understatement. Former CIA operative Bob Baer wrote in his book "See No Evil" that "trucks carrying oil were lined up bumper to bumper, often for as long as twenty miles, waiting to cross into Turkey." Sometimes that Iraqi convoy would stretch for 70 miles.
Stephen Den Beste found something too:
One of the clauses in the unanimously-passed UNSC resolution says that Iraq
...shall not take or threaten hostile acts directed against any representative or personnel of the United Nations or of any member state taking action to uphold any council resolution,
which brings up the interesting point: Is Iraq's constant attempts to shoot down American and British jets a "material breach" which would justify war?
And if so, was this worded the way it was deliberately, in order to slip one by the non-simplisme French? If it turns out they got outmaneuvered on this, they're going to be livid.
How do you say "conniption" in French?
11.12.2002
Many children have died in the conflict here, murdered in their beds before their mothers' eyes. But there was a special reason to mourn yesterday. Kibbutz Metzer is not a Jewish settlement in the occupied territories. The people here are among the most moderate and peace-minded of Israelis.
Romania and Poland will bring a "pro-American critical mass" to NATO, said Mircea Geoana, Romania's foreign minister in an interview. Indeed, whenever Mr. Geoana's French diplomatic counterparts worry about Romania's enthusiasm for the United States, he said he tells them that "after Romania enjoys several decades of prosperity like France, then we will have the luxury of taking the U.S. for granted."
11.11.2002
This is a picture of Noam and Matan Ohayon, who were, until yesterday, four and five years old. They were killed, along with their mother and two others, in their home in Kibbutz Metzer (which is inside Israel proper, But I don't see why that should make a difference). The boys were found shot dead in their beds as they clutched covers over their heads. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has claimed responsibility, but don't worry, Arafat's office has "condemned" it. This is sickening.
In varying degrees all the important powers of the world have themselves understood the implications of 9/11. Governments have to accept the Ancient Roman maxim that “the safety of the Republic is the supreme law”. If the major governments act together, they can hope to protect their vulnerable populations from global terrorism. The fall of the twin towers, the horror of the Moscow theatre, the Bali bombing, the attack on the Indian parliament and the suicide bombings in Israel have shown everyone how exposed the world is to 21st-century terrorism. Yet the terrorists cannot take on the whole world, and they cannot hold out against the power of the United States unless other significant powers are prepared to protect terrorists. Resolution 1441 shows that the United States is prepared to carry the responsibility and that the major powers recognise that their safety depends on the success of American action. Resolution 1441 is an historic event. It recognises the fact that the United States is the world’s only superpower. It has taken 13 years, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, for an American President to use with confidence the full global power of the United States. He is the first President to understand how strong his country is.
I'm not sure that the resolution means everything he thinks it means, but it should.
On this side, the endless effort to understand "where those people are coming from", mostly missing the main point that they "do not think as we do". On that side, no effort at all, and it is taken for granted that we are "infidels" simply, living "beyond the pale", even when there is no desire to harm us. For us, there can be both Israeli and Palestinian victims; for them, only Palestinians feel pain. These are, still today, cultures of the "pre-Enlightenment"; people not incapable of sympathy, for their own, but not yet versed in the imaginative projection of that sympathy into people who are not their own. And it is not Islam, but the Enlightenment, that stands between East and West in these matters. For we have largely lost the category of an "infidel", and they still have it.
This is the third in a series of articles on Islam, the first two (The Gale force, Gone Missing) can be found on the left side of his page
Michael Moore a court-jester brought in to stick his tongue out at his benefactors for their own sick amusement.
11.10.2002
11.09.2002
11.08.2002
(via LGF)
Of course, they're right. Winning complete, if precarious, control of the entire government carries huge risks for Republicans. But that's life. Your first at-bat in the major league carries huge risks too, but if you wanted to be a professional ballplayer you wouldn't turn down the opportunity.
We are learning that resistance never really entailed opposition to fascism at all, much less the need for intervention to support democracy, but was simply a strange desire to vent displeasure with our own culture. That so many of these ideological teenagers mad at their opulent and indulgent parents are affluent suburbanites suggests the deleterious effects of leisure and wealth; that so many enjoy the appurtenances of nice cars, houses, and travel denotes abject hypocrisy; that so many mindlessly repeat cant and fad reflects the power of belonging to a clique that promises status by being more "sophisticated" and "subtle" than ordinary Americans; that so many demand utopian perfection reminds us that their god Reason is an unforgiving totem; that so many are shrill and angry suggests that they seek global causes to assuage personal unhappiness and anger at a system that has not met their own high demands upon it. what one has to conclude from the present venom is that anti-Americanism is neither logical nor empirical. Indeed, it is a fundamentalist secular religion, not a reasoned stance, one entirely inconsistent and unpredictable in its choice of friends and foes — except for one constant: Whatever America does, it hates.
Dare I suggest you read the whole thing?
The trouble is that the Democrats created a great and successful revolution with the New Deal, tried to advance it with the Great Society, and when that failed, they gave up thinking. The conventional wisdom is that the Democrats were defeated because they had no message. This is true. But it makes it sound like a question of political technique. The reason Democrats have no message is that they have no ideas. When prescription drugs is your poster issue, you know you're in trouble (particularly when Republicans have accepted a prescription drug benefit in principle and the argument is about how best to administer it).
Peggy Noonan has an interesting column on the same lack of ideas: Can the Democrats find a purpose?
(via Peter Schramm of No Left Turns)
and here is the clinching and obvious point—Saddam Hussein is not going to survive. His regime is on the verge of implosion. It has long passed the point of diminishing returns. Like the Ceausescu edifice in Romania, it is a pyramid balanced on its apex (its powerbase a minority of the Sunni minority), and when it falls, all the consequences of a post-Saddam Iraq will be with us anyway. To suggest that these consequences—Sunni-Shi'a rivalry, conflict over the boundaries of Kurdistan, possible meddling from Turkey or Iran, vertiginous fluctuations in oil prices and production, social chaos—are attributable only to intervention is to be completely blind to the impending reality. The choices are two and only two—to experience these consequences with an American or international presence or to watch them unfold as if they were none of our business. (I respect those who say that the United States should simply withdraw from the Middle East, but I don't respect them for anything but their honesty.)
11.07.2002
TODAY, I have egg on my face, for predicting a Democratic win. Pardon me while I wipe it off. In politics, you are either right or wrong, and when you're wrong, you need to understand why so you don't make the same mistake again - you make new ones.
Finally, the Democrats could become the party of moral degeneracy. In recent years the Democrats have not embraced moral degeneracy outright. They have contented themselves with hiding behind the slogan of "liberty." If accused of encouraging pornography, the Democrats have said, "No, we are for liberty of expression." Charged with supporting abortion-on-demand, the Democrats insist, "No, we are the party that gives women freedom over their own bodies." Caught distributing sex kits and homosexual instruction manuals to young people, the Democrats protest, "We are merely attempting to give people autonomy and freedom of choice." But what is the need for this coyness? The Democrats should stop hiding behind "freedom of choice" and become blatant advocates for divorce, illegitimacy, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, and pornography. Indeed the Democrats could become the Party of the Seven Deadly Sins. The political advantage of this approach is that the Seven Deadly Sins are immensely popular. Imagine the political opportunities if all vices were associated with the Democratic party! This Democratic approach would be based on the political wisdom embodied in George Bernard Shaw's maxim, "Any government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on Paul's support." The secret, of course, is to make sure that the beneficiaries of this state-sponsored robbery (potential Democratic voters) outnumber those who are robbed (potential Republican voters).
I, for one, am a big believer in Sloth, and if the Democrats can convince me that they are the only ones who can safeguard it for the future, I'd have to vote for them.
Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu, who faces an expensive and brutal slog to the December 7 runoff, turning the knives on her own campaign. Landrieu, who goes head-to-head with Republican challenger Suzanne Haik Terrell, purged her political consultants in the wake of the national GOP sweep, and is planning to go it alone. Landrieu yesterday fired her Washington advisers, and according to a high-level Democratic source, is "preparing to go to war" with the national party to keep its tacticians and staff away from her campaign.
11.06.2002
The first thing Bush has got to do is move some judges through the Senate. Whether he should lead with the most controversial ones or the least is a tricky question. The Left and the Democrats will paint anybody the Republicans confirm as a hate-mongering, Orwellian goose-stepper. So the question is, does that mean you should put the most palatable ones up first, so the Dems look hysterical for no good reason — or do you put the hard-core guys up first because this may be the GOP's only chance? I don't know. But I do know that the conservative base demands, expects, and deserves a lot of good judges to be confirmed by the Senate because of this, and Bush needs to placate them right away.
11.05.2002
Update:Thank You Stephen, for Herculean effort, that was unbelievably up-to-the-minute, though surprisingly light on the sarcasm.
My first reaction to this statement was a kind of awe. How can anyone manage to be such a fool as that? OK, so maybe Graham doesn't listen to his intelligence briefings or look at the documents in his dispatch box. But does he not even read the newspapers? Is it possible to be the foreign minister of a country supposedly allied with the United States in the war on terror and not have the faintest understanding of how the world's second-deadliest terror organization does its murderous work?On the very same day Graham announced his big diplomatic win, he informed the House foreign affairs committee that Canada would continue to permit the so-called political arm of Hezbollah to operate freely in Canada. He explained, "We don't believe it would be appropriate to label as terrorists innocent doctors, teachers and other people who are seeking to do charitable and other good works in their communities."
It's hard to see why Canada is so keen to take the Euroweenie position on these things.
So the fact that the majority of those living in the Islamic countries are good people is of no consequence. Unless they do something to condemn and to isolate the Muslim totalitarians and terrorists in their midst, history will judge them as it has all the good Germans during the Holocaust. Thus, what is most frightening is not that there are Muslim terrorists, but by how little criticism of Islamic terror emanates from normative Islamic groups. While some Muslim groups have condemned individual acts of Islamic terror such as 9-11, not one significant Muslim group in the world, including here in free America, has condemned Islamic terror generally. And the leaders of Al-Azhar University, the most prestigious institution of Islamic learning, have actually morally and religiously come out in support of Islamic suicide terror against Israelis.
He's right, there are times when standing idle is a crime, and this is no doubt one of those.
11.04.2002
I disagree. I think the Turkish military is the great secret of Turkish democracy — a fifth reason for its remarkable longevity. It keeps Turkey democratic by acting as a necessary limit on the potential excesses of popular majorities and the sometimes demagogic elected leaders who represent them, a role not unlike the one the Supreme Court plays in our own republic. And like our own justices, Turkish military officers profess loyalty only to the constitution, not to any politician or party. At first glance, it may seem crazy to com-pare military officers to justices, but to understand the Turkish military and its role in Turkish life, you have to start, once again, by discarding old stereotypes — this time, about the military and the sort of men who become its leaders, especially in the Mideast. We all know only too well about ignorant, greedy, megalomaniacal military thugs like Gamal Abdel Nasser and Saddam Hussein, but Turkish military officers are nothing like that. the Turks did something more, something that strikes most Westerners as utterly incongruous: they created an elected, civilian government, but they made the Turkish military the guardian of their constitution, giving it the power to depose civilian rulers who violate its basic tenets, a power the military has exercised three times since 1950. All these military takeovers were brief and bloodless, and each time, the military voluntarily returned power to an elected civilian government. But, to most Western observers, that doesn't change the fact that these were serious lapses from democratic governance, lapses into despotism. Benevolent despotism, perhaps, but despotism nonetheless.
This is some interesting stuff, and it's the first time I've seen the idea. I am not sure I'm comfortable with it.
(via LGF)
21% harbor strong anti-Semitic views. 34% in Spain, 23% in Italy, 22% in Switzerland, 19% in Austria, 7% in the Netherlands
56% believe Jews are more loyal to Israel than their own country. 72% in Spain, 58% in Italy, 54% in Austria, 49% in Switzerland, 48%, The Netherlands
40% believe that Jews have too much power in international financial markets. 71% in Spain
29% say Jews don't care about anyone but their own kind. Spain and Switzerland 34%
25% say Jews are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want. Spain 33%, Austria 28%, Italy and Switzerland 27%
49% believe Jews still talk too much about the Holocaust. Spain 57%, Austria 56%, Switzerland 52%, Italy 43%, The Netherlands 35%
(link via Instapundit)
By the way, If you haven't yet read Kagan's Power and Weakness, stop wasting your time here and get to it.
11.03.2002
(thank you David)
11.02.2002
"How many Frenchmen does it take to hold Paris?" goes the old joke. "Nobody knows." A little nasty, perhaps, but it suggests the deeper issue underlying France's continued opposition (as of this writing) to a resolution threatening force if Iraq obstructs U.N. weapons inspectors: Why is France on the Security Council at all? Paris got its permanent membership (and thus its Security Council veto) as a reward for having helped defeat Nazi Germany. But while the French suffered under Nazism, it was the Americans, Russians, and British who defeated it. (Winston Churchill's envoy to France famously called Charles de Gaulle the heaviest cross he had to bear during World War II.) Another rationale holds that France owes its seat to its status as an independent nuclear power. But India now boasts that distinction as well, and--with its massive population, growing economy, and third-world democracy--it would be a far more compelling choice. In truth, France's fantasies of grandeur--fantasies that are decades, if not centuries, out of date--would be laughable, except that they are taken seriously in Turtle Bay. And so the Bush administration must endlessly negotiate with a country whose Iraq policy is motivated by petro-dollars and anti-American resentment, particularly the anti-American (and anti-Western) resentment of its Muslim immigrant masses. Why not stop the charade and let France veto the Iraq resolution? The United States and its allies could, on their own, eliminate the unconventional weapons of that most unconventional tyrant, Saddam Hussein. And, as a side benefit, the United Nations would suffer a humiliation so profound that it might force some long-overdue reconsideration of the Security Council's anachronistic composition. For international organizations to be relevant, privilege must follow power, and for them to be admirable, privilege must follow decency. Nothing would more dramatically further both goals than dethroning France.
The inability to learn from mistakes is as much a defining characteristic of the left in Israel, as anywhere else. There is a fundamental incomprehension of cause and effect; a failure to grasp that if Israel unilaterally abandons the settlements, Palestinian terrorists will then redouble their efforts against the Israel that remains within the Green Line. For them it will be another "great victory". The argument is almost too simple to make; but the people who distribute and receive Nobel Peace Prizes cannot get it. (A bit of an exaggeration: Mr. Arafat understands it perfectly well.)
11.01.2002
The violent terrorist acts share an ostensible theme of either reflecting the aims of al Qaeda or professing some sympathy with radical Islamic fundamentalism. They are as dangerous as the work of terror cells because they presage a sporadic, spontaneous, and nearly unpredictable outbreak of violence that is also decentralized and untraceable. In short, rather than being al Qaeda shock troops, these killers and criminals are al Qaedistic — or perhaps show symptoms of a malady we should call "al Qaedism."
The registered voters in St. Louis included Ritzy Mekler, who was only 13. Still, that is old for a springer spaniel, which Ritzy is. Registration rates in St. Louis are wondrous. In most cities, the number of persons registered is about 65 percent of the city's voting-age population. In St. Louis last year the number of registrants was a remarkable 99 percent. Surely most were bipeds.
In politics, lawfulness is not always mandatory, according to the Lautenberg Principle. That principle was pioneered by New Jersey's Democratic Party and its servant, the state's Supreme Court, which rewrote state law to allow former senator Frank Lautenberg to take the ballot place of Sen. Robert Torricelli, a likely loser. The principle is that campaign and election laws are laws for Republicans and suggestions for Democrats.
Would the world come to terms with the fact that the UN can't work, or just pretend that it does and keep on with business as usual? My question is this, if the UN falters, what will be the long term result? In the short term we all know that Iraq is done and the war continues, but will member states begin to withdraw and reform in smaller coalition groups? Or will the UN still limp along, blind to it's own irrelevance? I suspect it'll be a combination of the two. Though even if some alliance of nations tried to challenge us, or impede us, they would simply lack the power to do so.
Once we start feeling that the UN is not the best way to deal with our foreign relations, and we have we a way to do so without the whole world howling, it's gone. Let us not forget we fund something like half the damn thing. The only reason an anti-American UN continues to exist, is that we have always felt we needed something like it, and we feared what kind of message ending it would send. I think Bush feels that Iraq aside, the war on terror will, more likely than not, mean getting involved in some other actual wars, and the UN has the possibility of being a royal pain. That's why what Bush is doing is so fascinating; the UN is either going to serve our interests, or we're going to run it into the ground.
Consider this: We go into Iraq with a coalition of countries that are willing to help, while Annan and Chirac scream bloody murder. Maybe, if we're lucky, they'll pass a few resolutions condemning us as war criminals or something. Assuming Iraq goes well, the UN is essentially over. Who would argue with our withholding our dues? We could kick them all out of the country, but we wouldn't need to. We can simply stop participating; without us, the whole thing is a charade. This probably won't happen, but only because we do need something like it. It would be nice to knock it out for a few years, wipe up some Islamic terrorist states, and then build it back up again. The ball is in their court, but Bush is playing for keeps, and the UN is going to come along or be trampled underfoot.
The short answer is the UN will exists as long as we are participating, and not a minute longer.