WHAT MULTILATERALISM?

One of the smug claims of some multilateralists in the wake of 9/11 was that it showed the necessity of the U.S. being part of a network of multilateral institutions. I was waiting for someone to puncture that canard at some point, and it’s hard to beat Anne Applebaum’s piece in the current Slate in that regard. She points out how the only critical players in the current conflict are old-fashioned nation-states, forging a mix of bilateral and multilateral ties to advance their own self-interest. What role does the EU have at moments like this? Nada. Ditto all the hyper-ventilation about a joint European force. How about the U.N.? As usual, useful window-dressing for the purposes of various nation-states. I’m sure Slate’s resident internationalist Bob Wright has something to say about this. I’m equally sure he will.

HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW: David Skinner of the Weekly Standard has an odd little essay on manliness. I have no idea what he’s trying to say (see if you can figure it out), but I share his interest in one truly weird aspect of the 9/11 suicide killers’ preparation for their deed. Mohammed Atta and his buddy shaved unnecessary body hair, we are told. There is nothing in Islamic law or custom to mandate this. (I’m also not quite sure what ‘unnecessary’ means in this context. Do we give a pass to hairy legs? Armpits?) Maybe they were concerned that any protruding chest hair would make them seem more swarthy, therefore more Middle Eastern, therefore more suspicious. But that seems a long shot. I think the best explanation is a kind of neurosis. I’m not going to endorse the National Enquirer’s belief that the men were gay, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to see many of these young, conflicted, sexually repressed, homophile murderers as having sexual issues. And one way people deal with these kinds of conflicts is by odd, obsessional behavior – frantic cleansing of hands and feet, manic tidiness, avoiding cracks in the sidewalk, and so on. Getting completely obsessed with body-hair – a notoriously uncontrollable feature of one’s body – seems in this ball-park. The hairless aesthetic – pioneered by gay men in the 1990s – has a market niche, of course. (It’s an aesthetic I have never even remotely understood. Why, if you want to be attractive as a man, would you want to mimic the body of a woman? Beats me. And the razor burn is a nightmare.) But I doubt that Atta was making a fashion statement. These people were simply disturbed. At least that’s the best I can come up with. Any better ideas out there?

PATENTS AND BIOWARFARE: Here’s a timely and important rebuff to demagogues like Charles Schumer and Naderite Jamie Love. Ron Daniels shows in the latest Reason magazine how important private pharmaceutical research is for protection against biowarfare. You think the Feds came up with Cipro? Gutting the profitability of drug companies during this bio-terrorist crisis is a precise recipe for ensuring we do not survive the next one.