Year: 2003

British lefty, Nick Cohen, assails the anti-war movement’s collaboration with oppression and terror:

The Iraqis must now accept that they will have to fight for democracy without the support of the British Left. Disgraceful though our failure to hear them has been, I can’t help thinking that they’ll be better off without us.

Read the whole thing – about Harold Pinter’s hypocrisy over Kurdish autonomy and democracy, of the way in which European socialists, gripped by anti-Americanism, now back a genocidal dictator against the democratic aspirations of his own people. I think yesterday’s massive marches represent something deeply, deeply corrupt in the soul of the left: a form of Western self-loathing that, unless it is resisted, will lead not just to tyranny for more people in the Middle East, but for the slow erosion of Western freedom itself in the face of terror. The only response is resistance. Not from the governments in Washington and London; but from the rest of us. The lies must be challenged day by day, hour by hour. The self-hatred must be countered with calm recitation of the West’s proud history; the excuses for tyranny opposed by a growing demand that the Arab world not be tool in the Western left’s attempt to destroy Western freedom, but seen as a part of humanity that deserves the freedom that the rest of us enjoy. No justice. No peace. As the left used to say.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “This is a president who uses the death penalty with complete abandon and disregard for any respect for life. This is no example. So let everyone recognise what has happened here today: that Britain does not support this war for oil. The British people will not tolerate being used to prop up the most corrupt and racist American administration in over 80 years.” – Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, accusing Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice of being racists.

Another superb grown-up piece from John F. Burns today in the New York Times. Smart, isn’t it, to interview Iraqis not in the midst of their own police state, but just over the border in Jordan, where they have some modicum of freedom. As often, it’s hard to summarize Burns’ peerless reporting. But if this piece doesn’t remind you of Kipling, I’d be surprised. The critical thing now, to my mind, is less the diplomatic pirouettes than the execution of the coming war. The question is not whether we win, but how we win. Without jeopardizing victory, we have to be extremely careful to avoid excessive civilian casualties and to keep the battle as short as possible. I have no idea how this can be done. But I do think that the war will be politically successful if it can bring these two objectives into play. (P.S. Tom Friedman has an excellent take today as well.)

A WASTE OF SPACE: Reading Maureen Dowd’s characteristically inane column today, I asked myself once again why, at this moment of gravity and importance, a major American columnist has simply nothing to say, except occasional lame pop-cultural associations and a superficial account of the views of others. I’m not the only one. Here’s the Washingtonian’s verdict on the Dowd decline:

Complaints about Dowd have moved beyond her flashy reporting style and water-beetle habit of skimming the surface. Her crimes against readers now fall into three main categories – formulaic nuttiness, posturing, and condescension.

Even worse, the Dowd schtick seems to me to be a bad thing for women in journalism. It implies that women op-ed writers, opinion journalists, and pundits are at their best parlaying gossip, small-talk and chit-chat. So odd that Dowd, who views herself as a feminist pioneer, unwittingly reinforces certain stereotypes. At least McGrory tells us what she thinks, rather than what she buys.

I would vote for him next time, regardless. Because of speeches as magnificent and as brave as this one:

Yes, there are consequences of war. If we remove Saddam by force, people will die and some will be innocent. And we must live with the consequences of our actions, even the unintended ones.

But there are also consequences of “stop the war”.

If I took that advice, and did not insist on disarmament, yes, there would be no war. But there would still be Saddam. Many of the people marching will say they hate Saddam. But the consequences of taking their advice is that he stays in charge of Iraq, ruling the Iraqi people. A country that in 1978, the year before he seized power, was richer than Malaysia or Portugal. A country where today, 135 out of every 1000 Iraqi children die before the age of five – 70% of these deaths are from diarrhoea and respiratory infections that are easily preventable. Where almost a third of children born in the centre and south of Iraq have chronic malnutrition.

Where 60% of the people depend on Food Aid.

Where half the population of rural areas have no safe water.

Where every year and now, as we speak, tens of thousands of political prisoners languish in appalling conditions in Saddam’s jails and are routinely executed.

Where in the past 15 years over 150,000 Shia Moslems in Southern Iraq and Moslem Kurds in Northern Iraq have been butchered; with up to four million Iraqis in exile round the world, including 350,000 now in Britain.

This isn’t a regime with Weapons of Mass Destruction that is otherwise benign. This is a regime that contravenes every single principle or value anyone of our politics believes in.

There will be no march for the victims of Saddam, no protests about the thousands of children that die needlessly every year under his rule, no righteous anger over the torture chambers which if he is left in power, will be left in being.

I rejoice that we live in a country where peaceful protest is a natural part of our democratic process.

But I ask the marchers to understand this.

I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honour. But sometimes it is the price of leadership. And the cost of conviction.

But as you watch your TV pictures of the march, ponder this:

If there are 500,000 on that march, that is still less than the number of people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for.

If there are one million, that is still less than the number of people who died in the wars he started.

Something about Britain seems to bring my homeland the leaders they need when crisis beckons and nerves fail. Churchill – too late but just in time. Thatcher – way before her time. Blair – the Gladstone of the new century. As Glenn would say, Read The Whole Thing.

And they probably don’t even know it.

“Nobody today, except the Iraqi ambassador, tried to claim that Iraq has fulfilled its obligations. Nobody tried to argue that ‘serious consequences’ means something other than military action. Nobody disputed that, just three months ago, the council’s 15 members passed Resolution 1441 unanimously-not casually or unwittingly so, but after seven weeks of negotiations, in which Secretary of State Colin Powell altered the language to meet French reservations. Powell looked clearly flummoxed during his turn for comments today. One question he should have asked de Villepin: ‘Why did you sign Resolution 1441 in the first place if you never had any intention of carrying out its enforcement clause?'” – Fred Kaplan, eloquently stating the obvious. And the more you think about this, the more you realize that France must have signed onto 1441 entirely duplicitously. They did so as a delaying tactic, knowing full well that they would later sabotage it. This is why the epithet “weasel” really is appropriate. France could have refused to sign 1441, after all. They could have signed a resolution that did not demand immediate and complete cooperation with the U.N. They could have signed a resolution that did not threaten “serious consequences.” They didn’t. Now they pretend they did. You simply cannot do business with these people.

THE TIMES FINDS A BACKBONE: I’m exhilarated by the New York Times editorial position today. It’s clear. It isn’t treading water. It sees through the flim-flam of the Franco-Germans. Has someone serious finally gotten a hold of that column? Have they finally made up their minds? Here’s hoping.

HOW WE’RE HELPING AFGHANISTAN: Don’t believe the anti-Bush hype.

Tariq Aziz, Saddam’s puppet and accomplice, refused to take a question from an Israeli reporter today. Period. It was mentioned on most of the network news broadcasts tonight, in passing. But it’s helpful as an insight into the anti-Semitism that pervades the Saddamite regime. It will also be helpful to see whether Saddam’s two major allies in Europe, France and Germany, express any qualms about it. Today reminded me all too vividly of the 1930s – from the Pope warmly shaking the hands of an anti-Semitic dictatorial regime to the complete abdication of responsibility at the Security Council. It is a dark time; and it just got a little darker.

We now know that, barring a miracle, there will be no second U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. We know that European public opinion has hardened against any such military action, and that large sections of world opinion regard the United States as more morally abhorrent and internationally dangerous than the genocidal murderer in Baghdad. We know in other words that we will have to wage this war with an international coalition that is not synonymous with the U.N. The U.N. route has been a failure. But it was still worth trying, even if only to give it one last chance. The U.S. and the U.K. have shown amazing patience in trying to force the U.N. to live up to its own resolutions. That very effort gives the lie to those who argue that the Anglosphere nations have no interest in mulitlateralism. But those resolutions – specifically Resolution 1441, demanding immediate Iraqi compliance with disarmament – have been revealed as meaningless, in as much as those countries that signed on to them have no intention whatsoever of enforcing them. The notion that inspections are working is simply ludicrous on its face. The fact that that position was warmly applauded at the Security Council today is a signal that it has decided to engage in unreality.

LEAVING THEM BEHIND: The lesson from this is a simple one: we have to abandon the U.N. as an instrument in world affairs. I’m not saying complete U.S. withdrawal, although I’m beginning to think that now makes a lot of sense. I mean temporary U.S. disengagement. The body is now a joke of immense proportions. If it cannot enforce a resolution it passed only a couple of months ago, it cannot enforce anything. If it cannot read the plain meaning of its own words, it is an absurdist theater piece, not a genuine international body. It isn’t in danger of becoming the League of Nations. It now is the League of Nations. The difference is that this time, after 9/11, U.S. isolationism is not an option. So U.S. non-U.N. multilateralism is the only option for any future threats to world order. God knows we cannot rely on Europe to keep the peace. The Old Europeans will regret this deeply in the years to come. They have just told us in no uncertain terms to ignore them. We should. We will. And in the post-Saddam settlement, we must actively shut out the French and Germans from any slice of the economic action and tear up whatever contracts they had with Saddam. They have told us how highly they value the lives of American citizens. We can now tell them how highly we value their export markets.

I keep hearing from people who insist we should try “containment” of Iraq instead of war. They don’t seem to have observed that we are where we are precisely because of twelve years of “containment”. But, leaving that aside for a moment, what can containment mean now? One thing it surely does mean is maintaining sanctions. As Tony Blair just noted, “The moral choice in relation to this is a moral choice that has to weigh up the moral consequences of war. But the alternative is to carry on with a sanctions regime which, because of the way Saddam Hussein implements it, leads to thousands of people dying needlessly in Iraq every year.” Exactly. How odd that those who have long accused the West of murdering thousands of Iraqi babies because of sanctions now want to continue those sanctions indefinitely. Of course, some don’t. As soon as the pressure is off, they’ll get back to lobbying for an end to such sanctions and liberating Saddam to even further horrors. But it seems to me that those who sincerely want to maintain the inspections farce and the sanctions tragedy need to be more honest in confronting the moral cost of this policy: not merely doing nothing credible to deter the threat to the West of weapons of mass destruction; not merely the signal to every terrorist and nuke-hungry dictator that the West is too weak to deal with them; not merely perpetuating and reinforcing one of the most hideous police states on the planet; not merely fatally undermining the credibility of the U.N.; but also maintaining the cruelty of famine for the next generation of Iraqi children. This is what the Pope apparently wants. This is what legions of allegedly Christian clerics want. No-one should treat lightly the moral responsibility of waging war. But no-one should discount the moral burden of the alternative either.

A JUST WAR: This war is a just one. We didn’t start it. Saddam did – over twelve years ago. We responded at the time with a restraint and patience and deliberation that would have made Aquinas proud. After victory, we acted with a magnanimity utterly unreciprocated by the dictator we routed – even to the extent of leaving Saddam in power, even to the point of betraying in grotesque fashion the millions who dreamed of freedom – only to see slavery instead. (If only to right that horrifying wrong, we have a moral responsibility to finish the job.) We made a truce with the tyrant, with conditions that the entire world has witnessed him routinely violate. Our enemy, moreover, has no moral compunction whatsoever – he has violated every maxim of a just war imaginable. He has murdered opponents; he has gassed innocent and defenseless civilians; he preaches genocidal hatred and practises torture; he has laid waste to the environment; and made a mockery of religion. He has refused to disarm; and lies through his teeth. When fanatical murderers from that region developed a terrorist network and massacred thousands of Western civilians, we realized that Saddam’s weapons couldn’t be contained in his lair with any guarantee of security. So we made a belated attempt to live up to the truce of 1991, to finish the unfinished job. We could have destroyed him and his regime at any point. We didn’t. We waited; we sent in inspectors; we were forced into sanctions. We went to the U.N. again to beg for help and support. The U.N. complied, provided a clear resolution, with the burden of proof finally on Saddam. Just as clearly, Saddam has violated it, and continues to violate it.

A VERY LAST RESORT: By any rational, objective standard, we have done everything we possibly can to settle this war peacefully. To say that we are in a rush to war is an obscene fabrication, a statement of wilful amnesia, a simple denial of history. To retreat now, to concede that this monster has a better case than we do in the final prosecution of this war is a travesty of any concept of just war theory. In fact, it is to engage in positive pro-active injustice. Yes, we must do all we possibly can to keep casualties in this war as low as possible. We must do more than we can imagine to help rebuild that poor country and bring hope and democracy to its terrorized and brutalized people. And those objectives are absolutely essential for the justice of this war to be maintained. But equally, we would fail in any conception of Christian duty if we failed to act after all this time, if we let evil succeed, if we lost confidence in our capacity to do what is morally right. I’m tired of our moral defensiveness in this matter. It bears saying once and many times again: those advocating war as the last resort after twelve years of broken promises, butchery, evasion and threat on the part of Saddam are morally in the right. And, however good their intentions, the thousands of protestors who will throng the streets of Western cities this weekend are the purveyors and celebrants of a rank and palpable injustice.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation large or small. We no longer live in a world where the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation’s security to constitute maximum peril.” – President John F. Kennedy, Oct. 21, 1962.

APOSTASY WATCH: Two years ago, when I was still allowed to write for the New York Times, I wrote this screed against romantic love. And now? Happy Valentine’s Day. I miss you.

A protestor against disarming Saddam gets his names muddled up.

UPDATE: Many helpful Internet users have provided input on the afore-mentioned protestor’s placard. I say no more. But here’s the link.

“In light of the current crisis with Iraq, I thought it might be interesting to read again Frederick Forsyth’s wonderful novel on the Gulf War, The Fist of God, published in 1994. Take note of this gem I discovered on page 351:

‘He (Saddam Hussein) thinks the United Nations peacemongers could pull the rug. He’s gambling that time is on his side, that if he can keep spinning things out the resolve of the UN will ebb away. He could be right.’
‘The man doesn’t make sense,’ snapped Laing. ‘He has the deadline. January 16, not twenty days away. He’s going to be crushed.’
‘Unless,’ suggested Paxman, ‘one of the Permanent Members of the Security Council comes up with a last-minute peace plan to put the dealine on hold.’
Laing looked gloomy.
‘Paris or Moscow, or both,’ he predicted.

So why are we surprised now?” More insight from some of the web’s smartest readers on the Letters Page.

THE TORY TEMPTATION: Tony Blair’s brave stand in favor of disarming Iraq has managed to bring the Tories to almost even standing in the polls with Labour – for the first time in years. Many of those Tories don’t much like Tony Blair, don’t trust him, and believe he’s too invested in spin. So they’re tempted to march against war. They kind of like the idea of having inspectors spend months and months and months doing nothing in particular in Iraq. It’s called “muddling through,” an ancient English past-time. They don’t want to face what seems like imminent apocalypse. They feel uncomfortable with American brashness. And the Tory leadership, such as it is, cannot resist occasional cheap shots at the government. This is why, alas, the Conservative Party, led by the truly awful Iain Duncan-Smith, whose only selling point is that he’s not his chief rival, the pro-Euro, anti-American, Ken Clarke, is no longer a credible governing party in Britain.

THE GAY LEFT RESPONDS: Here’s the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s defense against my recent piece in the Advocate magazine. They don’t rebut the claims of my piece. They don’t deny that they have a far-left agenda; they don’t rebut my question as to how they can claim to be opposed to sexism while selecting women for their last seven executive director positions; they don’t deny that their recent conference wasn’t devoted to gay rights but to combating racism among gay people. But they do manage a few bloopers. They allege I am opposed to “abortion rights” and “civil rights.” Huh? I am reluctantly in favor of legal first trimester abortions; I have written tirelessly about my support for civil rights. In the last couple of months, I have campaigned against Trent Lott and written glowingly of Bayard Rustin. My record in support of marriage rights eclipses NGLTF’s. To say I oppose civil rights is simply a smear. I just don’t support affirmative action, and have had libertarian qualms about employment discrimination law (although I support gay inclusion in such laws, if they exist). They also cite my “privileged economic class,” as a way of saying that my views in favor of welfare reform are somehow illegitimate. I won’t address the ad hominem. Meanwhile, my basic point is ignored: if a gay group wants to win maximum support for its cause, why does it seek to alienate two-thirds of the electorate on an issue utterly unrelated to gay rights?

POOR GORE: His new book on the family is now ranked 606,000 on Amazon.com.