The Dish

"And they say there is no sectarian war? What do you call this?" – an Iraqi, reacting to the massive casualties of the past few days. 1300 dead in a few days is not a portent of civil war. It is civil war. The question is whether it can now be stopped. Imagine if 16,000 Americans had been slaughtered in a few days in sectarian conflict. Would you call it peace?

George W. Bush isn’t the only national leader with contempt for democratic processes, checks and balances, and the rule of law. Tony Blair has never seen a free act he doesn’t want to constrain, subsidize, tax, regulate or inspire. The appalling sight of an elected mayor of London being suspended by an unelected bureaucrat because he upset some journalist is a function of Blair’s meddling ways. In yesterday’s Times of London, William Rees-Mogg, former editor of the paper, let rip:

"The Prime Minister knows what the issue is. He is against due process as such. He has written a most extraordinary attack on the whole concept in yesterday’s Observer. The article is so incautious that he must have written it himself.

‘In theory,’ Tony Blair writes, ‘traditional court processes and attitudes to civil liberties could work. But the modern world is different from the world for which these court processes were designed.’ This view that due process is obsolete explains the Prime Minister’s conduct; it explains the connection between extradition without safeguards, detention without trial, Asbos without criminal offences, subjective and discretionary judgments, police powers to arrest, and increasing ministerial powers. They are all characteristic of Blair legislation; they all avoid due process of law."

It’s time for free people to tell these meddling monarchs where to stick it.

People are always telling you that a rise in the gas-tax – unchanged since 1993! – is impossible to sell to the American people. I don’t buy it. A new poll suggests that all it might need is a little political leadership.

We should wait and see what further polls say. But 34 percent is about what this president deserves. Even Fred Barnes seems to have recovered some critical faculties.

Thanks for the emails. I should say, I guess, that one of Robert George’s great strengths is his unflinching defense of his own position. He is unafraid to speak what he believes, even if it means he favors banning all abortions and, in principle, favoring laws that would make wanking a criminal offense. Ponnuru is a more slippery character, because he has to navigate the shoals of his own extremism with Beltway political maneuvring. One reader comments on the vacuousness of one of his arguments:

"What’s funny to me in Ponnuru’s post is his insistence that he did some sort of moral exploration in his essay. (He says he "goes through several moral distinctions that separate abortion from the murder of an adult.") While I did note a few strange exculpatory notes on the "social" distinctions between abortion and the murder of an adult, these were couched in such a way as to clearly imply that these distinctions should only be applied in the most legalistic of ways. The moral ramifications of abortion and its definition (killing of a human being) were not changed. In fact, in several instances he seemed to be saying that part of the reasoning behind the proposed lowering of criminal sentences for women and abortionists was not by dint of any moral distinction at all but merely for assuring a conviction from a wavering jury – similar to his disingenuous denouncing of the S. Dakota bill. And he says you write in bad faith…"

Ahem. I think the personal viciousness of Ponnuru is a sign that I have cut a little close to the bone. Good.

They’re having another rally in New York City. Details here. No Hamlet-like waffling. Be there.

Here’s a useful symposium on what is at stake in Iraq and why civil war is now imaginable. I agree with Noah Feldman: what’s remarkable is how these ethnic divisions were largely fostered by the incompetent invasion. They didn’t precede it – certainly not with their current ferocity. Our decision to let disorder reign – and it was a conscious decision – has been disastrous.

The Bull Moose smells meltdown. I’m not so sure. But this point is well worth considering:

"[R]emember, the best thing that ever happened to the Clinton Presidency was losing Democratic control over Congress."

Bush might be saved yet. He’s a very lucky guy. Given his incompetence, he needs to be.

One essential tactic of the theoconservative project is to disguise its true, radical aims. Ramesh Ponnuru’s latest post is a small but telling example. I cited a new, draconian bill in South Dakota that bans all abortions, including cases begotten by incest and rape. I bet that Ponnuru wouldn’t be against it. Ponnuru dismisses this by saying:

"I have already come out against the South Dakota bill, which is the latest irrelevancy Sullivan is using to distract attention from his record of misrepresentation."

Here is the post where Ponnuru opposes the bill:

"Pro-lifers are trying to enact a general ban on abortion there. Right goal; wrong means. Our moral obligation is to provide the maximum feasible, sustainable protection for the unborn. Setting up a law for the Supreme Court to strike down doesn’t advance that goal."

So you see that Ponnuru’s sole reason for opposing such a radical law is not because he doesn’t believe in it. In his words, it’s "the right goal." His opposition is because it would be counter-productive and imprudent at this moment, given the current Supreme Court, to force a challenge. This bait-and-switch on prudential compromises when challenged on basic moral positions is also his gambit with respect to Robert George. If you want to read a good account of how this is deliberate deception on the part of the theocons, read Hadley Arkes’ remarkable confession of the need to dissemble here. (Arkes seems to believe that a murderer of an abortionist is more moral than an abortionist, a view that would make complete sense from George’s and Ponnuru’s moral postulates). Meanwhile, a reader writes:

"I was a student of George’s at Princeton. Believe me, you’re representing his views entirely fairly. His "cute" little piece for the First Things symposium is pure Robbie George, all the way. I also had one of his acolytes (read: Madison Program) as a preceptor; you should have seen the reaction of a dozen college juniors and seniors when he couldn’t begin to understand why regulation of masturbation and blowjobs didn’t strike all of us as a perfectly reasonable thing for the government to engage in, even if only as "instructive" (read: criminal) laws."

These people mean what they write. When challenged, they lie about it. Repeatedly. They don’t want to sound like cranks. But they actually believe that, in an ideal world, masturbation would be a crime. And they get very upset when you point that out.

Another first-hand report:

"The last few days have been unsettlingly violent in spite of the curfew. We’ve been at home simply waiting it out and hoping for the best. The phone wasn’t working and the electrical situation hasn’t improved. We are at a point, however, where things like electricity, telephones and fuel seem like minor worries. Even complaining about them is a luxury Iraqis can’t afford these days.

The sounds of shooting and explosions usually begin at dawn, at least that’s when I first sense them, and they don’t really subside until well into the night. There was a small gunfight on the main road near our area the day before yesterday, but with the exception of the local mosque being fired upon, and a corpse found at dawn three streets down, things have been relatively quiet.

Some of the neighbors have been discussing the possibility of the men setting up a neighborhood watch. We did this during the war and during the chaos immediately after the war. The problem this time is that the Iraqi security forces are as much to fear as the black-clad and hooded men attacking mosques, houses and each other."

That last point about the security forces differs from Mohammed’s assessment below. It depends where you’re living, I guess. (Hat tip: Kevin.)