The Dish

There I was reading Interview magazine on the can this afternoon (well, looking at it, anyway) when who should pop up but Camille Paglia! It’s not her best but the interview with Ingrid Sischy has some nice moments. For all you Pagliari here are some extracts. I don’t think it’s online, but it’s the Dec/Jan 2002 issue if you want to read the whole thing.

On the Taliban destruction of the Buddhas:

“Yes, that was chilling. Ironically, the idea of the West as destroyer has been pushed down the throats of students at elite universities – yet we’re the only ones in history who have gone to such lengths to recover the past, reassemble the jigsaw puzzle, reconstruct past cultures. Those great stone Buddhas, smashed by cannon fire, were on trade routes dating from the period of the wandering hordes that attacked Rome. History will say that the destruction of those images was an early warning sign of something that was about to happen to us. Those falling monuments were a prefiguration of the collapse of the Twin Towers.”

On the new frontier post September 11:

“It’s almost as if there is no frontier, because by definition a frontier is the point where civilization is pushing us out into the unknown. What we’re facing now is the void or heart of darkness created by a fanatical hatred of progress, of history, of science. The way the terrorists used our technology against us – that’s another horror. To turn those tremendous jetliners against the Twin Towers: It’s like reversing the whole 20th Century – the history of flight and the great skyscrapers, the apex of architecture. To create this giant void where nothing is recognizable – even I, with my catastrophic imagination, never envisioned that civilization would do that to civilization.”

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “While different kinds of Americans live in strictly segregated monochromatic cities and neighborhoods and can’t even stand to hear each other’s music, Afghans of all ethnic stripes live side by side in a truly blended nation. This partly explains why yesterday’s Taliban can shave, trade his turban for a Hindustani cap, and become Northern Alliance — to jump from a Pashtun- to a Tajik-dominant culture isn’t that hard. Afghans make war all the time — it’s what they do best — but they fight out of loyalty to a commander or a warlord. They don’t shoot each other merely because of the color of their skin. We Americans, who most assuredly know better, do.” – Ted Rall, finding more reasons to hate America.

GOOD NEWS WATCH: A simple story of amazing generosity from the New York Times. And they didn’t even need a “faith-based” grant from the government.

MORE ON BRAME: An interesting quote from Robert Brame III appears on a website called “Christian Statesman.” The quote argues that “…[law that] is not rooted in explicit commands of Scripture would be at best abstract, vague, and esoteric. It could neither guide legislation and adjudication nor check abuses by government, and could be rapidly captured and perverted by an elite.” Sounds like mainstream Christian Reconstructionism to me. We’ve been told that Brame has severed all links to these groups as well. So why is he still listed on page 2 of the November 2001 “Biblical Worldview” magazine, put out by American Vision, as a still-active member of the AV board? Just asking. Sources tell me, however, that Brame has just withdrawn his name from consideration for reappointment to the NLRB. Great.

NPR CHANNELS AL JAZEERA: Suddenly it all makes sense. Boston’s NPR station WBUR will provide daily updates on the war on terrorism direct from the mouthpiece of anti-Western Muslim fundamentalism, Al Jazeera. No reason is given as to why NPR won’t provide daily coverage from, say, the Israeli media as well. But then it’s NPR. We know the reason already.

Here’s an interesting point made by a reader. We were told for ages that one reason we had no intelligence on the Taliban or Muslim terrorists in general was that they were basically impenetrable. An American spy couldn’t effectively go under cover, we were told: they would be spotted and expelled immediately. So how come a red-diaper baby from the Bay Area managed to infiltrate Taliban ranks and find himself on the front-lines in Northern Afghanistan? In retrospect, all that hooey about the impossibility of human intelligence in these groups seems like defensive CIA spin. Has George Tenet been fired yet?

Michael Wolff, about as good an indicator of the snide new York left as you’ll find outside the New York Times op-ed page, vents revealingly about the ascendancy of George W. Bush. Like much that Wolff writes, this is pure onanism. It has no relationship to actual reporting, research or honest examination of something called policy. It’s just how he feels. Well, he feels bad. He wants a return to the days when Bush was ridiculed. He fears, in the way that a substratum of provincial Manhattanites often fears, that any popular Republican is a harbinger of the Fourth Reich (he even uses the Nazi analogy.) Anyway, this is all to say that his column cheered me up no end. If this is how Wolff feels right now, a lot of things must be right in the world.

MOVE OVER, SEGWAY: Here’s an invention that really changes our lives.

AIDS NOW: An interesting piece in the Washington Post today about research into the possibility of ‘cycling’ anti-HIV drugs. It seems that in many cases, taking constant ‘holidays’ from the relentless drug regimen doesn’t adversely affect your immune system, can halve the cost of treatment, and reduces side effects. This is big news – both for healthcare costs and also for HIV patients. For what it’s worth, my own experience bears it out. Last June, on the eighth anniversary of my becoming HIV-positive, my blood results came back. They showed an undetectable viral load – i.e. there were fewer than 50 viral particles in a milligram of my blood. And my T-cell count (CD4 cells), an indicator of the strength of the immune system, was a solid 495. (People’s immune systems vary – but the range of normal CD4 counts is between 500 and 1500, with most people in the middle. You only risk illness if the count goes below 200. Viral loads also vary. They can go as high as several million in people with AIDS and vary from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands in other people with HIV). I decided, with my doctors’ blessing, to take a break from my meds. The fatigue, diarrhea, and nausea were getting to me. I found myself forgetting doses. I had begun to develop weird fat deposits around my waist and between my shoulder blades. So I tried an experiment.

THE RESULTS: Since the experiment started, I’ve had three blood tests. Off my medications, my immune system actually strengthened a little, going from 495 CD4 cells to three measurements over 600. My viral load came back, however. From being undetectable, it went to 2500 in two months, then leaped to 48,000 in the wake of 9/11, but now it has declined back again to 6800. No one knows quite what’s going on, but it appears my own immune system is fighting HIV quite effectively on its own. With a low viral load and high CD4 cells, my docs recommend staying off my meds for the time being. I’ll monitor it carefully, and go back on medications if my health worsens. But in general, this is great news for the quality of my own life, as well as for my health-insurer. If further research confirms these findings, then the cost structure of HIV care could also be transformed – especially for those who do not have insurance. We don’t know for sure yet – and everyone’s body is different – but this strikes me as really good news, and worth a little cheer. The only downside is that people like me who were once undetectable and barely infectious are now more liable to transmit the disease, because of our modestly higher viral loads. If there’s a shift in the number of similarly more infectious people in the population, transmission could tick upward. All the more reason to practice safer sex, or to keep sexual contact within the HIV-positive population.

The lead Washington Post story by Woodward and Kaiser is a useful, if terrifying, wake-up call. The administration clearly believes that there is a small chance that al Qaeda has the wherewithal for a dirty nuclear bomb. The following sentence is priceless: “U.S. officials are very concerned that any nuclear detonation by al Qaeda would be a calamitous psychological setback to the war on terrorism.” Er, yes. You can say that again – especially if it happens in an American city. I got the same sinking feeling reading this paragraph: “On at least one occasion, the White House cited the increased concern that al Qaeda might have a radiological bomb as a key reason that Vice President Cheney was not available for a face-to-face meeting with visiting senior foreign officials. The meeting usually would have allowed for informal personal contact, but took place via secure video conference because Cheney was at a secure location outside Washington.” I’m grateful to the Post for this story not least because I notice in myself – and all around me – an unnerving sense that the war is somehow over. People aren’t talking about it in the same earnest and desperate way they were before. I guess we knew this would happen – but it’s surely a mistake. We’re barely three months away from the massacre, and growing psychologically complacent. I’m not say we should stay afraid indefinitely – just that it’s good to have a reminder that we still have something to be very afraid of.

MEDIA BIAS WATCH I: “According to the sources, the planning is being undertaken under the auspices of a the US Central Command at McDill air force base in Tampa, Florida, commanded by General Tommy Franks, who is leading the war against Afghanistan.” – The Observer, London, December 2. War against Afghanistan?

MEDIA BIAS WATCH II: Am I overly-sensitive or is this Elizabeth Bumiller piece in the New York Times beyond snide? The story itself could have been assigned by Terry McAuliffe – the premise being that if the White House cannot be open for tours by the general public, no press Christmas parties should take place either. (Notice the nasty stage whisper high up in the piece that Bush is related to a former president, a detail designed to paint the president as an aristocrat elitist.) Bumiller insinuates, under the guise of news, that the Bushes are a) like the Clintons, selling access to the highest bidder, and b) elitists for accepting secret service recommendations about opening the White House for public access. In fact, these parties have nothing to do with fundraising, they’re dumb schmooze-fests designed to charm the press. And the numbers invited, as the Times concedes, are under half the peak for the Clinton years. And the security distinction makes sense: it’s far easier to vet individuals whom you have personally invited and whose guests are also assigned in advance, than vetting people who line up for Christmas tours on Pennsylvania Avenue. (To all those readers about to accuse me of elitism, I should say, I guess, that although I’ve been invited many times, I’ve never gone to the White House Christmas press parties. My only invites were from the Clintons.) Besides, surely Bumiller has been made aware by now that there is a war on. Security isn’t a matter of elitism; it’s a matter of life and death.

RAMADAN SCHMAMADAN: Remember all that hooey about how we shouldn’t fight terrorism during Ramadan because it violated some religious propriety. I love this sentence from the Washington Post today: “In the past, al Qaeda terrorists have tried to launch attacks during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which this year began Nov. 16. The first bombings of the World Trade Center, which killed six people and injured more than 1,000, came on Feb. 26, 1993, three days after Ramadan began that year. During the Ramadan observance from Dec. 9, 1999, to Jan. 7, 2000, the United States and other nations stopped a series of attacks that were keyed to the millennium celebration.” Not only do the terrorists allow terror during Ramadan, they positively encourage it. I say: let’s be sensitive to these sensibilities and follow their example.

THE AMERICAN TALIBAN: Several of you have pointed out to me that Robert Brame III was appointed to the NLRB four years ago by president Clinton. I’ve been trying to find out if Brame’s radical Christian Reconstructionist views were known then or have only subsequently been exposed. I wish I’d known when I wrote the first item to provide the context. But it doesn’t change my point. The man has no place in appointed public office. And no, it’s not some new McCarthyism to nix someone for a position like this because of his views or the views of his colleagues on unrelated matters. It’s a political decision for any president to make. And which president would want to advance or condone such views? There are plenty of candidates who aren’t in the pocket of organized labor who could do the job. Why pick someone who has been part of a movement that even the religious right regards as extremist?

THE JEWS DID IT, PART DEUX: “When the Israelis killed a senior Hamas figure just as the US peace envoy, General Anthony Zinni, began his work, they made it almost certain that there would be a response from Hamas. It may well be that Hamas would have staged suicide operations, at this time or later, whether or not a leader had been killed by the Israelis. But there must be a suspicion that some Israelis wanted General Zinni to have a first hand view of terrorism, which might then shift the view of Mr Arafat in Washington.” – The Guardian, in its editorial today. This is a carefully parsed sentence. It doesn’t actually blame the Israelis for the massacre of their own citizens, but it comes extremely close. The European Left’s loathing of Israel never ceases to amaze, and it’s not restricted to the Left. Thanks in part to the BBC, anti-Zionism is now endemic in Britain. I’ve barely talked to a Brit recently who doesn’t essentially blame Israelis for all the violence in their own country. Oh well, they couldn’t quite keep up the moral equivalence with al Qaeda, so Hamas will have to do.

“NO-ONE CAN CONTROL OR CHANGE ME”: E.J. Dionne gets Arafat exactly right, methinks.

Yes, many people have woefully abused this term as a way to tar all sorts of characters with a demagogic brush. But in some cases, it actually is fair. I refer to a fringe group known as Christian Reconstructionists, far right Christians who believe that the Constitution should be replaced by Biblical law, that women have no place in public life, that homosexuals should be executed, that non-Christians should be forcibly converted, and so on. Now, you’d think these extremists would be personae non gratae in the Taliban-fighting Bush White House, wouldn’t you? So why on earth has the administration considered nominating one Robert Brame III to the National Labor Relations Board? Until recently, Brame was on the board of American Vision, a Christian Reconstructionist body, and was an adviser to the Plymouth Rock Foundation, a group with similar views. Here’s a recent quote from an AV representative in their magazine: “We’ve been told that Christians cannot impose their religious beliefs on others. Since heaven is at stake, we have no choice. There is no hope outside of Jesus Christ.” Remind you of anyone? A June 1999 edition of the group’s magazine described democracy as “the first step toward fascism.” I’m sorry but something is seriously wrong when people associated with views such as these are deemed worthy of appointment by any administration. The president has a chance to save himself from this embarrassment. He ought to – and fast.

HOME NEWS: The good news is that Entertainment Weekly’s “Shaw Report,” which catalogues the ups and downs of pop-cultural fashion has designated andrewsullivan.com as the “in” website of the moment. We replace mcsweeneys.net (“five minutes ago”) and thedrudgereport.com (“out”). Well, if Drudge is so “out,” why does he keep giving me almost half my referrals? (Drudge, like diamonds, is forever.) But the bad news is that the other “in” things of this moment are boiled wool, shrinky dinks, and chocolate martinis. Eeewww, EW. But thanks!

We’re in an end-game here, aren’t we? However you feel about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it seems clear to me that Yassir Arafat is perilously close to being irrelevant. He can’t deliver peace, as we found out at Camp David. He can’t deliver even a semblance of order in the Palestinian territories, let alone Israel. So what use is he as an interlocutor or even protagonist in the bloody conflict? This piece in the Washington Post is as gloomy as it is hard-headed. Even Colin Powell is apparently refusing to lecture the Israelis on what they should do next. Here’s my prediction: a brutal finale that re-establishes some semblance of order in Israel and on the West Bank at the cost of even greater Palestinian bitterness and further conflict. Who’s responsible? Ultimately the majority of Palestinians who still cannot reconcile themselves to a viable Zionist entity in Palestine. They’d rather suffer and die and be pummeled than concede Israel’s right to exist. The tragedy is ultimately theirs’.

MY SWEET BEATLE: Here’s a nicely arch paragraph from Philip Norman’s biography of the Fab Four about their first encounter with the Maharishi Yogi: “Amid the small audience of the faithful, four Beatles garbed as flower power aristocrats listened while a little Asian gentleman, wearing robes and a gray-tipped beard, described in his high-pitched voice, interspersed with many mirthful cachinnations, an existence both more inviting and more convenient than mere hippydom. The ‘inner peace’ which the Maharishi promised, and which seemed so alluring to pleasure-exhausted multimillionaires–not to mention the “sublime consciousness” so attractive to inveterate novelty seekers–could be obtained even within their perilously small span of concentration. To be spiritually regenerated, they were told, they need meditate for only half an hour each day.” Okay, so that’s a bit mean. It’s a little easy to condescend to Harrison’s eastern-influenced spirituality and Steve Waldman does a decent job on Beliefnet.com of explaining why. Seeking the presence of God is not at its core an intellectual exercise; what Harrison looked for in the 1960s was a practice of belief, that could lead to the experience of belief. Pascal explained this best – and I think most post-Vatican II Catholics who long for the ritual robbed from us have yearnings for something like Eastern meditation. Like Harrison, I believe such practices can at some point lead to a kind of spiritual calm – which is why I had a pretty intense Buddhist phase in my 20s, which had me disappearing into temples in Burma at one point. I even believe, as Harrison bravely confessed, that some types of recreational drugs can help elevate the consciousness artificially to give you a glimpse of what a higher state of being feels or looks like. If that leads to a deeper sense of the divine, then no one should scorn it, let alone make it illegal.

CONSERVATIVES AND HIPPIES: Besides, conservatives who deride “hippies” are missing something, I think. They’re missing the inherent weirdness and experimentalism of true religion. It should surely be possible to affirm a stringent conservative politics, while leaving space in civil society for all types of experimental religious practices – especially those that do not adhere to the exigencies of fundamentalism. In fact, one of the reasons to affirm the principle of a limited but active government is to create the safe social space for all types of experimental living that over-weaning government crowds out. To paraphrase Oakeshott, I’m a conservative in politics so that I might be a radical in many other human activities. It’s sad that so few contemporary liberals or conservatives understand this point – especially religious conservatives. Jesus was a hippy, after all, and the 1960s performed a useful service in reminding us of this. So was Saint Francis. As for Harrison, “My Sweet Lord,” will always be a deeply religious song to me; and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” my favorite later Beatles composition. At least Harrison didn’t descend to the hideous banality of Lennon’s “Imagine.” And at least he had the presence of mind to bestow us with the following sentence repeated by Waldman: “I’ll tell you one thing for sure, once you get to the point where you’re actually doing things for truth’s sake, then nobody can ever touch you again, because you’re harmonizing with a greater power.” I pray he is right now.

MY SWEET POWERBOOK: Speaking of religion, the several hundred emails inquiring how I’m doing in MacLand deserve a response – and I simply couldn’t respond to them all individually. Simply put, I’ve been working on this sleek little thing for a day or so now, and I’ve had no problems to speak of, just a little adjustment to figure out what goes where. In general, the organization seems far more intuitive than Microsoft. If you love aesthetics, there’s also no comparison. I’ve been blissing out to the new New Order album, Get Ready, on my iPod at the same time. Now all I need is a Segway to jump on and I’m all set. Seriously, thanks for all the offers of help, support and spiritual solidarity from my new friends in MacLand. You also helped boost our visits last Friday to a cool 36,000 in one day. I think that’s a record.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “War is repugnant to the people of the United States; yet it is war that has made their nation and it is through their power to wage war that they dominate the world. Americans are proficient at war in the same way that they are proficient at work. It is a task, sometimes a duty. Americans have worked at war since the seventeenth century, to protect themselves from the Indians, to win their independence from George III, to make themselves one country, to win the whole of the their continent, to extinguish autocracy and dictatorship in the world outside. It is not their favoured form of work. Left to themselves, Americans build, cultivate, bridge, dam, canalise, invent, teach, manufacture, think, write, lock themselves in struggle with the eternal challenges that man has chosen to confront, and with an intensity not known elsewhere on the globe. Bidden to make war their work, Americans shoulder the burden with intimidating purpose. There is, I have said, an American mystery, the nature of which I only begin to perceive. If I were obliged to define it, I would say it is the ethos—masculine, pervasive, unrelenting—of work as an end in itself. War is a form of work, and America makes war, however reluctantly, however unwillingly, in a particularly workmanlike way. I do not love war; but I love America.” – John Keegan, Warpaths.

Check out Byron York’s devastating little piece in National Review Online about Bill Clinton’s response to the 1996 Khobar bombings, and indeed all such terrorst incidents in his term of office. His instinct? Take a poll. All the more reason for president Bush to ignore the Berke–Dowd double-punch in today’s Times goading W to go all-political in the war on terrorism. There is simply no trade-off whatsoever between the war and the economy right now, and anyone who thinks so is either dumb or deliberately trying to trick W into repeating not his father’s but his predecessor’s mistakes. If we win the war, the economy will do fine; if we half-win this war, the economy will tank at the slightest hint of another terrorist attack. Memo to W: ignore these domestic-policy types. Veto the stimulus package; focus like a laser-beam on Iraq.

POWERBOOK HEAVEN: Well, I know this makes for a Hollywood ending, but I bought the Powerbook yesterday and this is my first posting using the new system. It’s a) beautiful; b) easily mastered in about fifteen minutes for the tasks I need to perform; c) extremely quick. I also bought the incredible little iPod. Jeez. My CD collection is busily disappearing into my hard drive as we speak (not as painful as it sounds) and I’ll soon have any music I want portable in what amounts to a cigarette box. I’ve used previous MP3 systems before and this one leaves them all in the dust. Anyway, before I turn into a total Mac-head, I’ll close. But I have to wonder now: whatever took me so long?

Well, none of you took any notice of my plea for no more emails. Not to worry. They’ve been fascinating. The bottom line is that the overwhelming majority of you guys back Apple. I could recite the dozens of stories I’ve gotten of similar wretched Microsoft experiences, but they’re all essential paraphrases of my own sad little tale. But what really strikes me is the semi-religious enthusiasm of Mac-users. You’d think I’d just converted to Islam or something. It’s really something to hear the sheer zeal with which Mac users speak of their computers. This is more than consumerism. It’s something like a lifestyle, or at least an attitude. Of course, I’m now stricken with worries that if Apple comes along and offers us sponsorship or something, I’ll be pillloried for conflicts of interest. You can almost hear David Talbot licking his chops now. But screw that. I’m shopping for an iBook tomorrow and if it sucks, I’ll tell you. If I turn into as big an Apple fan as my correspondents, I’ll tell you as well. And if Steve Jobs wants to advertize on a site with lots of Apple fans, my email address is easily found. ;-). Think different, eh?

Spin this one, Gene Lyons! According to Drudge, Vanity Fair is preparing an investigative piece on the catastrophic failure of the Clinton State Department to snag bin Laden and learn vast amounts of information about al Qaeda in 1996 – occasioned by a remarkable offer to cooperate from the Sudanese government. I’ve mentioned this point several times before – and had the usual hysterical response from Clintonistas that I’m a “hater,” etc, etc. (How many Clinton-“haters” edited a magazine that pioneered Clinton’s rise as a candidate? How many enthusiastically endorsed him in 1992? How many urged not to vote for conviction in impeachment? How many wrote a screed against Kenneth Starr at the height of the impeachment battle? How many consistently supported his right to a private sexual life? I did all of the above. My disgust at Clinton comes from nothing more than close empirical observation of his public malfeasance, corruption and lies for eight long years.) The truth is that the Clinton administration was worse than incompetent when it came to preventing international terrorism: its policies were dangerously naxefve, ineffective and counter-productive. As usual, none of the main players will ever concede error. Which is why the press will have to work even harder to nail their culpability and remind us more forcefully of the damage the 42d president did.

THE CLONING HYPE: Two useful pieces dissecting the press’s recent hype of the human cloning threat. If you want to be reassured about the science and unnerved by the “journalism,” read this Buffalo News piece. For more depth on how small companies can manipulate gullible science reporters, check out this piece by my colleague Jon Cohn at The New Republic. Ignore Jon’s statist remedies – the guy would have the government take over your toe-nail clipper if he could. The rest is very smart and worthwhile.

“The Taliban’s collapse shattered two myths: Islamic invincibility and American weakness — myths amplified over eight years by the Clinton administration’s empty gestures and demonstrable impotence in the face of Islamic terror. The Islamic street exploded after Sept. 11, not because of rage — the rage is there always — but because of triumphalism.” Charles Krauthammer today manages to say in two sentences the core of what we now know. His advice to tackle terrorist cells in Africa before Iraq also makes sense to me. I hope the president reads this column and gets the message. I think – and trust – he does.

TWO MORE SENTENCES: “When the Europeans subsidize business we call it dirigisme. When Republicans do it they call it a stimulus package.” Don’t miss David Brooks’ superb evisceration of the hideous bill now almost destined to become law. Be depressed. Be very depressed.

MBEKI MADNESS, CTD: The one truly effective use of certain anti-HIV drugs is to prevent transmission of the virus from pregnant mother to child. Nevaripine is one such drug. It is free to the South African government, donated by the evil drug companies, and yet Pretoria is refusing to distribute it to a majority of its provinces for reasons that simply defy rational explanation. This is not a complex drug regimen – it’s one pill a day. The drug is not toxic and is taken for a limited length of time. It literally saves the lives of infants, 20,000 of whom are at risk of early death each year of AIDS in that country. So why is Pretoria stopping its distribution? They claim expense in the administration of the drug – but its administration is among the easiest there is, and the drug itself is free. They are also preventing private practitioners from dispensing it – something that would cost the country nothing. Remember: mother-to-infant transmission is by far the easiest method of preventing HIV from spreading. Yet this simplest of steps is being prevented in the only African country with the health infrastructure to make real progress against HIV. This is more Mbeki madness. And it highlights dramatically the fact that in Africa, the last group responsible for not tackling the AIDS crisis are the drug companies.

SLATE GOES WOBBLY: Steve Chapman writes a singularly unpersuasive piece in Slate against taking the war to Iraq. The basic argument is that deterrence works, and that Saddam would never actually use all the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons he’s been spending so much time and money constructing. The reason? Our ability to respond in kind prevents him. Only if we really pushed him into a corner would he be tempted to use such weapons. There are a few questions worth asking about this line of argument: a) why does Chapman think Saddam has gone to such great lengths to get these weapons – even to the point of watching his country pummeled by international sanctions – if he has no intention of using them against his most formidable enemy? b) he has used them – against his domestic enemies after the Gulf War debacle; c) why couldn’t he cooperate with al Qaeda or other terrorist groups to use these weapons indirectly and so avoid blame and therefore retaliation? To reassure us on the first two counts, Chapman relies on Saddam’s mental stability to argue that he wouldn’t do something irrational. Hmmm. And Hitler would never do something crazy like invade Russia, either. Let’s just say this wager is a lot more persuasive when the consequence of its being wrong isn’t the elimination of a major Western city.

THE CHEMICAL OPTION: Then there’s the simple possibility of Saddam using a third party to do the deed. Chapman bats this away. “[I]t strains belief to picture a secular Arab ruler giving the ultimate weapon to fanatical terrorists who want to establish Islamic theocracies across the region.” But not all fanatical terrorists are of this stripe. Some are motivated by hatred of Israel or the West for less fundamentalist reasons than bin Laden. And there’s plenty of evidence that Saddam has trafficked with these people in the past – including the first attempt to blow up the WTC, an attempt which involved a rudimentary, failed effort at chemical warfare. And what if we couldn’t determine who was behind the attack? How does deterrence theory work then? Chapman says it would be easy. Any chemical or biological attack would point directly to Saddam, like O.J. at the crime scene. Really? Chapman’s example to prove this is our ability quickly to pin-point al Qaeda as the source of 9/11. But the more salient example is the anthrax attack. As far as the public knows, we still have no clue who did this – despite several letters and several deaths. So why are we sure Saddam wouldn’t be able to pull the same thing off – or hasn’t already? If anything, the anthrax attacks have made this scenario more likely. I get the feeling from Chapman’s piece that he still doesn’t get it. This country is in grave and mortal peril. So far as we know, any major city could be subject to a devastating chemical or biological attack at any time. Two such attacks have already occurred in the last three months. What does it take to get our deterrence theorists and multilateralists to realize that the world has changed – and that inaction is the most dangerous and reckless option of all?

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “Exporting MTV would only serve to confirm Islam’s worst fears and most accurate suspicions about the West – that we are a people who exploit women in crueler and more effective ways than the Taliban ever considered. We turn them into sex objects. What we do to young people in general is no better. While the Islamists program their young people into becoming suicide bombers, MTV programs our children into self-destructive, sexual time bombs … MTV is not an ally of Western civilization in the war with competing ideologies. It can only provide our enemies with more ammunition to be used against us. And, because of its impact on our own kids, it represents a corrosive, fifth column assault on everything that has made America great and good.” – Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily.