Natan Sharansky: Courage

In dictatorships, you need courage to fight evil; in the free world, you need courage to see the evil."

From Natan Sharansky's review of Melanie Phillips' Londonistan.

Bill Keller isn't very Bright

Responding to NY Times' Editor Bill Keller's latest rationalization of the SWIFT leak, Glenn Reynolds' says it best:

BILL KELLER ISN'T VERY BRIGHT, or else he thinks you aren't. How else to explain this passage in his apologia for the Times' publication of classified information about the terrorist financial surveillance program:

Some of the incoming mail quotes the angry words of conservative bloggers and TV or radio pundits who say that drawing attention to the government's anti-terror measures is unpatriotic and dangerous. (I could ask, if that's the case, why they are drawing so much attention to the story themselves by yelling about it on the airwaves and the Internet.)

I realize that the Times' circulation is falling at an alarming rate, but it hasn't yet reached such a pass that its stories are only noticed when Rush Limbaugh mentions them.

A deeper error is Keller's characterization of freedom of the press as an institutional privilege, an error that is a manifestation of the hubris that has marked the NYT of late. Keller writes: "It's an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press. . . . The power that has been given us is not something to be taken lightly."

The founders gave freedom of the press to the people, they didn't give freedom to the press. Keller positions himself as some sort of Constitutional High Priest, when in fact the "freedom of the press" the Framers described was also called "freedom in the use of the press." It's the freedom to publish, a freedom that belongs to everyone in equal portions, not a special privilege for the media industry. (A bit more on this topic can be found here.)

Characterizing the freedom this way, of course, makes much of Keller's piece look like, well, just what it is -- arrogant and self-justificatory posturing. To quote Keller: "Forgive me, I know this is pretty elementary stuff — but it's the kind of elementary context that sometimes gets lost in the heat of strong disagreements."

Hugh Hewitt agrees and goes line by line.

Scott says the Times' stories that reveal classified secrets not only break the law, they show themselves to be contemptuous of the rule of law and this government by fueling the passions of the mob.

Salem Communication's Bid for Union Between Web & Talk Radio

Newsweek has an article about Hugh Hewitt and his unique web and talk-radio presence in the New Media. But really, its about taking what Hugh does and kicking it up a notch. Salem Communication, one of the nation's largest radio station owners and stable of a great set of talk show hosts--Hewitt, Medved, Bennett, others--teaming up with Townhall.com, hitherto a clearinghouse of conservative commentary, to become the center of conservative activism, much like Daily Kos is for liberals. But more. And bigger. The hope is that 6 million radio radio listeners plus the 1.4 million readers of Townhall.com will caterpault a body of citizens, six to seven times bigger than Kos, into the political cause.

Lauch date, July 4.

The Professor Bainbridge of Wine

Professor Bainbridge is both an expert on law and wine. So, he has dedicated a blog to each. And here he has a lengthy post on port, its origins, styles, etc. All very good.

But I wonder if he has tried Sella & Mosca's Cannanou Di Sardegna Riserva, 2002. It was refreshing, mild and smooth, complex but delicious, unlike any wine I've had.

Diana West: Deluded America

Paul over at Powerline says that parts of Diana West's piece, "Deluded America", comes about as close to being the purest distillation of the liberal soul as he has seen. It is good.

I do wonder what passage of Churchill's she is thinking about....

UPDATE: I emailed a quotation request to the Churchill Centre (since Ms. West never did respond) to see if they knew where Churchill might have said what West attributed to him. And this is their reply:

Dear Mr Schunk,

West's comment is too vague and offers too few key words for me to have any
hope of locating this in our digital archives, which are very complete but
need something to go by. Nor do I think he said it, because he accepted the
premise and did need to reiterate it. His daughter said recently that he
would have done anything to win the war, but the barbarous nature of what he
had to do "did not unman him."

Here is a quotation, 19 May 40, that goes to the point...

"In that supreme emergency we shall not hesitate to take every step, even the most drastic, to call forth from our people the last ounce and the last inch of effort of which they are capable. The interests of property, the hours of labour, are nothing compared with the struggle for life and honour, for right, and freedom, to which we have vowed ourselves."

And, recalling the South African war in 1930:

"I have always urged fighting wars and other contentions with might and main till overwhelming vitory, and then offering the hand of friendship to the vanquished. Thus, I have always been against the Pacifists during the quarrel, and against the Jingoes at its close."

He did admit the vileness of it all to his wife, 15 Sep 09:

"Much as war attracts me and fascinates my mind with its tremendous situations, I feel more deeply every year and can measure the feeling here in the midst of arms what vile and wicked folly and barbarism it all is."

Incidentally, Churchill himself did not even know that Dresden had been bombed until he reached Yalta in February 1945, where Stalin demanded why he had not been. The request to bomb Dresden came from the Soviets, and Churchill's deputy prime minister, Clement Attlee, had given the order while Churchill was en route to Yalta.

Best wishes

Ledeen Adds to McCarthy's Argument

Adding to Andrew McCarthy's piece (post directly below) today on the NY Times, Michael Ledeen says this about the journalists of Main Street Media:

These people are not acting like journalists at all. They are acting as a fourth branch of government, co-equal with the others. They arrogate to themselves the power to classify and declassify, to protect or reveal secrets and sources, as they see fit. Which is to say, according to their political ambitions.

They aren’t journalists at all, they’re pols. And they should be treated that way.

They are already treated with contempt by the American people; just look at the polls. But they are not yet being held accountable for their actions, as elected and appointed pols are. They should be.

More here....

McCarthy: Media's War on the War Continues

Despite appeals from the White House and Director of Intelligence Negroponte, the NY Times and the LA Times (and others?) published a story exposing the apparatus that has successfully has allowed us to track the financial connections of terrorist. Here is Andrew McCarthy's reaction:

Yet again, the New York Times was presented with a simple choice: help protect American national security or help al Qaeda.

Yet again, it sided with al Qaeda.

Once again, members of the American intelligence community had a simple choice: remain faithful to their oath — the solemn promise the nation requires before entrusting them with the secrets on which our safety depends — or violate that oath and place themselves and their subjective notions of propriety above the law.

Once again, honor was cast aside.

For the second time in seven months, the Times has exposed classified information about a program aimed at protecting the American people against a repeat of the September 11 attacks.

The rest....

White House Press Questions Hadley on Recent WMD's

The teaching moment that Andy McCarthy asked for came and went today at the White House press briefing. In the 2nd to last question one question was directed to Stephen Hadley. It doesn't seem all that helpful, and it looks like that not only does the WH know but that they think they don't need to say any more--it is a self-teaching moment.

Q This document that was unclassified yesterday, Republican lawmakers released it pointing toward 500 weapons dumps or munitions found in Iraq since 2003, of some chemical weapons. Do you consider this as a smoking gun of some sort, proving the WMD charge, or is this old material that is pre-Gulf War? What do you make of it?

MR. HADLEY: I think really it is what it is. There's a declassified, I think one-pager, that the intelligence community has cleared. I don't know whether that's been released to the press.

Q It has, yes, it has.

MR. HADLEY: That's really the story, I think. And I don't have a whole lot to add. It sort of, it is what it is. And I think -- I read that statement quickly last night and it's really all we can say about it. And I think people are going to have to draw their own conclusions.

But the bottom line is, 500 chemical munitions in Iraq, and obviously we're concerned about the potential threat they pose to Iraqis and to our forces.

UPDATE: Several people have noticed that Rumsfeld took a question (scroll half-way down) as well today.

Q Mr. Secretary, there's been a lot made on Capitol Hill about the chemical weapons that were found and may be quite old. But do you have a real concern of these weapons from Saddam's past perhaps having an impact on U.S. troops who are on the ground in Iraq right now?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Certainly. What's been announced is accurate, that there have been hundreds of canisters or weapons of various types found that either currently have sarin in them or had sarin in them. And sarin's dangerous. And it's dangerous to our forces and it's a concern. So, obviously, to the extent we can locate these and destroy them, it's important that we do so. They are dangerous. And anyone, I'm sure, General Casey or anyone else in that country, would be concerned if they got in the wrong hands. They are weapons of mass destruction. They're harmful to human beings. And they have been found. And they had not been reported by Saddam Hussein as he inaccurately alleged that he had reported all of his weapons. And they are still being found and discovered.

Santorum: WMD's In Iraq

Today Senator Santorum and Representative Hoekstra had a press conference to announce, with the support of recently declassified information, that WMD's have indeed been found in Iraq. Here is an offical transcript of the presser.

And here is Senator Santorum's press release:

Senator Santorum Makes Major Announcement Regarding Newly Declassified Information Concerning Chemical Weapons Discovered in Iraq

“This is critically important information that the world community needs to know” – Senator Santorum

June 21, 2006
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, joined Congressman Peter Hoekstra, (R-MI-2), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, today to make a major announcement regarding the release of newly declassified information that proves the existence of chemical munitions in Iraq since 2003. The information was released by the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, and contained an unclassified summary of analysis conducted by the National Ground Intelligence Center. In March, Senator Santorum began advocating for the release of these documents to the American public.

“The information released today proves that weapons of mass destruction are, in fact, in Iraq,” said Senator Santorum. “It is essential for the American people to understand that these weapons are in Iraq. I will continue to advocate for the complete declassification of this report so we can more fully understand the complete WMD picture inside Iraq.”

The following are the six key points contained in the unclassified overview:

• Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent.

• Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.

• Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the black market. Use of these weapons by terrorists or insurgent groups would have implications for Coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside Iraq cannot be ruled out.

• The most likely munitions remaining are sarin and mustard-filled projectiles.

• The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives, and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.

• It has been reported in open press that insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons.

###

(nod to Kathryn at the Corner)

UPDATE: Kathryn just posted notice of the alluded to Negroponte letter, now available here (pdf).

UPDATE 2: The key question seems to be why the silence, when the administration has known for two years or so that these munitions have been found, and that they still continue to be found? Hoekstra and Santorum's remarks indicate that the administration wants to look "forward" and not revisit old debates. But this seems unsatisfactory especially as Hoesktra and Santorum emphatically underscore that this is a race between us and the terrorists to find remaining stashes of these things. It is, in the end, the primary task of the invasion that is as yet unfulfilled. The consquences of losing that race for the fledging Iraqi government or on any western nation seem a bit too costly not to make a big deal about this. I understand and feel Hoekstra and Santorum's frustration. I hope they can make progress on this without revealing locations.

UPDATE 3: Transcript of Santorum on Hugh Hewitt'shttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif show Thursday evening.

UPDATE 4 (Friday): Chester offers four possible explanations for the delay of this news. He points out the possibility that the White House may in fact not know what this military intel has discovered. Learning whether the WH knows or not would help to answer the bigger question. (ht: Instapundit)

UPDATE 5: One question on this matter came up today from the WH press corp, to Steve Hadley. I am posting it above.

UPDATE 6: Strategy Page seems to offer the consenus about why the WH hasn't been publicizing the WMD's. Basically, it's the safety of the troops.

Tony Blair's Beginnings

Michael Barone draws attention to this very intellectually interesting letter, written by Blair when he was an aspiring 29-year old politician only recently rejected in a bid for a seat in Parliament. It was written to his mentor and then Leader of the Labour Party, Michael Foot. As Julia Langdon in the Telegraph speculates, it may reveal the "mainspring" of Blair's politics, not exactly as articulated in the letter but the letter pointing out who it was that Blair mentored himself on intellectually (Foot) and who Foot, in his turn, sought to emulate (William Hazlitt). Whatever the case, it makes a good read for a bit of a look into a young, idealistic, ambitous and soon to be, as Barone says, the longest serving Labour Party Prime Minister who is still only 53 years old.

Here is a bit from Blair's letter in which he criticizes the extreme left-wing of his party. It seems applicable to some on this side of the Atlantic as well. --Or, to be fair, this is not an exclusive problem of any one party.

There is an arrogance and self-righteousness about many of the groups on the far left which is deeply unattractive to the ordinary would-be member: and a truly absurd gulf between the subject matter and language of the legion of pamphlets they write, and the people for whom the pamphlets are supposed to be written. There's too much mixing only with people with whom they agree. I wonder sometimes whether they would prefer to address a meeting of the converted than the unconverted. I can honestly say that I am at my happiest addressing people that don't necessarily agree but are willing to listen.

Read the rest of the letter here. So, remember to mix a bit more with those you don't agree and read some more "wrong" books.

Henry Kissinger: World Cup and National Character

The guys over at No Left Turns have resurrected this Kissinger piece on soccer and character. I offer it up as good reading during the World Cup.

Transcript of Henry Hyde's Speech, 15 June

Because it was so hard to find, and would not permit itself to be linked to, I have taken the liberty of pasting it in in full. Links to pdfs below.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I can't help but comment on my good friend Mr. Murtha's eulogy for the first gulf war. The problem we have had there is we quit too soon. We quit before the victory was secure. We left the Republican Army, we left Saddam Hussein, we just washed our hands and left. I hope we learned a lesson from that, what a mistake it was and it led to later difficulties.

Mr. Speaker, so much of what we do in this Chamber is inconsequential; but the subject of this debate is anything but trivial. Let us then be serious as life and death are serious.

The capacity to reproduce that fearful mushroom cloud which first terrorized the world in 1945 is multiplying and becoming the deadly plaything of rogue nations across the globe.

Partisans have charged the President with misleading us into war, ``misleading'' being a pale euphemism for lying. The acquisition is made more grave by the assertion that he concocted the war for purely political purposes.

By any measure this is a monstrous charge, but questions persist that must be answered if we are to honestly examine the President's rationale for intervention. It is essential to first understand the context in which the decision was made.

President Bush has cited two factors for his decision to intervene in Iraq: the first, his belief that Saddam was reconstituting his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction; and, secondly, that the Iraqi dictator was cooperating with al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

The threat from Saddam Hussein stretches back much further than many of today's critics care to remember. Saddam's effort to develop a nuclear weapon began in the 1970s, centered around the nuclear reactor being constructed at Osirak.

Despite the alarming evidence of its purpose, the world casually contemplated what it saw as a distant, perhaps even benign, development.

But the luxury of inaction was not available to Israel because her leaders knew that the country was certain to be among Saddam's first targets. They also knew that the responsibility for Israel's safety was theirs alone, and that the world would do nothing to save their country if they failed to act.

So act they did, launching a bold attack in 1981, destroying the reactor complex and setting Saddam's nuclear quest back many years. But far from praising this heroic act that benefited humanity, the world community responded with condemnation, even outrage. Yet, in hindsight, is anyone so foolish as to assert that Israel should have waited for the United Nations to confirm that a threat existed, that Israel should not have taken action to destroy the reactor, even in defiance of the international community?

Had Israel not acted, the future of the Middle East and the West would likely have unfolded quite differently and far more tragically.

Unchastened by this setback, Saddam continued his aggressive campaign to dominate the region and control the world's oil supply, launching a decade-long war against Iran in 1980 during which over a million people were killed and in which he used poison gas and other means of mass slaughter.

After being beaten back from Iran, his attention then turned to Kuwait, which he invaded and annexed in 1990, assuming the world would meekly accept this fait accompli.

Many forget that for a time that outcome was a real possibility. Much of the initial response in the world community, and in this country, was one of let's look the other way and hope for the best.

Only when the United States decided to forcefully eject Saddam from Kuwait and to assume the principal burden for doing so was the international community finally persuaded to go along. We refused to allow our fate and that of the world to be shaped by a dictator, and all sensible people are glad of it.

What we providentially discovered after that war astonished the entire world. Despite years of inspections and the best efforts of numerous intelligence services, Saddam had managed to secretly construct a massive program to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The experts estimate that he was only 6 months from an operational nuclear device. Had he postponed his invasion of Kuwait by half a year, the world would now be a much darker place.

This record of unrelenting aggression and implacable menace was the only context in which a reasonable person could view Saddam's future designs. This was the background in which the events of 9/11 occurred.

Imagine yourself as President, confronting the fact that an unknown group of terrorists had incinerated 3,000 Americans in an attack carried out by individuals who gladly committed suicide to create this horror. We had no idea how extensive their resources were, how global the threat was, who were their allies, how massive were the hidden terrorists to come.

In this context, let us consider the alternative to our intervention in Iraq: The President is presented with evidence that once again Saddam Hussein has developing weapons of mass destruction, that he once again refuses to cooperate with international arms inspectors, that he has had contact with al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, that he is even harboring terrorist organizations. And yet the President decides not to act. He decides to wait, to see if those same inspectors who had previously been deceived by Saddam will again give him a clean bill of health months or years in the future, to wait until our allies or the United Nations grudgingly grant us a narrow warrant to act. To wait until Saddam perhaps gives to some terrorist organization a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon to detonate in some U.S. city.

To trust our fate to those who would destroy us is to die and leave no descendants.

Is it possible to imagine the storm of condemnation that would justifiably fall on a President who, by not acting, allowed Saddam to arm himself once again with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons? To allow the possibility that these might be made available to a terrorist organization, to acquiesce in the death of thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps of millions of Americans simply because the available evidence was not 99 percent, no, 100 percent certain?

For if al Qaeda had had a nuclear device, there can be no doubt it would have used it on 9/11 and we would be mourning the death of 3 million Americans, not a tragic 3,000.

Which then was the greater risk in the face of decades of evidence? To act or not to act? To trust Saddam? Who in this body is willing to assert that it is ever wise, that it is ever moral to risk the destruction of the American people? That is the context in which the decision to intervene in Iraq was taken.

Was our intelligence imperfect? In retrospect, that is obvious. But when is it ever perfect? Nor was this shortcoming uniquely ours. Every intelligence service in the world assumed that Saddam was once again engaged in developing weapons of mass destruction. After the invasion, we learned the astonishing fact that even Saddam's own generals believed he possessed them and was prepared to use them.

It is certainly worth noting that among the shrillest voices condemning our intelligence failure are many who once devoted their efforts to weakening our intelligence capabilities, who employed their energies towards imposing restrictions, cutting budgets, sounding alarms about imaginary ``rogue elephants.''

Permit me to quote from some of the most strident critics of this administration and its campaign against the terrorists.

The first is a United States Senator now serving with great distinction in the other body. And on September 23, 2001, 12 days after the events of 9/11 this Senator stated: ``The tragedy is at this moment that the single most important weapon for the United States of America is intelligence.

``We are weakest, frankly, in that particular area. So it is going to take us time to be able to build up here to do this properly.'' You will find that on CBS's Face the Nation, September 23, 2001.

But this same Senator, in 1995, introduced a bill, S. 1290, that would have reduced the intelligence budget by $300 million in each of the fiscal years, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000.

Then we have a gentlewoman serving with distinction in this body, from sunny California, and in 1998 she stated, ``it is time to totally eliminate the CIA.'' Congressional Record, March 18, 1997.

On several occasions in the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet empire, a majority of Democrats in the House voted to cut the U.S. intelligence budget. Yet, following the horrific events of September 11, the chorus of voices that had previously advocated reducing our intelligence capabilities quickly reversed their theme. Even they must thank God that they had been unsuccessful in their efforts. But on this subject we hear nothing but deafening silence.

One inescapable lesson of history is that passivity in the face of a threat is an invitation to strike. The desire to run away only encourages pursuit. We are seeing that fatal approach gather strength elsewhere in the world manifested in efforts to bind the hands of those who would attack terrorism at its source. The hope is that, as with the passing of a storm, the threat will move on and blue skies reappear and that the nightmare will at last be over. But the terrible reality is by succumbing to the fear of terrorism, by doing too little in the fear that we are doing too much, we condemn ourselves to a future of unending assaults.

Other countries have learned that, however meager their contribution to their own and the world's security, however ineffectual their actions, in the end the United States will rescue them. We will make the world right again. We will defend against all threats. We, however, no longer have that luxury. If we do not take action to defend ourselves, then we are lost because no one exists to rescue us if we fail.

So, aware of its responsibilities, aware of the horrific consequences that might occur from indecision and a reliance on trust and hope, President Bush acted to remove the threat posed by Saddam. What he did is called leadership. And for doing his duty for all of us, he has been denounced by many of the same people who would have denounced him had he not acted, denounced by people who bear no responsibility, who take no responsibility, even for their own actions.

Saddam is no longer a threat to anyone. That is a salutary lesson for those around the world who watch and wait for opportunities for unopposed aggression. They now know that their invulnerability has vanished. Even more important, and almost entirely unnoticed amid the torrent of criticism focused on President Bush, is that his actions have greatly enhanced the credibility of the United States. For the next time this or any President warns a foreign despot to cease actions we believe are threatening to us, there can be little doubt that we will take decisive and forceful action, no matter how great the opposition of the world community.

No one can credibly question that this greatly enhanced credibility paid off with Libya's decision to abandon its efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Qaddafi understood what President Bush's critics still refuse to acknowledge, that this administration is determined to eliminate threats to our country, both actual and potential, and if necessary, will use force to do so.

That is in sharp contrast to the passivity of the previous administration, whose failure to react to the repeated attacks on the United States only encouraged our enemies to make further attacks. What other conclusion could al Qaeda and others have reached from our baffling inaction and response to their assaults on our embassy, on our military, on us? They were taught the false lesson that they were free to slaughter us and we would do nothing.

Incredibly, senior officials from the administration now shamelessly criticize this President for taking decisive measures to address the threat that they themselves could not be brought to contemplate. By acting first in Afghanistan, and then Iraq to remove Saddam, President Bush has rendered the need for future interventions much less likely.

It is unfortunate that the quest for political advantage and a high decibel partisanship have intruded into the national discussions of how best to address the problems we face in Iraq. But there can be no doubt that the more we appear disunited, and the more voluble our dissent into weakness, dissension and inaction, the greater the aid and comfort we give to our enemies.

The world of predictability and relative safety we once knew is gone. We are now engaged in a cruel, brutal struggle with those who would destroy us, one unprecedented in its challenge to our perseverance and courage, and one that will be fought not just in foreign lands but on our own soil.

To insist that decisions must await perfect intelligence, that the risk of action is to be more feared than the risk of inaction, that others will save us, is to guarantee our defeat. But defeat in this new and more dangerous world means annihilation. The smoking gun that some critics insist on might well be some of our cities.

We in this Chamber, our country, the entire world, owe this President not condemnation but our thanks for acting in Iraq, for refusing to wait for an avowed enemy to strike, for not temporizing and letting the forces of destruction wage unopposed their pitiless war to destroy everything we believe in.

To those faint of heart from temporary setbacks in Iraq or who seek to benefit politically from our differences there, permit me to quote from Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine wrote, ``These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country. But he that stands by it now deserves the love and thanks of men and women. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. Yet, we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.''

Charles De Gaulle once said, ``France would not be true to herself if she weren't engaged in some great enterprise.'' Our great enterprise is the defense of freedom, and may we be worthy of the challenge.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

[Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, all PDF's from GAO]

Henry Hyde's speech

It will be a great loss to the House and Congress when Hyde retires (this term?), but today it looks like the great statesman from Illinois delivered a great speech. I got the last few minutes on a replay on CSPAN. Jason Barnes over at BeltwayBlitz thought the same here. And he is hoping to get a transcript soon.

So far, all I can find is that he has introduced the bill H Res. 861 that was the occasion for yesterday's 10 hours of speeches on the War on Terror. This has infuriated the left, as they wanted an opportunity to be critical of the war in Iraq, which they see as entirely separate. And, it puts them on record; requires them to take a position on an issue that requires faith, courage, and perseverance, things not much in evidence in the party as a whole. As far as bills go, this one is inspiring, catching something of what is necessary to believe in order to fight and defend, to kill and die for.

UPDATE: H. Res 861 passes 253 -156 according to his Breitbart article. It gives no indication of the party split on the vote, which you can get here. 42 Democrats did the sensible thing (3 Republicans did not). (ht: Drudge)

UPDATE: Found it. Lifted from Congressional Record's web-based search engine, but it won't allow linking to. So I found the GAO's (General Accounting Office?) pdf copies of the speech and have linked to it and have posted it above.

Podhoretz-Derbyshire-May Thread at the Corner

Every now and again, the guys over at the Corner get going on a good thread. Today was such a day. It would be helpful for more people to read this because I know these sorts of thoughts, questions, and disputes lurk in conservatives as well as liberals.

#1 post that started it:

Bush at the Press Conference [John Podhoretz]
One pretty strong moment (I'm paraphrasing):

Ann Compton: Is this Vietnam?

Bush: No.

Compton: Why not?

Bush: Because there's a freely elected government. 12 million people went to the polls.

Posted at 10:44 AM

#2

Strong Moment? [John Derbyshire]

Ann Compton: Is this Vietnam?

Bush: No.

Compton: Why not?

Bush: Because there's a freely elected government. 12 million people went to the polls.

—

JPod: Sorry, but if that's a strong moment, my wee hamster Hilbert could power the house central a/c system by working his little wheel. Whatever position you take on Iraq, it ought to make you weep that GWB comes out with stuff as feeble as that, stuff for which there is such an obvious response. Like, say, that there was an election in South Vietnam on Sep. 3, 1967, with 4.8m people voting, an 83 percent turnout.

If indeed Iraq is not Vietnam, our President, with all his advisers and speechwriters, ought to be able to come up with a better argument than THAT.

Posted at 12:17 PM

#3

Bush and Vietnam [John Podhoretz]
E-mailers are protesting my citation of Bush's remark on the difference between Vietnam and Iraq being the free elections in the latter. South Vietnam, they say, had a freely elected government too. You really can't compare the two. The freely elected Diem was deposed, and the freely elected Thieu ended up being the military's candidate and getting reelected with a dubiously high percentage — something like 90 percent — of the vote. Granted, I'm talking about a period of about 8 years' time in Vietnam, while Iraq's elections only began 18 months ago. But still, the democratization of Vietnam was not a central issue in that war as it is in this war.

Posted at 12:21 PM

#4

Oh, Derb [John Podhoretz]
Keep your hamster out of this.
Posted at 12:23 PM

#5

Iraq and Vietnam [Cliff May]
Much as I hope to see a free and democratic Iraq, I don’t think democratization is the key distinction – or the key issue.

We lost in Vietnam because we didn’t have the will and the skills to prevail. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese boat people and millions of Cambodian victims of the Khmer Rouge paid the stiffest price.

Americans went home and got on with their lives. But notice was taken of America’s failure.

That led to the seizure of our embassy in Tehran in 1979. When we responded fecklessly to that act of war, the Ayatollahs let loose Hezbollah to slaughter U.S. Marines, diplomats and intelligence agents in Beirut. We retreated again.

And we were tested again – in Mogadishu in 1993. We did not pass that test either.

So Osama bin Laden was inspired to train thousands of terrorists in Afghanistan. We knew what he was doing. We did nothing serious in response. Before long, they came after us – in Kenya and Tanzania, off the coast of Yemen and then in New York and Washington.

Eliminating Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda’s commander in Iraq, was a great victory. But it’s important to continue to pursue the enemy – not stop fighting prematurely as we did in both 1991 and 2003.

If we fail to prevail against al-Qaeda and the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, why would we not falter also in Afghanistan? And why wouldn’t the same strategy and tactics lead to victory for the Islamo-fascists in Jordan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and elsewhere?

We either develop the will – and the military and intelligence skills — to defeat the enemy we now face on the battlefield in Iraq, or we retreat not just from Iraq but from anyplace our enemies don’t want us.

We either overcome our enemies or we resign ourselves to cowering behind concrete barriers for the remainder of this century.

Posted at 1:13 PM

#6

Iraq, Vietnam [John Derbyshire]
Well, this is pretty well-trodden territory. Of course there are all sorts of really important differences — notably the absence of a "North Iraq" tied to, and supplied by, two big communist empires. In some respects the two wars are OPPOSITES. E.g. our great enemy in Vietnam was pan-Vietnamese patriotism, which the communists appealed to very successfully. The problem in Iraq isn't too much Iraqi patriotism, it's too little!
The two situations have this in common though: they both suffer from serious mission creep, and a corresponding democratic deficit.

—-Mission creep: No American thought, in 1963 (say), that 12 years of major campaigning against a stubborn enemy, with half a million troops engaged at one point, and an end total 55,000 US deaths, was in our future. No American thought that. (I don't think so, anyway. If a reader can come up with one I'll acknowledge it.)

—-Democratic deficit: Americans could therefore rightly feel, in 1973, that their leaders had got them into a situation they never wished to be in, had never been asked whether they would wish to be in, and therefore were under no moral obligation, as citizens of a democratic polity, to go on supporting the continuation of.

—-Mission creep: No American thought, in 2003, that 3+ years of major campaigning in Iraq, with 130,000+ troops continutously engaged, and a running total of 2,500 deaths after that 3+ years, was in our future. No American thought that. I am not speaking of the War on Terror—Rick Brookhiser was already telling me at about that time that he expected the WoT to go on for the rest of his lifetime. I'm talking about engagement in Iraq.

—-Democratic deficit: Americans can therefore rightly feel, in 2003, that our leaders have got us into a situation we never wished to be in, were never asked whether we would wish to be in, and therefore are under no moral obligation, as citizens of a democratic polity, to go on supporting the continuation of.

Posted at 2:00 PM

#7

The Iraq War [John Podhoretz]
Say what you like, Derb, and rant your anti-Bush rants however long and passionately you wish to, but your accusation is specious. There has been no mission creep in Iraq. The mission is what it was before hostilities began — disarming Saddam, removing him from power, and replacing a terrorist regime with a democratic state that will offer a new set of possibilities for the stunted politics of the Middle East. The problem is that making the mission work has been far harder and more painful than many people anticipated. Now, I understand this is a little complicated, and doesn't resolve into a nice mathematical formula, so your hamster may need to take a few minutes to explain it all to you.
Posted at 2:49 PM

#8

Re: Iraq, Vietnam [Cliff May]
Derb, I’m puzzled by the notion asserted by you and others that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with the so-called War on Terror. We just eliminated Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He was the commander of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Surely, al-Qaeda is an important enemy in the War on Terror.

If we’re serious about the War on Terror we will fight al-Qaeda wherever we find it. We find it in Iraq. By the same logic, if we retreat from the Iraqi battlefield, we’re retreating from the fight against al-Qaeda, that is from the War on Terror.

If you want to argue that we had no business screwing around with those Baathists in 2003 and that we should leave them alone now – well, I’d probably disagree with you on that, too, but you’d be standing on firmer ground.

Posted at 3:20 PM

#9

The Forever War [John Derbyshire]
Cliff:
You posted: "Derb, I'm puzzled by the notion asserted by you and others that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with the so-called War on Terror. We just eliminated Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He was the commander of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Surely, al-Qaeda is an important enemy in the War on Terror."

Indeed, and good riddance to AMaZ. But this is a bit like those apologists for the manned space program pointing to the spin-off effects: "If not for the Apollo program, we wouldn't have teflon!"

If you want teflon, do some lab research on non-stick materials. You don't need to spend a gazillion dollars lofting huge man-carrying spaceships into orbit.

Similarly, if you (I mean, the president) had put me at the head of US counter-terrorist operations in, say February 2003 and said: "There's this guy Zarqawi, and he needs killing. Get on it," I bet I could have got the job done for, oh, around 0.001 percent of the cost of the Iraq war. (My first thought would just have been to contract the job out on a fixed-fee basis to Mossad, who seem pretty good at this sort of thing... but I might have come up with something else.)

If you want to kill terrorists, figure out a way to do it. If you want to go launching trillion-dollar nation-building projects, and your electorate is cool with it, go do that. The connection between the two things remains unproven, though.

There are terrorists all over, Cliff: Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Hamburg, Manchester, Chicago, Bali. You know that better than anyone. I'm in favor of killing them all, by any methods we can devise, and as long as it takes. Totally in favor. No doubt. I just don't see why a Forever War in Iraq helps. In fact, I believe it's an unnecessary distraction.

Posted at 5:00 PM

#10

The History of "Mission Creep" [John Podhoretz]
Mark Conversino, an associate professor at the Air War College, writes a brilliant e-mail (expressing a view that is, of course, his own and not that of the government or the military):

What has occurred in the Iraq war has occurred in countless wars—the enemy gets a vote and events do not transpire according to some neat plan. Stubborn resistance and the need for greater exertions are not the same as mission creep. Our mission in Iraq has never changed; the nature of the enemy and therefore of the war on the ground has—that is not mission creep. President Lincoln requested 75,000 90-day volunteers to subdue the rebellion of Southern states in one or two Napoleonic battles. What we got was a grinding four year struggle to restore the Union and end slavery that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. That was not mission creep, even with the added goal of full emancipation since both restoration of the Union and freeing the slaves required the same outcome—a Northern victory. One could also say that, to paraphrase Mr. Derbyshire, no one on December 8, 1941, expected to bring the Axis powers to unconditional surrender (an "end state" announced more than a year after Pearl Harbor) only to embark on that other "long war," the Cold War, following VE and VJ day. Was it therefore purely "mission creep" to remain in Europe and Asia as occupiers simply because we didn't envision that in the days following Pearl Harbor? Did we expend all that blood and treasure merely to see Soviet dominance established over half of Europe? Did the American people sign on to the Berlin Airlift or to halting the North Koreans in 1945? Was the formation of NATO and other Cold War-era alliances (entangling alliances, one might say) a form of mission creep that Americans need not support? I could go on, but you get my point. Moreover, if we alter the "mission" in order to defend our principles, freedoms and way of life because the nature of the enemy has changed, does that reduce the legitimacy of that mission? The evolution of the Cold War fits the definition of mission creep far better than the war in Iraq does but that didn't mean the Cold War was not worth fighting.

There's a larger point here, though, one beyond the notion of mission creep. When things got rough and the sacrifices exceeded our pre-war expectations, we could have cut deals and declared "victory" in 1863, 1943 or 1963. Even though, again to paraphrase Mr. Derbyshire, during these earlier conflicts our leaders got us into situations we never wished to be in and were never asked whether we would wish to be in, we recognized our moral obligation, "as citizens of a democratic polity," was to fight and win, not cut and run.

Me: What he said.

Posted at 5:23 PM

#11

Re: The Forever War [Cliff May]
Derb, you remind me of the economist stranded in the dessert with only a sealed bottle of water. His solution? “Assume a bottle opener.”

Bush’s decision to go into Iraq obviously was not based on a desire to whack Zarqawi. It was, obviously, based on inadequate intelligence.

He asked CIA director George Tenet whether Saddam had a stockpile of WMDs. Tenet said it was a “slam dunk.” On that basis, Bush told his generals to topple the dictator.

Perhaps Bush would have made a different decision if Tenet had replied: “Nah, Saddam deep-sixed that stuff years ago, “ or “Our sources say he shipped the load of it to Syria” or even “Uh, well ... geez … search me, boss!”

We can’t go back and change any of that. The reality is that for the last few years the most lethal al-Qaeda force has been in Iraq, attempting to thwart U.S. goals and take over the country or at least establish a new base there.

I repeat: We have to fight al-Qaeda where we find al-Qaeda. General Zarqawi is toast. That’s great. Now we have to get his colonels, lieutenants and privates. We can’t outsource the job – at least not yet. We can’t run from al-Qaeda or retreat from any battlefield where al-Qaeda has assembled. That much should be clear.
Posted at 5:37 PM

#12 - Continuing June 15th:

1863, 1943, 1963 [John Derbyshire]
JPod: To Prof. Conversino I can only say what I say to anyone who draws analogies between this Iraq war and the Civil War, or WW2: Are you willing to do to Iraq what Sherman did to the South? Are you willing to fire-bomb their cities, or drop atom bombs on them? If not, why are you making these analogies?

This is an optional war, not a "crisis war."

The Prof.:

When things got rough and the sacrifices exceeded our pre-war expectations, we could have cut deals and declared 'victory' in 1863, 1943 or 1963. Even though, again to paraphrase Mr. Derbyshire, during these earlier conflicts our leaders got us into situations we never wished to be in and were never asked whether we would wish to be in, we recognized our moral obligation, 'as citizens of a democratic polity,' was to fight and win, not cut and run.

Me: What we recognized was, these were wars of survival. If the Iraq war is as critical to our survival as those earlier wars, then by God, let's do what we have to do to win it — scorched earth a la Civil War, fire bombing of civilian populations a la WW2, whatever. I'm all in favor of winning wars, and perfectly fine with CW or WW2 methods. If we had dared fight Vietnam the way we fought the CW and WW2, we would have won it.

America can win any war it wants to win. Trouble is, we don't want to win this one, not if it means we have to give up our sentimental fantasies about "building democracy" and getting people to appreciate how nice, how really nice and good we are.

Posted at 9:28 AM

#13

Mission Creep [John Derbyshire]
JPod: My only point was—I am sorry I did not make it clearer—that the U.S. public will tolerate mission creep if they believe they are in a "crisis war" — one where national survival is at stake — and if not, not. That, it seems to me (though only if it's true of course!) refutes the Prof.'s argument.

If we are fighting a crisis war in Iraq, let's fight it with crisis-war methods, as we always have done in the past.

If the Iraq war is not a crisis war (I believe it is not) then let's not be surprised or indignant if the U.S. public regards mission creep with disfavor. As, according to the polls, they increasingly do.

That's all.

Posted at 10:51 AM

#14

Come On, Derb [John Podhoretz]
Your point is that there was mission creep. There hasn't been. Period.
Posted at 11:01 AM

John Mackey: "Not the Way the World Works"

Who is John Mackey? He is the CEO of Whole Foods Market, the world's largest natural and organic foods grocery store. In this piece, in addition to giving hope to us liberal arts types, he explains his switch from liberal to free market principles. Here is a key excerpt:

At the time I started my business, the Left had taught me that business and capitalism were based on exploitation: exploitation of consumers, workers, society, and the environment. I believed that "profit" was a necessary evil at best, and certainly not a desirable goal for society as a whole. However, becoming an entrepreneur completely changed my life. Everything I believed about business was proven to be wrong.

The most important thing I learned about business in my first year was that business wasn't based on exploitation or coercion at all. Instead I realized that business is based on voluntary cooperation. No one is forced to trade with a business; customers have competitive alternatives in the market place; employees have competitive alternatives for their labor; investors have different alternatives and places to invest their capital. Investors, labor, management, suppliers — they all need to cooperate to create value for their customers. If they do, then any realized profit can be divided amongst the creators of the value through competitive market dynamics.

In other words, business is not a zero-sum game with a winner and loser. It is a win, win, win, win game — and I really like that. However, I discovered despite my idealism that our customers thought our prices were too high, our employees thought they were underpaid, the vendors would not give us large discounts, the community was forever clamoring for donations, and the government was slapping us with endless fees, licenses, fines, and taxes.

Were we profitable? Not at first. Safer Way managed to lose half of its capital in the first year — $23,000. Despite the loss, we were still accused of exploiting our customers with high prices and our employees with low wages. The investors weren't making a profit and we had no money to donate. Plus, with our losses, we paid no taxes. I had somehow joined the "dark side" — I was now one of the bad guys. According to the perspective of the Left, I had become a greedy and selfish businessman. At this point, I rationally chose to abandon the leftist philosophy of my youth, because it no longer adequately explained how the world really worked. With my l eftist interpretation of the world now shattered, I looked around for alternative explanations for making sense of the world.

(ht: MKH)

Lileks on the News of the 17

You're an enlightened world citizen. Your T-shirt says "9/11 was an inside job." You're pretty sure we're living in a fascist state, that President Bush taps the Dixie Chicks' phones, Christian abortion clinic bombers outnumber jihadis, and the war on "terror" is a distraction from the real threats: carbon emissions and Pat Robertson. Then you learn that 17 people were arrested in a terrorist bomb plot. How do you process the information? Let's take it step by step.

Upon discovering that the 17 were Canadian:

Wait a minute: The "terrorists" were Canadian? You can understand someone blowing up trains in Spain and London. They sent troops to an illegal war cooked up by neocons who want to kill brown people for Exxon and Jesus, or something. You can understand, reluctantly, blowing up teens in an Israeli pizza parlor, because the Jews took the West Bank from the sovereign, ancient nation of Palestine. (How can a liberal socialist country behave so poorly? The world is full of mysteries.) But Canada? Isn't Michael Moore from Canada? You can get medical marijuana from married gay doctors in Canada, and no one has guns....

Zarqawi ist Tot!

I just got this as I was heading to bed. According to this BBC report, Zarqawi has been killed. Praise the LORD! Killed in air raid.

(ht: Michele Malkin)

Reminds me of what the F-15E strike pilot Rush had on last week said was his squad's motto: "Raining down fire from above, for the freedom that we love."

UPDATE: I have since learned that the pilot was a hoax, but, ala Dan Rather, this information notwithstanding, he was fake but accurate!

UPDATE: NRO has posted a symposium--Cliff May, Victor Hanson, Mac Owens, Frank Gaffney, etc.--of responses to Zarqawi's death here.

Anti-War Protests at Normandy

Over at Nihilist in Golf Pants, they've posted the Top 11 Things That Anti-War Protesters Would Have Said At the Normandy Invasion on D-Day (Had There Been Anti-War Protesters At Normandy)

8. All this death and destruction is because the neo-cons are in the pocket of Israel . . .

5. We are attacked by Japan and then attack France? Roosevelt is worse than the Kaiser!

(ht: John Podhoretz at Corner)

Don Surber's 'Quagmire at Yankee Stadium'

Bias? In the NYT? What if John F. Burns were recalled from Baghdad to cover this week's Yankees-Red Sox series? Wouldn't that be fun? Here is how I imagine that report of Game 1 at Yankee Stadium would go:

like this

(ht: Instapundit)

OUCH!

Jonah Goldberg posted this yesterday:

Ouch [Jonah Goldberg]
This is from a Canadian:

This week the US “is prepared to provide Iran with some nuclear technology if it stops enriching uranium, diplomats said Tuesday”.

And if I understand correctly you’re deciding on whether or not to give Hawaii away.

All this in addition to having a debate as to the extent foreigners will be able to freely enter your country and receive various types of benefits, and having a debate about the extent to which they will be encouraged to do so.

Were you invaded? Is surrender on the horizon? If so, can I have the Upper Peninsula of Michigan? I could sneak in from another country, I have some Native North American blood, and I’ll demand assistance in developing nuclear technology. No senator could reasonably object.

Thanks

Posted at 4:41 PM

Bernard Lewis on Where We Are

A talk and the Q/A given in April 27.

This is the best single source for getting the historical, religious, political and ideological overview and pronostication of our current crisis that I know. --If you want to understand what we are up against and how things got where we are now, how it is going in the big picture, and what are best chances are, read this.

After several years of silence the dean of Middle Eastern history, with 60 years experience, Bernard Lewis gives journalists and opinion-shapers and, one can hope and pray, leaders a refresher in history and they way things stand. Don't miss it. I don't think I exaggerate when I say that this should be a part of every voting American's consciousness.

I really can't post it all in here, but I will one part, an answer regarding character of the so-called President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, and the showdown with Iran:

MR. LEWIS: I am inclined to believe in the sincerity of Ahmadinejad. I think that he really believes the apocalyptic language that he is using. Remember that Muslims, like Christians and Jews, have a sort of end-of-time scenario in which a Messianic figure will appear. In their case, in the case of the Shiites, the hidden imam who will emerge from hiding, who will fight against the powers of evil, the anti-Christ in Christianity, Gog and Magog in Judaism, and the Dajjal in Islam, a role in which we are being cast now. And he really seems to believe that the apocalyptic age has come, that this is the final struggle that will lead to the final victory and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Others in the ruling establishment in Iran may share this belief. I am inclined to think that most of them are probably more cynical and regard it as a useful distraction from their domestic problems and also a useful weapon in their external relations, because he has been doing very well and he seems to be succeeding, for example, on the question of nuclear weapons. And every time they make an advance, we move the point at which we won't tolerate it anymore, and this has happened again and again. Each time, we say, the next step we will not allow. We have shown ourselves to be, shall we say, remarkably adaptable in this respect, and this is no way to win friends and influence people.

I think that the way that Ahmadinejad is talking now shows quite clearly his contempt for the Western world in general and the United States in particular. They feel they are dealing with, as Osama bin Laden put it, an effete, degenerate, pampered enemy incapable of real resistance. And they are proceeding on that assumption. Remember that they have no understanding or experience of the free debate of an open society. Where we see free debate and criticism, they see fear, weakness and division; they proceed accordingly, and every day brings new evidence of that from Iran.

I think it is a dangerous situation. And my only hope is that they are not right in their interpretation of the Western world. I have often thought in recently years of World War II — you were told earlier that I'm ancient myself. The most vividly remembered year of my life was the year 1940. And more recently I have been thinking of 1938 rather than of 1940. We seem to be in the mode of Chamberlain and Munich rather than of Churchill.

London Times: The Origins of Anti-Americanism

Kathryn at the Corner points out this commentary in the Times of London. The writer asks, "So why are we all anti-Americans now?" The answer is not America's unilateralism.

The US is never less popular than when it is aroused and determined in defence of democratic freedoms, never less trusted than when the world is most reliant on its unmatched ability to project power.

Democracies are psychologically ill-adapted to open-ended confrontations where there can be no decisive victory, the essence of the effort to subdue global terrorism. Eternal vigilance is a wearisome business. The more vulnerable that Europeans feel, the more liable they are to shift blame across the Atlantic.

The strength of disdain is a measure of Europe’s weakness. Smugness is one of Europe’s great contemporary exports.

The writer goes on to say what Europeans forget about America:

We may all think that we know America, its music, its culture, its self-confident exceptionalism. We tend to forget that Americans fight only with extreme reluctance. We overlook their penchant for agonised self-criticism; everything bad we know about the US, we know because Americans inexhaustibly rehearse their society’s shortcomings. There has never been greater transparency, whether than on the battlefield or the boondocks, and there has never been more open debate about the country’s virtues and vices. . . .

Finally:

America-bashing may be a popular sport, but its adherents prefer not to contemplate its consequences.