The Review
February 1, 2003
 

REQUIESCAT IN PACE


RICK DOUGLAS HUSBAND (COLONEL, USAF)

After graduation from Texas Tech University in May 1980, Husband was commissioned a second lieutenant in the USAF and attended pilot training at Vance Air Force Base (AFB), Oklahoma. He graduated in October 1981, and was assigned to F-4 training at Homestead AFB, Florida. After completion of F-4 training in September 1982, Husband was assigned to Moody AFB, Georgia flying the F-4E. From September to November 1985, he attended F-4 Instructor School at Homestead AFB and was assigned as an F-4E instructor pilot and academic instructor at George AFB, California in December 1985. In December 1987, Husband was assigned to Edwards AFB, California, where he attended the USAF Test Pilot School. Upon completion of Test Pilot School, Husband served as a test pilot flying the F-4 and all five models of the F-15. In the F-15 Combined Test Force, Husband was the program manager for the Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 increased performance engine, and also served as the F-15 Aerial Demonstration Pilot. In June 1992, Husband was assigned to the Aircraft and Armament Evaluation Establishment at Boscombe Down, England, as an exchange test pilot with the Royal Air Force. At Boscombe Down, Husband was the Tornado GR1 and GR4 Project Pilot and served as a test pilot in the Hawk, Hunter, Buccaneer, Jet Provost, Tucano, and Harvard. He logged over 3800 hours of flight time in more than 40 different types of aircraft.

Husband was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in December 1994. He reported to the Johnson Space Center in March 1995 to begin a year of training and evaluation. Upon completion of training, Husband was named the Astronaut Office representative for Advanced Projects at Johnson Space Center, working on Space Shuttle Upgrades, the Crew Return Vehicle (CRV) and studies to return to the Moon and travel to Mars. Most recently, he served as Chief of Safety for the Astronaut Office. He flew as pilot on STS-96 in 1999, and logged 235 hours and 13 minutes in space.



WILLIAM C. McCOOL (COMMANDER, USN)

McCool graduated second of 1,083 in the Class of 1983 at the US Naval Academy. He completed flight training in August 1986 and was assigned to Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 129 at Whidbey Island, Washington, for initial EA-6B Prowler training. His first operational tour was with Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 133, where he made two deployments aboard USS CORAL SEA (CV-43) to the Mediterranean Sea, and received designation as a wing qualified landing signal officer (LSO). In November 1989, he was selected for the Naval Postgraduate School/Test Pilot School (TPS) Cooperative Education Program. After graduating from TPS in June 1992, he worked as TA-4J and EA-6B test pilot in Flight Systems Department of Strike Aircraft Test Directorate at Patuxent River, Maryland. He was responsible for the management and conduct of a wide variety of projects, ranging from airframe fatigue life studies to numerous avionics upgrades. His primary efforts, however, were dedicated to flight test of the Advanced Capability (ADVCAP) EA-6B. Following his Patuxent River tour, McCool returned to Whidbey Island, and was assigned to Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 132 aboard USS ENTERPRISE (CVN-65). He served as Administrative and Operations Officer with the squadron through their work-up cycle, receiving notice of NASA selection while embarked on ENTERPRISE for her final pre-deployment at-sea period. McCool had over 2,800 hours flight experience in 24 aircraft and over 400 carrier arrestments.

Selected by NASA in April 1996, McCool reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996. Initially assigned to the Computer Support Branch, McCool also served as Technical Assistant to the Director of Flight Crew Operations, and worked Shuttle cockpit upgrade issues for the Astronaut Office. STS-107 was his first shuttle mission.



MICHAEL P. ANDERSON (LIEUTENANT COLONEL, USAF)

Anderson graduated form the University of Washington in 1981 and was commissioned a second lieutenant. After completing a year of technical training at Keesler AFB Mississippi he was assigned to Randolph AFB Texas. At Randolph he served as Chief of Communication Maintenance for the 2015 Communication Squadron and later as Director of Information System Maintenance for the 1920 Information System Group. In 1986 he was selected to attend Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance AFB, Oklahoma. Upon graduation he was assigned to the 2nd Airborne Command and Control Squadron, Offutt AFB Nebraska as an EC 135 pilot, flying the Strategic Air Commands airborne command post code-named "Looking Glass". From January 1991 to September 1992 he served as an aircraft commander and instructor pilot in the 920th Air Refueling Squadron, Wurtsmith AFB Michigan. From September 1992 to February 1995 he was assigned as an instructor pilot and tactics officer in the 380 Air Refueling Wing, Plattsburgh AFB New York. Anderson logged over 3000 hours in various models of the KC-135 and the T-38A aircraft.

Selected by NASA in December 1994, Anderson reported to the Johnson Space Center in March 1995. Anderson was initially assigned technical duties in the Flight Support Branch of the Astronaut Office. Most recently, he flew on the crew of STS-89. In completing his first space flight, Anderson logged over 211 hours in space.



DR. KALPANA CHAWLA PH.D.

In 1988, Kalpana Chawla started work at NASA Ames Research Center in the area of powered-lift computational fluid dynamics. Her research concentrated on simulation of complex air flows encountered around aircraft such as the Harrier in "ground-effect." Following completion of this project she supported research in mapping of flow solvers to parallel computers, and testing of these solvers by carrying out powered lift computations. In 1993 Kalpana Chawla joined Overset Methods Inc., Los Altos, California, as Vice President and Research Scientist to form a team with other researchers specializing in simulation of moving multiple body problems. She was responsible for development and implementation of efficient techniques to perform aerodynamic optimization. Results of various projects that Kalpana Chawla participated in are documented in technical conference papers and journals.

Selected by NASA in December 1994, Kalpana Chawla reported to the Johnson Space Center in March 1995 as an astronaut candidate in the 15th Group of Astronauts. After completing a year of training and evaluation, she was assigned as crew representative to work technical issues for the Astronaut Office EVA/Robotics and Computer Branches. Her assignments included work on development of Robotic Situational Awareness Displays and testing space shuttle control software in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory.

In November, 1996, Kalpana Chawla was assigned as mission specialist and prime robotic arm operator on STS-87 (November 19 to December 5, 1997). STS-87 was the fourth U.S Microgravity Payload flight and focused on experiments designed to study how the weightless environment of space affects various physical processes, and on observations of the Sun's outer atmospheric layers. Two members of the crew performed an EVA (spacewalk) which featured the manual capture of a Spartan satellite, in addition to testing EVA tools and procedures for future Space Station assembly. In completing her first mission, Kalpana Chawla traveled 6.5 million miles in 252 orbits of the Earth and logged 376 hours and 34 minutes in space. In January, 1998, Kalpana Chawla was assigned as crew representative for shuttle and station flight crew equipment. Subsequently, she was assigned as the lead for Astronaut Office’s Crew Systems and Habitability section.



DR. DAVID M. BROWN M.D. (CAPTAIN, USN)

Brown joined the Navy after his internship at the Medical University of South Carolina. Upon completion of flight surgeon training in 1984, he reported to the Navy Branch Hospital in Adak, Alaska, as Director of Medical Services. He was then assigned to Carrier Airwing Fifteen which deployed aboard the USS Carl Vinson in the western Pacific. In 1988, he was the only flight surgeon in a ten year period to be chosen for pilot training. He was ultimately designated a naval aviator in 1990 in Beeville, Texas, ranking number one in his class. Brown was then sent for training and carrier qualification in the A-6E Intruder. In 1991 he reported to the Naval Strike Warfare Center in Fallon, Nevada, where he served as a Strike Leader Attack Training Syllabus Instructor and a Contingency Cell Planning Officer. Additionally, he was qualified in the F-18 Hornet and deployed from Japan in 1992 aboard the USS Independence flying the A-6E with VA-115. In 1995, he reported to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School as their flight surgeon where he also flew the T-38 Talon. Brown logged over 2,700 flight hours with 1,700 in high performance military aircraft. He was qualified as first pilot in NASA T-38 aircraft.

Selected by NASA in April 1996, Brown reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996. He was initially assigned to support payload development for the International Space Station, followed by the astronaut support team responsible for orbiter cockpit setup, crew strap-in, and landing recovery. STS-107 was his first shuttle mission.



DR. LAUREL BLAIR SALTON CLARK, M.D. (COMMANDER, USN)

During medical school she did active duty training with the Diving Medicine Department at the Naval Experimental Diving Unit in March 1987. After completing medical school, Dr. Clark underwent postgraduate Medical education in Pediatrics from 1987-1988 at Naval Hospital Bethesda, Maryland. The following year she completed Navy undersea medical officer training at the Naval Undersea Medical Institute in Groton Connecticut and diving medical officer training at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City, Florida, and was designated a Radiation Health Officer and Undersea Medical Officer. She was then assigned as the Submarine Squadron Fourteen Medical Department Head in Holy Loch Scotland. During that assignment she dove with US Navy divers and Naval Special Warfare Unit Two Seals and performed numerous medical evacuations from US submarines. After two years of operational experience she was designated as a Naval Submarine Medical Officer and Diving Medical Officer. She underwent 6 months of aeromedical training at the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute in Pensacola, Florida and was designated as a Naval Flight Surgeon. She was stationed at MCAS Yuma, Arizona and assigned as Flight Surgeon for a Marine Corps AV-8B Night Attack Harrier Squadron (VMA 211). She made numerous deployments, including one overseas to the Western Pacific, practiced medicine in austere environments, and flew on multiple aircraft. Her squadron won the Marine Attack Squadron of the year for its successful deployment. She was then assigned as the Group Flight Surgeon for the Marine Aircraft Group (MAG 13). Prior to her selection as an astronaut candidate she served as a Flight Surgeon for the Naval Flight Officer advanced training squadron (VT-86) in Pensacola, Florida. LCDR Clark is Board Certified by the National Board of Medical Examiners and holds a Wisconsin Medical License. Her military qualifications include Radiation Health Officer, Undersea Medical Officer, Diving Medical Officer, Submarine Medical Officer, and Naval Flight Surgeon. She is a Basic Life Support Instructor, Advanced Cardiac Life Support Provider, Advanced Trauma Life Support Provider, and Hyperbaric Chamber Advisor.

Selected by NASA in April 1996, Dr. Clark reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996. From July 1997 to August 2000 Dr. Clark worked in the Astronaut Office Payloads/Habitability Branch. STS-107 was her first shuttle mission.



ILAN RAMON (COLONEL, IAF)

In 1974, Ramon graduated as a fighter pilot from the Israeli Air Force (IAF) Flight School. From 1974-1976 he participated in A-4 Basic Training and Operations. 1976-1980 was spent in Mirage III-C training and operations. In 1980, as one of the IAF's establishment team of the first F-16 Squadron in Israel, he attended the F-16 Training Course at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. From 1981-1983, he served as the Deputy Squadron Commander B, F-16 Squadron. From 1983-1987, he attended the University of Tel Aviv. From 1988-1990, he served as Deputy Squadron Commander A, F-4 Phantom Squadron. During 1990, he attended the Squadron Commanders Course. From 1990-1992, he served as Squadron Commander, F-16 Squadron. From 1992-1994, he was Head of the Aircraft Branch in the Operations Requirement Department. In 1994, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel and assigned as Head of the Department of Operational Requirement for Weapon Development and Acquisition. He stayed at this post until 1998. Colonel Ramon accumulated over 3,000 flight hours on the A-4, Mirage III-C, and F-4, and over 1,000 flight hours on the F-16. He was an Israeli national hero, having served as a combat pilot in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and the Lebanon War of 1982, as well as being one of the pilots who bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981.

In 1997, Colonel Ramon was selected as a Payload Specialist. He was designated to train as prime for a Space Shuttle mission with a payload that includes a multispectral camera for recording desert aerosol. In July 1998, he reported for training at the Johnson Space Center, Houston. He was the first Israeli astronaut, and STS-107 was his first shuttle mission.

 
January 31, 2003
  My Secret life with the CIA (Review) A few years ago on a newsgroup, I got into it with a crank named Frank Dorrel, who was hawking lefty apologist videos for Iraq. This woman named Arlene Johnson took exception to my criticisms of Mr. Dorrel. Evidently, she found out about my secret life in the CIA. A life so secret in fact, that even I didn't know about it. This is a perfect example of the crankiness of the far left. Oh, unsurprisingly, Ms. Johnson apparently believes in some hidden, but fantastically effective plan to rule the world by the Trilateral Commission. In response to Ms. Johnson, I wrote the following note: ============== I came across some newsletter you apparently edit, and saw the following: Since the distribution of True Democracy (La verdad sobre la democracia in Spanish) on my Web site, two people have come out of the woodwork to try to discredit me. Their names are Andy Johnson whose Email address is downtobusiness@yahoo.com and E. Dale Franks, Jr. who is certifiably CIA according to the Center of Political Assassinations (COPA). Dale tried to discredit Frank Dorrel who is providing accurate videos of relatively unknown documentaries that folks can purchase after viewing them in their homes. Frank Dorrel is wonderfully knowledgeable on events perpetuated by the US and he will have a free ad in True Democracy in the next edition because he is doing excellent work. E. Dale Franks, Jr. has tried so hard to discredit Mr. Dorrel whose Email address is fdorrel@hotmail.com and I called him on it. He tried to fool me but didn't succeed because my research taught me the truth so I blew him out of the water. I suggest you attend a reputable college course and learn how to do actual research. I am not, nor have I ever been in the CIA. I served in the US Air Force for several years, but that's not quite the same thing. I hosted a radio show in LA for a couple of years. Now I'm a software developer. I'm also a political columnist. I write regularly for www.techcentralstation.com. I heartily recommend that you read my work there. No doubt it will give you a wonderfully empowering sense of moral superiority. My web site, and blog, at www.dalefranks.com, will offer you similar feelings in spades. Mr. Dorrel is, to put it kindly, a crank. As are you. Not everybody who disagrees with you is a CIA assassin, although I'm sure the thought that's true makes your life deliciously exciting. I suggest you contact your friends at the Center for Political Assassinations, and tell them that their database needs to be updated. Since I am a Microsoft-certified software developer, and a raging capitalist, I would be happy to do the job for $75.00 per hour. They may be cranks, too, but I suspect their money is as green as anyone else's. As should be well established by now--at least by anyone who doesn't go around raving about the infernal machinations of the Trilateral Commission, or Freemasons, or the Illuminati, or whatever--Iraq is perfectly free to sell as much oil as it needs to purchase all the humanitarian supplies it wants. Instead, Mr. Hussein has spent billions on armaments, including prohibited missile systems, as pointed out by Hans Blix, and those multimillion dollar Presidential "palaces" about which so much has been recently written. The above was true when I ridiculed Mr. Dorrel, and it is true today. The fact that you hate America so much that you prefer to act as an apologist for a totalitarian dictator says far more about you than it does about me. I would ask you to publicly apologize for the falsehood you wrote about my CIA membership, but since I rather enjoy the raffish air of danger it lends to my persona, I won't. Cordially; E. Dale Franks Jr. MCP, MOUS Microsoft Certified Professional #1795366 ========== Her newsletter reminds me of Humphrey Bogart in the courtroom scene in "The Caine Mutiny". "Ah, but the strawberries! That's where I had them! I proved, with geometric logic, that a second key DID exist! I - I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers--" Except, unlike Bogie, she will never get to that part of the scene where the Court Martial board is looking at him in shock, and Bogie realizes that he's just given way, way too much information. With Arlene, it will always be the strawberries. 
  Who's "unilateral" now? (Review) Agonist has a map of Europe that graphically displays the support the US has for toppling Saddam Hussein.

Kinda puts things in perspective, huh? 
  Hitting it out of the park (Review) Andrew Sullivan delivers a masterful fisking to the anti-war arguments of the NY Times
  You want a link between Bagdad and Al-qaida? (Review) Well, it might be right here. Offering a startling and cryptic preview of some of the intelligence information the Bush administration is expected to provide to the U.N. Security Council next week, Richard Armitage cited a specific case of Al Qaeda's recent activities originating from the Iraqi capital. "It's clear that Al Qaeda is harbored to some extent in Iraq, that there is a presence in Iraq. There are other indications of a recent assassination of our diplomat in Amman, Mr. Foley, that was apparently orchestrated by an Al Qaeda member who is a resident in Baghdad," Armitage told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I'm really looking forward to "Stevenson Day", much in the same way that the Iraqi government is not. 
  Preparing for "Stevenson Day" at the UN (Review) Iraq doesn't know what kind of evidence Colin Powell will present the UN on Feb 5, but they know it's all a pack of lies. In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Sabri said that Washington might try to use its "technological superiority in the techniques of espionage, fabrication, deception and misleading" to plant false evidence against Iraq, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Gotta get that idea out now, the Iraqis think, to try to blunt the effectiveness of the evidence beforehand. 
  What was that about "unilateralism" again? (Review) Turkey's on board. Turkey’s top military and civilian leaders Friday endorsed basing foreign troops in the country, a move that could open the way for U.S. soldiers to use Turkey as a base for military action against Iraq. The decision by the powerful National Security Council also called for government and parliamentary approval for sending Turkish soldiers abroad. In other words, they'll not only let us use Turkey's basing rights, they'll be fighting beside us. 
  The future is now (Review) George Bush and Tony Blair appear to have agreed on the timetable of an attack on Iraq. 
  Radio Daze (Review) In case you're interested, I will be on the Allan Prell show in Denver at 11:35am Pacific Time. You can listen live over the internet. The subject will be my TCS article on French Unilateralism
  Thom Sowell gets miffed (Review) Economist Thomas Sowell doesn't like the rhetoric used to attack the proposed tax cuts. Sometimes a phrase betrays a whole mindset. Someone quoted in the New York Times recently referred to the Bush tax cut as one in which "most of the benefits would be showered on the richest taxpayers." Keeping money that you yourself earned is called having benefits "showered" on you! By this reasoning, anyone who has the power to take something from you and doesn't take it all is "showering" benefits on you. Anyone who has a gun and doesn't use it to kill you is showering life itself on you. Nice line. 
  A polite warning (Review) Jonah Goldberg offer a friendly bit of advice to our European allies. "Europeans have done something that no one has ever done before: create a zone of peace where war is ruled out, absolutely out," Karl Kaiser, director of the Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign Affairs, wrote in the Chicago Tribune a few months ago. Well, the problem is that this is bunk, as we learned when concentration camps sprouted up again on European soil after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Indeed, Europeans were honestly flummoxed about how to stop men with guns from killing people in their own back yard. It took the United States -without the support of the United Nations, by the way -to stop the slaughter. Europeans have accomplished a great deal in the last 50 years. But the suggestion that they created a "zone of peace" -or what Jessup would call a blanket of freedom -without the United States and its military might would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous. This misunderstanding is dangerous because America needs allies and Europe needs America. If we continue to see Europe as a bunch of freeloaders, we will say good riddance to friends and partners at a time when America dearly needs them. And if the Europeans continue to treat us like the villain in a bad movie they will learn what it's like to lose the security they've taken for granted. Be carefull what you wish for... 
  Hydrogen? Probably Not (Review) PAul George writes that switching to a hydrogen economy is probably a pipe dream. The technology just isn't there. Since hydrogen does not exist in geological reservoirs it must be extracted from fossil-fuel feedstocks or water. The process of extracting hydrogen uses energy, which means that using hydrogen is less efficient that burning fossil fuels. And if you're worried about global warming you certainly don't want to go that route. As a recent energy-technology review in Science magazine pointed out last November, "Per unit of heat generated, more CO2 is produced by making H2 [hydrogen] from fossil fuel than by burning the fossil fuel directly." The other option is to extract hydrogen from water using renewable-energy sources that deal fossil fuels entirely out of the equation. But that is a pipedream. Renewable energy itself is not cost effective, and by the time you use the energy to extract hydrogen from water, transport that hydrogen to where car owners can get to it and then recombine it with oxygen to re-extract the energy the cost becomes astronomical. Honda, for example, is leasing five of its FCX fuel-cell vehicles to the city of Los Angeles. It is clearly a PR ploy since the cost to the company for each car is $1.6 million. Honda has also constructed a bank of solar panels in Torrance, California for the purpose of generating "clean" electricity to produce the hydrogen. But it takes a whole week to generate enough power to produce one tank of hydrogen at a cost of $40,000 per tank. Call me crazy, but that's a long way from affordable transportation. I love the idea of switching to a hydrogen economy. But not at 40 grand per tank. On the other hand, no one thought we could go to the moon in 1961, either. 
  America among the nations (Review) Hillel Fradkin analyzes the hatred America seems to be stirring up in Europe these days. 
  NATO is dying (Review) Victor Davis Hanson says that NATO is not long for this world at the current rate of events. If many NATO allies oppose the United States as it removes a fascist dictatorship, if France expresses daily a visceral dislike of America, and if a continental intelligentsia sees America — not the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, the Iranians, or the North Koreans — as the world's real problem, then surely America already has enough enemies without allies and dependents such as these. Without rancor or anger, it really is time sadly and quietly to move on and sigh, "So long to all that." Yes, it may very well be time. 
  "Not in our Name" must consist entirely of idiots (Review) Emily Yoffe says they're hypocrites as well. 
  Ah, U.N., we hardly knew ye (Review) Charles Krauthammer writes that the UN is dooming itself to irrelevance. All we need to know about the seriousness of the UN can be summed up thusly: Libya chairs the UN Commission on Human Rights. And, in May, the chairmanship of the UN Conference on disarmament will go to -- wait for it -- Iraq. Yes, that's right. Iraq will lead the UN's charge for disarmament. Iran will co-chair. I mean, you coudn't make this stuff up. Defenders of the United Nations will write this off as a simple accident, pointing out that the chairmanship rotates alphabetically under the U.N. absurdity that grants all member states equal moral standing. Fine. How, then, do U.N. defenders explain the recent elevation of Libya to the chairmanship of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights? You couldn't make this one up either. It was no alphabetical accident. Libya was elected, by deliberate vote, by overwhelming vote -- 33 to 3. The seven commission members from the European Union, ever reliable in their cynicism, abstained. They will now welcome a one-party police state -- which specializes in abduction, assassination, torture and detention without trial -- to the chair of the United Nations' highest body charged with defending human rights. This is the United Nations. This is the institution whose support Democrats insist the United States must have to validate the legitimacy of its actions, such as the forcible disarming of Saddam Hussein. This is the institution to which they turn to test the worthiness of decisions taken by the president and Congress of the United States. It is a kind of moral idiocy: the greatest defender of freedom on the planet, enjoying the freest institutions, seeking its moral yardstick in the looking-glass values of a corrupt, perverse institutional relic. Moving the UN to Geneva, would open up some nice office and meeting space in Manhattan. I'm just saying. 
  Blairophile (Review) David brooks really likes British PM Tony Blair. 
  Politicians With Guts (Review) Robert Kagan writes that the Article from America's European allies yesterday, defending our actions in Iraq, was a gutsy, politically risky mood for them to take. Europeans simply don't like us. Such sentiments are pure heresy these days in Europe, where anti-Americanism has reached a fevered intensity. I live in Brussels, famed "capital of Europe," and have traveled across the continent over the past year, speaking with intellectuals, journalists, foreign policy analysts and government officials at the endless merry-go-round of highbrow European conferences. The settings couldn't be nicer; the food and wine couldn't be better; the conversations couldn't be more polite. And the suspicion, fear and loathing of the United States couldn't be thicker. In London, where Tony Blair has to go to work every day, one finds Britain's finest minds propounding, in sophisticated language and melodious Oxbridge accents, the conspiracy theories of Pat Buchanan concerning the "neoconservative" (read: Jewish) hijacking of American foreign policy. Britain's most gifted scholars sift through American writings about Europe searching for signs of derogatory "sexual imagery." In Paris, all the talk is of oil and "imperialism" (and Jews). In Madrid, it's oil, imperialism, past American support for Franco (and Jews). At a conference I recently attended in Barcelona, an esteemed Spanish intellectual earnestly asked why, if the United States wants to topple vicious dictatorships that manufacture weapons of mass destruction, it is not also invading Israel. Yes, I know, there are Americans who ask such questions, too. We have our Buchanans and our Gore Vidals. But here's what Americans need to understand: In Europe, this paranoid, conspiratorial anti-Americanism is not a far-left or far-right phenomenon. It's the mainstream view. When Gerhard Schroeder campaigns on an anti-American platform in Germany, he's not just "mobilizing his base" or reaching out to fringe Greens and Socialists. He's talking to the man and woman on the street, left, right and center. When Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin publicly humiliate Colin Powell, they're playing to the gallery. The "European street" is more anti-American than ever before. Even in the 1960s at the height of the anti-Vietnam War protests or in the early 1980s at the height of the "nuclear freeze" movement, European anti-Americanism was always more than counterbalanced by European anti-communism. Most Europeans believed the real problem was the Red Army and Soviet totalitarianism, not Nixon or Reagan, and the United States, whatever its flaws, was defending them from those twin evils. When Helmut Kohl, Margaret Thatcher and even Francois Mitterrand stood with Reagan in the waning years of the Cold War, theirs was a courageous and vitally important but not a politically risky stand. How many troops do we still have in Europe? And why? 
  Noko Nukes (Review) Substantial activity has been noted at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor. Experts beleive this means that the Nokos are getting into the nuclear weapons business in a big way. 
January 30, 2003
  Ted Kennedy is wrong (Review) But then, you already knew that. 
  Tom Daschle's Fantasy World (Review) Who does Tom Dashchle hate the most? George W. Bush or Saddam Hussein? 'Cause, sometimes, you gotta wonder. 
  The practical use of force (Review) Richard Cohen has an answer to those who say that force, or the threat of force never accomplishes anything. But the world and the American people have to understand that it was the threat of force -- and the almost certain use of it -- that got the inspectors into Iraq and set us on a course where only Hussein's capitulation can avoid war. It was the threat of force that finally put some steel into the United Nations and got it to demand that international law had to be respected. At the end of the day, recalcitrance has to be faced with the threat of punishment. 
  The difference between them (Review) Bill Safire says that both pro- and anti-war camps are doing some backside covereing so that, no matter what happens in Iraq, both sides can say they were right. But there is one difference. The point is this: Both sides of the debate are furiously positioning to cover themselves in case the other side proves right. But the difference is this: Even if the hawks are wrong about Saddam's treachery, 20 million terrified Iraqis would be freed. If the doves are wrong and their delay enables the genocidal tyrant to become a world power, millions of American lives could well be lost. And that is all the difference in the world. 
  The end of the beginning (Review) Jeff Jacobi wrotes that the war on terror won't end with the overthrow of the Iraqi regime. But it's a good start. 
  Those Darn French (Review) Chris Suellentrop thinks he knows why the French hate us. If Britain's "special relationship" with the United States is to pal around with it and work to influence its policies from within, France thinks it has an equally special relationship with the U.S.: Its sacred duty is to check American power by publicly and ostentatiously objecting to it from without. The French are so concerned by the dominance of American power—militarily, economically, culturally, and technologically—that a former French foreign minister felt the need to coin a new word to describe it: hyperpuissance, or "hyperpower." Think of it this way: France thinks the United States has so much power that the French language didn't have a word for it. In short, the French can't abide having la gloire Francais overshadowed by someone else. 
  New times, new allies (Review) Jim Hoagland analyzes the historical winds of change that are reshaping America's alliances. 
  Calming Fears (Review) Bill Emmot, editor in chief of The Economist, found reassurance in the President's SOTU speech. This time, the reassurance did not come from his deliberately reassuring gestures, such as the promise to put up $15 billion to combat H.I.V. and AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean or the $1.2 billion for research into pollution-free cars. It came from his announcement that on Feb. 5 Secretary of State Colin Powell would reveal evidence of Iraq's weapons concealment to the Security Council. It was reassuring because it suggests that some proof exists. Admittedly, the lust for evidence represents a sort of mass self-delusion, a belief that somehow the 1990's didn't happen and that no weapons programs were found then. It also represents topsy-turvy thinking: that the burden of proof is on Mr. Bush, not Saddam Hussein. Still, such thinking is a reality that the White House needs to face. And face it he is. 
January 29, 2003
  MY newest TCS column is up (Review) This time, I discuss Iraq, and the fact the Saddam Hussein is a bad guy who needs to be whacked. Although, I put it more tactfully in the column. 
  Ah, Capitalism! (Review) The "Axis of Weasels". Not just a pithy blogworld insult. It's now a cool T-shirt. Isn't it great to live in a country where anybody is free to cash in on a new idea? 
  The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation (Review) Ever wondered what the Gettysburg address would have looked like if Abe Lincoln had access to PowerPoint? Well, wonder no more. 
  Springer for Senate! (Review) Jonah Goldberg isn't too happy with the idea of Jerry Springer running for the Senate. 
  Domestic Policy Bits Here's the condensed version of the President's Domestic policy proposals: Jobs are created when the economy grows; the economy grows when Americans have more money to spend and invest; and the best and fairest way to make sure Americans have that money is not to tax it away in the first place. I am proposing that all the income tax reductions set for 2004 and 2006 be made permanent and effective this year. And under my plan, as soon as I sign the bill, this extra money will start showing up in workers' paychecks. Instead of gradually reducing the marriage penalty, we should do it now. Instead of slowly raising the child credit to $1,000, we should send the checks to American families now. We should also strengthen the economy by treating investors equally in our tax laws. It's fair to tax a company's profits. It is not fair to again tax the shareholder on the same profits. To boost investor confidence, and to help the nearly 10 million senior who receive dividend income, I ask you to end the unfair double taxation of dividends. I will send you a budget that increases discretionary spending by 4 percent next year -- about as much as the average family's income is expected to grow. And that is a good benchmark for us. Federal spending should not rise any faster than the paychecks of American families. As we continue to work together to keep Social Security sound and reliable, we must offer younger workers a chance to invest in retirement accounts that they will control and they will own. The American system of medicine is a model of skill and innovation, with a pace of discovery that is adding good years to our lives. Yet for many people, medical care costs too much -- and many have no coverage at all. These problems will not be solved with a nationalized health care system that dictates coverage and rations care. Health care reform must begin with Medicare; Medicare is the binding commitment of a caring society. We must renew that commitment by giving seniors access to preventive medicine and new drugs that are transforming health care in America. Seniors happy with the current Medicare system should be able to keep their coverage just the way it is. And just like you -- the members of Congress, and your staffs, and other federal employees -- all seniors should have the choice of a health care plan that provides prescription drugs. To improve our health care system, we must address one of the prime causes of higher cost, the constant threat that physicians and hospitals will be unfairly sued. (Applause.) Because of excessive litigation, everybody pays more for health care, and many parts of America are losing fine doctors. No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit. I urge the Congress to pass medical liability reform. I have sent you a comprehensive energy plan to promote energy efficiency and conservation, to develop cleaner technology, and to produce more energy at home. I have sent you Clear Skies legislation that mandates a 70-percent cut in air pollution from power plants over the next 15 years. I have sent you a Healthy Forests Initiative, to help prevent the catastrophic fires that devastate communities, kill wildlife, and burn away millions of acres of treasured forest. I urge you to pass these measures, for the good of both our environment and our economy. Tonight I'm proposing $1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles. A single chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen generates energy, which can be used to power a car -- producing only water, not exhaust fumes. With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom, so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free. Americans are doing the work of compassion every day -- visiting prisoners, providing shelter for battered women, bringing companionship to lonely seniors. These good works deserve our praise; they deserve our personal support; and when appropriate, they deserve the assistance of the federal government. I urge you to pass both my faith-based initiative and the Citizen Service Act, to encourage acts of compassion that can transform America, one heart and one soul at a time. I propose a $450-million initiative to bring mentors to more than a million disadvantaged junior high students and children of prisoners. Government will support the training and recruiting of mentors; yet it is the men and women of America who will fill the need. One mentor, one person can change a life forever. And I urge you to be that one person. Another cause of hopelessness is addiction to drugs. Addiction crowds out friendship, ambition, moral conviction, and reduces all the richness of life to a single destructive desire. As a government, we are fighting illegal drugs by cutting off supplies and reducing demand through anti-drug education programs. Yet for those already addicted, the fight against drugs is a fight for their own lives. Too many Americans in search of treatment cannot get it. So tonight I propose a new $600-million program to help an additional 300,000 Americans receive treatment over the next three years. By caring for children who need mentors, and for addicted men and women who need treatment, we are building a more welcoming society -- a culture that values every life. And in this work we must not overlook the weakest among us. I ask you to protect infants at the very hour of their birth and end the practice of partial-birth abortion. And because no human life should be started or ended as the object of an experiment, I ask you to set a high standard for humanity, and pass a law against all human cloning. Today, on the continent of Africa, nearly 30 million people have the AIDS virus -- including 3 million children under the age 15. There are whole countries in Africa where more than one-third of the adult population carries the infection. More than 4 million require immediate drug treatment. Yet across that continent, only 50,000 AIDS victims -- only 50,000 -- are receiving the medicine they need. We have confronted, and will continue to confront, HIV/AIDS in our own country. And to meet a severe and urgent crisis abroad, tonight I propose the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief -- a work of mercy beyond all current international efforts to help the people of Africa. This comprehensive plan will prevent 7 million new AIDS infections, treat at least 2 million people with life-extending drugs, and provide humane care for millions of people suffering from AIDS, and for children orphaned by AIDS. I ask the Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years, including nearly $10 billion in new money, to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean. Actually, it seems like a bit of a Clintonian grab bag of ideas. Except that a lot of them are good ones, and he didn't take 3 hours to expound on them.  
  OpinionJournal - Featured Article (Review) Larry Kaplan and Bill Kristol say that Saddam has finally found a US president that knows how to beat him. 
  Staying the Course (Review) The President hit all the right points vis a vis Iraq in the speech last night. I'm now waiting for February 5th to see the hard evidence. And I hope it's compelling enough to shut Tom Daschle up. 
January 28, 2003
  The stupidity that is Bob Scheer's opinion (Review) Bob Scheer has once again outdone himself in foolery and intellectual dishonesty. Just when you think he can't have a stupider thought, he surprises you. Here's my take on today's inanity. Let me tell you about the state of the union: It's lousy. The only real question is whether the president doesn't know it or just doesn't care. OK, let's stop right there. Now, you can disagree with the president all you want. I've disagreed with the W on a number of policy issues, and still do. But let's not slanderously accuse the President of the United States of not caring about the plight of the American people. Evidently, Mr. Scheer lives in a country where the leaders are boated plutocrats whose response to the people people is to "let them eat cake". Fortunately, I live in America, where guys like that are simply kicked out of office. Like Bob's favorite president, Jimmy Carter. Or, the current president's father, for that matter. You also have to wonder why the Democrats offer only token opposition to an administration run amok. Well, actually, I don't wonder much about it at all, since the American people by and large seem to approve of W. It seems rather obvious. It certainly looked obvious in last November's elections. And running amok? Really? I mean, do you have any evidence of this, or are you just going to leave it as a bald assertion? Don't worry, Bob, that's a rhetorical question. And you might also be curious as to why the mass media have allowed this "what, me worry?" president to charm his way through the worst humbling of the U.S. economy since the Depression. Uh, maybe because it isn't the worst humbling of the US economy since the Great Depression. In fact, it was a fairly short and shallow recession. And, an unemployment rate of 6% is hardly comparable with the 9% of the early 90s, or the 10+% of the early 80s. And, of course, it's nothing compared to the 25% of the Great Depression. This is a perfect illustration of why so much of the Left's criticism of the president is regarded as risible by most Americans. Things have certainly been better, but they have also certainly been much worse in the experience of most people. When your criticisms contain such obvious and blatantly self-serving fabrications, people dismiss you as a radical, and rightly so. Perhaps all these powerful people just think we're stupid. Well, in your case, that's probably true, Bob. This seemed to be the belief last Wednesday, when the president pitched his latest economic stimulus for the wealthy while standing in front of a painted facade of "Made in the USA" boxes in a room where the words "Made in China" on hundreds of real boxes had been taped over by presidential volunteers. Or maybe, like millions of Americans, they preferred to save money by using cheap boxes for their set. So what? That tells us little about the substance of the Administration's economic plan. It only tells us about your apparent aversion to free trade. Even more aggressive was the White House public relations approach employed Sunday. An atypically bellicose Colin Powell was launched into the heart of a skeptical Europe, preemptively savaging the efforts of United Nations weapons inspectors as basically meaningless, even before those inspectors were to speak to a world that has shown its lack of desire to rush into war. And what did those inspectors say, their voices of reason barely audible over the White House's drums of war? They said Saddam Hussein was providing open access to inspectors but not being as cooperative -- surprise, surprise -- when it came to volunteering information. Well, what they actually said was "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it." That doesn't quite jibe with your rather…uh…one-sided and self-serving characterization. Nor does your failure to mention the various examples that Mr. Blix provided of Iraq's failure to cooperate or blatant disregard of UN resolutions, such as: • Evidence that it had tried to put VX, the deadliest form of nerve gas, into weapon-usable form. • One thousand tons of missing poison gas contained in 6,500 chemical bombs. • Several thousand missing rocket warheads for carrying poison gas. • Some 8,500 missing liters of anthrax and enough growth media to produce 5,000 liters more. • The illegal import of 300 rocket engines and other components for ballistic missiles. • Illegal tests of long-range missiles that Iraq is not supposed to possess. • Three-thousand pages of undeclared documents on the enrichment of uranium at the home of an Iraqi nuclear-weapon scientist. Funny how you're just glossing over all of that, Bob. Indeed, a less charitable observer might be inclined to point out that your omission is so blatant as to comprise a "material breach" of intellectual honesty. Not that intellectual honesty is your strong suit. At a time when we are pursuing diplomacy with North Korea, which has nuclear weapons, it is stunning that the inspectors in Iraq said they had "found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear program since the elimination of the program in the 1990s." And, most important, the U.N. experts said, "our work is steadily progressing and should be allowed to run its natural course." Well, no evidence except those 3,000 pages of nuclear documentation they found in that physicists house. And, if the inspectors' work has been going on for 12 years in the face of Iraqi noncompliance and cooperation, how much longer do we need to feel comfortable that their work has run it's course? The White House uses bombast to portray our nation as being merely a step away from peace and prosperity. All it needs is another feed-the-rich tax break and a war for oil. Actually, the White house has done exactly the opposite. The president has said repeatedly that we are not a step away from peace, but rather embroiled in a war that may take decades to fully win. And, c'mon, the war for oil? Really? If we wanted the oil, why didn't we just take in it 1991, which was, as I remember, the last time you accused of of going to war to take over Saddam's oil? Of course, if we change the regime there and turn it back over to a legitimate Iraqi government that controls its own oil sales, you'll publicly apologize for making such an accusation, right? Somehow, I doubt it. All the while, the administration is willfully ignoring some harsh realities: The Dow fell below 8,000 on Monday, Osama bin Laden is still on the lam and we are pursuing a foreign policy increasingly based on the discredited credo of might-makes-right colonialism. Yeah. You've always been such a big supporter of the Stock Market, haven't you, Bob? Is Osama still on the lam? I dunno. I haven't seen any pictures of the guy holding up a recent edition of USA Today for the camera. But even if he is alive, I'll tell you what he's not doing: He's not serving as the defense minister for the government of Afghanistan, and funneling Afghani money into Al-Qaida. And colonialism? Well, maybe in ten years if an American proconsul is governing Iraq and Afghanistan, maybe I'll be more prone to listen to the colonialism argument. And if that doesn't happen, we'll have further proof that you are either a liar or a fool. Or both. With more of the working poor slipping each day into the ranks of the food bank poor and with Bush's promised corporate reform a grim joke for a middle class swindled out of its savings, states from Maine to Oregon are facing historic budget crises. But unlike the feds, who under Bush gleefully produce red ink like it's vintage wine, the states can't run a deficit. California alone is set to cut $5 billion from its education budget -- significantly less, by the way, than the $8 billion and change that state investigators believe Bush's and Vice President Dick Cheney's buddies at Enron and other energy companies bilked from the Golden State. Bush, with his tin ear for cries for help emanating from the heartland, is loudly boasting about a budget that leaves no money to help out the states. Yep, California's in budgetary trouble, all right. Four years ago, the state was running a $12 billion surplus. Now, they have a $30 billion deficit. What happened to all that surplus money? Well the Democrat-controlled legislature and the Democrat governor, Gray Davis, spent every penny of it. Since 1999 the state has increased the budget from $57.8 billion to $78 billion. That's a 36.3% increase in state spending, at a time when inflation was only 6%. Yet, somehow, that's all W's fault, and his responsibility to fix. The administration's previous tax cuts for the rich failed to lift the economy and Bush offers only more of the same. Uh, what tax cuts? Those tax cuts won't be fully implemented for ten years. So far, only about 15% of them have gone into effect. You see, here's the thing about tax cuts: before they help out the economy, they actually have to occur. Even Bush's alleged strong suit, the campaign against terrorism, is being exposed as a structure built on shaky ground. The administration's indifference to the now completely out-of-control Israeli-Palestinian war is pouring oil on the fire of Muslim extremism. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's denigration of the leaders of France and Germany as "Old Europe" -- for daring to question Bush's Iraq policy -- is only the latest sign we have squandered the international goodwill we so painfully gained Sept. 11, 2001. Yeah, well, maybe the Palestinian deal would be a little easier to solve if the Palestinians would stop blowing up innocent women and children. As far as international goodwill goes, we seem to be getting quite a lot of it from Italy, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Poland, the Czech Republic, Holland, Belgium, Australia, etc. Germany and France are exactly what Mr. Rumsfeld calls them. Old Europe. I care about what serves American security and affects American lives, whether France or Germany likes it or not. Because, mark my words, if a jetliner gets flown into the Eiffel Tower, or the Köln Cathedral, they'll be the first guys calling Washington, begging for US help. And, frankly, I don't give a fig what France and Germany like. If it wasn't for us, they'd all be speaking German now. In fact, the Germans still are. In fact, unless Hussein, reminiscent of a Super Bowl soda ad starring Ozzy Osborne's family, suddenly unzips his skin to reveal he is actually Bin Laden, we are likely to march to war with the support of an "international coalition" that amounts to a fig leaf named Tony Blair and a motley collection of nations one can buy on EBay. Well, if I were you, Bob, I'd probably put off that Italian vacation for now. Funny, how if W doesn't play the faithful poodle to France, you go off about his disrespect for our allies, yet you can blithely insult the majority of NATO nations that do support us. It is not surprising, then, that more than half of those queried in the latest New York Times-CBS poll believe the president doesn't share their priorities for the country. Americans, bless them, are no longer buying the fantasy that knocking off a paranoid dictator of a Third World country is going to solve our grave national problems. But the president and his hawkish henchmen still don't get it. Yet, it's funny how that same poll shows that 78% of Americans would support the president if he decided to go to war against Iraq. Of course, as usual, that's a fact you prefer to leave out. 
  An "Adlai Stevenson" moment (Review) According to FOXNews: A senior Bush adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Secretary of State Colin Powell will unveil next week "broad evidence" against Saddam, including new information about his ties to Al Qaeda, his weapons of mass destruction program and his efforts to deceive the world community by hiding his deadly arsenal beneath the ground and in mobile facilities. Some officials are expecting President Bush to have Powell deliver the material at the United Nations, but details were still being worked out Monday. This should be interesting. 
  Inspections forever (Review) James S. Robbins says that, if he could, Hans Blix would continue inspections in Iraq forever. 
  Deterrence's end (Review) Patrick Chisholm writes that we are in a post-deterrence world. As such, some things will have to change. We are living in unique times, indeed, where the widespread availability of WMD is profoundly changing the geopolitical equation. For our planet to survive, America and the allies have to do things they would not normally do. It includes preemptive military action. Though such action certainly carries large risks and consequences, I see no other way to stop the onset of a world full of nuclear-armed despots. Taking military action against Iraq, and making clear we are doing so because the civilized world will not tolerate the proliferation of WMD, will send a powerful message to current and future tyrants not to develop such weapons. It will be an effort to scare them into submission. And those who are not scared will have to be dealt with militarily. Otherwise, if they gain access to WMD, they will not be deterred. Deterrence only works when it is credible. Proliferation, and the existence of international terrorist networks, makes it much less so. 
  We're in the money (Review) Jack Kemp writes that the rich are getting richer. And the poor are getting richer, too. Of course there is still poverty, and I saw it firsthand as housing secretary for President George Herbert Walker Bush. But wherever poverty exists in America today, it is due to government policies and taxes that punish work, discourage homeownership and restrict access to capital. Free-market economies are working just as Churchill described: The rich are getting richer, and so are the poor. Low-income Americans are healthier and live longer, eat better, have more leisure and enjoy a higher standard of living than ever before. A recent report by the Federal Reserve Board revealed that the net worth of Americans in the lowest income quintile (the lowest 20 percent) rose 25 percent between 1998 and 2001. The free market works. Socialism doesn't, no matter how useful it is an an ideology of moral vanity. 
  Blix makes the case (Review) Gary Milhollin says that HAns Bix made the case for regime change yesterday, even if he can't bring himself to admit it. All lawyers, and Mr. Blix is no exception, know the difference between process and substance. By "process" he meant letting U.N. inspectors tour some 230 suspected weapons sites, almost all of which had been visited already by previous groups of inspectors. By "substance" he meant real disarmament, toward which he had to admit that the Iraqis still have done virtually nothing. "One might have expected," Mr. Blix wrote, that Iraq would have explained the following: • Evidence that it had tried to put VX, the deadliest form of nerve gas, into weapon-usable form. • One thousand tons of missing poison gas contained in 6,500 chemical bombs. • Several thousand missing rocket warheads for carrying poison gas. • Some 8,500 missing liters of anthrax and enough growth media to produce 5,000 liters more. • The illegal import of 300 rocket engines and other components for ballistic missiles. • Illegal tests of long-range missiles that Iraq is not supposed to possess. • Three-thousand pages of undeclared documents on the enrichment of uranium at the home of an Iraqi nuclear-weapon scientist. This is a terrifying list of destructive potential to leave in the hands of someone like Saddam. Failing to account for it is a lack of cooperation on "substance," and surely a material breach of Iraq's obligations. But Mr. Blix is unable to say so. The report deliberately avoids taking any position on this point. The implication, however, is clear: With no progress on substance--that is, disarmament--the cooperation on process is irrelevant. Mr. Blix's only prescription for solving this problem is to give the inspections more time. But that makes no sense in light of what he has reported. It is, the U.N. chief inspector says, the lack of a decision by the Iraqi government to disarm that is the stumbling block. "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it." Making a decision doesn't take long, especially in a dictatorship. Giving the inspectors more time has nothing to do with complying with U.N. Resolution 1441. The truth is that Mr. Blix's mission so far has not produced any progress toward disarmament, and is not likely to do so in the future. That leaves us with very, very few options other than the destruction of Saddam Hussein's regime. 
  Blocking the Franco-German Axis (Review) John O'Sullivan has an interesting policy prescription for liberating Europe from France and Germany. 
  Axis of appeasement (Review) Daniel Pipes writes that in Europe, its like the 1920's all over again. In fact, Gelernter argues, "It's the 1920s all over again," with that era's visceral loathing of war and readiness to appease totalitarian dictators (think of North Korea, Iraq, Syria, Zimbabwe and others). He finds today's Europe "amazingly" similar to that of the 1920s in other ways too: "its love of self-determination and loathing of imperialism and war, its liberal Germany, shrunken Russia and map of Europe crammed with small states, with America's indifference to Europe and Europe's disdain for America, with Europe's casual, endemic anti-Semitism, her politically, financially and masochistically rewarding fascination with Muslim states who despise her and her undertone of self-hatred and guilt." Gelernter proposes that 1920s-style self-hatred is now "a dominant force in Europe." And appeasement fits this mood perfectly, having grown over the decades into a worldview "that teaches the blood-guilt of Western man, the moral bankruptcy of the West and the outrageousness of Western civilization's attempting to impose its values on anyone else." Which brings us back to the unwillingness of "old Europe" to confront Saddam Hussein. World War II's lesson (strike before an aggressive tyrant builds his power) has lost out to the '20s attitude ("nothing justifies envisaging military action"). This self-hating weakness will lead again to disaster, no less than it did leading up to World War II. The United States finds itself having to lead the democracies away from the lure of appeasement. Iraq is a good place to start. Appeasement always looks good, right up to the moment it stops working, and is revealed as a failure. And one of the key lessons of modern history is that appeasement is always a policy of failure. 
  Challenged by Bovines (Review) Christopher Hitchens writes that if W is a cowbow, then logically, his adversaries are...well...cows. Or, at the very least, having one. To have had three planeloads of kidnapped civilians crashed into urban centers might have brought out a touch of the cowboy even in Adlai Stevenson. But Bush waited almost five weeks before launching any sort of retaliatory strike. And we have impressive agreement among all sources to the effect that he spent much of that time in consultation. A cowboy surely would have wanted to do something dramatic and impulsive (such as to blow up at least an aspirin-factory in Sudan) in order to beat the chest and show he wasn't to be messed with. But it turns out that refined Parisians are keener on such "unilateral" gestures—putting a bomb onboard the Rainbow Warrior, invading Rwanda on the side of the killers, dispatching French troops to the Ivory Coast without a by-your-leave, building a reactor for Saddam Hussein, and all the rest of it. In the present case of Iraq, a cowboy would have overruled the numerous wimps and faint hearts who he somehow appointed to his administration and would have evinced loud scorn for the assemblage of sissies and toadies who compose the majority of the United Nations. Instead, Bush has rejoined UNESCO, paid most of the U.S. dues to the U.N., and returned repeatedly to the podium of the organization in order to recall it to its responsibility for existing resolutions. While every amateur expert knows that weather conditions for an intervention in the Gulf will start to turn adverse by the end of next month, he has extended deadline after deadline. He has not commented on the eagerness of the media to print every injunction of caution and misgiving from State Department sources. The Saudis don't want the United States to use the base it built for the protection of "the Kingdom"? Very well, build another one in a state that welcomes the idea. Do the Turks and Jordanians want to have their palms greased before discovering what principles may be at stake? Greased they will be. In a way, this can be described as "a drive to war." But only in a way. It would be as well described as a decided insistence that confrontation with Saddam Hussein is inevitable—a proposition that is relatively hard to dispute from any standpoint. It's true that Bush was somewhat brusque with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, but then Schröder is a man so sensitive that he recently sought an injunction against a London newspaper for printing speculation about his hair color and his notoriously volatile domestic life. What we are really seeing, in this and other tantrums, is not a Texan cowboy on the loose but the even less elevating spectacle of European elites having a cow. It's such a pleasure to see someone on the Left gets it. 
  My TCS Column is up (Review) This time, I discuss French unilateralism. 
January 27, 2003
  Where is General DeGaulle when we need him? (Review) Michael Ledeen writes that Jacques Chriac is no Charles DeGaulle. He wants to be De Gaulle, and he's tall enough to play the part, and in fact that's the way he comes off: A tall guy trying to play De Gaulle. But it doesn't work, because he's a small, selfish, pedestrian guy trying to play a world-historical figure. That's just about the perfect description. 
  The king of not getting it (Review) Rather contrary to what I expected, Hans Blix issued a fairly tough report on Iraqi non-cooperation with inspectors. "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it," Blix said at the beginning of a crucial assessment on 60 days of weapons inspections. Well, thanks for that blinding glimpse of the obvious, Hans. As US ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, notes: Unfortunately, nothing we have heard today gives us hope that Iraq intends to fully comply with Resolution 1441 or any of the 16 resolutions that preceded it over the last 12 years. What we have seen over the past 80 days, is that in spite of the urgency ... Iraq is back in business as usual. The danger is that the Security Council may return to business as usual as well. Kofi Annan chimes in with his "inspections need more time" bit. Well, there have been inspection for 12 years now. And for all of that 12 years, including 3 in which the Iraqis allowed no inspections at all, all we have seen from the regime of Saddam Hussein are lies, omissions, threats, and bluster. If 12 years isn't long enough, then much extra time would be sufficient? 
  One last Chance (Review) Robert Bartley writes that today's report on Iraq is not the final chance for Saddam Hussein, but for the UN. Saddam, in short, has reacted to his "final opportunity" in Resolution 1441 the same way he reacted to 16 previous Security Council resolutions. To wit, with evasions, lies, feints, delay and ultimately, contempt. There is not the least reason to believe that with "more time" his behavior will change under the merciless pounding of Hans Blix and Kofi Annan. The issue, rather, is whether Mr. Blix, Mr. Annan, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and the rest were serious in the 15-0 vote supporting Resolution 1441 last November. Point 13 noted that the Security Council "has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations." "No, no, no," the "world opinion" chorus now chants, "those were only words, never intended to have any consequence." Meanwhile, the convoluted politics of the United Nations--a mixture of democracies, authoritarian regimes and dictatorships--has produced Libya as head of its Human Rights Commission. In this forum, why should we expect that there would be anything final about a "final opportunity?" Today is the UN's last chance to decide whether they are anything more than a modern version of the League of Nations. 
  The Inspections Trap (Review) The whole UN inspections deal is like quicksand. Once you get involved in it, it's really hard to get out. I mean, Kofi Annan is always there arguing that the inspectors need "more time", France is complaining that war is hard and, besides, they're not really good at it, and the whole thing becomes a sordid mess. Meanwhile, Saddam is still there, pulling the toenails out of puppies with a pair of vise-grips. Martin Indyk and Kevin Pollack think they have a way out of the inspections trap. 
  If Saddam survives (Review) The editors of the Wall Street Journal present a disturbing portrait of a future in which Saddam Hussein is allowed to remain in power in Iraq. 
  Reagan II, not Bush II (Review) Bill Keller writes a lengthy profile of W for the NY Times magazine, comparing him to Ronald Reagan. 
  Blix's big day (Review) We wait with bated breath for today's report by UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix on the status of UN weapons inspections in Iraq. 
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