Jumping To Conclusions

Brad Delong has also noticed how George Will has changed his opinions on the Constitution now that the Republicans are in charge.

Perhaps the punditocracy in the U.S. is missing the true lesson of Turkey's legislature's recent vote. Maybe the lesson is that Iraq's neighbors aren't as scared of Iraq as we say they are.

In the most recent New Yorker, Simon Schama describes Charles Dickens' trip to the United States, writing that "Decades before Joseph Conrad steamed his way upstream into the heart of imperial darkness, Dickens, travelling from Cincinnati downstream to Cairo, Illinois (reversing Mrs. Trollope’s route), experienced the Mississippi as a septic ooze, a turbid soup of animal and vegetable muck."

Of course, Dickens wouldn't have experienced the Mississippi River until after arriving in Cairo. As he was "travelling from Cincinnati downstream to Cario" he would have experienced the Ohio River.

Schama's article is about European attitudes towards the United States. Step one (for both us and them) probably is getting our geography down.

(And, the New Yorker is an American, not a European, publication. Don't know what to say about that.)

Roger Ebert (he just doesn't do movie reviews) makes a compelling case in support of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals' recent decision on the Pledge of Alliegance. In the article, he makes a distinction between what he calls "vertical prayer" and "horizontal prayer."

Read the piece for yourself. And, if Ebert wanted to cite an outside source to buttress his argument, he could have quoted Matthew 6:5-6: "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

From the October 11, 2000 Gore-Bush Presidential Debate:

MODERATOR: Should the people of the world look at the United States, Governor, and say, should they fear us, should they welcome our involvement, should they see us as a friend, everybody in the world? How would you project us around the world, as president?

BUSH: Well, I think they ought to look at us as a country that understands freedom where it doesn't matter who you are or how you're raised or where you're from, that you can succeed. I don't think they'll look at us with envy. It really depends upon how our nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us. And it's -- our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power, and that's why we have to be humble. And yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom. So I don't think they ought to look at us in any way other than what we are. We're a freedom-loving nation and if we're an arrogant nation they'll view us that way, but if we're a humble nation they'll respect us.

Later in the same debate:

MODERATOR: Saddam Hussein, you mean, get him out of there?

BUSH: I would like to, of course, and I presume this administration would as well. We don't know -- there are no inspectors now in Iraq, the coalition that was in place isn't as strong as it used to be. He is a danger. We don't want him fishing in troubled waters in the Middle East. And it's going to be hard, it's going to be important to rebuild that coalition to keep the pressure on him.

"No inspectors now in Iraq"... "it's going to be important to rebuild that coalition to keep the pressure on him"... hmm...

Hans Blix is set to give his report to the United Nations today, and of course every media outlet on the planet has already read it. Now, it seems pretty clear that it supports George Bush's position, since it says that Iraq still has many weapons of mass destruction that are completely unaccounted for. There's anthrax and other biological warfare agents:

Blix questioned Iraqi statements that it had stored all bulk biological warfare agents during the 1991 Gulf War at the Al Hakam plant and destroyed those unused after the war.

"There is credible information available to UNMOVIC that indicates that the bulk agent, including anthrax, was in fact deployed during the 1991 Gulf War," the report said. "Thequestion then arises as to what happened to it after the war."

"Based on this information, UNMOVIC estimates that about 5,547 gallons of biological warfare agent was stored in bulk at locations remote from Al Hakam. About half of this, about 2,641 gallons was anthrax," Blix wrote in the report.

"It therefore seems highly probable that the destruction of the bulk agent, including anthrax, stated by Iraq to be at Al Hakam in July-August 1991 did not occur," the report said."

Blix said Iraq needed to provide documentation or other evidence to support its account.

The new report also said Iraq may be producing more banned missiles in addition to the Al Samoud 2 rockets it is now destroying and had declared last year to inspectors.

"Other missiles systems with ranges in excess of 93 miles may possibly be under development or planned," the report said.

"Indications of this come from solid propellant casting chambers Iraq has acquired, through recent import, indigenous production or from the repair or old chambers," said the report.

Blix had ordered the Al Samouds destroyed.

The best question asked during last night's news conference was:

"QUESTION: Thank you, sir.

Mr. President, millions of Americans can recall a time when leaders from both parties set this country on a mission of regime change in Vietnam. Fifty-thousand Americans died. The regime is still there in Hanoi and it hasn't harmed or threatened a single American in 30 years since the war ended.

What can you say tonight, sir, to the sons and the daughters of the Americans who served in Vietnam to assure them that you will not lead this country down a similar path in Iraq?"

President Bush did not answer the question (he stayed 'on message'):

"BUSH: It's a great question.

Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament.

In order to disarm, it will mean regime change. I'm confident that we'll be able to achieve that objective in a way that minimizes the loss of life.

No doubt there's risks with any military operation. I know that. But it's very clear what we intend to do. And our mission won't change. The mission is precisely what I just stated. We've got a plan that will achieve that mission should we need to send forces in."

What's a good answer to the question? Any takers?

Paul Krugman's column today is a must read for those who are for the disarming of Iraq -- even if it means the US going in alone and disarming him -- but believe the cause is currently being mishandled. And, it's a must read for those dubious of this position.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank notes some striking similarities:

The president promised that American troops would not remain in the Middle East "for one day longer than is necessary" and he said the coming war with Iraq provides opportunities "to settle the conflicts that divide the Arabs from Israel."

Sound like President Bush's speech Feb 26 to the American Enterprise Institute? Well, yes. But the quotes are actually from President George H.W. Bush's address to the United Nations on Oct. 1, 1990.

The current president, as he readies the nation for war in Iraq, has been recycling some of the arguments and phrases his father used more than 12 years ago. In particular, the younger Bush's speech Feb. 26 outlining the future of Iraq had striking similarities to the elder Bush's address to the 45th General Assembly of the United Nations.

Back in 1990, the 41st president said: "We seek no advantage for ourselves, nor do we seek to maintain our military forces in Saudi Arabia for one day longer than is necessary." Bush the 43rd said two weeks ago: "We will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more."

Given the recent capture of Al Qaeda operational leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and the possible capture of two of Osama Bin Laden's sons, and given the rumors that we're "closing in on" Osama Bin Laden, it raises a question: do we want to capture Osama Bin Laden?

Let me first say that I think it likely he's dead. (If he were alive, I would think he would want to brag about it; what better way to thumb his nose at the United States than to turn up safe and sound? For many years he has sent videotapes to Al Jazeera; all of the sudden, he has stopped? A few tapes have arrived, but they've been only hard-to-authenticate audiotapes -- hardly the same thing.) But assume for the sake of argument that he's alive, and that we capture him. What do we do with him?

1. We could treat him as a prisoner of war. That is, he gets locked up until hostilities are over, and then he gets released. That's essentially what's happening with the Guantanamo Bay prisoners, though for technical reasons -- primarily that we want to interrogate them -- they're not officially called POWs. That's not going to happen, for obvious reasons. Bush vowed to bring him to justice, and I think all Americans expect that.

2. We could skip the trial, and go right to the execution. It's no more than he deserves, but I can't see that happening. Osama Bin Laden would be the most notorious prisoner on the planet, perhaps in all of human history. Yes, even more than O.J. Simpson. The whole world will be watching; the U.S. government will want to do everything by the book, so that it looks like justice rather than winner's justice.

3. He could be tried in a military tribunal. It's not quite as bad as executing him without trial, but it's not a good option, either. There's a perception, probably justified, that military tribunals have standards that are more lax than those of "real" trials. The government would be seen as stacking the deck against Bin Laden from the start, and it wouldn't help our image. Assuming our image is something to worry about, of course.

4. We could try him in a normal American Article III court. Give him a fair trial and then hang him. Show the whole world that we can even respect the rights of a mass murderer like Bin Laden. There are two problems: (1) even given how little Americans read the newspaper, and even given how short American attention spans are, it might be tough to find a jury who hasn't already prejudged Bin Laden's guilt, and (2) if we try Osama Bin Laden in a standard civilian court, how can we possibly justify trying any lesser terrorist figure in a military tribunal? It would knock the legs out of the whole system set up to handle the terrorist situation.

From Sunday's wedding announcements in the New York Times:

Krystyna Anna Stachowiak, a former marketing and public relations consultant, and Howell Raines, executive editor of The New York Times, were married yesterday at Trinity Episcopal Church in Mount Pocono, Pa. Canon Virginia Rex Day performed the ceremony.

Interesting comment over at Instapundit. He writes about hearing a story concerning the "lessons learned from the Japanese internments" and that "there's not much reason to contemplate locking up very many Iraqi nationals in America anyway, since they're probably the most pro-war, anti-Saddam segment of the population."

Is he implying that there was reason to contemplate locking up Japanese and Japanese Americans? I don't think so, and, I sure hope not. Considering that the 6,000 Japanese American members of the 442/100 regiment during World War II (remember, the army was segregated back then) earned more than 18,000 individual decorations including 1 Medal of Honor (20 more Medals of Honor were awarded to the 442 in 2000), 53 Distinguished Service Crosses, 588 Silver Stars, 5,200 Bronze Star Medals, 9,486 Purple Hearts, and eight Presidential Unit Citations, making it the most decorated regiment during the war, perhaps Japanese Americans were among the most pro-American, patriotic, anti-Nazi (the 442 was one of the units that liberated Dachau) segments of the population?

Read this AP story about the investigation into allegations of rampant and criminal mismanagement at the Air Force Academy where dozens of female cadets have claimed to have been raped and the Academy responded with little assistance excepting punishing the women.

In the first sentence we read that TESSA is "the region's main civilian rape crisis center." Later we read that an Air Force team went to Colorado Springs to investigate the situation, spending 10 days on site.

But they did not go to TESSA or contact TESSA (where at least 38 of the female cadets went for assistance) because the investigators "were unaware of the center's existence during their first visit."

You've got to be kidding me. It makes one wonder what this team actually did for those 10 days. Who did they talk to? Did they ask *any* questions? (Like, for instance: "What would be a good place in the area to learn more about what happened?" or "Who in this area would be a good resource on this matter?")

The Washington Post details the debate at the UN over what to do next. There are about six different proposed resolutions floating around (not counting the French "We surrender" plan). The problem is, it seems clear that all the non-American proposals are designed primarily to stall. (Well, that's one problem; the other problem is that the French won't accept any proposal at all. They have all but declared themselves to be on Saddam Hussein's side in the war on terror.)

Six months ago, I argued against the idea of working through the UN, getting another resolution, and restarting the inspections process. My argument then was that there was no reason to wait six months to appease the anti-war crowd, because in six months the situation wouldn't be any different, and anti-war people would be no more likely to support the U.S. Not to toot my own horn, but I was obviously right.

And that's the same situation we face now. The U.S. is willing to have another resolution as long as it (a) sets a firm, short-term deadline, (b) lists specific requirements, and (c) authorizes force automatically if the requirements aren't met by the deadline. Canada, which isn't on the Security Council at all, is willing to accept something similar, as long as the deadline is at least a month in the future. The six undecided countries on the Council appear willing to set specific benchmarks, but want a deadline weeks away and don't want an automatic authorization for war. In short, these countries want to stall, exactly as we've been doing for months now. And the French won't even go that far; they won't accept any deadlines at all.

So what's the point? What would be different in a month than now? If people don't think Iraq's failure to live up to its obligations for 12 years justifies a military response, then why would Iraq's failure for 12 years and one month be any different? Of course, it wouldn't, and in a month we'd hear the same excuses over again. Apparently the only thing that might change the minds of the French and/or undecideds is a mushroom cloud appearing over New York -- and maybe not even then. Since that's obviously unacceptable to everyone who isn't French, we might as well stop trying to woo them and go ahead now.

Preferences given to legacies are becoming part of the affirmative action debate, but unfortunately, the debate is being distorted by bad reporting:

While minorities are admitted to Georgetown at a higher rate than the total applicant pool -- about 28 percent compared with 21 percent of all applicants -- the proportion of legacy applicants admitted is higher still, at 40 to 42 percent, Deacon said.

The numbers are similar or somewhat higher at many elite schools. Legacy students are about twice as likely to get into the University of Virginia, more than three times as likely to get into Harvard.

Even in the absence of preferences, we'd expect to see alumni kids getting admitted at a higher rate than the pool as a whole. Alumni kids are more likely to know what it takes to get into that particular school. They're more likely to have educated parents, which means that they're more likely to have successful parents. And parental educational and financial success is an important predictor of student educational and financial success. It's impossible to separate these other factors from legacy status, given the limited statistics cited in the article.

I'm sure legacies do have an advantage, all else being equal. But if reporters aren't going to provide us with meaningful information about the advantage, then what's the point of writing the story? Of course, it's entirely possible that the reporter doesn't realize that the information provided is inadequate, which would suggest that she should spend more time in math class and less in the admissions office. Either way, it was a pretty useless article.

Andrew Sullivan made some hay in his never-ending campaign against the New York Times (you know, Andrew, we've all been rejected for jobs before; let it go) using the so-called Iraqi "drone."

First he wrote: "Compare the reports in the London Times with the New York Times or the Washington Post (zilch) on the alleged undisclosed drone aircraft buried in the appendix to Hans Blix's report to the U.N. last week. I don't know what to make of it. It seems a big deal to me, although the NYT makes a bigger deal about cluster bombs. I'm not an arms inspector, so I'm not sure why this discrepancy in coverage exists."

Then he wrote: "CNN has it [the "drone"] as its lead headline. Can Howell keep spinning for de Villepin indefinitely?" (Howell is, of course, Howell Raines, the Editor of the New York Times.)

But, it turns out that the drone isn't a big deal. It actually "appears to be made of balsa wood and duct tape, with two small propellors attached to what look like the engines of a weed whacker."

Nobody expects the New York Times to like anything George Bush does. And we've come to expect confused arguments when it comes to Iraq. But what sort of cognitive dissonance does it take for them to argue that unknown statements are wrong?

Mr. Estrada's nomination, which was turned back last week by a Democratic filibuster, has stalled because he refuses to give senators the information they need to evaluate his judicial philosophy. Until he is more forthcoming, the Senate should continue to block his confirmation.

Mr. Estrada has been called the "stealth candidate" because he is said by lawyers who know him to have extremely conservative views, but he has virtually no paper trail. At his confirmation hearing, Mr. Estrada refused to answer senators' legitimate questions about his judicial philosophy. And the White House has rejected senators' requests for memorandums he wrote as a government lawyer that could shed light on his beliefs.

Rather than give senators the information they need, his supporters have repeatedly attempted to change the subject.

Rather than demonizing Democratic senators, the White House should look for common ground. In the case of Mr. Estrada, it should respect the Senate's role in the process by making his full record available. And going forward, it should choose judicial nominees from the ideological mainstream, who do not prompt the sort of bitter partisan divisions that Mr. Estrada has.

It's not the opposition to Estrada that bothers me, or even the filibuster. It's the dishonesty about the reason for the filibuster. Democrats (and the Times) think Estrada is conservative, and they want Bush to appoint liberal judges. Why can't they just come out and say that, instead of cloaking their opposition in claims that they need more information? Does anybody believe that any "information" provided by the Bush administration would change anybody's mind right now?

Note, by the way, that to the Times, these "bitter partisan divisions" are not the fault of Democrats. Rather, George Bush is to blame. The Times editors never seem to grasp that in a partisan dispute, it's not automatically the fault of the Republicans.

Here's news that will come as a shock to many Amish people: France Opposes New British Proposal on Iraq. This is of course the compromise proposal being pushed by the British, in which Iraq would have to meet certain conditions by a certain deadline. But it's still not good enough for the cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

France said it does not support the idea of an ultimatum. It wants to "set out a framework for inspections with a work program and a precise calendar," de Villepin said.

Perhaps the problem is that the French believed George H. W. Bush a decade ago when he compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler. ("Hitler? Mon dieu! We must hand over Paris right away!") Or perhaps the problem is that the French, like the New York Times, don't understand the agenda here. The Times calls for another attempt at negotiating a compromise solution, saying:

The ultimate goal should not be a symbolic Security Council majority of nine, but passage of a resolution without a disabling veto. That might still be possible. Washington will find out only if it makes the new British proposal the basis for serious negotiations.

Truth be told, I loved Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" (although I didn't much care for the montage sequence that had Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" playing behind it). But, I've gotta recommend this short movie which takes a pro-war stance (more of an anti- the-anti-war protesters stance, actually). It's funny and makes its point very well -- in a Michael Moore sort of way.

The arguments against containment are many: (1) "Saddam as a serial aggressor bent on dominating the Persian Gulf;" (2) "Saddam has used WMD against his own people (the Kurds) and against Iran and that therefore he is likely to use them against the United States;" (3) containment "is unlikely to stop Saddam from getting nuclear weapons;" (3a) "Saddam would give nuclear weapons secretly to al Qaeda or some other terrorist group;" (4) a combination of all of these. Since these are true, a war to disarm him is necessary.

A case for containment is made here by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. Another must read.

The problem with the argument that Saddam Hussein can be contained that Partha mentions below is that it depends not only on Hussein being deterrable, but upon him actually being deterred. Mearsheimer and Walt illustrate the point when they write:

But what about Saddam’s failure to leave Kuwait once the United States demanded a return to the status quo ante? Wouldn’t a prudent leader have abandoned Kuwait before getting clobbered? With hindsight, the answer seems obvious, but Saddam had good reasons to believe hanging tough might work. It was not initially apparent that the United States would actually fight, and most Western military experts predicted the Iraqi army would mount a formidable defense. These forecasts seem foolish today, but many people believed them before the war began.

Indeed, let's look at the current situation: if Saddam Hussein so deterrable, then why is he not eagerly cooperating with UNMOVIC? If he's so deterrable, if he's so rational that he wouldn't use WMD, then why not give them up? They're not serving to deter the United States; they're serving to provoke the United States. If he wouldn't use them, what good are they to him? Why not surrender them and all documents, allow Hans Blix to say, "Iraq has fully cooperated and is hiding nothing," and hence preserve his regime? Either he's miscalculating, or being irrational.

A possible answer is that he's retaining these weapons because he thinks that Bush would attack even if he fully renounced them, and so he'd rather keep them to use when the U.S. attacks. But that's not particularly rational; even if he used them in defense, that wouldn't allow him to defeat American forces. So that's not a strong argument for the containable position.

Another flaw in the argument is that it depends on (their version of) history repeating itself. But past performance, as the disclaimer goes, is no guarantee of future performance. They argue that history shows that Saddam Hussein is interested in self-preservation above all else, and so, in their words, "Saddam thus has no incentive to use chemical or nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies—unless his survival is threatened." But he's getting up in years now -- 66 -- and there are persistent if unsubstantiated rumors of health problems like cancer. What if he knows his survival is threatened, not by the United States, but by old age? (Of course, we shouldn't take that argument too far; after all, it could apply to any country. But Saddam Hussein has demonstrated himself to be particularly unconcerned with human life, even by dictatorial standards. The containment argument isn't that Saddam Hussein is decent, but that he's deterrable. When he has nothing to lose, that argument fails.)

There are many practical problems with containment, as well, but for now I just wanted to address the issue of it being effective.

Fear not, Saddam. The warmongering United States may be prepared to attack you even in the face of a veto by your staunch French allies in the Security Council, but Robert Fisk has found a way out, a way to preserve your regime in the face of American imperialism. He has discovered a force even more powerful than the United Nations Security Council: the General Assembly.

So here's a little idea that might just make the American administration even angrier and even more aware of its obligations to the rest of the world. It's a forgotten UN General Assembly resolution that could stop an invasion of Iraq, a relic of the Cold War. It was, ironically, pushed through by the US to prevent a Soviet veto at the time of the Korean conflict, and actually used at the time of Suez.

...

The White House – and readers of The Independent, and perhaps a few UN officials – can look up the 377 resolution on ares377e.pdf. If Mr Bush takes a look, he probably wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry. But today the General Assembly – dead dog as we have all come to regard it – might just be the place for the world to cry: Stop. Enough.

Andrew Sullivan recently posed the following quickie: "THE LONELINESS OF ASIAN-AMERICAN MEN: Well, heterosexual Asian-American men, anyway. I blame all those Berkeley white guys."

The link is to a UPI article that summarizes a Census Bureau report that Asian American women marry white men at a much higher rate than Asian American men marry white women.

I don't know if I'd use this variable as a description of loneliness, though, no matter what's supposedly going on at Berkeley.

For what it's worth, Asian American men are much more likely to currently be married than the population as a whole (56.4 percent to 54.2 percent for those over 15).

(And, I don't see what's so wrong with out-of-group marriages. Among other things, it's a traditional sign of assimilation.)

This morning, Glenn Reynolds referred us to this article, in which Le Monde's London correspondent attacks the British for siding with the United States. Glenn noted the tone of the article, in which the reporter wrote as if he were speaking for the French government, but the part which struck me was this:

Let's be clear: Mr Chirac does not endorse Baghdad, and he finds Saddam's regime as despicable as do Bush and Blair. But he fears the American hawks will ignite Muslim fundamentalism worldwide. The fear of domestic conflagration and terrorism are also ever-present: there are 6 million French Muslims to take into account.

Mr Chirac is viscerally opposed to the idea of a clash of civilisations. Bush's core support, on the other hand, comes from evangelical Protestantism, with its two faces of intolerance and lack of cultural understanding.

And then he has the nerve to pretend that he disagrees with the idea of a clash of civilizations? He's not disagreeing with it; he's endorsing it -- in extreme, almost racial, form. "Bush's core support" views Middle Eastern culture as a threat, but this reporter (and impliedly Chirac himself) views Muslims qua Muslims as a threat. And that's supposed to demonstrate tolerance and cultural understanding on his part?

Great minds think alike: I note that Eugene Volokh had the same reaction I did.

It may be moot by the time anybody reads this, but I wanted to follow up on last week's entry where I addressed the question of whether Saddam Hussein is containable. A few additional thoughts:

1. Effective inspections (assuming such creatures exist) would be a key requirement for containment. But even the virulently anti-war Europeans such as Jacques Chirac concede that inspections are only taking place because of the credible threat of invasion by the United States. How long can the United States keep that threat credible? Hundreds of thousands of troops can't remain in the Gulf forever. For one thing, the United States needs them elsewhere (and many of them are reservists, who can't be kept on active duty indefinitely). For another, their presence is a source of friction between the U.S. and local governments in the region.
   
   
2. What if the inspectors claimed to have finished? What if the inspectors announced that they had found whatever there was to find, and that they had verified that everything had been destroyed? Would they remain active forever in order to maintain the containment approach? Or do inspections end, as it seems likely the "international community" would demand? If so, how does containment work at that point? With no inspections, what's to stop Saddam Hussein from restarting his weapons programs?

3. What happens to the Kurds of Northern Iraq (or the Shia of Southern Iraq)? Do the United States and the United Kingdom become the permanent air force of these groups? Given Saddam Hussein's behavior towards these groups in the 1980s, again right after the Gulf War, and then at various times in the 1990s, he certainly can't be trusted to leave them alone if they're unprotected. So do proponents of containment suggest we abandon them, or that we continue our current, hybrid approach in which the Iraqi government has only limited sovereignty over large portions of its territory? And if Iraq is given a clean bill of health by inspectors, can we be sure that Iraq's neighbors would continue to allow us to fly missions over Iraq forever?

4. There are costs to containment -- and I don't just mean the troop commitments and the strained relations with other countries in the region. While the effect of sanctions have almost certainly been greatly exaggerated, they do exist. (Indeed, before Bush pushed for a preventive approach towards Iraq, those currently opposing military force were opposing sanctions.) And in addition to the humanitarian cost, there's the economic cost imposed on neighboring countries which could otherwise trade with Iraq. How long will people tolerate these costs? Indefinitely? Will most countries stop respecting the sanctions after a while? Will humanitarian groups talk about malnourished children, and demand that the sanctions be lifted? At that point, what would containment consist of? Stern looks and firmly-worded UN resolutions?

5. In the Cold War, "containment" was a long-term state of affairs; we were waiting for an entire system of government to disappear. What's the exit strategy for containing Iraq? Do we wait for Saddam Hussein's death? Is the guy who replaces him -- very possibly one of his sons -- going to be any better, or will he need to be contained also? Do we continue until a democratic regime spontaneously appears in Baghdad?
   
   
6. The "C"-word. Credibility. If the United States backs down at this point, after all of President Bush's rhetoric, how can the United States ever give a credible ultimatum again? What if North Korea acts up, and Bush threatens to bomb them if they don't behave, why would they go along with our wishes? Why wouldn't they assume the United States would wimp out at the last minute just as we did vis-a-vis Iraq? It's a dangerous argument which needs to be used sparingly, because it could be used to justify just about anything the president wants to do. But in this case, we're not talking about the whim of a president; we're discussing a course of action authorized by Congress (and, even if they're trying to pretend now that it never happened, the UN Security Council), so the danger is minimized. And like it or not, it has to be a factor.
   
   
7. Related to the credibility argument, what about the effect on the rest of the region? What are the Kurds to think about how the U.S. feels about their plight, if the U.S. decides that allowing Saddam Hussein to remain in power is preferable to removing him? What are Iranian democracy advocates to think, if Bush backtracks? It will be a major morale booster for the Iranian dictatorship, for the Syrian dictator, for the Saudi monarchy, if they see that there's really no commitment in Washington to middle eastern democracy.

It's a tragedy, of course, and yet I can't manage to muster much sympathy for the woman run over by a bulldozer when she lay down in front of it. The bulldozer was there to demolish a building in Gaza; the woman, a representative of the Bored College Students Who Think They're Still In the 1960s movement, was there to stand with Hamas et al. against Israel.

Here's the quote that was puzzling to me:

The Israeli troops "have shot over our heads, and shot near our feet — they have fired tear gas at us," said Michael Shaik, media coordinator for the group. "But we thought we had an understanding. We didn't think they would kill us."

Have these people thought it through at all, or are they just being trendy and pretentious by going to Israel to Be Activists, as if this were all some sort of game? Yes, I should be sorry for the woman who died, but (as I've noted before) I really can't feel anything for "human shields" until I hear of ones riding Israeli buses to protect Israeli citizens from Palestinian homicide bombings. Of course, they don't do that because they know it would be futile to do so; homicide bombers don't care. And that's the problem, in a nutshell: they protest against Israel because they know Israel isn't evil; they don't protest against Palestinian terrorism because they know it is evil.

One of the big criticisms of Andrew Sullivan's blog is that the articles he links to don't always say what he says they say.

Today is no exception.

Under the heading "WINNING THE ARGUMENT," Sullivan writes: "The latest polling data show something worth remembering as we head into war. USA Today's poll shows the highest levels supporting an invasion of Iraq - 64 percent - since November 2001, a jump of five points from two weeks ago. 57 percent say that the Bush administration has made a convincing argument for intervention."

Following the links on the USA Today page, we find this: "But that support drops off if the U.N. backing being sought by the United States, Britain and Spain Monday is not obtained. If the U.N. Security Council rejects a resolution paving the way for military action, only 54% of Americans favor a U.S. invasion. And if the Bush administration does not seek a final Security Council vote, support for a war drops to 47%."

Since there's going to be no final Security Council vote, I suppose the poll says that support for a war is 47%. 17 points less than 64.

There's going to be a huge spike in support tonight and later this week, to be sure. But, right now, it's less than half.

Joshua Marshall alerts us to this story: "Bush Has Audacious Plan to Rebuild Iraq Within Year"

In a more lighthearted war, David Nieporent defeats me 2360 results to 552 results at Google fight.

(But, in should be noted, that Pennsylvania defeats Princeton 13 300 000 results to 3 310 000 results. Don't think using "Pennsylvania" is fair [it's, among other things, the name of a state, too]? Well, I just gotta say, the results don't lie.).

Okay, nobody has ever accused George Bush of being a Churchillian orator. Or Clintonian, or Reaganesqe, or Kennedyesqe. Or... well, let's face it: George Bush is not a particularly great speaker. But if we look past the superficialities of his delivery, and focus on the substance, it was a fine speech. Firm, decisive, and comprehensive. He quickly laid out the case for war and the case for acting without the U.N. He warned Iraqi forces not to use WMD, and prepared American citizens in case terrorists attack. And he sent the message that this will be a war of liberation, not conquest. He covered all the bases, and he was steadfast and firm. Exactly what we needed to hear. Two thumbs up.

From the Independent:France will be a loser in the second Gulf War. Go ahead, you know you want to say it...

You have to give the New York Times credit for something. At least they recognize that continued carping about the president's approach will serve no purpose once the war starts. Unfortunately, they also think that pointless (and inane) Monday morning quarterbacking serves a purpose now. Their basic argument is that the entire Iraq war now represents a "diplomatic failure."

Since the Times doesn't exactly seem to dispute that the war may be necessary -- they describe it as "a war for a legitimate international goal against an execrable tyranny" -- they must mean by "failure" the fact that the French aren't willing to back us up. And yet, they present us with no reason to believe that France would have backed us up under any circumstances. (They do, laughably, imply that if only Bush had backed Kyoto, this split with France wouldn't have happened.)

But then, faced with the fact that countries like Britain and Spain do support us, they argue that it doesn't count because the citizens of these countries don't agree. Huh? So now "diplomacy" is defined not by the relationships between countries, but by public opinion polls in foreign countries? If you're going to discuss Bush's diplomatic track record, don't you need to acknowledge that the vast majority of European countries are on our side? What they seem to mean is that Bush's public relations approach to foreign populations isn't satisfactory for the Times' editors. To which I say: so what?

I wouldn't mind these criticisms if the Times demonstrated in any way that they had alternative approaches which would have gotten the results they want. But if the last decade-plus has taught us anything, it's that (a) nothing will induce Saddam Hussein to behave, (b) no amount of talking will convince France to stand against Saddam Hussein, and (c) the Times will never give credit to a conservative for anything. Sure, Bush could have gotten French (and hence UN) support -- to accomplish nothing. France would have gladly backed the U.S. -- in sending nasty emails to the Iraqi dictator. But no "diplomacy" would have accomplished the goal of regime change in Iraq.

One of my favorite aspects of bias at the New York Times is that their editors write headlines which support their anti-Bush ideology, regardless of what the articles under the headlines actually say. I don't know whether this is because the editors are deliberately dishonest or just too lazy to read the articles.

Their review of Bush's speech? Headlined: Mixed Reaction to Speech. So what were those "mixed reactions?"

Jim Chamberlain would not call himself gung-ho, exactly, but he is relieved, almost, that the long buildup to war has ended, that the excruciating wait is over, that the diplomats will at long last step aside and allow the nation's military to do what needs to be done.

"The sooner we do it, the faster we do it, the better and safer the world will be," said Rodolfo Castillo, 40, a fashion designer, as he watched the president's remarks on a flat-screen television above the black marble bar at Le Méridien hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. "The uncertainty of what is going to happen is the worst part of it."

Undaunted by the prospect of war, Mr. Castillo had been spending the day readying the gown and accessories that will be worn by the singer Anastacia at the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday night. He had this to say about the president's performance tonight: "He made the case. He was straight to the point. He was coming from a position of power."

Standing nearby, David Siguaw, 36, the hotel's director for sales and marketing and the grandson of a war veteran of World War I and II, said, "President Bush pointed out quite clearly that the United Nations did not live up to its responsibilities."

"Finally, we as the American people have direction," Mr. Siguaw said after the speech. "He's announced directly to the American people a timeline of 48 hours."

"As far as supporting a war, I do, because I do think Saddam Hussein needs to get out of Iraq," said Alva Starling, 27, who is moving here from Texas and was having lunch with a friend and fellow dentist, Vanessa Dowdy, of Decatur, Ga.

"Having a daughter volunteer to be in the military and suddenly having her sent somewhere, I had to do a lot of thinking and re-evaluating," Ms. Reeves said. "I think there is a time when we have to say, `If we're not willing to fight for this, then what are we willing to fight for?' "