Best of the Web Today - April 29, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Saddam's Bitter-Enders
"A Pentagon intelligence report has concluded that many bombings against Americans and their allies in Iraq, and the more sophisticated of the guerrilla attacks in Falluja, are organized and often carried out by members of Saddam Hussein's secret service, who planned for the insurgency even before the fall of Baghdad," reports the New York Times:
The report states that Iraqi officers of the "Special Operations and Antiterrorism Branch," known within Mr. Hussein's government as M-14, are responsible for planning roadway improvised explosive devices and some of the larger car bombs that have killed Iraqis, Americans and other foreigners. The attacks have sown chaos and fear across Iraq.
In addition, suicide bombers have worn explosives-laden vests made before the war under the direction of of M-14 officers, according to the report, prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The report also cites evidence that one such suicide attack last April, which killed three Americans, was carried out by a pregnant woman who was an M-14 colonel.
This isn't the first indication of a postliberation pro-Saddam insurgency. Last June the Washington Times reported that "a document from the Iraqi intelligence service in Basra--which was captured in April as coalition forces gained control--orders agents to start campaigns of sabotage, looting and murder should Iraq lose the war."
What to do about all this? Reports like this one, from the Washington Post, are not encouraging:
U.S. military officials in Iraq said that because of political sensitivities, overall policy decisions about the standoff in Fallujah are being made by the White House, and Marine commanders have been reluctant to make public pronouncements about what should be done. But privately, many say they believe the only way to eliminate the insurgency is through a series of large raids.
They note that a cease-fire agreement signed April 19 has largely been ignored by people in the city. Although the deal called for such heavy arms as mortars and rocket-propelled grenades to be surrendered to the Marines, all they have received is a small assortment of rusty, inoperable weapons.
More significantly, Marines note, insurgents were supposed to stop attacking U.S. positions. But front-line Marine posts are fired on almost daily in some places, prompting the Americans to respond with everything from sniper fire to precision-guided 500-pound bombs dropped by Air Force fighter jets.
"The only way to ensure that we really get these guys is for us to go in and take them out," a Marine officer said.
It would seem that the politics would be easier to sort out if the Marines were allowed to win the war first.
America the So-So
A new Rasmussen poll asks Americans what they think of their country. A majority have a high opinion of it:
A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 64% of voters believe that American society is generally fair and decent. Additionally, 62% believe the world would be a better place if other countries became more like the United States.
But supporters of President Bush are much more likely to answer in the affirmative to both questions. Eighty-three percent of them think America is fair and decent, vs. just 7% who think it's "basically unfair and discriminatory." By contrast, less than a majority of Kerry backers--46%--think America is basically fair and decent, and 37% say unfair and discriminatory.
Similarly, 81% of Bush voters and only 48% of Kerry voters think the world would be better if other countries were more like us. When respondents are broken down by ideology, 74% of conservatives say the world would be better, and moderates agree "by a 3-to-1 margin." But "among self-identified liberals, the numbers are 49% better and 37% worse. A plurality of those who say they are very liberal believe the world would be in worse shape if other nations were more like ours."
This may help explain why liberal politicians are so often on the defensive over their own patriotism: Many of their core political supporters, it seems, are lukewarm at best about America.
Kerry Nods
Free speech is one of the glories of American democracy, but every now and then you listen to what people are saying and you wonder for a moment if it's all worth it. This is one of those days. To start with, consider this Boston Globe account of a John Kerry campaign rally in Ann Arbor, Mich.:
Kerry nodded as one audience member, 74-year-old Dorothy Sahadi, accused Vice President Dick Cheney of engineering an ''invasion" of Iraq to benefit Halliburton, the energy giant he once headed, then said of Cheney and Iraqis: ''How many has he murdered? He has murdered women, children, babies for nothing, just for the money in his pocket."
Kerry said he disagreed with some parts of Sahadi's remarks. ''But I know exactly where you're coming from," the Massachusetts senator said, in remarks that were broadcast live on local television in this election-year battleground state. ''I know where that anger comes from, I know where the frustration comes from." Kerry spokesman David Wade said afterwards that Kerry disagreed with Sahadi's ''murdered" comment.
Meanwhile, former senator Bob Kerrey, a member of the Sept. 11 commission, showed up on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," and Michelle Malkin describes what happened:
Kerrey yukked it up. First, he dished with Stewart about President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney's upcoming private meeting with the commission. When Stewart mocked the president's "buddy system," Kerrey guffawed: "He is bringing his buddy, that's exactly right, for safety." Emboldened by audience applause, Kerrey riffed that it was more like "Screw you, buddy." Asked by Stewart whether people were really blaming each other over the terrorist attacks during closed hearings, Kerrey snorted: "Oh, Jee-zus, yeah." More audience approval. . . .
Next, echoing a profanity uttered earlier in the show, Kerrey blurted out with a clownish grin: "Life is [expletive bleeped]." When Stewart proposed that Kerrey ask the vice president, "What the [expletive bleeped] is wrong with you people?" Kerrey cracked up and promised to use the question. And when Stewart called Attorney General John Ashcroft a "big [expletive bleeped]," Kerrey chortled some more.
And one Rene Gonzalez, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, weighed in on the combat death of Pat Tillman, the football star turned Army Ranger, in Afghanistan:
For people in the United States, who seem to be unable to admit the stupidity of both the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, such a trade-off in life standards (if not expectancy) is nothing short of heroic. Obviously, the man must be made of "stronger stuff" to have had decided to "serve" his country rather than take from it. It's the old JFK exhortation to citizen service to the nation, and it seems to strike an emotional chord. So, it's understandable why Americans automatically knee-jerk into hero worship.
However, in my neighborhood in Puerto Rico, Tillman would have been called a "pendejo," an idiot. Tillman, in the absurd belief that he was defending or serving his all-powerful country from a seventh-rate, Third World nation devastated by the previous conflicts it had endured, decided to give up a comfortable life to place himself in a combat situation that cost him his life. This was not "Ramon or Tyrone," who joined the military out of financial necessity, or to have a chance at education. This was a "G.I. Joe" guy who got what was coming to him.
Cheers to UMass president Jack Wilson, who, the Boston Globe reports, issued a statement calling Gonzalez's remarks "a disgusting, arrogant and intellectually immature attack on a human being who died in service to his country."
In case you're still wondering if free speech is worth it, yes, it is. But there are times when it would be better if people had the wisdom to remain silent.
Vietnam McNuggets
CNN reports on Sen. Frank Lautenberg's aggressive defense of John Kerry in the controversy over his Vietnam medals and antiwar activity:
In a scathing speech, Lautenberg said he did not think politicians should be judged by whether they had military service but that "when those who didn't serve attack the heroism of those who did, I find it particularly offensive."
Lautenberg pointed to a poster with a drawing of a chicken in a military uniform that defined a chicken hawk as "a person enthusiastic about war, provided someone else fights it."
"They shriek like a hawk, but they have the backbone of the chicken," he said.
"We know who the chicken hawks are. They talk tough on national defense and military issues and cast aspersions on others. When it was their turn to serve where were they? AWOL--that's where they were," Lautenberg said.
"And now the chicken hawks are cackling about Senator John Kerry. And the lead chicken hawk against Senator Kerry is the vice president of the United States--Vice President Cheney.
Democrats have of late seemed determined to refight Vietnam, both in Iraq and in the presidential race. Reader Paul McGrady ties the two together in an interesting way:
Do you think there is yet another reason why all this talk of Vietnam is hurting Kerry? While he is perhaps justifiably emphasizing his service in that war, others, such as Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson, are comparing the Iraq war to Vietnam. In my humble opinion, this "quagmire crowd" is being perceived by younger voters as extremely out of touch. Most of us can easily distinguish a long-past Cold War battleground from a new kind of conflict unique to the war on terror where borders and armies (and yes, coalitions) are just not as relevant as they used to be. These "Cold Pacifists" of yesteryear, who for some reason still have cameras and microphones pointed at them without regard to Andy Warhol's 15-minute rule, seem intellectually and emotionally incapable of setting aside their protest nostalgia and just appear to be ridiculous to the under-40 set. Perhaps Kerry is harming himself by using the V-word at the same time they are?
CNN reports that after Lautenberg's speech, Sen. John McCain "scolded" him "for attacking the Bush administration during the Iraq conflict and said it was time to 'declare that the Vietnam War is over.' "
This may be good political advice for the Democrats, who seem to win only when they are able, as Bill Clinton was, to persuade voters Vietnam is irrelevant. But don't expect John Kerry to follow it. According to the Los Angeles Times, "in one 24-hour period," Kerry "invoked his service" in Vietnam:
To fend off attacks by his Republican rivals;
As evidence he will fight to expand healthcare;
As evidence he understands the complicated landscape in Iraq;
To explain his love of peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches.
That last one calls for an explanation: "His passion for PB&Js, Kerry told his companions, dated back to Vietnam, where he not only ate them frequently but traded them for other commodities."
No Nuance Is Good News
The Washington Times' Tony Blankley has an astute observation on American political rhetoric and John Kerry's difficulties:
His friends say he is just instinctively nuanced in his thinking. . . . According to Webster's Dictionary, the etymology of nuance is from the middle French (Hmm!) word nuer: to make shades of color; from nue: clouds, akin to the Greek; nythos: dark. That would seem to be Mr. Kerry's problem. He thinks and talks in shades that create clouds and darkness around him. No one knows what he is saying, and thus what he is thinking. This makes things rather awkward for an American politician.
The rhetoric of American politics is binary, not gradational: Give me liberty or give me death; our nation cannot exist half slave and half free; are you pro life or pro choice; are you for or against capital punishment; pro or anti-war; for or against tax cuts. . . .
Seeing seven sides to an issue is useful in the study of metaphysics. But men of action--and world events always have required American presidents to be men of action--must be capable of decisive action. A candidate for president who is incapable of clearly expressing a single principle or goal he will fight for is inevitably going to be an ineffective candidate. And if he can't even decide what to say with clarity, he is unlikely to be able to act as president under the crushing pressure of world events.
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And We Thought the Sun Had Been Burning for Billions of Years
"Solar Energy Celebrates 50th Anniversary"--headline, Associated Press, April 27
Around the Axis
From what's left of the Axis of Evil, Reuters brings us a pair of "Oddly Enough" dispatches that almost live up to their billing. "Flying saucer fever has gripped Iran after dozens of sightings in the last few days," says a dispatch from Tehran. "Fanciful cartoons of alien spacecraft have adorned the front pages":
State television on Wednesday showed a sparkling white disc it said was filmed over Tehran on Tuesday night.
More colorful Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have been spotted beaming out green, red, blue and purple rays over the northern cities of Tabriz and Ardebil and in the Caspian Sea province of Golestan, the official IRNA news agency reported.
But the head of the Astronomical Society of Iran--who knew such an organization existed in the land of the mad mullahs?--says he thinks it's just Venus.
Meanwhile in North Korea, Reuters picks up a dispatch from KCNA, Pyongyang's official "news" agency, that after last week's train explosion, which killed at least 161, "many North Koreans died a 'heroic death' after last week's train explosion by running into burning buildings to rescue portraits of leader Kim Jong-il and his father":
"Many people of the county evacuated portraits before searching after their family members or saving their household goods," KCNA said in a report with a Ryongchon dateline.
"Upon hearing the sound of the heavy explosion on their way home for lunch, Choe Yong-il and Jon Tong-sik, workers of the county procurement shop, ran back to the shop," KCNA said.
"They were buried under the collapsing building to die a heroic death when they were trying to come out with portraits of President Kim Il-sung and leader Kim Jong-il," it said.
"The KCNA report could not be independently verified," Reuters adds, without evident irony.
Whether or not the KCNA story is true, think about what it means that this is the image the North Korean communists want to present to the outside world. We're not sure whether to laugh or cry. |
