Best of the Web Today - April 9, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Blaming the Victims?
After last week's lynching of four American civilian contractors in Fallujah, Iraq, we noted that John Kerry and other Democrats have been vilifying American contractors, especially Halliburton; we called this a despicable bit of demagoguery. Our hopes that it might end appear to have been forlorn. Buried in a New York Times report on how the attack happened is this:
In a letter to the Pentagon yesterday, Democratic leaders requested information about the methods and activities of private security companies in Iraq, expressing concern that they could "contribute to Iraqi resentment." Thirteen Democratic senators--including the Democratic leader, Tom Daschle; Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee; and the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, John D. Rockefeller IV--called for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to provide "an accurate tally" of the privately armed non-Iraqi security personnel in Iraq. They also requested that the Pentagon adopt written guidelines, with supporting legal justification, for the rules of engagement security contractors should follow, as well as instructions on coordinating with the military and the future sovereign Iraqi government.
The letter, written by Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, is here. Kerry is not among the signers, but Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, are. The complaint that private contractors could "contribute to Iraqi resentment" smacks of blaming the victim--and of making excuses for America's enemies.
In today's edition of OpinionJournal's Political Diary (subscribe here), Holman Jenkins points out that in winning over the Iraqis, being nice won't suffice:
It will be a long time before the average Iraqi does not believe he risks death or imprisonment for choosing the losing side in any political dispute. The only political judgment Iraqis have been conditioned for decades to make is "Who's stronger?" There's no "good will" that can be won that can solve our problem for us. What we offer--prosperity, democracy and rule of law--may be things most Iraqis desire, but Iraqis will fall into line with our plans not from idealism but from conviction that we are the stronger force. If he's serious about our mission, [President] Bush should seize the opportunity to show with finality that the U.S. military intends to remain the arbiter in Iraq. If not, he might as well figure out who the next Saddam is and hand the place over to him.
"Figure out who the next Saddam is and hand the place over to him": When Ted Kennedy likens Iraq to Vietnam, isn't that exactly what he's implying we should do?
Warhol in Vietnam
Blogger James Lileks has a nice riff on the Vietnamania of Sen. Kennedy and others:
I am struck once again by the incomparable hold VIETNAM has over some people. They don't seem to realize how the use of this inapt example demonstrates their inability to grasp the nature of new and different conflicts. When I was in college, El Salvador was Vietnam. When I was in Washington, Kuwait was Vietnam. Afghanistan was briefly Vietnam when we hadn't won the war after a week. It's Warholian: in the future, all conflicts will be Vietnam for 15 minutes.
One reason this isn't Vietnam is that the enemy capital fell almost as soon as the fighting began (a year ago today, as it happens). Another reason is that what remains of the enemy is so ragtag. The resort to terrorism--murder and kidnapping of civilians--is a sign of weakness, not strength. "We're facing an enemy that's unafraid to fight from behind women and children, from occupied apartment buildings, from protected sites,"CNN quotes a Marine officer in Fallujah as saying. "To characterize their resistance as anything but kind of cowardly would be to give them more credit than they deserve."
Blogger David Kaspar translates "an Instant Messenger communication between 2 Iraqi brothers during the Ramadi fighting where 12 marines were killed" that was published in German by Spiegel Online (we've cleaned up some of the English grammar):
Al-Anbari: All of the people in the area have started to move, men and women. I didn't think that the people in this area were so heroic. The mothers are even pushing their children into the fight.
Kamal: Whatever God wants! Blessed be the Almighty!
Al-Anbari: Imagine: I encountered a boy who was not even 15 years old who was carrying a weapon, but without ammunition. . . . When I saw this heroic impetuousness, I pulled my magazine out and gave it to him.
Kamal: Oh God! God is great!
Al-Anbari: I also saw a young guy who bravely stood up to the Americans and threw things at them, and they just couldn't react to it, even though they were so many.
Kamal: Such news strengthens one's pride.
The current difficulties in Iraq are in part a result of Baghdad's easy fall last spring. The cowardly enemy melted away and thus is still alive today. Of course, as the Palestinian Arabs have proved for decades, cowardice and indiscipline can still be dangerous when combined with depraved barbarity. But especially in a democracy, where a war requires continued public support, overestimating the enemy can be as perilous as underestimating him.
Syntax Troubles in Reuterville
"Journalists Killed by U.S. Troops Remembered in Iraq," reads the headline of a Reuters dispatch from yesterday. The story mentions nothing about journalists killed by America's enemies, but perhaps the folks at Reuters view this as friendly fire.
This paragraph from the same dispatch got our attention:
U.S. Central Command has said that its forces had come under "significant" enemy fire" that day from the building in Baghdad where the network had set up its office. Jazeera said its reporters were sure there had been no firing from the building.
For an outfit that uses scare quotes so promiscuously, you'd think Reuters could at least get the syntax right. Why in the world are there three quote marks in " 'significant' enemy fire' "?
Then there's this, from a Tokyo dispatch on three Japanese hostages:
Japanese Senior Vice Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa was set to arrive in Amman on Saturday to gather information, accompanied by a National Police Agency "Terrorism Response Team." Police would give no details about the unit.
Terrorism Response Team is the name of the agency; that's why it's capitalized. You don't use scare quotes around names, which is why we don't refer to this "news" service as "Reuters."
The Right Kind of Explosion
In Jenin, site of the "massacre" by the Israeli Defense Forces that turned out to be an Arab fabrication, "life is returning to normal," reports the Forward:
The economy is picking up, services are being restored and local leaders describe a new optimism.
The reason, Israeli military officials say, is the nearly completed security fence separating this sector of the West Bank from Israel. A 50-mile stretch--from the Jordan River to just north of Netanya--is three months from completion. Already the barrier has virtually eliminated terrorist incidents, as well as car thefts and illegal infiltration, inside nearby parts of Israel. In response, the army has sharply curtailed the hated roadblocks and closures that had disrupted life for local Palestinians. Workers can now reach their jobs. Farmers can bring their crops to market, reviving Jenin's business district.
Jenin was long known as "the suicide-bombing capital of the West Bank." It's nice to hear the place is booming in a good way for a change. (Hat tip: Ed Lasky.)
Hamas Highwaymen
In Gaza, Reuters reports that the Islamist terror group Hamas has resorted to armed robbery against its fellow Palestinian Arabs:
Worshippers handed over cash and jewelry to armed and masked men at Gaza mosques on Friday, at the start of a drive by the militant group Hamas to raise money for its armed wing amid U.S. pressure to choke off its funds.
How does the "news" service headline this story? "Hamas Launches Campaign in Gaza to Collect Funds." You'd think they were holding one of those Saudi terrorthons.
'Not a Contemporary Piece of Information'
During yesterday's 9/11 commission hearing, Democratic lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste tried to set a trap for Condoleezza Rice over an August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing:
Ben-Veniste: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?
Rice: I believe the title was, Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.
Now, the . . .
Ben-Veniste: Thank you.
Rice: No, Mr. Ben-Veniste . . .
Ben-Veniste: I will get into the . . .
Rice: I would like to finish my point here.
Ben-Veniste: I didn't know there was a point.
Rice: Given that--you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks.
Ben-Veniste: I asked you what the title was.
Rice: You said, did it not warn of attacks. It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.
Ben-Veniste's rudeness was clear for all to see, but to understand just how dishonest was his line of questioning, look at this article from the May 27, 2002, issue of Human Events, a conservative Washington weekly:
Sen. Bob Graham (D.-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told HUMAN EVENTS May 21 that his committee had received all the same terrorism intelligence prior to September 11 as the Bush administration.
"Yes, we had seen all the information," said Graham. "But we didn't see it on a single piece of paper, the way the President did."
Graham added that threats of hijacking in an August 6 memo to President Bush were based on very old intelligence that the committee had seen earlier. "The particular report that was in the President's Daily Briefing that day was about three years old," Graham said. "It was not a contemporary piece of information."
Graham is far from a supporter of the Bush administration, as he made clear last year in his brief but loopy presidential campaign. The 9/11 commission is supposed to be an impartial search for the truth. Is there any doubt that Ben-Veniste is guilty of trying to turn it into a partisan witch hunt?
Sorry Ex-Presidents--I
In a letter to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch, one Larry W. Myers waxes nostalgic:
I followed the news reports about the testimonies before the congressional 9/11 investigation committee. The highlight was former top counterterrorism aide Richard Clarke's apology to the families and friends of the 9/11 victims.
Only speculation can be made as to whether it would have been different if someone else had been in charge. But I am confident of one thing: If 9/11 happened during the Clinton administration, President Clinton would have apologized, perhaps several times, simply because it happened during his watch.
It's such a simple act but necessary for those in charge of our security to take responsibility for any shortcomings. Only then can the healing of our country begin.
President Bush doesn't have it in him to apologize, and that's what's been missing from the presidency for the past three years: a conscience.
Well, we don't recall Clinton apologizing for, say, the Oklahoma City bombing; instead, he tried to blame it on right-wing talk radio. Anyway, neither president owed anyone an apology for atrocities committed by Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden. But then, we don't remember Clinton apologizing for the wrongs he did commit, including sexual harassment and perjury, either.
Sorry Ex-Presidents--II
Jimmy Carter is yammering again, the Houston Chronicle reports:
"President Bush's war was ill-advised and unnecessary and based on erroneous statements, and has turned out to be a tragedy," Carter said. "And my prayer has been that brave young American men and women, and others who are there, that their lives will be spared and there will be some peaceful resolution of the war."
Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, also blamed what he called Bush's pro-Israel policies for engendering animosity against America.
"The prime source of animosity towards the United States is the lack of progress in dealing with the Palestinian issue," Carter said, adding that past U.S. administrations since Harry Truman's have maintained a "balanced position" in dealing with the rights of the Arab population within the Jewish nation.
"The present administration has not done so at all. We have been exclusively committed to the policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Israel, and have made no effort to try to have a balanced negotiating position between Israel and the Palestinians," Carter said.
"Carter made the comments at the Rio R.V. Park" in Brownsville, Texas, the paper notes. Guys like him give trailer parks a bad name.
Handoutsourcing
"When low-income Arizonans report problems with their welfare payments or food stamps, they call a toll-free number provided by the state," the Arizona Republic reports. "A helpful person in India or Mexico answers." With such outsourcing having become a political hot potato, Gov. Janet Napolitano's office "is researching ways to end the practice now if possible and prohibit it in the future"--though that would presumably cost the taxpayers money.
"Critics of the practice say it is especially inappropriate for jobs involving public-assistance payments to go abroad because some of the people now receiving welfare benefits could be trained to perform that work," the Republic reports.
Heck, why not just cut out the middleman and pay welfare recipients to talk to each other on the phone?
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Zero Tolerance Watch
We started covering "zero tolerance" madness three years ago, but we really ought to pass the torch to Jim Peacock, whose ZeroInteligence.net blog has become the best source on the subject. All three of today's items come to us through Peacock:
The Idaho State Journal of Pocatello reports that a 5-year-old faces expulsion from nearby Moreland Elementary School for bringing a handgun to school. "The incident occurred last Friday at Moreland Elementary. Officials found the gun in the boy's backpack after his father realized it was missing and came to the school." It's not clear how the gun fell into the boy's hands, and one suspects his parents may be guilty of negligence of some sort, but is a 5-year-old really responsible for such a thing? Apparently so, according to the federal Guns Free School Act and the Snake River School District's Weapons Prohibited at School policy, which make no allowance for age.
WTOC-TV of Savannah, Ga., reports that a gang set upon Alejandro Johnson, a senior at Savannah High, in the school cafeteria a few weeks ago and started beating him up. Johnson defended himself--and was suspended under the school's zero-tolerance policy against fighting.
The Kansas City Star reports that an unidentified male student at Blue Valley West High in Overland Park, Kan., was in a group of journalism students, and a girl was talking about a story she planned to write for the school paper about minority students. "They should just line them up and shoot them all," the boy told the girl--an inexcusably stupid and offensive thing to say, but the boy did call the girl that night to apologize. The next day the girl's father complained to principal John Laurie. Even though the girl said she "didn't feel threatened at all," just "embarrassed and upset," the school called the police. "Police spokesman Jim Weaver said the department would forward its findings to the Johnson County district attorney's office for possible charges."
What Would We Do Without Researchers in Canada?
"Researchers in Canada said abstaining from sex is the best way of protecting against HIV and other sexually transmitted infections."--BBC Web site, April 8
City Council Dude May Throw His Hat Into the Ring
"Controller Chick Says She Won't Run for Mayor"--headline, Los Angeles Times, April 9
The Passion of the Bunny
"A church trying to teach about the crucifixion of Jesus performed an Easter show with actors whipping the Easter bunny and breaking eggs, upsetting several parents and young children," the Associated Press reports from Glassport, Pa.:
People who attended Saturday's performance at Glassport's memorial stadium quoted performers as saying, "There is no Easter bunny," and described the show as being a demonstration of how Jesus was crucified.
Melissa Salzmann, who brought her 4-year-old son J.T., said the program was inappropriate for young children.
"He was crying and asking me why the bunny was being whipped," Salzmann said.
Last week "South Park" did a hilarious send-up of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." It's a shame Warner Bros. is no longer making those wonderful Looney Tunes shorts, for the Glassport shenanigans sounds like a great plot for Bugs Bunny. |
