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Cultural historian Paul Fussell once noted that no one prior to World War I could have conceived of how many illusions it would shatter by the time it ended. No war since has affected the world so profoundly, much less the comparatively insignificant war in Iraq. But Fussell's observation has led Rod Dreher to reflect "what things I believed at the onset of the war, that I no longer do as a result of the war."

Such exercises can be instructive, particularly when, like with Dreher's short list, the reflections reach for the significant rather than political banality (i.e., trite Bush-bashing). Still, I don’t think Dreher's list goes far enough in separating the long term implications from the naively held delusions. For example, he says, "I no longer believe the Republican Party is superior in foreign policy judgment to the Democrats."

While I agree with this assessment it fails to illuminate the road ahead. Currently, the Republicans are exhibiting a level of foreign policy incompetence that is the birth-right of the Democrats. But will that always be the case or is Bush just exceptionally incompetent? A better observation would be to note that just as 9/11 proved political realism to be obsolete, Iraq has killed neo-con style idealism.

Rather than critique Dreher's attempt, I'll take up his challenge to "add your own personal list" by listing five of the illusions that the Iraq War has shattered for me:

A recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll asked who was winning the war in Iraq. Only 16 percent believed that the U.S. is winning the war. Slightly fewer, 15 percent, believe the anti-U.S. insurgents in Iraq are winning. An overwhelming 66 percent believe that neither side is winning.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from this poll is that 81 percent of Americans are wrong.

Consider this argument:

(1) The object in war is to impose your will on your enemy.
(2) The will of our enemy is that we leave Iraq as soon as possible.
(3) Sixty five percent of the American public think we should leave Iraq within a year.
(4) The enemy has imposed its will on the majority of the American people.
(5) Ergo, the anti-U.S. insurgents have won the war in Iraq.

Like me you’re initial reaction to that conclusion will be based on emotion. Set that aside for the moment and consider, with cool rationality, how the premises logically flow to the conclusion. It is a simple, sound argument. It is also, unfortunately, irrefutable.

This should not be the case. As Donald Stoker, professor of strategy and policy for the U.S. Naval War College, writes in Foreign Policy, “[H]istory shows that insurgents rarely win, and Iraq should be no different.” After noting President Bush’s colossal blunders, Stoker says that if the Pentagon learns from its mistakes the strategy of “surging” troops could prove successful:

"When it comes to preventing mass slaughter of civilians," wrote journalist and foreign policy expert Jonah Blank, "the United Nations guard dog often seems less Rottweiler than Chihuahua." The reason UN forces are so inept, says Blank, is that member states refuse to put their best troops in harm’s way to protect foreign refugees: "So the U.N. tends to send into war zones professional but cautious European and often ill-trained Third World troops without the equipment and rules of engagement needed to impose order."

In his article for U.S. News and World Reports (Dec. 30, 1996), Blank proposed that the U.N. create a permanent, professional rapid reaction force consisting of Gurkhas, the "highly professional, strictly apolitical, combat-hardened soldiers" from Nepal that have served with the British Army for over 200 years. (Although the U.N. has still not created such a force, Gurkhas have served in Lebanon, Sierra Leone, and the Congo (Zaire).) Blank’s proposal, while not entirely novel, is noteworthy for legitimizing the idea of using mercenary forces for peacekeeping missions.

Last week, a 23-year-old French Jew identified as �Ilan� was found in a field near the railroad tracks in a region south of Paris. He was discovered handcuffed and naked, with four-fifths of his body covered with �bruises, stab wounds and serious burns�; He died on in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

Ilan had been kidnapped and held for ransom for over three weeks. His uncle told reporters that the kidnappers had phoned the family on several occasions and made them listen to the recitation of verses from the Quran, while Ilan�s tortured screams could be heard in the background. France's Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, says that greed was the main motive. "But they believed, and I quote, 'that Jews have money'," said Sarkozy. "That's called anti-Semitism."

The resurgence of anti-Semitic sentiment in Europe is appalling and tragic. What it shouldn�t be, however, is unexpected. In 2003, as Mark Steyn notes, a survey by the European Commission found that 59 percent of Europeans regard Israel as the "greatest menace to world peace." In Germany, it was 65 percent; Austria, 69 percent; the Netherlands, 74 percent.

Anti-Semitism is alive and well in Europe. And like its Islamofascist counterpart, the roots of this hatred are economic.

Europe has always been susceptible to the siren�s call of socialism and as economist Tyler Cowen points out, there is a direct link between statism and the persecution of minorities:

The world is comprised of two groups of people�us and them�from which we are constantly resorting and regrouping. Right/Left, Red state/Blue State, black/white, Arab/Jew. In times of normalcy, this shifting of allegiances and drawing of tribal lines occurs at a leisurely pace. But in times of crisis, such as the recent Danish cartoon conflict, the process accelerates.

From reading about the event in the blogosphere one could get the impression that this is a �clash of cultures� between Islam and Western liberalism rather than an absurd overreaction to the actions of a boorish Danish newspaper. Turing from a farce to a tragedy, the affair has reinforced the stereotype of Muslims as violent totalitarians and of Westerners as profane libertines. Reacting to this caricature, many otherwise thoughtful people feel that they have to side with the puerile cartoonists (Buy Danish!) for fear of giving the impression of kow-towing to the Islamic extremists.

I myself prefer another grouping of �us and them.� I do not support the cartoonists nor do I support the violent Muslim protestors. Like Milton, I prefer to stand with the good men who �love freedom heartily� (unlike the jihadists) and apart from those who embrace license (as the cartoonists have done).

The jihadists and the cartoonists, however, are not equally culpable. Drawing offensive cartoons and bombing embassies are not only not equivalent, they are not even in the same ethical realm. But while equating the two would be an embrace of moral relativism, we should not overlook the fact that both are morally tainted.

Let us also dismiss the silly notion that this conflict is about �free speech� or �freedom of the press.� From reading the op-eds and blog posts one could get the impression that the media is willing to gore all sacred cows and that Muslims are resorting to special pleading by expecting an exemption for their beliefs. This is, of course, utter nonsense. While it may be de rigueur to insult religious sensibilities, the press has built an invisible barrier of offense which they will not cross.

Mr. President,

Recently there has been a great deal of concern over the prospect of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. The current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a Holocaust-denier who says that Israel should be �wiped off the map� or, at the very least, moved to Europe. Since Iran has missiles capable of delivering warheads to countries as far away as Europe, though, this would still be a cause for concern even if we did create a Zionist state in Belgium. Even the totalitarian-tolerant French agree that this is not a regime that can be trusted with nuclear weapons.

At first glance it appears that the American public also recognize the gravity of the situation. A recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found that 57% of Americans favor military intervention if Iran's Islamic government pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms. This might appear as if a majority of the American public would support military intervention in Iran. But let me offer you three word of advice, Mr. Bush: Don�t believe it.

The American public is�how can I put this delicately�a well-meaning but fickle bunch. Our people are like that buddy you had in college who would rouse you to sucker punch the loudmouth bully at the pub, yet would mysteriously turn up missing once the fight had begun. The American public may encourage you to throw the first punch at the barfight but by the time the beer bottles start flying they'll already be at Starbucks sipping espresso macchiatos and denouncing your "preemptive, unilateral, and unprovoked" act of aggresion.

While I probably don�t need to remind you, my point has been proven all too often over the past few years. I provide the following polling data to support my contention:

The tsunami that struck nations from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, and across to Africa has claimed almost 60,000 lives.

60,000

To put that number in perspective, compare it to the number of American lives lost in:

The Galveston Hurricane (1900): 8,000

Korean War (1950-53): 36,568

Combat in WWI (1917-18): 53,402

By other causes in WWI: 63,114

Vietnam War: 58,202

Here's how you can help:

The U.N. agency responsible for monitroing the Iraqi nuclear program has sent a letter to the Security Council informing it of the theft of 342 tons of high explosives in Iraq. Executive Director Mohamed ElBaradei of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency Monday told the council 195 tons of HMX, 141 tons of RDX, and 6 tons of PETN were stolen.

What ElBaradei forgot to mention was that there is no way of knowing how much of the explosive material was "stolen." The reason he couldn't have know is because the HMX began missing on his watch:

Press Encounter with Hans Blix, Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC and Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of IAEA

January 9, 2003: Q: Dr. ElBaradei, you mentioned the problem of the missing HMX. Could you give us an indication of what that does and what your concern is, what role this plays in the weapons programme?

MElB: Well, the HMX are high explosives. We are now going through the material balance of what we know existed in Iraq with regard to the HMX. They have told us that some of the HMX material has been used in cement mines and we are going now through the accounting of all the HMX material in Iraq before we come to a conclusion. So, it is an ongoing process.

The Bush Administration claims that in some African countries the percentage of adults infected with HIV is as high as one-third. The Kerry campaign claims that 25 million in Africa are afflicted with HIV/AIDS, among them 2.1 million children under the age of 15. The UN estimates that Sub-Saharan Africa is home to two-thirds of all people living with HIV.

These numbers are a chilling reminder of the plague that is affecting an entire continent. These numbers are also almost assuredly wrong.

The disturbing truth is that we don�t know how many people in Africa are affected by the AIDS pandemic. And even worse, no one is in a hurry to find out

The Republicans support more funding for global AIDS initiatives in order to appease evangelicals. The Democrats, in turn, promise to spend even more money as a way to pacify their gay and lesbian constituents. And the international community of AIDS activists has a vested interest in keeping the billions of dollars spent on the disease from being diverted to other programs. With so many groups having a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, its no surprise that the flawed methodology used to justify the claims goes unquestioned.

Unlike in American and Europe, the mortality rates for AIDS in Africa is not derived by counting bodies in hospitals or morgues but by estimates derived from a computer model. The Swiss Epimodel program, as former UC-Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson explains, used a peculiar methodology for drawing conclusions about the prevalence of the pandemic:

Two weeks ago, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni gave a speech at the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok which led to his being excoriated by the international media. AIDs activists and media pundits worldwide criticized him for making what they believed to be an outrageous and unsubstantiated assertion. What could he have said to draw such ire? Musevani had the audacity to claim that that abstinence and partner reduction was more effective than condoms in fighting HIV.

While this might appear to be a common sense notion to most intelligent people, it was denounced as a policy based �more on politics than on science and public health.� The critics contend that there is a lack of scientific evidence that abstinence and partner reduction programs work, apparently unaware that not having sex is a powerful impediment to the transmission of a sexually transmitted disease.

In an editorial criticizing both Musevnai and President Bush for promoting changes in sexual behavior rather than condom use, Newsday columnist Joseph Dolman provides a glimpse into the mindset that holds this belief:

Critics of President Bush have repeatedly and consistently attempted to claim that his administration didn't do enough to dispel the notion that Saddam Hussein had a connection to the 9/11 attacks. Stephen Taylor from Poliblogger presents an excellent summary of the logic used in this line of reasoning:

I heard several critics of the administration (one was Juan Williams, though there were others) use this logic yesterday:

1) Public opinion polls show that a vast majority of Americans thought that Saddam had ties to the 911 attacks,

2) The Bush administration did explicitly say there were no Sadam/911 ties, but they did say that there were al Qaeda-Saddam ties,

3) Therefore, the Bush administration might as well have said that Saddam was responsible for 911, and despite saying that he wasn't, they propagated the idea he was. As a result, the 911 Commission preliminary report that says that there was no Saddam/911 ties utterly repudiates the administration and basically nullifies all utterances about Saddam and al Qaeda

Q.E.D.

Not only is the logic twisted, to listen to many who employ it they conflate Saddam/911 ties with Saddam/al Qaeda ties, which is simply not the same thing. Further, anyone paying attention knew that we weren't going to war with Saddam to punish him for his role in 911.

I especially agree with Stephen's last point. If most people really believed that we were going to war in Iraq because of Saddam�s connection to 9/11 then we should be able to find such arguments in the archives of prominent warbloggers. Since these bloggers often followed the arguments surrounding the war rather closely, we should expect to find this was a hot topic for discussion. The fact that no one on the Left has been able to present such posts appears to suggest that this wasn�t as dominant a theme as they would have us believe.

What if the anti-war crowd is right? What if we really didn�t have sufficient justification for going to war in Iraq? What if Bush really did lie and it is all one big farce? Let�s say that they convince me � Joe Citizen � that Bush was wrong, that we should have never acted unilaterally. I suddenly find their arguments compelling.

Now what? How do we correct our mistake?

Obviously, the first thing we would have to do is reinstate Saddam as the leader of Iraq. If we had not deposed him, Saddam would still be in power and in control of the country. Since we have not reached a point of no return (after all, he isn�t dead yet) we still have an opportunity to set things right. Since we had no justification for taking military action in order to impose �regime change�, we must accept our moral and legal duty and return him to power.

Some people will protest and claim that it�s too late to turn back the clock and take such action. But why? If we had no legal basis for going to war then Saddam is the legitimate head of the state. That wouldn�t have changed. And if we had no moral basis for going to war then we have no moral justification for not returning the country to its previous status quo.

What possible excuse would we have for not returning him to power? Because he would murder the opposition? He did that before we invaded. Because the country would be unstable? We could stabilize it for him as a means of restitution. If the anti-war crowd is correct in its assessment, then its our obligation to make amends and return Iraq to it rightful ruler. There�s simply no reason for not doing the �right� thing in regards to correcting for our unlawful and illegitimate invasion.

So pack your bags, Saddam. It�s time to go home. We apologize for any inconvenience we might have caused you and hope that we can work together in the future. Now get on out of here, you crazy guy. You�ve got a country to exploit.

In 1995, Texas governor George Bush held a meeting with Ralph Reed, the head of the Christian Coalition. During the discussion, Bush mentioned that he was planning to make a run for the Presidency after his second term in office. Reed, who had just helped usher in Newt Gingrich�s Congress and their �Contract With America�, was an obvious ally to have in a future run for the Oval Office. No one knows, however, whether Bush and Reed reached any agreement or whether they stayed in touch after the meeting.

Fast forward to 2004, where we find journalists probing whether the Christian Coalition ever directly supported Bush. Bush flatly denies that there was ever any �long established ties� between himself and Reed�s former organization. The press thinks they have caught him in a lie. Have they? Could this be considered a lie?

By the standards of the political Left the answer would be �no.�

The scenario above is pure fiction; I simply made it up. But it highlights the double standard that is applied to the Bush administration by those on the Left. Take, for example, this recent post on Lean Left in which I�m taken to task for my contention that there has been no evidence presented that Bush is �dishonest�:

In the comments, Joe was summarily lambasted (by myself and several others), but never did concede that the word "dishonest" could rightly be applied to Bush and his Administration.

Why do I bring this up now? Because in the wake of the GOP-led, bipartisan 9/11 Commission's finding that there's "no credible evidence" of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda, coupled with Bush and Cheney's continued insistence that there is such a link, I'm wondering if he has reconsidered that opinion yet. And if not, what would it take to get him to reconsider it?

Have I reconsidered? Of course not. Because the Congressional report establishes the connection between Bin Laden and Iraq:

Even before the war began I’ve been a staunch proponent of the Bush Administration’s policy on Iraq. And longtime readers of this blog can attest to the fact that my support for the war has been unwavering. But after hearing the latest news on Iraq, I can no longer bite my tongue. It’s finally time I speak out against this grave injustice.

I know we’re supposed to stick with the story line that we went to war to find WMDs (wink, wink) and to liberate the people of Iraq (nudge, nudge). I realize we had to tell the UN something and that was the story we came up with. Fine. I was willing to stick to the script as long as it allowed us to further our real goal: to seize Iraqi oil so that we could have low gas prices.

I realize that as a member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, I'm not supposed to speak about this topic in public. But I simply can’t keep quiet any longer. Seriously, isn’t it time we came clean about our real motives for going to war? It’s not like we’re convincing anybody. According to The Economist, a Pew survey shows that 60% of Germans and 58% of French believed that the war on terrorism was being fought “to control Middle East oil." When you can’t even fool the French, its probably time to drop the ruse. (Ok, Frenchies, we admit it. C'est la vie.)

Just in case you were planning to send official diplomatic correspondence to Iraq, you might want to be aware that they've changed the country’s official name. Nathan Brown, a Middle East expert at George Washington University, writes on Juan Cole’s blog:

The country's official name in 1920 was the "State of Iraq." Following the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958, the name was changed to the "Republic of Iraq" (or, more literally, the "Iraqi Republic.")

At some point last year, the older name--the "State of Iraq"--was restored. I do not know precisely who did this and why, but it seems to have been done by the CPA some time last year. CPA legal documents are now issued for the "State of Iraq." UN Security Council Resolution 1511 (passed last October) uses the restored term, and the transitional Administrative Law--signed in March 2004 but named (as far as I know) for the first time in November 2003--is formally the "Law of Administration of the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period." (However, some internal Iraqi documents still refer to it as a republic.)

I’m just glad they only went back to 1920. Imagine if they had gone back further into the country’s history and named the country Babylonia. Can you imagine what that would do to our pre-mill fundie brethren? They would be going nuts. Hal Lindsey would be able to sell another 28 million copies of the “The Late, Great Planet Earth."*

*Note: For those not familiar with the arcane of ‘70’s American Fundamentalism, you can use these links to learn more about the book and End Times speculation.

(Hat tip: Robert Tagorda)

There has been a great deal of speculation that John Kerry is considering retired Marine General Anthony Zinni as a potential vice presidential running mate. Zinni is the former Commander and Chief of U.S. Central Command and was responsible for military operation in an area that stretched from the Horn of Africa, across the Arabian Penisula, to South and Central Asia. The General is a man of unquestioned integrity and a respected military commander and would lend such much needed gravitas to the Democratic ticket.

But to be a success leader in the executive branch requires more than just an impeccable character. It also requires sound policy ideas. In this respect, the General falls short.

Take, for example, his views on the Iraq war. Steve Bainbridge points out a recent speech by in which Zinni lists 10 mistakes made by the administration. Bainbridge, a conservative Republican, calls the article “quite damning."

Before we examine the list of mistakes, though, we should look at another speech that the General gave for the Center for Defense Information (CDI) prior to the war. In October 2002, Zinni offered a list of 10 conditions that must be met for the Iraq war to turn out in the “best possible way":

Two weeks ago we had German peacekeeping troops hiding �like frightened rabbits� to avoid rioting in Kosovo. At the time, I wondered if the UN Peacekeeping forces could be any more worthless.

The answer is "yes, they can":

Teenage rape victims fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo are being sexually exploited by the United Nations peace-keeping troops sent to the stop their suffering.

The Independent has found that mothers as young as 13 - the victims of multiple rape by militiamen - can only secure enough food to survive in the sprawling refugee camp by routinely sleeping with UN peace-keepers.

Testimony from girls and aid workers in the Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp in Bunia, in the north-east corner of Congo, claims that every night teenage girls crawl through a wire fence to an adjoining UN compound to sell their bodies to Moroccan and Uruguayan soldiers.

The trade, which according to one victim results in a banana or a cake to feed to her infant son, is taking place despite a pledge by the UN to adopt a "zero tolerance" attitude to cases of sexual misconduct by those representing the organisation.

The UN promises to apply "all available sanctions" against those responsible. In other words, the criminals involved will never be brought to justice.

Remind me again why we support the UN? I�m sure we once had a reason. I�m sure the United Nations once served a purpose. For the life of me, though, I can�t remember what it was.

Update: Captain Ed has more thoughts on the matter.

[Note: The increasing volume of news stories has made it impossible to keep up with all the significant events going on in our world. Oftentimes we fail to notice the significance of a breaking story and only begin to pay attention after the issue has evolved into an important issue.

When the UNSCAM story first came to my attention (via Glenn Reynolds) I failed to realize it relevance. Since I’ve had to catch up on the intricacies of the story I thought I would pass along what I've found.

The following should be considered new analysis and is based on the work done by others. A list of the articles used for this summary can be found at the end of the post.]

When President Bush apologized for the events at Abu Ghraib prison I thought it was a mistake. At the time I believed that the apology would send the wrong message to the Arab street and be perceived as a sign of weakness. I felt it would imply that both the military and the Administration were not only responsible for the atrocities but culpable for the actions of a few criminals.

I was wrong.

Blackfive posts an email from a Marine Colonel in Iraq who claims the apology had a surprising effect:

There are many news articles about Nick Berg, the young American contractor who was beheaded by terrorists, but this story in the St. Petersburg Times has the most peculiar opening paragraph I’ve seen in some time:

On a warm evening in Baghdad's old Jewish quarter last month, I was taking photos in a crumbling building when I was literally pushed toward a Westerner with ivory skin and a red beard. He was lifting weights inside the Arnold Classic Gym. He wore black steel-toed boots as he grunted out exercises beneath dozens of portraits of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

First of all, I never even knew Baghdad had Jewish residents much less an old Jewish quarter. And an Arnold Classic Gym? Not only is it odd that the Iraqis have a gym dedicated to the governor of California but they put in in the Jewish part of town (perhaps the Iraqis think Schwarzenegger is an ancient Hebrew name).

Baghdad is one strange town.

(Hat tip:Wizbang)

Update: Alert reader David Marcoe points out an fascinating article on the "Arnold Classic Gym" and the man who founded it. He also found a website dedicated to "Babylonian Jewry."

In 1940, the German military caused a global outrage by invading France. Sixty-four years later, the international community is once again scandalized by the actions of German troops. This time, though, it’s because the Germans are acting like Frenchmen:

German troops serving with the Kfor international peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo have been accused of hiding in barracks "like frightened rabbits" during the inter-ethnic rioting that erupted in the province in March.

A hard-hitting German police report sent to the Berlin government last week criticises the troops for cowardice and for their failure to quell the rioting in which 19 people died and about 900 others were injured.

What would cause the once militaristic Germans to cower in their barracks? Maybe it’s a symptom of over forty years of European appeasement. Perhaps the acts of cowardice are a result of the moral relativism or the existential angst on the Continent. Or, maybe they just stayed in the kaserne because they were busy with, er, other things.

Europe is rediscovering what America has always known -- Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi is a nut case. After European Commission president Romano Prodi went out of his way to meet the Colonel at the airport, Gaddafi had to go and embarrass everyone by, well, being himself. According to the London Daily Telegraph,

The Libyan leader, Col Muammar Gaddafi, dented his return from pariah status on his first visit to Europe yesterday in 15 years by warning the European Union that he hoped Libya would never have to go back to supporting terrorism.

In a 45-minute harangue in Brussels, flanked by a group of photogenic women bodyguards, he will have caused anxiety to those who have welcomed him back to the fold.

"I hope that we shall not be prompted or obliged by any evil to go back or to look backwards," he said after defending his past support for militant third world freedom fighters.

"We do hope that we shall not be obliged or forced one day to go back to those days when we bombed our cars or put explosive belts around our beds and around our women so that we will not be searched and not be harassed in our bedrooms and in our homes, as it is taking place now in Iraq and in Palestine."

Now I’ll admit that I’m not to crazy about the idea of someone patting me down or going through my pockets. And I particularly hate having to take my shoes off at the airport. But I don’t think I’ve ever been irritated enough that I’ve thought, 'If they search me one more time I swear I’m gonna blow my car up." Nor have I ever said to my wife, 'That’s it honey, if the cops bust in our bedroom one more time while we’re watching 7th Heaven I’ll strap an explosives belt to the Serta." Maybe the Libyan’s need to cut back on their coffee consumption or take some yoga classes or something. They seem to be wound a bit too tight.

David Brooks is a brilliant columnist whose work I’ve always appreciated. But even the brightest pundits can be wrong at times, and Brooks is certainly no exception. In his latest column, he makes claims that are so shamefully na�ve that they border on willful ignorance:

The first thing to say is that I never thought it would be this bad. I knew it would be bad. On the third day of the U.S. invasion, I wrote an essay for The Atlantic called "Building Democracy Out of What?" I pointed out that we should expect that the Iraqis would have been traumatized by a generation of totalitarianism. That society would have been brutally atomized. And that many would have developed a taste for sadism and an addiction to violence. On April 11, 2003, I predicted on "The NewsHour" on PBS that we and the Iraqis would be forced to climb a "wall of quagmires."

Nonetheless, I didn't expect that a year after liberation, hostile militias would be taking over cities or that it would be unsafe to walk around Baghdad. [emphasis added]

One of Brooks most endearing characteristics is his ability to make connections that others sometimes overlook. So it’s unfortunate to see his skill failing him now. He has missed the perfect opportunity to place recent events in their proper perspective. Perhaps if he had re-read the news reports from a year ago he would have picked up on a clue to the current troubles: the fact that before the war, Saddam released over 100,000 hardened criminals from prison. When you take into account that approximately 1 out of every 200 Iraqis is not only a criminal but a convicted rapist, robber, murderer, etc., it starts to make sense why Baghdad is not a safe place to take a stroll.

According to the LA Times, John Kerry believes that 'stability" is a more important goal for Iraq than freedom:

"I have always said from day one that the goal here … is a stable Iraq, not whether or not that's a full democracy," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told reporters after conducting a town hall meeting at the City College of New York in Harlem. "I can't tell you what it's going to be, but a stable Iraq. And that stability can take several different forms."

This position isn’t just at odds with President Bush’s policy, it also contrary to his own party. The platform adopted at the 2000 Democratic National Convention states that:

American values and freedoms are a beacon unto nations, and we should use the power of our ideals to foster democracy, human rights, rule of law, and civil society throughout the world. …We will continue to press for human rights, the rule of law, and political freedom. We will continue to support the spread of democracy across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East and the development of judiciary, legal systems, media and civil society organizations. [emphasis added]

As Mickey Kaus asked, 'Who's Kerry's foreign policy adviser--Henry Kissinger? Brent Scowcroft? James Baker?" Indeed, it’s odd to find Kerry taking a foreign policy stance that is closer to the position of paleoconservatives than to his own party.

Update: Robert Tagorda, who has an interesting analysis of Kerry's statement, thinks that Bush comes closer to liberal internationalism -- to using American power for the spread of democratic values -- than Kerry does.

No current Iraq war conspiracy theory can be complete without a reference to Leo Strauss. Even before the war began, there were attempts to connect the Bush Administration’s 'neoconservative" foreign policy to the writings of the obscure political philosopher from the University of Chicago. The connection between Strauss, who died over 30 years, and the administration is laughably tenuous yet is espoused everywhere from New York theaters to the the House of Representatives.

Critics of the war who are looking to establish a literary connection, however, don’t have to resort to such odd theories. In fact, they don’t have to look any further than Kenneth Pollack. As the former Iran-Iraq military analyst for the CIA, and the director of Persian Gulf Affairs and Near East and South Asian Affairs for the National Security Council under Bill Clinton, Pollack has both the experience and credentials to make liberals take notice. When his book, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, debuted in 2002 it caused quite a splash among fence-sitters who were unwilling to accept the Republicans case for war. The New York Times claimed that Pollack‘s, 'argument for invading Iraq is surely the most influential book of this season, has provided intellectual cover for every liberal who finds himself inclining toward war but uneasy about Mr. Bush." According to The New Yorker, Pollack’s 'comprehensive and convincing" case for war was presented, 'More effectively than Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz or any other of the hawkish big thinkers in the Administration…"

So where are Pollack’s critics now? Where are the anti-war protestors decrying that 'Pollack lied!" and that he duped the 'chickenhawks" into accepting that the war was necessary? We might also ask, 'Where is Pollack now?"

In Whit Stillman�s charmingly quirky comedy Barcelona, there�s a scene where Ted, a stuffy corporate drone working in his corporation's Spain headquarters, has a conversation with his cousin Fred, a dim young Naval officer assigned as an advance man for the 6th Fleet:

FRED: Maybe you can clarify something for me. Since I've been, you know, waiting for the fleet to show up, I've read a lot, and--

TED: Really?

FRED: And one of the things that keeps popping up is this thing about "subtext." Plays, novels, songs--they all have a "subtext," which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So subtext we know. But what do you call the message or meaning that's right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what's above the subtext?

TED: The text.

FRED: OK, that's right, but they never talk about that.

Ever since the bombing in Madrid I�ve felt the same way as Fred. While everyone talks about the subtext of the event � the terrorists caused the Socialists to win the election, the Spanish will pull their troops out of Iraq, etc., -- no one talks about the text, the part that is on the surface, completely open and obvious: the fact that nothing significant has changed.

In his brilliant essay 'Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Idealogy", Lee Harris explains how our instincts when dealing with a culturally exotic enemy can be fatal. He relates the story of the Aztec leader Montezuma who was unsure of what to make of the arrival of Cortez and his Spanish troops:

When Montezuma learned of Cort�s’s arrival, he was at a loss to know what to make of the event. Who were these white-skinned alien beings? What had they come for? What were their intentions?

These were clearly not questions that Montezuma was in a position to answer. Nothing in his world could possibly provide him with a key to deciphering correctly the motives of a man as cunning, resourceful, and determined as Cort�s. And this meant that Montezuma, who, after all, had to do something, was forced to deploy categories drawn from the fund of experience that was ready-to-hand in the Aztec world.

By a fatal coincidence, this fund of experience chanced to contain a remarkable prefiguring of Cort�s — the myth of the white-skinned god, Quetzalcoatl. And, indeed, the parallels were uncanny. But, of course, as Montezuma eventually learned, Cort�s was not Quetzalcoatl, and he had not appeared on the coast of Mexico in order to bring blessings.

The fall of the Aztec empire was due not only to military inferiority but because Montezuma could not step outside of his own culture and see his enemy for what he truly was. The reactions to the Madrid bombings and the subsequent Spanish election show that we too have failed to see our enemy as they are but prefer to view Al Queda as Clausewitzian rational actors who are attempting to affect 'politics by other means.'

But the terrorists have no political objective; their goal is nothing more than to live out their fantasy in which they are doing the will of Allah. By trying to ascertain what is trying to be accomplished we completely miss the point of their actions. As Harris notes:

The Madrid bombings have underscored the fact that the global war on terror is indeed a global war. There is no continent, no country, no city that is not a target of the terrorists. As Hugh Hewitt wrote today:

It is all one war, and yesterday the casualties were Spanish, but their names belong on the 9/11 memorial and our victims belong on the fountain or wall the Spaniards will build. History will see this clearly, even if the wilfully blind refuse to today and tomorrow or until the next big blow strikes.

While we mourn with those in Spain we cannot forget terrorism’s other victims. The incredibly high death toll and the fact that the war is bleeding over into Europe should not blind us to the deaths that have occurred throughout the world in the past couple of months. Just counting those who have been targeted in suicide bombings since Febuary 1st, we find over 319 deaths and more than 500 injured.

Suicide bombing has become an epidemic and one that we must effectively counter if we are to win this war.

Here is just a handful of the examples of the impact this tactic has had in the past few months:

In France, scientific researchers have resigned in protest at the government's rejection of their demands for more money:

Their fight has wide popular support and is threatening the government just two weeks before regional elections. The researchers say that budget cuts and frozen payments have left research institutes in tatters but the French prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, accuses them of exaggeration.

It’s no exaggeration. Lack of proper funding has been a major reason French research programs have not been successful for the past several decades. Unless the government gives the scientists the money they need they may never find a cure for the country's most persistent public health threat -- Smelly-Frenchman Syndrome.

Life is tough when you�re Osama bin Laden. You have a $20 million bounty on his head, are forced to live in a cave, and the most elite military units in the history of the world are trying to hunt you down. You would think with that much stress to deal with the family would be more understanding. You would think the kids would listen to their old man and the little lady, er, ladies, would stop nagging, right? According to a family friend, that�s not the case: