Clare Short's version of events goes like this: she was writing her resignation statement when suddenly she decided to stay in her job.Having nearly completed the draft valediction, she thought: "We've got to look after the people in Iraq; we've got to drive forward the peace process to get the Palestinian state; we've got to make sure there's not a humanitarian disaster." Resignation, the Secretary of State for International Development decided, would be "cheap" and "cowardly".
This account by Ms Short of why she was so spectacularly reneging on her public promise to quit the Cabinet over the Iraq crisis left her an isolated and humiliated figure yesterday.
The first shots of the war have been fired, killing at least one Iraqi during a suspected operation to mine the waters off Kuwait. But that opening skirmish is about to be dwarfed by the most formidable military assault in modern warfare: 250,000 British and American troops — backed by more than 1,000 aircraft, 400 tanks and a 110-strong armada — are poised to unleash their awesome power on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq the moment the order is given.Unnamed sources are suggesting that the Iraqi rejection of the President's 48 hour ultimatum may mean that the US will not wait until tomorrow night. Some operations, including Special Forces teams probing the front lines, have been going on for the last few days. Alliance troops have moved out of their bases to forward positions on the Kuwaiti/Iraqi border. There are some odd reports of a considerable number of military vehicles moving south through Turkey. Apparently, we have cell phone numbers for Iraqi soldiers of widely disparate ranks, and are calling many of them directly. I still say that the bombing will start tomorrow night, but for all intents and purposes we're prosecuting the war now, and probably have been for the last few weeks.The first clash occurred in the mouth of the Khawr al-Zubayr river, a few miles south of the port of Umm Qasr, when a Kuwaiti gunboat challenged a flotilla of about 25 Iraqi dhows. The boats failed to respond and the Kuwaitis opened fire. It was unclear whether the dhows had laid any mines.
Serves 4 as a main dish8 1/2-inch thick slices chewy, crusty country bread
2 cloves garlic, split
About 1/2 cup robust extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 pound fresh goat cheese or fresh Italian mozzarella packed in waterHerb Blend:
1 large clove garlic
1 large thin slice prosciutto (about 1 ounce)
4 whole scallions
3 tightly packed tablespoons fresh basil leaves
2 tightly packed tablespoons Italian (flat leaf) parsley
1/2 medium red onion
1/3 cup (2 to 3 ounces) toasted pine nuts, or toasted almonds, coarsely chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper1. Toast the bread under the broiler, over a wood fire, or on top of the stove. Rub with the 2 cloves of garlic (for milder garlic flavor, rub it on the bread before toasting) and moisten lightly with some of the olive oil. Sprinkle with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper. Spread each bread slice with a generous layer of the cheese.
2. On a large cutting board, smash the garlic clove with the flat side of a large knife then mince the garlic. Pile on the board the prosciutto, scallions, basil leaves, parsley, and onion. Add the minced garlic and chop all together into 3/4- to 1-inch pieces.
3. Film the bottom of a 10-inch skillet with about 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Set over medium-high heat until hot. Drop the herb mix into the skillet and stir for 10 seconds or until fragrant. Remove from heat and taste, adding salt and pepper if needed. Stir in pine nuts.
4. Pile the herb mixture onto the slices of bruschetta, lightly pressing into the cheese. Drizzle with a bit of the olive oil. Serve immediately.
The Man Without Qualities speculates that a substantial invasion may be mounted from Turkey.
To call him a horse's ass would do a disservice to equine anuses.
Following is a list of 30 countries the State Department says are members of a "Coalition for the Immediate Disarmament of Iraq":Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan (post conflict), S. Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan.
FRANCE has come back to earth with a bump, one day after President Chirac played a lead role in blocking Britain and America's efforts to gain United Nations backing for war.The country's pride was tinged with worry yesterday about the fallout from the President's heady spell at the centre of the world stage.
As the spotlight moved away from France, antigovernment strikes by teachers and railway workers began. The national stoppages were a signal that the glory won by international statesmanship could soon be diminished by economic trouble at home.
The United States is basing its Iraq policy on a set of mistaken assumptions, says James Zogby, head of the Arab American Institute in Washington.UPI Chief News Analyst Martin Sieff interviewed Zogby, a prominent and respected leader of the Arab-American community, about his criticisms of the administration's war policy
toward Iraq, the possible negative consequences of war and the intellectual assumptions on which the policy is based.UPI: Why do you believe that President Bush has failed to make an effective case for going to war with Iraq?
Zogby: I have argued from the outset that President Bush has not made a case for this war. He and Secretary of State Colin Powell have made the case that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is evil but not why this would make a case for a unilateral and pre-emptive American war.
BTW: here's a fun exercise to try with this interview: substitute "Jews" every time Mr. Zogby says "neoconservatives" and things become much clearer.
[T]he war to come is likely to resemble the resolution of the largest hostage crisis in history. The task of the allies is to remove Saddam, and his fellow monsters, while sparing every possible innocent human life that he is holding for his protection. Saddam's strategy, for the battle ahead ... is to maximize the carnage and suffering, in the earnest expectation that the world's America-haters will blame it all on Washington, not Baghdad....Saddam's complete distrust of his own generals, and non-interest in their professional advice, was broadcast with his decision Saturday to place the country under four "warlords", with his son, the psychopathic Qusay, in charge of the key, central sector, which encompasses Tikrit and Baghdad....
Perhaps his most subtle tactic is to array his IV Army Corps (the so-called "Saladin"), not in the obvious path of the allies, but with seeming irrelevance against the Iranian frontier. Their job is to seal it, so that refugees and deserters are unable to flee towards Iran, and a tide of some hundreds of thousands of them can be driven into the path of the advancing columns of U.S. and British armour, slowing these down....
It appears that most significant defences in the south are concentrated in Nasiriyah, not the large port city of Basra. A second such line is drawn through Karbala, another third of the way to Baghdad. In both of these Shia holy cities, as in Baghdad, obvious air targets have been deployed in mosques, and the courtyards of hospices, schools, and hospitals.
But not, apparently, in Basra, which is being offered as a baited trap, the target possibly of chemical or biological weaponry, once it has been occupied by allied troops....
By concentrating the whole national artillery in Baghdad, Saddam has improved the odds of chance hits against allied aircraft. Most of this flak will miss, however, causing random carnage as it comes back down to earth, and giving the appearance that it is part of the allied bombing.
Why so crazed a self-defence? Because Saddam's real strategy can not be to prevail over the invading forces, only to enmire them in a human catastrophe.
May God bless our troops, and America.
France awoke on Tuesday torn between two emotions.A proud sense of righteous indignation, on the one hand.
But on the other, a fearful recognition that - in the world of human reality as opposed to the sphere of moral abstractions - control of events has slipped entirely from its grasp.
Being typecast as the whipping-boy of the pro-US camp has deepened the feeling of outrage at the imminent invasion of Iraq. [...]
President Chirac's ratings have shot through the roof in the last days, after he made clear he meant to carry his opposition to the US to its conclusion.
According to a poll in the Catholic magazine, Le Pelerin, a whopping 86% of the public support the president in his showdown with the US.
Astonishingly his popularity is even higher among left-wing voters - 94% of Communists for example - than among voters for his own conservative Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) party.
After nightfall Monday, Palestinian legislators from Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction gathered in his ruined compound here to face the full wrath of the leader who has dominated their movement for decades.The Palestinian Parliament had just voted twice to reject an amendment sought by Arafat to restrict the powers of a new Palestinian prime minister, and to Arafat - already alarmed by Israeli and American demands for the post - this looked like betrayal.
The stormy, four-hour meeting that followed reflected the mounting tensions between generations of Palestinian leaders, and between the institutions of the nascent Palestinian democracy. In the end, it was Arafat who relented, paving the way for the legislature to vote Tuesday to create a post of prime minister with the authority to form a government.
Arafat signed the law Tuesday night, Palestinian officials said.
It obliges our moralistic streak to try to replace Mr. Arafat, and it would be great if the Palestinians did get a better leader. But Mr. Bush's harrumphing does nothing to achieve better leadership in Palestine; if anything, it strengthens Mr. Arafat and boosts Hamas as well. One poll of Palestinians has already found that a solid plurality expects Mr. Arafat to be elected in a democratic vote. Another poll found that nearly three times as many Palestinians trust Mr. Arafat as they do the next highest contender.So by calling off our plans for a Middle East conference and simply insisting that Mr. Arafat leave the scene before we come out to deal, Mr. Bush is signaling that we are disengaging from the Middle East, returning to his earlier failed policy of looking the other way. That was a catastrophic mistake that helped create today's mess.
MORE:
Wobbly Vision
Forcing the Contradictions (Brothers Judd, 4/04/02)
Since January, European opposition to war has been led by France and Germany, with Belgium, Austria, Greece, Luxembourg and Sweden following more sheepishly behind. Ireland, Finland, Cyprus and Malta remain neutral or have not nailed their colors to the mast.So with only half a dozen or so European Union, or future EU member states, categorically opposed to war, why has the old continent managed to convey an image of pacifism,
appeasement and anti-Americanism over the past months?Firstly, polls show that European public opinion is overwhelmingly against war and last month's mass demonstrations rammed home this message in Technicolor detail.
Secondly, France, Germany and Belgium have waged an unrelenting rear-guard campaign against armed action, culminating in the three countries' decision to temporarily block military support for fellow NATO member Turkey.
Thirdly, although the EU's 15 members are split down the middle over how to disarm the Iraqi regime, the Brussels-based bloc is not representative of Europe as a whole. Almost all the 12 countries queuing up to join the Union over the next four years are standing shoulder to shoulder with London and Washington.
Finally, both the American and European media have been happy to repeat the old canard about the United States acting 'unilaterally' against Baghdad, despite military backing from Britain and Australia and the more passive support of dozens of other countries.
Of course, the current U.S. president is far from assembling the type of broad coalition Bush Sr. stitched together in 1991. But to talk about the United States being isolated and EU states being isolationist merely panders to the views of those who see Americans as from Mars and Europeans from Venus.
The most powerful state in history has proclaimed that it intends to control the world by force, the dimension in which it reigns supreme.President Bush and his cohorts evidently believe that the means of violence in their hands are so extraordinary that they can dismiss anyone who stands in their way.
The consequences could be catastrophic in Iraq and around the world. The United States may reap a whirlwind of terrorist retaliation and step up the possibility of nuclear Armageddon.
Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and company are committed to an ?imperial ambition,? as G. John Ikenberry wrote in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs ?a unipolar world in which the United States has no peer competitor? and in which ?no state or coalition could ever challenge it as global leader, protector and enforcer.?
That ambition surely includes much expanded control over Persian Gulf resources and military bases to impose a preferred form of order in the region.
Even before the administration began beating the war drums against Iraq, there were plenty of warnings that US adventurism would lead to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, as well as terror, for deterrence or revenge.
Right now, Washington is teaching the world a dangerous lesson: If you want to defend yourself from us, you had better mimic North Korea and pose a credible threat. Otherwise we will demolish you.
On the other hand, his point about N. Korea is valid and is the main reason that we have to dispatch Kim Jong-il even if it leads to a limited nuclear exchange. Our nukes must be a deterrent to other people acquiring nukes, otherwise their nukes will serve as a deterrent to our policing of their behavior.
Tony Blair has won Commons backing to send UK forces into battle with Saddam Hussein - but also suffered another major backbench rebellion.Amid dramatic scenes in the Commons on Tuesday night, 217 MPs - as many as 140 of them Labour backbenchers - backed a rebel amendment opposing the government's stance on Iraq, with 396 opposing the motion.
A motion backing the government's position was passed by 412 votes to 149. [...]
Meanwhile, the Tory leadership suffered three more resignations over Iraq after the departure as a whip of John Randall last week.
Shadow environment minister Jonathan Sayeed, shadow home affairs minister Humfrey Malins and shadow health minister John Baron all left their posts on Tuesday.
The dreadful events of September 11th, when Muslims acting in the name of Islam attacked the first country in the world to separate Church from State, forced the issue of political Islam into the world's face. We did not then understand why devout adherents of a religion whose name means "peace" should have undertaken this assault, knowing as they did that it would involve taking the lives of those who had done them no harm.These are the findings of some study I have done on my own into Islam, why it is used as a political force in ways that Christianity is not, and why its differences from Christianity are more profound that we might realise.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, is a Pakistani Baluch. So is Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In 1995, together with a third Baluch, Abdul Hakam Murad, the two collaborated in an unsuccessful plot to bomb 12 U.S. airplanes. Years later, as head of al Qaeda's military committee, Mohammed reportedly planned the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings, as well as the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000.Why should the Baluch seek to kill Americans? Sunni Muslims, they live in the desert regions of eastern Iran and western Pakistan. The U.S. has little to do with them; there is no evident motive for this murderous obsession. The Baluch do, however, have longstanding ties to Iraqi intelligence, reflecting their militant opposition to the Shiite regime in Tehran. Wafiq Samarrai, former chief of Iraqi military intelligence, explains that Iraqi intelligence worked with the Baluch during the Iran-Iraq war. According to Mr. Samarrai, Iraqi intelligence has well-established contacts with the Baluch in both Iran and Pakistan....
U.S. authorities have identified as major al Qaeda figures three other Baluch: two brothers of Yousef and a cousin. The official position is thus that a single family is at the center of almost all the major terrorist attacks against U.S. targets since 1993....
Notably, this Baluch "family" is from Kuwait. Their identities are based on documents from Kuwaiti files that predate Kuwait's liberation from Iraqi occupation, and which are therefore unreliable. While in Kuwait, Iraqi intelligence could have tampered with files to create false identities (or "legends") for its agents. So, rather than one family, these terrorists are, quite plausibly, elements of Iraq's Baluch network, given legends by Iraqi intelligence.
The outbreak of a war with Iraq now seems to be a matter of days -- or even hours. Talk of war and diplomatic maneuvering has dominated the political and policy landscape for months. Win, lose or draw, the conclusion of a war with Iraq means President Bush will face many formidable policy challenges that are no less daunting than Iraq and easily could significantly complicate his re-election efforts.Bush will likely find himself playing defense on a wide range of very difficult issues. [...]
The year before a presidential election is usually a time for fine-tuning the president's positioning on policy matters and for teeing up issues that will maximize his chances of getting re-elected. Instead, Bush will likely find himself playing defense on a wide range of very difficult issues, with little maneuverability to select and promote other issues that would maximize his attractiveness to various elements of the electorate.
Whether one agrees with Bush's handling of Iraq, it is hard to argue with the premise that America's relations with major Western and Asian nations are in a shambles. At no point since the end of World War II have relations between the United States and the governments of historic allies and adversaries alike been so strained. And relations are even worse with the general populations of those respective countries. Whether these governments and their peoples were "right" or "wrong" in their opposition or hesitancy to war, the United States will find dealing with them in the post-war era significantly more difficult than at any time in memory. Putting together coalitions for the foreseeable future will be particularly problematic given the ill will that has been created over the last year.
In terms of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims, relations with the vast majority of peaceful adherents to the Islamic faith are awful, while we have further antagonized the distinct minority of radicals to the point that future terrorism is even more likely than it was prior to Sept. 11, 2001. [...]
The real political consequences of policy miscalculations have been masked to a certain extent by the halo effect of the terrorist attacks and the focus on foreign policy. Very real symptoms regarding the president's political health, the condition of his agenda and his ability to advance his agenda have gone unrecognized or with little note. Once the war is over, the problems that remain will be just as serious but more evident. Even a boost in Bush's approval numbers after an exceedingly short and successful war could be short-lived given the nation's poor economy and the other serious problems that seem to have the president surrounded.
Instead, the administration is likely to turn to North Korea--a regime that the President, for excellent cause, finds just as morally repugnant as Saddam's--and to narcoterrorists in Colombia and to Syria's Ba'athists and to Palestine's Hamas and Iran's Hezbollah, etc., etc., etc.... The war on terror is against both terrorists who use violence on us and our allies and against the regimes that use terror to subjugate their own populations--plenty of both remain. Defeating al Qaeda and Saddam is a start to that war, not its end. And since the conduct of foreign policy is left entirely to the president's discretion, he'll largely determine what we're talking about for the next year and a half (or five and a half), not Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi, and the lilliputian presidential contenders.
If the economy doesn't begin to improve, Mr. Bush is certainly in for tough times, but the toughest times ahead may well be for Democrats, who will likely oppose the administration at each step in the war on terrorand who, having essentially sought to protect Saddam will now find themselves propping up Kim Jong-il and Muamar Qaddafi and Bashar Assad and a host of other tyrants, a position they'll share with the governments of France, Russia, and China. When the topic is national security the Democrats nearly always look bad and that'll be the topic for some time to come.
The Prime Minister told a hushed Commons this afternoon that his Government now faced a "stark choice" - to stand down the thousands of troops now hours away from war, or to hold firm to the course they have set. And he declared "I believe we must hold firm."He went on to paint a graphic picture of the consequences of retreat, the United Nations reduced to "a talking shop"; Saddam Hussein triumphant; other tyrants encouraged - and the Iraqi people condemned to continued oppression. And he demanded bluntly: "Who will celebrate and who will weep if we take our troops back from the Gulf now?"...
And he said that to retreat now, he believed, "would put at hazard all that we hold dearest ... tell our allies that at the very moment of action, at the very moment they need our determination, that Britain faltered. I will not be party to such a cause."
“There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein’s youngest son] personally supervise these murders.”
May God bless our servicemen and women.
It has been a long road to this moment of decision on Iraq, but the inevitability of the destination has been clear. When historians have access to the memos and the diaries of the Bush administration's insiders, it's likely they will find that President Bush set his sights on removing Saddam Hussein from power soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- if not before.Everything the president has said publicly -- everything that Vice President Cheney reiterated in his Sunday television interviews -- confirms that the impact of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks was to steel Bush's determination to disarm any ruler who plausibly might collaborate in a similar or worse assault. And to him, disarming clearly meant dislodging that potential assailant from power.
Skeptics may argue that the United States has yet to produce convincing evidence of a link between the Baghdad regime and the al Qaeda terrorists. But the link exists in the mind of the commander in chief, and he is prepared to act on that conviction.
It should have been clear from how he governed Texas what his modus operandi was, but there's no excuse, especially after the way the No Child Left Behind Act played out, for any serious observer--like Mr. Broder--to still not get it. If you''ll recall, the Democrats crowed and the far Right cringed as Ted Kennedy added money and gewgaws to the bill, but Mr. Bush continually said that so long as the bill included testing, accountability, and consequences he'd sign it. And so the final bill, regardless of the rest of the clutter, imposes a testing regime that will declare as many as 80% of America's public schools to be providing an inadequate education and will allow students in those schools to transfer. Without even comprehending what they were doing, the Left helped George W. Bush begin the process of voucherizing education.
Similarly, when it came to the removal of Saddam, Mr. Bush allowed himself to be coaxed into going to Congress for authorization (which he'd planned to do all along, as the Constitution requires) and to the UN, while the troops in the region were built up, made all the calls anyone could ask for to try and pass a final resolution, offered allies money and other emoluments to join the coalition, etc., etc., etc.... But he never took his eyes off the prize: regime change. This weekend, Daniel Schor was on NPR expressing bewilderment at how the President could demand a vote on an 18th resolution on Monday and by Friday be telling Tony Blair it was fine by him if it was just withdrawn. Mr. Schor said he'd never seen an administration that could reverse course so easily and make so little of it. It seemed as though it had never occurred to Mr. Schor that the President could do so because he genuinely didn't care one way or another about the UN--having them along, at least rhetorically, would have silenced some peoples' concerns, but the UN has no role to play in the actual waging of the war and is too debased an institution to offer a meaningful moral imprimatur. The important thing, from Mr. Bush's perspective, is and has been to remove Saddam. No amount of background noise was ever going to deflect him from that aim.
And, at the end of the day, once again, he's achieving his goals. Mr. Broder, though he may be alone, appears to have figured this out. Whether he's correct that Mr. Bush did not anticipate all the side effects--like the delegitimization of the EU and the UN--we'll only know for sure in a few years. But, considering that the President stocked his administration with advisors who are hostile to such transnational institutions and considering that they now done them significant damage, it seems like Mr. Broder might want to consider that this too was a goal that was within the President's sights.
St. Patrick, born and raised in Britain, was captured by Irish marauders and sold into slavery in Ireland at the age of 16. Like so many slaves, he was drawn to the Christian message. In his "Confessio" he tells how he prayed in captivity:
[T]he faith grew in me, and the spirit was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same, so that whilst in the woods and on the mountain, even before the dawn, I was roused to prayer and felt no hurt from it, whether there was snow or ice or rain; nor was there any slothfulness in me, such as I see now, because the spirit was then fervent within me.
Patrick became a priest and a disciple of the missionary bishop St. Germain. On St. Germain's recommendation, Patrick was made bishop and missionary to Ireland. His intended first act was to visit his former master, pay ransom for his freedom, and implore the man to convert. However, he was opposed on his way by a Druidic chieftain, Dichu, who sought to strike Patrick with a sword. Legend has it that his arm became rigid as a statue until he declared himself obedient to Patrick. Impressed by Patrick's gentleness, Dichu presented Patrick with a barn, which Patrick consecrated as the first church in Ireland. Alas, word that Patrick had returned and was working miracles of great power preceded him to his former slavemaster Milchu, who, expecting to be destroyed and too proud to be vanquished by a former slave, set his house and barn ablaze and killed himself in the conflagration.
Legend has it that a series of miracles helped Patrick persuade the Irish from Druidism. It could not have been easy, for the pagan and Christian minds were quite foreign, and misunderstandings were easy:
While engaged in the baptism of the royal prince Aengus, son of the King of Munster, the saint, leaning on his crosier, peirced with its sharp point the prince's foot. Aengus bore the pain unmoved. When St. Patrick, at the close of the ceremony, saw the blood flow, and asked him why he had been silent, he replied that he thought it might be part of the ceremony.
Its sound was heard all over the valleys and hills of Erin, everywhere bringing peace and joy. The flocks of demons began to scatter, He flung his bell among them; they took to precipitate flight, and cast themselves into the ocean. So complete was the saint's victory over them that, as the ancient narrative adds, "for seven years no evil thing was to be found in Ireland."
Patrick tells in his "Confessio" that twelve times he and his companions were seized and carried off as captives, and once he was loaded with chains, and his death was decreed. But it was not to be; Patrick lived to the age of 105.
On the verge of death, Patrick had a vision:
He saw the whole of Ireland lit up with the brightest rays of Divine Faith. This continued for centuries, and then clouds gathered around the devoted island, and, little by little, the religious glory faded away, until, in the course of centuries, it was only in the remotest valleys that some glimmer of its light remained. St. Patrick prayed that the light would never be extinguished, and, as he prayed, the angel came to him and said: "Fear not: your apostolate shall never cease." As he thus prayed, the glimmering light grew in brightness, and ceased not until once more all the hills and valleys of Ireland were lit up ...
Let us, as we battle the darkness of Saddam Hussein, bear difficulties with the courage of Aengus and the tenacity of Patrick. And may God continue to bless America.
As Blair has said, in war there will be civilian was well as military casualties. There is, too, as both Britain and America agree, some risk of Saddam using or transferring his weapons to terrorists. There is as well the possibility that more angry young Muslims can be recruited to terrorism. But if we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam.During the 90's, I was not a Clinton hater. He was about as good a President as I would never vote for. He should have been impeached and he should have responded to the bombing of the Cole the way we responded to 9/11, but at least he wasn't Jimmy Carter. Having said that, isn't it perfectly clear that he is deeply disturbed? It's not that he's a liar, but that he can believe five contradictory things before breakfast. And it is, of course, in his image that the Democratic party has remade itself.I wish that Russia and France had supported Blair's resolution. Then, Hans Blix and his inspectors would have been given more time and supprt for their work. But that's not where we are. Blair is in a position not of his own making, because Iraq and other nations were unwilling to follow the logic of 1441.
"I'm saddened, saddened that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war," Daschle said in a speech to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "Saddened that we have to give up one life because this president couldn't create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country."Before we get to the purely political question, what in the world is Daschle talking about? What diplomacy would have avoided war? To believe that, you'd have to believe either that there was a diplomatic strategy that would have caused Iraq to disarm voluntarily, or that our goal of disarming Iraq should, in the name of diplomacy, have been abandoned. Otherwise, our choice was to go to war with the UN's blessing or without it. Even with the UN's blessing, it's safe to say that not one fewer American would be going into harm's way.
Dearest readers:Today is the Jewish holiday of Purim. Though unlike the Jewish Sabbath (Shabbes) and the holy days, work is permitted. Still, Jews have a number of extra religious obligations today, including special and extended prayer services and other functions.
Though I've been up for most of the night getting today's issue out, I'm already running behind schedule. If it's not too much trouble, PLEASE access today's issue via our Front Page:
And, yes, despite the fact that I will be spending most of the day away from the office, I have every intention of publishing tomorrow. Purim, after all, is about miracles and the fact JWR continues to publish is basically a miracle. Yes, I know, we're not supposed to rely on them, but... :)
Thanks so much for continuing to read JWR and spreading the word about us. It makes it all worth it.
Warmest regards --- and in friendship,
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky,
Editor in Chief
We wish all our Hebraic homeys a good Purim and hope everyone will observe the day by praying for the allied troops who are now in harm's way in the Gulf. God Bless you all and God bless those who fight for freedom everywhere.
A third minister has quit the government over the Iraq crisis as Clare Short announced she would stay in her cabinet job despite earlier threats to resign.Home Office Minister John Denham has now followed Health Minister Lord Hunt of Kings Heath in resigning on Tuesday morning.
Their resignations come in the wake of Robin Cook's departure from the cabinet after he objected to war without a fresh United Nations mandate.
Ms Short's decision to stay - despite saying she was still "very critical" of the way the crisis has been handled - is a boost for Tony Blair as he prepares to get House of Commons backing for war on Tuesday afternoon.
Blair can lose 165 Labour votes befoire it will be the Tories who make the war resolution possible and 245 before the resolution would go down to defeat.