BY WHAT RIGHT DOES A CANADIAN CALL POLAND A "RENT-A-NATION"?

Terms of engagement: Herewith, definitions to keep on top of current events (ERIC MARGOLIS, July 27, 2003, Toronto Sun)

It's very difficult keeping up with Mideast news due to the Orwellian newspeak coming from Washington.

So here's a handy list of key terms, translated into simple English.

+ Liberation - Invasion.

+ Coalition - The U.S. and British invaders, plus some troops from rent-a-nations like Romania and Poland. In the past, "the coalition" would have been called imperial forces and mercenary auxiliaries.

+ Dictator - A ruler you don't like, or who does not cooperate.

It goes on like that for more than long enough to prove that Leftism is incompatible with humor. A more productive exercise than Mr. Margolis's is to try and define some of the terms from Iraq yourself:

(1) Saddam Hussein?

(2) Qusay and Uday Saddam?

(3) Ba'athism?

(4) Halabja?

(5) Scud missile?

(6) The invasion of Iraq by the United States, Britain, and a very few others?

(7) The pre-invasion form of government in Iraq and the form that will exist in a year's time?

There are various ways you can answer each, but the following answers seem inarguable:

(1) A homicidal dictator

(2) Sociopaths

(3) Totalitarianism

(4) An act of genocide (a mass killing based on ethnicity)

(5) a WMD

(6) An essentially unilateral war to depose a homicidal dictator, prevent his sociopathic sons from following him to power, and dispose of WMD--with a more than incidental liberation and democratization thrown in.

(7) pre-war: Totalitarianism

post-War: that's for the people of Iraq to decide.

None of those, to Mr. Margolis's mind, may be adequate justification for the war, but they're at least accurate definitions. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 28, 2003 12:22 AM