Men with scarves over their faces hurled bricks into the blazing vehicles [of the civilians]. A group of boys yanked a smoldering body into the street and ripped it apart. Someone then tied a chunk of flesh to a rock and tossed it over a telephone wire.

"Viva mujahedeen!" shouted Said Khalaf, a taxi driver. "Long live the resistance!"

Nearby, a boy no older than 10 ground his heel into a burned head. "Where is Bush?" the boy yelled. "Let him come here and see this!"

Masked men gathered around him, punching their fists into the air. The streets filled with hundreds of people. "Falluja is the graveyard of Americans!" they chanted.

During his 1971 congressional testimony about the Vietnam War, a man who would one day seek the Democratic party's nomination in the 2004 presidential race was asked by a senator to assess the threat of Communism, not just to Indochina, but to world peace in general. The witness responded, "I think it is bogus, totally artificial. There is no threat. The Communists are not about to take over our McDonald hamburger stands."

· At the time of the Great Ukrainian Famine, playwright George Bernard Shaw and his friend, Lady Astor, had a rare visit with Josef Stalin. "When are you going to stop killing people?" Lady Astor brazenly asked of Comrade Stalin. His terse reply: "When it is no longer necessary."

"I think we are on notice now. Are we supposed to assume the majority is only going to permit amendments which they approve? Is that going to be the new rule of the U.S. Senate? After 230 years, we are only going to permit votes which we, the Republicans, approve? That is what we are saying. Is that the institution the American people thought they had in the U.S. Senate? Is that what they thought we were doing here? Come on. Come on. That is not the Senate I was elected to or that I believe in and that the American people do."

1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the 2001 destruction of the Twin Towers, the bombs on the trains in Madrid...

If we put this in terms of World War II, we are now sometime around 1937. In the 1930s, the world failed to do what it needed to do to head off a world war. Appeasement never works. Today we are in action. We must not flinch. With a powerful interplay of strength and diplomacy, we can win this war.

Team, Games Behind
1. x-Sacramento -
2. x-Minnesota 2
3. x-L.A. Lakers 2
4. x-San Antonio 3½
5. x-Memphis 4½
6. Dallas 7
7. Houston 10
8. Utah 14½

9. Portland 15
10. Denver 15

Congressional sources tell HUMAN EVENTS that the pro-life success in defeating this amendment can be chalked up to hard work by Majority Leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.). Frist was reportedly instrumental in bringing pro-abortion Senators Ben Campbell (R.-Colo.) -- whose vote was in doubt up to the last hour -- and Lisa Murkowski (R.-Alaska) over to the pro-life side. In turn, Murkowski brought with her Ted Stevens (R.-Alaska).

Interestingly, liberal Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.) found this rollcall very unpleasant and tried to sit on the fence. Although he did not want to be the vote that caused Feinstein's amendment to pass, he voted "yes" only after was clear that the amendment would fail. This made little political sense for him, as a "no" vote would have helped him fend off the tough primary challenge he faces from conservative Rep. Pat Toomey (R.-Pa.).

Do you believe any former United States military officer who so much as tolerated the sort of behavior you described in your testimony should be elected President of the United States?

"This would be the first time in federal law that an embryo or fetus is recognized as a separate and distinct person under the law, separate from the woman," said NARAL president Kate Michelman. "Much of this is preparing for the day the Supreme Court has a majority that will overrule Roe v. Wade."

She's right. There was no movement among voters to take out Al Qaeda. Most people didn't know what al Qaeda was. But that of course is where leadership comes in.

The lunch was off the record, and I appreciated the official's candor; he didn't try to spin me. I wasn't shocked by what he said--Mr. Clinton was a poll driven animal. But you didn't have to be psychic to know bad things were coming; you only had to be watching the world. I found myself marveling at Mr. Clinton's thinking, which in the short term was savvy and in the long term spoke of a kind of moral retardation.

And to make it all worse we had, from 1993 to 2001, an essentially unserious president who had no clue what to do with the power he had accrued, or even the popularity, and who squandered both in a need for personal drama and trauma. He had eight solid years to move, but he did not do the hard things he had to do. He left it for the next guy.

Right now we should be preparing--taking protective action in our ports and around our nuclear facilities, at our borders, etc. American officials should not be busy testifying; they should be busy making sure every citizen has a CBN suit, a regulation gas mask and data on how to recognize and respond to a chemical, biological or nuclear incident.

The most pressing thing at the moment is making America safer. Instead, our officials are otherwise engaged. As they were before 9/11.

"I also think it is outrageous and slanderous for Clarke to assume and assert that when the commander-in-chief asks an aide never mind one he doesn't know well and who served in the previous administration to do something that aide thinks is ill-advised, the most plausible interpretation is that the president was trying to falsely pin the blame on another country to start a war. That is a huge, implausible and dangerous leap. "

It would be good, however, to see the president speak about American open-mindedness and what it means in practice and theory. America is now a country - it was not always - in which people feel free to hold whatever private views on all human groups and behaviors while bowing to the moral necessity to show respect and regard for all groups that are different, in whatever ways. We have gone beyond tolerance in America; we have arrived at affection and sympathy and mutual respect. It has been beautiful to see, and I have seen it in my lifetime. It's worth talking about.

It does not follow that we have, or should have, arrived at "respect and regard for all groups that are different, in whatever ways." Why on earth would we do that, or want to do it? We should, of course, approach individual human beings with respect and proper regard, unless or until the particular human being we are dealing with gives us reason to do otherwise. That is elementary good manners.

The only people expected to "bow to the moral necessity to show respect and regard for all groups that are different, in whatever ways" are we members of DOGs (Designated Oppressor Groups). We are supposed to cultivate the most exquisite sensitivity to members of DVGs (Designated Victim Groups), and to tear our flesh in shame at the recollection of past wrongs. They, on the other hand, can insult us as much as they please. They also have a license to loot our assets, make free use of the money ripped from our pockets by force of law as taxes, and trash our cherished institutions. This is where "beyond tolerance" has taken us.

We have not, in fact, gone "beyond tolerance" at all, we have merely invented new kinds of intolerance. We have not swept away caste-feudalism and replaced it with a shining meritocratic egalitarianism; we have just traded in one style of caste-feudalism for another style. This is not a society "in which people feel free to hold whatever private views on all human groups and behaviors." People are ashamed of their private beliefs and fearful to disclose them. They are baffled by the fact that sincere opinions held by their parents and grandparents, rooted in custom, good sense, scripture, and everyday observation, are now shouted down as "bigoted" and "intolerant." What use are private beliefs anyway, if they are excluded from the public square by a suffocating conformity, imposed by an ever-vigilant Thought Police backed by armies of predatory lawyers? Under this relentless pressure, private beliefs fade from all but the bravest hearts, to be replaced with the state-approved formulas: diversity, inclusiveness, equality, compassion, respect.

The orthodoxy of "tolerance" that Ms. Noonan is so pleased with seeks to stamp out not only private opinions, but also actual facts.

Beyond tolerance? I don't see it. What I do see is a trend towards a European-style society dominated by an arrogant overclass of credentialed intellectuals, who are deeply contemptuous of those less articulate than themselves, and profoundly in-tolerant of traditional customs and morals, of Christianity, of normal sexuality, of manual work, of motherhood, of the military virtues, of any expression of ethnic pride or loyalty by anyone not a certified member of a Designated Victim Group. They don't actually like America much, don't believe there is much good to be said about this country, and would like to change us into something quite different.

But the past three years have been a valuable reminder of what a single individual can accomplish through willpower, incessant effort, and a simple refusal to accept defeat.

Nick is a Leftist, execrable, money-grubbing cheesemonkey.

THE FIRST POST ON WEDNESDAY [John Derbyshire]
Well, this is the second one.
Posted at 12:15 AM

DANG! [Jonah Goldberg]
A minute too soon. This is the first post on Wednesday!
Posted at 12:01 AM

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

FIRST POST [Jonah Goldberg]
On Wednesday!
Posted at 11:59 PM

About the Clarke book: "Clarke adds a dash of tendentious partisanship in insisting that President Clinton was an antiterror stalwart even though he rejected Clarke's most-important ideas, and that Bush was too soft even though he took Clarke's ideas a step further."

"Some Clinton partisans have claimed that the Clinton team handed an anti-al-Qaeda war plan over to the Bush administration during the transition that was ignored. It is worth noting that this false claim appears nowhere in Clarke's book"

"After 9/11, Clarke complains about a Bush obsession with Iraq. Clarke says that the president said to him, "I want you to find whether Iraq did this." The conspiracy theorizing about Iraq has thus dwindled down to this: Bush wanted to know whether Iraq was involved in Sept. 11 or not. The alleged obsession with Iraq in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11 lasted all of six days, as Bush approved targeting Afghanistan on Sept. 17."

Finally, I agree with Lowry: Bush and his adminstration could have done more to prevent 9/11. But to blame Bush for the event is sick.

A dilemma is posed here. Critics of Bush rail against the Patriot Act and the Guantanamo detentions and Homeland Security as impinging on First Amendment freedoms. Meanwhile, other critics are saying that Mr. Bush has not done enough. The two camps have in common only their disapproval of George W. Bush.

A second preoccupation of Clarke seems to be the focus we placed on Iraq, instead of al-Qaeda. But we went promptly to war, and successfully, against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the terrorists' principal provisioner.

Clark changes his spots; "Not too long ago, Clarke was once a far-sighted, hard-nosed, aggressive counterterrorism official, just the kind of guy you want fighting Osama bin Laden. "

Geraghty points out that "Richard Miniter reported in his book Losing bin Laden, and Robert Novak verified, that on Oct. 12, 2000, the day of the devastating terrorist attack on the USS Cole, Clarke was the only member of Clinton's inner circle urging an attack on al Qaeda." So why is Clark all over Bush for taking his advice and giving Clinton a free pass for ignoring it?

Geraghty's article goes on to highlight all kinds of sound, good advice Clark gave to Clinton that Clinton promptly ignored. He announced — repeatedly — that America's policy included preemptive attacks and making no distinction between terrorists and their host nations.


This is rich: "But while Clarke was laying out what would eventually become the Bush doctrine, the Clinton administration was, as far as the public record can show, not backing up his words with action. The Taliban consolidated its grip on power. Osama bin Laden's training camp kept churning out jihadists. The al Qaeda network kept recruiting and establishing new cells."

Richard Clarke is the greatest man who has ever strode this planet's surface. I know this because I have just read his book, "Against All Enemies."

What Clarke reveals in "Against All Enemies" is that - not to put too fine a point on it - he is a self-regarding buffoon. But his solipsistic silliness won't give pause to the Democrat-media desperation to rewrite recent history in an effort to delude voters that the 9/11 attacks were the fault of George W. Bush's inattention.

He is the man who took charge of America on 9/11 by "putting together a secure teleconference to manage the crisis," he writes on page 2.

A secure teleconference! Wow!

Neither Clarke nor the administration discerned al Qaeda's hand in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, though the evidence of financial support is plain now. Clarke believed Iran was behind the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, though we now know it to have been the work of al Qaeda. And he told Bill Clinton that the pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan blown up after the embassy bombings in 1998 was an al Qaeda workshop, which it wasn't.

And the Clinton administration didn't respond at all to the bombing of USS Cole in October 2000. This would seem to be the most glaring failure of all, since 17 American sailors died and more than 100 were wounded.

In the months after 9/11, the Bush administration refused - absolutely refused - to try to blame the attacks on the Clinton administration's failure of vision. The nation needed to be united in its determination and could not afford to surrender to finger-pointing.

Well, guess what? The Clinton administration's senior foreign-policy officials will be appearing this week before the 9/11 commission - to do to the Bush administration exactly what the Bush administration refused to do to them.

"We are continuing a defense buildup that is consuming our resources with weapons systems that we don't need and can't use.' -- John Kerry in 1984 on the Reagan defense build-up."

Among the systems John Kerry said he wanted to cancel were the B-1 bomber, the Apache helicopter, the Patriot anti-missile system, the Aegis cruiser, the AV-8B Harrier jump jet, the F-15, the F-14 A and D models, the Phoenix air-to-air missile, and the Sparrow air-to-air missile. And those Tomahawk cruise missiles that have become the standoff weapon of choice? Kerry wanted to cut the program in half.

The motion is
                         Denied.

"'Everyone in this town is anti-Bush,' Barrett, a Junior Olympic skier, said between runs. 'He's trying to destroy our planet.'"

In his firefighters speech (which is at johnkerry.com and deserves to be read in its entirety), Sen. Kerry said: "This administration has put a tax giveaway for the very wealthiest of our nation over making sure that we do all that we can to win the war on terror here at home. . . . America doesn't need leaders who play politics with 9/11 or see the war on terror as just another campaign issue."

This is a serious charge. It clearly is accusing George Bush of acting in bad faith every day since the towers fell and an airliner was crashed into the Pentagon. Not everyone needs to love George Bush, but delegitimizing America's 2 1/2-year effort against terrorism is a dangerous game. For my money, the presidential debates can't come fast enough.

This week, as we mark the one-year anniversary of the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, it is useful to recount why we have fought. Not long ago I visited South Korea, just as the Korean government was debating whether to send troops to Iraq. In Seoul, I was interviewed by a Korean journalist who was almost certainly too young to have firsthand recollection of the Korean War. She asked me, "Why should Koreans send their young people halfway around the globe to be killed or wounded in Iraq?"

As it happened, I had that day visited a Korean War memorial, which bears the names of every American soldier killed in the war. On it was the name of a close friend of mine from high school, a wrestling teammate, who was killed on the last day of the war. I said to the reporter: "It's a fair question. And it would have been fair for an American to ask, 50 years ago, `Why should young Americans go halfway around the world to be killed or wounded in Korea?' "
....
Americans do not come easily to war, but neither do Americans take freedom lightly. But when freedom and self-government have taken root in Iraq, and that country becomes a force for good in the Middle East, the rightness of those efforts will be just as clear as it is today in Korea, Germany, Japan and Italy.

"I do not believe that he is, quote, 'weak on defense,' " McCain (Ariz.) said on NBC's "Today" show.

Asked on the CBS "Early Show" whether he agreed with Vice President Cheney's assertion that Kerry is a threat to national security, McCain said: "I don't think that. I think that John Kerry is a good and decent man. . . . I think he has different points of view on different issues, and he will have to explain his voting record. But this kind of rhetoric, I think, is not helpful in educating and helping the American people make a choice."

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving with Coastal Division ELEVEN engaged in armed conflict with Viet Cong insurgents in An Xuyen Province, Republic of Vietnam on 28 February 1969. Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY was serving as Officer in Charge of Patrol Craft Fast 94 and Officer in Tactical Command of a three-boat mission. As the force approached the target area on the narrow Dong Cung River, all units came under intense automatic weapons and small arms fire from an entrenched enemy force less than fifty-feet away. Unhesitatingly Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY ordered his boat to attack as all units opened fire and beached directly in front of the enemy ambushers. This daring and courageous tactic surprised the enemy and succeeded in routing a score of enemy soldiers. The PCF gunners captured many enemy weapons in the battle that followed. On a request from U.S. Army advisors ashore, Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY ordered PCF's 94 and 23 further up river to suppress enemy sniper fire. After proceeding approximately eight hundred yards, the boats were again take under fire from a heavily foliated area and B-40 rocked exploded close aboard PCF 94; with utter disregard for his own safety and the enemy rockets, he again ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his boat only ten feet from the VC rocket position and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy. Upon sweeping the area an immediate search uncovered an enemy rest and supply area which was destroyed. The extraordinary daring and personal courage of Lieutenant (junior grade) KERRY in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire were responsible for the highly successful mission. His actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

• Kerry, being the senior officer present, almost certainly wrote this citation up for himself. People who write themselves up for medals are, well, to put it mildly, not well thought of.


• I don't see anything here out of the ordinary. He got shot at and shot back. Big deal.


• His allegedly "really brave thing" was to jump off the boat and kill one guy that was already badly wounded.


• Kerry got out of the theater after only four months, as soon as he could, using the "Three Purple Heart" rule. None of his purple hearts required much more than a band-aid.


• Here's one vet's view of Kerry's "heroism"

"Senator Kerry says he either needs to go himself or send a delegation to learn more about the situation in Iraq so he can form his policy positions, and yet for the past six months, he's been criticizing the president's policy. Now we know his criticism is uninformed."

My opponent spent two decades in Congress. He spent a long time in Washington and he's built up quite a record. Senator Kerry has been in Washington so long that he's taken both sides on just about every issue. Senator Kerry voted for the Patriot Act, for Nafta, for the No Child Left Behind Act, and for the use of force in Iraq. Now he opposes the Patriot Act, Nafta, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the liberation of Iraq. My opponent clearly has strong beliefs--they just don't last very long. . . .

Some are skeptical that the war on terror is really a war at all. Just days ago my opponent indicated he's not comfortable using the word, "war," to describe the struggle we're in. He said, "I don't want to use that terminology." He also said the war on terror is far less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering, law enforcement operation. I disagree. Our nation followed that approach after the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993. The matter was handled in the courts, and thought by some to be settled. But the terrorists were still training in Afghanistan, plotting in other nations and drawing up more ambitious plans. And after the chaos and carnage of September the 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States of America, and war is what they got.

One very important part of this war is intelligence-gathering, as Senator Kerry noted. Yet, in 1995, two years after the attack on the World Trade Center, my opponent introduced a bill to cut the overall intelligence budget by one-and-a-half billion dollars. His bill was so deeply irresponsible that he didn't have a single co-sponsor in the United States Senate. Once again, Senator Kerry is trying to have it both ways. He's for good intelligence, yet he was willing to gut the intelligence services. And that is no way to lead a nation in a time of war.

At least we'll have a clear choice in November. Bush is serious about the war. The Democrats are serious about the war against Bush.