WMD Confirmed

The Iraq Survey Group, the group of weapons inspectors looking for WMD in Iraq, has confirmed the presence of Sarin gas in the artillery shell that was used as part of an IED to attack US troops. And so another of the left's accusations - Iraq didn't have WMD and Bush lied about them - falls by the wayside. As more info comes out about the existence of WMD, the same people who made so much noise about their absence are strangely silent about their presence. This article from the American Thinker from a couple of months ago has a lot more about the WMD and how little has been said about what has actually been found.

Oil

There has been much recent talk about the high price of gasoline, often described in dramatic terms as "record high". And while prices have risen significantly, calling them "record high" is simply wrong and displays a lack of economic knowledge. Yes, in absolute terms, the price for a gallon of gasoline is higher than it has ever been. However, this is misleading and simply irrelevant. To compare the absolute prices for gas now with prices for gas in the mid 70s or early eighties, ignores the fact that the dollar has changed significantly since then, as have wages. The only real way to compare prices over time is using constant dollars (i.e. adjusting for inflation). By that measure, prices are still significantly lower than they have been in the past. Additionally, average income has grown, and so the percentage of income that one spends on gasoline is lower than it has been. If we take these factors into account, for gasoline to be at "record highs" in real terms, a gallon would have to be approximately $3.50, and crude oil would have to be in the $75-80 per barrel range.

There is also another factor in gasoline prices that is rarely talked about by politicians - taxes. A large component of gasoline cost is the various taxes that are imposed on it. In Massachusetts, taxes on gasoline are $.40 per gallon; in many other states taxes are significantly higher. So instead of talking about releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, something that most economists think would have minimal impact on prices, why not reduce the taxes on gas if the politicians really want to affect prices?

Interrogations

The World Tribune is reporting that because of all the publicity of the Abu Ghraib story, the US military will be severely hampered in its attempts to get new information from prisoners. Apparently, the only thing that is still allowed in interrogations is isolation. These new restrictions will be by far more damaging to US actions in Iraq than all the whining from the Arab world.

Operation Rainbow

The long-awaited military operation in Gaza seems to have begun. Under a press blackout the IDF has started to clean out Rafah and,as would be anticipated, the usual groups (Arab League, EU, Amnesty International, Yossi Sarid, etc.) have started their whining. Most of the whining has come in the form of "Sharon promised to withdraw, and now he is instead attacking". Lost on these people is the fact that no withdrawal is possible without this type of military operation. Additionally, once again these groups condemn Israeli operations without putting them in context of what caused them in the first place. In the words of Foreign Ministry Director-General Yoav Biran: "The reactions are critical of Israel. Here and there we hear some threatening remarks. There are also some stupid exaggerations. The world is preoccupied with the results and not with the causes...They are asking questions about our operation, but not asking us why we are operating in Rafah."

To leave Gaza in the same way that Israel left Lebanon would be disastrous. As soon as the IDF left, Hizbullah armed itself with Syrian and Iranian missiles and artillery that now threaten Northern Israel. If the smuggling tunnels are intact, is there any doubt that Palestinian terrorists would attempt to arm themselves similarly? Already there are reports that they have been trying to bring in Katyushas as well as anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. Additionally, while there is a way to restrain Hizbullah - putting military and diplomatic pressure on Syria - there would be no similar control over the Palestinians.

Undoubtedly that withdrawal from Lebanon spurred on the Oslo War that the Palestinians have been waging, as has even been admitted by various Palestinian representatives. The only way to show the Palestinians that a withdrawal from Gaza is not a victory for the terrorists is by completely destroying the terrorist infrastructure in the area. Digging a big moat all along the border would be a perfect way to permanently stop smuggling through the tunnels.

Subtext

A wrap-up and subtext of quotes from various Arabs: Not from MEMRI

Navel Gazing

Democracy, despite being the best political system we have, is highly problematic. It is especially so when a democracy goes to war. Undoubtedly the questioning of actions and motives of our political and military leaders is essential in a free society. Yet that same questioning that can be productive, can also lead to utterly unproductive navel gazing that hurts the society. In an excellent article in the Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick dissects this unproductive and destructive self-doubt.

When we pay attention to our enemies and see the scope of their ambitions and depth of their hatred we must come to a revolutionary conclusion. We, Israelis, Americans, and indeed all non-fascistic Muslims constitute the frontline in the war wherever we are. It was not US military deployment in Saudi Arabia that precipitated the September 11 attacks anymore than it was the Israeli presence in Lebanon or in Gaza or Judea and Samaria or Jerusalem that precipitated the Palestinian-led jihad against Israel. It is our existence that provokes our enemy.
[...]
In the UN, the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and on countless other international stages they seek to criminalize us for our crime of defending our existence. In this they find accomplices among our own self-absorbed elites who are only too happy to blame the war being waged against us on ourselves.

When we limit our gaze to ourselves not only do we fail to take notice of the nature of the war, we craft national policies that harm both ourselves and our allies. In Israel, our self-obsession has brought about plan after plan all of which have weakened us and our allies in the global struggle. From the Oslo initiative to the retreat from Lebanon to Sharon's pullout plan from Gaza and parts of Samaria we have hurt ourselves and our allies.
[...]
As the jihad spreads throughout the world, we must stop finally with our self-destructive self-absorption. The butchers in Zeitoun who kicked the remains of our soldiers like footballs on Tuesday, like the butchers in Baghdad, Karachi, Riyadh and beyond who kill with barbaric ecstasy and primordial hatred do so not because of anything we have done. They do so because they are barbarians. And if we do not wish to be destroyed, we must do everything to destroy them and nothing to give them hope for victory against us.

Whose Side are They On?

The US press has been notoriously left-wing, which in itself is not a problem. However, when their own political agendas serve to frame their "reporting", they lose all credibility and should be roundly criticized. The press's reporting of the war in Iraq (not to even mention the war that Israel has been forced to fight against the Arabs) and then the coverage of the "occupation" of Iraq has been shameful. From the beginning of the war to the current "scandal" of Abu Ghraib the press has done everything possible to show the US in the worst possible light, at times even to the point of suppressing good news. It seems that the press, along with many on the left are actually hoping for the US to lose; hoping for worse things to happen in Iraq, as long as this will get Bush out of office. The Spectator's Toby Harden wrote about this phenomenon yesterday.

The press has routinely shown us pictures that serve to drive people into the "anti-war" camp: from the post-liberation looting to the pictures from Abu Ghraib. But any pictures that would show people why we are in this war and why we need to win, are quickly suppressed. We have seen the pictures from Abu Ghraib far more than we have seen the WTC fall, or Daniel Pearl being killed, or the contractors mutilated in Fallujah, or even the recent pictures of Nick Berg being slaughtered. This is no accident; the press is intent on defeating Bush, no matter what harm it does to the country or the war effort. Jeff Jacoby summarizes this perfectly:

What exactly is the governing rule here? That incendiary images sure to enrage our enemies and get more Americans killed should be published, while images that show the world just how evil those enemies really are should be suppressed? Offensive and shocking pictures that undermine the war effort should be played up, but offensive and shocking pictures that remind us why we're at war in the first place shouldn't get played at all?

Yes, Virginia, there really is a gaping media double standard. News organizations will shield your tender eyes from the sight of a Berg or a Daniel Pearl being decapitated or of Sept. 11 victims jumping to their deaths, or of the mangled bodies on the USS Cole, or of Fallujans joyfully mutilating the remains of four lynched US civilians. But they will make sure you don't miss the odious behavior of Americans or American allies, no matter how atypical that misbehavior may be, or how determined the US military is to uproot and punish it.

We are at war with a vicious enemy, and propaganda in wartime is a weapon whose consequences can be deadly. Nick Berg lost his life because the Abu Ghraib pictures were turned into a worldwide media event. Yes, those who did it were sheltered by the First Amendment. That makes their actions not better, but worse.

War of Ideas

Fouad Ajami in yesterday's Wall Street Journal op/ed piece makes some good points about the mistakes that the US is making in Iraq. His main argument is that we are reverting back to the old, discredited idea of pan-Arabism in trying to make Iraq a normal, pluralist society and that this is a sure recipe for failure.

We have dispatched the way of Iraqis an envoy of the U.N., Lakhdar Brahimi, an Algerian of Pan-Arab orientation, with past service in the League of Arab States. It stood to reason (American reason, uninformed as to the terrible complications of Arab life) that Mr. Brahimi, "an Arab," would better understand Iraq's ways than Paul Bremer. But nothing in Mr. Brahimi's curriculum vitae gives him the tools, or the sympathy, to understand the life of Iraq's Shiite seminaries; nothing he did in his years of service in the Arab league exhibited concern for the cruelties visited on the Kurds in the 1980s. Mr. Brahimi hails from the very same political class that has wrecked the Arab world. He has partaken of the ways of that class: populism, anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, and a preference for the centralized state. He came from the apex of the Algerian system of power that turned that country into a charnel house, inflicted on it a long-running war between the secular powers-that-be and the Islamists, and a tradition of hostility by the Arab power-holders toward the country's Berbers. No messenger more inappropriate could have been found if the aim was to introduce Iraqis to the ways of pluralism.

Mr. Brahimi owes us no loyalty. His prescription of a "technocratic government" for Iraq -- which the Bush administration embraced only to retreat from, by latest accounts -- is a cunning assault on the independent political life of Iraq. The Algerian seeks to return Iraq to the Pan-Arab councils of power. His entire policy seeks nothing less than a rout of the gains which the Kurds and the Shiites have secured after the fall of the Tikriti-Baathist edifice. The Shiites have seen through his scheme. A history of disinheritance has given them the knowledge they need to recognize those who bear them ill will. American power may not be obligated -- and should not be -- to deliver the Shiites a new dominion in Iraq. But we can't once more consign them to the mercy of their enemies in the Arab world. At any rate, it is too late in the hour for such a policy, for the genie is out of the bottle and the Shiites will fight back. Gone is their old timidity and quietism. Their rejection of Mr. Brahimi's diplomacy is now laid out for everyone to see.

Another Poll

A new poll of California likely voters has come out, and it is fairly encouraging for President Bush; Kerry leads Bush in that state by only 1% point. This, in a state that Al Gore won by 11% and that was seen as a guaranteed win for Kerry. What is even more encouraging is that of Bush voters 80% say they are voting "for" Bush, while of Kerry voters only 35% say that they are voting "for" Kerry (rather than simply against Bush). While there is still 6 months to the election, and a lot can change, this poll (like many others) is showing that while Bush's support is strong, Kerry is merely a default candidate.

Gaza

Ariel Sharon's plan to remove settlements from Gaza has, as predicted by the military, increased attacks there. Yesterday's destruction of an Armored Personnel Carrier and the mutilation of soldiers's bodies, as well as today's attacks against another APC and D-9 bulldozer point to an escalation there. The question then is what should Israel do regarding disengagement, as well as this escalation. Neither of these questions lend themselves to easy answer.

Despite the Likud's rejection of the disengagement plan, it seems that Sharon intends to proceed with it, albeit in some altered form. To do so as things stand would be a colossal mistake. Such a withdrawal will be perceived by the Arabs as a retreat similar to the one from Lebanon, a retreat that by most accounts gave impetus to the current war the Palestinians are waging. Yet strategically, the settlements in Gaza are a liability. There is a big difference between the settlements in Judea and Samaria and those in Gaza - there is much more of a historical and political attachment to Judea and Samaria.

The escalation of the past two days seems to be leading to something that has needed to happen, yet has been resisted on both a political and military level, namely an invasion of Gaza similar to Operation Defensive Shield. The only way to withdraw from Gaza would be after such an operation and the destruction of the majority of the terrorist infrastructure. The main benefit of such an operation, however, would not even be the physical destruction of the terrorists infrastructure as much as the destruction of the terrorists' belief that Israel could not invade Gaza. Until this is accomplished, withdrawal is impossible.

And More, Abu Ghraib

Mark Steyn in his Jerusalem Post column, gives his clear-headed take on the "scandal":

In contrast to hyperventilating Kennedys, the American people seem to be able to distinguish between the actual, specific abuse, which is wrong and should be punished, and the attempt to burden it with some highly selective generalized significance, which is rightly seen as a lot of baloney.

In that sense, I deeply regret President Bush's apology. I'm often dismissed as a Bush apologist, but I decline to be a Bush apologist for the Bush apology.

If he wanted to apologize, he should have apologized to Ahmed bin Jihad, or whoever the fellow in the dog collar is, and left it at that. But to be coerced into apologizing more generally is very foolish. What happened at Abu Ghraib is terrible because it's an offense to American values, not Arab ones.

It's ridiculous to insist that America has to apologize to Arab thugocracies in which what's merely simulated in those photographs is done for real every day of the week.

As for the allegedly seething Arab street, my advice to it would be to lay off the interviews, or at least not to respond to the pictures by saying things like, "They wanted us to feel as though we were women, the way women feel, and this is the worst insult, to feel like a woman."

When you imply that being an Arab woman is analogous to perpetual degradation, you remind Americans that being "insensitive" to certain cultures is not necessarily a bad thing.

Savagery

The beheading of Nick Berg, horrifically echoing the killing of Daniel Pearl, provides ample illustration of what it is that we are fighting. Once again, we see the true nature of the Islamofascists. The Arab street, that was supposedly so appalled and offended by the pictures from Abu Ghraib, seems to be completely silent about this slaughter. And the US press that was so anxious to publish pictures of the abuses at Abu Ghraib is now withholding the pictures of Nick Berg. Apparently it is only appropriate to show pictures that serve to show the US in a poor light - pictures that serve to shame and demoralize us in this struggle, but not ones that could anger Americans and spur support for war on these terrorist. The New York Post editorial gets it exactly right in what needs to be done:

Yesterday they got a shocking reminder. And now they know: This war cannot be waged with half-measures.
It can end only with the total annihilation of those who practice butchery and barbarism. Those who have set as their goal the destruction of America.
There is no negotiating with such people. There can be no compromise with those who mean to destroy us.
Yesterday, the White House promised to "pursue those responsible and bring them to justice." That's the least of it.
America has to come out swinging.
And not stop until every last one of the savage thugs is dead.
If that means a resumption of major combat in Iraq, so be it.
Would it mean another division or so of combat troops to get the job done?
Turn to our garrisons in Europe, or Korea, to get them.
In sufficient numbers to get the job done.
To hell with political sensitivities in the region.
To hell with negotiating with radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf and the Sunni insurgents in Fallujah.
To hell with handing Saddam Hussein over to Iraqis, as some want to do, and risking some reverse - perverse - kangaroo trial that results in his survival.
Evil, cutthroat terrorists need to be eradicated.
Let's face it: This is a job that's going to take overwhelming - yes, brutal - force. There is simply no "nice" or painless way to accomplish this.
As yesterday's slaughter showed (yet again), the enemy is bound by no moral compunctions.
America won't go that far.
But it had better steel it's backbone and get ready to fight like it means it.
It's the only way to win this war.

And until we take this to heart, and ignore the wailing of Ted Kennedy and his ilk, we can not win. Until we understand that none of our morality, or sympathy, or forgiveness means anything to the Islamofascists we will continue to see slaughters like those of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl and Madrid. We are in a war for the survival of the Western, liberal way of life, and until we resolve to kill this tiger and "hang it in [our] trophy room", we will continue to be eaten by it.

Hamas disabled

The World Tribune is reporting that Israeli military and intelligence sources are saying that they have thoroughly infiltrated Hamas and so have received advance warnings on a number of suicide bombing plots. This is in addition to eliminating a large number of Hamas operatives in the West Bank and Gaza.

"The Modern ‘Hep! Hep! Hep!’"

Cynthia Ozick, in this must read essay from the New York Observer, dissects the re-emergence of anti-Semitism, one that is most obvious and blatant in the Arab world, but is now also visible in the rhetoric of the Left, couched in Orwellian terms of "peace" and "justice".

This is the history that is ignored or denigrated or distorted or spitefully misrepresented. And because it is a history that has been assaulted and undermined by world-wide falsehoods in the mouths of pundits and journalists, in Europe and all over the Muslim world, the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism has finally and utterly collapsed. It is only sophistry, disingenuousness, and corrupted conscience that continue to insist on such a distinction. To fail to trace the pernicious consistencies of Arab political aims from 1920 until today, despite temporary pretensions otherwise, is to elevate intellectual negligence to a principle. To transmogrify self-defense into aggression is to invite an Orwellian horse-laugh. To identify occupation as Israel’s primal sin—the most up-to-date Hep! of all—is to be blind to Arab actions and intentions before 1967, and to be equally blind to Israel’s repeated commitments to negotiated compromise. On the Palestinian side, the desire to eradicate Jewish nationhood increases daily: it is as if 1948 has returned, replicated in the guise of fanatical young "martyrs" systematically indoctrinated in kindergartens and schools and camps—concerning whom it is cant to say, as many do, that they strap detonators to their loins because they are without hope. It is hope that inflames them.

In a previous, and more compact but similarly impressive essay, Ozick focuses on the Palestinians and their anti-history.

The "Stench Along the East River"

Over the years since its founding, the United Nations has metamorphosed from an institution of the highest ideals and vision - human rights, freedom, justice, tolerance, and peace - to a corrupt bureaucracy under the control of violent, despotic regimes. At this point, it seems that the main goal of the UN is to excoriate the US and Israel, as well as enriching itself and its minions. In virtually every mission that it undertook in the last 15 years, it failed miserably, either by commission or omission. Rachel Neuwirth in The American Thinker presents these failures.

The U.N. recently passed another blatantly anti-Israel resolution in support of extremist Arab Palestinian claims. There is no longer any point in entering into any serious dialogue with this organization. In countless ways, over many years, the U.N. has proven to be a discredited organization, with lawless elements, which can no longer claim to have any moral standing. Very few of its 191 members can be counted upon to put principle ahead of crass expediency.

The hopeful vision that accompanied its founding in 1945 has long since evaporated. It was the United Nations which recognized Israel in 1947. Therefore the U.N. has a duty to protect her from forcible extinction and to live up to and enforce the U.N. Charter. If the U.N. fails to protect any of her members including Israel, then all that remains is a stench along the East River.

[...]

The record is clear. Too clear. It is time to stop the pretense that the U.N. is anything other than a hopelessly corrupt, ever mischievous, ever-conniving, ever anti-democratic, failed organization. It is time to stop looking to it for any honest brokering and to establish an alternative mechanism for dealing with the world's ills, and this time, let it be "by invitation only!"

The U.N. must be radically overhauled in a way that requires member states to be at least on the road to democracy and all voting rights to be restricted to established, representative democracies. If not, it is time to put the old slogan into effect: get the U.S. out of the U.N., and the U.N. out of the U.S.

Where is the Outrage?

So is this a "racist, apartheid" fence also?: "the United Nations is set to begin a slate of projects--including the construction [of] a new perimeter fence--to bolster safety and security measures at its New York Headquarters."

Multi-Culturalism and Appeasement

Victor Hanson argues today in the Wall Street Journal that our inability or unwillingness to confront Islamofascism stems directly from the "post-modern", multicultural arguments of our intellectual class.

"So at precisely the time of these increasingly frequent terrorist attacks, the silly gospel of multiculturalism insisted that Westerners have neither earned the right to censure others, nor do they possess the intellectual tools to make judgments about the relative value of different cultures. And if the initial wave of multiculturalist relativism among the elites--coupled with the age-old romantic forbearance for Third World roguery--explained tolerance for early unpunished attacks on Americans, its spread to our popular culture only encouraged more.

This nonjudgmentalism--essentially a form of nihilism--deemed everything from Sudanese female circumcision to honor killings on the West Bank merely "different" rather than odious. Anyone who has taught freshmen at a state university can sense the fuzzy thinking of our undergraduates: Most come to us prepped in high schools not to make "value judgments" about "other" peoples who are often "victims" of American "oppression." Thus, before female-hating psychopath Mohamed Atta piloted a jet into the World Trade Center, neither Western intellectuals nor their students would have taken him to task for what he said or condemned him as hypocritical for his parasitical existence on Western society. Instead, without logic but with plenty of romance, they would more likely have excused him as a victim of globalization or of the biases of American foreign policy. They would have deconstructed Atta's promotion of anti-Semitic, misogynist, Western-hating thought, as well as his conspiracies with Third World criminals, as anything but a danger and a pathology to be remedied by deportation or incarceration."

The academic establishment promoted these ideas and convinced the public that we can not and should not judge the behaviour of others to create a paralysis in the Western world. We are afraid to condemn, to judge the terrorists and their supporters, because then we ourselves will be condemned by these fellow-travelers of the new totalitarianism.

The left hates Bush precisely because he does not subscribe to this non-judgementalism. Unlike Carter or Clinton, he has stated who he believes is evil and he has gone about trying to do something about them. "As Jimmy Carter also proved in November 1979, one man really can make a difference."

Arafat moving

Last weeks there were a number of reports that Arafat was "fortifying" the Mukata, with concrete filled drums and old smashed cars, because he feared that Israel was preparing to attack his hovel. Yesterday's Jerusalem post reports that Egypt will move Arafat from Ramallah to Gaza. If true, and Arafat is moved, this would make an invasion of the Mukata much more certain. With no risk of killing Arafat, the IDF would undoubtedly go in to get the terrorists that Arafat has been sheltering there.

Happy Birthday!!!!

Nudnik and Nudnikette wish a very Happy Birthday to Boris Tenenbaum, loyal reader, contributor, and mentor!!!

Mickey and Moore

The New Republic has an excellent assessment of the latest flap involving Michael Moore - Disney's refusal to distribute his new movie called Fahrenheit 911.

"Yes, it is a free country, but it is not a perfect one. Because in a perfect country, an irresponsible, intellectually dishonest windbag like Moore would not be a rich, successful, Oscar-winning documentarian. He would instead be just another anonymous nutter, mumbling about fluoride in the water and penning anti-establishment tracts by candlelight in some backwoods Appalachian shack. And he would never, ever find another funder for his "art."
[...]
Disney arguably would have a moral obligation to distribute "Fahrenheit 911," financial consequences be damned, if Moore were a serious journalist doing serious investigative work (and by serious I mean intellectually and factually rigorous, not humorless). But he is not. Moore has instead built a career on movies and books that, though classified as non-fiction, nonetheless treat facts like some vague, extremely malleable outline around which to construct his "art."
[...]
Fine. So you're an entertainer. Then don't wrap yourself in the Constitution and rage about how you're being censored because of your courageous crusade to reveal unpopular political truths. Don't pretend you're a muckraking journalist if you are, in fact, simply a dumpier, left-wing version of Ann Coulter. Like you, Coulter is flitting around this free country lobbing her share of ideological bombs. She just has the good sense not to expect Mickey Mouse to help her do it."

As is often the case with "artists" who try to shock, there is a complete misunderstanding of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech. Private companies, like Disney are not subject to the requirements of the First Amendment. And as such, have the right to decide what they want to support and what they don't.

Additionally, contrary to what they may think, criticism of these "artists" is not censorship; it is criticism. Ultimately they are responsible for their words and deeds and should try to understand that people who disagree with them are as free to express their disagreement as these "artists" are to express their "art. And if they can't take it, then maybe they should choose other professions.