There was a time when men went to war, sometimes against their own families, so that other men could be free. And there was a time when men went to war because we recognized evil when we saw it, and knew that it had to be stamped out.

There was even a time when a President of the United States threatened to punch a man in the face and kick him in the balls, because the man had the temerity to say bad things about the President’s daughter’s singing.

We’re not like that anymore.

Now, little boys in grade school are suspended for playing cowboys and Indians, cops and crooks, and all the other familiar variations of "good guy vs. bad guy" that helped them learn, at an early age, what it was like to have decent men hunt you down, because you were a lawbreaker.

Now, men are taught that violence is bad -- that when a thief breaks into your house, or threatens you in the street, that the proper way to deal with this is to "give him what he wants", instead of taking a horsewhip to the rascal or shooting him dead where he stands.....

a) To open an account and draw funds from the bank, Palestinian security men will have to show identification;

b) they can no longer be forced by their commanders and Arafat to engage in terrorists activities in order to feed their families. As PA officers, they will receive their paychecks directly from the EU.

1. Fatah and PA intelligence bodies did not pick up the slightest whiff of a protest move in the making. Signed by Fatah rank and file activists in total secrecy, the protest petition caught Arafat’s spies by surprise. He therefore concluded it must have been the work of a foreign intelligence service.
   
   
2. The signers were sufficiently in the know about Arafat’s affairs to correctly finger at least one of his close aides as responsible for the worse excesses in the PA. One was his former financial adviser, Mohammed Rashid – whom they describe as "the Kurd who controls the Palestinian national movement". The estranged Rashid has relocated his base from Ramallah to Cairo and London, where he is in business with another of Arafat’s rivals, Mohammed Dahlan.
   
   The fact that Rashid was named did not bother Arafat. But the second name was a giveaway: Kharabi Sarsur, 64, Arafat’s secret emissary, who holds the key to his personal cashbox. No ranking official in Palestinian-controlled territory dares mention this name aloud.
   

   They can say no more!

   The lowly Fatah operatives who mentioned Sarsur in their petition were hardly likely to know who he is. According to our sources, he is an important intelligence target – even more so than Arafat himself. Undercover agencies who want to find out what Arafat is up to keep an eye on Sarsur and, in particular, his disbursements of cash. Arafat is certain that only a major intelligence service had the inside knowledge necessary to "out" Sarsur.
   
   
3. French and EU authorities have started investigating his wife Suha’s money-laundering activities in Paris, where she lives a life Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza can only dream of. Six months ago, no European in authority would have dared touch Mrs. Arafat. Now, she is a liability making him vulnerable as never before.The money trail is bound to lead from Paris back to the "rais" and the secret Swiss account to which he smuggled PA funds - thence, for the last ten months, in monthly transfers of $1 million each into Suha Arafat’s Paris accounts. Washington knows that Suha is sitting on large sums belonging to her husband and the PA, rated by financiers in West Europe as being in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Arafat believes the Americans persuaded the Europeans to open the investigation, expecting Suha to open up on his hidden wealth rather than go to jail.
   
   
4. Arafat has heard that a number of Palestinian bankers, some working within the PA and others in Arab countries, have been intercepted on recent visits to the United States with invitations for "clarification talks" with the FBI. Arafat, his money and secret accounts are the main topics of these clarifications.

First, it provides a salutary warning to Iraqis. Most Iraqis, even those in the Shiite religious establishment, say they don’t want a formal rule of clerics as in Tehran. But in Iraq, there is a debate over whether Islam should be the chief source of law in an interim constitution, rather than "a source of inspiration for law," as the wording goes in the current draft. Paul Bremer, the U.S. czar in Baghdad, has said he will block any effort to make Islamic law the basis of the temporary constitution. But eventually Iraqis will write a permanent constitution without U.S. control. I have talked to moderate Iraqi Shiite clerics who espouse democracy but see no problem with making Islam the main source of all laws. They also want some sort of Council of Guardians to vet the laws of parliament and ensure that they comply with God’s law. That slippery slope would ultimately give unelected imams control over elected legislators. Down that path lies another variant of Iran’s clerical rule.
If this happens Iraq has wasted a great opportunity.

A second reason the elections are important is that they show the impossibility of combining Islam and democracy if the constitution enshrines clerical power. Iran’s Khatami still doesn’t see the contradiction. He is still urging Iranians to vote. "Our people need and desire a democracy compatible with our religious and cultural values," Khatami said at Davos. "The problem is not the constitution," he insisted. "What is necessary is a progressive interpretation of the constitution."
Khatami still doesn’t get it.
But a constitution that gives unchecked power to one group -- be it clerics or a shah -- can’t be compatible with democracy. Friday’s election will lay this bare.