Democracy is dangerous, much better to let the Enlightend elites rule us peasants. After all, they've been to college and everything. Next step : the integration of Turkey into Eurabia, I mean the EU.
By Daniel Hannan
Two years from now, the European constitution will be in force - certainly de facto and probably de jure, too. Never mind that 15 million Frenchmen and five million swag-bellied Hollanders voted against it.
The Eurocrats have worked out a deft way of getting around them. Here's how they'll do it.
First, they will shove through as many of the constitution's contents as they can under the existing legal framework - a process they had already begun even before the referendums.
Around 85 per cent of the text can, with some creative interpretation, be implemented this way.
True, there are one or two clauses that will require a formal treaty amendment: a European president to replace the system whereby the member nations take it in turns to chair EU meetings; a new voting system; legal personality for the Union.
These outstanding items will be formalised at a miniature inter-governmental conference, probably in 2007. There will be no need to debate them again: all 25 governments accepted them in principle when they signed the constitution 17 months ago.
We shall then be told that these are detailed and technical changes, far too abstruse to be worth pestering the voters with.
The EU will thus have equipped itself with 100 per cent of the constitution, but without having held any more referendums. Clever, no?
Don't take my word for it: listen to what the EU's own leaders are saying. Here is Wolfgang Schüssel, Chancellor of Austria and the EU's current president: "The constitution is not dead."
Here is Angela Merkel, leader of Europe's most powerful and populous state: "Europe needs the constitution We are willing to make whatever contribution is necessary to bring the constitution into force."
Here is Dominique de Villepin, who, in true European style, has risen to the prime ministership of France without ever having run for elected office: "France did not say no to Europe."
And, on Tuesday, our own Europe minister, Douglas Alexander, repeatedly refused to rule out pushing ahead with the bulk of the text without a referendum.
For the purest statement of the Eurocrats' contempt for the voters, however, we must turn to the constitution's author, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
Here is a man who, with his exquisite suits and de haut en bas manner, might be said to personify the EU: so extraordinarily distinguished, as Mallarmé remarked in a different context, that when you bid him bonjour, he makes you feel as though you'd said merde.
"Let's be clear about this," pronounced Giscard a couple of weeks ago. "The rejection of the constitution was a mistake that will have to be corrected."
He went on to remind his audience that the Danish and Irish electorates had once been presumptuous enough to vote against a European treaty, but that no one had paid them the slightest attention.
The same thing is happening today. Since the French and Dutch "No" votes, three countries have approved the text and three more - Finland, Estonia and Belgium - look set to follow in the coming weeks, which would bring to 16 the number of states to have ratified.
At the same time, the European Commission has launched a massive exercise to sell the constitution to the doltish national electorates.
Their scheme goes under the splendidly James Bondish title of "Plan D". I forget what the D stands for: deceit, I think, or possibly disdain.
Anyway, squillions of euros are being spent on explaining to us that we have misunderstood our true interests.
While all this is going on, the EU is proceeding as if the constitution were already in force. Most of the institutions and policies that it would have authorised are being enacted anyway: the External Borders Agency, the European Public Prosecutor, the External Action Service, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the European Defence Agency, the European Space Programme.
The text is not, as the cliché of the moment has it, being "smuggled in through the back door"; it is swaggering brazenly through the front.
Whenever one of these initiatives comes before us on the constitutional affairs committee, I ask my federalist colleagues: "Where in the existing treaties does it say you can do this?"
"Where does it say we can't?" they reply. Pressed for a proper answer, they point to a flimsy cat's-cradle of summit communiqués, council resolutions and commission press releases.
To be fair, this is how the European project has always advanced. First, Brussels extends its jurisdiction into a new field of policy and then, often years later, it gets around to regularising that extension in a new treaty.
The voters are thus presented with a fait accompli, the theory being that they will be likelier to shrug their shoulders and accept it than they would have been to give their consent in advance.
This, indeed, is how the EU was designed. Its founding fathers understood from the first that their audacious plan to merge the ancient nations of Europe into a single polity would never succeed if each successive transfer of power had to be referred back to the voters for approval.
So they cunningly devised a structure where supreme power was in the hands of appointed functionaries, immune to public opinion.
Indeed, the EU's structure is not so much undemocratic as anti-democratic in that many commissioners, à la Patten and Kinnock, have been explicitly rejected by the voters.
In swatting aside two referendum results, the EU is being true to its foundational principles.
Born out of a reaction against the Second World War, and the plebiscitary democracy that had preceded it, the EU is based on the notion that "populism" (or "democracy", as you and I call it) is a dangerous thing.
Faced with a result that they dislike, the Euro-apparatchiks' first instinct is to ask, with Brecht: "Wouldn't it be easier to dissolve the people and elect another in their place?"
To complain that the EU is undemocratic is like attacking a cow for being bovine, or a butterfly for being flighty. In disregarding public opinion, the EU is doing what it has been programmed to do. It is fulfilling its prime directive.
Sadly, we British are also exhibiting one of our worst national characteristics, namely our tendency to ignore what is happening on the Continent until too late.
With a few exceptions - and here I doff my cap to the pressure group Open Europe, which is waging a lonely campaign to alert people to the danger - we are carrying on as though the French electorate had killed off the constitution, and so spared us from having to think about the European issue at all.
Once again, we are fantasising about the kind of EU we might ideally like to have, rather than dealing with the one that is in fact taking shape on our doorstep. Will we never learn?
Daniel Hannan is a Conservative MEP. Rachel Sylvester appears tomorrow.
#5
85% of the proposed constitution is a whale of a lot of pages of laws. How long do you think it will take?
Posted by: James ||
03/21/2006 16:24 Comments ||
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#6
Never(get) for a minute. The loonies will keep coming back and coming back until they get their way by exhausting the majority.
That is their way. And unfortunately the tactic very often succeeds.
That's the way it is with zombies. They keep coming until you run out of ammunition or they get you.
Unless you shoot them in the head that is.
Apocalyptic prediction says the Antichrist will arise from just this sort of EU dictatorship and that he will eventually be shot in the head (and later rise from the dead - apparently).
Man Overboard - By Ruth Marcus
Tuesday, March 21, 2006; A17
I have a new theory about what's behind everything that's wrong with the Bush administration: manliness. mmmmm...does that include Condi?
"Manliness" is the unapologetic title of a new book by Harvey C. Mansfield, a conservative professor of government at Harvard University, which makes him a species as rare as a dissenting voice in the Bush White House. Mansfield's thesis is that manliness, which he sums up as "confidence in the face of risk," is a misunderstood and unappreciated attribute. as opposed to vacillating and temporizing until the polls come in?
Manliness, he writes, "seeks and welcomes drama and prefers times of war, conflict, and risk." It entails assertiveness, even stubbornness, and craves power and action. It explains why men, naturally inclined to assert that "our policy, our party, our regime is superior," dominate in the political sphere. like straight talk in diplomacy rather than Burgess Meredith in a $600 dress hoping her brooch conveys determination and State policy?
Though manliness is "the quality mostly of one sex," Mansfield allows that women can be manly, too, though the sole example he can seem to come up with, and deploys time and again, is Margaret Thatcher. "Is it possible to teach women manliness and thus to become more assertive?" he wonders, but not really. "Or is that like teaching a cat to bark?" Me-ow! Karen Hughes and Condi have shown more leadership skills and done more for women than all of the NOW/ACLU ditzes together
"The problem of manliness is not that it does not exist," Mansfield concludes. "It does exist, but it is unemployed." Well, um, excuse me, but I think -- it's just my opinion, now, maybe you disagree, and I'm sure we could work it out -- Mansfield has it exactly backward. Manliness does exist. The problem is that it's overemployed -- nowhere more than in this administration.
Think about it this way: Is a trait exemplified by reluctance to ask directions -- "for it is out of manliness that men do not like to ask for directions when lost," Mansfield writes -- really what you want in a government deciding whether to take a country to war? nice slur...guess the PMS is up next?
The undisputed manliness of the Bush White House stands in contrast to its predecessors and wannabes. If Republicans are the Daddy Party and Democrats the Mommy Party, the Clinton White House often operated like Mansfield's vision of an estrogen-fueled kaffeeklatsch: indecisive and undisciplined. (Okay, there were some unfortunate, testosterone-filled moments, too. hubba hubba - Ruth sounds a little excited, no? ) Bill Clinton's would-be successor, Al Gore, was mocked for enlisting Naomi Wolf to help him emerge as an alpha male; after that, French-speaking John Kerry had to give up windsurfing and don hunting gear to prove he was a real man. And Bush's father, of course, had to battle the Wimp Factor. Mansfield recalls Thatcher's manly admonition to 41 on the eve of the Persian Gulf War: "Don't go wobbly on me, George."
No wimpiness worries now. This is an administration headed by a cowboy boot-wearing brush-clearer, backstopped by a quail-shooting fly fisherman comfortable with long stretches of manly silence -- very "Brokeback Mountain," except this crowd considers itself too manly for such PC Hollywood fare. "I would be glad to talk about ranchin', but I haven't seen the movie," Bush told a questioner. or spent the night embracing a man...
There are, no doubt, comforting aspects to the manly presidency; think Bush with a bullhorn on top of the smoldering ruins of the twin towers. After a terrorist attack, no one's looking for a sensitive New Age president. Even now, being a strong leader polls at the top of qualities that voters most admire in Bush. but you'd prefer a puss in charge...say Gore, Kerry, Kucinich, right, Ruth?
But the manliness of the Bush White House has a darker side that has proved more curse than advantage. The prime example is the war in Iraq: the administration's assertion of the right to engage in preemptive and unilateral war; the resolute avoidance of debate about the "slam-dunk" intelligence on weapons of mass destruction; the determined lack of introspection or self-doubt about the course of the war; and the swaggering dismissal of dissenting views as the carping of those not on the team. hmmmm - domestic violence card appears
The administration's manliness doesn't stop at the water's edge. Pushing another round of tax cuts in 2003, Vice President Cheney sounded like a warrior claiming tribute after victory in battle: "We won the midterms. This is our due," Cheney reportedly said. After the 2004 election, Bush exuded the blustering self-assurance of a president who had political capital to spend -- or thought he did -- and wasn't going to think twice before plunking down the whole pile on Social Security.
Mansfieldian manliness is present as well in Bush's confident -- overconfident -- response to Hurricane Katrina (insert obligatory "Brownie" quote here). And the administration's claim of almost unfettered executive power is the ultimate in manliness: how manly to conclude that Congress gave the go-ahead to ignore a law without it ever saying so; how even manlier to argue that your inherent authority as commander in chief would permit you to brush aside those bothersome congressional gnats if they tried to stop eavesdropping without a warrant.
Mansfield writes that he wants to "convince skeptical readers -- above all, educated women" -- that "irrational manliness deserves to be endorsed by reason." Sorry, professor: You lose. What this country could use is a little less manliness -- and a little more of what you would describe as womanly qualities: restraint, introspection, a desire for consensus, maybe even a touch of self-doubt.
But that's just my view.
marcusr@washpost.com feel free to write to Ruth - use manly words and cuss a lot - deep down, I bet she likes it.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/21/2006 00:00 ||
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shoulda HT'd Drudge - my bad
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/21/2006 0:15 Comments ||
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#5
Why, yes, we should try to achieve consensus with the likes of Ahmadinejad. I'm sure if we would just bring ourselves to agree that Israel should be wiped off the map that we would get along swimmingly.
I'm sorry, dear Ruth, but rolling over and taking it isn't exactly "womanly". That's more along the lines of a stupid broad who prefers to whine when she doesn't get her way, yet refuses to get off her ass and do anything to actually make the desired result appear.
I think Ruth needs to get acquainted with this series of books. Not a lot of consensus building, restrained, introspective ladies with a touch of self-doubt in those pages.
NYC Fireman on 9/11
Marine in Falluja
Coast Guard Rescue on the Gulf Coast
When the $hit hits the fan, everyone is looking for 'manliness'. The left was done its best through browbeating rhetoric and royal judges to shackle manliness in this country. Notice however where their tools fail as with the muzzie zealots, they keep their mouth shut. Its all about power. In our case they have taken tools to control that power, one they fear but only because they see it as a threat to their claim to power. In the second case, they fear the power of the those exercising it, but can do nothing about it.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/21/2006 20:20 Comments ||
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#15
"...restraint, introspection, a desire for consensus, maybe even a touch of self-doubt..."
Oh yes, just what we need. Perhaps Ruth can advise us on which language to learn for our future: Farsi, Arabic, or Chinese. At least those of use who survive the bomb.
#18
I think, to put it bluntly, that the difference between George W Bush and the Democrats is that Bush is more interested in what he can do for the country than how he can manipulate the system to enrich himself.
Clintoon: Senator's word is now 'final,' says the ex-Prez
WASHINGTON - After being surprised by her husband's role in the Dubai ports deal, Sen. Hillary Clinton has insisted that Bill Clinton give her "final say" over what he says and does, well-placed sources said.
By Akhilesh Mithal
The fear that all Muslims of the world are uniting/united with the object of hurting and harming the USA is haunting the President and his coterie. The word getting the workout from the top leaders these days is caliphate the term for the 7th century Islamic empire that spanned the Middle East, spread to South-west Asia, North Africa and Spain, then ended with the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258. Caliphate is a mysterious and ominous word for many Americans and the administration knows it.
It wasn't a word many of us thought about until we started reading up on Islam and Islamists in the wake of 9-11-01. Then we kept stumbling across the term. Pooh-poohing the idea seems kind of disingenuous. But then, the rest of the article is, too.
They recognise that there is a lot of resonance when they use the term caliphate. Zbiignew Brzezinski (national security adviser to President Carter said that the word had an almost instinctive fearful impact.
More than 40,000 members of the Hizbut Tahrir on Sunday (March 5th, 2006) took to the streets of Indonesian cities to protest injustice against their religion across the world, marking the fall of the last caliphate in Turkey.Hizbut Tahrir advocating one Islamic caliphate in the world, rallied to the National Monument (Monas) square, opposite the U.S. embassy in Central Jakarta. "Down, Down (with) the USA. Up, Up (with) the Caliphate" said placards waved by protesters in Jakarta, including veiled women and their children. Similar rallies by Hizbut Tahrir members were reported in the Indonesian cities of Surabaya in East Java, Solo and Semarang in Central Java and in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Bandung in West Java, Padang in West Sumatera, Medan in North Sumatera, Lampung, etc.
Maybe to him. Most of us had to pause and look it up. The Islamic world not having been front and center in the affairs of the world for the past few hundred years remember "the Sick Man of Europe"? we weren't up on the intricacies of their thinking, if any. Imagine our surprise when we revisited the Wonderful World of Turbans and found comic-book quality Evil.
The US vice-president Dick Cheney has warned that Al Qaidas ultimate goal is the re-establishment of the Caliphate with dire consequences for the USA.
Gawd knows various big turbans have announced just that enough times. Hizb ut-Tahrir's dedicated to that very premise. I can't fault him for taking them at their word, though obviously Akhilesh Mithal can.
As now we hear talk of a revival of the Caliphate (an institution that disappeared in 1924) it is time to consider some facts which might be relevant. The English word Caliph derives from the Arabic Khaleefah. The root khalf means to leave behind. The English equivalents would be vicegerent, deputy, viceroy, lieutenant or successor.
The banner of the Hizb ut-Tahrir website has the quote "And there shall be khilafah rashidah." The name of the website is Khilafah.com. Khilafah is the rule of the Khalifa.
In the Holy Quran (Sura ii 2Cool Adam is described as Gods khaleefah on earth. And when God said to the Angels, I am about to place a vicegerent (khaleefah) upon the earth, they said, Wilt thou place therein one who will do evil thereon and shed blood?
Prophet David is also mentioned as a khaleefah in the Quran. The Dictionary of Islam, published in 1885, says, In Muhammadanism it (khaleefah) is the title given to the successor of Muhammad (On Whom Be Peace) who is vested with absolute authority in all matters of state, both civil and religious, as long as he rules in conformity with the law of the Quran (the holy book) and the Hadees (traditions of the prophet).
The first Caliph Abu Bakr succeeded the Prophet in 632 AD (11 AH) and the institution suffered great vicissitudes such as the assassination of the ruler, abolition of the dynasty, and total eradication at the hands of the Mongol Hulaku (1258) but reappeared in different places until the last Caliph and Sultan of Turkey was deposed and exiled by Mustafa Kamal in 1924.
The Turks present an interesting case study in what the caliphate would bring to the lands it ruled an initial period of aggressiveness (fall of Byzantium), followed by defeat (Lepanto, Gates of Vienna), followed by a long, slow descent into senility and ineptitude. The descent can be attributed only in part to the defeats indeed, it's more likely the defeats can be attributed to the descent. Part of that was due to the practice of strangling potential rivals with bowstrings, which managed to eliminate the best and the brightest, leaving rule to the most vicious. With innovation effectively outlawed, the Grand Turk allowed the Islamic world to slip into torpor, poverty and ignorance. That's their legacy, and those pushing the caliphate want to export it.
Turkey was simultaneously declared a state without any Islamic paraphernalia.
Coincidentally, Turkey is today probably the most advanced Muslim nation, with the possible exception of Malaysia.
With Turkey no longer a Muslim state, Hyderabad Deccan in India became the largest state ruled by a Muslim in the world of 1924. The Nizam, a puppet of the British Indian government, promptly entered into a matrimonial alliance with the erstwhile ruler/Caliph and brought the Princesses Durru-Shehwaar (Pearl of Emperor size) and Niloufer (Blue Lily) as brides for his two sons. The Princess Durru-Shehwaar was raised to succeed her father and educated in arts, civil and military. She was made Princess of Berar and soon became most popular in Hyderabad. The Nizam disinherited his sons and making his grandson Mukarram Jah, born of Princess Durru-Shehwaar, and therefore uniting the bloodlines of Turkey Sultans with his own heir to the Hyderabad throne. The idea was that if and when the Caliphate were to be revived the children of the union between the Asaf Jahi Nizam and the Sultan Caliph of Turkey would be available, ready and willing to take up the assignment.
I don't think the guys pushing for the reestablishment of the caliphate have the descendents of a princess of Hyderabad in mind for the big turban. I believe they're looking for somebody more, shall we say, Arab? Perhaps a prince? Maybe tracing his ancestry all the way back to the Profit (PTUI)?
The Nizam himself was deposed in 1948 and his progeny have shown no interest in taking up the role for which they were conceived and born. Princess Durru Shehwaar died in London, where she had lived for many decades, at 3 am on February 7, 2006 at over 90 years of age. Perhaps Americans can, to ease their disquiet, contact Prince Mukarram Jah and get a statement from him that he is against the revival of the Caliphate, which was vested in his mothers family through thirty seven generations from the year 1299 AD.
Unless he's got lotsa money and he can prove he's an Arab, he's not the one we have to worry about.
Posted by: john ||
03/21/2006 00:00 ||
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This Prince Mukarram Jah lives in Turkey now with his fifth wife.
His divorce settlements did not go well and he is said to be close to bankruptcy (no triple talaq in Turkey).
Didn't help that Indian government bought the family jewels for a pittance.
He is the little boy on the left
His father (at center) was more frugal
The last Nizam Osman Ali, however, used to follow a rather austere lifestyle. He wore the same tattered fez for 35 years and ate off a tin plate on a mat on the floor of his bedroom.
Yet, when the Indian government ran into a cash crunch soon after independence in 1947, his loan of gold sovereigns occupied two wagons of a special train to Bombay.
Earlier, during World War One, he made a generous contribution of 25 million pounds to the British exchequer, for which he was rewarded with the title of 'Exalted Highness' -- the only such title given to any of India's erstwhile maharajas by the colonial rulers.
Osman Ali, the legend goes, wrapped the 185-carat Jacob diamond, one of his most prized possessions, in newspaper and used it as a paperweight.
The treasure comprises 173 pieces of rare value and antiquity. Among them are the uncut Jacob Diamond, one of the seven biggest diamonds in the world, weighing 184.75 carats; a seven-strand pearl necklace strung with 150 large and 230 small pearls, with a two-diamond pendant attached to it; a pair of bracelets studded with 270 diamonds, 22 fine partially uncut and unmounted emeralds weighing 414.25 carats; and a diamond-set belt made in France by Oscar Massi Pieres. There are also rings, brooches, buttons, studded swords, diamond-studded images of camels, gold ingots
Posted by: john ||
03/20/2006 19:13 Comments ||
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#2
Here are some interesting facts about the Jewels of Nizams.
* The treasure of the Nizam of Hydrabad, which now is a property of the Government of India is one of the largest and the most valuable collection of the Indian jewellery.
* The treasure belongs to the Asaf Jah dynasty that ruled the state of Hydrabad from 18th century till the independence of India.
* The collection contains over 25,000 diamonds weighing over 12000 carats.
* The weight of the 2000 emeralds in the collection is over 10000.
Posted by: john ||
03/20/2006 19:14 Comments ||
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#3
The last Viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten (the cousin of Queeen Elizabeth) laid down the law as regards the accession of princely states to the dominions of Pakistan and India.
The state had to be contiguous with either India or Pakistan. No independence was possible.
The Nizam refused, wishing to join Pakistan even though most of his subjects were Hindu and most importantly, the state was entirely surrounded by India. Accession to pakistan would violate Mountbatten's guidelines and was not allowed.
Muslim radicals supported him. A muslim militia called the Razakars engaged in an orgy of rape, looting and murder, even into India itself.
The now Governor General Mountabtten advised caution and Nehru held his hand.
The Razakar leader Kasim Razvi vowed that "if India invaded nothing but the bones and ashes of 10.5 million Hindus would be found".
After Hyderbad loaned 200 million to Pakistan and sent a delgation to the UN, India had had enough
The Indian army was sent in, operation Polo - "a police action" according to India.
It is said many of the Nizam's Arab troops and the Razakars were summarily executed by the Indian army.
Posted by: john ||
03/20/2006 19:34 Comments ||
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#5
Here are some interesting facts about the Jewels of Nizams.
I have contacted you because I got your name through a confident. I have possession of the jewels of Nizam and need help getting them out of Nigeria. If you will provide your bank account numbers...
#6
I was talking over the concept of a renewed Caliphate with my Iranian friend. If there was a total reversion to the lifestyle of that time, the lack of modern medicine, the imprisonment of political dissidents and wholesale slaughter of homosexuals, refusniks and uppity wimmenfolk would result in a tremendous loss of life. Combined with the violent overthrow of all countries necessary, my friend quickly estimated that such an event could easily cost the world half of its population.
Compared to the 1.25 billion Muslims in this world, some 3.5 billion potential lives to be lost represent a definite tipping point. It is the perception of this and several other tipping points which have convinced me that Islam is a threat to all non-Muslims and must be contained or destroyed.
#8
Son, what do you want to be when you grow up ??
Oh Father, I want to be a loyal member of Hizbut Tahrir.....
Califate my foot... first they will have to learn to count on the fingers of their second hand (the one traditionally used by Moslems to wipe ass...), then we'll consider the califate...
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
03/21/2006 13:25 Comments ||
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#9
Here are some interesting facts about the Jewels of Nizams.
I thought Trump had them on display in the Haj Room of the Trump Taj Majal, but that was before he filed Chapter 11...
They've been kept in the vaults of the Reserve Bank of India in Mumbai.
They were put on display once, in 2001.
Posted by: john ||
03/21/2006 18:01 Comments ||
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#11
Some 7000 Arab soldiers (mercenaries in the Nizam's army) were put on boats to Aden after capture by the Indian army in 1948.
200 Pashtun soldiers were likewise sent back to Afghanistan.
Large numbers of Razakar militiamen, who had committed atrocities, were summarily executed by the Indian army.
There were 200 000 militiamen originally so several thousand were probably shot in the days following the "108 hour war".
Interestingly, the Razakar leader Kasim Razvi survived. He was arrested but later migrated to Pakistan.
He had boasted he would plant the green flag of Islam on the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi (the seat of former Mughal power).
He had mocked the Indian army, bizarrely expecting to slaughter "thin dhoti clad" soldiers (his image of hindus was apparently derived from the persecuted hindu peasants who lived under muslim rule in Hyderabad).
Posted by: john ||
03/21/2006 18:28 Comments ||
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#12
I think Caliphate should be the new mineral name for the slightly radioactive ashen glazed rock left over from the "Big Pushback". (Often found in what were primitive societies where toilets= slit trenches down main street and kids learn a religious book by rote head-banging, but have no marketable skills)
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/21/2006 19:31 Comments ||
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How the international community should have responded to Bush's September 2002 U.N. speech.
By Christopher Hitchens
Up until now, I have resisted all urges to assume the mantle of generalship and to describe how I personally would have waged a campaign to liberate Iraq. I became involved in this argument before the Bush administration had been elected, and for me it always was (and still is) a matter of solidarity with the democratic forces in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan and of the need for the United States to change its policy and be on their side. I am now authoritatively told that we should have been on their side to the tune of 100,000 or so extra troops, and I must say I do not object. Nor would I have objected then. However, it's the point of principle that matters. And one simply cannot turn to international friends and say, look, what with the state of the opinion polls, I think we'll have to be seeing a bit less of each other.
This commitment doesn't override truth, and I know that a lot of people feel that they were cheated or even lied into the war. It seems amazing to me that so many people have adopted the "Saddam Hussein? No problem!" view before the documents captured from his regime have even been translated, let alone analyzed. I am sure that when this task has been completed, history will make fools of those who believed that he was no threat, had no terror connections, was "in his box," and so forth. A couple of recent disclosures lend some point to my view. The first are the findings published in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs, and the second is the steady work of Stephen Hayes, over at the Weekly Standard, aimed at getting some of the captured documents declassified.
The long report in the May-June Foreign Affairs gives us a view of the regime that confirms the essential contours of Kanan Makiya's Republic of Fear. A system of hideous cruelty we have learned to take for granted, but this also reminds us of a system of amazing irrationality. Saddam Hussein wanted, until the very last days, to maintain ambiguity about his possession of weapons of mass destruction. Given his past record, there was absolutely no reason why any serious government should have taken his word that he had dropped this stance. (And we also know, from the Duelfer report and many other sources, that he hoped to retain his latent ability to restart production once the sanctionswhich were themselves a crime against the Iraqi peoplehad been lifted or rendered ineffective.) It is in the light of that last point that one of the article's crucial discoveries must be read. Saddam believed until the end that the French and Russian governments would save him. He also knew what weat the timedid not: The oil-for-food system had turned into a self-sustaining racket that cemented his support in French and Russian circles. He thought that contracts would speak louder than words, and in this instance he wasn't completely crazy to do so.
As for the "terror" connection, Hayes in a series of unrebutted articles has laid out a tranche of suggestive and incriminating connections, based on a mere fraction of the declassified documents, showing Iraqi Baathist involvement with jihadist and Bin Ladenist groups from Sudan to Afghanistan to Western Asia. If you choose to doubt this, you might want to look at the threat, neglected by the U.S. military, of the "Fedayeen Saddam." (See also Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor's admirable new book Cobra II.) This interestingly named outfit, known to many of us for some time, did most of the serious fighting against the coalition after the ignominious and predictable collapse of the Iraqi army and the Republican Guard. Its ranks were heavily augmented with foreign jihadists, and from this para-state formation and its recruitment pattern, we get an idea of the way in which things would have gone in Iraq if it had been left alone. Never mind "imminent threat," if that phrase upsets you. How does "permanent threat" sound?
So, now I come at last to my ideal war. Let us start with President Bush's speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, which I recommend that you read. Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important though those considerations were. He presented an argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq and said, in effect, that the international community had tolerated Saddam's deadly system for far too long. Who could disagree with that? Here's what should have happened. The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task. In the meantimethis is of special importanceall governments will make it unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats outside the country, and all officers and officials within it, will receive the single message that it is time for them to switch sides or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready, we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the threat of overwhelming force. We call on all democratic forces in all countries to prepare to lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in recovering from more than three decades of fascism and war.
Not a huge amount to ask, when you think about it. But what did the president get instead? The threat of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic fatuities from the United Nations' secretary-general, who had never had a single problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad. The refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeusthe only serious man in the U.N. inspectorateto the job of invigilation. A tirade of opprobrium, accusing Bush of everything from an oil grab to a vendetta on behalf of his father to a secret subordination to a Jewish cabal. Platforms set up in major cities so that crowds could be harangued by hardened supporters of Milosevic and Saddam, some of them paid out of the oil-for-food bordello.
Well, if everyone else is allowed to rewind the tape and replay it, so can I. We could have been living in a different world, and so could the people of Iraq, and I shall go on keeping score about this until the last phony pacifist has been strangled with the entrails of the last suicide-murderer.
The Bush presidency has revealed the enormous ideological rift that has been developing for more than forty years in America, and yet the vast majority of Americans are still not fully aware of it even though there has probably been nothing like it since the civil war.
On one side of the political gulf there are the fanatical win-at-all-costs Democrats whose vital ideological core does not believe in the legitimacy of the Republican Party just as abolitionists didnt believe in the legitimacy of slavery and the Southern Democrats in the legitimacy of Lincolns presidency.
To these Democrats, the Gores, Hillarys, Reids, Jesse Jacksons, Streisands, etc., the Republicans are the equivalent of nineteenth century slave owners. The irony of which is completely lost on these fanatics considering that those slave owners were Democrats
These comments are not mere speculation. About six years ago Curtis Cans, head of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, pointed out that political inspired hatred has been building up for some thirty years, blaming television for this phenomenon. But 1972 was the year that the radicals captured the Democratic Party. From that moment the Democrats ruthless urge win began to be transformed into a policy of political extermination.
These radicals brought with them the disease of the crusading spirit of intolerance. Firm in the righteousness of their cause (however incoherent at times), convinced that America was built on injustice, exploitation and oppression they have waged an unconditional war against the infidel, the barbarian conservative, the enemy of all that is good and just. That the Republican Party was formed on an anti-slavery platform is something these dangerous fanatics have tried to write out of history, just as they try to suppress anything that contradicts their Orwellian views
Much of the last centurys politics remind me of the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries where the battleground was doctrine and the object the saving of souls. Heretics, on both sides, who refused to recant frequently met a fiery end at the stake. Although it is true that Martin Luther did not, unlike the lovely Mr Alec Baldwin, did not favour putting to death those who disagreed with him.
But fanaticism has a price and that price is the abandonment of reason and tolerance. That is why some Dems feel free to accuse Bush of being evil and wanting to reintroduce slavery. We see the same thing in Hollywood where, for example, a huge Hollywood crowd gave a Streisand a rousing reception when she called on it to vote for Gore because he will stack the Supreme Court with judges who will twist the Constitution to fit their ideological agenda. (So much for the separation of the powers)
According to this deep Hollywood thinker the 1999 election was a war against bigotry, against discrimination of any kind, racial, religious or sexual orientation. To her and the rest of Hollywoods celluloid intellectuals, Republicans are the forces of Darkness while the Democrats are the forces of Light. This feeling is genuine, pervasive and dangerous and it is poisoning the whole of the body politic, eating away at civil political discourse.
How did these Democrats arrive at such a risible and contemptible view of conservatives, or anyone else who disagrees with them? Having convinced themselves that they alone are concerned with social justice and oppression, and only they care about the poor and the underprivileged it is but a short step to assume that anyone who questions their vision or so-called remedies must be stupid or malevolent.
Just as religious fanatics from centuries past could not tolerate the existence of those who questioned their theology and so could only ascribe to these critics a devilish malevolence, neither can our new Democrats tolerate any who challenge their sacred political doctrines.
#3
On one side of the political gulf there are the fanatical win-at-all-costs Democrats whose vital ideological core does not believe in the legitimacy of the Republican Party just as abolitionists didnt believe in the legitimacy of slavery and the Southern Democrats in the legitimacy of Lincolns presidency.
more like ...
...Democrats whose vital ideological core does not believe in the legitimacy of the Republican Party just as Marxist didnt believe in the legitimacy of multi-party democracy.
#4
"The right thinks the left is stupid; the left thinks the right is evil."
That's why the Republican presidents have, without fail, been portrayed as dumb. More like the left is naive and self destructive.
Posted by: ed ||
03/21/2006 9:16 Comments ||
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#5
I read somewhere that Republicans are either portrayed as dumb, or as cold hearted bastards.
Nixon was a cold hearted bastard.
Reagan was both. First term he was portrayed as dumb, then as a cold hearted bastard when it was realized the dumb thing didn't resonate.
Bush senior, when they even noticed him, was a cold hearted bastard out of touch with the people and uncaring.
Bush Jr is doing the Reagan. First he was dumb and Cheney was running the show behind the scenes, then he became Hitler. I read that going into the 2000 election Bush knew the two general media positions and positioned himself as dumb feeling that it was a better way to go with America.
#8
The problem is not liberals. The problem is leftists who have convinced enough sheeple that they, too, are liberals, rather than American hating scum who use the blessings of liberty to destroy the USA from within.
Pathetically and shortsightedly, liberals are blind to the fact that even if they realize their fantasy of defeating the evil conservatives by swallowing hard and aligning themselves with leftists, they will then be the authority de jure in leftsist's crosshairs.
#12
it will take a couple catastrophic poll losses but teh Dems will eventually split into two parties, or start putting reasonable candidates (other than poseurs for mil support) who actually want to protect our nation as no. 1 priority. I'm only 46, so maybe not in my lifetime...
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/21/2006 18:20 Comments ||
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#13
The problem began with VietNam and the draft. Most of the Dems went to college to take the 2S deferment and avoid the draft. To keep from dealing with the fact that while they were hiding, safe in college taking political science courses, those who couldn't afford to go to college were drafted and had to go to war in their place, these worms demonized the war and those who fought it. They were cowardly, intolerant slime then and they have not aged well.
#14
"The right thinks the left is stupid; the left thinks the right is evil."
Thanks, RC. You took the words right out of my mouth.
I've been saying the same exact thing for awhile now, in particular to my associates on the left. I think it acurately captures the fanatcism of the left, which is the main point I try to make when arguing against it.
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
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