Antiwar.com Blog

An amazingly flippant take on postwar Iraq from National Review. Alleged humorist Bruce Stockler’s plan to “solve Iraq’s internal problems, get our troops out of harm’s way, save us $14 billion a month, and unite the rest of the world, West and East, left and right”? Reinstall Saddam Hussein.

This is really funny because you didn’t see it coming, right? Or maybe it’s supposed to be less humorous than shocking, like an Andrew Dice Clay routine. Don’t take my word for it:

What message will Saddam’s return send to Iran, Syria, North Korea, and the other axles of evil? This is the brilliant part. Returning Saddam to power is such an unpredictable, confusing, and outside-the-box piece of political strategy that our enemies will spend years trying to divine our motives. No country could draw any rational foreign policy conclusion. Arab nations may question if Saddam is working for the CIA or if he is, in fact, a body double. Our closest allies will be at a loss to understand our motivations as well. Imagine the river of Xanax and Paxil that will be flowing into the U.N. as the befuddled delegates try to move their diplomatic chess pieces around a board we have not only wiped clean but packed away and stuffed into the attic.

Yes, mass murder and machtpolitik– hilarious stuff.

David Klinghoffer, a frequent contributor to National Review, often uses selective readings from rabbinical tradition to push neocon doctrine. Here, he has 12th c thinker Moses Maimonides arguing for National Greatness:

In an “optional” war, the king needs the approval of his legislative branch, the Sanhedrin of 71 expert sages. But with this approval secured, he may go to war to enlarge the nation’s borders, or to pursue “greatness” and “reputation.” Such a “reputation” is a defensive strategy. When other countries cease to regard your nation with awe, for instance if it tolerates violence against its citizens, this invites disrespect, which invites physical attack.

How about genocide?

[I]t will shock modern sensibilities that he is unconstrained by our familiar imperative to distinguish between civilians and soldiers. Women and children are to be saved, but: “If [the enemy] does not accept peace…, one makes war on them [even to the point of] killing all the adult males.” This is a distressing idea; but as recent events demonstrate — with Saddamite guerrilla operatives in civilian dress ambushing U.S. forces — a man out of uniform is no less capable of mayhem than his uniformed counterpart.

Interestingly, Continue reading “David Klinghoffer”

As my column for tomorrow asks, “What if you lived there?” From the Independent:

The abd al-Kerim family didn’t have a chance. American soldiers opened fire on their car with no warning and at close quarters. They killed the father and three of the children, one of them only eight years old. Now only the mother, Anwar, and a 13-year-old daughter are alive to tell how the bullets tore through the windscreen and how they screamed for the Americans to stop.

“We never did anything to the Americans and they just killed us,” the heavily pregnant Ms abd al-Kerim said. “We were calling out to them ‘Stop, stop, we are a family’, but they kept on shooting.”

The worst part?

Doctors said the father and his two daughters would have survived if they had received treatment quicker. Instead, they were left to bleed to death because the Americans refused to allow anyone to take them to hospital.

The Telegraph is now using the same line about Condi Rice. Compare their dateline to my last post. I’m not out to Jayson Blair anybody!

Dr. Rice apparently never read my “Collateral Damage” debut. Speaking before the National Association of Black Journalists:

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice likened Iraq’s halting steps toward self-government to black Americans’ struggle for civil rights, imploring black journalists Thursday to reject arguments that some people are incapable of democracy. […]

“[W]e must never, ever indulge in the condescending voices who allege that some people in Africa or in the Middle East are just not interested in freedom, they’re culturally just not ready for freedom or they just aren’t ready for freedom’s responsibilities.”

Uhh– who’s saying that? As I put the problem 5 months ago,

Since the U.S. insists on policies that galvanize Islamic fundamentalism, who do you think will be elected in a democratic Iraq, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia?

An article on the cinematic tastes of U.S. presidents turns up some interesting nuggets. Bill Clinton requested the shoot-out classic High Noon over 30 times while in the White House (because of its “strong-willed leader taking a situation of imminent danger into his hands – and winning”); George W. Bush’s “all-time favorite” is Saving Private Ryan. Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander on D-Day, “refused to view war pictures.”