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The night of the weak knees

Christopher Hitchens
Wednesday December 5, 2001
The Guardian (UK)

Four weekends ago, I really did receive two Friday-night telephone calls from well-positioned Washingtonians. "Leave now," they told me. "There's a tactical nuke on the loose, and it's headed for DC." One of these callers was in a position to know, and the other was in a position where he was actually paid to know. Calls were being placed to an immediate circle of friends to which, in theory, I was flattered to belong. Those who were calling were also leaving - while not informing the rest of the citizens. Why, then, did I resolve to stay? It wasn't just British pluck, strong as that naturally is. I thought, first, that it was unlikely that al-Qaida, if it had the bomb, would have conducted a petty dress rehearsal with United Airlines. I thought, second, that the detonation of a "use it or lose it" freelance nuke could not be predicted for any given weekend. And I thought, third, that I would feel a colossal cretin if I fled and then came slithering back on Monday morning (especially if the nuclear holocaust was timed for Monday's rush hour after all). In the end, I did take the family on a pre-arranged trip to Gettysburg, leaving late and returning early.

Officially, nobody now remembers this night of the weak knees. It rated a brief and embarrassed mention in Hugh Sidey's Time column, and that was it. But I shall not forget how some of those in supposed authority decided that the end had come, and made it a point to keep it to themselves and their immediate friends, perhaps to stop the crowding of the roads. That's how it will be on the day of Armageddon, and that's why the citizen should always plan to outlive the state, rather than the other way round.

The whole cult of "national security" depends upon the cultivation of national insecurity. Our new "tsar" (and what a telling word that is) Tom Ridge gave another perfect example of this idiocy on Monday last. High alert . . . something "generic" ... nothing specific. This was the third occasion on which he had told the American people to be on anxious lookout for - nothing in particular. At least he did not descend to the level of stupidity attained by Governor Gray Davis of California the preceding month. Davis announced that the Golden Gate bridge was under threat on a specific day, thus clogging traffic while simultaneously tipping off any bomber who might have pencilled that day into his (and with al-Qaida it's always his) calendar.

People are not at their best when they are frightened, and this goes twice for people in government who are temporarily "dressed in a little brief authority". I give you the instance of that devout Christian campaigner John Ashcroft, now in control of the Department of Justice. As an immigrant with a green card, I find that my American wife and American children will not insure me against a secret arrest, against undisclosed evidence, against a verdict with no appeal, or against my execution in a secret ceremony. (As the New Yorker puts it this week, the above procedure is so secret that it may, in theory, already have occurred.) I am forced to admit that I have not, as an Englishman in America, suffered all that much from "racial profiling". In the past few weeks, indeed, I have been so enthusiastic about the progress of the war that I considered taking out citizenship papers as a gesture of solidarity. But now I feel that, though America can have my body, it can't have my habeas corpus.

Simple truth

The new mantra in rightwing circles in Washington has it that Hamas and Hizbullah are the exact equivalents of al-Qaida. A brief thought-experiment shows how and why this is not so. If it were so, then we would expect to see British and American ground forces going right into Gaza behind General Sharon, and right into southern Lebanon to help restore Israel's once-proud "security zone". But this is not occurring. Ask yourself why not, and you will see that certain questions quite simply answer themselves.

The magic of monarchy

The American press was full of curious and pitying remarks about Japan this week. Now that Crown Princess Masako has given birth at last, some loyal Japanese are asking themselves why a woman cannot become emperor. There is much comment about the arcane and mystical rules that govern the succession in the land of the rising sun. The Japanese mind, one gathered, was more or less unfathomable on such matters. So different from the British mind, where a woman can become the head of state as long as she agrees to become head of the church and the armed forces, promises not to marry or become a Roman Catholic, and can prove that she is descended from a certain long-deceased Electress of Hanover. These are absurd conditions, yet this is described in American tabloids as "the magic of monarchy".

Tip for the (almost) top

Since I am recycling Washington whispers (high-grade whispers, I do assure you) I may as well tell you what the Republican conservatives are saying. Vice-President Dick Cheney, they inform me, is overdue for retirement. His dicky ticker (they don't actually call it that) has been over-strained by the constant demands of relocation, and by the stress of being the first Veep who has ever been compelled to live in a series of underground military-industrial caves - the "secure undisclosed locations" to which, come to think of it, I was not invited by my panic-callers of last month.

So, who is to fill the proximately presidential shoes? Not, I am told, Donald Rumsfeld, who is either (a) doing a splendid job or (b) has saved his once-endangered job only by the recent splendour of his performance or (c) cannot be spared anyway. No, it is Rudy Giuliani, the retiring mayor of New York, who is being groomed for greatness.

If this is true, it speaks well for George Bush and his circle. Not many presidents would pick a deputy who was more popular and respected, and who carried, if anything, more name-recognition, than themselves. But then, for all I know, this is the reason the story is being so energetically leaked in the first place. Either that, or Colin Powell has even more enemies within the administration than I had imagined.

· Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair.