Posted on 03/07/2002 9:56:45 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
Poor Tom Daschle. Nobody tells him anything. He has a meeting with President Bush, but whenever Tom asks questions he gets no more than a Mona Lisa smile. No one on the Armed Services Committee answers his phone calls. Hence his recent statements questioning the war's direction. Who can blame him for his confusion? Every morning someone steals his Washington Post and New York Times before he gets to them. You'd be confused too.
"There is expansion without at least a clear direction today," Daschle said recently. Apparently he missed the State of the Union speech, where the direction was spelled out: Iraq for its weapons program, Iran for its support of terrorist organizations, North Korea for its willingness to sell missiles and produce plutonium, and Belgium for the hell of it, just to show we're really in a bad mood these days. You'd like to think Daschle has a transcript of the State of the Union speech, but it's possible his dog ate it -- and being a good postmodern liberal dog, it choked to death on the word "evil." Let that be on the president's conscience too.
In any case, Daschle is reminding the American people not to trust any war into which a Democrat does not lead them. He is warning that there's no endgame in place -- and that is a good point. When will we know it's over? Here's how, dear Senator:
-- When a profusely sweating 9-foot-tall addled goofball attempts to light his shoes, and no one clubs him over the head with a Clancy novel because wanton destruction of airplanes is a thing of the past, it might be over.
-- When the news that a stolen nuke might be stored in New York doesn't cause the collective bowels of Manhattanites to liquefy because we know for certain the location and status of all the world's fissionable material, it might be over -- though we'll still have to contend with a few "nuke alarms" a year that require everyone to leave Manhattan for the day and sleep in school gyms in New Jersey. But it'll be fun! We'll sing songs and tell ghost stories. It'll be like camp!
-- When President Sharpton signs surrender papers with Hamas, it, and the nation as we know it, might be over.
-- When the body of Saddam Hussein is dragged through the streets until there is nothing left but a scrap of his collar and a well-abraded skeleton, and Iraq has been divided up into a sovereign Kurdish nation and a Hashemite protectorate, it might be over -- providing, of course, some Republican Guards didn't spirit away a tankerful of VX and send it to New York via container ship for a New Year's Eve surprise.
-- When Saudi money no longer flows to schools that preach an anti-Western message -- in other words, when Saudi Arabia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell Oil, and the sheiks are shivering in Swiss chalets cursing their luck -- then it might be over.
-- When the Iranian mullahs take their thumbs off their nation's jugular, allow themselves to be voted out, and sit silent while a new generation of Iranians hungry to rejoin the world begin to secularize their once-great nation, it might be over. Once the deposed mullahs waging war from their Afghanistan base are defeated, of course.
-- When you look up at Big Ben, or the Eiffel Tower, or the Sears Tower, and part of your brain doesn't imagine a plane flying into it, then it might be over. Providing, of course, that 10 years from now all these things are standing.
-- When Palestinian militants no longer regard the decapitation of Jewish infants as a fulfillment of God's plan, then it might be over.
-- When a majority of Muslims believe the events of Sept. 11 were actually committed by Muslims, and that this is not a reason to boast, then we might be close to the day when the end is beginning. And when politicians suffer a crippling charley horse in the conscience when they use war criticism to consolidate personal power, it might be over. But. It won't be over 'til it's over over here -- which will be never. How will we know we've won, then?
If we're here tomorrow, then we won today. Repeat until they tire -- or we do.
(James Lileks can be contacted at james.lileks@newhouse.com.)
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate,
tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."
- Samuel Adams
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