Those seeking a 'smoking gun' had better hope they don't get it

The United States and a constantly increasing number of allies are coming closer and closer to holding a despicable tyrant responsible for his past actions and rendering him unable to continue them both at home and abroad.

So, some people are upset. An entire dovecote of "anti-war activists" (at least for this war, and for this president - they were far less dovish when Bill Clinton attacked Serbia) is chirping its alarm over the fact that we have a president who understands that his principal task is the protection of our lives and interests.

Their exaggerations are so many, and their contact with reality so flimsy, that's it's hard to know where to start to hold them to account. Let's start with the big rally that was held in Washington last month.

I have a friend who lives in northern Virginia, a retired State Department officer who loves his country and who protested the Vietnam War in the '60s. Seized with serious doubts about the president's plans for Iraq, he crossed the Potomac to see if the rally would support his qualms.

He hasn't changed his mind about Iraq, but he was aghast at the march. Here's what he e-mailed me:

"I went to the March for Peace for three reasons: to register my anti-war views, and to voice my views on administration policy, and to show my niece and nephew (who came along) that the United States is a peaceful country with millions of citizens united for peace. But then I saw with my own eyes the hypocrisy and vicious hatred that so many marchers had for America. Mike, those people were openly anti-American. I saw it with my own eyes. You could cut the anti-Ameri- canism with a knife. . . . The ANSWER event was not a peace march - it was a virulent anti-American march. . . .

"For the demonstrators there is some kind of moral equivalence between us and Saddam."

Not terribly surprising, considering that ANSWER, the group that sponsored the march, is affiliated with an unreconstructed hard-left Marxist fringe that in the past has expressed admiration for the murderous Joseph Stalin, dictator Kim Jong-Il of North Korea and war crimes indictee Slobodan Milosevik.

Oh, but the marchers didn't necessarily support that? OK, think about who would go to a civil rights march sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan, and then wonder why ANSWER's sponsorship was fine by those attendees.

Next, there are all the people who keep demanding more proof that Saddam Hussein has both evil intentions and the means to carry them out. True, there have been no Cuban-missile-crisis photos - yet - but there are at least two major talks they haven't heard yet, either. One will come this Wednesday, when Secretary of State Colin Powell speaks to the United Nations, and the other will come after that, when President Bush addresses the nation again.

Anybody who doesn't think Saddam is a threat both to his neighbors and the West has not been paying attention - deliberately, I believe, because U.N. inspectors themselves say he has tons of lethal stuff he won't account for - but those speeches should satisfy all but the same people who attended the "March for Peace."

What is truly dangerous is the demand by some that they must see a "smoking gun" before they'll back Bush. In that, they show less support for America than the leaders of Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Denmark and the Czech Republic, who sent a letter last week proclaiming "New Europe's" strong support for Bush. France and Germany had better start worrying about the perils of unilateralism.

In truth, what would a "smoking gun" be? Well, it might be a mushroom cloud forming over Manhattan; or a radioactive "dirty bomb" ex- ploding a few blocks upwind of the Capitol or the White House; or letters full of finely milled anthrax being sent not to a few congressional offices but to hundreds; or a thousand vials of smallpox infecting tens of thousands of people, with a death rate of 30 percent or more among the unvaccinated victims.

Folks, we don't need those kinds of smoking guns. We don't even need them drawn from their holsters. We may not be able to find each and every member of al-Qaida yet, but as the president said Tuesday, we've found a number of them, and they won't be bothering us any more. Their leader, Osama bin Laden, hasn't been reliably heard from since December 2001, and could be among the group Bush mentioned.

It's no easy decision to go to war, and I even have some sympathy for Bill Clinton, who has been strongly criticized for not dealing with terrorism and Saddam after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and subsequent terror attacks abroad.

But that was all prior to Sept. 11. We've seen two of our tallest buildings fall in fire and ruin, seen people jump from the 80th floor because that was better than being incinerated in their offices, seen our military headquarters lethally attacked.

Still, you may want more than this. If you're patient for a week or a month, I think you'll get it.

No you strike me as the live and let live kinda person that is willing tocompromise on anything. Go to DU Palmer your attitude would be appreciated there.

That's not what I believe. I want to use my military in the most practical possible ways. For example, I don't think nation building in Afghanistan is practical nor will it be successful and that is a lot easier than what we want to undertake in Iraq.

Instead I would small squads to deal with terrorists wherever they need to, based on the best intelligence possible. I also believe our intelligence has done a great job defending us against terrorism since 9/11.

But the Salman Pak thing is kind of amusing: it is alleged that Saddam trained terrorists to hijack planes using box- cutters there. I think it is much more likely that the terrorists thought that part up themselves without any training.

It's very touching how you're willing to forgive any involvement Saddam may have had in such training, as long as the technology / ideas used in the attack which resulted was sufficiently lo-tech. "Yeah, maybe Saddam provided a training base for 'em, but really, they could've thought that up themselves anyway. So let's cut Saddam some slack."

To me, the important questions are, Is Saddam our enemy? Does he try to attack us? Or help people to attack us? If so, then I don't give a rat's ass what the surrogates use to attack us; it's the attacking that's the issue here.

It's not clear what the issue is, to you. Besides making sure we don't attack Saddam, of course.

An interesting post for two reasons:

1....An entire dovecote of "anti-war activists" (at least for this war, and for this president - they were far less dovish when Bill Clinton attacked Serbia)...

Similarly, there is a vast inconsistency on the part of the War Party: they vehemently protested Clinton - and rightly so - but line up behind Bush. Smacks of pure party politics.

2. He points out what a lot of the GOP/War Party crowd seems unable to recognize: those opposed to war with Iraq are not a monolithic bunch. Like the author's friend, I oppose this action in Iraq, but I want nothing to do with the marxists, socialists and leftists that make up the bulk of these war protests.

The War Party's labeling any differing opinion as "un-American" and "un-patriotic" is both wrong, insulting, and, frankly, bad rhetoric.

I feel safer knowing my military is kept in reserve for a real threat.

And Saddam (who you agree has WMDs) is not a "real threat" because.....

Also somewhat safer (or less apprehensive) keeping Iraq the way it is,

"the way it is"? You mean, cheating on anti-WMD resolutions and working hard to try to develop nukes? That kind of thing?

Finally, there's other sources for WMD's for terrorists, for example if they have money they can buy them from North Korea.

Yes, that is also a problem.

We certainly can't afford to attack every country that could possibly supply WMD's to terrorists.

Probably not, at least not all at the same time. This is not an argument for attacking none of them, though. One thing at a time.

Iraq may or may not be the biggest threat the US faces. But the US will be going to war against Iraq because it can.

Under the terms which ended the last Gulf War, Iraq was required to do a lot of things that it has failed to do. This failure constitutes grounds for us going to war based on the previous agreements. In effect, it means that the Gulf War never ended.

On the other hand, if we were to want to go to war against Iran, for example, we would have to prove conclusively that they were directly involved in an attack on this country, as was manifestly true in the case of Afghanistan. Even then, after all this time, it would be an uphill fight.

But no such proof is necessary against Iraq. We can go into Iraq just because they have not kept the terms they signed ten years ago.

To which I say, "Works for me!" In order to combat Islamic terrorism, we are going to have root out these evil regimes wherever we find them. Iraq is as good a place to start as any.

There is plenty of evidence directly connecting Saddam to several direct attacks on America, including (but probably not limited to) the assassination attempt on former President Bush, the original 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and some (if not all) of the anthrax letters mailed shortly after 9/11.

Once Iraq has descended into chaos and we give up and leave, the religious nuts that end up ruling it will make Saddam look like a nice guy. Those are the people behind the two WTC attacks and this war will strengthen them in two primary ways: they will have more people joining them, and they will have a base of operations to work out of that may include a large part of the Middle East and South Asia (Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, etc).

I worry about instability, unpredictability, popular uprisings such as voting for Islamic law in the new Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and elsewhere.

"Yeah, maybe Saddam provided a training base for 'em, but really, they could've thought that up themselves anyway. So let's cut Saddam some slack."

I meant to say that it is laughable that anyone would train anyone else in how to hijack aircraft by slicing throats. That requires indoctrination of the kind that small groups of religious fanatics are able to provide, similar to cults: controlling the person's life completely, indoctrinating them 24/7, etc. The claim that Saddam did that at a base in the desert is ridiculous.

I meant to say that it is laughable that anyone would train anyone else in how to hijack aircraft by slicing throats.

But, and yet, it happened, did it not? (I mean, someone trained them.) You are arguing with reality and declaring it "laughable". I don't know what this proves other than that reality does not impress you all that much.

That requires indoctrination of the kind that small groups of religious fanatics are able to provide, similar to cults: controlling the person's life completely, indoctrinating them 24/7, etc. The claim that Saddam did that at a base in the desert is ridiculous.

I don't see why, and I don't know what your opinion is based on, other than some over-confident hunches that you seem to have about everything.

Saddam has used WMD, it's true. He used them in wars, against Iran, and to supress an uprising of Kurds, trying to overthrow him. He did not use them in taking over Kuwait.

Saddam Hussein may hate the US, and I have no doubt he has MWD. But the man has been in power for 30 years; it's a tough place to be in power that long, so he's not stupid. He is not going to attack the US. The only situation where he would use WMD against the US is if he sees American troops crossing his desert, charging toward Baghdad. So we're giving him the opportunity.

I would love to believe the Bush Administration has linked Saddam to the 9-11 attacks. But the fact that Bush is not using the authority granted him by Congress in fighting the War on Terrorism indicates to me that he has not been able to develop a link (and in fact, the Bush Administration has quit using this as an excuse).

A couple of tangential thoughts: it is amusing that so many that call themselves Conservatives rightly disparage the UN and all it stands for, but are more than happy to use violation of contrived UN agreements as an excuse to go to war.

I wish the war were about oil. If George W Bush were to say, "We're tired of dicking around with environmentalists in Alaska, and we were real pissed when Saddam switched to the Euro instead of the US Greenback as his preferred method of payment, and we want his oil, and we're going to come and take it." I would whole-heartedly support that.

To which I say, "Works for me!" In order to combat Islamic terrorism, we are going to have root out these evil regimes wherever we find them. Iraq is as good a place to start as any.

We all know that there are many places where terrorists can find support: namely almost any place where there are Islamics and enough chaos or local autonomy to protect the terrorists. This includes parts of Pakistan, Indonesia, the drug cartel areas in South America, numerous countries in South Asia like Chechnia, etc. "Evil regimes" is a convenient substitute for the much messier and harder problem of evil areas.

The best way to fight terrorism is to directly confront terrorists wherever they are. But finding them is an even harder problem and the chaos that would result from a civil war in Iraq and neighboring areas would make that job harder.

After we kill/arrest Saddam and his family and top henchmen, we're not just going to "give up and leave". While no concrete plans for administration have been made just yet, I believe that a U.S. or NATO general will end up temporarily administering the government (like MacArthur in Japan), with a popularly elected government to come within the next 2-5 years. Heck, they may even decide to split up Iraq into two or three separate sovereign countries. But we're going to have a military presence there for a while. And once we are in control, Iraq will be permantly removed as a possible base of any terrorist operations. And the Islamofascists won't be strengthened by our victory any more than Al-Queda has been strengthened by our operations in Afghanistan.

He is not going to attack the US.

First of all it's already known that he made an attempt on our President's life. In a similar vein you speak as if it is known that Saddam has had no involvement in various other terrorist attacks against us. Second, you're awfully confident for a person who is necessarily uninformed (as are we all). I do so hope that you're right. I don't think it's a good gamble, though.

But the fact that Bush is not using the authority granted him by Congress in fighting the War on Terrorism indicates to me that he has not been able to develop a link (and in fact, the Bush Administration has quit using this as an excuse).

I don't understand; in the fall Congress gave him a war powers resolution and if/when we attack it will be under those auspices, no? The fact that we haven't attacked yet doesn't necessarily mean Bush "can't" link Saddam to terror; it may just be an indication that the generals have told him the timing isn't quite right.

I agree. I'd just as soon see us attack Iraq with no reference to the UN whatsoever. Happy now?

Anyway, I still would like an answer to my actual query to you, which was about the supposed hypocrisy of a conservative disagreeing with the war against Yugoslavia but agreeing with potential war against Iraq. What do those two situations have in common, that I am logically required to support the former if I support the latter? Just wondering.

But, and yet, it happened, did it not? (I mean, someone trained them.)

I don't see how anyone could believe that training was needed in how to storm planes with box-cutters. The pilot training was required and was done here financed mostly by Saudis.

I don't see why, and I don't know what your opinion is based on, other than some over-confident hunches that you seem to have about everything.

What raises my confidence is reading stories about Salman Pak. Or listening to the President describe Iraqi tortures. Whether these stories are true or not, it is all standard war propaganda and has nothing to do with whether the war is in our interests.

If he thinks it is inconsistent for those dems that supported Clinton to not support Bush, then why is it not inconsistent for those Gop-ers that did not support Clinton to support Bush?

Because the situation is not symmetric. I'll explain. One side is adopting a pose which can be described as "universal", while the other isn't.

To say "I'm anti-war" is a pretty "universal" statement, is it not? It makes no allowances for particular exceptions. But that is precisely what the protesters say; they speak in universal terms such as, "war is ALWAYS the last resort", "war is a failure of diplomacy", "war is hell and I'm against it, there has got to be a better way". They are saying, or pretending, that their opposition in this particular case (U.S. military attacking Saddam's ruling regime of Iraq) is something which proceeds from a more general principle, namely, "war is bad and I'm anti-war".

Given this, it's quite fair to evaluate whether, in their past statements, they lived up to the general principles they are pretending to follow. That's where Yugoslavia comes in. Were these "anti-war" folks so "anti-war" in that case? Some of them were, actually. But most of them were not. It's a pretty clear-cut case of hypocrisy.

Now, you simply can't go in the other direction as easily, and this is because the "let's attack Saddam" faction is making no such claim to "universality". It's not like we're saying "let's attack Saddam because war is good" :-) We're saying: let's attack Saddam because the particularities of this situation appear to make it the only course of action.

Bringing up Yugoslavia against this statement is, therefore, irrelevant, unless Yugoslavia and Iraq have something significant in common with respect to the reasons the pro-war folks are giving for attacking Saddam.

What are those reasons? Basically the argument boils down to a pre-emptive strike against a madman who is our enemy, probably has WMDs, and has the type of temperament to use them against us or our friends.

But the preceding paragraph simply doesn't apply to Milosevic (except for the "madman" part). Unless you are prepared to argue otherwise by saying what Yugoslavia and Iraq supposedly have in common. Which is why I asked.

1. Saddam loathes the U.S. and everything we stand for.

Undoubtedly true. So do a lot of other countries.

2. He would want nothing more than to destroy us, especially after Desert Storm.

Undoubtedly true. So do a lot of other countries.

3. He knows it would be suicide to engage us in an open war.

Absolutely true. He is not going to do anything that would provoke us into attacking him openly.

4. What better way to attack us than through phantom surrogates?

How about waiting until US forces are racing across the desert and then launching bio- or chem-bombs at them?

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