Speaking of the administration, Mr. McDermott said, "I believe that sometimes they give out misinformation." Then he added: "It would not surprise me if they came up with some information that is not provable, and they've shifted. First they said it was Al Qaeda, then they said it was weapons of mass destruction. Now they're going back and saying it's Al Qaeda again." When pressed for evidence about whether President Bush had lied, Mr. McDermott said, "I think the president would mislead the American people."

NOVAK: Last week, Paul Begala's "Political Alert" cited Paul Krugman's "New York Times" column suggesting former Enron executive Thomas White should be fired as secretary of the Army. Krugman's whole case: an alleged Enron e-mail by White saying, "Close the bigger deal. Hide the loss before the first quarter." One problem: White says he never wrote that e-mail or even saw it. Krugman's source was California writer Jason Leopold, who never contacted White. I asked Leopold for a copy of the e-mail. Guess what? No response to my fax or phone call.
BEGALA: Well, you ask me to judge the credibility between Paul Krugman, a professor of economics at Princeton and a distinguished columnist for "The New York Times," and Thomas White, an executive for disgraced Enron, I know who I'm going with.

Many Roman Catholics find in him a positive, indeed shining, example of a priest at a time when the priestly image is suffering from the sexual abuse scandal in the Church. His Irish-American friends celebrate his Irishness. Firefighters across the country have embraced him as the chaplain of chaplains. Another group has publicly sung Father Judge's praises since his death: gay rights advocates. Some have spoken openly about what they say was his homosexual orientation, and the former New York City fire commissioner, Thomas Von Essen, said that Father Judge had long ago come out to him.

The screeching, dogmatic leftoids who long dominated American gay public discourse are not merely in retreat, they have become mostly irrelevant. Witness the obsolescence of the inflexibly leftist National Gay & Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), once the dominant force in American gay activism. I was moved to reflect on this by a comment Ann Donahue made in the Oct. 1 Advocate. Ann is the writer and executive producer of the hit TV series "CSI: Crime Scene Investigations." "It's interesting to me how people think that if you're gay, you're left-wing, and it's like, 'No, each one of us is different,'" she said. "I'm still against abortion. ... Do you think I'm not for the death penalty?"

that we ought to be focusing our efforts first and foremost against those who attacked us on September 11th and who have thus far gotten away with it ... I don't think we should allow anything to diminish our focus on the necessity for avenging the 3,000 Americans who were murdered and dismantling the network of terrorists that we know were responsible for it. [Emphasis added.]

This is a very interesting way of framing the task at hand: not to prevent future attacks on Americans but to avenge the deaths on September 11. Now there's no question that many Americans, myself included, have entertained the desire for vengeance. But the only reason to act on that impulse is to make it clear that future attacks will be costly for the attackers. Vengeance for vengeance's sake is just blood lust. It might feel good, but (leaving aside any humanitarian considerations) it doesn't solve the fundamental problem. Vengeance may even make matters worse, by escalating blood feuds without eliminating threats. Gore's pooh-poohing of the administration's Iraq policy depends in large measure on his definition of the problem. If you want to prevent further attacks, you have to worry about state-sponsored weapons programs. If you just want to get revenge, you don't.

Jimmy Delshad, an Iranian Jew and former president of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, which has many Iranian Jewish members, said the two communities have enjoyed a warm relationship. Even so, some Iranian Muslim youngsters have lately fallen under the influence of "Palestinian-like propaganda, which makes Jews responsible for everything," he said. "Youth - especially at universities, who are very much against Israel and Jews - are very influenced and take things upon themselves," said Delshad, who added that he believes these misguided youth were not targeting Iranian Jews specifically, but Jews in general.

[T]he intense solipsism of [the American] people, its general ignorance of the world beyond America's shores, coupled with the effects of 11 September, have left tremendous political spaces in which groups possessed by the fantasies and ambitions sketched out here can seek their objectives. Or to put it another way: the great majority of the American people are not nearly as militarist, imperialist or aggressive as their German equivalents in 1914; but most German people in 1914 would at least have been able to find France on a map.

While I enjoy the rhetoric - "So-and-so is someone's poodle" - my poodle, black, seventy pounds and large of fang, is not amused. He asked me to inform you of all the domestic dogs, poodles are the closest to wolves by DNA analysis.

The Nation-Columnist, 1st Ld-Writethru, a0596,0450
Christopher Hitchens, longtime columnist for The Nation, announces his
departure
Eds: SUBS 1st graf to CORRECT description to 'maverick' sted 'conservative';

"Whether you are on the right or the left, it's all about who your friends are and with whom you feel comfortable," Mr. Alterman said. "Christopher [Hitchens] had long ago ceased to feel comfortable with his friends on the left."

N E W Y O R K, Sept. 26 - Christopher Hitchens, longtime conservative columnist for The Nation, is leaving the liberal weekly publication.

I have always described myself as a liberal or progressive. I am a gay man living in Manhattan, I am pro-choice, a registered Democrat and have been active in gay organizations from ACT UP to HRCF. However since 9/11 I find myself growing more and more estranged from the left. They just seem clueless and adrift, bitter and angry. The immediate reaction of some on the left to 9/11 was appalling. The creeping anti-Semitism of the left is especially shocking and hypocritical. This one question of the Middle East has led me to examine all my left leaning beliefs. And I am not alone particularly here in New York. People who would normally be described as left are taking tentative steps in the same direction-rightward. We feel guilty about it and are afraid to discuss our new found politics with our friends. Indeed one friend who describes himself as a dedicated Marxist(read hypocrite) has written me off. My old ACT UP friends, with whom I have been arrested, are shocked at my center right views. My response is that ACT UP was actually founded on very conservative libertarian principles. At times it was even reactionary and dispalyed some facist tendencies. Nowadays you can find me reading downloaded and printed articles from National Review, Weekly Standard and,. happily, Slate at my favorite cafes in Manhattan. I still am a little embarrassed if anyone were to look over my shoulder and see me reading these publications but I am ready for any pithy comment that may come my way.

More than a dozen Democrats, who requested anonymity, have told The Washington Post that many members who oppose the president's strategy to confront Iraq are going to nonetheless support it because they fear a backlash from voters. A top party strategist said every House Democrat who faces a tough reelection this fall plans to vote for the Bush resolution. Senate Democrats are so concerned that Sen. Paul D. Wellstone (Minn.) could lose his seat because he will likely vote against the Bush resolution that they are drafting an alternative resolution "because he has to have something to give him cover," a Democratic Senate aide said.

The House responded, but the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people. I will not accept a Department of Homeland Security that does not allow this president and future presidents to better keep the American people secure.

It was unknown how close Mr Brown and his staff are to Mr Greenspan. Yesterday, Mr Brown described him as "a good friend" and "a great American, America's greatest central banker, not just of our generation but of all time, and one of the world's most esteemed statesmen". He said Mr Greenspan had secretly helped him plan to make the Bank of England independent. Before the 1997 election, Mr Brown and his economic adviser, Ed Balls, visited Mr Greenspan several times.

[T]he terrorist threat against America is all too clear. Thousands of terrorist operatives around the world would pay anything to get their hands on Saddam's arsenal, and there is every possibility that he could turn his weapons over to these terrorists. No one can doubt that if the terrorists of September 11th had had weapons of mass destruction, they would have used them. On September 12, 2002, we can hardly ignore the terrorist threat, and the serious danger that Saddam would allow his arsenal to be used in aid of terror.

For people with a genetic predisposition to Parkinson's disease, smoking has also been found to have protective capabilities by inhibiting the production of the MAO-B enzyme and thus preventing it from prematurely breaking down the neurotransmitter dopamine which, at chronically low levels, leads to Parkinson's disease. Since dopamine slows down the transmission of nerve impulses and coordinates muscle movement, a shortage of dopamine can cause an unregulated and heavy traffic of electrical signals in the brain and can over-excite the muscles and cuase them to spasm and lock.

My Dad developed ulcerative colitis (related to Crohn's), Wound up in the hospital for 2 weeks. A couple of days before they were going to removed his colon, we found some obscure study on the net indicating that nicotine was related to the problem. We insisted that the Doctor prescribe the patch. Dad was out of the hospital in 2 days.........with his colon intact. Some have come to call Ulcerative Colitis the "non-smokers" disease, because smokers never get it. My father had quit smoking 5 years prior to his illness.

Here's something that many doctors (and patients) know about, but I have yet to see it in the media...tobacco reduces intestinal inflammation associated with Crohns Disease. My stepmother has been a Crohns patient for, oh, 50 years. In recent years, she has tried without success to quit her longtime smoking habit, but every time - even with the patch and the gun - her Crohns flares up (abdominal cramps and other nasty things). Finally, she learned that nicotine, especially when delivered via a cigarette, is an effective anti-inflammatory. This has nothing to do with the fact that she's smoked for 50 years; Crohns patients who have never smoked in their lives enjoy a benefit from smoking. Okay, so what else is new? Feds notwithstanding, many sick people claim relief from toquing up; why not lowly nicotine? My stepmother - who remains in generally good health despite the Crohns - still tries to wean herself from this habit. God knows society would rather see her sick than smoking.

I want to state this clearly, President Bush should not be blamed for Saddam Hussein's survival to this point. There was throughout the war a clear consensus that the United States should not include the conquest of Iraq among its objectives. On the contrary, it was universally accepted that our objective was to push Iraq out of Kuwait, and it was further understood that when this was accomplished, combat should stop.

Now, back in 1991, I was one of a handful of Democrats in the United States Senate to vote in favor of the resolution endorsing the Persian Gulf War, and I felt betrayed by the first Bush administration's hasty departure from the battlefield even as Saddam began to renew his persecution of the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south, groups that we had, after all, encouraged to rise up against Saddam.

Although many Americans, and far more Europeans, will not see this as adequate cause to go to war — if President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair choose that option — the report appears clearly intended to make a strong case for the urgent return of inspectors to Iraq and for the necessary pressure to force Iraqi cooperation with their work.

Before we get to the latest wacky hijinks, let's review how the War On Tobacco works. The underlying principle, of course, is: Tobacco Is Bad. It kills many people, and it causes many others to smell like ashtrays in a poorly janitored bus station.
So a while ago, politicians from a bunch of states were scratching their heads, trying to figure out what to do about the tobacco problem. One option, of course, was to say: ''Hey, if people want to be stupid, it's none of our business.'' But of course that was out of the question. Politicians believe EVERYTHING is their business, which is why - to pick one of many examples - most states have elaborate regulations governing who may, and who may not, give manicures.
Another option was to simply make selling cigarettes illegal, just like other evil activities, such as selling heroin, or giving unlicensed manicures, or operating lotteries (except, of course, for lotteries operated by states). But the politicians immediately saw a major flaw with this approach: It did not provide any way for money to be funneled to politicians.
And so they went with option three, which was to file lawsuits against the tobacco companies. The underlying moral principle of these lawsuits was: ``You are knowingly selling a product that kills tens of thousands of our citizens each year. We want a piece of that action!''

"The game of reporting is to smoke 'em out," Jenkins says. Asked whether his team would report the presence of an American commando unit it found in, say, a northern Pakistan village, he doesn't exhibit any of the hesitation of his news-business colleagues, who stress they try to factor security issues into their coverage decisions. "You report it," Jenkins says. "I don't represent the government. I represent history, information, what happened."

And as I walked through the carnage on 18 September - the last day of the three-day massacre - with Loren Jenkins of The Washington Post, a fierce, tough, Colorado reporter, I remember how he stopped in shock and disgust. And then, with as much energy as his lungs could summon in the sweet, foul air, he shouted, "SHARON!" so loudly that the name echoed off the crumpled walls above the bodies. "He's responsible for this fucking mess," Jenkins roared. And that, just over four months later - in more diplomatic words and in a report in which the murderers were called "soldiers" - was what the Israeli commission of enquiry decided. Sharon, who was minister of defence, bore "personal responsibility", the Kahan commission stated, and recommended his removal from office. Sharon resigned.

I would like to state the central issues once again. First, there is only one individual who bears the responsibility for the current confrontation with the United Nations, and that is Saddam Hussein. Second, he has to see to it that Iraq satisfies all the UN resolutions. Third, every possible political effort has to be made to arrive at a peaceful solution. Fourth, the danger posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is a matter that no one can view with indifference, and that is the case for all the other states in the region, especially Israel, as well as for the Europeans and the Americans. That is why Iraq should stop refusing to cooperate, and if all the political efforts that are being made do not result in success, a military operation cannot and should not be ruled out in this case. The United States and Great Britain can absolutely count on German solidarity.

Incidentally, I believe that we Germans in particular have good reason to work toward preventing a dictator from causing something terrible yet again. There was one dictator who was stopped too late. This one has to be stopped in good time... We are maintaining intensive contact with the United States and with our partners and friends in the EU. However, our experience of Saddam Hussein to date, and I believe that this is also of key importance, shows that, unfortunately, he is only prepared to observe UN Security Council resolution when he is under pressure. The international community cannot simply accept always being made a fool of. That is why the military option must remain available. He who wants a peaceful solution in particular cannot waver in this regard.

'You can say many things about what Iraq is up to,' said one diplomat familiar with the material. 'You can argue about what weapons he has, if any, how many, and if they will ever work. You can argue about whether he will takes two months or 10 years to build or acquire a nuclear bomb. But what you cannot argue with is the evidence that that Saddam has set up his secret weapons procurement network once again. That is the real worry.'

So far, for all of the accusations, no government, not even that of the United States, has established enough credible evidence against bin Laden to conclusively prove his direct participation in, much less leadership of, any of the ugly plots and acts he stands accused of. To date no formal request for his extradition has ever been made, either to the Sudanese government that once housed him or to his current hosts, Afghanistan's Taliban leaders.

When a car bomb exploded at a Saudi National Guard office in Riyadh in 1995, killing five Americans, and another blew up at the Khobar Towers Barracks in Dhahran a year later, killing another 19, bin Laden seemed the most likely suspect. But neither the FBI, the CIA nor the Saudi intelligence services has ever been able to establish bin Laden's links to those crimes after years of trying. What evidence that has emerged from those ongoing investigations points the finger at dissident Saudi Shiites, perhaps with the logistic support of the Lebanese Hezbollah organization, or even Iran ... Bin Laden may be a dangerous anti-American zealot with a mouth as big as his bankroll. But the evidence so far does not support him being a cerebral Islamic Dr. No moving an army of terrorist troops on a vast world chessboard to checkmate the United States.

I'm a male under 44, and while I've been a Republican since I was 20, I didn't support Bush until after the 2000 convention, and then only because I had to.
That has changed, and I support him completely today. It's not lack of life experience, and I've known that the Democrats are an institutionalized Ponzi scheme for twenty years now. No, here's why I support Bush: I grew up in the Middle of North Dakota, amid the missile silos, during the Cold War. The threat of senseless oblivion was all around me. My most fervent prayer was that my own kids wouldn't have to grow up with that over their heads. I considered it a near-miracle that the Cold War, and that threat, ended right when my daughter was born, in 1991. The missile silos I grew up among have been decomissioned and blown up. I relaxed for a bit.
That ended September 11. Not only is oblivion from the blue a possibility again - it happened. And can happen again. And I know that Bush is the one who's going to not only contain that threat, but uproot and burn it away. Yeesh, what if Gore had won? I'd expect to see a speech asking us all to learn how to co-exist with terror and come to terms with our own accountability for it. The reasons may be different - but I suspect a lot of us young (angry? white?) males have a similar feeling.

"In targeting Iraq, the United States administration is acting on behalf of Zionism, which has been killing the heroic people of Palestine, destroying their property, murdering their children and seeking to impose their domination on the whole world, not only militarily, but also economically and politically." - Saddam Hussein, in his letter last week to the U.N.

"...For while the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim ... all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle..."
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf.

The popular crusade against confrontation with Iraq, which has galvanised support for the Social Democrats, has taken on an anti-American dimension, earning Herr Schrφder some unwanted support. The latest issue of the Iraqi weekly al-Iqtisadi, said to express the views of President Saddam Hussein’s son Uday, called the Chancellor’s attitude "more honourable than that of the Arab countries". In addition, German neo-Nazis, including the former head of the far-Right Republican Party, Franz Schφnhuber, are coming out in support of the Chancellor for having adopted "the German way" in defying the United States.

In targeting Iraq, the United States administration is acting on behalf of Zionism, which has been killing the heroic people of Palestine, destroying their property, murdering their children and seeking to impose their domination on the whole world, not only militarily, but also economically and politically.

A few minutes later, I was on the phone with Tom Pickering, our U.N. ambassador. While I was prepared to deal with this crisis unilaterally if necessary, I wanted the United Nations involved as part of our first response, starting with a strong condemnation of Iraq's attack on a fellow member. Decisive U.N. action would be important in rallying international opposition to the invasion and reversing it.

Now, journalists tell us that the latest manifestation of Powell's "moderate" resolve is his stance on Iraq. But the Powell rhetoric about the need for allied support and U.N. Security Council backing can be understood as a fervent desire to line up as many ducks as possible before the shooting starts. Under Powell's direction, U.S. diplomats – diligently laying down groundwork for war – are brandishing carrots and sticks at numerous countries.

One of the rare industry executives who would actually discuss the topic, but did not wish to be identified, agreed that although he didn't like to admit it, "we have lost the battle with the activists, and now the market is less profitable. The result is that we are spending less R&D time on anti-retrovirals. Why bother to innovate these products when any advance will not be profitable?" he said.

"Newspapers that used the William Safire Op-Ed column sent Sept. 11 for publication Sept. 12 may wish to use the following corrective. A column by William Safire, discussing the royal family of Saudi Arabia, gave an incorrect age for Abdullah al-Aziz bin Fahd, a son of King Fahd. He is 32 years old, not 60."

John Griffith, a resident of Sierra Towers, says he saw more than 20 men surrounding the two victims and witnessed five kicking and beating the victims, repeatedly chanting "Kill the Jews!" When the victims fled to seek safety with Sierra Towers' security guards, Griffith says, two suspects followed the men and threatened the guards with a metal pipe taken from a nearby sprinkler system and with fists, before the guards fought them off. "It was the worst thing I have ever observed," Griffith says. "I kept screaming at them, but they were yelling so loudly they couldn't hear me. I kept yelling, 'I've called the cops.' "They didn't budge, they just kept attacking these guys," he adds.

I don't think you should have been mean to Mary Mcgrory. You could have just written a column that obviously disagreed but you really said some awfully mean things and I do wish you would not do that.

Bush approval went up slightly more among the Jewish population than among either Protestants or Catholics. The increase was 19 percentage points among Protestants, 24 points among Catholics, and 30 points among Jews. Thus, while the difference between Jews and Protestants in Bush approval was 26 percentage points in the surveys conducted before Sept. 11, 2001, it narrowed to only 15 percentage points in the surveys conducted after the terrorist attacks. The same general pattern of narrowing differences in this approval number occurred between Catholics and Jews.

An article on June 14 about potential successors to Yasir Arafat and one on Aug. 15 about the indictment of Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian leader who is being tried by Israel on murder charges, misstated the history of his arrests and deportation. He was first arrested in 1978 at the age of 19, not 16. He was deported once, in 1987, not twice, and returned to the West Bank in 1994, not 1993. (A reader reported the errors by e-mail on Sept. 2; this correction was delayed for fact checking.)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., just back from Europe, said she detected growing opposition to the United States among America's allies. "The driver of a lot of this animus," she said, "is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To leave this unresolved and to attack an Arab country is going to be viewed as an attack on the Arab world." She said the anti-American sentiment was so strong that she felt it personally. "As an American, I have always been proud," Feinstein said. Referring to her U.S. flag pin, she said, "I was embarrassed to wear it."

And the Arab League's ambassador to London, Ali Muhsen Hamid, gave the first indication that the inspectors might not be allowed the unfettered access required when he said they could inspect only "military sites".

Three weeks ago a similar Guardian/ICM poll asking the same question showed 50% opposed to a military attack on Baghdad and 33% in favour, a gap of 17 points. Now the gap has narrowed to four points with 40% against the possible war and 36% in favour. The rise of the "don't knows" from 17% to 24% suggests that growing numbers are no longer sure that they disapprove of the idea.

Bin Laden glorified in the fact that his men had trained the Somali militiamen who shot down two American helicopters in the "Black Hawk Down" incident, in October of [1993], prompting president Clinton to withdraw all American soldiers from the country. "Based on the reports we received from our brothers in Somalia," bin Laden Said, "we learned that they saw the weakness, frailty and cowardice of U.S. troops. Only eighteen U.S. troops were killed. Nonetheless, they fled in the heart of darkness."... Emboldened by the success of the "Black Hawk Down" incident in Somalia, bin Laden escalated his campaign against America.

The strikes which, in the big-chested parlance of military planners, were dubbed Operation Infinite Reach, cost American taxpayer seventy-nine million dollars, but they merely exposed the inadequacy of American intelligence. President Clinton later explained that one of the strikes had been aimed at a "gathering of key terrorist leaders," but the meeting in question had occurred a month earlier ... The failure of Operation Infinite Reach established bin Laden as a legendary figure not just in the Muslim world but wherever America, with the clamor of its narcissistic culture and the presence of its military forces, had made itself unwelcome. When bin Laden's voice came crackling across the radio transmission - "By the grace of God, I am alive!" - the forces of anti-Americanism had found their champion. Those who had objected the the slaughter of innocents in the embassies in East Africa, many of whom were Muslims, were cowed by the popular response to this man whose defiance of America now seemed blessed by divine favor. The day after the strikes, Zawahiri called a reporter in Karachi, with a message: "Tell the Americans that we aren't afraid of bombardment, threats, and acts of aggression... The war has only just begun; the Americans should now await the answer."

As any simple Arab citizen will confirm, resentment of the superpower has never been a response to America itself. Rather, it is a response to its policies: its throttling of Iraq, sanctioning of Libya and Sudan, and, above all, its generous bankrolling of an aggressive Israel. "Take Israel out of the equation," says a businessman in Jeddah, "and, poof, we've basically never had a problem with America."

One other component of Bush's remarkable summer strategy that I think you missed: The leaking of the legal memo from White House lawyers that Bush didn't need Congressional approval prior to directing military action in Iraq. The blowhards in Congress - and their predictable, knee-jerk desire to be involved and oppose any assertion of presidential power - led to demands that they debate the issue even before the November elections!

I think you missed the larger point on the Albright piece - She agrees that Saddam is a mortal threat, that he is actively seeking nukes, and that regime change is necessary. Then she notes that Saddam doesn't have nuclear capability yet and that his army is weak - and she offers these as reasons for waiting rather than taking military action now! The other remarkable thing about Albright's article is that she calls for the UN to issue an ultimatum to Saddam, that she believes that the ultimatum will be rejected, but is steadfast in her position that we are not close to the time when we should take military action against him. So, we should issue an ultimatum expecting non-compliance and then back down when it is not complied with. Good strategy! Did she work for the Clinton administration or something?

On both issues he faced a vocal opposition to his policy and in both instances his strategy was the same: Silence & Patience. His initial stances on both issues were so rigid and resolute (as well as right), that the debate quickly moved away from the "if" of a tax cut or a regime change to more qualitative arguments, like the size of the tax cut, or the timing of the attack. I think this is more than coincidence. It seems Bush is becoming the rock against which his enemies break themselves.

President Bush's tough talk on Iraq may be working. Russia and the Arab world are now urging Saddam Hussein to readmit United Nations weapons inspectors to avoid a large-scale American attack. Pressure on Baghdad needs to be sustained, a point Vice President Dick Cheney will make on his trip to the Middle East that begins today. The journey will feature discussions about possible future military action against Iraq.

Last week Iraq held its first serious discussions with the United Nations about resuming investigations of Iraqi facilities, oversight that was suspended more than three years ago. The positive tone of the talks justifies a second meeting next month.

Meetings are not a substitute for inspections. No one knows what Iraqi scientists have been up to for the past three years, but there is good reason to fear the worst. Baghdad must not be allowed to drag out these discussions while moving ahead with the development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Nor can there be any negotiations about diluting the inspections and arms control requirements. The team of tough, independent professionals assembled by the United Nations' new chief inspector, Hans Blix, must be allowed to do its job unhindered, as Washington insists. Iraq's latest effort to divert trucks imported under the oil-for-food program to military use shows that Mr. Hussein has hardly given up on his military ambitions.

This time, a show of compliance will not do. More than a decade ago, at the end of the Persian Gulf war, Iraq agreed to turn over and destroy its medium- and long-range missiles, poison gases, germ weapons and nuclear bomb materials to the satisfaction of the United Nations' weapons inspectors. It has still not done so. Unless it fulfills those cease-fire requirements now, Iraq invites the kind of coercive actions Mr. Bush has threatened.

You quote Susan Sontag (in your Salon piece) mentioning Lincoln, and she says that he made "bold statements of new national goals in a time of real, terrible war." Funny thing, though, that the North never declared war against the South in the Civil War - only the South declared war. Why? Look to Lincoln's address to Congress on July 4, 1861, where he specifically states that the action of the southern states is one of rebellion, NOT secession. To declare war would require acknowledging that the South was a legally separate and sovereign entity. Therefore Lincoln merely called for force to be gathered and used to suppress the unlawful rebellion. How interesting that Sontag would ignore Lincoln's warmongering-without-formal-war while criticizing Bush for the same.

Additionally, in taking on the Civil War Lincoln took for himself a vast array of power (even dictating to Congress when they should meet) that Bush and Ashcroft have never even dared consider, even with their occasional overreaching granted. Of all presidents, Sontag picks a mighty odd one to try to make her points with. Seems like if she were a writer at the time of the Civil War, her own arguments would demand that she lay even more caustic venom at Lincoln's feet than Bush's.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes—
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs —
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round —
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought —
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone —

This is the Hour of Lead —
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow —
First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —

Saddam Hussein never gave up his hope of turning Iraq into a nuclear power. After the Osirak attack, he rebuilt, redoubled his efforts, and dispersed his facilities. Those who have followed Saddam's progress believe that no single strike today would eradicate his nuclear program. I talked about this prospect last fall with August Hanning, the chief of the B.N.D., the German intelligence agency, in Berlin. We met in the new glass-and-steel Chancellery, overlooking the renovated Reichstag. German industry is well represented in the ranks of foreign companies that have aided Saddam's nonconventional-weapons programs, and the German government has been publicly regretful. Hanning told me that his agency had taken the lead in exposing the companies that helped Iraq build a poison-gas factory at Samarra. The Germans also feel, for the most obvious reasons, a special responsibility to Israel's security, and this, too, motivates their desire to expose Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction programs. Hanning is tall, thin, and almost translucently white. He is sparing with words, but he does not equivocate. "It is our estimate that Iraq will have an atomic bomb in three years," he said.

I have always been a knee-jerk liberal, and passionate Democrat. (While George Bush and I were both at Yale, I canvassed New Haven working class neighborhoods for Eugene McCarthy.) But September 11 has made me a kind of War-On-Terror liberal, something like the old Cold War liberals I used to - mistakenly, I now see - disparage. Anyway, I am now completely behind the war against the Islamic fascists. And I think Sontag is a contemptible fool. Your perspicacious reader was exactly right to suggest the world has passed her by; I think this is a deep problem for many people just now.

We will forget.

Researchers have long found that the memory of epochal events fade with time. The remembering of such events even has a specific name: flashbulb memory. As time passes, the chronology gets jumbled up; we fumble on the details; we airbrush some parts and highlight others. We re-imagine the past to make it more coherent, meaningful, bearable. One ongoing study at the University of Illinois Chicago's Psychology Department - of a large, country-wide sample of people - is finding out that we have already forgotten some things about September 11. How much time between the first and second plane? Which tower fell first? What was the flight number of the second plane? Was the Pentagon hit after both World Trade Center Towers? We forget. We conflate. We confuse.

But we also know, of course, that this kind of memory is not the most important one. Some events solder themselves into our consciousness so intensely that they change the way we see the world for ever. The details barely matter. The change itself matters. Your child is killed in a car accident; your mother is diagnosed with breast cancer; your best friend betrays you; your wife is raped. These kinds of events stop your life for a moment; your soul freezes while the rest of the world swivels around you to a new position. Part of you insists: this hasn't happened. Part of you demands: move on. Most of you knows that neither is an option.

And most of us know that there is no moving on from September 11. It wasn't a random tragedy for which grief is a slow-acting salve. It was a massacre - a cold-blooded, fanatical murder of civilians by men possessed by a theocratic ideology. It was an invasion - the violation of sovereign American soil, the erasure of a visible monument to American success and energy and civilization. It was a crime - the filling of the air of a great city with the irradiated dust of innocent human lives. It was a statement - that radical Islam intends to attack and destroy the very principles of the Enlightenment that underpin the American experiment - freedom of religion, of conscience, toleration and secularism. The appropriate response to this act of nihilism and evil is therefore not grief or remembrance or sadness or reflection, although each of those has its place. The appropriate response is rage.

For whatever else September 11 was, it was a declaration of war. That war continues. The totalitarian force of fundamentalist Islam, like the forces of Nazism and Communism that preceded it, has not disappeared. We briefly defanged it in its most important lair in Afghanistan, but even there, it has not been extinguished. Saudi Arabia, the chief exporter of this murderous ideology, remains protected by the West. Saddam Hussein is currently laboring to manufacture weapons of mass destruction which his allies in the Islamist terrorist network would dearly love to use on American soil. The United Nations and much of the civilized world would rather let him do so than face the risks of taking him on. Suicide bombers - ideological comrades of the twisted sociopaths who flew planes into the World Trade Center - have not relented in attempting to destroy the democratic state of Israel. Anti-Semitism, now as in the past a core of the totalitarian mind, has metastasized like a cancer throughout the Middle East and back into its ancient home in Europe. Educated men and women who regularly find the slightest fault in democratic Western societies, vie with each other to provide excuses, justifications and rationalizations for the murderous tyrannies and blood-thirsty mobs of the Arab Middle East. In a welter of arguments, articles, op-eds and books, intellectuals are eagerly laying out the case that the murderers of 9/11 died for an explicable and justifiable cause, that the West itself is in part responsible for what was unleashed against it, that war can be avoided, that there is nothing but shades of gray in this complicated world.

But through all this, we know what that day showed us. It really wasn't complicated. That day showed us that we stand deeply vulnerable to a destructive force in some ways more dangerous than even the last two totalitarian powers Americans were called on to defeat. This enemy refuses to fight with honor; it kills civilians not as a by-product of fighting but as an end in itself; it hides and disappears and re-emerges whenever its purposes are served; it may soon have access to weapons that Hitler and Stalin only dreamed of. But it cannot be defeated the way Nazi Germany and Communist Russia were defeated because it is more like a virus than a host, infecting and capturing nation-states, like Afghanistan, and then moving on to others. September 11 showed Americans that for the first time in their history, they stand vulnerable to that force in their homeland. War has been brought to them. And, deep in their hearts, they know it.

That's why I think that, for all the return to superficial normality, Americans really have changed. The illusion of isolationism has been ripped apart. How can America opt out of the world when the world refuses to leave America alone? The illusion of appeasement has been destroyed. Do we really think that by coddling regimes like Iraq or Syria or Iran or Saudi Arabia, we will help defuse the evil that lurks in their societies? The illusion of American exceptionalism has been shattered. The whole dream of this continent - that it was a place where you could safely leave the old world and its resentments behind - was ended that day. The proliferation of flags that day and subsequently was not a function of jingoism. It was the display of a symbol whose meaning had just been changed for ever. The inviolability of America had been destroyed. And the display of Old Glory was a signal not of blind patriotism but a way to show the world and the enemy that we loved it still and passionately, and that we were prepared to fight to restore its honor. A whole generation will grow up with this as their most formative experience - a whole younger generation that knows that there actually is a right and a wrong, and that neutrality is no longer an option. That generational power has only just begun to transform the culture. In decades' time, we will look back and see what a difference it made.

And if we need to humanize this, perhaps we should leave our own memories of that day behind and think of those wives and husbands and children and parents who cannot live a single day without remembering. For them, normality can never return. Every evening when a father doesn't come home, every birthday when a card cannot be sent, every Christmas when a child's mother is no longer there is a rebuke to the very idea of our broader forgetfulness. They are symbols of our wider collective wound, goads to us when we falter in the fight back, emblems of the free society that this new enemy is determined to destroy. To paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, everything is everything and they are still missing. And they demand that our vigilance never end.

When the government declares war on cancer or poverty or drugs it means the government is asking that new forces be mobilized to address the problem. It also means that the government cannot do a whole lot to solve it. When the government declares war on terrorism — terrorism being a multinational, largely clandestine network of enemies — it means that the government is giving itself permission to do what it wants. When it wants to intervene somewhere, it will. It will brook no limits on its power... What I do question is the pseudo-declaration of pseudo-war. These necessary actions should not be called a "war." There are no endless wars; but there are declarations of the extension of power by a state that believes it cannot be challenged.

But if this is war, it bears little resemblance to the wars America has won in the past. Where is the call for sacrifice, for a great national effort? How will we know when or if we've won? One doesn't have to be a military expert to realize that the struggle ahead won't involve any D-Days, nor will there ever be a V-J day. There will never be a day when we can declare terrorism stamped out for good. It will be more like fighting crime, where success is always relative and victory is never final, than like fighting a war. And the metaphor we use to describe our struggle matters: some things that are justifiable in a temporary time of war are not justifiable during a permanent fight against crime, even if the criminals are murderous fanatics.

Suppose I had come last year on the same day as this year - September 10. Suppose I had said to you: there is a terrorist network called al-Qaida. It operates out of Afghanistan. It has carried out several attacks and we believe it is planning more. It has been condemned by the UN in the strongest terms. Unless it is stopped, the threat will grow. And so I want to take action to prevent that.
Your response and probably that of most people would have been very similar to the response of some of you yesterday on Iraq.
There would have been few takers for dealing with it and probably none for taking military action of any description.

"Report Warns Iraq Could Produce Nuclear Weapons

LONDON, Sept. 9--Iraq could produce a nuclear weapon "in a matter of months" if supplied fissile materials from an outside source, according to a report released here today. Saddam Hussein's government also has an extensive biological weapons capability, a smaller chemical weapons stockpile and a small supply of missiles to deliver them, the report concluded."

"London Group Says Iraq Lacks Nuclear Material for Bomb

LONDON, Sept. 9 — Saddam Hussein has substantial stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and the capacity to expand production of them on short notice, but Iraq will be unable to build a nuclear weapon for years unless it obtains radioactive material on the black market, a leading security affairs research organization said today."

Some of the people I interviewed opposed going to war in October because they feared a bloody quagmire and didn't trust the Bush Administration, but changed their minds a month later when the Taliban unexpectedly fell. Others went in the opposite direction, coming out against the war only after US bombing began to inflict heavy civilian casualties. A few people supported targeted strikes against Al Qaeda training bases, but not the overthrow of the Taliban - not because of any sympathy for the regime but because the Bush Administration might be emboldened to overthrow other governments. Others argued, in contrast, that we shouldn't be bombing Afghanistan unless we were willing to send in ground troops. Some said that a struggle against radical Islam is necessary, but that we should be waging it in Saudi Arabia, not in Afghanistan. And many of the people who cautiously supported the Afghan intervention passionately assailed the war on terror as a new cold war, a danger to both American democracy and security.
To be honest, I've held a number of these positions myself.

Thursday night, when asked what he would do about Hussein, his father's nemesis during the war to free Kuwait, Bush was a tad belligerent. He would not ease sanctions, he said. He would not negotiate with Hussein, he said. He would help opposition groups, he continued, and he would make ''darn sure'' that Hussein lived up to agreements he signed in the early '90s.
"And if I found in any way, shape, or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take him out,'' Bush declared. ''I'm surprised he's still there. I think a lot of other people are as well."
When the moderator, Brit Hume, inquired further, Bush either pulled back, clarified, or contradicted himself. ''Take him out?'' Hume asked.
''Take out the weapons of mass destruction,'' Bush responded.
Yesterday morning, Bush was asked again about Hussein, and how he planned to take out Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
''That's up for Saddam Hussein to figure out,'' Bush said during an early morning news conference, declining to elaborate. ''He doesn't need to be building them. ... He just needs to know I'll take them out. It's important for a future commander in chief to state our intentions and the means will be evident to him.''

reading [Sullivan], you feel that he is not thinking, exactly; rather, one side of his brain is merely fondling the other.

[I]t is hard not to picture the two sides of Sullivan's brain as two kittens, playfully cavorting with a little rubber figure called Michael Oakeshott.

More recently, 9/11 gave [Sullivan] the opportunity to recover the fig-leaf of seriousness he repeatedly reaches for; you could see him railing against Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Semitism in The New York Times Magazine, sentiments I would second whole-heartedly were they coming from a writer who really believed them himself. But Sullivan also likes to publish anti-Semitic jokes on his website, which he then virtuously adduces as evidence of rising anti-Semitism.

A rough cut at a guiding principle, it seems to me, is that the world has grown too small to tolerate a state that (1) traffics with terrorists, (2) is strenuously seeking weapons of mass destruction, and (3) is ruled by a madman. Laying aside quibbles over proof and definition, can anyone object to this principle?
The Saudis may be a problem, but by these tests are not "enemies." Syria and Libya help terrorists, but are not big players in the nuclear game. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe may have gone mad, but is neither nuclear or a world terrorist.
President Bush's "axis of evil" - Iran, North Korea and Iraq - help terrorists, are strenuously seeking weapons of mass destruction, and are run by elites that are, to say the least, unstable. Saddam Hussein stands out with madman actions such as starting wars, repressing his own people, deploying poison gas on civilians, trying to assassinate a former U.S. president, and breaking agreements with the U.S. and world community.

MADONNA: There are elements in the movie that I would say are reflective of the politics in our relationship. [She speaks to Mr. Ritchie, who is putting on Madonna's reading glasses.] Don't stretch out my glasses, Guy, you have a very big head.
RITCHIE: That's all right, they're already stretched.
MADONNA: No, they're not. Take them off.
RITCHIE: All right. Come on, concentrate on the——
MADONNA: Anyway, yes, Guy's a real macho and I'm a real hardnose, too. And sometimes we come to blows — not physically, but mentally and emotionally. And there is an element, a tiny little element of that in there. I'm attracted to men who are going to stand up to me.

MADONNA: I just think I have to be clever about picking the right parts.
RITCHIE: [Reading from a list of Madonna's movies] "The Tulse Luper Suitcases." Remember that?
MADONNA: No. But Guy, are you going to read that or do the interview?
RIDING: [To Madonna] Here you can demonstrate your powers of getting him to cooperate.
MADONNA: Guy.
RITCHIE: Yes, darling.
RIDING: We were going to talk about how the two of you work together, and I'm seeing an example of it.
MADONNA: Yeah, well, this is an example of it. I try to exert my power and it doesn't work.

The United States forms the House Un-American Activities Committee to root out Communist Spies. Alger Hiss (left photo) was accused of espionage, and perjury charges were brought against him when he denied being a spy before a grand jury. He was convicted in 1951. It was later learned that some evidence supporting his claim of innocence was covered up.

Mr. Mugabe is criticized in the West for encouraging blacks to invade white-owned farms, for hounding journalists and judges, and for jailing opposition party leaders. But to some leaders, particularly in Africa, he is a hero. To them, he is the guerrilla who ended white rule here in 1980, the statesman who expanded access to education and health care and the revolutionary who is returning land stolen from blacks during the British colonial era.

It is also impossible to compromise with the stone-faced propagandists for Bronze Age morality: morons and philistines who hate Darwin and Einstein and who managed, during their brief rule in Afghanistan, to ban and to erase music and art while cultivating the skills of germ warfare. If they would do that to Afghans, what might they not have in mind for us? In confronting such people, the crucial thing is to be willing and able, if not in fact eager, to kill them without pity before they can get started.

OK, enough. Accusing Howell Raines, James Carville, etc. of being liberals because they're southerners and want approval from northerners is silly--just as silly as saying that Andrew Sullivan, a lower-middle-class Irish catholic lad and budding homosexual growing up in stuffy, class-obsessed England, was ashamed of his social class, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation, and became a conservative in order to curry favor with his betters. People sometimes do things out of genuine moral and intellectual conviction, and being an open supporter of civil rights in the South of the 50s and 60s took a whole heap of moral conviction. Implying otherwise is just a cheap shot.

I have had discussions with the White House and I have talked several times with Secretary of State Colin Powell, and, as Americans, I know that you and I are interested in the response that President Bush is evolving with his advisors. There has to be a response of strength, of punitive action against those that are guilty of this horrible crime against our country, and against our people. That's a decision that is inevitable and absolutely necessary. But I think it's also very good for us to give thanks to our President that there has not been any precipitous action, no bombing or missile attacks against, for instance, the people of Afghanistan. That he’s determined to identify the culprits in this attack and those that directly harbor them ... We need to garner as much as possible the full support of our natural allies, NATO obviously, Canada sure, Mexico of course, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, even China and Russia, who fear the same kinds of terrorist attacks that we have just experienced. But it's also important for us to reach out to the moderate Arab countries and Muslim countries who have been known [even our best friends] to have permitted terrorist groups or cadres to exist in their own countries, and then to focus our attention on the punishment of the guilty and not the innocent.

"MR. LEHRER: -- how you would handle Middle East policy. Is there any difference?
VICE PRESIDENT GORE: I haven't heard a big difference right -- in the last few exchanges.
GOV. BUSH: Well, I think -- it's hard to tell. I think that -- you know, I would hope to be able to convince people I could handle the Iraqi situation better. I mean, we don't --
MR. LEHRER: With Saddam Hussein, you mean?
GOV. BUSH: Yes, and --
MR. LEHRER: You could get him out of there?
GOV. BUSH: I'd like to, of course, and I presume this administration would as well. But we don't know -- there's no inspectors now in Iraq. The coalition that was in place isn't as strong as it used to be. He is a danger; we don't want him fishing in troubled waters in the Middle East. And it's going to be hard to -- it's going to be important to rebuild that coalition to keep the pressure on him.
MR. LEHRER: Do you feel that is a failure of the Clinton administration?
GOV. BUSH: I do."

Willie's Harper's, "hot" though it may have been, was, for reasons of his own, brought to an end by its owner in the early 70's. Little by little, the old office gang was broken up. By today, of course, decades later, all those up-and-coming Southern Boys I used to have beer with have long since settled into whatever they were going to be. I have not seen them in years. But one thing about them on which I would be willing to bet something of large value is that all of them have remained men of the Left. They have been locked into that posture most of all by the imposition on them of a new kind of entanglement with America's blacks.

All their lives, to be sure, the Boys had been deeply bound up in the fortunes of black people. But the same civil-rights revolution that liberated Southern blacks from the oppressive thrall of Southern white men seems in some sense to have had the opposite effect on a decisive group of their former tormentors. To put it simply, the battle for civil rights that took place in the South was a dangerous struggle for the right and the good in which a group of Southern blacks acted with genuine heroism and, with only a couple of highly notable exceptions, the Southern Boys did not. Could educated, intelligent young Southerners at the time actually not have known where their duty lay? Of course they knew, but the combination of guilt and contempt they must all their lives have felt toward blacks no doubt made it impossible for them to participate outright in the action.

How they did ultimately respond to the death of Jim Crow was given expression in two separate ways, and unfortunately both turned out to be deeply influential. First, they staked their personal claim to decency by reminding us how much worse they could have been expected to be. Take the case of Tom Wicker, the former New York Times columnist and Southern liberal par excellence. In A Time To Die (1975), a memoir of his experience as a journalist during the famous riot at Attica prison in upstate New York in 1971, Wicker mused: "In 1946 [I] had made the great discovery that blacks were as human and individual as anyone. It was not much to learn, yet it was more than some people learn in a lifetime."

What Wicker was really saying here was that, given where and how he grew up, to have discovered that Negroes were human made him a better man than those who had never doubted the proposition in the first place. Whether or not, in the dark night of his own soul, Wicker really got away with this piece of moral grandstanding, his notion of a special virtue attaching to the Southern liberal was accepted with enthusiasm, and taken up in a variety of ways, by a whole host of his fellow Southerners.

The second response of the Southern Boys to the disruption of their old social habits was contained in a formulation that, despite being quite untrue, again turned out to be not only psychically soothing to them but fateful for everyone else. What they commenced to declare in the mid-1960's was that the experience of black people in the North was, in its own way, far worse than the experience of black people in the South. This claim, ridden for all it was worth, helped to create a whole new agenda for Northern civil-rights activists who had long been fighting the good fight in the courts - something it was, after all, possible to do in the bad old North - but had missed out on the defining experience of heroism that had been vouchsafed their Southern counterparts.

Recovery and debris removal work continues at the site of the World Trade Center known as "ground zero" in New York, March 25, 2002. Human rights around the world have been a casualty of the U.S. "war on terror" since September 11. REUTERS/Peter Morgan

President Bush's declaration today that he would seek the approval of Congress to oust Saddam Hussein amounted to an acknowledgment that he cannot proceed alone and that he needs to move quickly to try to resolve a rift within his administration, with many of his father's cautious advisers, and with his reluctant allies.

Guilt at what [the Victorians] had done made the more foolish among them seek for collectivist solutions, such as the disastrous idea, first mooted in the 1870 Education Act, that the state should control schooling. At that date there was 92 per cent literacy in England. Without compulsory education, you had to learn in order to survive.

Just had to add a comment on Frank Rich's use of "Blackhawk Down" author Mark Bowden to attack the pro-Iraq invasion side. Rich left out the immediately following sentence from Bowden: "But the question of war is not just an exercise in cost-benefit analysis. It's about doing the right thing. It's important to go down such a road with eyes open, firm conviction and a steady hand."
The article pointed out we killed massive amounts of attackers in Mogadishu and did it without the firepower we'd bring to Baghdad and without the numbers. He does raise the possiblity of heavy casualties in street fighting (well, yeah, no big revelation there) but does not use that as a reason to refrain from invading Iraq.

"Like politicians' assertions that terrorism at home can be deflected by cheap fixes and oratorical optimism, disingenuous official claims of our allies' strengths and our enemies' weaknesses will come back to haunt the administration if all does not go smoothly. Already a Newsweek poll shows that only 56 percent of the country believes 'the war in Afghanistan is going as well as American officials say.'"

"'An all-out attack on Iraq will entail a level of risk and sacrifice that the U.S. has not assumed since Vietnam,' wrote the author of "Black Hawk Down," the combat journalist Mark Bowden, this week. As this reality sinks in, support for war with Iraq is falling — from 70 percent last fall to 51 percent now, according to the new Time/CNN poll. A Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that only 40 percent would approve if there are ground troops and significant American casualties."

In any lefty circle, being a white Southerner is perceived as a huge character fault, regardless of that Southerner's ideologies. Lefties hear a Southern accent and cringe. So to earn points with colleagues in notoriously left-leaning newsrooms, Southerners overcompensate for the flaw of being Southern by abandoning all sense of reason and out-lefting anyone in sight. It's a phenomenon something along the lines of the fight for gender equality in the workplace – the old saying about women having to do twice the work of men for the same pay.

You touched briefly on one of the underlying reasons for Raines' leftist ideological posturing - a guilt ridden southerner who wishes to expunge himself of the original sin of having been born in the South. I note that in recent years the most vehemently liberal journalistic ideologues seem to have been produced in the South. The list of these secular "born-again's" is quite long and I would like to see a column of yours on the phenomenon of the Southern-born leftists in journalism.