Paxety Pages

Lane explodes. Read it for some fine writing.

May 15

Victor David Hanson says there is now more hope for the successful defense of the United States and general world peace. Arafat's days are short, and so are Saddam's::

The days of Saddam Hussein are also clearly numbered, as they must be for a cornered and wounded gangster who desperately considers the most ghastly options to survive. Bounties for murder bombers, half-hearted embargoes, and peace feelers to former enemies — all these are the last-gasp symptoms of a terminal regime. In the upcoming months the No-Fly sectors will be transmogrified into demilitarized zones — as aircraft can begin to support ground incursions by indigenous troops in preparation for an American invasion by conventional forces. The Palestinians, the Egyptians, the Saudis, and other illegitimate governments at the moment are puffed up that they have leverage with the Americans in relation to Iraq. In truth, time is running out for them all. Once the shooting starts, and the Americans go it alone, the Iraqis will lose, and with their defeat a frightening chain of events will be unleashed whose ultimate course no one can yet foresee. But the sheiks, kings, and autocrats should remember that winning a war for freedom and democracy has universal appeal, and most would rather be on the right side of history before they too are swept away in the deluge.

Read it all here.

May 14

The goober and the gusano

And if you, like Jimmy Carter, believe in appeasement of murdering, enslaving dictators, read this email from a woman who made her international name by opposing the Soviet Union, Elena Bonner:

On April 2, Donald Rumsfeld announced that Saddam Hussein had instituted a $25,000 payment for suicide bombers. How should the civilized world regard this gruesome form of terror and Saddam's peculiar subsidy for it? We are familiar with murders committed by hired killers acting for the mafia. These are horrible crimes, but the persons ordering the murders try to remain anonymous in order to avoid arrest and trial. Saddam, on the other hand, has advertised his support for the suicide bombers and the fact that he ordered their actions, secure in the knowledge that he won't be prosecuted for this. Moreover, people are not killed one at a time; the idea is rather "the more, the merrier." The innocent victims are killed only because of their race, religion or political opinions. The suicide bombers have introduced a new weapon - cheap and easily transported - into the business of terrorism. And without a doubt, it will spread around the world, not only to promote the political aims of various extremist groups, but also as a way for tens and hundreds of mentally disturbed persons to solve their problems. Anyone - tacitly sympathizing with the suicide-terrorists - who thinks that this new weapon of murder-on-command can be kept localized is mistaken. If there is no attempt to fight back against them, very soon the suicide bombers' attacks will spread beyond Jerusalem. Their bombs will explode on the Champs-Elysees, on Red Square, on Broadway, on Picadilly, and on the streets of Peking, Cairo, Baghdad, and Damascus, depending on who orders and pays for the explosion and what are his goals. And the suicide squads may use weapons more dangerous and destructive than bombs strapped to their waists ... Sudden death will become an everyday occurence, and fear will be omnipresent. The idea that some states will be exempt from the plague is an illusion. You won't escape being eaten by an alligator even if you feed your neighbors to him one-by-one. Those who hailed the 1938 Munich agreement in hopes that it would secure peace learned this much too late. They helped bring on World War II. ... Either terrorism, nourished by anti-semitism, anti-Americanism, and the ambitions of some politicians, will win, or our common human reason will defeat it. No third way can be found!

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the text.

May 13

Man, this working is seriously interfering with my blogging. There is a new Tale here.