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Multilateralist Cowards

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The biggest bunch of cowards in the U.S. Congress are the multilateralists. These are the ones who say that the Bush administration should not escalate the 10-year-old war against Iraq without the support of the United Nations. What makes them cowards is not their skittishness about having the United States go it alone against Saddam Hussein. It’s their seeking refuge in multilateralism so they don’t have to oppose the war forthrightly, as they should. They were afraid of going into the fall election with an “antiwar” brand on their hides. How pathetic. This can be the only explanation for their behavior because their position is otherwise incoherent. If, as they say, they believe Saddam is a threat to the American people and if most nations oppose the U.S. escalation, then why not support unilateral action? ...

Arrogance Is Humility

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Taking a step back from all the particulars, the lesson of 9/11 is that for more than 50 years the U.S. government has put the American people in harm’s way by its heavy-handed intervention in bitter disputes throughout the Middle East. Then, despite hundreds of billions spent each year on “national security” and countless signals of the coming threat, it was unable to protect us from the “blowback.” So the government went to war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, proclaiming success all the way, even if it could not bag the top men. But then last week, the head of the CIA, George Tenet, went to Congress and said, “The threat environment we find ourselves in today is as bad as it was last summer, the summer before September 11. It is serious; they’ve reconstituted; they are coming after us, they want to execute attacks.” This has not stopped our national misleaders from insisting that they are our ticket to security. But ...

Liberty Again at Risk

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At the root of the concept “America” is the idea that you can go about your daily business without being monitored by the government. Indeed, every piece of literature about the horrors of totalitarianism includes secret police whose job it is to keep tabs on the people because everyone is under suspicion. This more than anything else is what gives those dystopian novels, such as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World, their terrifying atmosphere. This is what Attorney-General John Ashcroft, and his boss, President Bush, now want to bring to America. Ashcroft has announced that the FBI will no longer have to abide by guidelines that prohibited agents from monitoring lawful assemblies and public places without reason to believe that illegal activities were taking place. It’s another weakening of our liberties in the name of defeating terrorism. Perhaps we should heed presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer’s warning about being careful about what we say, because, as Ashcroft said last December, “To those who scare ...