A
People’s Constitution
By Ramesh Ponnuru
We tend to regard the protection of the Constitution as the exclusive
business of the Supreme Court. Indeed, the Constitution is regularly
assumed to be identical to the Court's interpretations of it. Politicians
and journalists say that policies are "unconstitutional" when all
they really mean is that the Court has held those policies to be
unconstitutional. But there is an older understanding of the Constitution
that holds that responsibility for its protection is shared. If
Bush were to veto the campaign-finance bill as a violation of the
First Amendment, he would take a small step toward restoring that
sound, but now dormant, understanding.
Arab
American in Chief
By John J. Miller
James Zogby is probably the most important Arab-American leader
in the country — but he's also running an organization that for
all practical purposes is an arm of the Democratic party. When the
Washington Post described Zogby's recent criticisms of attorney
general John Ashcroft, it merely cited Zogby's affiliation with
his Arab American Institute, which it called "influential." This
is accurate, but the Post failed to note an even more important
fact: Zogby campaigned hard for Gore and has given thousands of
dollars to Democrats. "I may be partisan, but the institute is not
partisan," he insists. But this is a difficult line to walk, and
it's not clear that Zogby succeeds at it. His Arab American Leadership
PAC regularly gives more than 70 percent of its funds to Democrats,
including left-wingers such as Jesse Jackson Jr. and Barbara Lee.
“A
Very, Very Bad Bunch”
By Sam Dealey
From its inception over 35 years ago, the People's Mujahedin of
Iran has consistently engaged in attacks on American interests overseas.
It has killed U.S. servicemen and civilians, and bombed U.S. business
offices; it participated in the 1979 seizure of the American embassy
in Tehran. A 1994 State Department report indicates that the Mujahedin
has trained and fought alongside Iraqi troops on a number of occasions,
and that "Saddam Hussein has been one of [its] primary financiers,
providing weapons and cash totaling an estimated hundreds of millions
of dollars." Yet despite its inclusion on the State Department's
select list of global terrorist organizations for the last six years,
New Jersey Democrat Robert Torricelli and other members of Congress
still fully support the group. Indeed, at least two congressmen
— James Traficant, an Ohio Democrat, and William "Lacy" Clay, a
Missouri Democrat — wrote to Colin Powell on the group's behalf
after September 11.
That
Continental Army
By John O'Sullivan
The European Union's Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) began its current
life as a way for Tony Blair to demonstrate his credentials as a
"good European" despite Britain's holding aloof from the euro. Britain
pledged 12,500 ground troops, 18 warships, and 72 combat aircraft
to the proposed 60,000-strong Euro-army. The idea met with immediate
criticism: What was the European army for? In what kind of crises
would it intervene? And where? The underlying problem is that while
the ERRF needs substantial military investment to be a credible
force, the European nations want to maintain low defense expenditures.
Their armed forces are therefore heavily reliant on the U.S. for
such tasks as airlifting troops or electronic spying. Senior soldiers
recognize these realities and seek to cut back on potential commitments.
But the politicians want the glory of creating a specifically European
defense institution — even if it can't defend anything.
When
in the Rome Treaty…
Lee A. Casey & David B. Rivkin Jr.
The new International Criminal Court (ICC) would be a first: For
the first time in history, an independent international institution
would be capable of punishing individual Americans for actions it
considers to be violations of international law. It would be unlike
the United Nations, in that the U.S. would not have veto power over
its actions. Its prosecutors and judges would have the legal right
to demand the extradition of any American citizen — from the president
himself down to John Q. Public — they believe may have committed
any of the offenses identified in the court's statute. These include
"crimes against humanity," "genocide," and "aggression" — horrific
offenses, to be sure, but defined broadly enough in the ICC treaty
to include such ambiguous items as "outrages against personal dignity"
and "serious injury to mental health."
Forms!
Forms! Forms!
By Theodore Dalrymple
I was asked to tick a series of yes/no boxes: Have I ever been involved
in terrorism? Have I ever been involved in sabotage? Have I ever
been involved in actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary
democracy? On reading these questions, I was prey to a fantasy of
almost hallucinatory intensity. I saw Osama bin Laden's lanky form
handing out questionnaires on an Afghan mountainside, asking his
followers such yes/no questions as, "Have you ever been employed
by the CIA or MI6? Have you ever voted in a democratic election?
Have you ever been a member of any movement that promoted liberal
democracy or equality for women?" Lest Americans imagine that this
kind of idiocy is confined to the British, I should perhaps point
out that visitors to the United States are asked to declare on their
arrival form, by the simple expedient of ticking a box, that they
have not engaged in genocide.
Uncle
Sam Wants Them
By Rob Long
Last week I discovered, buried in some article, that the average
age of the men and women aboard the USS John C. Stennis is 21. Twenty-one.
These are young people who, in different circumstances, might be
listening to irritating music and getting our orders wrong and driving
too fast down our streets. So those who argue, as I do, that the
War on Terrorism should be expanded to include Iraq (and why stop
there?) are in a bind. We didn't, most of us, serve. We didn't,
most of us, even seriously consider it. The closest I came to military
service — besides my years as a Boy Scout — was heading to the post
office in 1983 to fill out my Selective Service card. It never occurred
to me to forgo my years as an indolent, feckless Ivy League liberal
for 100 push-ups and getting yelled at by a mean man who didn't
respect my personhood.
Ashcroft
With Horns
By Jay Nordlinger
After
Sept. 11, everything changed, they say — and many things did. The
dominant press took a new look at the administration. President
Bush — formerly a clueless frat boy — was okay. Donald Rumsfeld
— once a Ford-era caveman — was okay too. And Colin Powell, who'd
never been not-okay, was even more okay than ever. But John Ashcroft,
the attorney general? Definitely not okay — in fact, something of
a terror. It could be that the Left needed something to hold on
to: something familiar and comforting; something "9/10." And that
something was, to a degree, John Ashcroft as devil figure: Ashcroft
as threat to the Constitution, as enemy of civil liberties, as representative
of dark, religious impulses in the land. It was almost as if, after
the planes got through destroying all those people, many said, "The
terrorists must be stopped, I grant you. But John Ashcroft must
be stopped too!"
The
Nukes We Need
By Rich Lowry
The Chinese learned from NATO air campaigns in the Gulf and the
Balkans that digging is the best way to counteract NATO's mastery
of the air. As for the Russians, they have a tradition of digging
going back to the Cold War, with one facility under Yamantau Mountain
reportedly as large as the area inside the Washington Beltway. As
the war on terrorism has now also become a war on weapons of mass
destruction (WMD), this drive underground cannot be ignored. The
U.S. is finally — a decade late — taking account of the
end of the Cold War by drastically reducing its operational strategic
nuclear force from roughly 6,000 warheads to 2,000. But it makes
no sense to react to the changed international environment only
by scrapping the old force. The arsenal should also be updated to
deal with new realities, most importantly by developing an earth-penetrating
nuke, designed to target deeply buried WMD sites.
Get
Tight
By Mark Krikorian
One important taboo remains: We can't discuss the levels of immigration
as a homeland-security issue. Indeed, the idea of any connection
between immigration and terrorism continues to be dismissed by many
people. INS commissioner James Ziglar, for instance, observed that
in discussing terrorism, "we're not talking about immigration,
we're talking about evil." He has even employed the "if-X-then-the-terrorists-win"
cliché, saying: "If, in response to the events of September
11, we engage in excess and shut out what has made America great,
then we will have given the terrorists a far greater victory than
they could have hoped to achieve." But there are compelling
reasons that a reduction in the legal admission of foreign citizens
is imperative for homeland security. The first reason is a very
practical one: The INS simply cannot function as it should at the
current level of admissions.
Special
Energy Section
Oh,
No! That ’70s Show — Jerry Taylor
Even if every
drop of oil we consumed were to come from Texas, a cutback in OPEC
production would raise domestic oil prices just as high as it would
if all of our oil were to come from Saudi Arabia. In 1979, for instance,
Great Britain was "energy independent": All of its crude
oil came from the North Sea. Yet the price spike of 1979 hit Britain
as hard as it hit Japan. No country can wall itself off from the
world market. Moreover, once oil is in a tanker or refinery, there's
no controlling its destination. During the 1973 embargo, some of
the oil OPEC exported to Europe was simply resold to the United
States; the rest served to compensate for the non-OPEC oil that
was diverted to the U.S. market. Then-Saudi oil minister Sheik Ahmed
Zaki Yamani later conceded that the embargo "was more symbolic
than anything else."
Drilling
Is Destiny — William Tucker
Despite improved
technology, both American oil production and reserve capacity have
steadily declined since peaking in 1970. President Nixon became
concerned when foreign oil suddenly jumped from 29 percent to 35
percent of domestic consumption between 1972 and 1973, just before
OPEC dropped the hammer; in 2001, we imported 59.2 percent of our
oil, the highest in our history. And barring some completely unanticipated
development, we will continue to import more than 50 percent of
our oil into the foreseeable future. "The real effort should
be toward diversifying supply and preparing to deal with sudden
interruptions," says John Lichtblau of the Petroleum Industry
Research Foundation. "That's why we have the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve. We may whittle down the growth in consumption and stem
the decline in domestic supplies, but we're never going to achieve
energy independence. That dream died with the Carter administration."
Gas and
Gasbags… — Henry Payne & Diane Katz
The dust had
barely settled on lower Manhattan before calls went forth to relinquish
our "gas-guzzlers" in the name of energy independence.
The energy package crafted by majority leader Tom Daschle advocates
"biodiesels," and even the "oil men" in the
Bush administration have advocated doling out millions in research
subsidies for hydrogen fuel cells that supposedly would replace
the internal-combustion engine. The project, Energy Secretary Spencer
Abraham announced in January, is "rooted in President Bush's
call to reduce American reliance on foreign oil." In fact,
the price of oil has declined since Sept. 11, as it consistently
has for decades, and with producers scattered all over the world,
no single nation or region can stop the flow. But supporters of
a comprehensive energy policy seem undeterred by these realities.
"Logic," Robert Samuelson writes in the Washington
Post, "is no defense against instability."
Books,
Arts & Manners
Third
Thoughts on Divorce — Maggie Gallagher
For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered, by
E. Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly
Sons of
Adamses — Forrest McDonald
America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918,
by Richard Brookhiser
Steinbeck
Reconsidered — Tracy Lee Simmons
America and the Americans, and Selected Nonfiction,
by edited by Susan Shillinglaw and Jackson J. Bensonn
Sunday School
for Atheists — Andrew Stuttaford
The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber
Spyglass, by Philip Pullman
City Desk:
On the Avenue — Richard Brookhiser on Madison Avenue
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