The
near defeat in the House of Section 245(i) — a measure to allow more
than 200,000 illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S., rather than requiring
them to return home to apply for U.S. entry from there — established
that the White House no longer has the Republican votes to push through
its larger plans to amnesty 3 million illegal Mexican "guestworkers."
Not only did a clear majority of Republicans rally in opposition to 245(i);
but those who voted against it included all the Republicans (and some
Democrats) who are considering a run for higher office this year, with
the sole exception of New Hampshire representative John Sununu Jr.
On
the House…
By John J. Miller
Saudi
lobbyists must register as foreign agents with the Justice Department.
Activity on behalf of Wahhabism, however, is much better hidden —
and far more important. "We know it's something like $100 million
over the last ten years or so," says one expert. That's $100 million
on the construction of mosques and schools, the translation and distribution
of Korans, and the training of imams — funneled through a web of
governmental and private charities, almost none of it showing up in any
public record, and virtually all of it aimed at promoting Wahhabism. One
expert says that one-third of the approximately 1,200 mosques in the U.S.
follow Wahhabi teachings. The network's potential for sinister radicalism
recently came to light in Bosnia, where U.S. troops — raiding a Saudi
"charity" — seized photos of American military facilities
and literature on crop-duster planes.
Our
Girl at the U.N.
By Kate O’Beirne
From
the outset, our delegation made it clear that the resolution could not
dictate that Afghanistan ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women — which it, like the U.S.,
has signed but not ratified. Longstanding U.S. policy holds that it is
inappropriate for the U.N. to pressure sovereign countries to join international
conventions. The U.S. draft, therefore, urged Afghanistan to "consider"
ratifying the convention; and those who see this as a distinction without
much difference haven't spent time in U.N.-land. In the end, there was
only one roll-call vote: It was on that hardy U.N. perennial, the condemnation
of Israel. A wall of curtains was opened to reveal a huge voting scorecard
listing 190 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Member countries
registered their votes, and within two minutes the vote was "locked":
Thirty-eight green lights appeared, with a single lonely red light next
to the United States. It was a proud moment.
Indian
War Drums
By David Pryce-Jones
A
novelist through and through, Naipaul is interested in stories rather
than politics. Look for the story behind the story, he kept repeating,
and then you'll understand India. The story that most Indians believe
about themselves is that one fine day British imperialists occupied the
country, exploited it, and bled it dry. The nationalist movement then
threw them out and restored national integrity and pride. A grand Indian
lady with impeccable nationalist credentials was putting forth this view
to the assembled conference, when Naipaul cut her off in mid-sentence.
Look at India, he told her, at its democracy, its rule of law, the supremacy
of the English language, the way the whole shaky subcontinent survives
against all the odds — and you will understand that the British did
Indians the favor of bringing them into the modern world on equal terms.
Strange
Justice
By Byron York
Republicans
underestimated the nature of the threat Pickering faced. People for the
American Way took in $12,609,853 in 2000 alone — and it was just
one part of the anti-Pickering coalition. To its budget must be added
those of NARAL, NOW, the Alliance for Justice, the Leadership Conference
on Civil Rights, the NAACP, and others — a total that might well
approach $50 million. The numbers point to a striking disparity in the
ongoing battle over judicial nominations. There simply was no group fighting
on behalf of Pickering that had anything approaching the coalition's resources.
Yes, there are rich conservative organizations like the National Rifle
Association and National Right to Life Committee, but none was deeply
involved in the Pickering battle. Instead, there were a few small groups
like the newly formed Coalition for a Fair Judiciary (which operates with
one employee). The imbalance virtually assures that the Pickering situation
will play out again in the future.
Watching
the Watchmen
By Ramesh Ponnuru
In
episode after episode, the human-rights organizations — including
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Oxfam, and Doctors Without
Borders — have shown a stunning moral and practical obtuseness about
the war. Their posture toward America has been unsympathetic, suspicious
to the point of paranoia, demanding, implacable. This performance should
be no surprise to anyone who has followed these groups over the years.
But Americans who know only of their good works — their efforts in
behalf of political prisoners, most notably — may be mystified and
angered. As Freedom House executives Adrian Karatnycky and Arch Puddington
have observed, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch can rarely
even bring themselves to use the word "terrorism," at least
without quotation marks. Human Rights Watch avoids the word, it says,
because "there is no universally accepted definition" of it
and "one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter."
When
Red is Not Dead
By Garry Kasparov & Therese Raphael
If
it is at least obvious why a Russian elite, its closets bursting with
skeletons, doesn't want the door opened, it is far less obvious why in
this era of truth commissions, war-crimes tribunals, and crusading magistrates
the rest of the world has shown so little interest. Put differently, how
is it that the human-rights community that pursued the prosecution of
Augusto Pinochet (and have in their sights Ariel Sharon and Henry Kissinger)
have found little room on their agenda for a discussion of Communist-era
crimes? And what explains the shrugs at Russia's fetishistic approach
to the Soviet era? Could it be that we have merely forgotten that some
30 million perished in the Soviet Union during those years, or that Communists
around the world produced some 80 million or more dead bodies last century?
Choosing
Life
By Rod Dreher
"[Crisis
pregnancy centers] lie about the psychological impact of abortion,"
says Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt. Even worse, from the abortion-rights
point of view, CPCs are getting savvier about employing ultrasound technology
to "trick" pregnant women into having their babies. Many CPCs
report that women, once they see their babies moving in their wombs, overwhelmingly
choose to carry the pregnancy to term. Fumed one Long Island abortion
provider in the New York Times: "The bottom line is no woman
is going to want an abortion after she sees a sonogram." Well, yes.
"That was an amazing concession. I bet she bit her tongue when she
saw that quote in print," says Lorraine Gariboldi, executive director
of the Life Center of Long Island. "Look at it this way: For an abortionist
to counsel a woman about fetal development, abortion risks, and support
available to her should she want to carry the baby to term — they'd
put themselves out of business."
Dead
and Buried
By Jonah Goldberg
Critics
of constructing a subterranean repository for nuclear waste in Nevada's
Yucca Mountain argue that if someone were to decide to live here 100 centuries
from now, he must not be exposed to more radiation per year than you or
I receive from a single chest x-ray. The EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission agree: Their minimum standard is for containment for no less
than 10,000 years — at which point, even if the waste did make its
way back into the environment, its radioactivity would have decayed enough
to be safe. A little perspective is helpful. The first known city-state,
in Mesopotamia, was formed about 5,000 years ago. Human beings switched
from their hunter-gatherer existence between 6,000 and 8,000 years ago.
The lifetime of the United States, from the Declaration of Independence
to Britney Spears, constitutes 2 percent of that time span. Which is to
say: A lot can happen in the next 10,000 years.
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The
near defeat in the House of Section 245(i) — a measure to allow more
than 200,000 illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S., rather than requiring
them to return home to apply for U.S. entry from there — established
that the White House no longer has the Republican votes to push through
its larger plans to amnesty 3 million illegal Mexican "guestworkers."
Not only did a clear majority of Republicans rally in opposition to 245(i);
but those who voted against it included all the Republicans (and some
Democrats) who are considering a run for higher office this year, with
the sole exception of New Hampshire representative John Sununu Jr.
Saudi
lobbyists must register as foreign agents with the Justice Department.
Activity on behalf of Wahhabism, however, is much better hidden —
and far more important. "We know it's something like $100 million
over the last ten years or so," says one expert. That's $100 million
on the construction of mosques and schools, the translation and distribution
of Korans, and the training of imams — funneled through a web of
governmental and private charities, almost none of it showing up in any
public record, and virtually all of it aimed at promoting Wahhabism. One
expert says that one-third of the approximately 1,200 mosques in the U.S.
follow Wahhabi teachings. The network's potential for sinister radicalism
recently came to light in Bosnia, where U.S. troops — raiding a Saudi
"charity" — seized photos of American military facilities
and literature on crop-duster planes.
