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September 20, 2002 9:25 a.m. There’s a war on, right? A thousand words is worth a picture. Me and the PM. And more.

t many points in the last year, I’ve been tempted to ask, “Don’t you know there’s a war going on?” I’m sure you’ve had many such instances.

Earlier this week, a reporter on CNN said, “[The Democrats] would rather get [Iraq] out of the way. The problem is the subject has sucked all the oxygen out of the room. [Gee, is that so? How rude of it.] If you are someone on Capitol Hill who’s a Democrat who wants to get some legislation done, you’re standing around talking to yourself because the talk is all of Iraq.”

There is reason to doubt that we Americans are aware of the shadow under which we live, and the horrible gravity of the present times. In the next issue of National Review, we’ll have a piece by the inimitable and irreproachable Paul Johnson that should make hair on necks stand up.

Traveling in Europe last week, I picked up a copy of Le Monde. They had on the editorial page a photo of a ten-year-old girl in Afghanistan — a beautiful thing named Shoukriya Zaladgoul, who wants to grow up to be a doctor.

I wonder whether anyone at Le Monde — anyone — recognizes that they couldn’t have published this photo without the U.S. military. Without George W. Bush. The photo wouldn’t have existed. The girl couldn’t have shown her face, and even the very legitimacy and legality of an “image” would have been in question.

And Le Monde, of course, opposed everything that made the liberation of Afghanistan possible.

By the way, I was with an intellectual and journalist in Albania, who had been on a panel with a diplomatic editor of Le Monde. He recounted to me, wide-eyed, how the man had been not only pro-Chavez, pro-Castro, but close to pro-terror as well. So very chilling.

George Will had a (typically) terrific column in which he explained why France has such a great attachment to the U.N. (Its role there is absurdly out of proportion to its present status in the world.) I was reminded of something else I’ve been thinking of lately.

There is a famous anecdote told in operatic circles. Sometime in the ’50s, I believe, the Met was touring in Europe, and stopped in Paris, where Roberta Peters starred in The Barber of Seville. She did not perform well, and the critics were merciless.

Next day, Rudolf Bing — the urbane and caustic general manager of the Met — held a press conference, at which he said, “Miss Peters had a bad night; the Paris Opera has had a bad century.”

So true (it didn’t get any better, by the way). And France, at large, had a bad century, the 20th. That must sting terribly, in the breasts and eyes of certain Frenchmen.

It is significant that, as he’s losing late in the campaign, Germany’s Edmund Stoiber is playing the Muslim card — for that is what the immigration card is, a Muslim card. This is the great sleeping issue in much of Europe. It almost won election for the Right in Sweden, of all places.

Stoiber’s opponent, the incumbent Gerhard Schroeder, said darkly, “Whoever tries to create majorities at the expense of minorities” is a baddun. “Whatever has to do with hatred against minorities must be met with our decisive opposition.” Understand that this is how the Left talks: Any questions about immigration and assimilation must be dismissed as “hatred of minorities.” The Democratic party here does this, of course, constantly.

Here’s something cute, just as a matter of language: Stoiber’s opponents have taken to call him “Stoiberlusconi,” to link him with the Italian prime minister, a conservative who is thought (certainly by the German Left) a horror. I rather like the name.

More on Stoiber: He said something remarkable for a politician, something with relevance here in the United States. Asked whether he lacked the courage to propose economic reforms, he answered, “No. If I arrived at rallies and there were 10,000 people demonstrating for the final removal of this yoke of a social-security system, then you could go for radical reforms. But since people consider social security an important element in their lives, I’ve got to watch out there’s no breakdown in this security.”

Again, an amazing statement, and one with many reverberations.

You know how some group on the Mall will hold a rally and claim it was a big deal, usually with the help of the media, if the group is a Left group, which it usually is? You know: “The Million Mom March,” which may have a few thousand women chanting against guns. That sort of thing.

Waal, in Rome, they really hold a rally, the Left. An anti-Berlusconi rally had at least 200,000 people jammed into the Piazza San Giovanni; the organizers claimed 800,000. (This is the sort of game that’s played at home, too.) Whatever the case, it was a helluva lot of people, demonstrating for left-wing things in a country experiencing (relative) peace and prosperity.

My main point: That’s a rally, not the piddling affairs that Marian Wright Edelman et al. organize here.

I remember being a student in Italy, in Florence, and observing a huge memorial service for Enrico Berlinguer, the Italian Communist boss and the father of so-called Eurocommunism (which was, as always, nothing but Communism, underneath everything). That’s when I grasped more than ever that Communism was part religion. This was, essentially, a religious ceremony, complete with hymn (the “Internationale”).

About the “Muslim issue” in Europe: One Alberto Carosa had a remarkable column in the Italian press, about the delicate issue of religious freedom. He quoted the head of the Northern League, who said that the country could ill afford to ignore “the fact that mosques and Islamic centers are not just places of worship but also forums for fundamentalist propaganda and the recruitment of terrorists.” How to handle this, in the law, in one’s police work? Touchy. Very touchy. I, for one, in humility, am glad that I don’t have to decide.

In this connection, I read something memorable, in Roger Kimball’s superbly good essay on James Burnham, in the current New Criterion. Burnham wrote,

The principles of an organized society cannot be interpreted in such a way as to make organized society impossible. . . . Any individual right or freedom is properly extended only to those who accept the fundamental rules of democracy. How . . . could any society survive which deliberately nursed its own avowed and irreconcilable assassin, and freely exposed its heart to his knife?

While I’m quoting, let me spring Bernard Lewis on you. The “dean of Middle East scholars,” as he’s rightly called, had a bracing op-ed piece in the Washington Post, for the anniversary of September 11. He wrote, in part,

[One] aspect of [Islamist] contempt is expressed again and again in the statements of bin Laden and others like him. The refrain is always the same. Because of their depraved and self-indulgent way of life, Americans have become soft and cannot take casualties. And then they repeat the same litany — Vietnam, the Marines in Beirut, Somalia. Hit them and they will run. More recent attacks confirmed this judgment in their eyes — the attack on the World Trade Center in New York in February 1993, with six killed and more than a thousand injured; the attack on the American liaison mission in Riyadh in November 1995, with seven Americans killed; the attack on the military living quarters in Khobar in Saudi Arabia in June 1996, with 19 American soldiers killed and many more wounded; the embassies in East Africa in 1998; the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000, with 17 sailors killed — all those brought only angry but empty words and, at most, a few misdirected missiles. The conclusion bin Laden and others drew was that the United States had become feeble and frightened and incapable of responding. The crimes of Sept. 11 were the result of this perception and were intended to be the opening salvo of a large-scale campaign to force Americans and their allies out of Arabia and the rest of the Muslim world, to overthrow the corrupt tyrants America supports, and to prepare the ground for the final world struggle.

Okay, let me be the detestable bad-boy partisan: Who was president from ’93 to 2000? That may be a lousy thing to say, but one has a right to a little petulance and anger at this juncture. Someone has to be responsible, somewhat — just a little. Every single aspect of America can’t be no-fault.

In a recent column — I apologize, but I can’t find it online — Mark Steyn mentioned John Howard, the prime minister of Australia. He did so in the following context: “Symbolism matters. . . . [The] privilege of kicking loose at the ranch ought to be reserved for real friends [not for terror-funding oil princes]. Yet Australia’s . . . John Howard, whose boys fought alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan, didn’t get an invite to Crawford.”

I get a huge kick out of Mr. Howard — John, he would want me to call him. I’ll tell you why. And it goes to my fondness for Australians generally, some of the friendliest, most enjoyable people on earth. (By the way, Bill Buckley says that, in his experience — and he has circumnavigated the globe many times — the friendliest people in the world are Nova Scotians and New Zealanders.)

A few years ago, my wife and I were invited to a party hosted by the Australian consulate in New York, at the time of the U.S. (tennis) Open. It was to honor Australian tennis greats, which is almost to say tennis greats, including the greatest, Laver. We were invited because I had come to know Michael Baume, who was serving as the Australian consul in New York.

We get there, and we learn a lot about the vaunted informality and down-to-earthness of Australians. We were introduced to the ambassador to the U.N. After chatting with her for several minutes, I became afraid that we were using too much of her time. I said, “Surely, you have people to see here.” She said, “Oh, no.” Then she saw that we were without drinks, and insisted on going off to fetch us drinks. This was the U.N. ambassador, mind you. Richard Holbrooke was our own ambassador at the time, and I tried to imagine him doing the same. It was impossible. Then, at the end of our conversation, this woman — I’m sorry I can’t remember her name (there’s gratitude for you) — gave us her card. And we weren’t big deals, mind you; we were just minor-league American journalists.

Then we met the ambassador to the U.S. — same deal. We chatted gaily about Fresh Fields, the earthy-crunchy grocery-store chain in Washington.

And then came the prime minister. Here I was, meeting the head of state of a significant country. Referring to my friend and host, the consul, I said rather stiffly, “Mr. Prime Minister, we’re so glad to have Mr. Baume here in New York. He’s a wonderful asset.” And Howard threw his head back and said, “That old son of a bitch? You know, he’s part Catholic, part Protestant, part Jew, part everything. He’s all mixed up, that son of a bitch. His ancestors are all over the map.” And so on. They were great old friends and political comrades. And the prime minister was letting loose on him, talking so freely — to us, journalists, no less.

Yes, W. would have an excellent time with John Howard at the ranch, or anywhere else. They’re peas in a pod, really.

You know, I’ll read Dave Barry, and I’ll think, “This guy’s a genius.” Then a year or two might go by, when I don’t see his column. And I’ll forget. And I’ll grow skeptical. And then I read him again and think, “I’ll be darned: He really is a genius.”

Such was my reaction when I read his recent column on the tobacco wars: here. I link you to it in a kind of tribute to real columnizing talent.

And on this subject: Have you seen Rob Long’s current “View,” in NR? You must. It might be his all-time best (a dangerous judgment, I realize).

Finally — as long as we’re talking about other people’s writing — I’d like to share with you the following note from a reader: “Perhaps as the EU moves closer and closer to a model of a ‘united states’ (their single currency, all-European military force, etc.), the Europeans should consider paring down their presence at the U.N. to a single ambassador. Alternatively, the U.S. could send a delegate from each of our 50 states.”

Lovely.