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July 1, 2002, Issue

Our Ally, Our Problem
By Marin J. Stremecki

Pakistan is at the same time an indispensable partner in the war and a principal and continuing source of the terrorist threat. The al Qaeda network, created in Pakistan in 1989, was nurtured by Islamists in the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and the military. Ultimate victory in the current conflict will require a concerted strategy to purge the Pakistani government of the elements that facilitated the rise of al Qaeda. At the beginning of the current war, Musharraf only reluctantly supported the United States, describing his decision as the lesser of two evils. Yet as a result of this choice, he has crossed the Rubicon. The Islamists in his government and society view him as a traitor; he cannot go back. This means that the United States is in an ideal position to enforce its demands on him.

Remember the Caroline!
By David B. Rivkin Jr., Lee A. Casey, & Darin R. Bartram

Some commentators argue that allowing states to attack based upon suspicions or intelligence warnings would make the use of force a more frequent occurrence; their underlying assumption is that misperceptions, mistakes, and hair-trigger military postures — the World War I mentality — are destabilizing and the main causes of wars. When pressed for modern examples, they describe the current Pakistan-India standoff as an illustration of the dangers posed by preemptive military postures. These criticisms, however, are misplaced. The real danger in today's world comes from rogue regimes and terrorist organizations that don't care about international law, and whose propensity to use violence is not affected by game theory or exegeses of international treaties. Such regimes and groups understand only the language of military force. A robust preemptive posture offers the best hope both of deterring them and, if necessary, of defeating them.

Clone Wars, Part II
By Ramesh Ponnuru

The bipartisan consensus against cloning proved short-lived. The Senate has not followed the House's lead on cloning. Indeed, Senators Daschle, Dodd, Harkin, Hatch, and Specter now all favor precisely what they forswore only last summer: the creation, through cloning, of human embryos for research purposes. And they are all opposed to Sen. Sam Brownback's bill banning cloning entirely. Specter and Hatch are leading sponsors of a bill that would allow the cloning of embryos for research but forbid their implantation in a woman's womb. Scientists would be allowed to clone human embryos, so long as they destroy them in the process of research rather than let them develop into fetuses. Thus the National Right to Life Committee calls it a "clone-and-kill bill."

Video Poker, Flushed
By Dave Shiflett

What is it about these video-poker machines that inspires such wrath? The chief complaint is that they are very good at fulfilling their primary mission: separating dopes from their money. There are few sights more pathetic than watching a poker drone feed dollars into one of these machines, which combine the promise of quick riches with the American capacity for staring at a tube for ten or so hours without blinking. And while many will reasonably agree that a dope should be allowed to throw his money in pretty much any direction he chooses, the problem — from a public-policy standpoint — is that the world is full of dopes, and that the video-poker industry has shown itself to be expert at placing at least one machine within a few blocks of each and every one of them. In South Carolina, video gaming exploded after a court ruled in 1991 that the machines were legal; by the time the campaign against them hit full stride later in the decade there were 30,000 of them in 6,500 locations.

Rock On
By David Pryce-Jones

Gibraltar is one of the last outposts of the British Empire, and the Tony Blair government is proposing to decolonize it. Not by handing independence to the natives, though, as has been the practice everywhere else in the modern age, but by ceding all or some sovereignty to Spain, itself a colonial power with residual outposts in the Canary Islands and Morocco. If they were allowed self-determination, the people of Gibraltar would choose virtually unanimously to stay British. But Britain would like the support of Spain against the Franco-German bloc driving the new and mightily busy European Union in Brussels, and Gibraltar has therefore become a handy bargaining chip in other peoples' political poker. What is happening today to the Gibraltarians is small stuff in the black annals of betrayal. No trials or deportations, no shooting. But the cynicism could hardly be plainer or more ominous for the European future. Justice and democracy are of no account.

The People’s Queen
By Theodore Dalrymple

But in a supposedly democratic age, mere popularity will not save an institution, for it is not the people who count: It is the new clerisy, that is to say the journalists and public intellectuals. They are to institutions such as the monarchy what white ants are to wooden buildings. And in Britain, the journalists and public intellectuals who count have turned decisively against the monarchy.

The Itch to Serve
By Dave Konig

One day, I was discussing my ticking biological clock with my buddy, former paratrooper Paul. He understood. He, too, had a family and a successful career. But lately, as he approached 40, he was getting occasional pangs. There were times he really missed jumping out of airplanes and buying cigarettes duty-free. We were in my den, talking. He was at my desk tooling around on my computer. I was pacing and pontificating. "If only there was some kind of military service for guys our age," I said. "Something where you didn't have to go to basic training for six weeks, something you could work into your regular life on a part-time basis, something where you weren't going to get sent to Bosnia . . ."

A Better Bureau
By Richard Lowry

The answer to the pre-9/11 failings cannot be found just in internal FBI reforms (although that is certainly important) but in a broader reevaluation by the political class of how the U.S. regards terrorism. It should no longer be considered a problem of domestic law enforcement, with all its necessary safeguards of the rights of U.S. citizens — it should be a matter of national security, with much more latitude for the government to prosecute the fight against it. Last year's Patriot Act moved in the right direction. But the rules for surveillance of terror suspects need further loosening, and a track entirely separate from domestic law enforcement should be created for terror-related cases.

Catching the Visa Express
By Joel Mowbray

The Visa Express program is a symptom of deeply rooted problems in the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA), which is charged with a unique, and conflicting, pair of goals: to provide public diplomacy on the front lines and to screen out potential terrorists before they reach our shores. In the past decade, CA has done a solid job achieving the former objective, but it has come at the expense of the latter. "Mary Ryan has chosen diplomacy over law enforcement," complains Nikolai Wenzel, a former consular officer in Mexico City.

With Friends Like . . . Whom?
By John O'Sullivan

No other state or collection of states comes close to Europe as an ally that can seriously assist the U.S. in maintaining a stable and prosperous international order in today's world. Once we put aside our resentments at silly anti-American statements by European politicians or at initial European doubts over some policies we favor, we are left with only one substantial reason for rejecting the Europeans: the possibility that they may already have rejected us and seek to establish themselves as a rival superpower.

Books, Arts & Manners
Spoiled Sports — Kathryn Jean Lopez
Tilting the Playing Field: Schools, Sports, Sex, and Title IX, by Jessica Gavora

Eschaton Redux — Austin W. Bramwell
Eric Voegelin: The Restoration of Order, by Michael P. Federici

The Left’s Lion — Ronald Radosh
Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World, by Eric Foner

Myth-Making on Taxes — Richard A. Epstein
The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice, by Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel

City Desk: Island Bazaar — Richard Brookhiser on New York street fairs