This is a platoon of straw men. First, has Bush ever said that those who question his policy disbelieve in evil? Has he ever said that those who question him don't believe in God? This is unfair to the president. There is in Wills' essay a haughty contempt for what he apparently sees as the simplicity of Bush's faith. Perhaps Bush sees things with much more clarity than the sophisticated ex-Jesuit Wills.

Second, I agree that we must be very careful to avoid the sin of presumption re: the idea that God is on our side. That said, Wills makes it impossible for our nation ever to go to war with the assurance that we're acting justly, doing as God would have us do. Ultimately, this does go back to one's view of evil, and the responsibility a righteous man has to fight it. I don't think it necessarily follows that one who opposes the US policy on this or any other war disbelieves in evil, much less in God. But you look at the persistence among the antiwar side -- when confronted by bone-chilling evidence of the Saddam regime's brutality, its grotesque torture of its own people, and the hideous weapons they've built -- of an inability to come up with any practical way of dealing with it, and you wonder if they have any idea what evil is about, or if it even exists. In Wills-World, the only moral position for a religious believer to take vis-a-vis war is either outright opposition to it, or pained, inconclusive hand-wringing.

I mean, I'm so tired of hearing "we should work with our allies" or "let the inspectors work" or (my favorite, from an antiwar friend) "there's got to be a better way than war." They have a sentimental view of evil, I think. They don't believe in Hell, they believe in Heck (and even then they're not so sure).

Garry Wills has an historical essay in the current New York Times Magazine, in which he explores the role that appeals to religious faith have played in justifying American wars. In the piece, Wills attacks my recent NR cover story on military chaplains. The section on the chaplain story is too long to reproduce here, but if you want to read it, use the link, and go to about 2/3 of the way down.

Wills is offended by the idea in my NR piece that military chaplains, who have seen on foreign battlefields evidence of human evil and perversity that simply will not appear to most clerics in American life, have a more realistic perspective on the nature of evil than civilian priests -- and that their voices are needed in the religious debate over the war.

Wills writes: One gets the uneasy feeling, listening to the president, that the role military chaplains play in Dreher's life is provided for Bush by his evangelical counselors and consolers. Many have wondered how the president can so readily tear down whole structures of international cooperation at a time when, in the fight against terrorism, we need them most. His calm assurance that most of the world and much of his nation is wrong comes from an apparent certainty that is hard to justify in terms of geopolitical calculus. It helps, in making that leap, to be assured that God is on your side. One of the psychological benefits of this is that it makes one oppose with an easy conscience those who are not with us, therefore not on God's side. They are not mistaken, miscalculating, misguided or even just malevolent. They are evil. And all our opponents can be conflated under the heading of this same evil, since the devil is an equal opportunity employer of his agents. ... Question the [war] policy, and you no longer believe in evil -- which is the same, in this context, as not believing in God. That is the religious test on which our president is grading us.

This one's a shocker: Mel Gibson's Icon Productions has just landed a deal with Michael Moore -- Michael Moore -- to finance the Oscar-winning left-wing blowhard's next documentary. Variety reports:

Project will depict the murky relationship between President Bush's father and the family of Osama bin Laden. And it will suggest that the bin Laden family was greatly enriched by that association.

"The senior Bush kept his ties with the bin Laden family up until two months after Sept. 11," Moore said. "The bin Ladens invested heavily in the Carlyle Group, which has its hands in a number of pies and is the 11th largest defense contractor even though it mostly buys failing defense companies and sells them for profits."

Any guesses as to why Hollywood conservative Gibson would want to get involved with this kind of project from Tinseltown's most notorious socialist jackass? Could he be trying to invest in protection from a possible backlash from his upcoming Jesus movie? Or is he a Bush-hating paleocon (remember, his aged father has rather rank views about Jewish conspiracies)? Or does he simply agree with Moore that there's a story there?

Jonah, Thanks a million for your help. Less than thirty minutes in the Corner and your post of my e-mail has generated nearly 20 responses. I'm getting really great stuff, but then again, that's what I'd expect from the world's most intelligent readership. Keep up the great work and don't ever get TOO serious! Sincerely, Justin Dutton

A reader asked:

Jonah:

Saw an analysis today claiming the Iraqis are using the Soviet (surprise, surprise) strategy of "maskirovka": having us waste expensive ordnance on dummy targets, while they hide the real stuff; transmitting phony messages about troop movements, command-and-control status, etc.; not turning on radar to keep it hidden, not launching their missiles...yet.

I asked my military guy. His answer is very interesting:

Absolutely possible, and unless they are complete idiots, probably true to an extent. That said, they can also be complete idiots. This is a perfect example of Clausewitzian 'friction' that makes the Clausewitz dictum true: In war, everything is simple. It also is very difficult."

Unless the Iraqi military and intelligence services were completely asleep at the switch, they went to school on what happened in Kosovo - where the Serbs were very successful in spoofing us regarding hard targets. The Serbs had an easier time of it, living as they do in a comparatively heavily populated, forested and hilly region

I got involved in BDAA. Bomb Damage Assessment Assessment. In short, we took a look at what the BDA people were calling kills and looked really, really hard. The Serbs were doing things like using the same bomb-damaged tank and moving it around over and over again. Since we were on a pretty predictable schedule (and the press helped them here, unintentionally) they knew we'd fly over, take pictures, process pictures, build the ATO (Air Tasking Order) and bomb where we saw the tank. The problem was, they knew the rhythm. After darkness, they'd move the tank, and put something else in there - like a tractor (so it would have an engine heat signature), stick a pipe on it (so the pilot would see (from very high, possibly through haze) a thing with a heat signature, and a long barrel looking thingy. Since that's pretty much what he expected to see where he expected to see it - he 'pickled' his bomb. Still flying away, he's watching the target through his targeting pod, sees the explosion, sees secondaries (gas tank) and reports a kill. Then, the Serbs come in with an already blown up tank, clear some of the junk (not very well, that's how we finally figured it out) and left the burned out tank there for the post-strike recon.

So, Saddam can be doing the same thing - though he has less cover and concealment to do it. The other thing that militates against it being too successful is that we have been watching his stuff for months, literally. You should see some good classified imagery someday (after it's been declas, of course!). We've watched his tanks move from motor pool to laager site, to battle position. We know what his tanks look like, the markings, etc. We know how much and what kind of transport he has. One difficult thing about moving around decoys is getting your tracks right. Real track marks, not a lot of tire marks, etc. He learned a long time ago not to turn a radar on if you want to keep your radar. Fire it up, and a HARM is riding the beam right back down to the emitter. Or a Maverick, if you are in the tactical zone. There are some great camera videos of gunners suddenly realizing that the gunner's seat is about to become a very lethal place to sit, and they make Jesse Owens look slow.

From another perspective, for maskirovka to work, it is most effective when you are showing the enemy what he wants to believe, while you are doing something else. The problem here is in terms of force deployments, especially with JSTARS in the air, he doesn't have a lot of options - he pretty much has to do what we want him to do with his heavy forces - there isn't much more he can do other than concentrate them conveniently for us on nice flat open ground. And everytime he tries to move them and the JSTARS picture doesn't match the commo intercepts, well, we look hard at what's going on.

Do I think he's doing things like that. Yep. Will they preserve his heavy combat power? Nope. His irregulars, however - that's a different story. And he HAS managed to launch a few FROGs and maybe SCUDs without getting all his launchers whacked. So it can be done.

Frankly, at this point, I'm more concerned about the nightmare proposed by Formal Military Planning Guy. Though, I think it will be Widows and Orphans
day in Syria if Assad the Younger is dumb enough to move his tanks en masse towards our guys in the west. His window of opportunity is going to be open until we can get something like the 4th ID and/or 1st Cav in the region. The problem there is, that's heavy metal sitting out there staring at Syria, not Saddam. And to get us to have to do something like that, all Assad the Younger has to do is move stuff closer. Not cross the border. Which GWB will remember, and Assad may then live the nightmare of unintended consequences and self-fulfilling prophecies.

Of course, it may be Tet all over again for us, too. Dammit.

When we finally made it to Safwan, Iraq, what we saw was utter chaos. Iraqi men, women and children were playing it up for the TV cameras, chanting: “With our blood, with our souls, we will die for you Saddam.”

I took a young Iraqi man, 19, away from the cameras and asked him why they were all chanting that particular slogan, especially when humanitarian aid trucks marked with the insignia of the Kuwaiti Red Crescent Society, were distributing some much-needed food.

His answer shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.

He said: “There are people from Baath here reporting everything that goes on. There are cameras here recording our faces. If the Americans were to withdraw and everything were to return to the way it was before, we want to make sure that we survive the massacre that would follow as Baath go house to house killing anyone who voiced opposition to Saddam. In public, we always pledge our allegiance to Saddam, but in our hearts we feel something else.”

Different versions of that very quote, but with a common theme, I would come to hear several times over the next three days I spent in Iraq.

The people of Iraq are terrified of Saddam Hussein.

This reader asked me for my advice. I told him to look up the work of John Lott and Dave Kopel. But I also offered, by way of experiment, to post his email address in the Corner and let other folks interested in the subject contact him directly. Since it's Saturday night, traffic should be manageable. But I thought this might be an interesting thing to do from time to time -- assuming it doesn't make me a full-time traffic cop. (Also, I really don't need to be cc'd on every email). Anyway if you want to help the kid out:

Jonah,

I'm a college student at a smaller state school in Oklahoma, and even though this is the "Heartland," there is a pervasive Jacobin influence in most my classrooms (I guess that's no surprise given that I'm a journalism major). Well anyway, as a core requirement for my media course I will be forced to watch your good friend Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. In preparation for that date I have already acquired the necessary barf bags, but I am in need of statistical ammo with which to bitch-slap my professor in the mandatory group discussion that will take place after the showing. Since Moore is known for playing fast and loose with statistics, I was wondering if you knew where I could find reputable gun info that would refute some of Moore's claims. I'm specifically looking for info regarding our nation’s per capita murder rate (guns vs. other means), international comparisons, breakdowns by race and income, etc. If you could provide any help or get me in touch with a "gun guy," I would really appreciate it. I've been a G-Phile since April 2002 (one-year anniversary coming up!), and I've become irrepressibly addicted to NRO and NRODT. It's quite pathetic (my day starts and ends in the Corner every day) but extremely rewarding. In addition, I'm making steady progress in what I call my "personal conservative jihad" (reading all of Jonah's Conservative Canon).

Sincerely,

Justin Dutton
scweeber@cox.net

I've lived in Cairo for several years and studied Arabic fairly seriously for much of that time. In Egypt, the thumbs-up definitely seems to be the same as in the United States: a positive sign. This was verified for me two years ago by my excellent Arabic teacher, a culturally savvy Egyptian woman who has traveled widely and knows American body language as well as the Arab kind. I can't speak for other Arab countries.

From a reader in Gaul:

Jonah,

I wrote you earlier in the year. I am still in France and have kept a close eye on your Columns and The Corner. I want to thank you again for giving me a little outlet from the french media. Speaking of the French media, I just wanted to brief you on TF1's (France's NBC) Thursday night broadcast…….. 20 minutes of angry Iraqis yelling next to a downed Apache. 15 minutes of graphic civilian casualities, 10 minutes of the very brave Iraqi soliders looking onto the battlefield with concern and confidence, and drumroll, France will give 10 million euros to the Iraqi cause…ooohhh, ahhhh a moment of silence in the studio………. ….. and oh yeah the American offensive has surrounded Bagdad, pretty much controls the majority of the country and we have rumored reports that brave Iraqis are firing onto their civilians.

They make it sound like America is barely holding on. Please tell me differently. Please tell me that someone is actually happy we are over there. I feel that the French actually are pulling for Saddam to win just to say I told you not to invade Iraq.

Also someone had the "GAUL" to tell me that French media was run by jewish people. I fear it could be the exact opposite.

I return to the States in a couple of months, its been 10 months since i havent set foot on American soil, I have a big to-do list growing everyday.

From FoxNews.com:

Briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said Saddam had sacked his cousin, Musahim Saab al-Tikriti, and replaced him with Gen. Shahin Yasin Muhammad al-Tikriti.

Ummm....how exactly is it anonymous if they say who said it?

Daily Pundit:

I have been trying to slay this thumbs up meme for two days, thanks to damned Sean-Paul and Max and atrios.

Yes, the thumbs up did at one point in time 9and in many places still does) mean something negative. However, since the first gulf war, the meaning has changed for many living in the region. The folks at the Defense Language Institute have this to say about the thumbs up sign in their most recent manual:

Thumbs up- This gesture, expressing connotations of "I am winning," historically is offensive to many Arabs. After the Gulf conflict, however, Middle Easterners of the Arabian Peninsula adopted this handmovement, along with the OK sign, as a symbol of cooperation toward freedom.

I haven't posted angry and or hate mail lately. It hasn't gone away, there was just more inportant stuff to do. But just so you know, it still comes in. Since the war began I get a lot of this sort of thing:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

You've been an outspoken advocate of the position we now find ourselves in. I'm wondering, as you watch the carnage unfolding in Iraq, do you have any reservations? Does the destruction of Iraq, it's people and our own soldiers have any impact on you or are as cold blooded as I think you are. Do you tune out the war or IF you can STAND watching it, do you have an emotional reaction to it? Have you cried? Can you cry? Like many zealots, your perceptions weren't accurate. We're paying a high price for the absurd vision you and your neo-con friends have inflicted upon an unsuspecting public. Compassionate conservatism? The Third Reich is more like it. And I mean that sincerely.

I hope you suffer terribly for the unspeakable suffering you've promoted.

From a reader:

Jonah:

News footage keeps showing Iraqi men and boys giving our troops the "thumbs up" sign. Yet, seems like I saw somewhere that, in the the mysterious ways of the Levant, this sign is the Arabic equivalent of what an American expresses with the lone, extended middle finger.

Can Middle East guy give a definitive answer, which you could post for all of us non-Middle East expert guys?

So, I asked him:

I was pondering this myself the other day. I don't know if there's a right answer here. Your correspondent is right in most of the Middle East, the thumbs-up is a f-u gesture. (It's not in Turkey, where it's used for hitchhiking.) That said, Iraqis do watch a lot of Western movies and TV and are likely hip to the fact that it means something different to us. (I'm sure it's a big joke among 13-year-old Arabs that all those buddy-movie guys "flip each other off" after the bad guy is taken down.) So, I think it's probably a question of context. If the guy's definitely jerking it upwards, it's more likely insulting. If they're smiling and appear pleased to see you, they may be making a cross-cultural gesture of friendliness. Might there be some wags who smile and "flip off" the "dumb Americans"? I don't doubt it. So alas, I don't have a definitive answer on this.

The French government is now at pains to reassure everyone that it favors a Coalition victory. This is despite the serpentine ‘de’ Villepin’s recent refusal to give a straight answer to a questioner asking which side the French foreign minister wanted to win the war.

There are a number of interpretations for Villepin’s curious behavior. Perhaps he simply misspoke. It’s easy to do, particularly if you are, like the French foreign minister, someone who has never achieved elected office and are thus, perhaps, somewhat nervous in front of a critical audience.

A second interpretation is more likely, however. Having formally proclaimed his support for a Coalition victory on March 24th, this wily diplomat was now using a ‘slip of the tongue’ to signal to Arab regimes – and Saddam’s in particular – that French loyalties were more divided than the need to maintain some sort of Western solidarity might suggest.

If Chirac is interested in repairing the rifts he has created in the West, he could start by firing this minister. After all, there is somewhere else for Villepin, a fan of Napoleon, to go.

Saint Helena is still a British colony.

It's an attack on the journalists here. It's been expected for a long time - we've taken not to going to the information ministry at night because we believed it may be attacked. Even so I think it does take the targeting to a new phase.

From a reader:

This is my bid to be your Formal Military Planning Guy

This pause has nothing directly to do with logistics or supply. The lead time for a formal plan at General Franks' level is about 4 to 6 days. He is being tasked to prepare a major contingency response to possible actions from Syria to the rear of the Northern front.

Our Northern guys are mostly air base operations, light armored forces and infantry. The Syrians have lots of armor. We could be exposed to an attack from the northwest when we engage the Medina or Hammurabi divisions.

This is the text annotating a photo of British paratroopers before the D-Day in 1944; I found it in a web site of Time mag celebrating history and real life of the veterans from the Easy Company (which was featured in the HBO Band of Brothers):

The British paratroopers shown here were among the first to fly from England to France on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Despite careful planning, the D-Day jumps turned out to be chaotic due to fog: most of the men did not land where they expected to, and many lost their weapons in the drop.

These few lines made me pausing and reflecting. First of all, it seems to me that what prevents us from labelling D-Day as a complete military disaster is the heroism and the bravery of those guys: their most important day begun with fear, confusion and death, but ended in victory. When we look at the faded pictures taken by Robert Capa (brave father of all embedded!), we know it was a really bad day, a day with an unbearable human toll, but we can feel proud of, and thankful for what those guys accomplished.

And then, comparing this glorious past with the attitude most of the media are showing regarding Operation Iraqi Freedom, a question hit me: what would have they said were they present at D-Day? Would have they called it a big mistake, the proof of the incompetence of Eisenhower and the evidence of the weakness of the Allied forces? Imagine the long list of armchair generals, questioning each detail and assuring us all about incoming disasters...

What I'd want to tell the media is: trust our troops, trust Gen. Franks and everyone over there, and let them do their job, they know what to do. But we at home have a task, too: and our task is to never forget the courage of our servicemen and servicewomen: their hearts and minds make a difference, their hearts and minds will lead us (and us all: Americans, British, decent Iraqis, and the civilized world) to victory.

Thank you for the Corner: it's a way to stay connected with the guys and gals out there, to fight along with them all...

Put yourself in the place of an Iraqi tanker who has just seen another tank go up in flames a quarter of a mile away - without even glimpsing the source of the attack. That psychological pressure is almost as important in triggering the final collapse of Iraq's military as is the physical destruction.

Meanwhile, more evidence emerges every day that this war is worth fighting. Cache after cache of Iraqi chemical-warfare gear turns up. Our troops witness one atrocity after another. And there is ever greater proof that President Bush was right all along about Iraq's support of terrorism.

I may have unwittingly offended the clown community with my comments this morning. A reader from Texas writes:

“Clowns are hard-working professionals with vast experience and technical expertise, performing for a large group of individuals with mirth and amusement. The protesters have none of these qualities. The only mirth they provide is entirely unintentional. “

Apologies.

Received an interesting comment from a correspondent in response to the story of those anti-Saddam Iraqis returning to the side of the tyrant they loathed in order to be able to fight for their country. Isn’t there some way, he wondered, for them to be offered the alternative of fighting alongside the Coalition as some sort of national liberation force? It’s an interesting idea. There are substantial practical problems – the presence of presumably poorly trained irregulars should not be allowed to endanger US/UK troops – but the symbolic, and possibly practical, value could be enormous.

We call on Muslims everywhere, and to Arabs. We say to them: this is the day of Jihad. The Jihad has become a personal [duty] of every Muslim. To refrain from Jihad today would constitute a violation of Allah's commands. It is a sin. Long live the Jihad! The evil has arrived! The forces of disbelief have mobilized armies....

The criminal Bush is bringing back to the world all the arrogance and the insolence and all the criminality and the absence of humanity. He starts a war that has no legitimate [basis] only for the purpose of satisfying his wicked and evil soul and his thirst for pure blood. History repeats itself. But here is his army defeated by the force of faith. And here are his modern weapons falling against our simple weapon. We are fighting with the strength of Allah, the strength of our faith. We only face Allah. Allah will bring victory to those [who tell] the truth even if it takes a long time.

Fr. Joseph Wilson of St. Luke's Parish in Whitestone, Queens, says he has been reading National Review since he was a small boy. Which might explain this example of courage, clear thinking, and action.

Fr. Wilson received the following message today from an official of the Brooklyn diocese:

Please include this in your Mass announcements this Sunday: "Everyone is invited to a Mass for the Restoration of Peace at Holy Trinity Church on Tuesday at 5PM. Father Latona, the Pastor, will be Celebrant."

Well, that did it. Fr. Wilson, who has just had it with pious peacenikery in this time of great peril, sent out the following fax to all the parishes that had received the first:

Faithful Sons and Daughters of the Church are invited to Saint Luke's Church on Monday evening, 7:15PM, for a Mass, Holy Hour and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament, imploring the intercession of our Lady of Lepanto for the safety of our armed forces. The Holy Rosary, which once turned back those who would destroy Christian civilization, will be prayed before Mass.

This just in from NRO's fabulous French Guy:

It's early spring in Paris, that's the one and only good news. French people are so happy because of what they perceive to be coalition setbacks in the war on Iraq. So I decided to be happy as well! And I decided to give my neighbors a free prime time concert... I bought "THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE AMERICAN MARCH" by The Goldman Band on CD, and I'm playing it right now! It's 21:24 in Paris, a couple loudspeakers in my garden, loud enough to be heard around but law-abiding quiet enough. I hope my fellow Frenchmen are enjoying J.P. Sousa, Victor Herbert and titles like The Pride of America and The President's March. I hope all is well in NYC and the family is doing great in Dallas. And now I'm going to turn to The Corner, the best reward one can expect after a long work day.

We need to send humanitarian relief to French Guy, bravely resisting the Fedayeen Chirac behind the lines! I say we parachute P.J. O'Rourke in with good Kentucky bourbon, Hank Williams, Jr. CDs, a copy of Ray Charles' peerless recording of "America the Beautiful," and barbecued ribs from Texas. Oh, and cowboy boots. Send me your shoe size, French Guy, and I'll mail you a pair of Tony Lamas when I get down to the Great State.

How's this for understated?

Well, first of all, considering the massive kill ratios between US and Somali forces, no friend of the Third World should want 1,000 Mogadishus.

But, I wonder, if an academic can say he wants a 1,000 Mogadishus, am I allowed to say I want a dozen Kent States?

I don't, mind you, but I just think it's worth throwing out there.

Jonah’s military guy says (echoing Babbin thoughts from earlier this week): I fully expect (and hope I'm wrong) that if chemical weapons get used, they're going to be first used on civilians, and blamed on us. The Disinformation Minister is setting the stage. If they can engineer something that they can call a defeat of coalition forces (or a true defeat, possible, if unlikely) that would be a good window for them to do the dirty deed and claim we did it. A cut-off contingent, like the guys that were on the wrong side of the river when the bridge was blown would offer a perfect scenario to claim we used chem to cover the rescue of the cut-off element. Sigh.

From a reader:

Dear Mr. Goldberg:

Re: your comment “Grandparental Goldbergs here to inspect baby.”

I hope the Grandparental Goldbergs are better at inspections than is Hans Blix! If not, they will find no baby, despite the obvious diapers, rattles, toys, and bottles.

I maintain that we must give the Baby Inspections time to work. Please allow the GG’s to stay a little longer.

From promising applicant for "Back-up Navy Guy

Jonah, Here goes on one. The "market bombing" in Baghdad was almost certainly NOT an errant JDAM/GPS-guided bomb, LGB (laser-guided bomb) or TLAM (Tomahawk Land Attack Missile). To have been a JDAM, that would have meant that the Iraqis have an existing and effective GPS jammer, which they obviously do not (both ineffective and no longer in existence). To have been an LGB, it would mean that the laser spot was lost/diverted (fiery oil-filled trenches) or that the laser spot was placed on the wrong location (which is unlikely for a 1 mile error...trust me, the mission planning for an LGB mission is pretty involved, and the picture you get from military infrared pods like TFLIR and LANTIRN is VERY accurate). To have been a TLAM, it would mean that the weapon was either damaged in flight, which is unlikely given the poor showing by the Iraqi air defense system near Baghdad), or was programmed with the wrong coordinates (again, highly unlikely, as TLAM planning is some of the most involved I've ever been involved with). I think it's most likely to have been an Iraqi heavy AAA shell or missile landing at the wrong aimpoint. Then again, given the utter disregard Uncle Saddam has for his people, maybe it was an intentional "PR" moment.

Unreal stuff at Columbia University:

At an anti-war "teach-in" this week, a Columbia University professor called for the defeat of American forces in Iraq and said he would like to see "a million Mogadishus" -- a reference to the Somali city where American soldiers were ambushed, with 18 killed, in 1993.

"The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military," Nicholas De Genova, assistant professor of anthropology at Columbia University told the audience at Low Library Wednesday night. "I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus."

Can I be Jonah's Obscure Spelling Error Guy? My most recent contribution, from his 11:41 post: it's ordnance (no i), not ordinance, when you're referring to munitions.
Why do I know this? Why do birds suddenly appear...?

From a reader applying for "Tired of pussy-footing around guy":

Jonah, I am a recently retired Naval Aviator. I've been a Combat Search And Rescue (CSAR) pilot and have served on command staffs as well. I suppose I could apply for Navy guy or Helo guy or CSAR guy but that is not my intention for this note.

I'd like you to bring your analytical skills to bear on the "why they hate us" issue. It is my contention that we are largely resented and despised in certain quarters not due to our tough or arrogant policies but rather for our benign and often weak reaction to insult and attack. I believe our limp reaction to seditionists at home is equally damaging.

The Egyptian, Jordanian, and Saudi "press" just to name a few are extraordinarily anti-American. These are public information sources that are directly controlled by their governments. These countries are routinely referred to as allies and yet they actively cultivate anti-Americanism. Our leaders pass it off as internal politics that keeps these governments stable. I think that very point is wrong in the long term and in the near term we are in effect cooperating with those that are helping to breed the next generation of Osamas. I say it is high time we said "we're not going to take it anymore." We can't continue to let tin pot governments blame the USA for their miserable failures. If they do, we should threaten loss of aid then loss of protection, right up to active support of those (non anti-American) forces attempting to overthrow them. These countries populations hate us because their governments tell them to. We have to make it more painful to slander us than to confront their real failures.

Similarly we need to get tough with the "peace" activists here. If you peacefully march and hold a sign you are lawfully exercising your right to display your lack of cognitive function. However, if you block the streets you are disrupting commerce and preventing the timely provision of emergency services and you should be prosecuted for those crimes. Arresting these people and then just giving them a ticket for being a nuisance gives them a badge of honor and encourages them to come out and do something even more outrageous. Remember how Rudy cleaned up New York?

Thanks for your service to your country. Also, please pass my thanks on to the rest of the spectacularly talented staff and contributors at NRO/NRODT. And say hi to Cosmo.

Fox News reports that the Pentagon is increasingly skeptical that it was a US missile which hit that market. According to Major Garrett, the brass says it would have had to fly off course by more than a mile, something they are very dubious about. They won't definitely say it wasn't our ordinance, but it sounds like that's what they think.

Who has two thumbs and loves the ladies? This guy! There are corresponding "Gal" positions open in every category for guys, except for the obviously gender-specific categories like "homeschooling mom" or "male stripper," etc. But there's no Title IX chicanery going on here. Everyone will be held to one standard.

From a reader:

In these trying and uncertain times, perhaps you could revisit that cinematic milestone "Superman IV, the quest for peace". I know, I know, conventional wisdom says it's perhaps second only to "Batman and Robin" in its eye-bleeding awfulness, but maybe it was ahead of its time. Lotsa WMD talk, Supes at the U.N., Gene Hackman saying noo-kyu-ler through the whole thing.

Anyway, it'd be a hoot to read your take on it.

Just a thought.

Wanna re-think your position on the death penalty?

If someone would follow up on the al-Qaeda fighting in Iraq story story fronted by Drudge last night. I mean this isn't a trivial story. It's not like a report that Up With People is holding a fundraiser in Milwaukee.

The Goldberg File is up. I'd like it if you'd read it, but the least you could do is click on it a zillion times.

I have it on good authority that this is Saddam's favorite clown

This is from my longstanding cop guy, who also spent time in Bosnia (my other cop guy became Jack Dunphy -- so keep in mind there's an upside to being a ___ guy). Anyway, he makes a very good point:

Dear Jonah: I find that I increasingly resent that I am not allowed to see for myself what the bastards are doing to our people. I want to be angry, I want to feel the rage and know that this war is necessary. When the Towers fell, we were given only PG images-maybe that's one reason so many people seem to have forgotten it. -What if nobody had filmed the concentration camps in order to spare the sensibilities of amaricans?

At some point this war will end and we know that people will claim that various crimes never happened. I suggest that the media should warn us, but give us access to the truth. You NRO guys disagree, I know. It's my two cents. Thanks.

I'm still of two minds about this, but I'm coming around to this point of view. It's very similar to an argument I made last August in a column, "Bring Back the Horror." There is a point to making it clear to Americans about who and what the enemy is. Certainly, knowing that enemy is torturing or executing our soldiers would shine a light on some of the protestors out there. I'm going to keep pondering.

Andrew - I don't know. When war starts the warriors put on their uniforms. It helps identify and communicate their core functions and roles in the effort. And, similarly, when the anti-war starts, the anti-warriors put on their uniforms. Frankly, I think more of the protestors should wear floppy shoes and giant orange afros.

"I'm an NRO guy."

Simple. Understated. Masculine. And so, so sexy. A sticker like that could turn the owner of a 1982 Citation into a babe magnet.

Nobody has written me to apply for the position of "free lyposuction guy."

Lil' Lucy woke me up at 3:30 in the morning and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I wrote the G-File already, so it will actually be up this morning. It contains references to French people.
Now, Cosmo and I are heading to the park. Because, at the end of the day (and the beginning of it), he's my best guy.

While this is all terribly flattering, and I'm pretty confident that the reader who wants "Conservative Elementary School Art Teacher with Three Dogs Guy" won't have a lot of competition, I should let you know how others have achieved "guy status." My Middle East guy has been sending me interesting emails on his area of expertise for more than a year. They're concise, informative and authoritative. Military guy has been convincing me he's the real deal for quite a while as well. In short, you achieve guy status by worming your way into my confidences. Now, this doesn't mean that all of the people who want to be Star Trek guy should send me long essays and insights into all things Trek. Another important attribute of "guy" status is being timely. Law guys email me when law stuff happens that they think is particularly important and that nobody else has noticed. All the guys tend to be funny, don't take themselves too seriously and understand that not every email they send me can warrant the kind of thoughtful response they deserve. They offer sometimes brilliant criticisms of my columns, without being jerks about it. In fact, I tend to find that the more of a jerk a reader is, the less impressive his criticism is. Hmmm.

Anyway, when I think about it, this describes hundreds of you people. In fact, you're all my guys. Now get back to the hard work of being "read NRO too much at work guys."

Lots of applications for "guy" status in my mailbox this morning. Lots of requests to be "Navy guy," "Star Trek guy," "Cubicle Man," etc.

One reader wants to be my "Ex-Underpaid County Jailer Guy":

I'm just seeing if the position is open.

I'm certain I can provide valuable insight into the tactical complexities of chow time. I'm always willing to participate in a spirited discussion concerning the age-old controversy: "Does the heel of a loaf count as an actual slice of bread?"

(Seriously, you wouldn't BELIEVE how big an issue that really was.)

My resume, while not particularly impressive, is at least diverse. I'm also ready to assume duties as "Other Guitar Guy" at a moment's notice.

Another reader wants to know if the "30 yr old unemployed still lives with mom guy" slot is still open. And then there's this guy:

Jonah, I would like to apply for the "Conservative Elementary School Art Teacher with Three Dogs Guy" position. We are a relatively small coalition, but very good at sniffing out NEA Al-Qaeda types with hidden agendas and costly membership fees. Rest assured, my Dalmatian is quite pro-war, I mean pro-liberation, and my Beagle thinks he is General Patton. My Basset Hound is more of a make love not war liberal, but we can exclude her from the war effort...or distract her with a milk-bone dog biscuit, launched scud-style onto the living-room sofa. But mind you, they all hate the French. Damn Poodles...

Dominique de Villepin has been speaking in London, but not, it seems, on every topic. At the end of his talk, he held a question and answer session notable mainly for the fact that the normally voluble Frenchman refused to answer the following question:

"Who do you want to win this war?"

Blogger John Hawkins is not impressed.