Clearing the Way for Real Airport Security
| July 19, 2002
Did you hear the one about the 87-year-old grandmother who had her knitting needles taken away by airport security? They were afraid she was going to knit an Afghan. That is just one of many jibes at the fraudulent airport security measures adopted since September 11. Fortunately, the man responsible for cobbling together this national joke, John Magaw, has just resigned—clearing the way for real airport security. ...(->)
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Anything Less Is Suicide
| July 16, 2002
Why we must build bigger and better on the World Trade Center site.
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The War on CEOs
| July 12, 2002
Just as the War on Terrorism dissipates into total inaction—the latest word is that we will not invade Iraq—our leaders have launched a new war to replace it: the War on CEOs.... This is not a campaign against fraud, but a campaign against businessmen—and it will have the same result as any other crusade against a nation's producers. ...
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Small-Time Crooks
| July 5, 2002
Reporters, commentators, and politicians have whipped themselves into a frenzy over the recent corporate accounting scandals, heaping abuse on corporate executives in general and demanding to see the perpetrators led away in leg-irons. But is this feeding frenzy actually motivated by a legitimate outrage at fraud and theft?
Consider the frauds that have gone unnoticed and unmentioned....(->)
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America: The Secular Republic
| June 28, 2002
On July 4, Americans will take a day to honor our Founding Fathers, who gave birth to the first nation dedicated to individual freedom. This day comes, unfortunately, at a moment when our politicians are united in their venomous attacks on a crucial element of the Founders' legacy: the separation of church and state. ...(->)
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Martha and the Tall Poppies
| June 21, 2002
Why do so many people hate Martha Stewart? ... Consider the past week's media frenzy over charges that Stewart engaged in "insider trading." The reaction in the press and by members of Congress—who have launched an investigation—is far out of proportion to the actual evidence or the alleged crime. Nor can this case explain the eagerness with which snide columnists and catty morning talk-show hosts contemplate the prospect of seeing Martha in prison—joking, as one host did, about whether her cell will have matching curtains.
There is only one explanation for this tone of vicious glee. Martha is hated because she's a tall poppy. ...
(->)
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The Post-Colonialist Famine
| June 14, 2002
Today, more than a million people in Zimbabwe are starving, and up to three million face the imminent prospect of starvation. This has not yet excited much attention in the West. ... But this case is important, not because of any direct effect it may have on the US, but because it is a pure, distilled example of the larger trend that is destroying the world: the West's loss of moral confidence. ...
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America's Maginot Line
| June 7, 2002
The War on Terrorism is over. It ended when President Bush pushed to the top of his agenda the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. This is the climax of a trend that has been building for the past month: the only action the US government is now taking in response to terrorism is purely defensive. ...
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Time's Up for Pakistan
| May 31, 2002
The Bush administration seems to be twisting itself into a knot of confusion over the nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan, dispatching an array of diplomats to try to "ease the tensions" between the two countries—without doing anything to eliminate the cause of those "tensions." The actual solution is quite simple. Bush has the means to prevent this war, and he is probably the only person in the world who can do so. All he needs to do is what he should have done nine months ago.
He needs to take over Pakistan. ...
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Freedom's Defenders
| May 24, 2002
Memorial Day is always a solemn occasion, but especially so this year, because we have so recently experienced this day's meaning first-hand. We have seen it in two different ways: we have seen the courage of our troops on the battlefields of Afghanistan—and we have realized, in the days following September 11, how much depends on that courage. ...
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What They Knew and When They Knew It
| May 17, 2002
The Democrats [are blaming] President Bush for failing to act on vague CIA warnings, early last August, that Osama bin Laden might be plotting to hijack airplanes. ... Democratic leaders say they want to find out what the president knew and when he knew it—and why he didn't do anything about it. ... The politicians and pundits who demand this investigation are evading the fact that they themselves had access to a wealth of information on the threat of terrorism—yet they did nothing to stop it.
Let us take a look at what they knew, when they knew it, and what they did about it. ...
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The Mixed-Economy Monster
| May 10, 2002
Six months after the collapse of Enron, the left is still sputtering in violent outrage at the company, and with good reason. This display of wrath is the only way to keep people from noticing the real emotion underlying the Enron feeding frenzy: elation. The Democrats are elated that, having failed to provide actual leadership, they at least have one good smear campaign they can use against the Republicans. ... And now California Governor Gray Davis is elated because he has someone else to blame for the power crisis he presided over. ...
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Conference in Cloud Cuckoo Land
| May 3, 2002
On Thursday, the Bush administration announced that it would join with the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia to host an international peace conference to settle the conflict in the Middle East. No location was announced for this meeting, but I can suggest a neutral country that would be perfect for the idea: Cloud Cuckoo Land. [This] is the fictional city in the clouds from Aristophanes' play The Birds, a parody of the mystical fantasies of the philosopher Plato and his followers. So it seems like the natural location for a conference based on a gossamer foundation of fiction and fantasy. ...
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War for Peace
| April 26, 2002
After ten years of seeking security through "land for peace" deals, Israel has finally rediscovered the formula for real security: war for peace. Notice what you have seen in the news for the past few weeks: Europeans screaming about civilian casualties at Jenin (the "City of the Bombers"), Prince Abdullah lecturing President Bush to give even less support to Israel, another vague and useless terrorism warning from Tom Ridge.... Now notice the headline that has been missing...(->)
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The Palestinian Victims?
| April 19, 2002
As Israel pulls out of the West Bank—a foolish move that will only allow Palestinian terrorists to regroup—the media is being flooded with piteous tales about Palestinian victims, who, we are told, are innocent civilians. But a glance at the stories coming out of the West Bank gives us a flavor for this "innocence." ...
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Why Israel Must Not Withdraw
| April 12, 2002
Colin Powell has failed, so far, in his attempt to browbeat Israel into joining America's official surrender in the War on Terrorism. Yet Ariel Sharon has repeatedly stated that his armies will eventually withdraw from the West Bank, and that Israel does not intend to remain in control of Palestinian territory "for any length of time." This is a crucial mistake, because it is vital for Israel's victory in its war of survival—and for whatever is left of America's battle against terrorism—that Israel establish permanent control over the West Bank, renewing its occupation of Palestinian territory. ...(->)
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Live from Ramallah: The Theater of the Absurd
| April 5, 2002
In the late 1940s, a group of playwrights started a movement called the Theater of the Absurd, based on the Existentialist notion that life is rationally incomprehensible. According to one description, practitioners of the Theater of the Absurd sought "to convey their sense of bewilderment, anxiety, and wonder in the face of an inexplicable universe." Apparently, some of these playwrights are still alive and have been writing the script for recent events in the Middle East. Behold the Peace Process Theater of the Absurd, as broadcast live from Ramallah and Washington. ...
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We Are Either With Israel, Or We Are With the Terrorists
| March 29, 2002
We may be about to witness a major victory in the War on Terrorism, a victory as important as any in Afghanistan or Iraq. But American troops will not win this victory, and the battle will be fought without the support and even against the wishes of our president.
That battle is now being fought by Israel. ...(->)
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Campaign Finances and Corruption
| March 22, 2002
In one of the great ironies of contemporary politics, Congress recently passed an economic "stimulus" package the day after the recession was declared to be over. Obviously, the legislators didn't really care about stimulating the economy, which had already stimulated itself. They were clearly interested in stimulating something else: stimulating the growth of government, stimulating pork-barrel spending in their districts, or stimulating their re-election campaigns.
The same pattern applies to the approval this week of new campaign finance controls, supposedly designed to limit congressional "corruption"—yet passed in the total absence of any actual campaign finance scandal. ...
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Who Is George Bush?
| March 15, 2002
Will the real George Bush please stand up?
Last weekend, we learned that President Bush is contemplating a new "nuclear posture" for America that would include threatening the use of tactical nuclear weapons against terrorist dictatorships. Then during the middle of the week, we learned that this very same president had sponsored a UN Security Council resolution demanding the creation of a Palestinian state—a terrorist dictatorship. This is just one among many contradictions in the president's policies and outlook. ...
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The Prophets of Defeatism
| March 8, 2002
The American press seems to have contracted Black Hawk Down Syndrome, a malady in which reporters and editorialists, whose military experience consists largely of watching Hollywood war movies, project a hand-wringing fear of American military failure. These reactions may seem bizarre after a period of extraordinary military success, but they do make sense—because the very same organizations promoting this defeatism also promote the policies that would actually lead to defeat. ...
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Little Caesars in the Senate
| March 1, 2002
A "little Caesar," before it referred to a pizza delivery mascot, used to refer to a petty official...with delusions of grandeur, the type who seeks power for the pleasure of abusing it. The Enron investigation is making it clear that the Senate is full of these characters. At first, when I saw all of these senators dragging executives from Enron and Arthur Andersen before their subcommittees, for the sole purpose of wagging their fingers and calling these people names before a national audience, I thought this grandstanding was just for publicity, an easy way to make the folks back home think you're standing up for the little guy. ...
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The Terrorist's Best Friend
| February 22, 2002
The events of the past few weeks in Israel have offered a timeless lesson on the real cause of terrorism and the real meaning of the "peace process."
The pattern of these events is crystal clear: Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority have escalated their war against Israel, while loudly demanding that Israel renounce "military solutions" and return to the "peace process." It is a brazen attempt to wage all-out war while urging the victims to disarm themselves. ...
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The War on Terrorism and the War on Reality
| February 15, 2002
Here is the painful dilemma America faces. If we don't attack Iraq, we could risk a nuclear attack on New York or Washington by Iraqi-backed terrorists. But if we do attack Iraq, we could risk "alienating" our Arab and European allies and earning the disapproval of the "world community."
Who would regard this as a choice worth agonizing over? Why, the American press, of course. ...(->)
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Multilateralism's One-Way Street
| February 8, 2002
A few weeks ago, many liberals were crowing that the War on Terrorism had forced the Bush administration to abandon "isolationism" and embrace "globalism".... This is part of an effort to make independent, "unilateral" action by America seem dangerous, while making "multilateralism" ... seem like the only responsible approach to foreign policy.
But the past week has shown us that multilateralism is really a one-way street—a street that consistently runs against American interests. ...
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