From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, October 9, 2002 3:45 P.M. EDT

War for Rice?
"It's all about oil" is one of the incantations of the antiwar left. But the Village Voice's James Ridgeway disagrees. He thinks it's partly about rice:

Before the first Persian Gulf war, Iraq had become a sizable market for American rice, wheat, and chickens. In the last half of the '80s, the United States sold $4 billion in food to Iraq. Twenty percent of the American rice crop went there at one point in the 1980s.

In 1988-89 the United States exported 521,000 tons of rice to Iraq, making it our number one consumer. More recently, the figure has been zero. A spokesperson for the U.S. Rice Federation, which takes a dim view of the sanctions, wouldn't comment on the current situation. But it's safe to say there would be nothing like a war, regime change, and the subsequent lifting of sanctions to open up this lucrative market once again.

Ridgeway also argues that "military vendors" and, of course, "big oil" stand to make money in the aftermath of a war. And he seems to think that this is the real reason President Bush is considering hostilities against Saddam Hussein's regime. "Before the war can begin, the movers and shakers in Washington and around the world have their eyes on divvying up the spoils," he writes, in an article snidely subtitled "Be the First on Your Block to Make a Buck off Iraq."

It's worth considering this argument in some detail, because it is such a striking example of the idiocy and incoherence of the antiwar left. To begin with, in attempting to explain the hostilities between Washington and Baghdad, it ignores the most stunningly obvious fact: America was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, and President Bush has been singularly focused on terror and national security ever since. Now, one can argue that it's a mistake to carry the war to Iraq; this is at least a plausible assertion. One can even argue that America brought the attacks on itself, has no business defending itself, and ought instead to appease the terrorists. Such a view is monstrous, but at least it's comprehensible.

But the search for hidden motives makes no sense, even if you hate America. You would expect a country to strike back after having been attacked, even if you think it shouldn't. Besides, as Peter Beinart has noted with respect to oil, if President Bush is really concerned with commerce, there's a much easier way than going to war: simply lead the U.N. in abolishing the sanctions against Iraq.

Instead, the president has devoted months to making a case for "regime change," apparently winning over a vast majority of congressmen and building an international alliance that may ultimately act with U.N. approval. Now, Bush is not above pandering to domestic commercial interests--think steel tariffs--but a war to benefit the rice industry? This seems like an awful lot of effort to go through for the benefit of commercial interests.

Even in the extremely unlikely event that Bush's motives are as venal and petty as Ridgeway suggests, there remains the matter of his substantive arguments for intervention in Iraq. That is to say, he could be doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Ridgeway doesn't even bother dealing with the case on its merits, instead dismissing it with empty rhetoric: "cowboy-in-chief George Bush and his cohorts . . . this act of pure aggression . . . the conquerors who have starved [Iraqis] for a decade and then bombed them to smithereens . . . this Wild West approach to the Middle East . . . a new century of neocolonialism." This is a tantrum, not an argument.

To give Ridgeway his due, he does make an argument: that regime change in Iraq would create commercial opportunities. To which we must ask: What exactly is the problem with this? When a country that has been an isolated dictatorship rejoins the community of nations, one thing that happens is that it trades more with the rest of the world. If regime change allowed Germany and Japan to start producing BMWs and Sony TV sets rather than death camps and kamikaze pilots, then we say three cheers for regime change. For those on the far left, it would seem, mass murder and totalitarianism are worth tolerating if the alternative is that someone, somewhere might turn a profit.

Why He Left the Left
The New York Observer's Ron Rosenbaum has a long but excellent article detailing his disillusionment with the left. We'll just quote the opening anecdote, which nicely captures the tone and substance of the piece:

So I went up to the antiwar demonstration in Central Park this weekend, hoping to hear some persuasive arguments. After a couple of hours there, listening to speeches, reading the hate-America literature, I still don't know what to think about Iraq . . . but I think I know what I feel about this antiwar movement. . . .

A movement of Marxist fringe groups and people who are unable to make moral distinctions. An inability summed up by a man holding a big poster that proudly identified him as "NYC TEACHER." The lesson "NYC TEACHER" had for the day was that "BUSH IS A DEVIL . . . HANDS OFF NORTH KOREA, IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN. . . ."

Yes, Bush is "a devil" compared to those enlightened regimes that torture and murder dissidents (like "NYC TEACHER"). Bush is certainly "a devil" compared to enlightened leaders like Kim Jong Il, who has reduced the North Korean people in his repulsive police state to eating moss on rocks; or to Saddam Hussein, who tortures and gasses opponents, and starves his people to fund his germ-war labs; or to the Taliban in Afghanistan, who beat women into burqas. Yes, surely compared to them, Bush is "a devil." Thank God New York's schoolchildren are in such good hands.

Then again, the antiwar crowd is drawing some impressive supporters. Among the signers of the "Not in Our Name" petition are Al Koholic, the renowned professor of mixology, and Dick R. Hertz, the famous "self-employed employment specialist." Not yet on the list are Seymour Butz and I.P. Freely.

Still, Javed Chaudhri, a professor at New Hampshire's Keene State College, is optimistic. "An ocean is made up of one drop of water at a time--peace movements start the same," the Associated Press quotes him as telling a rally in Brattleboro, Vt. Apparently Chaudhri teaches a course on Afghanistan at KSC. Oh well, it could be worse--he could be teaching oceanography.

You Don't Say--I
"CIA Chief: Iraq May Resort to Terror"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 8

Saddam's Terror Links
"Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was directly involved in ensuring that sums reaching $15 million were transferred to families of suicide bombers and wounded Palestinians in the territories," the Jerusalem Post reports. "The transactions were carried out with the full knowledge of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and other PA officials, according to documents seized by security forces during Operation Defensive Shield."

Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

The Associated Press reports there's evidence that Iraq may be attempting to weaponize smallpox:

Clues include U.N. weapons inspectors' discovery of a machine labeled "smallpox" and Iraq's experimenting with a related virus that infects camels. The official U.S. position, shared by some experts, is that the evidence is inconclusive. . . .

Iraq . . . admitted to U.N. inspectors that its biological weapons scientists worked with camelpox, a close relative of the smallpox virus that doesn't usually infect people. Working with camelpox would give Iraq a way to perfect techniques for making smallpox weapons without endangering the researchers.

As biodefense expert Ken Alibek observers, "it's hard to believe Saddam would do this work to protect his camels."

Democracy, Reuters Style
The Bush administration has promised to pursue democracy in postwar Iraq. But Reuters, the "news" service that puts scare quotes around the word terrorism, "reports" from Baghdad that Iraq is already a democracy:

More than 11.5 million Iraqis will cast ballots in a referendum to endorse the presidency of Saddam Hussein for another seven-year term on October 15, Iraq's state radio said on Wednesday. . . . Iraq announced plans for the secret ballot referendum on September 8.

Reuters "informs" us that Saddam is really popular: "Government figures showed Saddam in 1995 won 99.96 percent of more than eight million valid votes cast on a turnout of 99.47 percent."

Accuracy, Reuters Style
"Israeli Forces Open Fire Kill Girl" reads the headline over a Reuters photo that shows an Israeli soldier grabbing a woman by the waist from behind. Is the woman in the photo the Palestinian girl mentioned in the headline? Some other Arab victim? No. Here's the fine print: "An Israeli soldier stops a Jewish settler woman who tried to attack Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron."

French Sense?
Have the French gotten a bum rap as America haters and appeasers? A new poll offers some evidence they may have. Ha'aretz reports a poll by five French newspapers asked Frenchmen which country is the biggest threat to world peace. America placed only fourth, while Iraq was the top choice. So far, so good, though Israel was No. 2. (No. 3 was Afghanistan.)

The International Herald Tribune reports on two new best-selling books that "are confronting the French with the proposition that their anti-Americanism is a self-inflicted national illness":

For one of the authors, the anti-Americanism of the French is a willful delusion, an attempt by a dominant political and intellectual caste to mask its own failures and insignificance.

For the other, French anti-Americanism is a centuries-old tradition--a layered accumulation of condescension and fear, vastly more significant than the French gift of a Statue of Liberty to the United States or the assistance of a Marquis de Lafayette--and a rare terrain in French national life where conflicting political and intellectual forces can find common ground.

"We keep creating a mythological America in order to avoid asking ourselves questions about our real problems," the IHT quotes one of the authors, Philippe Rogers, as saying. "And they're problems that the Americans don't have much to do with."

You Don't Say--II
"U.S. Immigration Doubts LAX Shooter's Peaceful Intent"--headline, FoxNews.com, Oct. 8

Never Mind the Buzzcocks?
Yesterday we noted a story that Larry Miller of The Weekly Standard retold, about the lead singer of the punk-rock group the Buzzcocks making hostile statements about President Bush at a Sept. 14 concert. The Buzzcocks' Web site carries a statement saying the account is "completely false. . . . Neither Pete Shelley nor any other band member said anything of the sort on stage."

We've also heard from three people--two by e-mail and one by phone--who say that they were at the concert and that no one from the Buzzcocks made the remarks, and message No. 4 on this discussion board (warning: some other messages contain rough language) quotes a pair of online reviews that corroborate the Buzzcocks' version of events. In addition, The Weekly Standard has removed the Miller piece from its online table of contents, and the original link to the article is no longer active.

'The House of the Master'
Matt Drudge reports that singer Harry Belafonte "took to the AM radiowaves on Tuesday morning to slam Secretary of State Colin Powell as a sellout to the black race!" The man who became famous for "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" told a San Diego talk-show host:

"In the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation and were those slaves that lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master . . . exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him. Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture."

Now, what does Colin Powell have in common with a slave? Let's see, slaves were the property of their masters, while Powell is a free man. Slaves were not compensated for their labor, while Powell is paid $166,700 a year. Slaves were utterly powerless, while Powell is one of the most influential men in America. True, Powell serves at the pleasure of President Bush and is obliged to follow the president's agenda, but that's been true of every cabinet member in America.

There is only one similarity: Powell is black, and so were the slaves. Belafonte's remark, in other words, is nothing more than a racial slur.

We Get Results
PBS has now updated its "Global Connections" Mideast timeline, which previously began in 622 with the birth of Islam. It now lists the birth of Abraham, the Exodus from Egypt and the birth of Jesus. We noted the omissions Monday.

PBS has also removed the claim that Saddam Hussein was Time magazine's 1981 Man of the Year.

Terror Links?--II
"The University of California at San Diego has abandoned plans to discipline a student group for linking to an alleged terrorist Web site," CNET News reports. As we noted last month, the idiots who run the Che Cafe Collective had provided a link to a Colombian terror group's Web site, and the university foolishly claimed this amounted to "material support" for terrorism.

Stupidity Watch
In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Peter Singer, the Princeton ethicist who thinks animals have rights but infanticide isn't always wrong, offers the following comparison:

Consider two aspects of globalization: first, planes exploding as they slam into the World Trade Center, and second, the emission of carbon dioxide from the exhaust of gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles. One brought instant death and left unforgettable images that were watched on television screens all over the world; the other makes a contribution to climate change that can be detected only by scientific instruments. Yet both are indications of the way in which we are now one world, and the more subtle changes to which sport-utility-vehicle owners unintentionally contribute will almost certainly kill far more people than the more visible aspect of globalization.

You Don't Say--III
"Milosevic Accused of 'Great Calamity' in Balkans"--headline, Reuters, Oct. 8

Zero-Tolerance Watch
You have to wonder how this ever became a federal case. A boy called "J.M.," an eighth-grader at Northwood Middle School in Little Rock, Ark., wrote a note to his "ex-girlfriend," "K.G.," in which, according to the National Law Journal, he "said he'd be waiting for the girl under her bed with a knife." J.M. didn't actually deliver the note to K.G., however; another boy, "D.M." found it in J.M.'s room:

At first, J.M. snatched it away from D.M., but then let him read it, although he would not let him make a copy. K.G. learned about the note from phone conversations with J.M., and asked D.M. to get it for her. D.M. took the letter from J.M.'s house and gave it to the girl in school. K.G. said she was so unnerved that for a few days she slept with the lights on.

The school expelled J.M. for a year, whereupon J.M. sued. A federal district court held that the note wasn't a "true threat," and, as we noted last year, a three-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. Now, however, the full court has overturned the panel and upheld the expulsion.

A little common sense, though, in Melbourne, Fla., where, Florida Today reports, "the 8-year-old arrested and charged last week with carrying a pocket knife to Sherwood Elementary school returned to class this week despite some opposition."

Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?
"Miss America 2003, Erika Harold, yesterday said pageant officials have ordered her not to talk publicly about sexual abstinence, a cause she has advocated to teenage girls in Illinois," the Washington Times reports. Harold says the pageant wants her to talk only about preventing youth violence, but she's not going to abstain when it comes to abstinence: "I will not be bullied."

Harold might take heart in a headline from yesterday's Toronto Globe and Mail: "Ottawa to Tighten SIN Rules." Alas, when you read the story, you learn that SIN is an acronym for "social insurance numbers."

Further evidence of man's fallen nature comes from New York, where "a 15th-century marble statue of Adam by the Venetian sculptor Tullio Lombardo crashed to the ground in the Velez Blanco Patio at the Metropolitan Museum of Art sometime Sunday evening, scattering its arms, legs and an ornamental tree trunk into dozens of pieces."

Let's Roll
Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., scheduled a lecture series "on cultural issues related to disabled people," the Hartford Courtant reports. Just one problem: The venue, Russel House, "isn't handicapped accessible."

"One might have anticipated the audience that a 'persons with disabilities' topic might have brought, but we didn't," a university spokesman tells the paper. "We weren't as pro-active as we should have been." Though the first two of the three lectures have already occurred, the university is moving the third to an accessible building.

Best of the Webb Today
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans to launch a new telescope in 2010, Time for Kids reports. "The telescope will be named for James E. Webb, head of NASA during much of the 1960s." Webb died in 1992.

"The James Webb Telescope will probe even deeper into the universe than the Hubble telescope can," the report adds. We've got an even better idea: Why not merge the two telescopes into the Webb Hubble Space Telescope? Talk about seeing Starrs!

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Joseph Braunfeld, Tom Elia, Gergory Taylor, Stuart Schneiderman, Marie Bourgeois, Steve Duda, Christopher Serena, Robert LeChevalier, Mike Hohman, Mark Freiberg, S.E. Brenner, Elena Matis, Mara Gold, Elliot Ganz, Michael Segal, Howard Weiser, Yehuda Hilewitz, Raghu Desikan, Jerome Marcus, Tod Kemper, Natalie Cohen, Aaron Gross, Joel Engel, Doug Levene, Janice Lyons, Joel Goldberg, Irene Margolin-Katz, C.E. Dobkin, Rosslyn Smith, Jenifer Sawicki, Miriam Himmelfarb, Tim Benge, James Varney, Jonathan McMahon, Michael Williamson, Rosanne Klass, Kevin Hudson, Richard Marsh, Peter George, Elana Gutman Katyal, Ed Dressel, Joseph Chronister, Paul Ruschmann, Jeannette Boot, Jay Stannard, Steve Ginnings, Karen Bashore, Andrew Brodie, Philip Franco, John Vecchione and Stephen Blair. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

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