From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, January 6, 2003 2:42 P.M. EST

The Clothing of the American Mind
"A group of Marin County women plan to march naked through San Francisco on Jan. 18 to protest the possibility of war with Iraq," the Associated Press reports from San Rafael, Calif., the county seat:

"One hundred thousand women and men will strip on Jan. 18 in Washington D.C. and San Francisco for the huge national peace march in protest of the stripping of constitutional rights by a government intent on war," said Donna Sheehan, founder of Unreasonable Women Baring Witness in Point Reyes Station.

"Our message to women all over the world is be bold, be courageous, be vulnerable for peace."

It would be easy to scoff at Donna Sheehan and her fellow bare-naked ladies, but it would be wrong. Not only do we applaud her courageous vulnerability, but from now on we won't take anyone seriously who expresses "antiwar" sentiments without getting naked.

Those Peace-Loving Palestinians
After a long period in which Israeli security forces succeeded in preventing any major terrorist attacks, two suicide bombers struck in southern Tel Aviv yesterday, murdering 22 people and wounding more than 100. Agence France-Presse has a report from the scene:

"Some (of the victims) were foreigners and some were Israelis," said emergency worker Yossi Landau.

"Others you couldn't even tell because their faces were so badly disfigured. Some were conscious, others were screaming. One just ran like mad before he fell down and died."

"From the amount of body parts and the distance they were blown I can see they were big bombs packed with a lot of nails and shrapnel," he added.

For civilized people, such acts of barbarism make it harder and harder to have any sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Blogger James Lileks puts things in perspective nicely:

Before I didn't care what happened to the people in the organizations that arrange these attacks. Now I don't care about what happens to the culture that permits it. Approves of it. Defends it, sanctions it, shelters it, sings it praises, names streets after the men who do it. . . .

I never want to see Arafat asking for anything anywhere any more. I don't want to see people on the West Bank cheering as clumsy Scuds lumber over their heads in February, because I know they'll head to Israeli hospitals when the germs hit them, and I know they'll be admitted for treatment.

I'm not saying I wish them ill. But the line of people I care about now is very, very long. The apologists and supporters of the bombers can get behind the 100 wounded I never met. The 20 who died. The one who was the child of a father my age. And when it's their turn to ask for my sympathy, I'll probably point to the line with 3000 New Yorkers, and kindly request that they head to the back.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a branch of Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization, confessed to the massacre in a statement the Israeli Defense Forces have posted on their Web site. Ha'aretz reports that Israeli military intelligence believes the attack "was carried out by a Tanzim cell from the West Bank city of Nablus." Tanzim is also a part of Arafat's Fatah.

Arafat's Palestinian Authority has made an arrest in connection with the murders, the Jerusalem Post reports: "The Palestinian Authority's security forces arrested al Jazeera TV correspondent in the Gaza Strip, Seif al Din Shahin, for reporting on the Fatah claim of responsibility for the double suicide bombings in Tel Aviv."

Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

Israel Insider notes that the part of Tel Aviv that was hit "is frequented by foreign residents of Israel, and the area was crowded with workers returning home at the time of the explosion. . . . The neighborhood is an easy target in part because terrorists blend in easily among the foreign residents." Yet even though many of the casualties weren't even Israelis, and even though the attack occurred in Israel and not the disputed territories, ArabicNews.com describes all the dead as "Israeli settlers."

The Jerusalem Post reports that Farouk Kaddoumi, who heads the Palestine Liberation Organization's political department, says there's no difference between the PLO and Hamas, which makes no bones about advocating genocide of the Jews: "We were never different from Hamas," Kaddoumi tells the Post's Khaled Abu Toameh. "Hamas is a national movement. Strategically, there is no difference between us."

In a display of both bad timing and bad taste, Friday's Los Angeles Times carried a piece entitled "Palestinian Youths Had a Dream, Families Say." Echoes of Martin Luther King? Not really. The young "dreamers" died in an unsuccessful attempt to murder Jews in Gaza. "Thank God, he got what he always wanted--martyrdom," says the father of one of the boys.

More Peace-Loving Palestinians
Last week, Ha'aretz reports, Arafat's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades murdered Massoud Mahlouf Allon, a 70-year-old Israeli man. His body "was found in a burned-out car in the northern Jordan Valley." It "had been badly mutilated. Allon's skull had been crushed and his body had been set alight."

And what did Allon do to deserve this? "He used to collect used clothing and blankets and give them to Bedouin and Palestinians" in the Jordan Valley.

The BBC quotes Arafat as complaining that Israel is building a " 'Berlin Wall' around Jerusalem." Apparently Arafat forgets that the Berlin Wall's purpose was to keep people in, not to keep terrorists out.

Did we mention that Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994?

Clarification
Our Friday item on the Raelian UFO cult pointed out that a Raelian Web site is promoting the hoax that Israel "coldly executed over 1000 Palestinians" during a police action in Jenin last year. We noted that the actual number of dead Palestinians was closer to 50, but we neglected to add, as we should have, that the Raelians' claim that Israel "coldly executed" them is also false.

Saddam Death Watch
The New York Times reports that "President Bush's national security team is assembling final plans for administering and democratizing Iraq after the expected ouster of Saddam Hussein":

Those plans call for a heavy American military presence in the country for at least 18 months, military trials of only the most senior Iraqi leaders and quick takeover of the country's oil fields to pay for reconstruction.

The proposals, according to administration officials who have been developing them for several months, have been discussed informally with Mr. Bush in considerable detail. They would amount to the most ambitious American effort to administer a country since the occupations of Japan and Germany at the end of World War II.

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reports that the Palestinian Authority "has seized a large sum of money donated by Iraq to Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza Strip." An anonymous "Palestinian official" tells the Post that "the PA managed to "intercept" a sum of 420,000 which was on its way to families of Palestinians killed in the current violence or whose homes have been destroyed." Presumably the "420,000" is in dollars, since all other monetary amounts in the report are.

Could this be an indication that Yasser Arafat thinks Saddam is a goner? If the Palestinian Authority is grabbing the Iraqi dictator's money, presumably they don't expect he'll be sending much more of it.

Christians for Saddam
The Washington Post reports on a "peace delegation" of "U.S. religious leaders"--fully clothed, we presume--who paid a visit to Baghdad. The most revealing quote comes from Melvin Talbert, a United Methodist Bishop, after a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz: "He understood that the image of Iraq in our country is a negative one and we're here to put a positive spin on things."

South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu is also doing his best to put a positive spin on the Iraqi dictatorship. London's Observer says Tutu is denouncing Tony Blair for favoring the liberation of Iraq. "Many of us are deeply saddened to see a great country such as the United States aided and abetted extraordinarily by Britain," Tutu complains. "To see a powerful country use its power frequently unilaterally, I mean the United States says, 'You do this' to the world--'If you don't do it we will do it'--that's sad, that's sad." Oh boo hoo, Tutu.

Tutu adds that many members of al Qaeda are "not lunatic fringe, many of them are quite intelligent," and--get ready for it--that people should ask why they "should be willing to pilot a plane and go to their deaths."

Tutu won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

First the Nobel, Now This
Jimmy Carter has won the First Annual Robert Fisk Award for Idiotarian of the Year, or "Fiskie" for short. The peanut farmer and Nobel laureate defeated fat-headed filmmaker Michael Moore, 65% to 35% in runoff voting among readers of Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs blog. Included in the award is a cartoon of a suit-and-tie-clad Carter accepting his Fiskie.

In case you're puzzled by the terminology, blogger Mike Silverman defines idiotarian as one who believes "that September 11 was the United States' fault, that Israel is always wrong, and that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are nice guys who are just misunderstood." A blogger is one who runs a blog, or Web log. The Fiskie is named for Robert Fisk, idiotarian par excellence, an anti-American polemicist who writes for the London Independent.

Our Friends the Saudis
What goes "clop, clop, clop, clop, BOOM"? An Amish suicide bomber.

OK, there actually are no Amish suicide bombers, and we apologize in advance to any Amish readers we've offended. But we were reminded of this old joke (which we've modified slightly to make it more topical) by an interview that Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, gave to Newsweek's Jonathan Alter. Here's a telling exchange (with Alter's question in italics):

Do you think that there is a struggle underway in Saudi Arabia between what could generally be called the Wahabbi forces versus the more moderate forces in society?

I don't know about Wahabbi. When you talk to someone on the streets and say "Wahabbi," he doesn't know what you mean. This is a name that is given to what we call extremists. Now, these extremists exist in this country as they exist in other countries. There are people who want things to remain as they are. There are people who want to go back. Like the Amish [in the United States], we have a group of people who don't use machinery, who don't use cars, who ride donkeys and horses and farm with oxen.

Of course, no one objects to Saudis riding donkeys and farming with oxen, if only they'd stop backing terrorism and inciting hatred.

Clueless in Seattle
Our Friday item on Sen. Patty Murray drew several responses from readers who decided to call her office in search of information on Osama bin Laden's "day care facilities" and other purported good works. Here's one:

After reading your column 1/3, I too called Patty Murray's office to ask for an enumeration of the infrastructure Osama bin Laden has provided. I was told happily that I could find it on the following Web site:

http://usembassy.state.gov/afghanistan/wwwhtr01.html

You will find as I did that this Web site contains no such enumeration. It does state that in Afghanistan bin Laden established recruitment centers, funded paramilitary training camps, and imported heavy equipment to cut roads and tunnels and to build hospitals and storage depots. Maybe the recruitment centers were day-care centers?

I called the senator's office a second time to state that this Web site was not what they claimed it was. They then claimed they had not read it. Both telephone answer persons were polite. But neither could tell me if Sen. Murray will debate or discuss the merits of bin Laden with the Republicans in Washington state. They claim not to have heard of the challenge.

A Religion of Peace
"Executing its diktat banning 'un-Islamic' sale of addictives, terrorists on Monday shot dead [an] alcohol dealer" in Jammu and Kashmir, the Press Trust of India reports. "Terrorists shot at Abdul Hamid Shiekh, who had a shop at Aloocha Bagh, at Solina in Civil Lines area here, official sources said."

Stupidity Watch
One Martha Ezzard, a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, manages to blame America for Kim Jong Il's depredations:

The new Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Richard Lugar, believes direct talks [with Pyongyang] could help, but no one is predicting he can change President Bush's mind. Bush refers regularly to North Korea as an "axis of evil" country. He does not mean that North Korean children are evil, but how many of them will starve or freeze to death under the U.S. policy of isolation?

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that a North Korean group called Solidarity of Youth and Students has issued yet another attack on "Die Another Day," the new James Bond movie: "In a statement released by the North's KCNA news agency, it said the 20th Bond movie 'represents the real intention of the US--keen on war as it considers the North as part of an axis of evil.' " Someone ought to send these jokers a tape of "Dr. Strangelove."

'The Lonely Voice of Truth'
Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman has given an interview to Der Spiegel. Our German is too rusty to understand it all, but Andrew Sullivan translates the two juiciest quotes:

"No one expects the president to be a saint. . . . But it is pretty amazing the distance that this administration will go in trying to fool the public. Sometimes I have the feeling that I no longer live in one of the world's oldest democracies, but in the Philippines under a new Marcos."

"Instead [of writing a column about the New Economy], I now find myself once again as the lonely voice of truth in a sea of corruption. Sometimes I think that one of these days I'll end up in one of those cages on Guantanamo Bay (laughs). But I can still seek asylum in Germany. I hope you'd accept me in an emergency."

The rest of us, too, can only hope.

You Don't Say--I
"Sharpton Questions White House Motives on Iraq"--headline, Boston Globe, Jan. 5

You Don't Say--II
"Edwards Plans to Visit Iowa 'Often and Soon' "--headline, Quad-City Times (Davenport, Iowa), Jan. 3

You Don't Say--III
"Report: Sniper Suspect Tied to Shootings"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 5

You Don't Say--IV
"Private Sector Deserves Credit for Creating Jobs"--headline, Ann Arbor (Mich.) News, Jan. 6

Say What?
"Ritalin May Help Kids Avoid Drugs"--headline, Chicago Tribune, Jan. 6

Mike Bloomberg's New York
New York City officials are denying reports--which we noted Friday--that a security guard at a city-run homeless shelter turned 15-year-old Ernesto Reyes away early New Year's Day, just before Reyes was murdered. "We conducted a thorough investigation today and the security guard that was in the booth never saw the adolescent," a spokesman for the Department of Homeless Services, tells the New York Post.

Meanwhile, the Post quotes Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who had this to say: "It does seem to be about the level that we've had in the last five years of New Year's Eve, early New Year's Day violence. Unfortunately, people drink. Holidays, weekends, as you know, crime typically is higher than it is during the week." Can anyone imagine Rudy Giuliani taking such a blasé attitude toward violent crime?

From Bad to Verse
"A burglar with 31 previous convictions became one of the first criminals to escape jail under new sentencing guidelines for judges yesterday after he told the court he wanted to be a professional poet," London's Independent reports. Forty-two-year-old Mark Patterson was convicted "of breaking into a neighbour's home with a machete while the occupant was in hospital." But despite his dozens of other convictions, the British judge "said that he would give Patterson another chance to find his 'path to salvation.' " Maybe he can become poet laureate of New Jersey.

54-Proof Homeless
The Boston Globe reports on the growing problem of "homeless" men stealing mouthwash. No, Boston bums haven't suddenly developed a concern for oral hygiene; they want the alcohol, which makes up to 27% of a bottle of Listerine. Merchants call the stuff "wine for the homeless." Drinking Listerine actually may save lives:

Health officials and outreach workers . . . argue it would be dangerous for stores to refuse to sell them mouthwash, especially on holidays or during the stretch between Saturday night and Monday morning when the state's liquor stores are closed.

Without a fix for too long, alcoholics suffer withdrawal--and some die from it. Studies of Boston's homeless population over the past decade have shown that more suffer seizures and die when they can't get a drink. . . .

"There's really a tough ethical dilemma," says Dr. James O'Connell, president of Healthcare for the Homeless, adding that mouthwash does not have any more severe medical consequences than other alcohol. "There are no easy answers. The real problem is alcoholism. But from a harm-reduction point of view, it's better to let them drink Listerine than to have a seizure," which can cause brain damage.

Obviously these people need help, but remember this story the next time someone says the cause of "homelessness" is a dearth of "affordable housing."

Dispatch From the Porn Belt
Officials in Las Vegas (Clark County, Gore by 6.59%) are placing new restrictions on the "adult entertainment industry," the Associated Press reports--"a crackdown that is turning strippers into political activists and causing some to wonder whether Las Vegas is suffering an identity crisis":

County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates first proposed cleaning up steamy lap dances after an undercover police investigation found that sexy dancing can progress to "excessive grinding," simulated sex acts and, finally, sex for money.

That's some pretty impressive detective work by Las Vegas's finest. But wait. How do we know the strippers--sorry, "political activists"--aren't just being courageous and vulnerable for peace?

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Steven Mason, Shelley Taylor, Jeffrey Weinstein, Michael Segal, Jerome Marcus, Barak Moore, Raghu Desikan, Mara Gold, Hershel Ginsburg, Carl Sherer, Drew Cooper, Damian Bennett, Michael Morley, Monty Krieger, Judie Armel, C.E. Dobkin, Naftali Friedman, Nathan Wirtschafter, Charles Steinberg, Arie Maron, Joel Goldberg,Justin Stimson, Aaron Siegel, Bob Stovall, Ronald Soussa, Frederick Larsen, Matt Craighead, Leanne Shain, Chana Lajcher, Natalie Cohen, Susan Harms, Aaron Curtis, Gabe Sunshine, Brian Dawson, Charlie Gaylord, Aaron Spetner, Dan Friedman, Paul Ruschmann, Arnold Nelson, Jerry Skurnik, S.E. Brenner and Richard Wood. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

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