by JAMES TARANTO
Friday, January 31, 2003 10:24 A.M. EST

Hey, Quit Picking on Poor Saddam!
How desperate is the New York Times to keep Saddam Hussein in power? Today the "paper of record" runs an op-ed piece that actually seeks to minimize Saddam's human-rights violations. "Until Washington gives us proof of Saddam Hussein's supposed atrocities, why are we picking on Iraq on human rights grounds, particularly when there are so many other repressive regimes Washington supports?" asks author Stephen Pelletiere. Everyone's always picking on Saddam, the poor baby.

Pelletiere, an erstwhile CIA analyst, cites a Defense Intelligence Agency report from the late 1980s that "asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas," in the infamous Halabja massacre of 1988. The evidence? "The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies . . . indicated they had been killed with a blood agent--that is, a cyanide-based gas--which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.

A report from Human Rights Watch--not exactly a war-mongering outfit--refutes this decade-old claim by the man Daniel Pipes has described as "Saddam Hussein's chief apologist in the United States" and the New York Times perversely sees fit to reair on the eve of Iraq's liberation:

Books on the Iran-Iraq War have routinely echoed the unsubstantiated report that both sides had used chemical weapons in Halabja. This notion originated in a study for the U.S. Army War College: Stephen C. Pelletiere, Douglas V. Johnson II and Leif R. Rosenberger, Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1990). It is repeated in a later book by Pelletiere, a former U.S. intelligence officer, The Iran-Iraq War: Chaos in a Vacuum (New York: Praeger, 1992). This strongly pro-Iraqi work comments, "On May 23 (sic), in fighting over the town, gas was used by both sides. As a result scores (sic) of Iraqi Kurdish civilians were killed. It is now fairly certain that Iranian gas killed the Kurds." (pp. 136-137)

The supposed factual basis for this conclusion is that the Halabja victims had blue lips, characteristic of the effects of cyanide gas--which Iraq was not believed to possess. Cyanide gas, a metabolic poison, would indeed produce blue lips, but they are far from being a specific indicator of its use. Nerve agents, which are acetylcholinesterase inhibitors that cause respiratory paralysis, would also turn victims' lips blue.

Anyone who thinks America is unfairly "picking on" Saddam Hussein should read Zainab Al-Suwaij's new piece in The New Republic. Now head of the American Islamic Congress, she is an Iraqi refugee who lived in Karbala, a Shiite city southwest of Baghdad, in 1991 when America liberated Kuwait and the first President Bush urged Iraqis to rise up and overthrow their dictator. It's a long and gripping account, well worth reading in full. We'll quote just a snippet, from her account of fleeing her city after American support failed to materialize:

To escape Karbala, 20 family members, friends, and I crammed into a car built for five. The son of an army general, who was a close friend, drove us out of Karbala through a hail of bullets. At checkpoints just outside the city, guards screamed at us, but, when the driver showed his army credentials, we passed through.

The next few months were difficult, as the secret police hunted uprising fighters across the country. People told me that they entered our home in Karbala and took everything. Friends in Karbala told me that secret police rounded up people regardless of whether they had fought in the uprising. One family friend returned home to his family in Karbala months later. The next day, the secret police took him to prison. Someone had told them he participated in the uprising, and he was tortured for 45 days, each day denying their accusations. One day a taxi driver knocked on the family's door. "Pull your son out of my car," the driver said, "because he can't move." In prison, the family friend had lost his mind. He stayed curled up, friends told me, crying like a baby and yelling, "I want my mommy!"

We could hardly get beyond Karbala's outskirts, so I hid in a small home outside the city, covering my face and sleeping in a secret room. All my hopes and dreams had seemed so close, but now they were crushed.

She eventually escaped through Jordan. "Could it possibly be that President George W. Bush will bring justice and liberation where his father failed?" she asks. How sickening that some, including the New York Times, want the president to repeat his father's betrayal of the Iraqi people.

Endangered Weasels
It's been one heck of a good week for us Iraq hawks, hasn't it? First on Monday came Hans Blix's unexpectedly tough report, in which he confirmed that Iraq has failed to fulfill its obligation under U.N. resolution 1441. Then on Tuesday President Bush delivered his State of the Union address, in which he made clear (in case there was any doubt) that he remains fully determined to liberate Iraq. Wednesday night The Wall Street Journal published a letter from eight European leaders expressing full support for America, putting to rest the "unilateralism" canard.

The Associated Press reports the leaders of Slovakia and predominantly Muslim Albania have also pledged to back America. The Irish Independent reports that the taoiseach (Irish prime minister), Bertie Ahern, "expressed his annoyance" with the countries whose leaders signed the letter--not because he disagreed but because they didn't invite him to sign it. "Mr Ahern said he would have signed the letter if asked, but had not." And the Canadian Broadcast Corp. reports that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien thinks the current U.N. resoluion is sufficient to authorize an attack if Saddam is not complying.

By yesterday, it was clear that the weasels were firmly in the grip of the hawks' talons. Paris and Berlin were on the defensive. "Clearly taken aback, Paris and Berlin sought to suggest that the leaders' joint article in The Times was merely a variation on Europe's common desire to ensure Iraq's disarmament," the Times of London reports. Even the New York Times waddled in with a report on the letter, albeit a snide one. ("Assuming a somewhat frayed mantle as global diplomat, Prime Minister Tony Blair set off for the United States. . . . By another calculation, 10 of the 15 existing European Union members did not sign the letter, reflecting profound unease from the Aegean Sea to the Arctic Circle.")

Here in America, meanwhile, support for the liberation of Iraq is overwhelming. Reader Don Crawford, a talk-show host at KLBJ in Austin, Texas, writes with the latest on his pro-American demonstrations (which we first noted last week):

Just wanted to update you on our having hardworking Americans who support the war effort turn on their lights from 8 to 10 each night. It has been fantastic! We rule the night!

At our Web site, we have links to traffic cameras all over the nation. We have found each night of our show (Saturday and Sunday nights), not only are virtually all drivers in Austin supporting the war by turning on their headlights, but the same is happening in nearly every metroplex in America!

We did find one traffic cam in Houston--West Loop 610 at Westheimer--at which no lights were on. At first we thought it must be a radical leftist stronghold, but we since have learned that that intersection is closed due to construction.

Our Motorcade for War Against Saddam last Monday morning was amazing and gratifying. Every freeway and side street was full of cars from 6 to 9 a.m., and by 9 virtually every parking lot in Austin was at least at 80% full! It was unbelievable! We just hope the politicians and the left got the message: Americans stand behind the president in the need to stop Saddam and to stop him soon.

We understand you are getting letters from readers insinuating we are yanking your chain or pulling your leg. Others, such as blogger Christopher McCarthy, seem unclear whether our campaign is serious:

I'm obsessed with finding out if there's any way that the reports of the pro-America headlight protest in Austin last weekend could be serious. . . . Please, dear God, let me know if this is the case. If not, then this item is nothing short of hilarious. But the burning question, though: is it unintentionally hilarious? . . . If these guys (and, potentially, the Journal's James Taranto) are putting us on, their [sic] keeping some pretty straight faces about it, judging from the apparent earnestness of their prose. . . . In all seriousness, if anyone can let me in on the joke, leave a note. Until then, my thirst for the truth continues.

Of course we are serious! We now want not only to get citizens involved, but municipal governments as well. We have asked the city of Austin and neighboring communities to show their support for the war by turning on the street lights on all our roads at dusk and leaving them on at least until 10 each night until Saddam is deposed. We know the city of Austin, as liberal as it is, intends to join in this effort. Now, if all the cities in America would do the same, perhaps the leftists in Congress and the U.N. would finally get the message!

Melissa Hart of the Ithaca Journal is right: "Active participation does make [a] difference." Living in Manhattan, we don't own a car, but we did wander out to observe the protests last Saturday and Sunday nights, and we can report that tens of thousands of New Yorkers braved bone-chilling cold to show their support for the war. Cars, trucks, SUVs, taxis, even city buses--almost all had their headlights on. It was such a beautiful sight that we had to fight back tears. Just on our block, we saw a couple of BMWs and a Mercedes, their lights beaming. So much for German "pacifism."

Granted, New York still bears the scars of Sept. 11; it's possible that folks are less patriotic in, say, Berkeley or San Francisco. But with the possible exception of a few benighted enclaves, America shines in its support for freedom.

What Would We Do Without Experts?
"Bush Aims to Weaken Iraq: Experts"--headline, Arab News, Jan. 31

From Bad to Verse
"The White House said Wednesday it postponed a poetry symposium because of concerns that the event would be politicized," the Associated Press reports. "Some poets had said they wanted to protest military action against Iraq."

This is an excellent move on the White House's part. The symposium was scheduled for Feb. 12, a date a group called Poets Against the War had proclaimed "a day of poetry against the war." Perusing the site more deeply, though, it becomes clear that antiwar impostors have infiltrated the poetry business. This page features "a first small sample of the hundreds of poems submitted over the past week by poets from the U.S. and many other countries." Here's an excerpt from a work by one Adrienne Rich:

One: I don't know where your mother
is Two: I don't know
why they are trying to hurt us
Three: or the latitude and longitude
of their hatred Four: I don't know if we
hate them as much I think there's more toilet paper
in the supply closet I'm going to break it open

We've never heard of Adrienne Rich, but how can she claim to be a poet? This stuff doesn't even rhyme! But let's face it, those who think Saddam should remain in power are a tiny minority, so it's no wonder Poets Against the War had such trouble finding any actual poets who accept this view. It did inspire us, though, to write a little pro-war limerick:

There once was a thug named Saddam
Who desired a nuclear bomb
    But then President Bush
    Kicked Saddam in the tush
And deposed him with quite some aplomb

Does the muse inspire you? If you have some good original pro-war verse, e-mail it to us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and if we get enough good submissions, we'll publish them in time for Feb. 12--"a day of poetry for the war."

Nothing Personal
A judge has sentenced shoe bomber Richard Reid to life in prison. Reid, a British convert to Islam, pleaded guilty in October to charges arising from his December 2001 attempt to blow up an American Airlines plane and murder nearly 200 people. "As he was dragged out of the courtroom," CNN reports, he yelled at the judge: "I'm at war with your country not for personal reasons but because you have killed so many innocents, so many children. . . . My fate is in Allah's hands. . . . I leave you to judge."

Stunning
You just can't make this stuff up. "Grief of 9/11 Families Stuns German Court" reads the headline on a Guardian article about the Hamburg trial of an alleged Sept. 11 co-conspirator. We suppose a country with Germany's history might be "stunned" to be confronted with the human cost of mass murder.

Speaking of Germany, Thomas Sowell notes the parallels between post-World War I efforts to disarm that country and the Iraqi "disarmament" regime today:

Back in the 1930s, Germany's military forces were limited by a ban on conscription, by limitations on the number and kinds of weapons it could have, and by a requirement that it station no troops in its own industrialized Rhineland. These requirements were in the treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War. . . .

Like Saddam Hussein today, Hitler at first pretended to go along with these restrictions, all the while clandestinely building up his military forces. However, this was clandestine only in the sense that the general public did not know about it. British intelligence was well aware of what he was doing and kept the Prime Minister informed.

When Hitler began openly violating the Versailles Treaty's restrictions, most notably by moving troops into the Rhineland, "France did nothing. It was the first of many nothings that France did in a series of crises that led up to World War II." As Sowell notes: "While history does not literally repeat itself, sometimes it comes very close."

A Religion of Peace
"Eleven teenage boys have been rescued from an Islamic correction centre in Nairobi where they were chained, tortured, and indoctrinated with violent anti-Christian ideas," London's Independent reports. Sixteen-year-old Guleed Ahmed "faked an illness to escape and raise the alarm":

Relatives had sent the teenagers to Khadija Institute to learn about Islam. Little did they know the sub-prison conditions to which they were subjected them [sic]. Schooling involved study of the Koran, with some lessons in English, Arabic and maths, always with their arms bound in chains. Sport was impossible.

Meals were spartan and usually accompanied by a thrashing. "They cane you on the head, back, legs, bottom, everywhere," Guleed said. "How many times, it was impossible to know many. They called it 'the medicine.' "

Scott-Free in Schenectady
Weapons inspector turned Saddam apologist Scott Ritter's problems with the law may be hitting him in the wallet. Ritter, who was arrested twice in Internet child-sex stings (though prosecuted in neither case), has been disinvited from speaking at Schenectady County Community College in upstate New York, Albany's WNYT-TV reports.

"The college does not get back the $4,000 it paid Ritter's agency to book him," though it's not clear if Ritter gets paid. What seems certain, though, is that speaking invitations will be far less numerous. After all, as CNN's Aaron Brown observed last week, Ritter is now "radioactive." Call him the Dirty Bomb.

Stupidity Watch
WorldNetDaily points out that Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice cream fame, wrote an article awhile back making fun of the Bush administration for seeking higher defense spending:

ENEMY WANTED. Serious enemy needed to justify Pentagon budget increase. Defense contractors desperate. Interested enemies send letter and photo or video (threatening, OK) to Enemy Search Committee, Priorities Campaign, 1350 Broadway, NY, NY, 10018. . . .

I am distributing a job description as widely as possible to help our politicians find the enemy they seek. Even with the help of defense contractors--who spend $50 million on lobbyists annually--our politicians do not possess the creativity to find the right adversary. It's clear that the old concept of enemy doesn't work anymore.

The trouble is the Defense Department needs to find an enemy in a hurry. The Bush Administration has proposed to increase Pentagon spending by $33 billion, the largest defense increase since the Cold War. . . .

This article appeared on the idiotarian Web site AlterNet--on Sept. 4, 2001. As WND notes, "Cohen is going on a new offensive--icing down the heated path to war with Iraq." You'd think that having been proved so spectacularly wrong, Cohen might think twice before mouthing off on the conflict with Iraq. But that would require him to have thought once.

Zero-Tolerance Watch
A third-grader at Pauline O'Rourke Elementary School in Mobile, Ala., "was suspended for five days for violating the Mobile County system's zero-tolerance policy for substance abuse." The boy's crime? He took a "green multivitamin" with his lunch.

You Don't Say
"Survey: Users Consider Internet Important"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 31

Not Too Brite--LIII
"A lioness in a Spanish animal sanctuary ripped the right arm off a British tourist after the 54-year old woman clambered up a barrier and stuck her fingers inside the cage," Reuters reports from Berlin. Oddly Enough!

NOW They Tell Us
The self-styled National Organization for Women has finally gotten around to posting its reviews of Super Bowl ads, which, as we noted, it had promised to do Monday. NOW has managed to perpetuate two derogatory stereotypes: of women as perennially late, and of feminists as humorless.

NOW complains that "much of the content of the ads was directed at the male viewer." Gosh, ladies, you might want to commission a study to find out why this is the case, but here's a clue: The Super Bowl is a football game. "No female sports stars appeared in any of the ads, compared with at least six male athletes," NOW complains. That's nothing! At any given time during the game, there were as many as 22 male athletes on the field and no female sports stars. Go figure.

Most of NOW's rage is directed against Anheuser-Busch, whose beer ads it deems sexist. Women, the report complains, were "the butt of many jokes." But the beer ads, at least the ones we saw, actually made fun of men, whom they depicted, quite amusingly, as shallow and loutish. NOW just doesn't get the joke.

One of the "feminist monitors" who contributed to the report remarked: "All the 'watchers' in my front room agreed that Budweiser should NEVER be purchased by any self-respecting woman." Just think of the legions of beer-guzzling feminists who'll show their disgust by switching to Chardonnay.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Nick Eckert, Linda Cooke, Jerome Marcus, Nancy Zimmerman, Michael Segal, Barak Moore, Marie Bourgeois, Raghu Desikan, Michael Nunnelley, Chris Fountain, Steven Getman, Aaron Rosenbaum, A. Gill, Will Tysse, Yehuda Hilewitz, Joel Goldberg, Mara Gold, Natalie Cohen, Steve Duda, Jerome Marcus, Chris Morris, Linda Cooke, Scott Offen, Richard Miniter, Aviva Ross, Ralph Drury, Dan Friedman, Bennet Langlotz, James Campbell and Jim Reingruber. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Abraham Sofaer: America has every legal right to oust Saddam.
• Daniel Henninger: Battling AIDS in Africa isn't a hopeless task.

And on the Taste page:

• Review & Outlook: The NFL tries to extort millions from San Diego taxpayers.
• Tony & Tacky: Is a pro-life message equivalent to a swastika? And why are liberals so trashy?
• Erich Eichman on Hugh Trevor-Roper and the ordeal of observing men and events.
• Mark Lasswell: CNN's head decamps for the Aspen Institute. So what's the Aspen Institute?
• Naomi Schaefer: Are Fordham and Yeshiva universities too secular?