Harry's New York Bar

One of our favorite places in the world to sit and drink is Harry's New York Bar. We had the good fortune to return to join the International Bar Fly set recently, and we'd thought we'd share some pictures.

Sharing the bar with us were a number of good French people and a completely bilingual group of sophisticated models speaking English with an Iowa twang and good French in the same sentences. The drinks were suburb as was the company. A good bar, as Hemingway would tell you if he only could, is a precious thing. Let us give thanks for an oasis like Harry's.

Do look it up if you have the good fortune to visit Paris. As is traditional, just get in a cab and tell the driver you want to go to "Sank Roo Doe Noo." And you're there....

Among other things, may we just say: "Go Ducks!!!" 

For the French-challenged (like us) here is all the information you need. 

The view from our table, the white-jacketed bartenders as good as always. We especially liked the reverse neon sign view. 

Egypt: The New Wave of Democratic Reform in the Middle East Continues

Regular readers will recall that we commented in length on both the President's State of the Union Address and his recent foreign policy address in Brussels during his European tour. One of the things that struck us as potentially very significant about both speeches was the President's willingness to call out by name and single out two historical U.S. "allies" in the region--Saudi Arabia and Egypt--as requiring urgent democratic reform.

After the successful, free and fair elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, popular movements for democratic reform have been strengthened in Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon and, now, Egypt. The marches in Cairo began small, with riot police outnumbering protestors by a factor of more than 10 to 1. But in recent days the popular pressure from the people of Egypt for democratic reform was palpable in the streets.

And now comes word today, via the A.P., that President Mubarak has announced only hours ago wide-sweeping changes in Egypt's electoral law. A.P. writer Maamoun Youssef reports that:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday ordered a revision of the country's election laws and said multiple candidates could run in the nation's presidential elections, a scenario Mubarak hasn't faced since taking power in 1981.

The surprise announcement, a response to critics' calls for political reform, comes shortly after historic elections in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, balloting that brought a taste of democracy to the region. It also comes amid a sharp dispute with the United States over Egypt's arrest of one of the strongest proponents of multi-candidate elections.

"The election of a president will be through direct, secret balloting, giving the chance for political parties to run for the presidential elections and providing guarantees that allow more than one candidate for the people to choose among them with their own will," Mubarak said in an address broadcast live on Egyptian television.

Of course, the execution of these laws and the context within which they are enforced will be the true test. Mubarak's announcement, by itself, does not mean that Egypt is now a functioning democracy.

However, this is the clearest sign to date that the President's transformational foreign policy in the Greater Middle East is resonating with the people there as the President had hoped. No doubt, our good colleagues in NEA are working overtime to implement a policy that, truth be told, many had doubts about. We are happy to say that State and our new Boss had a good deal to do with today's announcement.

The move also comes amid a dispute between Egypt and the United States over the recent detention of an opposition leader.

Ayman Nour, head of the Al-Ghad Party, was detained Jan. 29 on allegations of forging nearly 2,000 signatures to secure a license for his party last year. He has rejected the accusation, and human rights groups have said his detention was politically motivated.

The prosecutor general has denied that charge.

His detention has been strongly criticized by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Rice canceled a Mideast visit that had been planned for next week, a decision believed to be in protest of Nour's detention.

Direct diplomatic pressure from the United States, supported by the Egyptian people on the street, brought about this change. Even spokespersons for the typical array of not-too-friendly t0-America "human rights" groups concede this:

Hafez Abu Saada, director of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, praised Mubarak's "unexpected step," which he said reflected local, regional and international pressure.

"It is an important step that gives the Egyptian society a strong push for more freedom and democracy," he said.

Activist Aida Seif el-Dawla was tentative in her praise. "This concession is made to the United States of America."

Make no mistake about it: the President is using all the tools at his disposal to bring the Middle East a measure of liberty.

A question for our liberal friends: do you think any of this would have come about had the President not faced down your implacable opposition? In light of the obvious thirst for democracy now on display for the whole world to witness in the Middle East, are you prepared to admit that you have may have been wrong? Or are you ever wrong about anything?

(Hat Tip: Ron Ackert)

The United Kingdom and the United States: Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror

The Labour Party Government of the United Kingdom, led by Prime Minister Tony Blair, has proposed this past week a new anti-terrorism law that opponents charge will destroy the right of habeas corpus and curtail centuries-old civil liberties in the birthplace of the Common Law. Writing in yesterday's Daily Telegraph, Conservative MP and editor of The Spectator Boris Johnson charged that:

Without knowing the exact words he is using to justify his actions…, I propose that we begin by pointing out that he is the first peacetime prime minister to curtail the right to habeas corpus. He is giving the Home Secretary astonishing powers to decide that you or I may be locked in our homes; that our possessions may be confiscated; that we may be debarred from contact with the outside world; that we may be forbidden from using the internet or the telephone - in a word, that we may be incarcerated.

Under the Bill that went through the Commons last night, the Home Secretary (the chap with the big ears and the white bumfluff beard) will be able to inflict this incarceration indefinitely upon any British person that he suspects - on the basis of we are not allowed to know what evidence - of being involved in "terrorism-related activities". Above all, he will be able to do this without any obligation to bring that person to trial, and there, I think, he goes too far.

The Prevention of Terrorism Bill was carried in Commons by a vote of 309-233, with the Government suffering over 32 Labour votes against, including from six former government ministers. Home Secretary Charles Clark (he of the “bumfluff” beard, according to Johnson) had a rough night in the chamber, getting hammered on the Bill and the haste with which the Government rammed it through Parliament by a rare union of Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and numerous Labour backbenchers. Conservative leader Michael Howard claimed that Blair was using national security “for political point-scoring” and was “steamrollering” the powers through Parliament. Former Labour health minister Frank Dobson declared that he could not support a law that allows the imprisonment of a British citizen “on the say-so of the Home Secretary.”

In one of its lead editorials, the sober and reliable Daily Telegraph concluded that problems with Bill:

…go way beyond party political considerations, to the heart of British law. For eight centuries, habeas corpus and the right to a fair trial, with conviction by the judiciary as opposed to the executive, have been cornerstones of our judicial system. The Prevention of Terrorism Bill takes those cornerstones away.

What on Earth is going on here?

All the Laws But One

The status of liberty in a liberal democracy in times of war is one of the most contentious political, moral and legal issues presented any political leader or jurist. Since, alone among nations, liberal democracies allow—must allow—dissent, argument and political activity directed against the policy of the state, including vital war policies, the threat of internal sedition, sabotage and, now, terrorism is much greater than that facing more authoritarian regimes.
The question has always been how to reconcile the need of the state to wage war effectively without overly curtailing vital civil rights. Or, to put it another way, how to wage a war for our country without losing the liberty that makes our country worth fighting for.

This debate is neither novel nor new, though it takes on a new and frightening resonance today in the age of terrorism. With the free movement of people, goods and services, both the U.K. and the U.S. are remarkably vulnerable to terrorist activity. How to secure each country from terrorist attacks from within is a daunting task for each respective government.

Contrary to what you may read in ACLU press releases, this issue is not unprecedented. During the Civil War, President Lincoln was presented with war-versus-liberty issues that strike the modern reader as eerily similar. At one point, faced with Confederate sabotage and mob action against Union troop movements by rail in Maryland, Lincoln ordered the detention of suspected Confederate agents and their supporters and suspended the right of habeas corpus in that federal district. When the Supreme Court objected, the President ignored their decision and declared that the Court was allowing “all the laws, but one, [to] go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated.”

In his interesting survey of that event, All the Laws But One: Civil Liberties in Wartime, Chief Justice William Rehnquist examines the history of this issue in American jurisprudence. As the book reveals, the issue has been dealt with in incredible detail in the U.S., dealing with issues as disparate as whether or not newspaper editorial cartoons may be seditious, to whether members of an ethnic group can be excluded from a section of the United States by military order when a nation-state of that ethnicity declares war on the U.S., to whether speaking against the war in front of a draft board office is permissible, and to whether anti-war t-shirts may be worn on public school campuses.

The end result is a typical of U.S. Common Law jurisprudence; again and again, reasonable jurists have attempted to strike a balance between the needs of the executive and the rights of the individual. 9.11 reintroduced Americans, and Britons as well, to a wealth of jurisprudence that had lain dormant for many, many years. So long has the executive not used these rights that the most serious problem both governments now face is explaining to its people that it has always had both the power and the tools to detain outside of the criminal justice system.

It’s a Legal Matter, Baby

Listen to a modern debate about the USA Patriot Act or of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and you’re more than likely to hear two sides talking right past each other. The reason for this is that opponents of the President’s actions (let’s call them “civil libertarians” for short in this context) cannot conceive that the state has the authority to hold suspects for war-related activity outside of the normal criminal justice system. As the Bush Administration has successfully argued, again and again, enemy combatants, even if citizens of the United States, are simply not subject to the criminal law any more than German troops in Normandy were on D-Day.

This is why all the civil libertarian talk about jury trials, judicial review, the right to counsel and to bail and all the other normal accoutrements of modern criminal procedure is all beside the point. All those norms, as important as they are in their context, simply do not apply.

To understand why, you have to understand the story of seven devoted Nazi agents who came ashore in the dead of night in Long Island, NY, and near Jacksonville, Florida, in 1942. Their mission: to sabotage America’s war industries and transport infrastructure using any means necessary. In addition to being a devoted National Socialist, ready and willing to die for the cause, one of them, named Haupt, was also a citizen of the United States.

Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 63 S.Ct. 51, 87 L.Ed. 7 (1942)

The FBI quickly rounded up the Nazi agents and President Roosevelt ordered them held and tried by a special military commission. Roosevelt ordered that the jurisdiction of the new special military tribunals extended to:

…all persons who are subjects, citizens or residents of any nation at war with the United States or who give obedience to or act under the direction of any such nation, and who during time of war enter or attempt to enter the United States ... through coastal or boundary defenses, and are charged with committing or attempting or preparing to commit sabotage, espionage, hostile or warlike acts, or violations of the law of war, shall be subject to the law of war and to the jurisdiction of military tribunals.

The agents filed a petition of habeas corpus to challenge their military detention under the military commission. The petitioners’ arguments will sound familiar to anyone who has followed the Guantanamo debate:

Petitioners' main contention is that the President is without any statutory or constitutional authority to order the petitioners to be tried by military tribunal for offenses with which they are charged; that in consequence they are entitled to be tried in the civil courts with the safeguards, including trial by jury, which the Fifth and Sixth Amendments guarantee to all persons charged in such courts with criminal offenses. In any case it is urged that the President's Order, in prescribing the procedure of the Commission and the method for review of its findings and sentence, and the proceedings of the Commission under the Order, conflict with Articles of War adopted by Congress-particularly Articles 38, 43, 46, 50 1/2 and 70-and are illegal and void. (Emphasis added).

Here the executive branch was arresting, detaining, trying and then possibly executing people caught in the United States, all without the judicial branch ever being involved. Did the President really have that type of power?

A unanimous Supreme Court held that he did:

By universal agreement and practice the law of war draws a distinction between the armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations and also between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals.

Since the German soldiers had discarded their uniforms and were secretly planning sabotage, they were “enemy combatants,” who, as such, are subject to military jurisdiction (i.e. the President’s, as commander-in-chief). Civilian criminal law simply does not apply in this situation.

But what of Haupt? Surely, the President cannot jail and indefinitely hold a U.S. citizen in the United States without a trail, a lawyer, a hearing, on only his order, right?

Wrong. The Court explained:

Citizenship in the United States of an enemy belligerent does not relieve him from the consequences of a belligerency which is unlawful because in violation of the law of war. Citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts are enemy belligerents within the meaning of the Hague Convention and the law of war. (Emphasis added).

Since 1942, until late 2004, it was the law of the United States that the President could order the arrest, detention and trial by military tribunal of any enemy combatant. We know you’ve all heard the talking heads and the “legal experts” express amazement that the President could have this kind of power. When the President began talking about “enemy combatants” in connection with the Padilla and Hamdi cases, the MSM looked around in bewilderment (yet, it’s the President who is irredeemably stupid. Go figure). To its everlasting shame, the MSM failed to inform the American people about the facts, and actively mislead people into believing that Bush’s arguments were new and fanciful and had never been seen before.

Times change, however, and with the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen caught waging war against the U.S. on behalf of jihadist forces in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court decided it needed to add its own contribution to the long line of civil liberties in wartime jurisprudence. As much as we wish the Court could have dealt with Hamdi by simply following Justice Thomas’ finding that “this detention falls squarely within the Federal Government's war powers, and we lack the expertise and capacity to second-guess that decision,” they did not.

The same MSM and gaggle of academics that proclaimed the Bush Administration’s position on enemy combatants “illegal” and “without precedent” painted the Hamdi decision as a staggering blow against Bush’s claimed powers. A closer look reveals that nothing could be further from the truth.

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, __ U.S. __ (2004)

First, an important note about what kind of decision Hamdi is. Typical of today’s Supreme Court decisions, Hamdi comes in sections, with each individual justice giving or withholding his or her support for each section. This makes it difficult ofttimes to determine whether or not an opinion is actually a majority opinion. Here, four justices, led by Justice O’Connor found that the President had the power to hold and try Hamdi as an enemy combatant, but that new due process procedures were required under modern-day circumstances. Two further justices, the reliably left-wing Ginsburg and Souter, held that the executive had no power to hold Hamdi whatsoever, but joined the other four since they agreed with them insofar as the plurality held that some type of hearing was required. Three others, the reliably right-wing Scalia and Thomas, plus Stewart, dissented, with Scalia arguing the hardest that the government did not have the authority to detain Hamdi. (But, as we all know, Scalia just writes whatever his Republican masters demand of him on duck-hunting trips, right?). In our opinion, only Thomas really got the case right, but that’s not unusual. (But, wait doesn’t Thomas always vote for whatever Scalia votes for?)

Justice O’Connor therefore delivered a plurality opinion of the court with the full support of four justices and the qualified support of two further. These days, that’s about as good a “majority” opinion as one can expect. While we are tempted to join our conservative friends and rail against Justice O’Connor’s maddening tendency to “split the difference” and go right down the middle in cases, we feel that she actually did the Nation a vital service in this instance. To see why we think that, a detailed look at her holding is required.

Let us start with the facts. Hamdi was born in Louisiana in 1980 and moved with his parents as a child to Saudi Arabia. By 2001, Hamdi was a resident of Afghanistan. Captured while fighting on behalf of the fascist Taliban movement by the Northern Alliance, he was transferred first to U.S. military detention in Guantanamo and then to the Naval Brig in Norfolk, Virginia when it was discovered that he was an American. His detention in Virginia was on the order of the President, who declared Hamdi an “enemy combatant;” the executive declared it had the right to hold him until it decided what to do with him. Hamdi’s father filed a habeas corpus petition, arguing:

…that he has had no contact with his son since the Government took custody of him in 2001, and that the Government has held his son "without access to legal counsel or notice of any charges pending against him." The petition contends that Hamdi's detention was not legally authorized. It argues that, "[a]s an American citizen, ... Hamdi enjoys the full protections of the Constitution," and that Hamdi's detention in the United States without charges, access to an impartial tribunal, or assistance of counsel "violated and continue[s] to violate the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution." The habeas petition asks that the court, among other things, (1) appoint counsel for Hamdi; (2) order respondents to cease interrogating him; (3) declare that he is being held in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments; (4) "[t]o the extent Respondents contest any material factual allegations in this Petition, schedule an evidentiary hearing, at which Petitioners may adduce proof in support of their allegations"; and (5) order that Hamdi be released from his "unlawful custody." (Citations removed).

Sound familiar? The elder Hamdi’s petition is almost identical to that presented on behalf of the Nazi detainees in Ex parte Quirin. Stripped of the legalese, Hamdi was arguing that he could not be held outside of the normal criminal justice system and, further, that he was entitled to the full array of rights and protections afforded to criminal defendants under our modern system of criminal procedure.

The Court saw this clearly; that’s why job one for the majority was to deal with and distinguish Ex parte Quirin. They didn’t succeed to our satisfaction, yet, at the same time, one can see the almost devilish cleverness in it:

The capture and detention of lawful combatants and the capture, detention, and trial of unlawful combatants, by "universal agreement and practice," are "important incident[s] of war." Ex parte Quirin. The purpose of detention is to prevent captured individuals from returning to the field of battle and taking up arms once again. [Remember this, it will be critically important later on...there's no quiz, though, we promise].

* * *

There is no bar to this Nation's holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant. In Quirin, one of the detainees, Haupt, alleged that he was a naturalized United States citizen. We held that "[c]itizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts, are enemy belligerents within the meaning of ... the law of war." While Haupt was tried for violations of the law of war, nothing in Quirin suggests that his citizenship would have precluded his mere detention for the duration of the relevant hostilities. Nor can we see any reason for drawing such a line here. A citizen, no less than an alien, can be "part of or supporting forces hostile to the United States or coalition partners" and "engaged in an armed conflict against the United States,"; such a citizen, if released, would pose the same threat of returning to the front during the ongoing conflict. (Emphasis added, citations removed).

This passage is typical of the Court’s approach in Hamdi. It reaffirmed the central holding of Quirin while adding enough language for the court to hang its holding on. Having reaffirmed-Quirin-but-with-some-qualifications, the Court went on to craft its own solution to the larger civil liberties issue. As it has so often in the past, the Supreme Court sought to balance what are, at core, two competing fundamental interests, each of the highest order of importance. We quote the holding at length, since it is important to understand how cognizant the Court was of the Executive’s right and authority to wage war:

Striking the proper constitutional balance here is of great importance to the Nation during this period of ongoing combat. But it is equally vital that our calculus not give short shrift to the values that this country holds dear or to the privilege that is American citizenship. It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our Nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad.

* * *

With due recognition of these competing concerns, we believe that neither the process proposed by the Government nor the process apparently envisioned by the District Court below strikes the proper constitutional balance when a United States citizen is detained in the United States as an enemy combatant. That is, "the risk of erroneous deprivation" of a detainee's liberty interest is unacceptably high under the Government's proposed rule, while some of the "additional or substitute procedural safeguards" suggested by the District Court are unwarranted in light of their limited "probable value" and the burdens they may impose on the military in such cases.

We therefore hold that a citizen-detainee seeking to challenge his classification as an enemy combatant must receive notice of the factual basis for his classification, and a fair opportunity to rebut the Government's factual assertions before a neutral decisionmaker. "For more than a century the central meaning of procedural due process has been clear: 'Parties whose rights are to be affected are entitled to be heard; and in order that they may enjoy that right they must first be notified.' It is equally fundamental that the right to notice and an opportunity to be heard 'must be granted at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner.' These essential constitutional promises may not be eroded.

At the same time, the exigencies of the circumstances may demand that, aside from these core elements, enemy combatant proceedings may be tailored to alleviate their uncommon potential to burden the Executive at a time of ongoing military conflict. Hearsay, for example, may need to be accepted as the most reliable available evidence from the Government in such a proceeding. Likewise, the Constitution would not be offended by a presumption in favor of the Government's evidence, so long as that presumption remained a rebuttable one and fair opportunity for rebuttal were provided. Thus, once the Government puts forth credible evidence that the habeas petitioner meets the enemy-combatant criteria, the onus could shift to the petitioner to rebut that evidence with more persuasive evidence that he falls outside the criteria. A burden-shifting scheme of this sort would meet the goal of ensuring that the errant tourist, embedded journalist, or local aid worker has a chance to prove military error while giving due regard to the Executive once it has put forth meaningful support for its conclusion that the detainee is in fact an enemy combatant. In the words of Mathews, process of this sort would sufficiently address the "risk of erroneous deprivation" of a detainee's liberty interest while eliminating certain procedures that have questionable additional value in light of the burden on the Government.

As usual, the MSM got the holding and its import completely wrong. Painted as a victory for Hamdi and the civil libertarian crowd, the opinion actually gives them only cold comfort. The hearing right the Court establishes here is still solely a creature of the Executive branch, complete with a rebuttable presumption that the government’s classification of the detainee as an enemy combatant is proper. In fact, the Court went on to suggest to the executive that:

There remains the possibility that the standards we have articulated could be met by an appropriately authorized and properly constituted military tribunal. Indeed, it is notable that military regulations already provide for such process in related instances, dictating that tribunals be made available to determine the status of enemy detainees who assert prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Convention. In the absence of such process, however, a court that receives a petition for a writ of habeas corpus from an alleged enemy combatant must itself ensure that the minimum requirements of due process are achieved.

Wink, wink; hint, hint. The Court might as well have just come out and said “you all in the Executive can handle this new hearing requirement through the military courts already in place, no need to bother us in the Judiciary so long as you take care of business!”

You can call that whatever you’d like, but one thing it most assuredly is not is the normal criminal justice system. Basically, the Court affirmed the central holding of Quirin and simply added a further procedural requirement forcing the military to hold a preliminary hearing at which time the detainee can argue he’s neither the enemy nor a combatant. Good luck with that. After that, the normal military tribunal process upheld in Quirin will take its course.

Sealing Hamdi’s fate was the attached issue of the seeming indefiniteness of his detention. Since the War on Terror is unlikely to end in a formal peace treaty, as the Government readily admitted, holding enemy combatants “for the duration of hostilities” could mean for life. Interesting academic debating point, but the Court wasn’t interested. Since Hamdi was captured fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan:

[t]he United States may detain, for the duration of these hostilities, individuals legitimately determined to be Taliban combatants who "engaged in an armed conflict against the United States." If the record establishes that United States troops are still involved in active combat in Afghanistan, those detentions are part of the exercise of "necessary and appropriate force," and therefore are authorized….

Since U.S. forces are in Afghanistan for the long haul, don’t expect to see Hamdi at the local mall any time soon.

O’Connor’s compromise thus managed to affirm the central holding of Quirin while allowing a due process hearing at which the detainee may challenge, with the assistance of counsel (Lynne Stewart, line one please!), his status as an enemy combatant. The resulting holding is something the Executive can live with, especially since it can be satisfied by the same military tribunal which will eventually try the detainees.

Hamdi may have rejected the government’s main argument, but it was no defeat for Bush.

London Calling

Which brings us back to Number 10, Downing Street. Tony Blair’s government’s former anti-terrorism legislation was struck down last year by the Law Lords, which is why his government rushed forward the new bill. In a Telegraph opinion piece companion to that of Boris Johnson quoted above, the PM described how the new procedures are to work:

In drafting the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, which puts in place new measures to counter this threat, we have listened to the Law Lords, but also to our police and security chiefs. It gives the Home Secretary, acting on their advice, a broader range of powers to prevent and disrupt potential terrorist activity. It allows restrictions to be placed on people where we have reasonable suspicion of their involvement in terrorist activity - on their movement, on their communications, on who they meet and where they live. Should our security services believe in future it is necessary, it could also include a requirement on individuals to remain in a particular place.

* * *
I reject completely the allegation that this is a fundamental attack on long-standing civil liberties. As the Bill makes clear, no one will be deprived of their liberty without this being approved within days - at most seven days - by a senior judge in the High Court, following careful consideration of all of the evidence linking them to terrorist activity. And this initial hearing will then be followed by a full High Court hearing. Even with less intrusive control orders, suspects will have full rights of appeal to the High Court.

This is a far cry from Johnson’s contention about the death of habeas corpus. And the fact that Johnson is still talking about “trials”—a civil and criminal procedure not appropriate to wartime detentions—shows that he, along with the ACLU and most law professors in the States, simply do not understand that the criminal law and its procedures simply do not apply to such cases.

Johnson is a good man, but he, like the Tories in general, are so blinded by Tony-Hatred that they can’t see that the PM’s proposal is, in essence, a compromise, a way of balancing the need to detain terrorism suspects immediately with the need to safeguard essential civil liberties. In fact, the British proposal goes further toward the civil libertarian side of the aisle by providing for judicial review which, as we saw above, Hamdi doesn’t necessarily mandate in the U.S.

What has happened here is that our two governments, both Common Law countries, both with a long record of respecting civil liberties, have come, each in its own way, to a resolution of a conflict between civil liberties and the necessities of national security. It must be admitted: a person, any person, can be declared an enemy combatant or a terrorist on the mere order of the executive and detained. However, the executive must then immediately satisfy an independent decisionmaker that the order was given on the basis of satisfactory evidence. Both nations have decided, again each in its own way, that the normal criminal system is not the right forum for such detentions and hearings, for largely the same reason.

We think this is no surprise. While we understand the perspective of the civil libertarians, we also understand the perspective of the executive. The nature of the threat poses a unique challenge to our two free nations, and our governments must have the tools to effectively combat it.

We cannot stand aside and let all the laws but one go unexecuted; as the Prime Minister so aptly put it, there is no greater civil liberty than to live free from terrorist attack. Ignore the extremists on both sides; liberal democracy has once again shown its capacity to fight fiercely while safeguarding the liberty that is so precious to us.

Canada Says No

Lately, as has been obvious, Canada has been much on our minds. Which is why last night's news stories in the Great White North confirming that the Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin will announce today that Canada will not participate in the U.S.' planned ballistic missile shield program stuck us so deeply. In this story, one sees the deep-rooted facts on the ground that will prevent a renewal of the old U.S.-Canada relationship for many years to come, if, indeed, such a renewal even remains possible.

Canada has been on the fence on this issue for months, officially at least. In the general public, there are huge majorities against Canadian participation, especially in Liberal Canada and the Bloc Quebecois. Against these facts, though, American policy makers had hope since the PM had both pledged to "renew" U.S.-Canada relations and had stated his support for the program.

It's clear that the GoC has been of two minds on the issue. Canada's new ambassador to the U.S., Frank McKenna, caused a firestorm on Parliament Hill by stating yesterday that Canadian participation was already decided upon. The opposition immediately leaped on what appeared to dissension in the Liberal ranks, forcing the PM to take a decision one way or another.

Word is that there were three factors that led Martin to decide against participation. First, the Liberal Party, like Canada in general, is strongly set against it. Second, the fragile Liberal government simply cannot afford to completely alienate left-leaning NDP voters in English Canada and just about all the voters in French Canada. Third, and most depressingly, the new Conservative Party, like their British cousins, decided that standing with America was less important than the ability to cause short-term difficulty for their domestic political foes.

Here you have all the elements of the reasons why Canada continues to drift away from the United States: a strong left-wing French Canadian bloc that pulls the political culture to the left just as strongly and surely as the strong right-wing South pulls that of the U.S. to the right; a winner-take-all parliamentary system that has locked the Liberals into power, seemingly indefinitely; a weak and fractured Conservative opposition that will not support a Liberal PM even if he wants to do the right thing; and the existence of a strong socialist party, the NDP, that continues to make inroads into traditionally-conservative, pro-America western Canada.

We're not tech experts, but is seems to us that Canadian participation in the missile shield program is as vital as it was during the days of NORAD. It also appears to us that we cannot protect Seattle (which, along with Hawaii is the most threatened by mad North Korea) without protecting Vancouver, B.C.

The end result will be depressingly familiar to all who follow NATO relations: we will pay, we will sacrifice, we will get the job done, while those who look down their noses at us will benefit.

Time to upset the apple cart.

Democratic Domino Theory

"You can't impose democracy at the point of a gun."

"All we're doing is creating more terrorists."

"Bush is the best recruiting sergeant in the history of Al-Queda."

"The Arabs don't want our democracy, they have different, older values."

We know that you've suffered along with us hearing the above lines from friends, co-workers and family. At every turn, as the President patiently explains his central strategy in the War on Terror (expanding liberty to preserve the peace), the Left throws up more cliched objections, each more unthinking than the next. The Left and the Democratic Party like to claim they are the party of "nuance," that they're the intelligent party, the one capable of understanding an argument that lasts for more than a 30-second political commercial.

So how come they can't seem to grasp what the President is talking about? Perhaps the Bushitler is more nuanced than Howard Dean. Wouldn't surprise us.

Every day, more and more evidence comes in from the Middle East suggesting that the President's strategy is not only clear-eyed, it's damn well right on the money. Today's evidence in the Washington Post is simply more of the same, but refreshing nonetheless.

WaPo's David Ignatius wrote this morning on "Beirut's Berlin Wall" and the burgeoning movement by the Lebanese to throw off the yoke of their Syrian Arab "brothers" and reclaim their county. Long-time Druze leader Wallid Jumblatt spoke with Ignatius about what is happening in Lebanon right now. Ignatius reports:

The leader of this Lebanese intifada is Walid Jumblatt, the patriarch of the Druze Muslim community and, until recently, a man who accommodated Syria's occupation. But something snapped for Jumblatt last year, when the Syrians overruled the Lebanese constitution and forced the reelection of their front man in Lebanon, President Emile Lahoud. The old slogans about Arab nationalism turned to ashes in Jumblatt's mouth, and he and Hariri openly began to defy Damascus.

I dined Monday night with Jumblatt in his mountain fortress in Moukhtara, southeast of Beirut. He moved there for safety last weekend because of worries that he would be the next target of whoever killed Hariri. We sat under a portrait of Jumblatt's father, Kamal, who was assassinated in 1976 after he opposed the initial entry of Syrian troops into Lebanon. With me was Jamil Mroue, a Lebanese Shiite journalist whose own father was assassinated by Arab radicals in the 1960s. It was an evening when the ghosts of the past mingled with hopes for the future.

Jumblatt dresses like an ex-hippie, in jeans and loafers, but he maintains the exquisite manners of a Lebanese aristocrat. Over the years, I've often heard him denouncing the United States and Israel, but these days, in the aftermath of Hariri's death, he's sounding almost like a neoconservative. He says he's determined to defy the Syrians until their troops leave Lebanon and the Lahoud government is replaced.

"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," explains Jumblatt. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it." (Emphasis added).

Here is the President's strategy bearing fruit. Even though Jumblatt is anti-American and rapidly anti-Israel, even though he will never be a friend of the U.S., that's not the goal. The goal is that as the Arab people embrace liberty and join the rest of the world the pathologies that have given rise to Islamic Fascism will recede, because it is in the Muslim people's interest that it do so.

The new government of Lebanon will not be an ally, and will not agree with us on much. But it doesn't have to in order for the President to succeed. It only must be free. And free it will be, soon.

Al-Jazeera Shows Video of Suicide Bomber Using Ambulance, Part II

A few days ago, we reported that we had received a news bulletin through the Federal news service about an Al-Jazeera report in which a suicide bomber is seen preparing the explosives in a vehicle, reading his will aloud, then proceeding to ram a U.S. checkpoint in Iraq using an Iraqi ambulance as a weapon.

This report, understandably, was picked up many places, not least of all on the indispensable Belmont Club, which ran a story noting that our report could not be verified.

That was correct, since by the time we posted the story it has disappeared from both Al-Jazeera and Reuters, much to our frustration. To make matters worse, the only link we had to it was from a closed-to-the-public government news service which, while unclassified, would not let users just casually link to it.

Fortunately, in the scramble to get the news to you, we were able to capture three stills from the ambulance-as-bomb video and some of the news story text. We present them here now, as promised. (This was more difficult than it sounds here in the Near Abroad).

Also, the comments section on the original piece also contains links to the full video and report, which, again, due to technological constraints, we cannot run and view here.

Here is the original text of the report, which, among other things, notes the date it was aired on Al-Jazeera:

[Al-Jazirah, 17 Feb] In a videotape distributed by Reuters, al-Qa'ida of Jihad Organization in the Land of the Two Rivers [Tanzim Qa'idat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn] claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a US position. The videotape shows the person who carried out the operation while preparing the booby trapped vehicle camouflaged as an ambulance with a number of explosive devices. The tape also shows the perpetrator reading his will before ramming into a US checkpoint near the Iraqi-Syrian border. Click here [link does not work - ed.] to view 47-second video.[Description of Source: Doha Al-Jazirah Satellite Channel Television in Arabic -- Independent Television station financed by the Qatari Government]

Pictures below....

Here is the also-referenced still from a video of a sniper killing a U.S. soldier. 

Here is the ambulance just seconds before detonation. We would very much appreciate it if some good Arabic speaker could translate the caption for us. 

Here is the murderer reading his last will. 

Here the bomber is shown wiring the explosives. 

Our Man in Brussels

Today President Bush delivered what we hope will be a landmark address on the future of European-American relations. Working from the base of momentum that the recent very successful trips of Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld created, the President delivered a speech that nicely sums up America's new foreign policy. The MSM, blind as usual, has painted the trip as a “mending fences” mission critical to the President’s success. Nothing could be further from the truth. President Bush’s core message has not changed one whit. If the President is, as the MSM insists, in Europe to kiss and make up, one would expect the President to adopt a different tone, speak a different language, "moderate" his positions. He did nothing of the sort.

What has changed is that the President is now coming off a series of political victories—elections in Kabul, re-election to the Presidency, elections in Iraq, a new movement for peace on his terms in the Israel-Palestine conflict, reform picking up pace in the entire Muslim world—that make it impossible for European governments to continue to view the Bush Administration as an aberration the next “normal” administration will correct. In addition, as the facts on the ground continue to trend Bush’s way, more and more people are beginning to realize that the President’s prescriptions were not the ravings of a wild-eyed “neo-con” fantasy but, rather, a “new realist” view that continues to be vindicated by events.

Because of the importance of this speech (transcript here), we present it here in full, with our commentary:

Guy -- or Mr. Prime Minister -- thank you for your kind introduction and thank you for your warm hospitality.

Distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen, Laura and I are really glad to be back. I'm really pleased to visit Brussels again, the capital of a beautiful nation, the seat of the European Union and the NATO alliance.

The United States and Belgium are close allies, and we will always be warm friends.

“Guy” would be Guy Verhofstadt, Prime Minister of the Belgian Government. The opening of the speech struck us as very classically Bush in that he was classy, gracious, complementary and endearing to people who, to put it lightly, don’t deserve such treatment at all. The rhetoric is understandable given the context of NATO, but, make no mistake about it, the United States and Belgium are not very close allies at all, let alone “warm friends.”

To get a picture of what the day-to-day relationship between Belgium and the United States has been like recently, just Google any old comment by former Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Louis Michel, now in a job much more up his alley as one of the E.U.'s commissioners. Michel seemed to be channeling Chomsky and Moore during the entire run-up to the Iraq War, never failing to say things so outrageously out-of-touch with reality that it made us gape in awe when we remembered that every last drop of our children’s’ blood is dedicated by treaty to defending both Michel and the irresponsible state he represents.

As much as we wished the President could tell the Belgians exactly what we think of them, we understand the restraint. In the meantime, we take solace in Monty Python’s classic “Prejudice” sketch.

You know, on this journey to Europe, I follow in some large footsteps. More than two centuries ago, Benjamin Franklin arrived on this continent to great acclaim.

An observer wrote, "His reputation was more universal than [Gottfried Wilhelm] Leibniz or [Isaac] Newton, Frederick [the Great] or Voltaire, and his character more beloved and esteemed than any or all of them."

The observer went on to say, "There was scarcely a peasant or citizen who did not consider him as a friend to humankind."

I've been hoping for a similar reception.

But Secretary Rice told me I should be a realist.

Bush’s ability to poke fun at himself is, we think, a big strength. Instead of getting all huffy and offended by the ridiculous anti-American protests in Brussels, he just makes a joke about it and moves on. Very well done.

I appreciate the opportunity, in this great hall, to speak to the peoples of Europe.

For more than 60 years, our nations stood together to face great challenges of history. Together, we have opposed totalitarian ideologies with our might and with our patience. Together, we united this continent with our democratic values. And together we mark year by year the anniversaries of freedom, from D-Day to the liberation of death camps, to the victories of conscience in 1989.

Our trans-Atlantic alliance frustrated the plans of dictators, served the highest ideals of humanity and set a violent century on a new and better course. And as time goes by, we must never forget our shared achievements.

Yet our relationship is founded on more than nostalgia. In a new century, the alliance of Europe and North America is the main pillar of our security. Our robust trade is one of the engines of world's economy. Our example of economic and political freedom gives hope to millions who are weary of poverty and oppression.

In all these ways our strong friendship is essential to peace and prosperity across the globe, and no temporary debate, no passing disagreement of governments, no power on Earth will ever divide us.

Of course, we rarely stood “together” in reality. During the entire Cold War the United States had to continually fight with the governments of Europe (from which we exclude, Berkeley-style, the government of the U.K.) to keep their eye on the ball. We’d hardly call the Pershing era a feel-good comradely time of solidarity. But, as with Belgium, there is a need to gloss over some of the particulars in favor of the big picture. In that big picture, the President is surely right; the U.S. and the E.U. have more in common than they think and, united in a goal, they stand a much better chance of realizing it.

Today, America and Europe face a moment of consequence and opportunity. Together, we can once again set history on a hopeful course, away from poverty and despair and toward development and the dignity of self-rule; away from resentment and violence and toward justice and the peaceful settlement of differences.

Seizing this moment requires idealism; we must see in every person the right and the capacity to live in freedom. Seizing this moment requires realism; we must act wisely and deliberately in the face of complex challenges. And seizing this moment also requires cooperation, because when Europe and America stand together, no problem can stand against us.

As past debates fade, as great duties become clear, let us begin a new era of trans-Atlantic unity.

Here the President attempts to bridge the “idealist-realist” divide by pointing out that both perspectives are necessary for a balanced, healthy foreign policy. The root of our policy must be our ideals. On this, the Father of Our Country’s birthday, we can affirm again the great American belief that freedom and liberty are not the arbitrary gifts of governments, nor even multi-lateral organizations, but instead are the God-given rights of all people, of all races and religions, everywhere. As the Boss recently put it, Europeans may giggle at this fact, but it is nonetheless true: American foreign policy will always at root be based on our values. None of this is remarkable. Indeed, it would be remarkable indeed if our policies did not reflect who we are as a people. Nor is this a claim to Divine Right or infallibility. Rather, it is the belief of an imperfect people imperfectly trying to help the world if we can do it.

However, the “realists” are the people who must carry that idealism out into the real world. As people who just this morning attended bilateral meetings between our people and leaders of the government here in the Near Abroad, we can attest first hand to the need to root our policy in the language of the real world, lest we be seen as rich dilettantes out of our depth, seeking to gratify our need for “meaning” more than offering a real helping hand. The weight of history and culture are almost unbearably heavy. It will take hard-headed and clear-eyed thinking to bring the world along in a liberal direction.

And, as any realist will tell you, one thing we absolutely need if our new policies are to succeed is a reasonable level of trans-Atlantic unity, if only to prevent hostile powers from perceiving a split in the West that can be used to advantage. The President’s goal now, it seems to us, is to form a least-common-denominator unity, which is more valuable than it sounds.

Moving from where he wants to go to current problems, the President turned first to the most pressing issue in our new foreign policy.

The Middle East

Our greatest opportunity and immediate goal is peace in the Middle East. After many false starts and dashed hopes and stolen lives, a settlement of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is now within reach.

America and Europe have made a moral commitment: We will not stand by as another generation in the Holy Land grows up in an atmosphere of violence and hopelessness.

America and Europe also share a strategic interest. By helping to build a lasting peace, we will remove an unsettled grievance that is used to stir hatred and violence across the Middle East.
Our efforts are guided by a clear vision: We're determined to see two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.

The Palestinian people deserve a government that is representative, honest and peaceful. The people of Israel need an end to terror and a reliable, steadfast partner for peace. And the world must not rest until there is a just and lasting resolution to this conflict.

All the parties have responsibilities to meet.

Arab states must end incitement in their own media, cut off public and private funding for terrorism, stop their support for extremist education and establish normal relations with Israel.
Palestinian leaders must confront and dismantle terrorist groups, fight corruption, encourage free enterprise and rest true authority with the people. Only a democracy can serve the hopes of Palestinians and make Israel secure and raise the flag of a free Palestine.

A successful Palestinian democracy should be Israel's top goal as well. So Israel must freeze settlement activity, help Palestinians build a thriving economy and ensure that a new Palestinian state is truly viable, with contiguous territory on the West Bank.

A state of scattered territories will not work.

As Palestinian leaders assume responsibility for Gaza and an increasingly larger territory, we will help them build the economic and political and security institutions needed to govern effectively.

And as that democracy rises, the United States and Europe will help the parties implement the road map to peace.

These vital steps are also difficult steps, because progress requires a new trust and because terrorists will do all they can to destroy that trust.

Yet we're moving forward and we're doing so in practical ways.

Next month in London, Prime Minister [Tony] Blair will host a conference to help the Palestinian people build the democratic institutions of their state.

[Palestinian Authority] President [Mahmoud] Abbas has the opportunity to put forward a strategy of reform which can and will gain support from the international community, including financial support. I hope he will seize the moment.

I've asked Secretary Rice to attend the conference and to convey America's strong support for the Palestinian people as they build a democratic state.

And I appreciate the prominent role that Prime Minister Blair and other European leaders are playing in the cause of peace.

We seek peace between Israel and Palestine for its own sake. We also know that a free and peaceful Palestine can add to the momentum of reform throughout the broader Middle East.

This passage more than any other illustrates just how strongly the winds of political fortune have shifted in the President’s favor. Nothing in the above passage is any different from when the President shocked the world by announcing that we are in favor of a Palestinian state, but only if the Palestinians elected new leadership, dumped the hateful Arafat (remember him?) and committed themselves to democracy.

At the time, the grandees of Europe, like Louis Michel, labeled the President’s approach counter-productive, if not downright reactionary. Yet, here we are a mere three years later, and the prospects for a peace settlement have not looked this good since the heady, disastrous days of Madrid and Oslo. We were constantly told that the road to peace in the Middle East passes through Jerusalem. As it turns out, Baghdad was a necessary first step. Not bad for a fascist chimp.

We were especially heartened to see the President call out the Arab states for teaching Jew-hatred and inciting terrorist violence. It’s hard to remember now, but there was a time not so long ago when only conservative blogsites seemed to be aware of the Nazi-like incitement preached in Arab schools. Now, it’s the stuff of Presidential speeches. You can bet that this is being translated into policy. Right now there is some luckless political officer in Riyadh or Cairo delivering the message that the U.S. has serious concerns about the Arabs’ bloody propaganda. The world won’t change overnight, but attention to the problem at this level can’t hurt.

Note also that the President has consciously put high expectations on Abbas, informing him that the opportunity is his to seize or to squander. As regular readers of this site will know, we have strong reservations about the P.A.’s ability to seriously undertake reforms, fight terrorism and live in peace with Israel. In fact, we just don’t see it happening. However, for the majority that disagree with this diagnosis it is important that they at least understand that the onus is not entirely on Israel. We remain skeptical, but cautiously hopeful.

If that hope is to have any chance of success, however, it is absolutely vital that the U.S. and the E.U. present a united front. This is why it is so significant that the U.K. has taken a lead role in some of the nuts-and-bolts negotiations. This situation is perfect for the U.K. as the traditional bridge over with Americans and Europeans meet and come to agreement. Blair has the right mix of idealism and realism to deal with the issue, though we continue to distrust the shameful anti-Semitism that seems to have deep roots in British culture, especially in the FCO. Time will tell.

In the long run, we cannot live in peace and safety if the Middle East continues to produce ideologies of murder and terrorists who seek the deadliest weapons.

Regimes that terrorize their own people will not hesitate to support terror abroad. The status quo of tyranny and hopelessness in the Middle East, the false stability of dictatorship and stagnation can only lead to deeper resentment in a troubled region and further tragedy in free nations.

The future of our nations and the future of the Middle East are linked and our peace depends on their hope and development and freedom.

Lasting successful reform in a broader Middle East will not be imposed from the outside. It must be chosen from within.

Governments must choose to fight corruption, abandon old habits of control, protect the rights of conscience and the rights of minorities.

Governments must invest in the health and education of their people, and take responsibility for solving problems instead of simply blaming others.

Citizens must choose to hold their governments accountable. The path isn't always easy, as any free people can testify. Yet there's reason for confidence.

Ultimately men and women who seek the success of their nation will reject an ideology of oppression and anger and fear. Ultimately men and women will embrace participation and progress.

And we are seeing evidence in an arc of reform from Morocco to Bahrain to Iraq to Afghanistan.

Our challenge is to encourage this progress by taking up the duties of great democracies. We must be on the side of democratic reformers. We must encourage democratic movements. And we must support democratic transitions in practical ways.

Europe and America should not expect or demand that reforms come all at once. It didn't happen in our own histories: My country took many years to include minorities and women in the full promise of America, and that struggle hasn't ended.

Yet while our expectations must be realistic, our ideals must be firm and they must be clear. We must expect higher standards from our friends and partners in the Middle East.

The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future. And the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.

As he did in his State of the Union Address, the President once again made it clear that our “allies” are not immune to the changes we expect to see in the Middle East. And by pointing out that the “arc of reform” embraces what the USG euphemistically calls the “Greater Middle East” (since we can’t say the “Muslim world”), the President once again was able to point to a range of recent successes big and small, from Morocco to Afghanistan.

The absolute highlight of the speech was, however, when the President remarked that “governments must invest in the health and education of their people, and take responsibility for solving problems instead of simply blaming others.”

He gets it. He really, really gets it. You can comb through fifty issues of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy before you’d get a surer sign that the man who dictates our foreign policy knows the reality on the ground, the reason the Arab media harps so relentlessly on Israel and the United States.

Syria and Lebanon

Our shared commitment to democratic progress is being tested in Lebanon, a once-thriving country that now suffers under the influence of an oppressive neighbor.

Just as the Syrian regime must take stronger action to stop those who support violence and subversion in Iraq, it must end its support for terrorist groups seeking to destroy the hope of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Syria must also end its occupation of Lebanon.

The Lebanese people have the right to be free, and the United States and Europe share an interest in a democratic, independent Lebanon.

My nation and France worked to pass Security Council Resolution 1559, which demands that Lebanon's sovereignty be respected, that foreign troops and agents be withdrawn, and that free elections be conducted without foreign interference.

In the last several months, the world has seen men and women voting in historic elections from Kabul to Ramallah to Baghdad. And without Syrian interference, Lebanon's parliamentary elections in the spring can be another milestone of liberty.

The up-coming Lebanese elections can be a watershed and, with this passage, the President has committed the U.S. to supporting the pro-independence crowds in the street in Beirut today. Once again, the moron has us on the right side of history. Who would have thought 3 years ago that Bush was more attuned to the “Arab street” than the Secretary General of the United Nations! The call for Syria to quit Lebanon and to allow free and fair elections will become, with the help of France, too strong for The Great Ophthalmologist to resist in the end.

We could realistically find ourselves looking at a free Iraq and Lebanon and a reforming Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia not by the end of Bush’s second term but by the end of this year. A newly independent Lebanon, with its Western and Christian links, could become a cornerstone of a reforming Middle East. Perhaps Beirut once again will be the “Paris of the East.”

Iraq and Afghanistan

Commitment to democratic progress is being honored in Afghanistan. That country's building a democracy that reflects the Afghan traditions and history and shows the way for other nations in the region.

The elected president is working to disarm and demobilize militias in preparation for the national assembly elections to be held this spring.

And the Afghan people know the world is with them. After all, Germany is providing vital police training, the United Kingdom is helping to fight drug trade, Italy is giving assistance on judicial reform, NATO's growing security mission is commanded by a Turkish general. The European governments are helping Afghanistan to succeed, and America appreciates your leadership.
Together, we must make clear to the Iraqi people that the world is also with them, because they have certainly shown their character to the world.

An Iraqi man who lost a leg in a car bombing last year made sure he was there to vote on January 30. He said, "I would have crawled here if I had to. I don't want terrorists to kill other Iraqis like they tried to kill me. Today, I'm voting for peace."

Every vote cast in Iraq was an act of defiance against terror. And the Iraqi people have earned our respect.

Some Europeans joined the fight to liberate Iraq, while others did not. Yet all of us recognize courage when we see it. And we saw it in the Iraqi people.

And all nations now have an interest in the success of a free and democratic Iraq, which will fight terror, which will be a beacon of freedom and which will be a source of true stability in the region.

In coming months, Iraq's newly elected assembly will carry out the important work of establishing a government, providing security, enhancing basic services and writing a democratic constitution.

Now is the time for established democracies to give tangible political, economic and security assistance to the world's newest democracy.

The elections in Iraq drastically changed the calculus of European political leaders when it comes to Iraq. Only the far-left and the Islamists continue to speak of an “occupation” or “puppet government” after the Iraqi people demonstrated that pro-radical political parties and agendas have virtually no popular support within Iraq.

From this fact, the President is able to draw the parallel between the process after which Europe approved assisting the U.S. (Afghanistan) to that now unfolding in Iraq. If there was reason to set aside differences about the need to go to war then, there are even more reasons to do so now; Iraq is many times more significant to European planners than Afghanistan.

We do not think we’re under any illusions about how substantive such aid will be. The heavy lifting will continue to be done by the serious nations, meaning the Anglosphere. But the symbolic importance of a at-least-nominally allied West is an important ideological consideration in the struggle against Islamic Fascism as it was against Stalinism.

Iran

In Iran, the free world shares a common goal. For the sake of peace, the Iranian regime must end its support for terrorism and must not develop nuclear weapons.

In safeguarding the security of free nations, no option can be taken permanently off the table. Iran is, however, different from Iraq. We're in the early stages of diplomacy.

The United States is a member of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] board of governors, which has taken the lead on this issue. We're working closely with Britain, France and Germany as they oppose Iran's nuclear ambitions and as they insist that Tehran comply with international law.

Results of this approach now depend largely on Iran.

We also look for Iran to finally deliver on promised reform. The time has arrived for the Iranian regime to listen to the Iranian people and respect their rights and join in the movement toward liberty that is taking place all around them.

Across the Middle East, from the Palestinian territories to Lebanon to Iraq to Iran, I believe that the advance of freedom within nations will build a peace among nations. (Emphasis added).

Here, the President both signaled that he understands the stakes in Iran and that he intends to handle it if need be. Diplomacy is the preferred tool at the moment, but don’t kid yourself: the Mullahs (or Moolahs, if you wish) will never acquire nuclear weapons, Russia and the rest of the world be damned.

Most significant here was the use of the phrase “[f]or the sake of peace” which, not entirely uncoincidentally, was the exact phrase the President used in reference to Iraq during the run-up to the Iraq War. And, as then, the decision for us to go to war or not depends “largely on Iran.”

We think there is a real danger that the Islamic Republic is seriously misjudging both American will and American capability on this issue. Like Saddam before them, the Iranian Government seems to think that some sort of international consensus will save its skin at the end of the day.

Think again.

Europe

And one reason for this belief is the experience of Europe. In two world wars, Europe saw the aggressive nature of tyranny and the terrible cost of mistrust and division.

In the Cold War, Europe saw the so-called stability of Yalta was a constant source of injustice and fear.

And Europe also saw how the rise of democratic movements like Solidarity could part an iron curtain drawn by tyrants.

The spread of freedom has helped to resolve old disputes, and the enlargement of NATO and the European Union have made partners out of former rivals.

America supports Europe's democratic unity for the same reason we support the spread of democracy in the Middle East: because freedom leads to peace. America supports a strong Europe, because we need a strong partner in the hard work of advancing freedom and peace in the world.

European leaders demonstrated this vision in Ukraine. Presidents [Aleksander] Kwasniewski of Poland, [Valdas] Adamkus of Lithuania, Javier Solana of the EU helped to resolve the election crisis and bring Ukraine back into the camp of freedom.

As a free government takes hold in that country, and as the government of President [Viktor] Yushchenko pursues vital reforms, Ukraine should be welcomed by the Europe Atlantic family.
We must support new democracies, so members of our alliance must continue to reach out to Georgia, for last year, a peaceful protest overturned a stolen election and unleashed the forces of democratic change.

State’s EUR bureau must be buzzing with these pronouncements. Where to start? The “stability” of the Middle East is like the “stability” of Yalta: it freezes millions in hopeless tyranny and we no longer accept it. And, contrary to the view of leading E.U. nations and Russia herself, we support fully Ukraine’s ascension into both NATO and the E.U. (Imagine NATO exercises mere hours from Moscow!)

Again, the President has sided with the democratic people in the street instead of the powers-that-be. No wonder the Left hates him so; he’s stealing their shtick.

Russia

The MSM has been playing with President Bush’s Second Inaugural Address by demanding that he read the riot act to every anti-liberal regime in the world, but none more so than Russia. Since he famously declared that he had looking into Putin’s soul and found an ally, the President has lacked a degree of credibility when it comes to Russia. With this speech, the President has finally acknowledged that there is a problem in Moscow and that we need to pay more attention to it.

I also believe that Russia's future lies within the family of Europe and the trans-Atlantic community.

America supports WTO [World Trade Organization] membership for Russia, because meeting WTO standards will strengthen the gains of freedom and prosperity in that country.

Yet for Russia to make progress as a European nation, the Russian government must renew a commitment to democracy and the rule of law.

We recognize that reform will not happen overnight. We must always remind Russia, however, that our alliance stands for a free press, a vital opposition, the sharing of power and the rule of law.

And the United States and all European countries should place democratic reform at the heart of their dialogue with Russia.

Expect to see the U.S. begin to take a tougher line with Putin’s government, and not a moment too soon.

Foreign Aid

As we seek freedom in other nations, we must also work to renew the values that make freedom possible.

As I said in my inaugural address, we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time. We must reject anti-Semitism from any source, and we must condemn violence such as we have witnessed in the Netherlands.

All our nations must work to integrate minorities into the mainstream of society and to teach the value of tolerance to each new generation.

The nations in our great alliance have many advantages and many blessings. We also have a call beyond our comfort. We must raise our sights to the wider world.

Our ideals and our interests lead in the same direction. By bringing progress and hope to nations in need, we can improve many lives and lift up failing states and remove the causes and sanctuaries of terror.

Our alliance is determined to promote development and integrate developing nations into the world economy. The measure of our success must be the results we achieve not merely the resources we spent.

Together we created the Monterrey Consensus, which links new aid from developed nations to real reform in developing ones.

The strategy is working. Throughout the developing world, governments are confronting corruption, the rule of law is taking root and people are enjoying new freedoms.

Developed nations have responded by increasing assistance by a third.

Through the Millennium Challenge Account, my nation is increasing our aid to developing nations that govern justly, expand economic freedom and invest in the education and health of their people.

While still providing humanitarian assistance and support, the developed nations are taking a wiser approach to other aid. Instead of subsidizing failure year after year, we must reward progress and improve lives.

Our alliance is determined to encourage commerce among nations, as open markets create jobs and lift income and draw whole nations into an expanding circle of freedom and opportunity.
Europe and America will continue to increase trade. And as we do so, we'll resolve our trade disagreements in a cooperative spirit.

And we should share the benefits of fair and free trade with others. That's why we'll continue to advance the Doha Development Agenda and bring global trade talks to a successful conclusion.
We should all pursue fiscal policies in our nations -- sound fiscal policies of low taxes and fiscal restraint and reform that promote a stable world financial system and foster economic growth.

Our alliance is determined to show good stewardship of the Earth, and that requires addressing the serious long-term challenge of global climate change. All of us expressed our views on the Kyoto Protocol, and now we must work together on the way forward.

Emerging technologies, such as hydrogen-powered vehicles, electricity from renewable energy sources, clean coal technology, will encourage economic growth that is environmentally responsible.

By researching, by developing, by promoting new technologies across the world, all nations, including the developing countries, can advance economically while slowing the growth in global greenhouse gases and avoid pollutants that undermine public health.

All of us can use the power of human ingenuity to improve the environment for generations to come.

Our alliance is determined to meet natural disasters, famine and disease with swift and compassionate help.

As we meet today, American and European personnel are aiding the victims of the tsunami in Asia. Our combined financial commitment to tsunami relief and reconstruction is nearly $4 billion.

We're working through the global fund to combat AIDS and other diseases across the world. And America's emergency plan has focused additional resources on nations where the needs are greatest.

Through all these efforts, we encourage stability and progress to build a firmer basis for democratic institutions. And above all, we fulfill a moral duty to heal the sick and feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted.

We think this long section is that most likely to be glossed over by Americans, and that is a shame. Here, the President has laid out the case for an American version of foreign aid, one that demands results and is not based on the latest “social justice” fad in Berlin.

The remarks about the need to move beyond the Kyoto debate to work together on environmental issues should be met with grace by the Europeans, but it won’t. Kyoto is simply too religious an issue to be discussed dispassionately. However, just as the U.S. demands the right to determine what its national security priorities are, so to does Europe. We think their concerns are over-blown and driven by more than just science, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work with them on this issue. Cooperation is a two-way street, and the President’s willingness to more-or-less admit that is a key to moving the Atlantic Alliance forward.

Terrorism

Our alliance is also determined to defend our security, because we refuse to live in a world dominated by fear.

Terrorist movements seek to intimidate free peoples and reverse the course of history by committing dramatic acts of murder.

We will not be intimidated and the terrorists will not stop the march of freedom.

I thank the nations of Europe for your strong cooperation in the war on terror. Together, we have disrupted terrorist financing, strengthened intelligence sharing, enhanced our law enforcement cooperation and improved the security of international commerce and travel.
We're pursuing terrorists wherever they hide.

German authorities recently arrested two terrorists plotting to attack American interests in Iraq. Both will be prosecuted under new German laws enacted after September 11.

Just last week, the United Nations added Muhsin al-Fadhli to its al Qaeda and Taliban sanctions committee list. This man is a known al Qaeda operative and [Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi associate [who] provided support to the terrorists who conducted the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker.

Working together, America, France and other nations will bring him to justice.

For the sake of the security of our people, for the sake of peace, we will be relentless in chasing down the ideologues of hate.

On September 11, America turned first to our immediate security and to the pursuit of an enemy. And that vital work goes on. We've also found that a narrow definition of security is not enough.

While confronting a present threat, we have accepted the long-term challenge of spreading hope and liberty and prosperity as the great alternatives to terror.

As we defeat the agents of terror, we'll also remove the sources of terror. This strategy's not an American strategy or European strategy or Western strategy: Spreading liberty for the sake of peace is the cause of all mankind.

This approach not only reduces the danger to free peoples, it honors the dignity of all peoples, by placing human rights and human freedom at the center of our agenda.

Our alliance has the ability and the duty to tip the balance of history in the favor of freedom.
We know there are many obstacles and we know the road is long. Albert Camus said that freedom is a long-distance race. We're in that race for the duration.

And there is reason for optimism. Oppression is not the wave of the future; it is the desperate tactic of a few backward-looking men.

Democratic nations grow in strength because they reward and respect the creative gifts of their people. Freedom is the direction of history, because freedom is the permanent hope of humanity.

America holds these values because of ideals long held on this continent. We proudly stand in the tradition of the Magna Carta, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the North Atlantic Treaty.

The signers of that treaty pledged to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.
In this new century, the United States and Europe reaffirm that commitment and renew our great alliance of freedom.

May God bless you all.

The invocation of Albert Camus is very significant, and we’re not just saying that because his works inspire us and grace our masthead. Like Camus, the President is aware of the need for human action to secure that which should be, which must be. Like Camus, the President is aware of the need for us to take responsibility for our times, to make the hard decisions.

“[T]he desperate tactic of a few backward-looking men….”

We can’t think of a better definition of “terrorism” than that. With this speech the President has aligned the foreign policy of the United States on the side of liberty and with the reformers of the suffering worlds’ peoples. It stands in sharp contrast to the world of theocratic fascism.

Europe has a choice. It can take our outstretched arm and work with us or it can continue to award Michael Moore awards. It can work for liberty or it can help the cause of Islamic Fascism through inaction. It can accentuate our shared ideals, or it can mock cowboys.

It can be a serious power or a continent in its dotage.

Ball is in your court, Brussels. Let’s see what you got.


UPDATE: We would like to ask any of our European readers if they could tell us whether or not the President's speech was broadcast live there.

UPDATE: As many commentators have pointed out (ouch!) this long post was posted before it was closely proof-read, as is our custom. We were so anxious to get this out to you that we must have pushed "publish" instead of "save." We apologize for the temporary illiteracy.

UPDATE: Reader "Belgian pro Bush" has forwarded to us a story about recent comments from Belgium's new Foreign Minister with regard to Iran. It makes for happy reading indeed:

BRUSSELS - Iran may yet be persuaded to curb its nuclear plans -- but only because diplomatic efforts are backed by the threat of US military action, Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht was quoted as saying on Monday.

“I think the negotiations have a serious chance of succeeding but only because of the American threat,” De Gucht told Belgian daily De Morgen.“Those talks only have a chance if you maintain a strategy of sticks and carrots. And we have to be willing to admit that the United States are the stick.”

Iran will be high on the agenda during US President George W. Bush’s visit to Europe this week. The five-day trip aims to foster a friendly atmosphere early in his second term and deal with problems including Iran, Syria and NATO’s future.Europe and the United States are divided on the debate over Iran’s nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is for power generation but which Washington says is aimed at building a nuclear weapon.

The European Union, led by France, Germany and Britain, has offered trade and political benefits if Iran gives up uranium enrichment, and believes it would bolster the EU’s leverage if the United States got involved in the bargaining.

“We should not believe that the Iranians only want to use their nuclear technology for civilian purposes. The country wants an atomic bomb,” De Gucht said.

Belgium in 2003 strongly opposed the US-led invasion in Iraq.

“Iran will have to give in or there will be big trouble. The United States will never accept Iran possessing a nuclear bomb. Never,” De Gucht added.“Iran possessing a nuclear bomb would be a very destabilising element in the Middle East.”

Hearing sense from a European FM?!?

Perhaps we were too harsh on our Belgian friends. So, for the record: we love Brugges, Belgian french fries kick serious butt, Belgian ale rules and one of the best shows we've ever seen was Paul Weller in Brussels with a seriously cool crowd.

And Poirot is our favorite Agatha Christie character.

The Sickness of the MSM: It's All About the Oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllll!

President Bush is thought to have ordered the invasion and occupation of Iraq in order to secure control of that country's vast oil fields for his friends and contributors in the oil industry, especially Vice President Cheney's former company Halliburton. This is taken as an article of faith among many, especially for many in our universities, our cultural industries, and in our press. Hundreds, if not thousands, of essays, articles and reports have been circulated in the past 3 years about the motivations of President Bush when it comes to Iraq.

Typical examples of the genre can be found daily at The New York Times, Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times, but the real genesis of such reports can be found in the left-wing of the Blogosphere and, significantly, in the reports of the “human rights” or “peace and justice” NGOs. (NGOs as a rule seem blissfully, and wonderingly, unaware of the damage to those sound concepts they do when they advance a partisan political position under their banners.)

For example, the international NGO Global Policy Forum—an organization whose mission “is to monitor policy making at the United Nations, promote accountability of global decisions, educate and mobilize for global citizen participation, and advocate on vital issues of international peace and justice”—and which is “a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, with consultative status at the UN,” released numerous reports on the alleged real motivations of the Bush Administration in the run-up to the Iraq War.

One such report, in interview format from a show which actually originated with a left-wing radio news program, was released by GPF in March, 2003, subtly entitled “War Profiteering and Halliburton.” In its introduction, the authors set the table for the contents of the report for noting that:

Well before the Bush administration launched its war against Baghdad, U.S. corporations were lining up to win lucrative contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq, a nation devastated by war and 12 years of economic sanctions. But because companies with close ties to the White House, such as Halliburton, Bechtel, and the Carlyle Group have been awarded multi-million dollar contracts in postwar Iraq, questions are now being raised about the appearance of ethical impropriety and conflicts of interest. (Emphasis added).

Except on the lunatic Chomsky-Cockburn-Nader fringe, such reports are always careful to harp only on the “appearance” of ethical impropriety and conflicts of interest mostly because hard evidence has been much harder to come by. It appears obvious to most Americans that the mere fact that both the President and the Vice President were active in private business in the energy sector cannot, by itself, cause the executive to take a pass and recuse itself from foreign policy decisions touching upon oil. The Presidency is not a District Court judgeship; he was elected to take those decisions, with the full knowledge of the American people that Bush was, and to a certain extent remains, an oil man.

But this theme, this meme, was picked up by the opposition, both domestically and in other countries, and, since it was an objective fact that many had these concerns, the MSM picked them up and amplified them. It no longer was sufficient to prove such improprieties or conflicts of interest, the story was that millions believed they existed. The result has been, for just about every day since Iraq became an issue, a relentless pounding of the President and Vice President, not on the basis of fact, but on the basis of allegation and innuendo.

After all, it’s news when the NGOs and foreign political parties think that the war is an oil grab; it’s news when thousands shout “No Blood for Oil!,” it’s news when a new report from the Soros group of NGOs charge shoddy contracting practices with regard to Halliburton, it’s news when the Pentagon finds over-charging in Halliburton contracts.

So, no problem, right? No bias here. Nothing to see here. Please move along.

Canada’s Opposition to the Iraq War

Canada firmly opposed military action in Iraq, under any circumstances. The then-government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien came out against the war early, strongly and never wavered from its anti position. In a CBC report dated March 18, 2003—the same time GPF was releasing its charges that the war implicated the Administration in war profiteering—the PM laid out his government’s full-scale opposition to the Iraq War:

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has revealed more reasons behind Canada's decision not to join the U.S. in a war against Iraq.

Chrétien told the House of Commons that the goal of disarming Saddam Hussein could have been achieved if Iraq was given a few more weeks to comply with UN weapons inspections. And the prime minister repeated that he's against the idea of forcing a regime change.

Question period was all about the near certain war against Iraq and Canada's decision to stay out.

"The diplomatic process was bringing positive results. That was the view of the Canadian government. It was not, obviously, the view of the American government. We can have a disagreement there. I still feel given a few more weeks disarmament would have been achieved," he said.

Chrétien also said that forcing a regime change is not desirable. Many leaders in the world are not his friends, but, he adds, only the local people have the right to change government. "If we change every government we don't like in the world where do we start? Who is next?"

That is the closest Chrétien has come to criticizing the Bush administration for pledging to go to war against Iraq.

The Liberal government now says it is opposing any invasion on principle. (Emphasis added).

This story perfectly sums up the Canadian Government’s approach during the run-up to the Iraq War. It felt diplomacy would have disarmed the regime of Saddam Hussein, that regime change was undesirable and that Canada’s opposition was largely based on principle.

The Prime Minister’s Principled Iraq Policy

Except that wasn’t the whole story, a fact you never would have learned had you relied solely on the left-wing Blogosphere, the NGOs and, critically, the MSM. As the great Mark Steyn explained in fine detail in the February 14th issue of Canada’s conservative journal of opinion, the Western Standard (you do subscribe, right?), there exists strong reasons not to accept either the PM’s or his government’s opposition at face value.

It all begins with a gentleman named Paul Desmarais, a power-broker in the intimate world of the Liberal Party and Canadian politics. Desmarais owns the deliciously-named Power Corporation, which in turn owns the largest chunk of stock in the French energy company Total Group (formerly TotalFinaElf). Total had secured from the regime of Saddam Hussein the rights to develop a whopping 25% of Iraq’s oil reserves, a fact that catapulted Total into the ranks of the world’s oil giants, like ExxonMobil and British Petroleum.

Desmarais was a huge campaign contributor to both the Liberal Party in general and Chrétien in particular. In addition, Chretien’s daughter is the wife of Desmarais’ son, who stands to inherit both a controlling interest and the day-to-day control of Power Corporation. As Steyn explains:

For a year, the antiwar crowd had told us it was “all about oil”--that the only reason Iraq was being “liberated” was so Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and the rest of the gang could annex in perpetuity the second biggest oil reserves in the world. But, if it was all about oil, then the fact--fact--is that the only Western leader with a direct stake in the issue was not the Texas oilpatch stooge in Washington, but Jean Chrétien: his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandchildren stood to be massively enriched by the Total-Saddam agreement. It depended on two factors: Saddam remaining in power, and the feeble UN sanctions being either weakened into meaninglessness or quietly dropped. M. Chrétien may have refused to join the Iraq war on “principle,” but fortunately his principles happened to coincide with the business interests of both TotalFinaElf and the Baath party.

It’s such a happy occasion when one’s principled stand just happens to match one’s direct financial interests, isn’t it?

The Bias is the Double Standard

Now, as it so happens, we’re not as convinced of corruption by tales of campaign contributions and stock ownership as the Michael Moore crowd is. Truth be told, and as Steyn points out, Canada is a G8 economy and it would be strange if there weren’t deep, even personal, ties between her economic and political elite. For all we know, Chretien’s stance may have been the same even if his family didn’t stand to personally benefit from the presence of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

What this sad episode does reveal is the deep sickness of the MSM. If any of Chretien’s story had been shared by the President, the entire world’s press would have investigated it, commented on it, made sure it was in your face every time the arguments pro and con on the Iraq War were made.

But the fact is, as the CBC report showed so clearly, the Canadian government’s pronouncements were taken at face value. The Fourth Estate’s vaunted skepticism, it’s duty to assume corruption and work from there, mysteriously vanished when their wasn’t an American Republican to be found in the story.

And that is precisely where the bias, the fatal bias, in the MSM is to be found; in choosing what is or is not a story, they reveal what they are interested in. They manifestly are interested in bringing down, or at least wounding, a Republican President. No innuendo, no minor story is too insignificant not to be trumpeted to High-Heaven if there is even a small chance it will make Bush and company look bad. For example, when those Pentagon auditors found out that Halliburton had overcharged on some contracts and demanded re-payment to the Treasury by the company, the MSM howled with outrage. The Vice President was sure to be introduced, always, as “former Halliburton CEO.”

It never seemed to occur to the MSM that the officers who spotted, investigated and brought the case to its conclusion are all Executive Branch officers who work for…well, who? Why, the President of the United States, that’s who. Some war profiteering conspiracy he’s got going there, huh?

But direct financial interest in the Saddam regime surviving on the part of the head of the Canadian Government was ruled to be of no news value. You do the math.

But, wait, there’s more! As Steyn explains, don’t look for the following in the MSM anytime soon:

But, getting on for two years later, we’re in the middle of the UN Oil-for-Fraud investigation, the all-time biggest scam, bigger than Enron and Worldcom and all the rest added together. And whaddaya know? The bank that handled all the money from the program turns out to be BNP Paribas, which tends to get designated by Associated Press and co. as a “French bank” but is, as it happens, controlled by one of M. Desmarais’s holding companies. That alone should cause even the droopiest bloodhound to pick up a scent: the UN’s banker for its Iraqi “humanitarian” program turns out to be (to all intents) Saddam’s favourite oilman.

I’m not a conspiracy-minded guy, and, if I were, I’d look for a sinister global organization with a less obvious name. If “Power Corp.” was the moniker given to the sinister front operation for the latest Bond villain, critics would bemoan how crass the 007 franchise had become. And a “Power Corp.” that controlled the “Total Group” would have them hooting with derision. But it’s nevertheless the case that M. Desmarais’s bank functioned as the cashier for Saddam’s gaming of the global-compassion crowd: if a company agreed to sell Iraq some children’s medicine for $100 million, Iraq would invoice BNP Paribas for $110 million, pay the supplier and divert the skim-off into other areas. Everyone knew this was happening. It seems impossible, even with the minimal auditing, that BNP Paribas did not.

So here is a Canadian “making a difference in the world.” Suppose Conrad Black controlled a bank that had enriched a brutal dictator with a fortune intended to go to starving children, and that he also had an oil company that had cooked up an arrangement to make billions from the same dictator’s oil resources. Think Maude Barlow and the CBC might show an interest? But Paul Desmarais’s no-publicity clause is apparently enshrined in the Charter of Rights. So on it goes. Only the other week, M. Desmarais was hosting at his home in Quebec Nicholas Sarkozy, very likely the next president of France. Even after they’d become heads of government, neither Bush nor Blair could be bothered swinging by Ottawa to look in on Chrétien; not for years. But an invitation from M. Desmarais, and France’s coming man can’t wait to hop on the plane.

Oh, and by the way, both current PM Paul Martin and current CBC head Robert Rabinovitch are also former Power Corp. men.

The MSM can whine and moan about idiot, drooling bloggers and the rise of the New Media all it wants. But it’s as clear as day to any who care to look that the MSM treats stories affecting conservatives one way and those touching upon liberals in quite another.

No amount of crying or teeth gnashing will change the facts on the ground: until the MSM abandons its open political agenda, it will continue to be marginalized, continue to lose its already pathetic audience and will continue to be the laughing-stock of the media world.

And rightfully so.