zenpundit.com

ANALYSTS AT JANE’S TACKLE FRENCH POLICY ON IRAQ:

Is the new French global policy impregnable? There are two snags. First, the USA is now determined to foil Chirac’s policies; President George W Bush will do everything possible to make sure that France ultimately emerges the loser; until now the French were considered in Washington as just a nuisance, but now they are widely regarded as a real menace.”

PROTESTING IS FREE SPEECH, EVEN DURING WARTIME and is constitutionally sacrosanct but attacking military installations is not. In fact to do as some anti-war protestors have proposed, to vandalize installations and obstruct military operations of the United States armed forces once war with Iraq begins meets the following criterion:

UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION ARTICLE III. Section 3 Clause 1.

Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war war against them or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

I strongly encourage those who feel so passionately against the war, the Bush administration or America in general that if they are American citizens and are considering engaging in civil disobedience, that they stick to blocking roads and occupying non-military government offices. Because if they materially interfere with military activities to prosecute the war against Iraq they are engaging in treason and should be prosecuted accordingly. In over 200 years America’s treason trials have been few in number, even after the horrifying bloodletting of the Civil War the American practice has generally been to let traitors off lightly. However, today there exists militant factions of extreme-Left and Islamist ideological zealots apparently committed to harming their own country; a minority among the anti war protestors they nonetheless will only be encouraged if their actions are brushed aside as merely ” normal ” civil disobedience. It isn’t and we are not talking about the odd, mentally disturbed poet but an organized fifth column as has not been seen since WWII. We can’t afford to define deviancy down in the case of treason and expect to endure as a civil polity.

AMITY SHLAES TAKES ON A SMEAR CAMPAIGN DISGUISED AS SENSITIVITY TO “DIVERSITY”

Political correctness is despicable not because it is Liberal but because it combines illiberalism with a large dollop of ignorance,

MONSTERS JAILED IN AN IRON CAGE:

The Chicago Tribune reports Serbian authorities have arrested Franko Simatovic and Jovica Stanisic in the investigation of the assassination of pro-Western democratic Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Though hardly household names in the West they are fearsome and bloody figures in the Balkans.

Simatovic was the leader of the dreaded Red Beret special operations unit and Stanisic was the secret police chief during Milosevic’s brutal reign.

Hopefully the Serbs will deal out more serious Justice than the Hague but I doubt it.

READ THIS AND SEE IF YOU TOO AREN’T LEFT SCRATCHING YOUR HEAD:

Bill Clinton last night in New York.

“On the issue of Iraq, Clinton said he supports booting dictator Saddam Hussein out of Baghdad and destroying his weapons, but he said Bush has made it more difficult to line up international cooperation for a possible war.

Right after winning UN Security Council support in November for weapons inspections, the White House “sent 150,000 troops to the gulf, which convinced everybody we weren’t serious about UN inspections. That’s how we got into this political mess.”

Huh ? How exactly did the UNMOVIC inspectors get readmitted to Iraq with far greater access if not by holding a gun to the head of Saddam ( literally) and the French ( figuratively) ? By ” political mess ” did Clinton mean actually forcing the issue of Iraqi disarmament instead of passively resisting the French-led erosion of UN controls over Saddam’s WMD programs until the point becomes moot ? How does one paragraph square with the other in any logical way ?

Can you tell the difference when Clinton speaks before a solidly liberal audience and when he speaks on policy anywhere else ? Is he an enabler of their systemic evasion of reality on Iraq or does he believe these things himself, at least momentarily ?