President Bush flashed on the giant screen between the second and third periods of the New Jersey Devils game with the Philadelphia Flyers. He had a captive audience.

Most fans sat in their seats in the Continental Arena and listened. And cheered - five times.

The loudest eruption came when Bush announced that Saddam Hussein had 48 hours to leave Iraq.

When the President was done, chants of "U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A" echoed through the building.

--New York Daily News

If Jacques Chirac, Vladimir Putin, Gerhard Schröder, Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, Jean Chrétien, the Pope, and two-thirds of the world's population are on one side in a geopolitical crisis and a bunch of hockey fans juiced on cheap draft beer are on the other side, well, the hockey fans must be right, right? Every real American knows that.

Here's an interesting result from this quickie Gallup poll. Although the public is rallying around Bush and approving the war ultimatum, most Americans still aren't convinced that it's actually the right thing to do:

For months, President Bush has been trying to persuade the American public that a war against Saddam Hussein might be necessary to disarm Iraq and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The poll suggests that 44% of Americans have been convinced by the president's arguments, and thus support his decision. Another 21% of Americans are unsure if war is the right thing, but support Bush anyway because he is the president. Thirty percent take an opposing point of view....


Which comes closer to your view [ROTATED: you support going to war because you think it is the best thing for the U.S. to do (or) you are not sure if going to war is the best thing to do, but you support Bush's decision because he is president]?

COMBINED RESULTS


2003 Mar 17


% Approve 66

(Right thing to do) (44) (Not sure if right thing, but supporting president) (21) (Unsure) (1)

Disapprove 30

No opinion 4

Chances are someone who's told you that "all politicians are liars" now thinks a war must be a good idea because, well, "we have to trust the president."

If you haven't read it or heard it, here's the full text of the speech with which Robin Cook resigned from the British government.

Some excerpts:

Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition....

For four years as Foreign Secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment. Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons programme and halted Saddam's medium and long-range missiles programmes. Iraq's military strength is now less than half its size than at the time of the last Gulf war.

Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam's forces are so weak, so demoralized and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days. We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.

Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term—namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target. It probably still has biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories. Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create? Why is it necessary to resort to war this week, while Saddam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked by the presence of UN inspectors? ...

Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media? is in the Top 40 at Amazon.

A small ray of sunshine.

A total of 510 randomly selected adults were interviewed Monday night after Bush's speech....

Nearly two in three -- 64 percent -- said they approve of the way Bush is handling the confrontation with Saddam Hussein, up from 55 percent in an ABC News survey conducted last week.

Overall support for a war with Iraq also surged from 59 percent two weeks ago to 71 percent today. And the poll found equally broad support for beginning the war immediately after Bush's 48-hour deadline expires on Wednesday....

--Washington Post

Americans like to say they think all politicians are liars, but most don't really believe that -- a president who wraps himself in manliness and the flag is always believed.

(Bill Clinton never seemed to grasp that, even when he used military power. He never equated differing opinions with evil; he never suggested that agreeing with him put you on the side of good, on the side of God. I voted for Al Gore and I'd do it again, but I'm not sure he would have been able to grasp that, either.)

Did we really all rush home to hear it? Were we that naive? Did we not realize that all we would hear was “he has attacked his neighbors” and “twelve years of defiance” and “the world’s most dangerous weapons” all over again?

Actually, it was “the most lethal weapons ever devised” this time; “world’s most dangerous weapons” was from the State of the Union address. I had a pointless stray thought about that line: do you think Bush’s speechwriters are deliberately trying to remind us of The World Scariest Police Chases and other staples of late-1990s reality TV, or do you think this White House hires writers whose minds have been colonized by the Fox network?

Oh, well, war this week. It’s been inevitable from the day the Bushies raised the possibility. Now, at least, we more or less know when it's going to start.

G. Beato gets snarky about Dixie Chicks denouncers here.

America is a hands-on place: we're not content to let our troops do all the work. We want to get involved, make sacrifices, achieve tangible results. Hating France is not merely an intellectual exercise; we're also renaming our food. Forsaking the Dixie Chicks means we have to spend that much more time listening to Shania Twain.

Drudge is linking this story:

Automotive supply chain Pep Boys fired a Tucson store manager because his military Reserve duties took him away from work, according to a federal lawsuit filed here.

It may not be an isolated case. Several other reservists fired from Pep Boys in Tucson and Pennsylvania have contacted a military advocacy group with similar complaints....

In the Tucson case, Erik Balodis, then a store manager at the 7227 E. 22nd St. Pep Boys, was fired after being called to a U.S. Naval Reserve exercise in June 2002. Balodis, a father of two young children, was unable to find work for five months....

Under the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act and Arizona state law, an employer may not terminate an employee who is called to active duty....

You know what folks? The Dixie Chicks don't hate America. Barbra Streisand doesn't hate America. Pep Boys, if what's being alleged here is true, hates America.

There's a detail in the story that I find shocking. I really want to believe this is a typo:

The suit cites a letter sent to the Naval Reserve by Pep Boys, dated Sept. 11, 2001, requesting Balodis "be exempted from any impending call to active duty as a result of the tragic and senseless acts of terrorism. ... While I recognize Mr. Balodis' commitment to protect and serve the nation, I must also make you aware that he holds a critical position in the Corporate Structure of Pep Boys."

Is this accurate? Did Pep Boys actually have the gall to send a letter on September 11, 2001, demanding exemption from the requirement to protect the job of a reservist?

If Ben & Jerry's had done something like that, you'd never hear the end of it.

I'm opposed to the war, but I am not opposed to the people who might have to fight it. This is wrong.

(A footnote: The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act became law in October 1994. Yes, this happened when we had a Democratic president, House, and Senate.)

Brawl erupts after song played at rodeo

Talk of war with Iraq has sparked an atmosphere of tension and anxiety. And it may be to blame for a brawl that broke out at the rodeo Thursday night.

With some 15,000 to 20,000 folks at the rodeo drinking beer and having fun, things can get a little out of hand at times. It happened when a tape of Lee Greenwood's song Proud To Be An American was playing. Some rodeo fans were standing and others were sitting down. Felix Fanaselle and his buddies chose to remain seated.

"This guy behind us starts yelling at us (because) we're not standing up," said Fanaselle. "He starts cussing at us, telling us to go back to Iraq."

The 16-year-old said the man seated behind him started spitting at him and spilling his beer on him and his friends.

"By the end of the song, he pulled my ear. I got up. He pushed me. I pushed him," said Felix. "He punched me in my face. I got him off me." ...

Fasanelle has a lawyer now, though. I like this:

Fanaselle's lawyer says you don't have to stand for a country and western song.

"I guess next time, he'll think maybe we need to stand for the Okie From Muscogee," said attorney Clayton Rawlings.

(Link from Ted Barlow, who saw the rodeo and actually had an OK time.)

"Apology from Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks."

No, it's not real. But it's brilliant.

(It's from The Specious Report. Thanks to Dreamweasel for the link.)

Hey ... remember these guys -- the Afghanis?

During his recent [fund-raising] trip to Tokyo, [Hamid] Karzai was promised $51 million [by world leaders] for the ["New Beginnings"] program, which aims to provide commanders with micro-credits to transition to new livelihoods in exchange for their weapons.
       
But Afghan officials say that the funds pledged in Tokyo are three times short of what it would take to make such a plan a reality.

Aside from demobilization, the formation of the Afghan National Army is also proving to be a challenge.

Only 3,000 of the promised 70,000 soldiers have so far been trained by the U.S. and coalition forces.

Defense Minister Marshall Fahim told NBC that many soldiers have not been paid for months as the Afghan government doesn’t have the budget for it and the donations have not provided for it.

At the same time, there are reportedly fresh flows of money to fund operations of al-Qaida and Taliban groups as well as the forces of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar....
       
Karzai told reporters last week it will take between $15 and $20 billion over five years rather than the $4.5 billion pledged by international donors more than a year ago in Tokyo....

But with the costs of an Iraqi war and post-war recovery program expected to cost billions of dollars — mostly out of the U.S. Treasury — it will be doubly hard for Karzai to persuade the United States and the rest of the international community to cough up another $15 billion for to help Afghanistan get back on its feet.

--NBC News

But, of course, this is in no way a harbinger of what's to come in Iraq, right?

It should have been obvious that something like this would happen eventually:

Anger against France leads to vandalism towards local woman

For Francoise Thomas, the anger against France for its continuing opposition to military action against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein hadn't hit home until she read about it on one of her doors.

When Thomas took out the garbage Saturday morning, she saw red letters spray-painted on the garage door of her townhouse.

"Scum go back to France," it read....

I hope this is the worst we see. And I'm happy to see that her neighbors are on her side.

(Thanks to Atrios for the link.)

Rush Limbaugh says, in words and a picture, that the Dixie Chicks are now "Saddam's Angels." Blacklist? What blacklist?

Bush Has Audacious Plan to Rebuild Iraq Within Year

The Bush administration's audacious plan to rebuild Iraq envisions a sweeping overhaul of Iraqi society within a year of a war's end, but leaves much of the work to private U.S. companies, Monday's Wall Street Journal reported.

The Bush plan, as detailed in more than 100 pages of confidential contract documents, would sideline United Nations development agencies and other multilateral organizations that have long directed reconstruction efforts in places such as Afghanistan and Kosovo. The plan also would leave big nongovernmental organizations largely in the lurch: With more than $1.5 billion in Iraq work being offered to private U.S. companies under the plan, just $50 million is so far earmarked for a small number of groups such as CARE and Save the Children.

--Dow Jones Business News, via Yahoo News

It's almost as if he's doing this just to piss us off, isn't it? It's as if he looked at the list of what his critics want -- long-term thinking, significant UN involvement, significant NGO involvement, avoidance of the appearance that the war is being fought to create business opportunities for his pals -- and said, "Whatever it is they want, I'm against it."

Earlier this morning I heard an antiwar protester on the radio say that he’s afraid “nobody’s listening.” I assume he meant that no one with the power to stop this war is listening, which is true. But when the war starts this week, that qualification will no longer apply: no one -- certainly no one in America -- will be paying attention to what we’re saying. We'll have nothing but pro-war, rally-round-the-flag news coverage, and most Americans -- even most people who now have anxieties about war -- will find that appropriate.

The very things we’ve said could happen if there’s a war rather than continued containment and deterrence -- a chem or bio attack on U.S. troops that may also catch Iraqi civilians in its net, a widening of the war to Israel, destruction of oil fields -- will be described not as reasons war was a bad idea but as proof that Saddam was evil and war was necessary. Increased al-Qaeda terrorism or an escalation of saber-rattling by a back-burnered North Korea will be seen as a sign that the world is a dangerous place and it’s a good thing we’re getting rid of one evildoer, at least, before he can threaten Main Street. In the course of the war, no one will notice any chem or bio weapons that slip out of Iraq to augment arsenals elsewhere in the world. And the American press will consider any discussion of civilian casualties caused by U.S. bombing of Iraq, or destruction of infrastructure there, unpatriotic and a turnoff to American audiences.

After the war, of course, the American press will turn its attention elsewhere very quickly; if conditions in Iraq deteriorate in a year or two, most Americans simply won’t notice. Any destabilization elsewhere in the Arab/Muslim world will be regarded as confirmation of the Bush administration’s worldview, not of ours.

What I’m saying is that, in this debate we’ve been having, there aren’t just two possible outcomes -- the facts vindicate us or the facts vindicate the pro-war side. There’s a third possibility, one that seems much more likely to me: that perceptions will seem to vindicate the pro-war side, at least in the eyes of the vast majority of Americans, while reality, more or less unnoticed, tends to vindicate us.

Haven't your ambassadors informed you? Europe is no longer Europe. It is a province of Islam, as Spain and Portugal were at the time of the Moors. It hosts almost 16 million Muslim immigrants and teems with mullahs, imams, mosques, burqas, chadors.

--aging racist Oriana Fallaci, from The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com, 3/13/03

In San Diego, skateboarders and homeless people said the three walked miles and miles each day, the women always silently behind the man and covered in robes and veils. Once, when Mr. Mitchell [alleged kidnapper of Elizabeth Smart] got in an argument with four people on bicycles, he was heard hollering, "Jesus Christ is Lord!"

"We asked him if he was Muslim, and he'd say, `No, I'm not Muslim, I'm God, above Muslims,' " said Mike Cortez, a skateboarder.

--New York Times, 3/16/03

Hate to break this to you, Oriana, but there are dangerous, misogynistic religious fanatics who don't have olive skin and don't read the Koran, and some of them even put women in veils.

The article on rape at the Air Force Academy in Sunday's New York Times was fine, infuriating work -- read it and you'll realize that true justice in this situation, as in the Catholic Church's pedophile scandal, would demand nothing less that the building of a supermax prison in the lowest circle of hell for an awful lot of perpetrators and enablers, far more than will ever really be punished. I have one criticism of the Times article, however: Why the reluctance to explain "LCWB," the designation for the all-male Academy class of 1979 that brings such cheer to Academy misogynists? As explained here, "LCWB" stands for "last class with balls." Why couldn't the Times say that? The Times published the Starr Report, didn't it?

Ken Pollack, also of the Brookings Institution, thinks such a “rolling start” would be perilous. Better, he thinks, to amass an imposing force, which will increase the chances that Iraq capitulates without a fight, and allow General Franks to respond to any contingencies or counter-attacks.

--Economist, January 30, 2003

The American-led coalition that is preparing to topple Saddam Hussein's government is planning for a complex invasion of Iraq to begin even as allied troops are still arriving in the region, senior commanders say....

But there are military experts — including experienced commanders — who are worried by this plan, which has come to be called a "rolling start" to the impending war.

--New York Times, March 16, 2003

One more way in which the war isn't going the way the best-known liberal hawk hoped it would.

Anger on Iraq Seen as New Qaeda Recruiting Tool

On three continents, Al Qaeda and other terror organizations have intensified their efforts to recruit young Muslim men, tapping into rising anger about the American campaign for war in Iraq, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials.

There it is, war fans. You happy now?

Among the countries where the recruiting is going really well? Britain, Spain, and Italy.

Europe is no longer Europe. It is a province of Islam, as Spain and Portugal were at the time of the Moors. It hosts almost 16 million Muslim immigrants and teems with mullahs, imams, mosques, burqas, chadors. It lodges thousands of Islamic terrorists whom governments don't know how to identify and control. People are afraid, and in waving the flag of pacifism--pacifism synonymous with anti-Americanism--they feel protected....Mr. Blair too leads a country which is invaded by the Moors. A country that hides that resentment.

"Invaded by the Moors"??

That's Oriani Fallaci; the words can be found at OpinionJournal.com, the Web version of the allegedly respectable Wall Street Journal editorial page. Do I have to say the obvious -- that this is essentially what American bigots said about the immigrant generation of my great-grandparents -- my Italian great-grandparents, Oriana? That they couldn't be assimilated by "civilized" America? That the Italians were anarchists and the Jews were communists and they posed a danger to the Republic? And here I am, Oriana -- an American, an Italian-American. Here a lot of us are.

And the quote above is merely the lite version of Fallaci's message these days -- for a stronger dose, read this January New York Observer interview of Fallaci (by George Gurley, who also interviewed Ann Coulter for the paper and thus apparently has its bigot beat):

"It is a tyranny, a dictatorship -- the only religion on earth that has never committed a work of self-criticism .... It is immovable. It becomes worse and worse .... It is 1,400 years and these people never review themselves, and now they want to come impose it on me, on us?..."

There's yet more of this in her current book, The Rage and the Pride. I haven't read it -- if you want to, be my guest.

(By the way, I wonder what Fallaci would say in response tothis article from last Sunday's New York Times Magazine about a young Jordanian whose two dreams are jihad against the West and being a programmer at Microsoft. No, it's obvious -- she'd think it proves her point. She'd dismiss the fact that the young man's father thinks his son could get a job if he'd just shave the beard that makes him look too religious. Could the urge to jihad just be generational -- and if it varies from generation to generation, doesn't that demonstrate that it's not immutable?)