by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, March 11, 2002 3:54 P.M. EST

Seeds of Simplicity
Six months ago today, 19 Muslims hijacked four airplanes and slammed three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing some 3,000 people and destroying New York's two tallest buildings. Islamic fanatics had long targeted Americans--from the 1983 attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon (242 Americans killed) to the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen (which killed 17 sailors).

The Sept. 11 atrocities, however, were different, both in scope and in location. Watching the towers crumble, Americans realized the cost of fecklessness. World War IV was under way.

A new Washington Post poll (results are here) shows that Americans are firmly behind the war. Not only do 91% support the action against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but 72% support using U.S. troops to capture terrorists in other countries, such as the Philippines and Yemen, and 72% favor U.S. military intervention to overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

From our friends the Europeans, though, we still hear carping about how "simplistic" Americans should just get used to being terror targets. In The Weekly Standard, Tod Lindberg explodes the myth of European sophistication:

It is rather a silly exercise to pin a supposed European sophistication on greater experience. On the other hand, it is certainly fair to characterize the European response to terrorism, as different from the American response since September 11. Europeans treated terrorism largely as a law enforcement matter and were not especially interested in probing too deeply at terrorists' international connections with a view to acting against states or international organizations that were supporting them.

In short, the non-simplistic European attitude, if that's the right way to characterize it, rather closely resembles the pre-September 11 response of the United States to terrorism. We have come to our simplisticism only recently, and only as a result of the manifest failure of "sophistication" to derail what can now clearly be seen as a longstanding and systematic effort by our enemies to target us and kill our people.

Is Paris burning? Well, no, it isn't. And that is an excellent backdrop for sophistication, if not indeed its prerequisite.

The Boston Globe reports that the war is having a salutary effect around the world:

A secret report by the CIA completed in February has concluded that the US-led military campaign to prevent Al Qaeda from using Afghanistan as a base of operations could reduce state sponsorship of terrorism, US officials told Reuters.

The 49-page National Intelligence Estimate, entitled "International Terrorist Threats to the United States," says that other countries have shown evidence that they are scaling back terrorist activities, out of concern that the United States will take action against terrorist groups in their territory, as it has in Afghanistan.

By the way, at the risk of being pedantic, there is no such thing as a "six-month anniversary." The word anniversary comes from the Latin annus, which means "year."

Palestinians Fight for the Right to Party
Almost as searing as the destruction on Sept. 11 were the images of Palestinian Arabs whooping it up, taking to the streets in a depraved celebration of mass murder. Palestinians are celebrating a lot these days: "Scores of people took to the streets in the Ein El-Hilweh camp in the southern [Lebanese] city of Sidon, firing their weapons and rocket-propelled grenades skyward and shouted 'Allahu Akbar,' or 'God is Great,' " the Associated Press reports.

The cause for this revelry was a bombing in Jerusalem, where an Arab walked into a cafe and blew himself up, killing 11 people. The Jerusalem Post quotes a witness describing the scene: "A man walked in and blew himself up. There are pieces of him all over. The police are removing people from the scene. It's the most horrible thing I've ever seen." Ha'aretz has a first-person account:

Outside, the televised scenes of ambulances and police have begun. But inside, it is deathly still. Only the smell of burning. Of charred human flesh. A young man at the counter, burned. A young girl wearing black, blasted to the ground. Human hands, human thighs, a human skull. A handsome young man in a t-shirt sprawled backwards on a high barstool. Absolutely still.

Two hours earlier a pair of Arab terrorists with grenades and automatic rifles opened fire in Netanya, a coastal city north of Tel Aviv. They killed three people, including an infant, before being shot dead themselves. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a terror group linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, said it was behind both attacks, though Hamas also claimed it had carried out the Jerusalem bombing.

The Media Line reports that "Yasser Arafat's state-run radio station gave unstinting praise Sunday morning (March 10) to two Palestinian terror attacks on Israelis Saturday night in which 13 Israeli civilians were murdered and more than 100 were wounded. . . . 'The "Brigades of the Martyrs of Al-Aqsa" and the "Brigades of Izza al-Din al-Qassam" take credit for the two heroic martyrdom operations,' said Voice of Palestine state radio."

Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

Keeping the Times Honest

"[Serge] Schmemann . . . attributes the attack to 'the Aksa Martyrs Brigade, a militant Palestinian group,' while failing to note that it is a branch of Arafat's Fatah."--Best of the Web Today, March 5

"The Aksa Martyrs Brigades, which is associated with Yasir Arafat's Fatah organization and has taken the lead in organizing attacks on Israelis, claimed responsibility for the [Netanya] attack."--Serge Schmemann, New York Times (links require registration), March 10

Smartertimes.com took the weekend off, leaving us to pick up the slack. A Saturday piece by Todd Purdum has this to say about an American cease-fire plan: "That plan, advanced last year by George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, has never been made public." In fact, the text is available on the Web site of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs--which got it from the June 14, 2001, issue of Ha'aretz, an Israeli newspaper.

An article in yesterday's New York Times magazine claims that "an estimated 800 Muslims died in the World Trade Center." This seems implausibly high; it would mean that more than 1 in 4 casualties were Muslim. Even this list, compiled by Agence France-Presse when the total death toll was though to be nearly 7,000, includes only 383 dead or missing from Muslim countries (the vast bulk of them from Turkey, Pakistan and Bangladesh).

Not Normal
Here's the latest on Crown Prince Abdullah's purported Saudi peace plan: "An Arab television station, MBC, said Sunday that Abdullah had changed the wording of his peace initiative, and removed the word 'normalization,' " Ha'aretz reports, citing Israel Radio. Since normalization of relations is the only thing Israel would get out of the deal, this revision would seem to reduce the "peace plan" to a call for unconditional Israeli surrender--if indeed it were ever anything else.

Our Friends the French
"France has refused to allow its warplanes to attack some targets in Afghanistan assigned to them by U.S. commanders during the last week, arguing that the missions endangered civilians," Reuters reports, citing the French newspaper Le Monde.

USA Today, meanwhile, reports that "hundreds of U.S. troops began streaming back onto this military base Sunday, a first indication that the nine-day battle for the Shah-e-Kot valley may be winding down." Military officials estimate that between 100 and 200 al Qaeda men are still in the area; USA Today says at least 500 were killed in the battle, while Time puts the figure at 800.

"We are killing these guys in bucket loads," an unnamed U.S. military officer tells the Washington Post. "We're just afraid they'll wise up and make a concerted effort to break out. As it is, we're slaughtering them." Enemy reinforcements weren't a problem, the officer adds: "It's like bugs coming to the bug zapper outside a South Carolina drive-in."

POW Still in Iraq?
"U.S. intelligence agencies have obtained new information indicating Iraq is holding captive a U.S. Navy pilot shot down during the Persian Gulf war," the Washington Times' Bill Gertz reports. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher was classified as killed in action when the Iraqis shot down his F-18 Hornet, but last year the Pentagon reclassified him as missing. Gertz says the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency have received information from British intelligence that "only two Iraqis were permitted to see the captive American pilot: the chief of Iraq's intelligence service, and Uday Hussein, son of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein."

London's Daily Telegraph, meanwhile, reports that "Britain and America have compiled an intelligence-based dossier alleging that Saddam Hussein has developed increasingly close links with the al-Qa'eda terrorist group." The Iraqi dictator reportedly "has given shelter to hundreds of al-Qa'eda and Taliban fighters in northern Iraq and helped others to find refuge in Lebanon."

Arms Aren't for Hugging
"The Bush administration has directed the military to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries and to build smaller nuclear weapons for use in certain battlefield situations, according to a classified Pentagon report obtained by the Los Angeles Times." The seven countries include the Axis Three along with China, Libya, Russia and Syria. Note this passage:

"They're trying desperately to find new uses for nuclear weapons, when their uses should be limited to deterrence," said John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World. "This is very, very dangerous talk. . . . Dr. Strangelove is clearly still alive in the Pentagon."

But some conservative analysts insisted that the Pentagon must prepare for all possible contingencies, especially now, when dozens of countries, and some terrorist groups, are engaged in secret weapon development programs. . . .

"We need to have a credible deterrence against regimes involved in international terrorism and development of weapons of mass destruction," said Jack Spencer, a defense analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.

How come the Times pigeonholes the Heritage Foundation (accurately enough) as "conservative" but doesn't say a word about the ideological slant of the Council for a Livable World, a group that not only focuses on "halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction, opposing a national missile defense system, cutting Pentagon waste and reducing excessive arms exports" but also endorses political candidates--all of them Democrats? Is it possible that Bernard Goldberg was on to something?

Osama Is From Mars, His Wives Are From Venus
The Associated Press reports on an interview that a woman claiming to be one of Osama bin Laden's wives gave to a Saudi magazine:

In the months leading up to September 11, bin Laden used to come late at night and lie on his bed for hours without speaking, his wife said. If she tried to speak to him, he got angry.

"Lately he looked continuously worried, exhausted and tired because of his long nights awake. Most days, he used to take tranquilizers and medicine to help him sleep," she said.

Asked if she had any regrets, the unnamed wife said no. "This is God's will, and I don't consider him to be a terrorist." Maybe she should go to work for Reuters.

A Muddled Picture
The Associated Press has another follow-up on the weird story of those Israeli "art students":

The 61-page DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] report suggests the Israelis' wanderings "may well be an organized intelligence-gathering activity." Yet it mostly chronicles people selling overpriced paintings door to door.

Justice Department spokeswoman Susan Dryden said the agency "does not have information to support these accounts of Israeli students possibly committing espionage."

A senior FBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Friday that the bureau also has investigated and is satisfied that the young people were not involved in espionage or intelligence gathering.

The wire service publishes some excerpts from the report, most of which sound utterly harmless. A Dallas sighting:

Five people were selling art out of a van behind a small office complex that was closed for the holidays. A Euless, Texas, police officer found 40 to 50 pieces of art. "Neither the frames nor the artwork appeared to be high quality, per the officer."

The best evidence that there's nothing to this spy story, though, is that Justin Raimondo, who runs the crackpot Antiwar.com Web site, has seized upon it as proof of "Israel's 9/11 connection."

Send In the Mormons
Patras Bukhari, a graduate student at Brigham Young University, is translating the Book of Mormon into Urdu. Bukhari, a Pakistani-born former Catholic, says he hopes to familiarize the people in his native Pakistan with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This sounds like a great idea; we hope someone's at work on an Arabic translation as well.

First Pearl Harbor, Now This
"North Korea on Friday criticized Japan's decision to join the United Nations peacekeeping operation in East Timor, saying the move presages Japan's intention to become the dominant power in Southeast Asia," the Kyodo news service reports.

Red Alert
Here's an excerpt from a Boston Globe op-ed by Larry Fish, Michael Yogman and Lou Casagrande, entitled "Cuba's Lessons on Caring for Children":

It must be pointed out that being in a communist country, we were only allowed to visit those schools and facilities that the government had given us approval to visit through our tour guide. We have no way of knowing for sure whether all such programs in Cuba are as good as those we saw. We also ran into occasional begging on the street by children and even some youthful pickpockets at the baseball stadium in Havana.

But the notion that children and education are of primary concern to Cuba was said often enough by enough people within and outside the government that it made us think that Boston, and indeed the United States, could learn much from this island of scarce resources. If Cuba, where per capita GDP hovers at $1,700, has universal preschool, isn't that something the wealthiest country in the world could do for its children and families?

Lenin would have called Fish, Yogman and Casagrande "useful idiots"--and we'd have to agree with him, at least on the second part.

The 'Highest' Court in the Land
California parole boards can't "discriminate" against prisoners with a history of drug addiction in determining whether to set them free, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. "Since a parole board may not deny African-Americans consideration for parole because of their race, and since Congress thinks that discriminating against a disabled person is like discriminating against an African-American, the parole board may not deny a disabled person parole because of his disability," says the court, in an opinion by Judges Raymond Fisher, Betty Fletcher and Myron Bright. Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, ex-addicts are considered "disabled."

Given that drug use is a crime, even in California, we have to wonder what these judges were smoking.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Raghu Desikan, C.E. Dobkin, Michael Segal, Peg Innis, S.E. Brenner, Aaron Gross, Rob Harvie, Shelley Taylor, Bruce McNeil, Tom Palermo, Bruce Preece, Jeff Barnes, Damian Bennett, Asla Aydintasbas, Jerry Skurnik, Michael Ross, Everett Ingalls, Ed Jasaitis, Jeannette Boot and Steven Getman. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Norman Ornstein: Bush's "shadow government" plan is a start--but only a start (link requires registration).
• Robert Bartley on Mexico's monetary machismo.
• Tunku Varadarajan: India must save its secular legacy.