From the WSJ Opinion Archives
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Terrorist
Traffic School
Here is a jaw-droppingly bizarre story from the BBC:
Thirty hooded gunmen sit at desks around a flip chart, pen and paper in hand, listening to a lecture on the laws of war by the international Red Cross.
All the Palestinian armed factions have signed up to the course, though they are being taught in individual groups.
The head of Gaza operations for the Red Cross, Anthony Dalziel, said the course was part of his organisation's worldwide effort to teach international humanitarian law to all parties in armed conflict.
Are the lessons catching on? It would appear not:
Abu Khaled is a local factional leader in Gaza. He told me his fighters were told to take the Red Cross course to show the world they are not as many see them.
"People think we are terrorists," he said. "But actually the Islamic law we follow is far stricter than international law in its rules of how to protect civilians and prisoners in war. . . ."
I asked Abu Khaled about the rockets fired at Israel by his faction and others, with the aim of killing ordinary Israelis.
"They are responsible," he insisted. "You can't expect the victims to respect the laws alone. If they stop targeting our civilians, they will see we are open to leaving theirs alone."
Then came a threat not entirely in keeping with the Red Cross class going on around us.
"If they keep hurting our civilians they should know--today we may be targeting their people in Sderot, tomorrow and in the future, with new technology, our resistance will spread further.
"Our missiles will reach deeper inside Israel."
Is this a little like when you get a ticket and the charges are dropped if you go to traffic school? The Beeb quotes Iyad Nasr, the Red Cross staffer teaching the class: "They also have to realise they have responsibilities. Legal ones. And if they don't keep them, they can be prosecuted under international law. And that comes as quite a surprise to these guys, most of whom have always viewed themselves as the victims."
Judging by Abu Khaled's comments, that message doesn't seem to have taken. And as a practical matter, is Hamas really at risk of prosecution under international law? YNetNews.com reports on a test case:
ZAKA, a volunteer organization committed to the recovery and identification of human remains, in coordination with the municipality of the rocket-battered city of Sderot, may be on to a new method for combating Hamas: The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
In a lawsuit against Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal, ZAKA's directors Yehuda Meshi-Zahav and Dudi Zilbershlag and Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal argue that Mashaal is responsible for numerous murders and crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In the suit Mashaal is blamed for the killing of 176 civilians and the wounding of hundreds in Hamas-sponsored terror attacks and suicide bombings that took place since 2002. Attacks on military targets were not included in the lawsuit.
Will this effort succeed? That would be great, but color us skeptical. YNetNews notes that "the Israeli government does not officially recognize the Court in The Hague," and of course the U.S. doesn't either. As targets No. 1 and 2 of terrorism, you'd think Israel and the U.S. would have more of an interest than anyone in strong international-law enforcement. But of course their leaders rightly worry about being targeted for antiterrorism efforts.
International legal institutions too often end up protecting those who violate the law flagrantly at the expense of governments that are trying to do their duty to protect their own civilian populations. Is international humanitarian law an experiment that has failed?
Ad
Hoc Originalists
Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the District of Columbia's
appeal of an appellate court's ruling that the district's ban on handguns violates
the Second Amendment. The New York Times--surprise, surprise--describes this
amendment as "spurious grounds that conform with the agenda of the anti-gun
control lobby but cry out for rejection by the Supreme Court." Here is
the argument the editorialists make:
A lot has changed since the nation's founding, when people kept muskets to be ready for militia service. What has not changed is the actual language of the Constitution. To get past the first limiting clauses of the Second Amendment to find an unalienable individual right to bear arms seems to require creative editing.
Beyond grappling with fairly esoteric arguments about the Second Amendment, the justices need to responsibly confront modern-day reality. A decision that upends needed gun controls currently in place around the country would imperil the lives of Americans.
It seems to us that the Times is obviously wrong in its reading of the Second Amendment and probably wrong in its view of the practical effects of antigun laws (D.C. is not exactly one of the nation's safest jurisdictions).
But you have to laugh at the Times's disdain for "creative editing" of the Constitution. The Times is usually in favor of creative editing--indeed, of wholesale fabrication as in the case of abortion. On this matter and this matter only, the Times demands that the Constitution be read in the way most hostile to individual liberties.
In another editorial on the same day, the Times declares:
After a long and frightening period of acquiescence, Congressional Democrats are standing up to President Bush's assault on civil liberties--demanding an end to spying on Americans without court supervision.
This of course is a reference to the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which spies not on Americans but on aliens overseas who may happen to be talking to Americans. Somehow preventing street crime is important enough that it justifies keeping law-abiding citizens from owning firearms for protection, but protecting Americans from catastrophic attack is not worth the slightest curtailment of civil liberties.
President
Summers?
Maureen Dowd weighs in on the Democratic presidential race:
At a news conference, [Barack Obama] was asked about Hillary Clinton's attack on his qualifications. Making an economic speech in Knoxville, Iowa, earlier that day, the New York senator had touted her own know-how, saying that "there is one job we can't afford on-the-job training for--that's the job of our next president." Her aides confirmed that she was referring to Obama.
Pressed to respond, Obama offered a zinger feathered with amused disdain: "My understanding was that she wasn't Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, so I don't know exactly what experiences she's claiming."
Everybody laughed, including Obama.
Larry Summers for president? It's an interesting thought. But although we like and respect Summers and there's no doubt he's a brilliant man, brilliance isn't everything, and he probably is too arrogant to be an effective politician. (We say this as one who suffers from the same weakness at times.) The president needs to have some degree of humility, like . . . well, maybe Mrs. Clinton isn't the best example here.
But
They Support the Troops!
The day before Thanksgiving, a reader posted a link to the U.S. military's America
Supports You site, which we noted
Wednesday, on the Fark.com discussion board, with a nice little exhortation:
Send a word of thanks to American troops who won't be home tomorrow because they're defending us in Iraq.
Here's a sampling of the comments it drew:
- "No one who is defending us (or freedom, etc.) is in Iraq. Sorry to
burst your bubble."
- "I'd like to thank them for being over there fighting and dying in
that senseless clusterfark so I don't have to."
- "Spending $7.5 million dollars per hour, I'll bet they get nicer food
than I do."
- "They are not defending us, they are being used by Bush and Co. to
bully the world. We shouldn't be thanking these troops, we should be apologizing
to them, for not electing politicians that protect the troops interests. We
should be working with the INTERNATIONAL community to solve INTERNATIONAL
problems. Obviously the world realizes now there is no USA in TEAM. Thanks,
George."
- "Remember: while it's illegal to discriminate against ex-servicemembers, it's not illegal to discriminate against people who've recently spent time in Iraq or Afganistan [sic]. So, when you see these people who make Bush and Iraq possible, ask them who they thought was going to invade the continental US when they joined, and if the answer isn't a very intelligent one, perhaps one of the other candidates would spend less time picking their noses?"
It's almost enough to make you question someone's patriotism.
Krugman's
Excuse
Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, writing on his NYTimes.com blog, has responded
to the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus, who pointed out that Krugman's complacency
about the future of Social Security is recent and seemingly motivated by partisanship.
As we noted
Wednesday, Marcus dug up a series of old Krugman quotes sounding the alarm.
His response to her is a classic:
Part of Ruth Marcus's attack involves selective quotation from my writings circa 2001. Mark Thoma has already done the spadework here. What i [sic] was arguing then was not that Social Security itself was in crisis, but that the rest of the government budget should be run responsibly--basically, that the lockbox should be honored. As I explained later,
Four years ago [presumably he was writing this in 2005], I and many other economists urged policymakers to think about the future cost of Social Security benefits, not because we thought there was anything wrong with Social Security itself, but because we regarded the future costs as a compelling reason not to cut taxes even if the overall budget was in surplus.
To sum up: In 2001 Bush wanted to cut taxes, so Krugman argued that the future costs of Social Security were a problem. In 2005 Bush wanted to reform Social Security, so Krugman argued that the future costs of Social Security were not a problem (even though Bush had gotten his tax cuts, which, if you believe the 2001 Krugman, should have made the problem worse).
These views don't seem consistent with each other, but they certainly are consistent with partisan opposition to President Bush. Krugman concludes his blog entry by quoting John Maynard Keynes: "When circumstances change, I change my opinion. What do you do?" We think Groucho Marx's version is more fitting: "Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."
Wannabe
Pundits
Name the topic:
Average people are tired of it. This country is already stacked toward the wealthy (mortgage interest is tax deductible; rent is not) and the privileged (the last president without an Ivy League degree was elected nearly 30 years ago).
You guessed it, Barry Bonds! The author, Howard Bryant of ESPN.com, also gets his facts wrong: The mortgage interest deduction is primarily a benefit to the middle class, not the wealthy; and America elected a president who graduated from a non-Ivy League institution (Eureka College) just 23 years ago. Anyway, the real problem isn't the Ivy Leagues, it's all these Bushes and Clintons.
Then there is this, from Phil Kloer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's "Book Page":
Well, folks, we had a squeaker in the vote for World's Worst Book Title ever. But the Supreme Court was called in for an emergency ruling, and by a 5-4 vote they declared George Bush to be the winner.
No, wait. Wrong vote. The winner was "Cooking With Pooh," which is a real book from Disney.
Sure enough, it is a real book, out of print and apparently something of a collector's item. Used copies go for $62.01 on Amazon. Why in the world would Kloer feel it necessary to include such a lame political joke as a warm-up to something so genuinely funny?
Zero-Tolerance
Watch
Travis Grigsby, a student at Lee's
Summit West High School in suburban Kansas City, Mo., has been suspended
for using the N-word, WDAF-TV reports:
"Someone asked if anybody knew how to tie a noose and Travis did admit he knew how to tie a noose," Kim Grigsby said.
Travis' mom said her son is almost an Eagle Scout, he knew how to tie it, but told his friends he wouldn't because you could get in trouble for that. Later, a black student on the drum line told the teacher he was offended.
"Travis was accused of using a racial slur for saying the word 'noose.' Then he was suspended for 10 days," Kim said.
Sorry, we should have said he's been suspended for using an N-word.
Glad
They Cleared That Up
This correction appeared in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times (second item):
Homeless: An article in Monday's California section about a Los Angeles County proposal for helping 50 of the most vulnerable homeless people on downtown's skid row misquoted Philip Mangano of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. He was quoted as saying the chronically homeless are "fragile in terms of both fiscal and psychological health." He actually said "physical," not "fiscal."
As they say, give a man a fisc, and you feed him for a lifetime.
(Hat tip: blogger Merv Benson.)
Can't
Mrs. Clinton's People Write the Questions?
"CBS Strike Could Put Debate in Disarray"--headline, The Politico,
Nov. 21
7UP
or Tonic?
"Redskins Add Mix at Receiver"--headline, Washington Times, Nov. 21
At
Least the World Didn't End
"Foreclosures Hit Wealthiest Areas Hardest"--headline, Arizona Republic,
Nov. 22
'I
Have Looked Down the Saddest City Lane'
"Frost Knocks Out High-Tech Trolley Buses in Vancouver"--headline,
CBC.ca, Nov. 22
Breaking
News From 1912
"Bull Moose Lookin' for Love in All the Wrong Places"--headline, Forum
(Fargo, N.D.), Nov. 21
News
of the Tautological
"Everglades Project Bogged Down"--headline, Associated Press, Nov. 21
News You Can Use
- "Tired on Thanksgiving? Don't Blame Turkey"--headline, Associated
Press, Nov. 21
- "Turkey Testicle Festival Big Hit in Ill."--headline, United
Press International, Nov. 22
- "Combining Liquor, Drink Paraphernalia Makes for More Potent Gifts"--headline, Marketwatch.com, Nov. 22
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "Updated: Travelers Heading Home for the Holiday"--headline, KTHV-TV
(Little Rock, Ark.), Nov. 21
- "Debate Rises on Who Wrote 'Don't Squeeze the Charmin' "--headline,
Associated
Press, Nov. 21
- "Award-Winning Canadian Writer Links Past and Present"--headline, Reuters, Nov. 22
Barren
but Green
Green usually indicates fertility, but not to a new breed, if you'll pardon
the expression, of environmental wacko. London's Daily Mail explains:
Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers--and a voice calling her Mummy.
But the very thought makes her shudder with horror.
Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.
Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible "mistake" of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time.
He refused, but Toni--who works for an environmental charity--"relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery.
Finally, eight years ago, Toni got her way.
At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to "protect the planet."
Laugh if you like, but one day Toni's grandchildren will thank her for leaving the world a better place for them.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to David Gerstman, Jim Moran, Dennis Powell, Michael Segal, Greg Hartman, Martin Dicker, Keith Crawford, James Wood, Bill Hartmann, Bruce Goldman, Lee Robinette, David Newberry, Daniel Foty, Tim Tweeton, Andy Hefty, John Williamson, Alan Utter, Richard McKeown, Rod Pennington and Robert Koslover. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Mike Cox: The Supreme Court has a historic opportunity to affirm the individual right to keep and bear arms.
- Peggy Noonan: We're making too much of politicians' religious faith.
- Kim Strassel: A glimpse at Mrs. Clinton's real campaign weakness.
- The Journal Editorial Report: Tune in this weekend for discussions of "superbugs," airport woes and rock's new capitalists.
And on the Taste page:
- Kyle Wingfield: Maybe Christianity in Europe hasn't run dry.
- Joel Kotkin: After six decades, the dream of Levittown is still alive.
- Julie Wiener: How kosher was your turkey? Some Jews demand better treatment for birds.
