Rising Nucleotides

A Logical Inference

I see, from Yahoo! News, that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dispatched a letter to President Bush, which was, it seems, an unexpected move.

Iran's president declared in a letter to President Bush that democracy had failed worldwide and lamented "an ever-increasing global hatred" of the U.S. government. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swiftly rejected the letter, saying it didn't resolve questions about Tehran's suspect nuclear program. [snip] The letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made only an oblique reference to Iran's nuclear intentions, asking why "any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime."

By "the Zionist regime," he's referring to Israel. Many nations feel that Iran wishes to develop nuclear weapons, in order that it might use them to destroy Israel. Why do they think that this is Iran's intention?

Well, if I had to guess, I'd say that Iran's promise to wipe Israel off the map rather factored into the analysis. You know-- just maybe.

Good News That Came From Horror

On Monday, the daily PBS program "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" had a video interview with John Burns of the New York Times, who is currently in Baghdad, Iraq. Indeed, he reports directly from Iraq quite often, and has been doing so for a very long time.

The news on Monday (transcript) was that "after many weeks of waiting, the first live witnesses took the stand in testimony against Saddam Hussein and his fellow defendants."

JOHN BURNS: It was really the most extraordinary day. You have to remember that this trial has been 20 months in preparation since this special Iraqi court was established. It's been in session, the court, for seven weeks but has only managed to meet three times, the third time today. They've never got, until today, to the heart of the matter, the case against Saddam Hussein, the case that is the first of many that is going to tell us the story of how as many as two million people died here during his 24 years in power. And it was the most wrenching experience to hear this first live witness speaking of the torture, speaking of babies being thrown out of windows, of human grinding machines at the headquarters of the secret police, of fathers watching their sons being tortured. I'm sure much of this is in the evening television news in the United States but the effect has been quite electric across Iraq as we can measure it. People who have until know - people that I know who have until now seemed indifferent in some ways to the terrible things that were done here under Saddam Hussein-- I'm talking for the most part about Sunni Arabs who were the principal beneficiaries of Saddam's rules -- were absolutely mortified by what they heard today.

You have to consider that Saddam's Iraq had extreme restrictions on the press. Certainly many Iraqis were aware that they were living under a reign of terror, and rumors of horrible things done to others are key to making a reign of terror effective. There were not, however, actual accounts of crimes against humanity. Westerners such as myself needed only to watch the news in order to have heard about the former Iraqi secret police throwing humans into industrial plastic shredders. In Iraq, such things would only be known by whispers from terrified witnesses.

Monday changed all of that. It was only the tip of the iceberg of inhumanity that spanned decades, yet this first testimony had the power to shatter all illusions.

I must admit, though, that I can't really conceive of two million dead. Stalin was wrong-- a huge number of deaths is a tragedy. It's just more than a mind can understand.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, as these wrenching details were being revealed, what was the former president of Iraq's demeanor? JOHN BURNS: Well, that was very much part of the drama. As we have seen on his previous appearances in court: Defiant, indignant at the indignities, as he sees them that were visited upon him. In the midst of the witness telling this tale so difficult for him in the telling that he broke down and sobbed several times, Saddam was continuously complaining that he didn't have a paper and pen, that he had to write his notes on his hand. His attitude seemed to be in effect how dare you, Mr. Mohammed, and who are you anyway, to make these kinds of accusations against me? The other person who was notable in this respect was Saddam's half brother, Bazan al-Takriti, who was in some ways being more defiant today. He's the former head of the secret police at the time of the events charged in this trial which was an assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982 which was followed by the execution of 148 men and teen-aged boys from the town Dujail where that happened. And the attitude seemed to vary on the part of the defendants, Saddam and his half brother in particular, from indifference to indignation. But at no point did you see anything reproaching pity or remorse.

Not that I expected Saddam Hussein to express (let alone feel) any remorse or pity. Having 148 people killed just to send a message was simply the way he operated.

Saddam is trying to complain about his treatment at every opportunity. Nevermind that whatever the conditions are, they are fantastically humane compared to anything that his prisoners faced. And he actually is writing notes on his hand, to go with the complaint about the lack of paper. Of course, to a totalitarian dictator who had several palaces, being treated like a crminal-- no matter how fairly it is done-- is going to seem extremely degrading. I sincerely hope that Saddam is being handled in a scrupulously fair manner. Since there's plenty of evidence to result in a scrupulously fair execution, and that's punishment enough. Even for him.

I don't know if he's just running a bluff, or if he's still in some mental playground whereby he doesn't realize that, this time, he's in trouble up to his facial hair, and that nothing is going to save his evil hide from the hangman.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, you talk about the people of Iraq wanting justice. What do they make of this whole spectacle that they're able to see on TV? JOHN BURNS: I think I'd have to say that they, like us, find it is most astonishing spectacle. And I'm talking here not just the communities that were the principal victims of Saddam: The Shiites and the Kurds and the Turkmens and others but also the Sunni-Arab minority that ruled through Saddam Hussein, in fact, ruled here for centuries. I think they find it extremely arresting. I would say the net of it all today after listening to this gut-wrenching testimony, the most important thing that happened today was there was finally after all this wait, there was an accounting of sorts. The horrors through which people were subjected by Saddam's secret police were finally being laid out to the evident astonishment even of people who until very recently were telling me that Saddam Hussein was a hero and hoped for his restoration.

This is fantastic news. It just hadn't occurred to me, before this story, that some of the people of Iraq might not realize what bad things had been done to other Iraqis. Sure, it's obvious now that it's been pointed out, but I knew about the atrocities before now, and I'm thousands of miles away. That's what a free press can do for you-- and do to your perceptions of what other people "must" know.

Now that the dirty laundry is being aired, it can only erode support for the old regime. And that is a good thing for decent humans everywhere.

Cold War Thinking

Before the war on Iraq, I heard the argument that since we had been fairly friendly with Saddam while he was fighting Iran and murdering Iraqi Kurds, that we had no moral grounds for complaining about how terrible his regime was. Of course, that was twenty years ago, and an example of Cold War thinking on our part.

There is a common misperception that the Cold War wasn't a war-- but it was. Many lives were lost in the titanic struggle between "us" (the United Sates and the rest of the Free World) and "them" (the Soviet Union, China, and their puppets)-- a struggle for nothing less than the future of the world. The Soviets already ruled the various republics of the USSR with an iron fist, and had expanded their empire into Eastern Europe. The presence of US troops in Western Europe prevented the Soviets from making another land grab there after WWII, but the stage was set for confrontations elsewhere.

There was a catch, though, as explained by Steven Den Beste in an article which is mostly about North Korea:

After the Cuban Missile Crisis, both sides in the Cold War recognized that any time there was a direct head-to-head confrontation between the two sides there was too great a chance of ultimate catastrophe. So the majority of the hot battles in the Cold War were fought by proxies on at least one side, with one side perhaps being publicly and formally engaged and maybe even using its own troops, while the other side offered support to its proxy without being directly engaged. Both sides in the Cold war would smile and nod at one another and publicly pretend they weren't really quite having a war, sort of.

Of course, the use of proxy nations dated back at least to Korea. We were engaging Chinese troops directly, but at least it wasn't the Soviets, so that was "OK." We knew that there were Russian pilots flying in the Asian wars, but we looked the other way. As long as we weren't shooting at Soviets, as long as Soviets were shooting at Afghan rebels armed by us, and as long as their proxies-- several Arab nations-- were shooting at our proxy-- Israel-- then everything was "fine." The struggle could be carried out diplomatically and militarily at the same time. It was the way the game was played.

In Europe, the political situation was polarized on either side of the Iron Curtain. Naturally, the Soviets exported their authoritarian system to the Eastern Bloc countries, and we fostered democracy in the West. In the proxy nations to be used for fighting, though, neither side was incredibly picky. Most proxy nations were authoritarian, and therefore more like the Soviets, but few put up statues of Lenin. The flip side, of course, is that we didn't insist on statues of Thomas Jefferson. As long as a nation was vaguely stable, and somewhat interested in fighting designated enemies, then we could do business.

I recall the early radio reports of Iraq invading Kuwait back in 1990. It seems there was some confusion among Americans, who believed that Iraq was our friend, and Iran was our enemy (and the seemingly similar names didn't help, for most people). I heard from the radio, though, that Iraq was never really our friend-- just the enemy of the enemy. Simplistic, but descriptive.

Yes, the Cold War strategy was an unsavory means to an end. The question for the anti-war people is this: don't you want the US to rise above that era of Machiavellian manuvering? Allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by guilt would ensure that nothing useful is ever accomplished. Now that I think about it, though, complete paralysis isn't quite what the "anti-war" forces want. Many of those same people did want us to intervene in Liberia-- reasoning that since that country was set up by the US back in the 19th century, it's somehow our responsibility to fix the current situation.

So let's get this straight-- past involvement with Saddam's Iraq is supposed to rob us of any moral authority to set things right now, but much older involvement with Liberia necessitates US action. Nation-building in Iraq-- which is somewhat industrial, and possesses the world's most exportable natural resource-- is wrong... but theoretical nation-building in Liberia-- which has civil war-- was supposedly imperative. I'm sorry, folks-- while it is possible to export domestic unrest, the receiving country generally doesn't pay you for the favor. Iraq actually has something to build upon, and I cannot sufficiently stress the importance of that attribute when choosing which nations to build.

We Remember

They say that you remember what you were doing when you heard the news of the most tragic of events. The classic example of this was the assassination of John Kennedy.

In November 1963, my father was a freshman at Morrisville (New York) State College, in the Animal Husbandry program. It seems that the curriculum included having to milk cows for a week or two at the college's farm. So, my father was milking cows when he received the news. That's all I know, really.

My mother was credit manager in the rather tiny credit office of the Grant's department store in Cortland at the time. She saw the television coverage on account of the fact that Grant's sold televisions. I cannot recall for certain if I had previously known, but I just asked her about it for this article.

Though I am only 26 years old, I have two such moments.

In 1986, I was young-- and so was the utilization of Earth orbit. Shuttle launches were a big deal for elementary school students, and we frequently watched them live. As it happens, I was not watching that particular launch. My third-grade class was at lunch when the Challenger exploded-- but we were not told. When we filed back into the classroom, though, the radio was on, and that was when I learned of the disaster.

On Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, I had been in microbiology lab at RIT* since 8 o'clock. When Dr. Lodge told us that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I pictured a Cessna-- much like the plane on the White House lawn. Further news revealed that nothing could be farther from the truth. After class, I went to RIT's heavily TV-laden Crossroads Cafe, and stayed there for a good long while. As the President was moved around the country. I saw the footage of the towers collapsing. And like most Americans, I was glued to the news coverage for quite some time afterward.

And that's what I was doing, two years ago, today.

* Rochester (New York) Institute of Technology

Update: John links with 'Where was I?'

I hate WMDs

You won't hear me say that I'm sick of things very often, but I am sick of the "Where are the WMDs?" refrain. A list of past quotes from mostly Democrats on the subject of WMDs over at Right Wing News (hat tip: The Safety Valve) makes for very interesting reading, considering the current crop of complaints. Here are a few of my favorites:

"Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." -- Al Gore, 2002

You tell 'em, Al. Saddam would never give up his quest for more and greater weapons. Also, he mentions an international coalition, so I might as well take this opportunity to point out that we did have a coalition of over 40 nations. The War in Iraq was hardly unilateral just because France was trying to protect illegal sweet deals.

"Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Administration's policy towards Iraq, I don't think there can be any question about Saddam's conduct. He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do. He lies and cheats; he snubs the mandate and authority of international weapons inspectors; and he games the system to keep buying time against enforcement of the just and legitimate demands of the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States and our allies. Those are simply the facts." -- Henry Waxman, Oct 10, 2002

Just in case anyone still thinks the UN is relevant, I picked this one to point out that you-know-who had been largely ignoring UN resolutions ever since Desert Storm. I hear talk that the recent war was 'sudden,' and I am forced to wonder how 12 years of international pressure can possibly be considered sudden.

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security." -- Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002

Note that she said, "terrorists, including Al Qaeda members," which implies that there are terrorists who are not members of Al Qaeda (amazing as that may seem). What she means by that, though even Republicans are skittish about saying so, is Palestinian terrorists. Saddam had that program of sending big fat checks to the families of homicide bombers suicide murderers, as you'll recall.

"The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the laser enrichment of uranium support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals. ... we cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such placements of documents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield documents by placing them in private homes." -- Dr. Hans Blix, Chief UN Weapons Inspector January 27, 2003 Addressing the UN Security Council

This one is particularly disconcerting in light of the recent centrifuge-in-back-yard discovery. Note that Hans Blix is speaking before the war. We can be fairly safe in assuming that UN inspectors didn't plant those 3,000 nuclear documents, thus current leftist claims that the recently discovered materials were planted by the US are irrelevant.

"I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons...I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out." -- Clinton's Secretary of Defense William Cohen in April of 2003

There's conclusive evidence, and then there's damning evidence. This, folks, is the latter.

Just one more quote-- but this time, it's one by the mighty Toren, from the article that inspired me, over at The Safety Valve.

One hilarious argument I have read was that the quotes from the nineties don't matter since he could have destroyed his WMDs between that time and when the later quotes were made. And just why would he not have done this in front of the UN Weapons Inspectors and thereby had sanctions lifted, injecting $180 billion dollars into his economy?! Are you saying he destroyed them in secret and refused to mention it just to be a cement head? How ludicrous.

If that isn't proof-- and I mean undeniable, honest-to-some-divine-force proof-- that Saddam harbored prohibited weapons of mass destruction... then I might as well stop typing.

That issue aside, though, you might still be concerned that the War was waged at least partially because of Iraq's oil-- or possibly to distract from the flagging US economy. To this notion I say: OK, it was partially about Iraq's oil. Allow me to elaborate... I'm sure you've heard of that "Saudi Arabia" place, since every time a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda is mentioned, a leftist points out that Saudi Arabia was the home country of most of the 9-11 terrorist murderers. The US has maintained sort of good relations with said repressive hell-hole of a country, because the US required oil... and bases from which to periodically attack Iraq during the Clinton era (you don't hear anti-war people mention that, do you?). Without a reasonably constant supply of energy (read: foreign oil), the US economy would stop, and everyone knows it. So the Saudis have enjoyed a good business relationship with us. See diagram below, by Cox & Forkum.

Wasn't this about Iraq? Oh, it is-- I'm getting to that part... Now, however, the US has liberated Iraq. Nothing could be better, economically, for the Iraqi people than to exchange enormous amounts of oil for enormous mountains of US cash. Saudi Arabia will lose much of its former clout. To those who say the War was about cheap oil, I have two points. One (1): Have you heard a leftist complain about how much the war cost? And that's cheap? Two (2): If you insist, though, I would interpret "cheap oil" as meaning that Saudi Arabia no longer has the power to trip the entire US economy just by stick out its leg. And that is a Very Good Thing.

But isn't this Imperialist? Colonialist? Not really. If Iraq didn't have such a valuable resource, then those accusations wouldn't have been made. Since it does, though, the screams of imperialism are unavoidable... Look, Iraq really needed a regime change, and it's going to take time for them to adjust to freedom and representative goverment. It's not as if we won't pay them for the oil in the meantime. Furthermore, leftists are quick to blame America for past mistakes, so why not look at past successes? We did a pretty nice job fixing up Japan and Germany after that other War, and neither country was annexed. Sheesh. If you're that paranoid about the US government, why not support the Second Amendment? If you suggest that it might somehow be wrong to export our system of government to Iraq... you know, the one where everyone is equal, people get to choose their own leaders, are entitled to life, liberty, and the slightest chance of being happy (unlike pre-war Iraq)... if that's wrong, then you are beyond my help.