Iraq and Frenching Santorum...

By Mark Alexander · Friday, April 25, 2003

The stabilization phase of the war in Iraq has begun faster and sooner than projected. Jay Garner, in charge as U.S. administrator for postwar reconstruction, concluded Thursday, "I think you'll begin to see the governmental process start next week, by the end of next week. It will have Iraqi faces on it. It will be governed by the Iraqis." Of the great difficulty encouraging democracy and self-government where the people have been subject to tyranny for generations, Gen. Garner noted: "It is difficult for people to come out of darkness into the light. But their eyes will adjust in time."

Gen. Tommy Franks has just demonstrated that "speed kills" in war, and Gen. Garner seems ready to show that speed rebuilds as well -- and none too soon for the sake of the long-suffering Iraqi people. The Iraqi regime's indebtedness is deep and wide, estimated to run as high as $200 billion, with interest and penalties atop a principal balance of $26 billion.

Signs of freedom and fractiousness are breaking out all over Iraq. The lights are coming back on in significant portions of Baghdad. Oil is flowing again from pipelines in southern Iraq. And Shi'ite Muslims embarked on a pilgrimage one million strong to their shrines at Karbala and Najaf -- an exercise of religious liberty and freedom of movement not permitted under Saddam Hussein's repressive regime.

Meanwhile, the hunt for Saddam's henchmen continued, netting a few more of the tyrants sycophants this week, like his deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz. Authorities are optimistic that information obtained from Aziz may lead to the arrest of other regime fugitives.

And additional evidence of Saddam's WMD programs and his regime's brutalities, continued to accumulate. Torture chambers and reams of documentation of prisoners' torture and murder have been uncovered, and the weapons of mass destruction hunt is offering up some tantalizing trails that suggest Saddam's deceptions during the UN inspections included burying elements of prohibited WMD development programs so as to facilitate quick reconstitution of the banned weapons as soon as possible.

Regarding the utter failure of UN "oversight" in Iraq since 1991, including the corrupt "food for oil" program, President George Bush has made it clear that coalition forces will conduct weapons inspections without UN assistance or oversight, setting the stage for the first postwar controversy with the UN, France, Germany and Russia. In a related issue, France, Germany and Russia are refusing to lift the UNSC-imposed sanctions on Iraqi oil now that the country is under Anglo-American control. Prior to the war -- when Saddam Hussein used Iraqi oil to construct WMD and fund terrorism -- Russia and France repeatedly demanded an end to the sanctions, which allowed Saddam's regime to sell oil, ostensibly for food and medicine through a UN-administered program. That program itself paid enormous "administrative fees" to Secretary General Kofi Annan's UN cronies, and now some $2 billion is missing. (Perhaps that is why Gen. Franks called this the "oil for palaces" program!)

One of the Bush administration's top priorities is a reevaluation of U.S. allies who stood in opposition to the war, especially France. Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice met this week to discuss the consequences of France's obstruction. When asked whether the U.S. would take action against France, Sec. Powell answered, "Yes." Retribution may include circumventing France at NATO, excluding France from trans-Atlantic forums and developing future U.S.-European policy without French input. France was bypassed in NATO in February in order for Turkey to receive protection against possible attack from neighboring Iraq, and the Defense Department has indicated most of its usual attendees at the Paris Air Show will be "too busy" this year.

In other news...

On the subject of UN inadequacies, PatriotPetitions.US, the nation's leading public-opinion advocate for U.S. national security and sovereignty, has released its newest campaign entreating President George Bush, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist "...to terminate all participation by the United States in the United Nations, terminate any and all U.S. taxpayer-funded support for the UN, and prohibit American Armed Forces from serving under the command of the United Nations anywhere in the world." The U.S. should remove itself from this "mother of all" -- "entangling alliances."

Please join fellow Patriots on the frontlines in defense of our liberty and national sovereignty. Link to -- http://patriotpost.us/petition/terminate-un/

And for the record, despite all the Clinton-Kennedy anti-American rhetoric and condemnation of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we would like to point out that it took far less time for the U.S. to find the WMD evidence trail in Iraq than it took Hillary Clinton to find her Rose Law Firm billing records. And it took Teddy Kennedy longer to notify police after driving drunk off Chappaquiddick bridge and killing Mary Jo Kopechne than it took the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard. Heck, we took Iraq in less time than it took to re-count presidential votes in Florida back in 2000.

Quote of the week...

"Iraq needs only four people to achieve post-Saddam success. Unfortunately, they are George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall." --George Will

On cross-examination...

"If the U.S. were permanently to detach from the United Nations, the effect would be something like the Pope defecting from Rome. If he did, he would take the Vatican with him." --William F. Buckley, Jr.

News from the Swamp...

In the Executive Branch, President Bush continued his efforts to get the central government off the back of the economy. He is fighting for his tax-cut package. The administration's proposal of a modest 10-year, $726-billion "jobs for growth" package was sliced to a maximum $550-billion by the House and again to $350-billion by the Senate. In response, the President is anticipated to propose another separate series of tax cuts later this year, namely portions taken out of the original bill that have a chance of passing Congress on their own. Among these are the "marriage penalty" tax and an expansion of child credits.

The White House hopes to retain at least the $550-billion in cuts accepted by the House in the original tax bill. To that end, the President queried Thursday, "Some in Congress say the plan is too big. It seems like to me they might have some explaining to do. If they agree that tax relief creates jobs, then why are they for a little bitty tax-relief package?"

And a major gauntlet in the Démocrates' arsenal against tax cuts -- the deficit figures for the first half of FY 2003 -- came in at $252.6-billion, almost double the red ink spending of the same months last year. Of course, any supply-sider knows that is all the more reason to cut spending and taxes -- if only the White House and Congress could get the first half of that equation....

In the Senate, with former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's leadership head trophied on their walls, Leftist agitators have their crosshairs trained on obtaining Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's resignation from the third highest Senate position as Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. Straightforward remarks from Sen. Santorum have been ballyhooed this week as "bigoted," "hateful" and "intolerant." His offense? He dared speak forthrightly about the consequences, should the Supreme Court strike down the anti-sodomy law of Texas, offending one of the Left's most ardent constituencies -- homosexuals.

Mr. Santorum observed: "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to [homosexual] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family."

Of course, this is not about "big brother" in the bedroom, as the Left is portraying it, but about federalism, and the several states Constitutional authority to set such standards where the Constitution is silent. And, as with the "right to privacy" as construed in Roe v Wade, the Constitution is, indeed, silent. Should the Supremes conclude that all sexual conduct falls under this extra-constitutional rubric for "privacy," then pedophilia, incest, polygamy, bestiality -- indeed, all manner of sexual and other deviancy -- cannot be restrained under state laws either, by the same "reasoning."

Construing that sexual deviancy is protected under our Constitution's legitimate assurance of the right to privacy is tantamount to suggesting pornography is protected under the Constitution's legitimate assurance of the right to free speech -- and that is precisely the argument pornographers use.

Typical of the Left's response is that of Démocrate presidential candidate Howard Dean: "Gay-bashing is not a legitimate public-policy discussion; it is immoral. Rick Santorum's failure to recognize that attacking people because of who they are is morally wrong makes him unfit for a leadership position in the United States Senate." Of course, left-leaning Republicans were singing the same chorus, including Senate RINO's Sue Collins and Lincoln Chafee. Notably, RNC Chairman Marc Racicot, who met secretly with leaders of a Republican homosexual lobby last week, has yet to utter a syllable in public in support of Sen. Santorum. (And not a word either from Leftist anti-war politicos and celebrities in defense of Santorum's right to express his opinion...)

Démocrates are desperate after our success on the Iraqi front of the war against Jihadistan, which has bolstered President Bush's job approval rating. The Left's principal political strategy is "divide and conquer," and thus they are attempting to split the differing social-issue constituencies Mr. Bush has assembled in uneasy coalition. Those who believe -- as we and other Christians like Sen. Santorum do -- that homosexuality is sin (though we are still commanded to love the sinner) are subject to condemnation.

And a footnote on the Senate: It convened for the first time on this day, April 25, 1789, and every session has opened with prayer.