Freedom. More freedom now than before, and yes it comes with peril; it always does, at first. But freedom is either in retreat, or on the advance. These people marched to protest the premature bestowal of freedom by exterior forces. Better the Iraqi people live under the boot for 20 years, and rise up and get slaughtered and rise up again and slaughter those who killed their kin, then have Bush push the FF button and get it over with now. Better they suffer for the right reasons than live better for the wrong ones.

This has nothing to do with Iraq. This is all about the hard left’s worse nightmare. For years they have insisted that every occupant of the White House is a sawdust puppet whose limbs jerk to the strings of International Finance (cough Jews cough) and this satisfies the faithful; the President doesn’t have to be explicitly evil to be inherently evil. He’s the President. Say no more, nudge nudge. But Bushitler is explicitly evil. He attacked Afghanistan for that oil pipeline deal. He attacked Iraq for no reason whatsoever. It’s almost a godsend; finally, a homicidal maniac president who lives up to his advance. And the beauty of it, really, is that you can pinpoint the date when the mask came off. September 12, 2001. For some reason – Gaia knows what – he just decided to crank up the war machine and start killing brown people. Well, at least it’s all in the open now. Put on the old Crosby Stills and Nash albums. Tin soldiers and Nixon coming. It never changes. Us vs. them. Start printing the fliers. Contact the GLBT office in Kabul for a statement of solidarity with the protestors in Paris and London -

Oh come on, they have to have an office. Okay, go down to the Village, get a quote about how ten thousand people will die in Afghanistan, and how she remembers Kabul as a lovely city with a market where her mother went on weekends to buy flowers, whatever. Look, I don’t know why I have to say this - if Bush is defeated in Afghanistan he will be defeated in America, and that means Jesse Helms will not hold up NEA funding from a theater group because it wants to put on a play that says Reagan was Jesus’ HIV positive lover, HELLO, I mean it's symbolic? Focus on the larger issues, people.

(2004-03-21) -- Religious philosopher Usama bin Laden today announced that although he had been among the unnamed foreign leaders who support John Forbes Kerry’s election as U.S. president, he has withdrawn his support.

"At first, I was an anyone-but-Bush man," said Mr. bin Laden on an audiotape aired by al Jazeera TV. "But the more I hear about Kerry’s strategy of nuanced engagement, the more I like Bush. At least I know where I stand with the Great Satan from Texas."

Mr. bin Laden said he was concerned that his emissaries would be "tied up for years in fruitless talks with the Kerry administration."

"Next thing you know, al Qaeda will be chairing the U.N. Human Rights Commission," he said. "We don’t have time for that kind of nonsense."

The Kerry campaign released the following brief statement: "There are no longer any foreign leaders who support Senator Kerry’s candidacy."

(2004-03-22) -- A new book by Richard Clarke, the former counter-terrorism coordinator for the Bush administration, charges that the president was so obsessed with Saddam Hussein that he delayed invading Iraq for 19 months after the 9/11 terror attacks "just so he could let his hatred of Saddam simmer in his mind."

Mr. Clarke told CBS reporter Leslie Stahl that, from the beginning, the Bush administration didn’t take the al Qaeda threat seriously and was focused on attacking Iraq.

"The 9/11 attacks by al Qaeda were such an utter surprise to [National Security Advisor] Rice and [Defense Secretary] Rumsfeld, that it took them almost a month to retaliate against the Taliban," said Mr. Clarke. "By contrast, Rumsfeld started planning to hit Saddam from the moment he took office in January 2001. Sure enough, only 26 months after that he unleashed a lightning strike on Iraq. He would have launched the attack sooner if Bush hadn’t been so obsessed with Saddam that he couldn’t see straight."

The former official said even the war against the Taliban was part of the president’s obsession with Saddam Hussein.

"Bush foolishly believed that there was a link between al Qaeda and Iraq," Mr. Clarke said. "So, in order to bring down Saddam Hussein, he first attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan in October 2001, because they harbored al Qaeda. Bush thought that if the Taliban fell, Saddam would soon follow. It’s clear that the Rumsfeld and Rice have thought about nothing but Iraq for more than three years now."

The good news is that, in 1972, there were only forty-three free countries in the world. Today there are eighty-nine. We are about to add Iraq to the list no matter how messy that effort may seem. Americans are dying there for the same reason they died in far greater numbers to free Europe and Asia in the last century. That's what free people do. They fight and they die to free others because it is the right thing to do and because a free world is a safe world.