Kerr Iraq Survey (Volokh)

Orin Kerr of Volokh Conspiracy fame asks bloggers that support the GWOT three questions about deposing Hussein and the Baathists in Iraq.

My top line: Civilization fights with the humanity it can afford. To date, the United States has made a significant sacrifice in both lives and treasure to excise a part of the terrorist cancer and its supporting nodes with a minimum of collateral damage. If we fail at this surgery (another major attack on the U.S. or its interests), we may find we have to rely on less artful, more terrible, tools. Sadly, many of our major wars have started "restrained" and ended "unrestricted and unconditional" (consider WW1's 1914 spontaneous Christmas truce vs the Christmas of 1916 after the barbarity of the battle of Somme, as both sides filed saw-teeth into their bayonets). We have no reason to expect or demand any different of WW4, though we should pray not. Where Iraq is but a chapter.

Orin asks "First, assuming that you were in favor of the invasion of Iraq at the time of the invasion, do you believe today that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea? Why/why not?"

• It was and remains a reasonable military objective for the same reasons the first campaign after Pearl Harbor was North Africa (and the Vichy French). A thorn (the WMD threat that was Saddam) had to be removed given the uncertainties, and the military needed good fighting ground to make its stand (vs Afghanistan or a less easily justified and harder target). Waiting for the battle to come to this country (fighting in garrison) makes no sense (ditto the placebo of non-productive and anti-competitive taxes and regulation levied on individuals, businesses and communities to "provide for their own (so-called homeland) defense" - vice an effective punitive offense that creates and maintains a civil society - i.e. a Jeffersonian (foreign) policy, as discussed by Gaddis).
• I would have (and continue to) support a more aggressive approach with larger risks, larger returns and a likely higher cost in lives (today, vs tomorrow): i.e. Deliver simultaneous ultimatums to non-deterable states (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea, Lebanon and the PLO in Israel would have been a fine start) demanding open skies, transparency in governance, cooperation in policing WMD and terrorists, and surrender on-demand of suspects. Those that cooperated in this and in policing their neighbors would get probation. Those that didn't would have their leadership repeatedly eliminated and infrastructure rubbled until behavior changed. Those that remained that acted responsibly and asked for help would get it. Granted, after a decade of politicizing the military (turning it into "just" another political constituency to be fed and kept quiet), with the decimation and ossification after the cold war, we may just not have had the end strength to do this (nor the stomach to use less-expensive means). And we must not threaten what we will not do. If I had to chose one rogue state after the Taliban, Hussein was it (I also think it is silly to write that we are ever at war with a country "owned" by a tyrannous group). And Hussein's Iraq was and is a fine place for the Army to learn to fight this new kind of war.
• I've no objection to levying taxes on those who won't do their fair-share. Since terrorism is similar to (and worse than) piracy and slavery, all benefit from its elimination, and each has an obligation to do their part, willingly or unwillingly. We are doing this indirectly today... As the owner of the reserve currency, we get to borrow expensive dollars that we repay in cheaper money tomorrow at the cost of our trading partners "supporting" the dollar to advantage their manufacturers (and us!) - which I suspect is a few fractions of a percent of the world's trade that's denominated in dollars. Not as good as Gulf-1 where we actually made money (at better than bank returns, save for lives lost and suggesting to these despots that the U.S. military is for sale), monies that Mr. Clinton promptly spent, but still not chump change.

"Second, what reaction do you have to the not-very-upbeat news coming of Iraq these days, such as the stories I link to above?"

• I have no expectation of good news beyond regime overthrow. Anything more is a gift. A loss of greater than Pearl Harbor lives has forced me to set my expectations to that of WW2, if not Civil War percentage-of-population losses (i.e. 100-1000x over attack casualties), civilian and military. And likely more, given the never-before threat of widely available, inexpensive and little-expertise-required WMDs, deployed by those with an apocalyptic vision who can not be deterred by counter-threat (worse than the kamikazes, who were stopped by the threat to (the capture of) their emperor). No such benefit accrues to capturing or killing Osama.
• However, I do regret when bad news is due to an attempt at socialism-inspired nation-building "welfare" - i.e. when our people are killed doing something the Iraqis could do, perhaps must do, for themselves (similar to issues with welfare in the U.S. as seen in the moral hazard of giving without acknowledged obligation to regain personal responsibility, and perhaps repay the helping hand). But this is our history (and a mark of our civilization). We die all over the world for our friends, and lately, just as often to lower the casualty rate of our enemies (and in urban warfare, sadly, there are no non-combatants, everyone chooses a side, even if just by their silence). n.b. if we fail to remove this cancer this time in Iraq, we'll just have to try again (armies are much better at breaking things than building). Not dissimilar to our history of paying for the same ground two and three times in WW2 and the Civil War. Such is life and war. And the role of soldiers and the democracies that field them.

"Third, what specific criteria do you recommend that we should use over the coming months and years to measure whether the Iraq invasion has been a success?"

• The displacement of Saddam and our resulting bases in Iraq where the 20-40K graduates of the Al Qaeda camps can practice martyring themselves is success. I suspect we've eliminated about 30% of the jihadists, and at 10s per day, we'll be at it for another 5-10 years at which time it will start to feel like Germany or Japan with WW2 as fading memory. Perhaps more like what it took to pacify the American West and the Indian tribes (as described by R.D. Kaplan). With luck a success in Iraq will diminish the need for campaigns in adjacent countries (more Libya-s). Granted, the Fascists did not fold when we invaded North Africa, but after that campaign it was clear they were going to lose, irrespective of their transient advantage in technology and talent. A western-style liberal democracy is a great stretch-goal, but not necessary for success as seen in Singapore or Taiwan (or WW2 and the mixed result in Germany, West and East). In each of these cases the enemies of civilization were humbled and civil society fostered.

My bottom line: The history of WW2 is still being written. WW3 is just now coming into focus well enough to write about dispassionately - though we've yet to go through a grieving, truth-and-reconciliation process for the 100-million-plus lives lost in Marx and Lenin's pursuit of perfecting mankind on earth (with plenty of sins of commission and omission to go around... Yes, this means "containment" was a tactical disaster and a strategic success, at a shameful and great cost). We won't know much, save for the tactical results, about this war until a similar time has passed. I agree with Mr. Bush, in that I'll wait for historians to eventually determine success and failure, and assign a grade. I hope for a "C+" (which is all I'd give our other great wars, Civil thru WW3), and pray this struggle doesn't cost mankind another 100 million lives.

UPDATE: Orin has updated his list of participating sites.

Posner on 9-11

Those that have seen my bookshelves know I collect Posner - both for my education and as a goad.. he writes (and writes and writes), and he writes well. And the judgments he hands down have been works of art. I was especially impressed by his work on the SmithKline v. Apotex case (No. 98C3952, docketed 03/03/2003, sorry, I can't find a web copy), and the Asahi decision.

In this NYT article (a book review of the 9-11 report), Judge Posner applies these same skills and makes an elegant case, based on the facts in the report, for very different recommendations than the Committee wrote. It's disturbing how different they are, in that if Posner is right (and I suspect he is), and we implement the Committee's recommendations, we will have increased our risks rather than reduced them. Alternatively, perhaps there are facts in evidence that were not published in the report, and these secrets are the real justification for the written recommendations. But I'm afraid politics, and the politics of constituencies have intruded.

I do wish that Posner had discussed pre-emption as a recommendation (see Gaddis), and all that this entails. My sense is that Moore's law (across all disciplines) has so narrowed distance and increased the destructive potential of apocalyptic cells (beyond any past threat of a nation-state) that we have no alternative but to have a Jeffersonian foreign policy. Which means insisting on the establishment of a minimum of transparency and civil society, world-wide. So (only half in jest), when an (American) tourist can travel safely, without worry, anywhere, this threat will be behind us. Is Bush to Clinton as Giuliani was to Dinkins? We shall see. I do wish we would hurry up.

Zell's Bells

Late evening on the west coast, after Mr. Miller's Thursday keynote, a coworker emailed asking if this would damage the 'pubs. I wrote back saying that I expected it would play poorly with the elites (including some of the gentler 'pubs) and the MSM. But the voters would eat it up, both Miller's talk at the convention and the later confrontation with Mathews, because Jacksonianism electrifies the heart and soul. Especially the undecideds who will think "Wow, who is that man and why is he so angry?" "Maybe I need to start paying attention and figure out what all this is about and what it means to me.."

Zell gave a telling retort later to Mathews.. "I wish we lived in the day when you could challenge a person to a duel, now that would be pretty good. (laughter from the panel) Wait a minute...wait a minute...don't pull that kind of stuff like you did that young lady, browbeating her. I'm not her. I'm not her."

Miller was refering to Mathews shameful treatment of Michelle Malkin where Mathews pulled a bait-and-switch, then without reading either book being discussed, decided he would not, and could not let her speak - where, after insulting her, he switched the topic to the Swift Boat Vets book, and she responded to some question that the vets had included sworn affidavits that one of Kerry's wounds was accidentally self-inflicted. Mathews went ballistic because he thought he heard "Mr. Kerry shot himself to get out of Vietnam." It was clear watching the show that he had already conditioned himself to hear this, likely because he had these exact same doubts about Mr. Kerry's behavior, and he knew that if he gave it national air time and his own doubts surfaced, he was (socially) dead.

I wager Zell reads the blogs (and the books) and Mathews does neither. His keynote and his altercation with Mathews is proving out to be a big win for the 'pubs, and a big loss for the (intentionally and not) corrupt and decaying MSM.

Beslan horror

There has been a lot of discussion about the Russian response to Beslan. Wretchard observes we in the U.S. assume everyone else has our ability to wage a war with few unintended casualties. But this is not generally the case, and is certainly not the case in Russia.

Civilization fights with the humanity it can afford. Thank goodness we are rich. But Russia is poor. And nuclear weapons are cheap. I now fear I will wake up some morning and find Russia is withdrawing its soldiers from major cities in Chechnya (as well its workers from Iran's and Syria's).

We've killed or captured perhaps a 3rd of the 20-40K terrorists trained in the Al Qaeda camps during the 90s (including a significant number that were already in or came to fight us in Iraq.) The Russians could choose to eliminate another 3rd (but at a cost of 300K-3M lives that are innocent save for their individual (and their governments') refusal to recognize and remove this cancer in their midst.)

Pray for the children, all of them.

Embellishing JFK2

I suspect Mr. Kerry started "embellishing" back in boarding school as an adolescent compensating for a lack of parental attention. Most children grow out of it. Those that don't leave lots of signals (like cursing someone who'd take a bullet for them.) And if they are very clever people, it can take a long time before they trip over their own fibs and are exposed for what they are.

Mr. Clinton was a very clever rogue (who could keep his fibs straight), but I don't think I ever saw him fib to puff himself up. Mr. Gore was somewhere in-between. Mr. Bush just doesn't, his life and his work are totally consuming as it is, without adding the burden of remembering just who he told what version of what story. It's simpler just to tell the truth as best he knows it, and I've seen him be very clear when he doesn't know (especially in situations where you'd think a powerful person would feel some awkwardness admitting they did not know something). Which means you know exactly where you stand with him. And this makes for a great work environment, camaraderie, and loyalty to the mission and the people.

Democratic anger

More than irritation and angst, I've been struck by the anger, if not rage, in both individual democratic loyalists and their partners in the press.

I suspect some fraction of the anger is amplified by a dawning realization that they're being outplayed by an opponent who not only is thinking more moves ahead, but knows their own game better than they do. i.e. they see themselves drawn by their own failings to take the offered bait at every move, even though they know each nibble is tempting fate, and now they find they have to play out a losing hand in full view of those to whom they've boasted.

No wonder they feel the need to cast Karl Rove and team as less-than-ethical puppet masters.

But maybe the Dems will get their miracle this election, and not have to wander in the wilderness like the Pubs did for 40 years (from Roosevelt) while they reinvented themselves in theory and in practice. But this means Dems have to believe in Miracles (12mb mpg), an act of faith in something other than the government.

Next Campaign of WW4

Some on the net are of the opinion the President has neither the authority, the resources, nor the support of the citizens to press the GWOT in other theaters. I disagree.

Resolution in response to 9-11: ..."That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."...

It's pretty clear the President has all the authority (minus eventually needed budgets) to prosecute the war in all these theaters. Aid and harbor and prevent future acts are very broad terms.

The language in the congressional resolution will be interpreted by the (historians of the) victors. So this is an open hunting license for any one or more of the 20K-40K cadre trained in the al qaeda camps in the 90s (which were some small fraction of those recruited from the tens of millions of students that passed through the madrassas), and any country they (or their current or past organization) happen to have been in or been helped by (that hasn't become fully cooperative and transparent in gathering intelligence, documenting money and people flows, and locating and handing over these individuals and leaders of these groups).

The reason for the Iraq resolution was less necessity than fair-play and diplomacy (many reasons for a vote outside of authorization), and politics (we see a grand political strategy emerging, given they understood within weeks that the new National Security Strategy had to include pre-emption, which they duly published, took the heat, and then said Iraq looks and smells like a threat by these rules, yet "if it was a fact, it would not be intelligence" so "it's time to vote, place your bets").. Granted, the president was able to use the Iraq resolution (and "does or does not national security trump any and all past sloppy practices and constituencies?" card) against his opponents in the 2002 election (nothing like your opponent begging you to use your hammer to beat him). And the current team are inveterate and masterful poker players (and I do hate to watch pros play poker).

With regard to current "commitments" (i.e. are we too tied down to do anything else?), - there are none other than to lend a helping hand, right? We didn't break anything that wasn't already broken. We offered the leadership that was a probable threat a deal they should not have refused. When they did refuse, we removed them and wished the liberated that remained a good life. Not unlike welfare reform. You can't give someone "security" (civil society) any more than you can give someone self-respect. You can give them a hand up (bullets and bombs and our own casualties... we bleed all over the world for our friends, and even to hold down the casualties of some of our enemies), but the rest they have to do themselves, including bear the costs in lives and treasure. And if they screw it up (to the point they are not at a minimum cooperative and transparent), they know we will remove that leadership as well. Unfortunately, given human nature, most anything more that we do (as a government, vs. private efforts, just like welfare) is likely an unappreciated gift (e.g. there's no reason to expect the Iraqi soccer team to be grateful even if we'd put the five million troops into the country that it would have taken to completely lock down (like a prison) the border and cities, Iraq being a BIG country. IMO those that called for more troops are in the same category as those that demanded some stalinist fully-scripted 5-year-great-leap-forward plan for pacification to be in place before going to war, both are actually arguing against going to war. Similar items filled the European press around the time of Munich.

From a military perspective we're now in a position to use force to move towards our end-objectives (societal change in ME, either by direct application of force (deposing leadership), or through Libyan-like acquiescence and cooperation - which has never been obtained by bluff, i.e. most UN-SC resolutions).

We've both equipment and people in the field. The equipment is not coming back (i.e. use it or lose it, sooner than later, wrt wear-and-tear in the desert, call it $1T we'll walk away from if we "give up"). Good to great supply lines are running smoothly. Soldiers are rested and battle-hardened, and getting impatient (Navy and Air Force have had a year's vacation). Pacification is not what they signed up to do and is no fun, long term - (even in Najaf where we learned how to do urban warfare w/ minimal casualties to us and non-combatants by knocking down buildings Israeli-style, vs, say, the horrific Russian armored losses in Chechnya).

Which means now's the time to prepare for the next (threat of) pre-emption. If there's demand for a vote, I'm sure the poker players will be happy to double up the ante (they'd love to have a filibuster proof senate).

Right, there will be no serious diplomatic or Libyan-class victories until after the election, and as Mr. Cheney observes, Mr. Kerry winning eliminates the opportunity for a -bloodless- battle, where if we withdraw to our borders not only will we be attacked here, but what remains of our civil liberties will disappear. i.e. maginot-line-like defenses are always destructive of liberty, if only as a tax on our productivity that no other nation pays for the same goods.

We seem to need to relearn every generation that punitive offense (eliminating those that would take away our freedom) is the only way to maintain civil society at the level where we don't need to fear our neighbor - and in a moore's law age of weapons and information, there's no one who is not our neighbor - i.e. borders are fictions (and if we manage to get everything that transits recorded, it's only because we made it in their interest to be recorded.. i.e. no black market in anything remains). Individuals and small groups, especially apocalyptic ones, can increasingly find the ever-decreasing amount of expertise and money required to wield the power of last-century's nation-states.

Mr. Kerry will discover that EU / France and Germany are really as toothless and "poor" as we (the U.S.) would be today if his party's Ted Kennedy's and he had succeeded in demobilizing and stripping our forces, and killed off U.S. productivity by regulating and taxing us into a European welfare state. And no amount of $$ or Kyoto treaty bribes will be enough to enable the EU to mount an effort that is larger than 10% of ours. (which should be no surprise given the moral hazard we created when we guaranteed Europe's security without appropriate human and $$ compensation, to say nothing of casting a blind eye towards their crony statist capitalism that corrupted any chance of check-and-balances in their countries' financial relationships with, and dependencies on, these dictators).

Note that it's not just a case of France and Germany being unwilling to provide forces and monies, they simply have little more to provide than what they already have in Afghanistan (thousands at best). And their economies are "broke" in all aspects (not competitive in terms of innovation or productivity, not solvent, and not providing their middle class w/ the comforts of our poor). So odds of them being able to "moore's law" equip a soldier (so they are 10x more destructive and protected than any opponent) are small and nil without our help, and even then they'll need years of training in our facilities.

Worse, to admit that the large headcount and budget consumed by their "armed forces" is "only" a jobs program would be an unbearable loss-of-face (and it would uncover a significant amount of post-berlin-wall decay, if not corruption, likely leading to their elites falling from power) - not unlike the U.S. political constituencies that hang on to unused military bases, processes and even agencies. Granted, our own tooth-to-tail ratio in the DoD is at a minimum shameful, if not corrupt in a manner that costs us lives, and stuck in the 70s, something Rumsfeld and team must (and are) fixing.

So the fifth campaign (of I'd guess 10) is coming. Afghanistan. Iraq. Libya. Pakistan (Kahn). (?) Some will appear multiple times.. Not unlike WW2 ebb and flow, occasionally paying for the same ground twice, adapting our strategy and plans as the enemies of civilization adapt to us.

Fyi, David Gelernter (a unabomber casualty) gets the moral issue exactly right (at the level a 6th grader can understand).

(I wrote far more than I intended.. I wager Wretchard can say all this in 3 paragraphs :-)

Stopping 9-11s

IMO, we need to: (1) Admit to ourselves that commerce and travel have largely eliminated the utility of a single country's borders, and limited government means commerce alone (globalization) will incite the frustrated (note that if just the U.S. border was enforced, it would be such a large and unequal tax on U.S. trade that our own quality-of-life would certainly fall behind all other countries that do not labor under the same burden.) (2) Which really means that everyone is now our next-door neighbor. So, why don't we worry about the house next-door firing a mortar in our direction? Not because of mortar control laws (or self-protecting SUVs that won't allow a mortar barrel to be set up and fired out the sun roof), but because (3) we have a civil society with a rational expectation of good behavior with punishment that removes and deters the miscreants. And, given the ever increasing availability of very destructive materials, and the ever decreasing expertise required to assemble and use them to create mass havoc (if not mass destruction), we have no alternative (as the oldest boy on the play-ground) but to (5) demand civil society everywhere (as Gaddis writes, a "Jeffersonian foreign policy").

All of which leads to us having a number of non-negotiable demands under the heading of "you're either with us or against us" including (6) "You're cooperative and transparent in the policing of your borders, including flows of people, things, money, communications, and especially WMD." (7) "we will all trust but verify" - meaning open skies, no more denied areas, no more denial-and-deception. "Or else." And (8) "our mutual interest in civilization's survival requires individual and community frustrations to be vented at a ballot box, and a civil-society where rights of the minorities are protected, not through force-of-arms, intimidation, or terrorism."

Where a mix of sticks and carrots will be used to motivate these changes. Remember that punitive offense that deposes leadership is much cheaper than any alternative (consider the difference in safety and costs of living in NYC between David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani). We (the U.S.) are fortunate because we're rich enough to do this with a minimum of additional harm to the non-combatants (ie. we attempt to help a country back up onto its feet, vs just emptying the chairs and saying "good luck, we'll be back in six months if we need to delouse again.").

Civilization has always fought with the humanity it could afford, and we may not be able to always be so gentle (i.e. we have bled all over the world for our friends, and we even bleed to minimize the casualties of our enemies). At the moment our leaders appear to think we're rich enough (or the long term return will outweigh the debt incurred) to take a given "country of concern" and nurse it towards its own path to democracy and self-rule (vs frequent delousing and its costs to non-combatants). Why a goal of democracy vs "just" delousing repeatedly? I don't know. Perhaps because we are idealists and we can. Or perhaps a Rumsfeld-type has done the calculation and determined it's actually less expensive in lives and treasure to do the hand-holding, and they think they know how to succeed without it corrupting into welfare (i.e. the difference between dependency/victimhood and the increasing acceptance of the importance of individual responsibility that drove the 90s restructuring of the U.S. welfare system). Granting all this, I somehow doubt history will claim this administration believed in "nation building," as all past attempts (equivalent to welfare, i.e. "we'll provide your security" vs. helping you provide for your own security) have failed.

A discussion for another day is the appropriate role of the federal government, and how governance should be as close to the governed as possible (for control, quality, cost, corruption, and survivability reasons). Certainly the only job the federal government MUST do itself is insure our safety from those outside this country that would do us harm. Just about everything else can be done closer to the citizen, and/or by the market. With this in mind, I'd expect the defense of the U.S. to be similar to property insurance. Where the yearly premium is, say, 1% of the NPV of the assets being insured. For the U.S. that's about a 1T$ yearly premium. Where we should expect ~89% spent on punitive offense (especially in a time of apocalyptic extremists, ie. there's no hope of negotiation, similar to several situations in WW2), 10% (100B$) to go into "intelligence" (the only actual defense that works, by defining the targets for punitive offense), and 1% (10B$) into "homeland defense" - which establishes palliatives (if not placebos) for citizens' anxieties (because humans have a very hard time differentiating risk from anxiety). i.e. given the Moore's-law-driven destructive power available to ever-fewer bad-actors (exceeding what nation states could do less than a century ago), it makes no sense to armor the tops of homes and buildings from some disaffected group firing mortars out the sun-roof an SUV. Nor can we search every SUV, nor remove mortars from the world, nor hold building owners or SUV builders responsible for threats that did not exist 20 years ago.

CBS and Honor

It's curious how the left will put their faith in documents and not the spoken word (especially sworn words, to say nothing of how far out of their way they will go to avoid being sworn :-).

The records fiasco highlights how CBS (and the MSM) choose to ignore and deride the SwiftVets as tabloid (because they have little proof other than their own memories and reputation as honorable men, both of which the MSM give the back of their hand), while promoting an argument based on faked documents and selective and deceptive reporting - what else can we make of 60 Minutes neglecting to reflect the comments of principals that did not support their argument? And the less-than-truthful interviews of General Hodges? Mr. Rather denigrates the honorable, and defends those who have been demonstrated less-than-ethical. Shame on CBS.

Strange beasts, these lefties. How can they bear to look at themselves in the mirror in the morning?

UPDATE: Some justifiably indignant readers are calling for a boycott of CBS (and their affiliates or advertisers). Protesters making a scene in front of selected affiliates can be effective (esp. those next to a FOX station). Imitate the style of the Protest Warriors and make the point that CBS and the MSM are far from objective and truthful in their reporting.

However, consider the effect of a number of nearby businesses posting help wanted messages online and in the vicinity of CBS headquarters:

• Embarrassed By CBS? Please call us. Given that your employer repeatedly demonstrates an utter lack of journalistic integrity and technical competence, any employees that have been embarrassed to tears, who can demonstrate an IQ of 100 or more, (w/ better judgment than your boss) and would like a job with a future, please call my HR team at 555-1212 (or email us at xyz@getaclue.com)

UPDATE: Those blaming Karl Rove may have a point. It appears the WH was happy to redistribute the CBS documents but "had no comment." Both the Dems and CBS expected SOME reaction (e.g. outright denial, frantic rallying of resources, vacillation, equivocation, etc.) which all could be spun to appear as guilty-by-appearance (besides doing the verification work they expected they would not have to do, given their traditional "prove your innocence, but we know you're guilty" stance). By standing pat, Rove upped the ante and beat them at their own game. The Dems are giving Elmer Fudd serious competition. Sadly, unlike Fudd and Wiley Coyote, this group just gets angrier. Remember the press stories of focus groups in Florida who became so upset they overturned tables when shown ads that blamed Mr. Bush for 9-11? I think stories like this tap into the same public indignation.

A Beginning

It is much easier to begin than to end.
- Plautus