Powell continues to testify

Rumsfeld testifies, asks if he can get an Amen

North Korea announces its Long Dong Silver missile can strike Clarence Thomas' old video rental store

Entire French nation explodes in spasm of self-righteousness; cloud of choking smoke from incinerated female underarm hair rolls into Germany

Over and over again. We really are expecting to get gored in the loins, aren't we?

Who's "we," white man? It never occurs to this guy that a constant barrage of completely useless NEWS UPDATES!!!! is just a handy way to draw in the rubes. I'd like to see Fox News's Nielsen share for last week.

But unlike the week after 9/11, I am not feeling that uneasy congealment in the bowels, that sense that the millipede approaches with oh so many shoes to drop. In those days if felt like that scene from the Indiana Jones movie where Indy stepped out into a ravine onto a bridge hidden from sight by an optical illusion. I can see the bridge under my feet, jump up and down on it. The words TERROR ALERT: HIGH on the TV crawl annoy me, because I'm not terrorized. I'm wary and pissed off, but I'm not terrorized. Iam however worried about people I know and don't know in New York and Washington. I'm worried about some guy on a business trip he had to make sitting in a lousy little room in the Roosevelt hotel wondering why the travel agent put him so close to Grand Central Station, wishing he was home with his wife and kids, wondering whether he should go see Times Square or just get some postcards at the airport tomorrow, waving his hand around the window, feeling the slight cold breeze, and realizing that that the outside air comes through the cracks. Well. Worst comes to worst, he can stuff wet towels against the window. Turns out that training as a dorm-room reefer fiend had some practical application after all.

See what I mean about this guy? Tom Ridge issues another in a long stream of ass-covering alerts, providing not a hint of information about when, where, from what direction or even IF a terrorist attack is going to occur--in other words, telling us that the situation is COMPLETELY UNCHANGED--and right on cue this guy squirts a Heshey's Kiss into his drawers.

By the way, I'd recommend adding Solarcaine to Tom Ridge's terrorist preparedness shopping list. Y'know, just in case.

This is not unique; this is not the first time. During the first Gulf War we were worried about chemical attacks in DC. I remember ironing a shirt one night, listening to a discussion on the radio about the possibility of sleeper cells rising up like Nosferatu and setting off VX bombs downtown. I had an escape route planned out of town, and since I'd be driving my scooter I wouldn't have to worry about traffic. (Imagine if the Segway had caught on by now, and there was an attack in a major urban area - the sidewalks would be clogged with hordes of people on Segways, leaning forward, hastening their steeds to give all they had. It would be the dorkiest evacuation known to mankind.)

I could make a comment about the general intellectual deficiency of people in this country who can't distinguish between one class of enemy, ie., non-state actors such as Islamic fundamentalists who are just the kind that form "sleeper cells," and the agents of secular, seated governments who, by and large, do not operate this way, but I won't. And not that anyone seems to have noticed, but we WERE attacked by sleeper cells as recently as--when was it? 2001?--and NONE of them were Iraqi.

Now that I think of it, when was the last time Iraq instigated an act of aggression against us? We seem awfully mad at them over something...

If this war goes like the last one, it'll play out like this:

Day one: attacks start around 6 PM Eastern time. The first phase is successful, and one-sided.

Day two: relief, confidence

Day three: SCUDS in Israel; horrible horrible film of people jerking on protective gear, TV correspondents with gas masks. I will never forget that sight: welcome to the modern world, it said. Or rather: welcome back. We now return you to the hideous folly of human nature, already in progress.

Isn't it great to launch a war where the only way your enemy can fight back is through an act of spite against their next door neighbor, who happens not to even be in YOUR fucking hemisphere?

And remember: Saddam DIDN'T gas Israel, and for good reason. Israel has the Bomb.

What I truly don't understand are the people who wish to kill everyone in Baghdad. And they're out there. They want to drop a nuke on Baghdad. You heard me right: just take it out. Every man, woman and child turned to ash and gathered into a black pole, rising like a column that holds up the roof of Hell.

Really? We heard you right, Jim? You mean there's actually a lunatic fringe in our own country?? My God, are you getting secret NSA briefings or something? Does Drudge know about this? Christ, I hope they don't try something crazy like bombing a Federal building!

Naturally, I heard someone espouse this view on talk radio.

But only once, I'm sure.

That wasn't exactly what he said - he wasn't in favor of war at all, and believed that containment was the answer. He seemed to accept that Saddam would get the bomb he dearly sought, but he wouldn't be crazy enough to use it. (As if the leverage the bomb grants comes explicitly from using it, as opposed to having it.) But if he did use it, hey, he'd get nuked.
Along with several million weeping vassals, but the caller didn't point this out.

Having nukes is sure working in North Korea's favor, innit? I bet we'll be tucking tail and fleeing to the safety of our borders any second now. I hate it when these tinpot dictators put us over a barrel like this, but what can we do? THEY'VE GOT THE LEVERAGE!

The scenario is flawed - it assumes that a missile stamped MADE IN IRAQ or perhaps QIL-ROAY WAS HERE makes its way over the US, and we let it land, and then we retaliate. That's hardly how it would happen. Saddam's possession of nuclear weapons would have two consequences - he invades Kuwait or Saudia Arabia for all that light sweet crude, announces that he has Bombus Maximus, and dares us do anything. Or he gives one to someone who'll float it into Baltimore harbor and strike a blow for the Arab world. Or both.

Mmmm! Someone just rented The Sum of All Fears!

This is, in a nutshell, the entire argument for war as seen by the Right. It presupposes that, gaining a nuke, Saddam would immediately try to realize his expansionist goals with it. Or, failing that, just blow up one of our cities in a terrorist act because he thinks we don't know where he lives. Let's let Jim do more damage to his argument by trying to justify it.

Scenario #1: the chances of assembling a coalition to push him back again would be nil.

BZZZZ! Jim has apparently not taken a gander at the Risk gameboard lately. Those little plastic Roman numerals surrounding Iraq are ours, and we're rolling three dice to Saddam's one. Where does Lileks think our bases are going? Why would we need to reassemble any coalition? Any move on Kuwait or the Saudis would be a defacto move on us, and Saddam is pure, polyunsaturated evil, not stupid. Saddam may enjoy his bluster, but this guy's balls have already been snipped. Our jets control his airspace, and who's gonna make them leave? Saddam can't even keep the UN out of his country anymore. All he can do is threaten to use his weapons of last resort inside his own borders, as we invade them.

Inspectors or no inspectors, there was no chance, is no chance of us pulling up stakes and letting this guy develop his war machine again. Pretending that there would ever come a day when Saddam would face a Kuwait or Saudi Arabia not fully stocked with American soldiers is disingenuous to say the least.

You've heard of the Amazonian butterfly whose wings set in motion a disturbance of the air that eventually leads to a hurricane off North Carolina? The fluttering of hands among EU diplomats presented with the possibilty of a war against a nuke-armed Saddam would cause typhoons to swamp every island in the Caribbean. Leave him be! Let him alone! He'll be satisfied now! We can nuke him if sets one off, but he won't! He's in the box - granted, the box has now expanded to include a significant portion of the world's known oil reserves, but it's still a box, albeit an oddly-shaped, nuclear-armed one.

A nuclear-armed nation trying to take control of the world's petroleum reserves? Huh. I wonder how that would play out in real life?

Scenario #2: there's no evidence of Iraqi complicity in the destruction of Baltimore. Hence there is no response. Six months later, however, evidence surfaces. Not ironclad, but persuasive.

Anyone think the US would nuke Baghdad under these circumstances? Were we the big bully bent on EMPIRE, we would have nuked them in '91 and spent the last 12 years enjoying dime-a-gallon gas. But that's not who we are.

This is where Jim takes a giant, naked swan dive off the diving board of Reason and plunges headfirst into Lake Bullshit. That's not who we are? Let's take a look at the conflict to date:
1.) Terrorists attack the nation on 9/11, killing thousands. we know it was not Iraq that did it.
2.) We are about to FUCKING INVADE IRAQ.
3.) Al-Qaeda continues to score hits on our interests, yet our government no longer seems interested in capturing their once very photogenic leader, now inexplicably camera shy. I'll let you connect the dots here.

The idea that we would wait six months for evidence against a nation is the incredible notion. Does anyone honestly believe that we would not just pick the likeliest culprit and throw caution, and about 30 ICBMs, to the wind? Our response to 9/11 was to topple one government and immediately take aim at another one we were already creaming for an excuse to eliminate. Look at the propaganda machine at work against Saddam. We are told daily that he is capable of any horror imaginable. If we were nuked, the President could get on TV, hold up a snot encrusted Kleenex and call that conclusive evidence that Saddam did it. The public would only demand enough time to program their VCRs to record the fireworks.

I don't believe we'd nuke Iraq after the fact if we had persuasive evidence. That's not how deterrence works.

No, that's how revenge works.

Deterrence relies on an instantaneous, no-questions-asked response. We see your stuff arcing over the poles, we give the signal to the planes and the boomers and the crews sweating deep in the silos: swap-meet time, boys, see you in the next world. The idea of nuking someone half a year after the fact runs contrary to our nature.

So did the Tuskegee experiments. So did the Trail of Tears. So did Dresden. So did Mi Lai. So does selling anthrax and botulinum toxin to known tyrants.

Mutually Assured Destruction is a horrible machine - but it only works if the other side realizes they're the ones who'll turn the key and give it some gas.

Let us reflect on Saddam's use of WOMD to date: He's used them on Iran (with our blessing), and on his own people (with our indifference.) He has not tried them on us because he's aware of the consequences. I'd say Hussein knows the dance pretty well.

And as for the whole "what if he gives them to terrorists to blackmail us?" bogey? Well, he's had 12 years to chase us out of the region that way and he ain't done it, because son, he knows that it IS in our nature to use nukes on his ass. That's how MAD works. It works when the other side knows you mean it.

And that's what made MAD acceptable to some, and lent a cold justification to murder on an unimaginable scale: the other side knows that the barrel pointed at the enemy is also pointed at their own temple. Shoot them, you shoot yourself.

Yes, MAD worked in the Cold War.

At last, some common ground.

Bulletin: this is a hot war.

Coulda sworn there were still inspectors at work, but he is right of course. Only Saddam stepping down from power can even delay this police action.

However, back to MAD, it is relevant to point out that, with Saddam having realized that his chem/bio weapons (though potentially as lethal as several nukes) are not kryptonite enough to intimidate Super Nation, it stands to reason that they could serve only one other function: keeping invaders out. Saddam has not called our bluff. Why then are we calling his?

You can almost imagine how it would play out - would the US take its evidence to the Security Council to ask for permission to nuke Iraq? It's not ridiculous to think we would, since that seems to be the squinty aperture through which we have to shove all our big hot bricks.

Yeah, pain in the ass that. Of course, when your enemy isn't actually threatening war against anyone and your case against him is based on a U.N. resolution to begin with, it sorta makes sense to...you know what? This shit goes right over a conservative's head.

But the idea of Colin Powell demanding that the UN sanction a nuclear reply is preposterous - never mind the automatic veto such a thing would get. It's impossible to imagine Powell calmly requesting that the world bless cold-blooded mass murder. He wouldn't do it. Bush wouldn't do it. The Congress, the American people wouldn't stand for it. The voices that insisted It's Clobbering Time would be outnumbered 100 to 1 by those demanding impeachment. MAD, in its awful way, was moral because it made the price of immorality too great to consider. But the Containment argument - hey, if he does nuke us, we can nuke him back - isn't MAD, it's just crazy. It presumes we could step back, pause, sift through the intel, then kill a few million people to make a point.

Again, a flight of moralistic fantasy that exists outside the time/space continuum. Iraq, or whoever we decided to peg the blame on, would have long since been turned into a moonscape.

We'd never do it.

Horseshit.

We'd hold televised benefits for Baltimore. We'd all remember the victims of 5/23. We'd buy the DVD compilations of news footage, archive the papers that landed on our stoops the day after.

Convinced yourself yet?

We'd find life returning to normal, eventually - but we'd never feel at ease again.

Sure. Like after 9/11. But we'd still bomb the shit out of someone. That's what makes an angry people feel better: Hitting someone. Hitting someone and then forgetting about it. Seen much news coverage from Afghanistan lately?

The worst thing ever had happened, and to our surprise the world hadn't ended. But the world had changed. Our better nature had prevailed - and we were certain to suffer again because of it, right up until the day we lashed out and became everything we never wanted to be.

Attention planet Earth: America is taking off its belt! The cradle of democracy only hits because it loves!

The good news: that's not going to happen.

The good news: Twelve years of softening up a third world nation for a spot of annexing is about to pay off.

The bad news: we're going to war, to make sure it doesn't.

The bad news: Saddam's gonna kill a lot of us anyway.