If you can tell something about a person by the company they keep, so far Saddam Hussein has the support of Hamas, Osama bin Laden, and the French.
Osama Returns
Osama is back, just in time for the Oscars, releasing a new collection of his greatest hits:
An audio tape purported to carry the voice of Osama bin Laden called on Iraqis to carry out suicide attacks against Americans and defend themselves against a U.S. attack.
The tape was broadcast on the Al-Jazeera Arab satellite station on Tuesday, the first day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. The speaker also urged Iraqis to dig trenches and engage in urban warfare to fend off U.S. troops.
“We stress the importance of martyrdom operations against the enemy, these attacks that have scared Americans and Israelis like never before,” the speaker said, using a term often used by militants for suicide attacks.
Before the broacast, Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate panel Tuesday that he had read a transcript of the statement and that it shows why the world needs to be concerned about Iraqi ties to terrorism.
This will no doubt fluster the Democrats, who have been whining for months that there is no connection between Al Qaeda and Osama. Well, is this tape is real, there is now a connection. In short, loudmouths, here are your options:
1.) Claim the tapes are fake, and quit claiming Osama is alive. This will upset the anti-war crowd a great deal, as one of their favorite responses to the Bush Iraq policy has been to wail “What About Osama?”
2.) Claim the tapes are real, and endorse an attack on Iraq.
I am betting they will go for the third option, which is to sputter incoherently, call Bush the ‘selected’ President, scream something about unilateralism, and then go write domestic spending projects while yelling at Bush for ruining the deficit. Daschle and Kerry, of course, will have some more serious questions.
*** UPDATE ***
I was just reading Atrios (need to check in daily to find out who is a racist, you know), and I found that the Democrats have chosen option #4, which goes something like this:
The tape is a fake, planted by the CIA to prove a link between Osama and Saddam. Despite the fake nature of the tape, however, do not assume that we think bin Laden is dead. On the contrary, this tape shows that BUSH has failed to kill Osama and is a unilateralist bully who will do anything to go to war with Iraq.
My head hurts.
Who Needs Em?
The line that is now going around Washington is that of a former undersecretary of defence, who observed, “Going to war without the French is like going deerhunting without an accordion.”
This, and more, from the latest David Warren (via RealPolitik).
The Illiterate Literati
Joe Conason proves he does not understand the UN Resolution. This statement says it all:
Colin Powell showed that Saddam Hussein is resisting disarming. But he didn’t prove that he’s an immediate threat.
Talk amongst yourselves.
Goodbye, Saddam
When the anti-war (at all costs) movement and Saddam have lost the entire WaPo editorial board, including Mary McGrory (“I’m Persuaded“), your time is limited.
When you have lost the NY Times editorial board, it is time for Hussein to start thinking about exile. Or, as Matt Yglesias puts it:
As America’s slow-motion rush to war appears to be reaching it’s final steps, the Times editorial board shows up, limping about one step behind.
The Clearest Sign
The clearest signs that Colin Powell changed a lot of attitudes in D.C. is that the usual suspects are not dissecting the speech looking for any angle to bash Bush. It has been almost 12 hours, and neither Tapped nor Josh Marshall have made an attempt to call the administration liars. Perhaps the DNC phone lines are down- or they are waiting for the NY Times spin.
The French Say: What Do We Get out of This?
Again, Steyn nails it:
There are many idiotic incoherent leaders in the world, several of them francophone (hint), but Jacques Chirac is not among them. Say what you like about M. le President — call him irresponsible, call him unreliable, throw in shifty, devious, corrupt, and almost absurdly conceited. But he’s not stupid. The issue for the French is very straightforward: What’s in it for us?
The answer to that may vary, but frame the question as a negative and the reply is always the same: What’s not in it for France is that America should emerge with its present pre-eminence even more enhanced. France is in the business of la gloire de la republique, and right now the main obstacle to that is the post-Soviet unipolar geopolitical settlement. They are not temperamentally suited to being anyone’s sidekick: If Tony Blair wants to play Athens to America’s Rome, or Tonto to Bush’s Lone Ranger, or Sandy the dog to Dubya’s Little Orphan Annie, fine. The French aren’t interested in any awards for Best Supporting Actor.
This is not about Saddam. This is not about WMD. This is not about a threat. This is simply about the French exerting what little control they have left. To them, at least.
How do you say spoiled brat in French? Steyn does defend the French, sort of:
The trouble is the cheese-eating surrender paradigm is insufficient. If you want to go monkey fishing, there’s certainly no shortage of Eurowimps: Since the unpleasantness of 60 years ago, the Germans have become as aggressively and obnoxiously pacifist as they once were militarist; they loathe their own armed forces, never mind anybody else’s. But France is one of only five official nuclear powers in the world, a status it takes seriously. When Greenpeace were interfering with French nuclear tests in the Pacific, they blew up the damn boat. Even I, a right-wing detester of the eco-loonies, would balk at killing the buggers.