Screed: Kerry Lied, People Died

The most unthinking movement of the past two years is the Anybody But Bush crowd, those who would elect Charles Manson if that meant ousting Bush, and who would rather have a Harding, Grant, Hoover or Carter-style presidency with Kerry--with no relevance, benefit, or mandate for/by the people--than endure President Bush's mediocre but dedicated record.

Foremost among the complaints is the "Bush Lied, People Died" meme. Ignoring that this means Kerry/Edwards are just as guilty (both senators voted to invade, and Edwards called the threat of Saddam Hussein 'imminent,' a notion President Bush countered in his State of the Union address), it is true that we have a right to expect politicians to be perfectly truthful.

We also have a right to expect the nations of the world to come together, join hands, and live in peace and harmony forever. But tabulate not thy pre-partum fowl. A politician saying he is right and his opponent is wrong is a common occurrence, even though there are usually valid facts on both sides (in most American discourse, at least). Accusing a politician of over-selling his position is like ticketing Indianapolis 500 racers for reckless driving.

I expect politician to have strong character and reason. Other traits are negotiable. During the Blitz, Prime Minister Churchill and others made public shows of defiance by strolling outside at the height of bombing fears, never letting on that intercepted Nazi communications often enabled them to know when those walks were safe. They deceived the world. But would you argue it was an inappropriate deception? At the opposite end of the spectrum, what do we make of those anti-war leaders who were on Saddam's payroll?

President Bush ran a campaign that trashed the Democratic doctrine of interventionism and nation building, and for a while as president he edged the U.S. toward his promised isolationism. After September 11, 2001, Bush reassessed that doctrine. Regardless of whether one agrees with that reassessment, acting on new information is a legitimate and responsible act of civil service. His father did the same thing with "Read my lips: No new taxes!" Clinton did it. I cannot think of a politician that has not done it. Politics are fluid, and the most dependable situations can still change. Not only must we consider that politicians must sell policies, we must also consider that they are no better at predicting the future than us. What anyone says may be entirely valid at the time he says it, but not so much at a later date. So we are back to character and reason.

We can extend this to the Iraq War. If pre-war information was believed to be reliable, and Bush, Blair, Howard, etc., rationally concluded that invasion was an appropriate response to that information, then they are in the clear. One cannot prove or disprove the justification for an action after the fact. If I hear a window break, I make sure it is not because of a burglar or rabid animal; if it proves to be a stray baseball that does not mean I was unjustified in taking action because I thought it might be something else. The leaderships' understanding of information was either reasonable, or it wasn't. People can only act on what they know.

Likewise, I am fascinated by the number of people who believe justification hinges entirely on statements, resolutions, motives, or finds. We could say we invaded Iraq because we wanted to steal Saddam's collection of erotic art, and while that would speak poorly of our motives, it has zero relevance to whether the war was justified. It is fun to debate the politics, as I do regularly here, but the reality is that people, institutions, and governments frequently do the right thing for the wrong reasons. What someone says is not anywhere near as important as what they do, and in Bush's case any American downfall will likely have more to do with his reckless spending (he is a bit of a socialist in a capitalist's job, but here the Democrats promise to be even worse [Kerry will pilfer more money out of American pocketbooks so he can cover it, naturally]).

Another popular ad hominem attack is that America has not exactly been pure in its international relations, an argument that is undoubtedly true, but irrelevant to the former Iraqi regime breaking its mandatory acceptance of United Nations resolutions. Guantanamo Bay invariably pops up in discussion, although Camp 22 in North Korea speaks better for the failings of American foreign policy:
Witness from Gitmo: For two or three days I was confused, but later the Americans were so nice with me, they were giving me good food with fruit and water for ablutions before prayer.
Witness from Camp 22: I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber. The parents, a son, and a daughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save the kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.
America confuses an inmate for a few days, feeds him too well, and then takes an insufferable amount of time to sort the details. Shameful legal maneuvering receives more press than ongoing weapons testing on families. And of all the prisons in Cuba, the one most unlike Castro's gulags--where cockroaches offer every prisoner company, show trials are the norm, and biological waste often ends up as bedding--completely dominates most discussions. Some people's priorities are screwed.

Yes, America once supported Saddam (though nowhere near as much as others) against Iran, much like America worked with Stalin against Germany. All the more reason America needed to atone for its past action by removing Saddam. Also consider America's relationships with numerous Latin American nations throughout the 1950s-80s, that mostly fall under the "oops!" category ('mostly' because some regime changes, like in Grenada and Nicaragua, really did lead to improvements), in an effort to undermine communism? For all of the differences, there is at least one key similarity between American support for Stalin, Saddam, as well as the criminals closer to home: All took actions against the more serious threats at the time. These alliances, even the Latin American fiascos, were based on a degree of altruism as well as national security. That America has a history of being more fearful of third-world leadership by middle-class industrialists than spoiled militarists is not the result of flaws in policy, but a repeated flaw in execution. In politics, it is unfortunately better to appear reckless than weak.

But using "you hypocrites!" logic one must concluded that nobody should do anything about anybody. We could just as easily ask about the brutal repression of civilian populations actively supported by the United Nations over the decades, right up to the present day, and conclude that the United Nations should stay out of the Israel-Palestine issue since it has done little of merit about Turkey's power plays in Cyprus, Russia's grab of Japanese islands, Lebanon being made into Syria's puppet, Britain's continued hold over Gibraltar, or France's not-too-distant annexation of what used to be Germany territory or even her truly unilateral intervention in the Ivory Coast. At least the U.S. never vouches for Syria to help keep the world safe from the likes of, well, Syria.

America, Britain and, yes, Australia are the only three countries with a military force capable of responding to major/multiple threats. Many nations cower simply because they have no fortitude to do otherwise, a vile few cast themselves as bystanders, while the rest would as soon cheer the equal distribution of oppression than any unequal distribution of freedom. These wafflers, these self-interested wimps, these moral equivocators are telling America (and others) to make the Genovese Syndrome foreign policy? I subscribe to the view that those who have the resources to make a difference, the spirit to reach out, and the humility necessary to understand that we live in a global community should act like it.

Americans kept to themselves many times before, as during the crisis in Rwanda, and always ended up lectured for not interfering. Likewise, whenever America pulls troops out of a place in response to shouts of "Yankee go home!" the slogan shortly thereafter, from many of the same people, is invariably "The Yankees abandoned us!" It does not matter what happens, it is always America's fault. This thinking extends to other arenas. Polls in England and France conclude that a major problem is that Americans are too religious, while polls in Mexico and Turkey conclude that a significant fault is that Americans are too secular. It doesn't matter what Americans actually believe, they simply must be wrong. Australians say the United States is taking advantage of their nation's resources, while South Africans want to know why the United States is not doing more to take advantage of their resources. It rarely matters how America lends support, for it is never the right support. There is no policy that will enable America to satisfy the world, and it is foolish for America to even try to find one. So let me propose that America stands for neither isolationism nor imperialism, but should pursue interventionism, as is consistent with her essential values:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed; that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

America's liberation came because of interventionism, and most of America has not forgotten. We are our brothers' keepers. Ironically, the universal catechism of the Catholic Church states that free people have a moral obligation to liberate the oppressed. To that end, in no sense is a muted United States preferable to today's vocal one. The counter to America's loudness is not for opponents to call for her silence, but is instead for them to cease their own quiet tolerance of the intolerable. (And could someone explain to me why the Pope suddenly forgot his long-standing stance that the authority to decide whether a war is justified resides in a nation's authorities, for "it is not the role of the Pastors of the Church to intervene directly in the political structuring and organization of social life." I suspect the Church ignored its own position simply so it would not lose Tariq Aziz as one of its donors.)

Also consider how the first Gulf War never ended. If Saddam had done what the United Nations told him to do, then France (until they sold out), Great Britain and the United States would not have dropped bombs on Iraq every day for over 10 years to enforce the 'no-fly zones.' The fact that the war was already going on was a pretty good reason for taking the decisive actions the Coalition did to end it. That same action will be responsible for saving an estimated 565,000 Iraqi lives within four years, and the war itself received a touch of praise from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch for efforts in avoiding civilian casualties and for removing "a government that preyed on the Iraqi people and committed shocking, systematic and criminal violations of human rights." Of course, this does not take into account the feelings of liberation, or ongoing commentary from Iraqi bloggers.

Saudi Arabia comes up a lot, too, despite her responding to pressure to reform. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001 were Saudis, so it is pretty obvious that the House of Saud did not do all it could to stamp out terrorism in the kingdom. The Saudi flights a bit later also caused a fuss (see older but more detailed info here). Of course, the nationalities of the hijackers are only one factor relevant to confronting threats to national security. The majority of them also lived comfortably above the poverty line, had Western educations, and spent money on decidedly non-Islamic strip clubs and gambling, meaning they also fit the noticeable pattern of Islamic terror coming from middle-class, European-based weirdoes.

There are plenty of bad guys in the world. Removing them from circulation is a security goal worth perpetuating. But limited resources means prioritizing the order in which even the most appropriate actions must take place. Among the issues are which of these actions are most 'do-able', as well as those that offer the most benefits. Saudi Arabia is an American ally, but it has long turned a blind, or at least blurry, eye to terrorism (though the 9/11 Commission did clear Saudi Arabia of the most popular and dangerous accusation), but for the U.S. to put meaningful pressure on the House of Saud to crack down, a few things had to occur: First, a consolidation of forces outside Saudi Arabia, in this case by facilitating the removal of the S.A.-U.S.'s joint military deterrent against Iraq, subsequently reducing training personnel inside S.A., and placing a sizable military force nearby; second, if tensions flared, a large alternative source of oil would be needed to prevent economic collapse in those countries dependent on Saudi oil; finally, an example must be set of what happens when key security issues are insufficiently resolved, so as to dissuade all parties from inviting a deadlier conflict. Thus...

David Frum, one of the architects of the Bush Doctrine, notes that "the operation in Iraq was a tremendous success--and an indispensable prerequisite for what comes next. One crucial thing we must do is pressure Saudi Arabia to cut off the flow of funds from its citizens to terrorists. So long as the world's second-biggest oil producer was, in effect, an international outlaw, Saudi Arabia's ability to get away with a two-faced policy on terrorism was magnified. Iraq is now rejoining the international community. Soon its oil will be flowing. And Saudi Arabia will find itself much less immune to American pressure to cut off the terrorists' funds."

Barring the occasional deadly thrashing as we pull the sharks from the water, the Iraq war really is a success. Thanks to the Iraq intervention, considerably more light has been shed on the weapons programs in Libya and Pakistan and Iran and North Korea and... The Arab League finally condemned attacks within Israel's legal territories and called for democratic reform... The likes of Seif al-Islam Gadhafi and Hossein Khomeini endorse Bush's Middle East policy... We now know that individuals at the United Nations and the World Bank were making a sizable profit from letting Saddam Hussein starve children, and that the UN really is the Enron on the East River (and worse: "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story from Hell on Earth")... We now know that Iraq was bribing and blackmailing hundreds of major public personalities, and subsequently recognize that Russia and France are unparalleled in Western political corruption... We now know that several media organizations, including CNN, downplayed or outright ignored atrocities in exchange for access and exclusives with the Butchers of Baghdad... We now know that the suggestion that Saddam Hussein & Sons be pressured into exile so the United Nations could oversee bringing Iraq into compliance would have resolved all of the outstanding issues with little to no bloodshed, but was refused because populist obstructionism against the United States has more socio-political value than any genuine attempt at a pro-peace solution... And so we now know who our real friends are.

Plus, if this backfires, there is always Plan B.

As for the legality? Whether the Bush Administration's arguments for the Iraq War apply under Chapter VII, Article 51 of the United Nations Charter may be debatable, but all of the justifications are consistent with Chapter VII, Article 42 and the history of that article in relation to Iraq (e.g., Operation Desert Storm, the responses to the 1993 assassination attempt on President George H.W. Bush and Iraq's attempt to re-invade Kuwait in 1996, the no-fly zones, and Operation Desert Fox).

The United Nations is not a judicial or representative authority, but a bureaucracy; manned not by objective judges or moderated lawmakers, but by highly partisan diplomats. The organization approved things that were against international law, and rejected things accepted by international law. Its key value is that it provides a resource for multinational debate, such as in 1962 when the organization allowed the last two remaining superpowers a mechanism to sidestep an escalation to nuclear war. It gives smaller nations voice, and the controversial veto system prevents solutions like the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The organization is unparalleled in drawing up constitutions and other civil services. The United Nations can provide a hammer better than any other. But not every problem is a nail. And the United Nations means even less to France, Germany, Russia, et al., those countries that actively ignored and undermined the enforcement of international law in Iraq for 12 long years. As an Iraqi Foreign Minister succinctly put it: "[T]he Security Council was divided between those who wanted to appease Saddam Hussein and those who wanted to hold him accountable... The United Nations as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years, and today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure."

The French delegation in particular showed utter contempt for U.N. processes, allowing for no negotiation and thus, as promised would happen in such an event, finding itself deferring to an "ad hoc" Coalition supported by more countries than supported the liberation of the Kuwait, backed by four of the Group of Seven, backed by 11 of the 19 members of N.A.T.O., backed by 13 of the 25 members of the expanded European Union, and backed by all but one of the major Asia-Pacific economies. As for the U.N. itself, there was no U.N. resolution or action, not a statement from individuals or governments, condemning or attempting to bar the Iraq War. Countries can hardly defy the United Nations if the United Nations makes no legal attempt to restrain them. And since this may be unfair considering how the United States has veto power on the Security Council, please note that I would also consider a draft or General Assembly resolution for this exercise. But the opposition amounted to nothing more than a public relations campaign. It is no surprise that mainly opponents of the war are still profiting from Saddam's mass-grave playset.

As for the WMD themselves, see that and more here. Opponents of the intervention also claimed Iraq had WMD (the only real debate in the Security Council was whether an assertive Coalition was preferable to a lackadaisical Axis in verifying Saddam's disarmament), so we must not make the factual error of suggesting that Bush made his decision in a vacuum. And even though it is easy to pin the blame on him because he took controversial but solid steps to do something about it, one still might forgive Bush for thinking that the possibility of the lunatic dictator having these weapons qualified as A Very Bad Thing. The worst scenario is that the Iraq War is a justified mistake, in the same sense that a man confronted with a thief pointing a gun-like object at him is excused for concluding that it is a gun, saying that it is gun, and acting in response to such a threat. That it turns out to be a candy-bar is tragic but irrelevant to the logic of his response. Indeed, if the man thought it was a joke and was wrong, the situation could have been much worse.

The Bush Administration repeatedly emphasized that a reason for going into Iraq was to prevent Iraq from becoming an immediate threat, the logical extension of Winston Churchill's Gathering Storm policy, and a policy supported by recent events. They, at least, presented the war as a preventive strike (as well as a punitive strike and humanitarian intervention). Despite popular misuse of the term, 'preemptive strike' is an attack intended to prevent an imminent attack, but President Bush said, "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option." It remains quite clear that while Iraq was not an imminent threat, it would have inevitably become one. The fact that the U.S. was willing to wait months after authorizing war before actually going to war should be a clear indicator that 'imminent threat' never entered into it. If the threat were immanent, America would not have wasted time with the United Nations. President Bush called it a 'continuing threat,' in which the treat was not significantly less or worse than it was before, but intolerable to endure. It did not help that the evaluation of that threat put excessive faith in the world's intelligence services, that is true, and George Tenet's surprise resignation was not so surprising when one considers that virtually all of the President's great woes had (or have) root causes in the letters C, I, and A--still bearing in mind that intelligence flaws also go the other way, as they did in the '90s when several agencies, Hans Blix's team among them, erroneously declared Iraq free of any intent to possess nuclear weapons. (So do forgive me for being relieved that Iraq intelligence estimates erred toward being too liberal rather than too conservative; if we will make mistakes regarding anti-proliferation, then overstating disarmament goals is surely a preferable way to screw up.)

Bush did speak of urgency, but always qualified by "our intelligence" and in regard to Saddam's failure to fulfill his end of our bargain, which included verifiable destruction of his WMD-related activities. It was not evidence of the presence of weapons of mass destruction that formed that basis of the war, but the absence of evidence of disarmament. Worldwide assessments suggested that Saddam did indeed have banned weapons, and Bush bolstered his argument using those cases, but that bolstering did not change the Administration's primary justification for the war: Iraq was in material breech of our armistice agreement. Donald Rumsfeld summed it up: "If the Iraqi regime had taken the same steps Libya is now taking, there would have been no war."

So we get streams of public whining without a single convincing response to the question, "How would keeping Saddam Hussein's regime in power have benefited the world?" Anti-intervention groups overestimated the number of casualties, overestimated the number of refugees, overestimated the terrorist retaliation, were wrong about the effects on anti-Americanism in the Middle East, were wrong about the Coalition being unable to capture Saddam, underestimated the dangers Saddam posed to the region, forgot that even non-Coalition allies like Saudi Arabia and Germany still provided resources for the invasion (others, like France, offered conditional support), and otherwise indulged in gross appeasement and hysteria. And then there are those who said, "I'd support it for humanitarian reasons, but Bush isn't doing it for humanitarian reasons," a thought process that, like the "Not In Our Name!" mob, relies on group-think, rather than that wise notion of individualism that says you don't have to support anything for someone else's reasons. There is absolutely no inferential path connecting "Bush lied" and "The Iraq War was unjustifiable."

Maybe it was just me, but I found the revelation that there are no longer weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to be A Very Good Thing. Saddam wasn't trustworthy with a Lawn Jart, and having him removed and finding that we need not worry so much about someone going the "Sum of All Fears" route with his programs is a spectacular achievement, especially under the circumstances. Not a single weapon of mass destruction appeared in Nazi Germany, recall. The closest the Nazis came was the horrifically successful use of common household pesticides against human beings. But the U.S. intelligence agencies, General Marshall, and Albert Einstein all thought the Nazis were building an atomic bomb, when Hitler was nowhere near achieving his goal. Then again, if a corrupt Nazi weapons program enabled the German Werewolves to easily develop an atomic bomb, either on their own or by passing the stolen/bought intelligence to an industrious third party, then the threat to Europe during World War II would have been more precarious. Likewise, there was a bigger threat from even the known programs in Iraq precisely because the system actually was—undeniably--a mess. The most vulnerabilities and least predictable threats come from systems that the systems' owners will not or can not control. So did the U.S. government exaggerate the Nazi threat to justify its aggression against Germany? After all, Adolf Hitler had as much to do with the bombing of Pearl Harbor as Saddam Hussein had with 9/11. The Nazis were not a threat to the territorial integrity of America, there were no resolutions or agreements to provide legal cover, and Congress only authorized military action against Japanese forces. The US and the UK also did many things during this period that make their military actions today look like jamborees. Yet, somehow, few doubt that US was right to help overthrow Hitler. Like Saddam, Hitler ruled over a brutal, inhuman kleptocracy. They were the weapons of mass destruction, as cliché as that now sounds.

Of course, there was that old shell with enough Sarin to kill thousands of people, contained only because it was misused. How about the mustard gas confirmed to have come from Iraq, but that was never disclosed as required by the terms of the ceasefire agreement? How about this? And nobody searched Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, where Iraq reportedly paid Syria $35-$50 million to hide materials in February 2003. Still, we already have plenty to show Iraq was indeed a threat--we found illegal weapons, we found illegal programs, we found clear evidence of illegal efforts, but we did not find the promised stockpiles. Three out of four is hardly an embarrassment.

Weapons of mass destruction were among the many legitimate reasons for the intervention. I never cared much about the weapons, to be honest. As an anti-totalitarian, I supported going in and toppling a genocidal sociopathic regime on the basis of going in and toppling a genocidal sociopathic regime. Saddam's regime was unfinished business that needed a resolution before the U.S. could move on. It needed to go; the when, where, why and how are incidental. (I already dislike Bush, so even if the "Bush Lied!" crowd's rants were reflected by reality, it would still leave me saying, "And?") It hardly matters whether there were banned weapons in Iraq at the time of the invasion. They were there in the past, we didn't know they were gone forever, and Iraq was obligated to let us know either way, verifiably. The burden of proof was always on Saddam, who failed to comply with the ceasefire agreement and a multitude of U.N. resolutions--not only those sections regarding WMD--for more than a decade. There was little evidence to suggest that the Weapons Inspector Clouseau answer to the WMD question would in fact be a solution, quite a bit suggesting it would confuse matters, and no doubt that other outstanding crimes were ignored in favor of fools from both sides of the fence massaging their egos over that one question (while saying they are looking out for the best interests of the Iraqi people, as though the oppressed people of Iraq were more concerned about American foreign policy than Saddam & Sons' unique methods [caution: video contains graphic violence]).
Ad hominem attacks continue with Bush's "open corruption' being the target. Sadly, the staggering thing is that a guy can ask about the latest corruption scandal and still have to specify whether he means one in the U.S., Russia, France, Italy, England, China, the United Nations, Egypt, etc. Corruption happens everywhere (and, given the age of the United States, America has comparatively little experience at it). While suggestions of impropriety may be accurate, they remain unproven, and do not address individuals who donated large sums of cash to Bush yet received nothing more than a thank-you card, if that. Nor does it take into account that President Bush has thrown the likes of Kenneth Lay to the wolves, and that John Ashcroft's anti-corruption witch-hunt may be going to the opposite extreme, having somehow found Martha Stewart guilty of lying about committing a crime federal prosecutors could not prove she committed.

I leave you, and hopefully those you know who most ought to read it, with a little perspective from American history, courtesy of a famous dead guy:

A Word Of Encouragement For Our Blushing Exiles
...Well, what do you think of our country now? And what do you think of the figure she is cutting before the eyes of the world? For one, I am ashamed. [Extract from a long and heated letter from a Voluntary Exile, Member of the American Colony, Paris.]
And so you are ashamed. I am trying to think out what it can have been that has produced this large attitude of mind and this fine flow of sarcasm. Apparently you are ashamed to look Europe in the face; ashamed of the American name; temporarily ashamed of your nationality. By the light of remarks made to me by an American here in Vienna, I judge that you are ashamed because:

1. We are meddling where we have no business and no right; meddling with the private family matters of a sister nation; intruding upon her sacred right to do as she pleases with her own, unquestioned by anybody.
2. We are doing this under a sham pretext.
3. Doing it in order to filch Cuba, the formal and distinct disclaimer in the ultimatum being very, very thin humbug, and easily detectable by you and virtuous Europe.
4. And finally you are ashamed of all this because it is new, and base, and brutal, and dishonest; and because Europe, having had no previous experience of such things, is horrified by it and can never respect us nor associate with us any more.

Brutal, base, dishonest? We? Land Thieves? Shedders of innocent blood? We? Traitors to our official word? We? Are we going to lose Europe's respect because of this new and dreadful conduct? Russia's, for instance? Is she lying stretched out on her back in Manchuria, with her head among her Siberian prisons and her feet in Port Arthur, trying to read over the fairy tales she told Lord Salisbury, and not able to do it for crying because we are maneuvering to treacherously smooch Cuba from feeble Spain, and because we are ungently shedding innocent Spanish blood?

Is it France's respect that we are going to lose? Is our unchivalric conduct troubling a nation which exists to-day because a brave young girl saved it when its poltroons had lost it - a nation which deserted her as one man when her day of peril came? Is our treacherous assault upon a weak people distressing a nation which contributed Bartholomew's Day to human history? Is our ruthless spirit offending the sensibilities of the nation which gave us the Reign of Terror to read about? Is our unmanly intrusion into the private affairs of a sister nation shocking the feelings of the people who sent Maximilian to Mexico? Are our shabby and pusillanimous ways outraging the fastidious people who have sent an innocent man (Dreyfus) to a living hell, taken to their embraces the slimy guilty one, and submitted to indignities Emile Zola - the manliest man in France?

Is it Spain's respect that we are going to lose? Is she sitting sadly conning her great history and contrasting it with our meddling, cruel, perfidious one - our shameful history of foreign robberies, humanitarian shams, and annihilations of weak and unoffending nations? Is she remembering with pride how she sent Columbus home in chains; how she sent half of the harmless West Indians into slavery and the rest to the grave, leaving not one alive; how she robbed and slaughtered the Inca's gentle race, then beguiled the Inca into her power with fair promises and burned him at the stake; how she drenched the New World in blood, and earned and got the name of The Nation With The Bloody Footprint; how she drove all the Jews out of Spain in a day, allowing them to sell their property, but forbidding them to carry any money out of the country; how she roasted heretics by the thousands and thousands in her public squares, generation after generation, her kings and her priests looking on as at a holiday show; how her Holy Inquisition imported hell into the earth; how she was the first to institute it and the last to give it up - and then only under compulsion; how, with a spirit unmodified by time, she still tortures her prisoners to-day; how, with her ancient passion for pain and blood unchanged, she still crowds the arena with ladies and gentlemen and priests to see with delight a bull harried and persecuted and a gored horse dragging his entrails on the ground; and how, with this incredible character surviving all attempts to civilize it, her Duke of Alva rises again in the person of General Weyler - to-day the most idolized personage in Spain - and we see a hundred thousand women and children shut up in pens and pitilessly starved to death?

Are we indeed going to lose Spain's respect? Is there no way to avoid this calamity - or this compliment? Are we going to lose her respect because we have made a promise in our ultimatum which she thinks we shall break? And meantime is she trying to recall some promise of her own which she has kept?

Is the Professional Official Fibber of Europe really troubled with our morals? Dear Parisian friend, are you taking seriously the daily remark of the newspaper and the orator about "this noble nation with an illustrious history"? That is mere kindness, mere charity for a people in temporary hard luck. The newspaper and the orator do not mean it. They wink when they say it.
And so you are ashamed. Do not be ashamed; there is no occasion for it.

S. L. CLEMENS.