NICK DENTON is sounding like a warblogger today:

But there’s a much more basic reason to crush Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Islamic world — mainly the Arab Islamic world — needs to realize that it has failed. Medieval Islam cannot compete with liberal capitalism either economically or culturally. Unfortunately, that message has taken several hundred years to filter through. There is nothing like cataclysmic military defeat to teach the lesson more rapidly.

One could point at the examples of Japan and Germany after the Second World War. But the Muslim world provides its own case study. Ottoman Turkey only began to pay attention to Western science and organization after its first serious military defeats at the hands of Austria and Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The US needs to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime because he’s a bad man, sure, because he may conceivably be connected with Al-Qaeda, because he’s developing weapons of mass destruction, because a friendly Iraq would alter the balance of power in the Middle East, sure, because of all of that. But the US needs to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime mainly because the West needs to humiliate the Arab world, and dispel the Islamic millenial fantasy.

He’s right of course, and I suspect (and hope) the Bush Administration has thought of all this. It’s just politically incorrect to say it.

But why? The people who would object are always saying that it’s a good learning experience when the United States is humiliated.

MILITARY STYLE OPERATIONS are fine when you are protecting animals and tropical hardwoods… no matter what hardship it might produce for locals just trying to eke out a living. But don’t get distracted by trying to help, you know, actual people. At least, that seems to be the subtext of this New York Times Magazine story on “Eco-Mercenaries.”

UPDATE: Suman Palit has some thoughts on this. He notes that these NGOs are in many countries more powerful (but no more accountable) than the governments.

A piece in the July/August Atlantic Monthly (not available online unless you pay) called “The Internationals” points up the neo-colonial angle as well, and notes that the new version is in once sense worse: colonial officials a hundred years ago often spent years or decades in the countries they administered. Aid workers now spend a few months. I guess it’s kind of like the “ticket punching” system for officers that was employed with such great success by the U.S. military in Vietnam. . . .

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL’S SHOOTING CLUB, along with a similar club at Mount Holyoke, are featured in this surprisingly sympathetic article in The Boston Globe:

Alexander ”Sasha” Volokh, who describes himself as ”a bit of a troublemaker” and a supporter of gun rights, admits he was trying to create a stir when he founded the Harvard Law School Target Shooting Club last fall. To his surprise, his club was not drummed off campus but instead attracted 120 members, 100 from the law school and 20 undergraduates.

”The administration hasn’t given me any grief,” said Volokh, a third-year law student from West Hollywood, Calif. The club recently received $300 from the university’s activities fund.

The Harvard shooting club took four field trips last year to a gun range in Manchester, N.H., and hosted a talk by John Lott, a researcher with data that he says show that concealed-weapons laws deter crime. Volokh said he plans to screen the film ”Red Dawn” because it portrays young people using guns as ”a force for good.”

There’s a sea change in attitudes going on.

CORRUPTION AND HUNGER: Paul O’Neill may be onto something. Brian Carnell has a fascinating chart linking government corruption with famine in Africa. And El Sur reports that although Brazilians were offended by perceived stereotyping in O’Neill’s comments about Swiss bank accounts, 80 % of Argentines thought he was right.

BRITAIN: A haven for radical Islam’s war against the West, says the Christian Science Monitor.

PUNDITWATCH IS UP! And pundits today were hopping on the defend-Paul-O’Neill bandwagon. Imagine that.

WHY THERE ARE NO “ELITE” IRAQI SOLDIERS — a trenchant analysis by Donald Sensing.

TED TURNER LAND GRAB UPDATE: Now the NAACP and a South Carolina legislator are siding with the slave-descended black landowners whose land Turner is claiming. This is on top of the Associated Press story that ran yesterday, as well as earlier accounts from local papers, and a story in The Black News.

We still haven’t head anything from Michael Moore, Doonesbury, or Molly Ivins, all of whom seem strangely uninterested in the story of a rich white billionaire trying to gain control of land held by the descendants of slaves.

OMBUDSGOD, who I should read more often, has a sharp critique of the Washington Post’s self-justification for publishing military secrets. My question: would the Post or the Times be satisfied if (other) big corporations were policed only by an internal “ombudsman” whose policing consisted mostly of publishing self-justifying columns once a week?

MAC THOMASON reflects:

I don’t know if hanging out with Iran’s government makes the Saudis look bad, or if hanging with the Sauds makes Iran look bad. Or if both are so irredeemably awful that it doesn’t matter.

Now that is a poser, but I’m going to go with the “irredeemably awful” choice.

THE INDEPUNDIT RESPONDS to claims of insensitivity toward Arabs and Muslims.

I HEARD A NEWS ITEM ON ALL THINGS CONSIDERED LAST WEEK about Paul O’Neill and Brazil. It ended with a line by reporter Martin Kaste about how O’Neill’s worries that economic aid might wind up in “Swiss bank accounts” went over badly. “For most South Americans,” Kaste reported, “that coment only confirmed their suspicions about the ruthlessness of American-style capitalism.” (Here’s the link to the archive page with the report. The line occurs at 4:01 into the report. You can stream audio directly from this link.)

Kaste, having gotten in his little dig, said no more. But I wondered — if O’Neill’s worries that development aid would be stolen were “ruthless,” what would count as “compassionate?” (Sorry, I can’t explain what the “capitalism” part has to do with this discussion of government-to-government aid at all, except to conclude that it’s there as a synonym for “policy promulgated by a Republican” — but at NPR, that’s probably close enough).

Anyway, I guess this is what Kaste would prefer to O’Neill’s ruthless desire for aid money to go to the people it’s intended for:

Swazi King Sparks Anger by Buying $55 Million Jet

Reuters

MBABANE – The king of the impoverished southern African nation of Swaziland, where about 250,000 people need urgent food aid, has sparked outrage by buying a $55 million private jet.

Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini told parliament this week a 20 million emalangeni ($1.96 million) down payment for the luxury plane was taken from development funds for projects aimed at making Swaziland economically self-sufficient.

“The plane’s price is more than twice the 192 million emalangeni the United Nations is asking in emergency relief from donor organizations to keep about a quarter of a million Swazis from starving this year,” Member of Parliament Nthuthuko Dlamini told Reuters on Saturday.

Aid agencies say up to 13 million people in Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia face a looming famine because of drought and government mismanagement.

The luxury Global Express jet, made by Canada’s Bombardier Inc., is worth about a quarter of the landlocked country’s national budget of 2.4 billion emalangeni. . . .

That mean old Paul O’Neill. No wonder they hate him so much.

(Swazi link via Dawson).

TONY WOODLIEF responds to critics of his airport-revolt piece, and savages those who propound heterosexist stereotypes.

STEVEN DEN BESTE dissects a number of specious anti-war arguments.

What I find interesting is how difficult it is for most people to be antiwar without being anti-American. Some people manage, but it’s a surprisingly small number.

WELL, this isn’t very encouraging.

MORE ON THE MOHAMMED ATTA / IRAQ CONNECTION, from Fred Barnes.

HASHEMITE RESTORATION? Or obliteration? More likely the latter, if this story is true. Whether it is, I don’t know — but if it is, then the consequences to Abdullah need to be lethal. We’re going to be working in that region for some time, and people need to understand the price of crossing us. It’s been too low in the past.

I’VE GOTTEN SEVERAL EMAILS suggesting that the West Nile Virus outbreaks may be a biological attack. I doubt it, but if so it’s the lamest biological attack imaginable:

While there are 58 known cases of mosquito-borne West Nile virus in Louisiana, one state health official estimated 10,000 to 12,000 other people have been infected, felt no symptoms and are now immune to the disease.

But just in case it was an attack: Neener, neener, nyah, nyah!

SOME PEOPLE WORRY THAT THE FBI INVESTIGATION of potential Congressional leaks is dubious, given that Congress is simultaneously investigating the FBI for ineptitude, etc., regarding the 9/11 attacks.

This is a reasonable thing to worry about. I’ve gotten a couple of emails saying that Congressional immunity should apply — but members of Congress only have official immunity for things said during the conduct of their official business and (as Bill Proxmire found out when he libeled a scientist as part of his “Golden Fleece Award” PR program) the courts don’t consider talking to the presss official business.

The fact that the Executive and Legislative branches can investigate one another is part of the checks-and-balances system; in terms of accountability, after all, it’s preferable to a system in which neither can investigate the other. The main check on abuse of this kind of power is political — and as the FBI comes under criticism, and as members of Congress refuse to take lie-detector tests (they should: a lie detector test is about as scientific as the witch-weighing employed in Monty Python’s Holy Grail) and threaten retaliation, it will likely die down.

The bright side: nothing makes a politician appreciate the importance of constitutional rights like being placed under investigation.

“THE TIMES IS JUST MAKING SHIT UP,” exclaims Martin Devon in dismay and disgust. “This is just pathetic.” He’s referring to the latest “doubts about the war” piece in the New York Times’ National section.

Come on , Martin. Don’t mince words here. Say what you think.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn is a bit more polite: he just calls the Times’ war coverage “risible.”

ACADEMIC FRAUD UPDATE: Maybe Emory should hire these investigators for the Bellesiles case.

I think it’s fair to say that the sciences do a better job of policing themselves than the humanities.

A LOT OF PEOPLE have asked me what the Tennessee primary elections show. Well, they show that Lamar Alexander still has that old, er, magic. If you want more, here’s the analysis story from my local paper, which says that Democrats are running to the right. This seems on-target to me. The Democratic primaries were mostly about who would protect gun rights the most, and who wouldn’t raise taxes. I don’t know if this is a national trend, but if so it suggests that even if the Democrats recapture the House there won’t be as much change in hot-button issues as you might expect, because the new members they’ll get will be voting like Republicans on those issues.

THE AXIS OF WEEVIL is featured in this article on weblogs from the Tuscaloosa News.

THE BLOGOSPHERE GETS RESULTS: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a story on the Cynthia McKinney 9/11 campaign donation issue originally identified by the IndePundit, with additional analysis from an initially skeptical Jim Henley. McKinney’s response is to compare herself with Martin Luther King.

The details the story provides on the donors, however, don’t make that a very flattering comparison.

UPDATE: Katha Pollitt is cheerleading for McKinney’s campaign. Guess she’s finally found a flag she’s comfortable flying, quips a reader.

TED TURNER LAND-GRAB UPDATE: The Associated Press has picked up on the Ted Turner / Gullah legal conflict.

Michael Moore and Doonesbury remain silent, however.