PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION: I’ve mentioned it before, but here’s an article that I wrote with Dave Kopel arguing that regulating abortion is not within Congress’s enumerated powers.

LILEKS REVIEWS MATRIX 3 — and offers a special bonus Fisking of another review of the film!

This one’s a must-read.

STOP A MUGGER, GO TO JAIL: Jeff Soyer has identified a serious human rights violation in New York, and has some suggestions as to what you can do about it. (Via Jay Solo).

ANDREW SULLIVAN agrees with the people I link below that Bush’s speech yesterday was an important one. But Spanish reader Franco Aleman notes that it’s being spun differently in Europe:

Steyn is right. Europe is dying, if only because some (most?) European media are giving their own alternate reality to their readers. It’s like reading articles translated by MEMRI.

So, after what’s probably one of Bush’s more important speeches on international affairs, in which he lays a ‘grand vision’ (which is what many critics had been finding lacking) announcing new efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East, admitting that the policies during the last 60 years haven’t worked and therefore new ones are needed, what’s their headline?

“Bush admits his failure at democratizing the Middle East” Link (in Spanish).

But of course. (Here’s the link to the Steyn piece on Europe).

UPDATE: Read this post on Europe, from PeakTalk, too.

SOMEBODY WROTE THAT RE-ENLISTMENT RATES were a good metric for how things are going in Iraq. If so, this is good news:

HEIDELBERG, Germany — If Army officials were worried that constant deployments would drive too many soldiers out of uniform, they can rest easy.

As the Army closed out fiscal 2003 at the end of September, so many soldiers had raised their right hands to re-enlist that the service met its retention goals and then some, retaining 106 percent of the soldiers it hoped to keep.

“We needed 51,000 soldiers to re-enlist, and we got 54,151,” said Sgt. Maj. James Vales, a senior retention manager at Army headquarters in Washington.

I don’t know how much to make of this, especially as the story indicates that there are quite a few other factors involved, but it’s certainly a positive development.

UPDATE: Reader Dustin Appel emails:

Further to your post on re-enlistment rates, I wanted to make you aware of something I haven’t seen reported in the media anywhere:

US Army recruiters have told me that all of their slots for Officer Candidate School for FY 04 and 05 are filled, and that they have been overwhelmed with applications. Obviously the Iraq occupation hasn’t affected the number of college grads considering entering the military either.

I haven’t seen anything about this. Anybody got any links?

TRENT TELENKO is now in a position to say I told you so.

HERE’S ANOTHER IRAQI BLOG.

BOB KERREY weighs in on the Democratic intelligence memo scandal:

The production of a memo by an employee of a Democratic member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is an example of the destructive side of partisan politics. That it probably emerged as a consequence of an increasingly partisan environment in Washington and may have been provoked by equally destructive Republican acts is neither a comfort nor a defensible rationalization.

He notes that the intelligence committees are supposed to be beyond partisanship, and have been so in the past.

JOSH CHAFETZ, VICTORIOUS, goes to bed.

JOHN EDWARDS IS GUEST-BLOGGING over at Larry Lessig’s place.

MORE THOUGHTS on China, human rights, and Wal-Mart. I do want to stress that I’m not the least bit hostile to Wal-Mart, but I do think that they ought to try to buy things from countries that aren’t murderous dictatorships whenever possible.

PATRICK BELTON THINKS that Bush’s speech today deserves more attention. He’s got the key bits.

UPDATE: Darren Kaplan thinks so, too. So does Daniel Drezner.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg thinks the speech will be remembered.

MARK STEYN WRITES that Europe is over:

Europe is dying. As I’ve pointed out here before, it can’t square rising welfare costs, a collapsed birthrate and a manpower dependent on the world’s least skilled, least assimilable immigrants. In 20 years’ time, as those Dutch Muslim teenagers are entering the voting booths, European countries, unlike parts of Nigeria, will not be living under Sharia, but they will be reaching their accommodations with their radicalised Islamic compatriots, who like many intolerant types are expert at exploiting the ‘tolerance’ of pluralist societies.

How happy what’s left of the ethnic Dutch or French or Danes will be about this remains to be seen. But the idea of a childless Europe rivalling America militarily or economically is laughable. Sometime this century there will be 500 million Americans, and what’s left in Europe will either be very old or very Muslim. That’s the Europe that Britain will be binding its fate to. Japan faces the same problem: in 2006, its population will begin an absolute decline, a death spiral it will be unlikely ever to climb out of. Will Japan be an economic powerhouse if it’s populated by Koreans and Filipinos? Possibly. Will Germany if it’s populated by Algerians? That’s a trickier proposition.

Yes, and sadly Europe’s problems are likely to become America’s. Again.

UPDATE: A reader points to Steyn’s chilling observation: “Europe is dying, and it’s only a question of whether it goes peacefully or through convulsions of violence. On that point, I bet on form.” Yes, that’s been my worry all along.

IRAQ-WAR OPPONENTS changing their minds — is it a trend?

UPDATE: Read this, too: “Father of Palestinian suicide bomber doesn’t call his son a hero.”

AUSTIN BAY reminds us about Burundi and what’s going on there:

The offensive began in early July. Fifty thousand people immediately fled their homes, most of them seeking shelter in the jungle, a wretched place, but one preferable to the suburban slums.

The guerrillas sabotaged a dam producing a third of the country’s electricity, knocking out power in the nation’s capital. The national army, a ragtag bunch of tribal thugs whose basic job is to keep civilians kowtowed, launched a series of counterattacks. In one suspicious instance, the army plastered a neighborhood with rocket artillery. Rocket artillery, an “area weapon,” is notoriously inaccurate. The army’s attitude: If the “area” didn’t have guerrillas, it housed their sympathizers. C’est la guerre.

Or c’est la guerre in Burundi. As usual, few outside Africa noticed. Burundi bleeds, then bleeds some more.

Read the whole thing.

MICKEY KAUS announces his “Krugman gotcha contest,” in light of economic improvements that now seem indisputable. The rules are rather strict.

ANOTHER DEFENSIVE GUN USE:

The man fired at her.

She fired back.

He missed.

She didn’t.

Interestingly, she had just recently bought the gun.

THIS JEFF JACOBY COLUMN from the Boston Globe uses the 1946 Saturday Evening Post article on the occupation of Germany (mentioned below) as a jumping-off point.

Thought for the day: What year is it? Well, really, of course, it’s 2003, and historical analogies are of only so much use. But everyone keeps talking as if it’s 1946.

But what if it’s, in a sense, 1943? What if the Iraq war is just the opening phase? After all, Saudi Arabia is the true source of worldwide Islamist terror. And — like Germany and Japan in 1943 — it hasn’t been invaded yet.

Just a thought, and probably an example of the limited usefulness of historical analogy. But if the Iraq war is seen as the beginning phase of a longer struggle, rather than the end of the war, then, well, a lot of things look different. And I think that’s what it is.

UPDATE: Reader Doris Douthat thinks it’s 1943:

I’m old enough to remember WWII and to understand that the current World War IV (aka War on Terrorism) is just getting off the ground. I like to compare Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation Torch, the landings in North Africa. This Sat. (Nov 8) is the 61st anniversery of those landings (1942). Rommel was pounding the Brits in Egypt on the verge of breaking through to gain control of Arabia and its oil. Operation Torch was PREVENTATIVE — it opened a second front behind Rommel and prevented the fall of Egypt.

Both were the first significant offensive ground action for US troops near the beginning of a prolonged conflict. And both seemed conceptually far removed from the immediate war triggers (Dec. 7 & Sep 11). Torch marked the first setback for Hitler after an unbroken string of victories and was to the ETO [European Theater of Operations] what Midway was to Fascism in the PTO. [Pacific Theater of Operations] Similarly Iraqi Freedom is the first setback for ME Islamism following its loss in Asia. Finally, both Operation Torch and Operation Iraqi Freedom had as main strategic goal to prevent a fascist maniac from gaining control of a major portion of the world’s oil.

Hmm. Could be.

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Germann emails:

I’d say it’s 1953. We’re in a decades-long Cold War against the Axis of Evil (Evil Empire) with periodic outbreaks of real armed conflicts as in Afghanistan, Iraq (Korea, Vietnam). Obviously the war will not be over until we can travel as securely from Beirut to Tehran as we can travel today through Eastern Europe.

Hmm. Who gets to have Layne/Welch-style fun in whatever the Mideast version of Prague is, in a few years? John Hawkins emails:

I think it’s 1943, but Iraq is more analogous to the invasion of Italy than North Africa (Afghanistan would’ve been Operation Torch).

Italy was the first time we took the battle to the home turf of one of our enemies (rather than just a place they had managed to occupy, like Tunisia or Afghanistan). It was a battle of liberation of sorts too, where their people were glad to be rid of the old tyrant. One can only hope Saddam meets his own Piazzale Loreto, a la Il Duce.

But I definitely don’t feel like this war is over yet.

The other similarity to 1943 of course is that it was a year before a Presidential election…

Ms. Douthat’s history comes in for some criticism, too:

Doris may be old enough to remember WWII, but she certainly doesn’t remember the facts very well. I don’t object to her analogy to Operation Torch, but to suggest that Torch “prevented the fall of Egypt” gives far too much credit to the Americans and fall too little to the Brits. El Alamein was long past before Torch. The Americans provided (eventually, after an early disaster or two) the backside to a pincer movement that was mostly British. The Americans had a lesser role in North Africa in 1943 than the Brits had in Iraq in 2003.

That last seems a bit strong, but it’s been quite a while since I studied that stuff.

UPDATE: Reader Bob Macaulay emails:

There is a lot wrong with the first Operation Torch/1943 post, but here is what’s probably the most important parallel: TORCH and the North Africa campaign is where the US Army went to get tough enough to win future, significant battles. They learned what tactics and equipment worked, and what didn’t. They learned to toss ineffectual unit leaders out immediately. Most of all, its where the officers and men learned to hate their enemies, to want to close with and kill them.

Hmm.

PRODUCTIVITY UP, jobless claims down. Well, I’m happy about it.

SASHA VOLOKH will be getting a lot of email over this post. I’ll bet he doesn’t write anything like this again. . . .

VIRGINIA POSTREL writes on Milton Friedman’s enormous influence.

GEORGE MCGOVERN IS TANNED, RESTED AND READY — and Peter Beinart notes that Democratic disarray on the war may be leading to a reenactment of 1972.

A READER WONDERS IF BLOG-PRESSURE led to this change:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Los Angeles Times has ordered its reporters to stop describing anti-American forces in Iraq as “resistance fighters,” saying the term romanticizes them and evokes World War II-era heroism.

I hope so.

BELMONT CLUB is engaging in traffic analysis. And scroll up from the linked post for more.

I don’t do this sort of military analysis, and I don’t necessarily vouch for theirs, but it’s interesting. Stay tuned.

COMMENTS ON THE WAR: LT Smash and Christopher Hitchens weigh in.