THERE’S NOW A GERMAN FRIENDS OF AMERICA SITE, which Fredrik Norman will soon be adding to his Friends of America Network.

HERE’S A STORY on the Patriot Act debate that I moderated yesterday, in case you’re interested.

EVER NOTICE HOW IRAQI IMMIGRANTS DON’T SEEM AS PESSIMISTIC as, well, a lot of people who have never been to Iraq? Here’s another piece, from Singapore’s Straits Times of all places, sounding that theme:

I AM half Iraqi and residing in Singapore, and I would like to inform all your readers that nine in 10 Iraqis welcome the American invasion of Iraq. The 1/10 are linked to Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The invasion should be seen through the eyes of the Iraqi people. Whether there is war or no war, Iraqis are dying.

Allow me to recap Saddam’s murderous 24 years in power. . . .

This reduced a once rich and proud nation to misery and poverty. So, where does it all end?

I quote my father: ‘We Iraqis need an electric shock; we, an intelligent and cultured people, allowed a thug to rise to power and lead Iraq from one disaster to another. If the electric shock comes in the form of an American invasion, then so be it.’

To all those who are anti-war, I suggest that they go to Iraq and experience life in Saddam’s Iraq.

They will soon change their view and understand why Iraqis await the day when they are rescued from the evil regime.

Meanwhile, Susanna Cornett has much, much more on this theme. She also thinks that the Iraqi immigrant communities around the world will have a lot to offer the reconstruction effort in Iraq. That’s certainly how things are going in Afghanistan.

STEVEN DEN BESTE has some thoughts on why antiwar protests are so offensive and lame — even though it seems counterproductive for them to be that way. Interesting theory.

YESTERDAY THE SUPREME COURT HEARD ARGUMENTS in Lawrence v. Texas, the Texas sodomy case. Not surprisingly, Andrew Sullivan has a lot to say. He also points us to this account of the oral argument, by Dahlia Lithwick. Breyer’s comments are quite amusing.

I’ve written on this before — you can read my column from December here, in which I point out that state supreme courts have been reversing sodomy laws right and left, without significant controversy, under their state constitutions, and suggest that the Supreme Court could learn a lot from those opinions. You might also want to read this amicus brief written by Boston University law professor Randy Barnett and the Institute for Justice, and this law review article that Dave Kopel and I wrote a couple of years ago, which discusses the state sodomy decisions at considerable length.

Me, I’m pro-sodomy. And, in the rather unlikely event that I’m ever before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I’ll dare ’em to make an issue of it.

UPDATE: Eric Muller has a rather Freudian observation regarding a comment of Justice Scalia’s at oral argument yesterday. [That’s twice you’ve referred to “oral” argument in this sodomy case. — Ed. Not you, too! Sheesh! Back to Kausfiles, where you belong.]

ANOTHER UPDATE: Clayton Cramer takes a rather different view of these issues than I do.

ANATOLE KALETSKY writes in the Times about who has won and lost from diplomacy. Big losers: Germany, Russia, and Turkey.

Meanwhile, Michael Ledeen writes that Turkish non-cooperation, which may well cost American lives, was the result of French threats:

The leaders insisted on a disciplined “no” vote because of pressure — some would call it blackmail — from France and Germany.

The French and German governments informed the Turkish opposition parties that if they voted to help the Coalition war effort, Turkey would be locked out of Europe for a generation. As one Turkish leader put it, “there were no promises, only threats.”

One can describe this behavior on the part of our erstwhile Old Europe allies only as a deliberate act of sabotage against America in time of war. . . .

I think that when the events of the past few months are sorted out, we will find that French actions constitute the diplomatic equivalent of chemical and biological warfare.

Monsieur Chirac has stopped at nothing to try to prevent the defeat of Saddam Hussein, no matter how many American lives it cost.

And, more often than not, the Germans tagged along for the ride.

Damning stuff — and when you read these two items together, it really does look as if we’ve faced betrayal every bit as big as some bloggers have been saying for months.

WHY FRANCE, GERMANY, AND RUSSIA are opposing us. An interesting analysis from a surprising source.

Jacob T. Levy, meanwhile, writes in The New Republic on why Australia and Poland are our friends.

CINDERELLA HAS TRANSLATED an interview with Pascal Bruckner from Le Figaro. It’s well worth reading in its entirety, but here’s an excerpt:

LF:Is Europe currently in the process of leaving history, as Robert Kagan, a man close to the American administration, claims?

PB: Europe is characterized by the desire to leave history for good, including its own history. One of the most obvious signs was its passivity in the face of the Yugoslavian crisis, which it only emerged from in 1995, in Sarajevo, then in 1999, in Kosovo, thanks to American intervention. In 1999, in the Kosovo affair, Europe was so insistent that NATO strikes on Serbia and Montenegro should be kept to a minimum that the American general responsible for operations exclaimed: “No more interventions with partners like this!”

He is, however, somewhat pessimistic regarding Iraqi reconstruction even though he supports the removal of Saddam.

NICK DENTON WRITES:

The Arab press — hysterical in every sense of the word — is in a lather over civilian casualties in Iraq. America will pay the price sooner that it thinks. There are no limits to American injustice and highhandedness. Despite its power and tyranny America will not win because it has no humanitarian values. And that was before the missiles went astray this morning, apparently killing as many as 15 people. Hell, 15 dead: that’s a quiet day in the Arab world. Even imagining the United States was targeting civilians, its efforts are laughable compared with Saddam — 5,000 dead in the chemical attack on Halabja in one day — or Assad — 30,000 shelled to death in Hama — or pretty much any other Arab ruler. Arab governments — and their press and public — should first practice moral judgment on themselves and eachother, before turning their outrage on the United States. And, before they complain about a new hectoring colonialism, they should first show they’re capable of governing themselves by some means other than torture and massacre.

Let’s put that one in the Arab News!

And those guys really, really don’t want to see what the results will be if the United States ever decides to pursue a “no limits” strategy rather than the almost absurdly careful approach it’s following now. One can only imagine how, say, Syria — or, hell, France — would be acting if it possessed a similar degree of power.

Meanwhile Michael Totten has a post on how things are actually going on the humanitarian front.

STRATEGYPAGE lists the top ten myths of the Iraq war:

4-The United States armed Saddam. This one grew over time, but when Iraq was on its weapons spending spree from 1972 (when its oil revenue quadrupled) to 1990, the purchases were quite public and listed over $40 billion worth of arms sales. Russia was the largest supplier, with $25 billion. The US was the smallest, with $200,000. A similar myth, that the U.S. provided Iraq with chemical and biological weapons is equally off base. Iraq requested Anthrax samples from the US government, as do nations the world over, for the purpose of developing animal and human vaccines for local versions of Anthrax. Nerve gas doesn’t require technical help, it’s a variant of common insecticides. European nations sold Iraq the equipment to make poison gas.

You’ll have to go there for the other nine.

HEH:

U.S. SUCCEEDS IN TOPPLING CONNIE CHUNG

Regime Change At CNN ‘On Track,’ Rumsfeld Says

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon today that the U.S. has succeeded in removing Connie Chung from the airwaves, a primary objective of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“To those critics who would say that this campaign isn’t moving quickly enough, let me say this: it’s only been a week and we’ve already gotten Connie Chung’s show cancelled,” Rumsfeld said. “Goodness gracious, I’d say we’re on track.”

Secretary Rumsfeld reminded reporters that regime change at CNN was the ultimate goal of the military campaign in Iraq, and that the removal of Ms. Chung from the schedule “goes a long way” towards achieving that goal.

Read the whole thing.

I WAS ON “MORNING EDITION” THIS MORNING, along with Mickey Kaus and some other folks, talking about war rhetoric. You can stream the audio here — just scroll down to the “war rhetoric” story.

Blogging will be light for a while. I’m moderating a debate over the Patriot Act and wartime civil liberties here between CATO’s Tim Lynch and Heritage’s Paul Rosenszweig. I’ll be appropriately neutral, but you can get some idea of my feelings here.

In the meantime, there’s The Command Post and The Agonist — though the latter seems to be down at the moment.

Also, Austin Bay’s columns have been collected on the Iraq War Diary page. And this comment on racism from Eugene Volokh is extremely apt. See you later.

Oh, and read this post on what freed Guantanamo detainees say about conditions there. It’s not beer-and-skittles, but it’s hardly inhuman, either.

UPDATE: Still not really back, but I’ve got a few observations on Iraqi reconstruction over at GlennReynolds.com and Daniel Drezner has good posts on de-Ba’athification and on how various dictators around the world are taking advantage of the war to violate human rights in their own countries. And here’s something interesting about internal dissent at the BBC over slanted war coverage.

CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES is over at Shanti Mangala’s place this week. Check out the wide variety of posts from a wide variety of bloggers you might otherwise have missed.

HERE’S AN AIR FORCE BLOGGER’S ENTRY ON U.S. CASUALTIES. Excerpt:

Look. These are the coffins of six members of the United States Air Force. They did not die as a result of enemy fire. They died while attempting to transport Afghani children to a US medical facility for treatment. That is what the United States does. To all those who say, “…but what about Afghanistan? We haven’t fixed it yet…” and other such whining, I say: screw you. Six brave airmen died trying to make life better for children and their families who were brutalized under a tyrannical theocratic regime. Show me any other nation that does this as a matter of routine, 99% of the time without any press or media attention.

It ain’t the French. (Via James Rummel).

PHILIPPE DE CROY spots more poll spinning, this time at The New York Times:

NYT SPIN WATCH. Today’s New York Times has an article titled “Opinions Begin to Shift as Public Weighs War Costs.” It’s a report of a new poll the newspaper has run. Given the headline, what would you expect such an article to say? The implication, it seems to me, is that support for the war is declining as the costs of it become more evident. But as you read the article, you see that it focuses instead on (a) public perceptions about how well the war is going and how soon it will be over; and (b) whether support for the war is the same among blacks and whites. It is made very clear that opposition to the war among the former group runs high. And there is mention that opinions about the war generally are in “flux” in part because “many Americans say they remain unsure of Mr. Bush’s rationale for the conflict.” Okay, okay, but what about the basic overall question of whether Americans are supporting the war?

Not to worry; that question is discussed as well — in the eighteenth and last paragraph of the story: “Support for Mr. Bush and the war remains high. By 70 percent to 24 percent, Americans believe that the United States did not make a mistake getting involved in Iraq.”

Oh.

I’m shocked, shocked to find such things going on at the Times of all places.

UPDATE: Bill Hobbs has some thoughts on this, too.

AUSTIN BAY HAS A NEW COLUMN up. I don’t know why they don’t have him on CNN et al., in place of the many talking-heads they do have — he makes a lot more sense.

PEOPLE KEEP SENDING ME LINKS to an alleged “GRU site” featuring Russian analysis. I wasn’t very impressed when I looked at it, as much of it sounds suspiciously like stuff I heard at the beginning of the Afghan war from the same kinds of sources. Anyway, Jurjen has a pretty convincing post on why they’re, ahem, not reliable.

He’s got a lot of other interesting posts, too. Just keep scrolling.

THEY’RE NOT ANTIWAR — THEY’RE JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE: A continuing series.

ISRAELI EXPERTS say that there is so much disinformation about that it is impossible to assess the actual progress of the war. That’s my sense, too. Best quote:

Most of those interviewed agree that, paradoxically, despite the unprecedented media coverage of the war, including the many correspondents who are embedded in fighting units, nobody knows what is really happening in Iraq. Yossi Peled, former GOC Northern Command, thinks the U.S. has shown great skill in its control of the media. “You have lots of television crews in the field, yet as someone watching TV you have no overall picture.”

Military historian Prof. Martin van Creveld goes further: “Everyone is lying about everything all the time, and it is difficult to say what is happening. I’ve stopped listening. All the pictures shown on TV are color pieces which have no significance.”

“There is a lot of disinformation,” he concludes. “Every word that is spoken is suspect.”

Shahak says that until now the Americans have managed to conceal their true battle plan. “Do you know what the Americans have planned? I don’t. They also never said (what they were planning to do). How do you topple a regime in 48 hours? In a week? Seventeen days? If we don’t want to make fools of ourselves, we should wait patiently. It would just be arrogant to judge from what we see on TV.”

What’s been frustrating about the television coverage is exactly what Van Creveld describes: lots of information, none of it adding up to a very useful big picture. Which, I suspect, is the point. (Via The Command Post).

ANTI-AMERICANISM, “New Class” sensibilities, and the media: My TechCentralStation column is up.

BIGWIG NOTES:

I don’t what I expected when I first started blogging, sending ones and zeros out into the darkness. Thank you letters from soldier’s wives were not anywhere on the horizon, I know that. Nor was hate mail, for that matter, though when it came it was much less of a surprise than the e-mail above.

Read the whole thing, from a guy who’s a lot more of a power-hitter than he admits.

TED BARLOW is unhappy with the idea of Barbara Bodine as an important administrator in postwar Iraq. I don’t know much about her, but he’s got a lot of links — though many of them don’t really seem to suggest that she’s as bad as his post suggests, and some cut the other way. Ditto some of the comments to his post. So if you go there, read everything.

I genuinely have no opinion on her suitability or not for the job, but I do think that — although at one level it seems premature to be talking about postwar stuff when the war is just starting — the postwar follow-through is likely to be at least as important as the war. My MSNBC post for tomorrow is on that. I think that a lot of us — me included, sometimes — are spending a lot of time reading minute-by-minute reports that are fragmentary and often wrong, and not enough time thinking about the big picture.

UPDATE: Several readers seem to think that Gen. John Abizaid, who interestingly is a favorite of Aziz Poonawalla, will really be calling the shots on Iraqi reconstruction. Stay tuned.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill Hobbs likes Abizaid, too, and has some more information on him.

I’LL BE ON BBC RADIO 5 in about twenty minutes, at roughly 10:50 Eastern.

In the meantime, watch this Canadian debate on the war. The one big loser is Chretien.

UPDATE: I’m on hold right now. They called me and said “hello, Salam!” But apparently Salam Pax won’t actually be on — they’re having an impersonator read from his weblog or something. We’ll see.

ANOTHER UPDATE: It went well enough, I think. I was uncomfortable doing a show that mentioned Salam, but the producer told me that they’ve already done that a number of times, so I guess it’s not making anything worse — and I don’t think my presence made any difference anyway. But Salam, if you’re reading this, you’ve developed an awfully high profile lately. You might want to drop out of sight for a while. It’ll be over soon enough (well, not soon enough), and you can blog then. People will still care.

I hope that some of the first journalists into Baghdad once this is over will track Salam down and interview him. Once this is over.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Al Barger says we don’t need to worry about Salam.

CHIRAC’S FRIEND, SADDAM:

Iraqi troops fired artillery pieces horizontally into crowds of their own people last night after a civilian uprising in Basra, the second city.

Watching British troops encircling the city of 1.3 million inhabitants said there were “horrific” scenes. One officer said: “We have seen a large crowd on the streets. The Iraqis are firing artillery at their own people. There will be carnage.”

The French are still defending him. And they’ll probably try to blame the U.S. and Britain for the slaughter. But they want a piece of the action once Saddam’s gone.

Screw ’em. We ought to help the new Iraqi government extradite Chirac as a war criminal.

UPDATE: On the bright side, several readers note, the fact that they’re demanding a piece of the action makes clear how the French think things will go. Heh. Yeah, Saddam wouldn’t appreciate that, would he? Me, I feel about the French the way Joe Lieberman feels about the U.N.

A NICE INFOGRAPHIC of the war to date. (Via Jeff Jarvis’s warblog).