"How do we get out of this hell to see the stars again?" an editorial in the Italian newspaper Repubblica said on Sunday, alluding to the last lines of Dante's "Inferno." It added that the Bush administration was "going through a period of insanity that is worsening every day."
And Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, welcomed Mr. Bush to London with this reflection: "I actually think that Bush is the greatest threat to life on this planet that we've most probably ever seen."
Ah, yes, the cheery warmth of our staunch pro-American friends, the Italians and the British.
I've asked two Democratic presidential candidates, Richard Gephardt and another who spoke off the record, if it's really credible to offer the U.N. and NATO as a solution to Iraq. They harrumph a bit in a way that I interpret to mean: "Maybe not, but it works in front of television cameras."
Meanwhile, the administration is overselling the benefits of the Iraqification of security. Sure, it will help to have more Iraqi policemen and troops: Iraqi guerrillas who lay down roadside mines have been known to scrawl a warning on the street in Arabic. Thus American troops hurtle blindly into danger.
The problem is that while the administration boasts that 130,000 Iraqis have been incorporated into the security forces, most have trained for a few weeks or less (in some cases, for just one day). Relying too quickly on these Iraqis for security as we draw down our own troops will simply be a replay of Afghanistan: a slide into chaos. . . .
We need a name for this war. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" never rolled off the tongue, and "Iraq war" creates confusion with the 1991 war. So send in your entries by mail or e-mail. I'll report the top five suggestions and give those writers Iraqi 250-dinar notes with Saddam's portrait.
(Nicholas D. Kristof, "Safety First," <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/19/opinion/19KRIS.html>) ***** -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>