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Tuesday, November 12, 2002

Preparing to Douse Us

The Iraqis are trying to buy tremendous amounts of nerve gas antidotes and other chemical antidotes. They either expect lots of heart attacks soon (and are willing to use higher doses in a military-style auto-injection mode that is not appropriate for heart attack use), hope to scare us into inaction, or intend to fire lots of nerve gas at us if they get the chance. I suppose they could fear we might use the stuff but let’s get serious. We aren’t about to use chemical weapons. Not a chance. Nope, they will order the use of weapons that Scott Ritter claims they don’t have in an effort to escape the war crimes trials and the wrath of Shias and Kurds (and a lot of non-Tikrit Sunnis too I imagine). With the massive American invasion coming, a lot of trigger pullers won’t be too eager to comply.

And the North Koreans sent the remains of someone not the kidnap victim the North claims died long ago. Jut how many did the North Koreans kidnap? Just how tough is it to keep track of them? Really, how awful are they to try this? Or is it just backwardness in not realizing that ashes can be analyzed? I even read (sorry, no link) that the Japanese may eagerly cooperate on missile defenses and some worry they could go nuclear if this type of threat keeps up. Before we decide how we deal with this member of the Axis of Evil, can we finally at long last agree they are evil? Is it really so tough to admit that?

And finally, Iranian students are protesting against the thugreocracy that has put Iran on our list. Let us not be silent as they struggle to overthrow the regime. And they will. And they will appreciate our support when they finally win. We have support there, people, let’s show them we’re on their side. Publicly proclaim the justice of their cause and be prepared to help them when the crackdown comes. They’re not our puppets and we don’t even need them to be.

Quite the day of developments for the Axis of Evil. Little in common but their basic evil. But we must deal with all of them. We should count our blessings that they are not an organized alliance instead of mocking the “axis” part. It’s a rhetorical device, people—don’t take it so literally or assume our government does. Fortune appears to be with us on all of them, however. We may get regime change in two out of three and then the last holdout will feel the pressure. And with nobody else to really occupy our military’s attention, the North will not feel it has freedom to try a military solution.