The Week - mayoral primary election in New York City - this and other topics are discussed

National Review, Nov 5, 2001

-- Mark Green edged out Fernando Ferrer in the New York mayoral primary-Democratic, of course-but Ferrer demanded a recount, owing to certain ballot irregularities. Okay, let's have a recount: and at the end, can Rudy Giuliani win?

-- The U.S. initially hesitated to bomb the Taliban's front lines north of Kabul, because the Bush administration hadn't fully thought through its campaign before launching it. The administration hoped to loose the military unencumbered by messy political considerations. But no war can be waged without a coherent political strategy, which in this case would have required a clear idea of what might constitute a post- Taliban government. So the administration stalled in destroying the Taliban, while it tried to cobble together some political vessel that would please Pakistan and all of Afghanistan's perpetually warring ethnicities (the majority Pashtuns dominate the Taliban, the minority Uzbeks and Tajiks the Northern Alliance). But there's another, more important consideration: Every day the Taliban remains in power, America's prestige and momentum-in other words, its power-diminishes in the region. The U.S. should topple the Taliban and throw Kabul to the Northern Alliance, for simple lack of an alternative. At least then, justice would be served the Taliban, and the political pieces could be picked up later. Bombs away.

-- "Bipartisanship is abnormal," House minority leader Dick Gephardt said recently. So it is. In the first flush of righteous anger, Congress (with the noxious exception of Rep. Barbara Lee) showed commendable unanimity. That unanimity predictably dissipated. Almost anything can be claimed as vital to our defense. A strong military needs a strong economy: How do we stimulate ours? OPEC oil revenues enrich the bin Ladens of the world: How do we diminish our dependence? But the answers to these questions are not military per se: They vary, according to one's pre-9/11 view of the world. That means they will be the subject of political dispute. Liberal commentators have gotten off to a good start, by accusing Republicans who back tax-rate cuts or the Bush energy plan of unseemly partisanship. (Is the liberals' implicit offer that they will support this war only if conservatives surrender on the domestic front?) Politics will, and should, go on. Conservatives, like liberals, should fight for what they think is right, as both sides keep their eyes on victory in war.

-- U.S. leaders, from President Bush on down, have commendably told Americans not to take their anger out on Arabs or Muslims living in this country. (The two categories are not coterminous-most Muslims in America are black, while most Arabs are Christian.) Would it be too much to ask Muslim Arab-Americans to show a little anger in America's behalf? The trickle of anecdotal evidence, now amounting to a river, suggests that among recent immigrants particularly there is neutrality, and sometimes even sympathy for bin Laden. The abandonment of dual loyalties is part of the assimilating process that all immigrants to America go through. It also matters what the secondary loyalty is to: Middle- and upper-class WASPs felt a tug towards Britain during the two world wars; Jews feel protective of Israel, a friendly democracy. Today, the attractive foreign power is a gang of civilization-hating mass murderers. America is now asking a lot of its citizens. It is not too much to ask its immigrants to assimilate.

-- How ironic that the British prime minister who has been determined to end the century-long special relationship between his country and ours should be giving it such a glorious last hurrah. Tony Blair has dedicated himself to subsuming Britain's sovereignty and identity into a united Europe. But while so many Euros have hemmed and hawed in the present crisis, Blair forthrightly condemned the attacks as unprovoked terror, drew the link between the murderers, bin Laden, and his Taliban hosts, and sent British forces to war alongside Americans. Whatever went before, whatever else happens, we will not forget this, sir.

-- Democrats (and John McCain) want the federal government to take over airport security. But Europe, Japan, and Israel have all found it more effective to put private contractors in charge of security-not least because contractors can be fired if they screw up. In an analysis for the Reason Public Policy Institute, Robert Poole and Viggo Butler point out that what American airports lack, and other countries increasingly have, is a single owner/operator responsible for security. The federal role should be to conduct frequent security tests and to penalize the airports that flunk them. It works in Europe, and it can work here as well-unless, of course, the goal is to increase the public payroll rather than the public safety.

-- The administration appears likely to get most of the law-enforcement powers it wanted from Congress, and a few it didn't. The bill it sought-called the "Patriot Act" in the House, and the "U.S.A. Act" in the Senate-was supposed to aid the fight against terrorism. Some of its provisions would have this hoped-for effect. The House bill, for example, allows the government to exclude members of a terrorist organization from the country (reversing a law Ted Kennedy wrote to help members of the IRA). But many other provisions, especially in the Senate bill, are mischievous. Proposed money-laundering rules would penalize countries whose only fault is to have financial-privacy laws and low taxes. Regulations on Internet gambling, meanwhile, have nothing to do with fighting terrorism. Before the bill is rushed through Congress, these provisions should be taken out. They can be reconsidered at leisure.