Category: National

Amid the scandals, torture and atrocities that have spun out of the Iraqi invasion, worldwide context has been a war victim. To wit:

In a hierarchy of outrageous occurrences, we have a skivvy-clad Saddam Hussein, commodable Korans (retraction notwithstanding), a sexual pyramid, video-taped beheadings and car-bombed civilians.

For added clarity, call it: embarrassment, sacrilege and humiliation on one side and murder and carnage on the other.

These days that’s pretty much a wash – at best.

With the inevitable ebb and flow of the war on terrorism — here an unconscionable Abu Ghraib, there a gutsy voter turnout — it becomes easy to forget the most salient – and ironic — piece of advice yet uttered on the subject of America’s “liberation” of Iraq. It was proffered by Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the joint chiefs during Operation Desert Storm. He was weighing in on the merits of “finishing the job” of routing the forces of Saddam Hussein and physically ousting the dictator.

Powell told George Bush the Elder that, however tempting, the United States should not put itself into the position of “occupying an Arab country.” The reason was two-fold. Urban warfare – i.e., insurgencies — would replace aerial bombardment and U.S. casualties would ratchet up rapidly. In addition, the U.S. would inevitably take a public relations hit as crusading infidels occupying Muslim land. And as we’ve seen, a bloody, jihadist pep rally has resulted – further fueled by periodic prisoner humiliations and retractable tales of Koranic commode capers.

But Powell’s sage advice in the first Gulf War – although criticized in many quarters at the time — helped carry the day. It saved lives – as well as face.

Alas, Secretary of State Powell would morph into a diplomatic lawn jockey in the George W. Bush administration. His legacy is now smeared, and his principles forever compromised.

Sept. 11 altered some geo-political thinking and changed a few paradigms. What it shouldn’t have done, however, was to void a rule of thumb that America – “liberation” rhetoric notwithstanding – should not put itself into the position of “occupying an Arab country.”

It made no sense then. It makes for daily carnage and incendiary demonstrations today.

Consider: A flesh-puppet pyramid, commodable Korans (retraction notwithstanding) and a skivvy-clad Saddam. Plus videotaped beheadings and car-bomb carnage.

Or: Degradation, sacrilege, humiliation and murder. Pretty much a wash.

There’s this tradition of the Congress holding its advice and consenting to whomever the president chooses as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. It might be an elder statesman such as Adlai Stevenson or a patrician presence like George H.W. Bush. It could be an opinionated Jeane Kirkpatrick, a charismatic Andy Young or a buttoned-down John Negroponte.

But John Bolton?

Since when does a president send up a certifiably surly, congenital critic of the UN? This singular practice of rubber-stamping appointees only works when the president doesn’t select a UNphobe with all the tact of a punch in the mouth. A Foggy Bottomed Mike Tyson with a track record of bullying subordinates, as well as trying to cook the intelligence books and hype Cuba’s weaponry capacity.

We all know how imperfect the U (oil for food, Syria on the Security Council) N is, but it’s the only such international forum there is and we’re stuck trying to make the best – not the worst — of it. In a world where fighting terrorism is an international imperative, we need all the friends – or at least non-adversaries – we can muster. We don’t need the UN’s permission to defend ourselves, but our national security has never been so dependent on global relationships.

Sending Bolton sends absolutely the wrong message: “You thought we were a tad arrogant, nigh on to unilateralist and diplomatically challenged before? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

The confirmation of Bolton would be more than a mistake. And it would be more than mistaken allegiance to a quaint tradition. It would be a disaster.

Since 9/11, it’s been a key anti-terrorism tenet of the Bush Administration that those who harbor and support terrorists are part of the nightmarish problem and will be held accountable – and dealt with accordingly.

Obviously easier said than implemented. Witness Saudi Arabia, which has incubated terrorists and then funneled protection money to them under various guises.

Closer to home, it was encouraging that the White House celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by snubbing Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA. The IRA, which has taken the lives of innocents in the name of political redress, is a terrorist organization. They aren’t Al-Qaeda or Palestinian Islamic Jihad and wish us no harm, but the point should be a terrorist is a terrorist. And non-combatant innocents are innocents. Ours or anybody else’s.

But in outrageously bad timing, the U.S. now courts international charges of hypocrisy and double standards with the impending case of Luis Posada Carriles. The Cuban exile militant has been on the lam for years and recently – and secretly – entered the U.S. He is somewhere in Miami and reportedly hopes for asylum.

Over the years, he has been linked to a number of violent – and deadly — incidents against the government of Fidel Castro. In fact, he is still wanted – ironically — by Venezuelan authorities for the mid-’70s bombing of a Cuban plane in which all 73 aboard perished. It had taken off from Caracas.

Here’s hoping the Bush Administration’s bar on pandering to South Florida Cubans doesn’t drop low enough to accommodate Carriles – either in seeking political asylum or parole as a Cuban refugee.

A terrorist is still a terrorist.

We’ll not see his kind again. Not in our lifetime.

The passing of Pope John Paul II galvanized the globe – as no other contemporary world figure could. His mourners transcended the planet’s 1 billion Catholics. Condolences came from Muslims, Jews and Protestants. Praise came from the most disparate sources, including George W. Bush, Fidel Castro and Mehmet Ali Agca – his would-be assassin. In unprecedented numbers, an estimated 4 million pilgrims – and 200 world leaders — made their way to Rome to pay their final respects.

That’s what happens when the honoree was a globe-trotting crusader for human rights and an outspoken opponent of totalitarianism wherever he found it. Talk about a bully pulpit.

But for all his charisma and courage – from defying Nazis to helping defeat Communism – there was this: Has there ever been a person who was more disagreed with who was also more respected? And beloved?

Over the years, we became familiar with his ideology – and his obstinacy.

He was doctrinaire and a fundamentalist hard liner on sex and gender issues, which is not what “cafeteria Catholics” wanted to hear in this country. He was an opponent of capital punishment and the Iraqi war, which was at odds with certain significant constituencies. And he didn’t exactly jump-start a housecleaning of pedophile priests, for which there was a deafening demand in many quarters.

But what you saw – and heard in myriad languages – is what you got.

Right and wrong were not relative concepts — any more than morality could be more or less good or bad. Pope John Paul II wasn’t one for changing with the times as if principles could meander in and out of fashion. Pander wasn’t in his extensive, multi-lingual vocabulary.

Those weren’t sectarian traits; an animist or atheist would find them no less refreshing in an era of relativism, materialism and cynicism.

He wasn’t going to make it easier to be Catholic – just because it was an increasingly secular world. There were standards – and they weren’t up for compromise. Salvation was earned. It was a reward – not a block grant. He took controversial stands and didn’t back off because they were unpopular. It’s what leaders do.

It’s what’s done by those who alter history.

Ashley Smith, the former hostage who helped capture Atlanta courthouse gunman Brian Nichols, has been thanked again – this time with more than $70,000 in reward money. And there are other, more lucrative deals, in the works.

Good for her. She saved lives. People are rewarded handsomely all the time in this society for contributing nothing more than bad role-modeling.

As to the city of Atlanta, it got off cheap.

It contributed all of $5,000 of the $70,000 awarded Smith. For relative chump change, it had what remained of its reputational bacon saved by someone who actually showed some presence of mind.

Now to anyone familiar with the race-based, image-conscious inner workings of Atlanta, the whole Keystone Kops scenario – from pseudo security to manhunt mayhem – was no shock. What was truly different, however, was that the unnecessary, unconscionable and tragic deaths of a judge, a court reporter, a sheriff’s deputy and a federal agent couldn’t be covered up in the finest tradition of skewed Atlanta crime statistics.

The world watched this one. We all knew who did it – and it wasn’t Richard Jewell or Ray Lewis.

Atlanta, long a siren song to the black middle class, has too long skated on its well-marketed, Andy Young-proclaimed renown as “The city that’s too busy to hate.”

Well, if Atlanta were ever actually too busy to hate, it would have been because it was preoccupied cooking the books on crime. But here were four murders – three downtown and one in Buckhead – that couldn’t be concealed from convention planners, Super Bowl task forces and Southeastern Conference basketball tournament officials.

And had it not been for Ashley Smith, a widowed waitress from a nearby suburb, Nichols might still be on the lam.

But at least Wayne Williams remains behind bars. Last we heard.

Speculation will now be ratcheting daily about the successor to Pope John Paul II. The world will watch for clues as to which of the 117 voting-age Cardinals seems to have an inside track to the papacy.

A Cardinal of color? The Italian Battalion? A Latin American? An American American? The sacrilegious will quote odds. The blasphemous will take them.

An early New York Times’ short list features four Italians, two other Europeans, an African and three Latin Americans.

The handicapping included this curious capsule of Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, 60, the Archbishop of Vienna: “Multilingual, highly educated; youth could be a handicap.” Or how about 62-year-old Honduran Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa? He’s summarized as: “Multilingual, outspoken on social issues; relative youth is handicap.”

YOUTH as a disadvantage? Still wet behind the mitre? Do sexagenarians need co-signers?

But both Schoenborn and Rodriguez are older than John Paul II was when he was elected (at age 58) in 1978. Could this be insider code for “the fix is in” for a caretaker or a transitional figure who won’t go off the conservative reservation staked out by John Paul II?

Put me down for Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, 77, the Vatican’s secretary of state and second only to the Pope in church hierarchy. Which means he’s been running a lot of the day-to-day stuff for a while.

If it matters, he’s the one with on-the-job experience. And he’s old enough.

Ashley Smith, the former hostage who helped capture Atlanta courthouse gunman Brian Nichols, has been thanked again – this time with more than $70,000 in reward money.

As to the city of Atlanta, it got off cheap. It contributed $5,000 of the $70,000 awarded Smith. For relative chump change, it had what remained of its reputational bacon saved by someone who actually showed some presence of mind.

To anyone familiar with the race-based, save-face, inner workings of Atlanta, the whole Keystone Kops scenario – from pseudo security to manhunt mayhem – was no shock. What was truly different, however, was that the unnecessary, unconscionable and tragic deaths of a judge, a court reporter, a sheriff’s deputy and a federal agent couldn’t be covered up in the finest tradition of skewed Atlanta crime statistics.

The world watched this one. We all knew who did it – and it wasn’t Ray Lewis.

Atlanta has too long skated on its well-marketed renown as Mecca for America’s black middle class. To quote Andrew Young’s oft-repeated shibboleth, it is “The city that’s too busy to hate.”

Well, if it were ever too busy to hate, it would have been because Atlanta was preoccupied cooking the books on crime. But here were four murders – three downtown and one in Buckhead — that couldn’t be concealed from convention planners and Super Bowl task forces.

Smith, a widowed waitress in a nearby suburb, talked Nichols, in effect, into giving himself up. He put up no resistance after Smith alerted police with a 911 call.And had it not been for the “grace under fire” exhibited by Smith, Nichols quite arguably would still be on the lam.

But at least Wayne Williams remains behind bars. We believe.

America may yet decide that Iran is the next Islamic piñata.

The Tehran government helps underwrite Hezbollah and still seems adamant about maintaining its uranium-enrichment program. There’s more than a sneaking suspicion that Iran still seeks to effect a theocratic, Shiite state in neighboring Iraq. And, come to think of it, we’re still awaiting an apology for that hostage-taking incident.

Thus there’s ample reason, according to ongoing White House reasoning, why Iran, officially dubbed a “state sponsor of terrorism,” remains a member in malevolent standing of the Axis of Evil.

And yet, who is Iran – beyond its Persian past and unflattering, contemporary Islamic stereotypes?

A few, pre-Axis years ago (2000) I traveled to Iran and peered beyond the dyspeptic, stern-visaged mullahs and sepulchral, chador-shrouded women. It’s not easy because you also have to transcend Koranic cops, institutionalized anti-Semitism and public executions. Plus awful television, squat toilets and no beer.

Initially you think, what’s not to dislike besides world-class worry beads and nickel-a-liter gas?

But there is also this.

Some Iranians were around when the country was still Persia (1935); most weren’t around for the revolution of 1979. In fact, the median age for its 70 million people is 23. Its youth are the most educated generation in Iran’s history. From ’79 to 1999, the literacy rate went 58% to 82%. Not surprisingly, they seem to want what most people want – a better life.

This generation knows the revolution unshackled Iranians from an authoritarian dynasty, and that Islam was the vehicle. They also know that the anti-Shah revolution was hijacked by the most conservative clerics. These reactionary mullahs, in turn, crafted a constitution delegating ultimate power to a supreme religious leader – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his successor Ayatollah Seyyed Khamenei.

When the opportunity came to popularly elect a president in 1997, a mandate for the relatively reformist, former culture minister Mohammad Khatami resulted. Khatami, who has said for the record that “salvation and freedoms go together,” won 70% of the student-skewed vote and has been re-elected.

Restless students

The students, however, have grown restless for rapid results that Khatami, who does a political high-wire act over a mosh pit of religious hard-liners, hasn’t been able to deliver. They also know that their career prospects are limited by an economy undermined by a bloated, inefficient state sector. They want more republic and less theocracy in the Islamic Republic.

Overall, the Iranian people I met – from motorcycle-and-car clogged Tehran to the sprawling, time-warp bazaars of Shiraz and Isfahan – were uniformly friendly, even gracious, and typically taken aback by an American in their midst. The exception was Qom, the holy city, which doesn’t exactly roll out Persian welcome mats to non-Muslims.

In addition, there were any number of intriguing incongruities.

Upon arrival, one was left to ponder the message in a government tour guide’s boilerplate: “You must remember that there is no alcohol available here. It is forbidden.Not in the hotel. Not in restaurants