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This Is War

By Julia TurnerUpdated Friday, Jan. 31, 2003, at 2:25 PM ET

New Republic, Feb. 10
The magazine comes out charging in favor of war in Iraq. An editorial skewers liberal calls for patience with the inspections process. The argument? Lefty doves called for Bush to seek approval from Congress. He got it. They called for him to give the U.N. inspection process one last try. He did. But after Blix's "positively devastating" condemnation of Iraq, the editors argue, it's time for liberals hold up their end of the bargain and support the war they asked for. (The piece also excoriates the New York Times editorial page for its failure to do so.) … Laurence F. Kaplan neatly explains how the Bush administration ended up in this fix (and why they should never have gone to the United Nations); they "viewed inspections as a tactical ploy, while everyone else … took them seriously."

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The New Yorker, Feb. 3 (Revisited)
Just as Midas turned everything he touched to gold, Kenneth M. Pollack's book The Threatening Storm seems to turn everyone who reads it into a hawk. Editor David Remnick laments the Bush administration's "lack of public engagement in the argument for force" in Iraq and notes that Pollack, at least, is willing to answer the questions: Why Iraq? And why now? Remnick finds the answers convincing; he concludes that if Saddam won't step down, "a return to a hollow pursuit of containment will be the most dangerous option of all."

American Conservative, Feb 10
If The New Yorker can vote "yea" on war, the American Conservative can certainly vote "nay." The editors run a story on the growing conservative wing of the anti-war movement; it's comprised primarily of "soccer moms and Republican businessmen," who fear that attacking Iraq will only inflame anti-American sentiment in the Arab world, and that Bush has put the nation on the road to empire. The story argues that the anti-war left and right can happily agree that "Peace is patriotic," but that—thanks to differences on Israel, the value of international intervention, and the role of the United Nations—it's unlikely that they'll agree on why it's patriotic in time to make an impact.

Economist, Feb. 1
An article profiles Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist who named his dogs Marx and Engels because "they are German, hairy, and have no respect for property." Unlike his dogs, de Soto thinks property is very important. His celebrated idea for fighting poverty, and by extension terrorism, is to grant titles to the billions of dollars of land that is de facto owned by the world's squatters. … A piece tries to explain why French foreign policy is always so awkwardly contrarian. In part it's because being the odd man out allows France to "punch above its weight." But that influence may dwindle if France continues to hold out on Iraq: An American war conducted over the heads of the Security Council would render France and its veto power meaningless. … An article lays out the economic challenges to developing bioterrorism vaccines. The problem: not enough economic incentive for big pharma. The solution: not clear.—J.F.

New York Times Magazine New York Times Magazine, Feb. 2
Parasomniacs are liable to eat cigarettes, impersonate beasts, or incite fisticuffs with armoires while they snooze, and their behavior is forcing sleep scientists to reconsider our mental state when we're out cold. The cover story suggests that neither our workaday dreams nor these more extreme nocturnal activities have as much to do with our psyches as we (or Freud) supposed, but the most striking thing about the piece is not this interesting idea but Josef Astor's surreal photography. … As for A.O. Scott's love letter to Zooey Deschanel, its peek-a-boo layout (recently touted by editor Adam Moss) does make it seem that the starlet is flirting with you. … Also, a profile of Yosri Fouda, the Al Jazeera journalist to whom al-Qaida leaders granted a two-day interview. The piece says Fouda's story was well-produced but soft on al-Qaida, and that by giving him exclusives, Osama has successfully kept Fouda "on the fence."

National Review, Feb. 10
A coverline promises to explain "Why liberalism can't beat AIDS." The same tag might conceivably have been applied to this week's New Yorker piece on the ethics of testing an AIDS vaccine on Africans. But the story inside (quelle shock!) is rather different. It focuses on Uganda's successful efforts to stanch the spread of HIV with its A.B.C. program (that's "Abstain, Be faithful to your partner, or use a Condom") and argues that Western experts have willfully ignored the promise of the program because of its emphasis on abstinence. (The piece does not dwell on the program's advocacy of condoms.) "You might say that countless Africans have died unnecessarily to preserve in the progressive Western mind the purity of the sexual revolution." Well, you might. Another conclusion you might draw, both from this piece and the New Yorker story, is that while AIDS is global, programs intended to combat it must be tailored very locally.

The New Yorker The New Yorker, Feb. 3
A story examines the ethics of testing an AIDS vaccine on thousands of Africans. Western medical ethicists draw comparisons to the notorious Tuskegee tests, in which doctors withheld treatment from poor black men with syphilis so they could study the disease. But the piece sides with a Ugandan doctor who favors testing the vaccine, since more expensive treatments are unavailable to his patients. He calls the ethics debate "patronizing." … A deft piece on Matisse's great-granddaughter chronicles her effort to paint Picasso's Guernica as Henri himself would have done it. She fails, and the process is fascinating. … From a sympathetic profile of Martha Stewart, the following choice morsel: "After I admired the silver chopsticks that had been set out, Stewart said, 'You know, in China they say, "The thinner the chopsticks, the higher the social status." Of course, I got the thinnest I could find.' After a pause, she added, 'That's why people hate me.' "

Newsweek, Feb. 3
When FBI field office chiefs make demographic profiles of their regions, Newsweek reports, they must count the number of mosques in the area. "This is not politically correct," an FBI official said, "but it would be stupid not to … given the number of criminal mosques that may be out there." … Let the Powell-watching continue: Colin's metamorphosis from dove to hawk kicks off an update on Bush's preparations for war. Powell seems to be embracing the aggressive mentality; at the U.N. last week, he offered the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 as a model of successful pre-emptive action. … In a piece on the changing psychology of warfare, a pilot describes anti-aircraft fire at night: "It looks like trails of beads, like fireworks. It's pretty, it doesn't seem real, and you've got to sort of wake yourself up to realize that you're being shot at."

Time Time, Feb. 3
The cover story notes that the CIA has been rebuilding its paramilitary wing—the one we have to thank for Iran-Contra, and the one that was well-nigh dismantled after those embarrassments came to light. However, according to an unnamed CIA operative, CIA special ops agents infiltrated Afghanistan on Sept. 26, 2001, two weeks before the war there officially began. They arrived with "light arms" and $3 million "for bribing Afghan warlords to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda." … In his column, Joe Klein argues that hawks are having more trouble garnering support for war in Iraq, in part because of the Bush administration's "lather of righteous arrogance and dim-witted machismo." … In a glaring correction, Time retracts last week's report that Bush I stopped the annual practice of sending a wreath to the Confederate Memorial and that Bush II reinstated it. "The story is wrong"; Bush the elder, Clinton, and Dubya have all sent flowers.

Weekly Standard Weekly Standard, Feb.10
According to the domesticated cover art, America is a cat on the prowl and Iraq is a mouse with a missile (or could it be the other way around?). The article offers some semantic three-card monte to reground the Iraq debate: "Pre-emption" is really "prevention," and "prevention" is itself just a euphemism for "deterrence." If we can deter the acquisition of a nuclear bomb, we won't ever need to worry about deterring its use. … A piece pushes an iffy comparison between George W. and JFK. Both supported tax cuts, both cared about civil rights (Bush more so than Kennedy, we're told), and both championed a strong military. But GWB could do to absorb one major lesson from "the president he most resembles": He should put his personality on display to win public admiration. How about some fireside chats, and maybe a few photo ops with the family?—J.F.

The Nation The Nation, Feb. 10
Eric Alterman goes on a five-city tour in search of European anti-Americanism. At a Bruce Springsteen concert in Paris, he finds the French screaming along to "Born in the USA." It's not America they hate; it's American policy and especially the American president. "There is a pro-American world out there … just waiting for an America it can respect as well as admire." … In his regular column, "Stop the Presses," Alterman revisits last year's State of the Union address and its elegant but ill-conceived grouping of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea into an "axis of evil." In that case, a word-wise but policy-dumb speechwriter was allowed, apparently without much forethought, to almost single-handedly make American foreign policy. What does this year's speech have in store?—J.F.