As a Marine sergeant currently on inactive status, (meaning that if they ever call me up again, the feces has truly hit the rotary air mover) I know a little bit about inspections. I've been inspected a thousand times, and have conducted a few myself.

When you check into a unit, they issue you a weapon, currently, an M-16 for most Marines. You sign a pice of paper saying that you got it. It's kept in the armory when you don't need it, like when you're on leave.

On a compleatly unrelated note, it'd be a truly cool policy if upon arrival at boot camp, you'd be issued your very own brand-new personal M-16, one that would be yours to have and hold during your entire career as a Marine. The way it is now, when you transfer units, you leave your weapon behind. While Marines do take excellent care of their rifles, there is still an unconscious tendency to treat your weapon like a rented car.

To make it even better, upon satisfactory completion of your enlistment, you should be allowed to take your M-16 home with you as a going-away present. I know that this would give gun control freaks immediate cases of myocardial infarction, but we could make some concessions to them:

1. The weapon remains the property of the Corps, and cannot be sold, given away, or otherwise transferred.

2. The weapon will have the authorized Marine's name and SSN indelibly engraved on several prominent and important spots, such as the receiver, barrel, etc.

3. It will be converted, via a sear change, to semi-auto fire only.

4. Use of the weapon in any crime would be punished by severe mandatory prison terms in a military prison, such as Leavenworth. That ain't your pimpdaddy's stockade. If it is a violent crime, it becomes a capital crime, such sentence being carried out by military firing squad.

5. The rifle would be kept under lock and key. Imbed some sort of tracking device in the weapon that would allow it to be located in case of theft. I honestly don't know the best way to implement this, but I cannot help but think it can be done.

6. The former Marine and his weapon would be subject to periodic inspections.

This proposal will sound outlandish to many of you, but it is not far off from the Swiss policy, in which all able-bodied males ae members of the militia, and are required to maintain even full-auto assault rifles at home.

Now, consider this case:

The Marine inspector arrives at the home of a former Marine, and says, "I'm here to inspect your weapon."

Said Marine says, "What weapon?"

"The weapon we know you have. The M-16. You signed for it here. Here are the documents."

"I don't have this rifle. It was destroyed."

"Destroyed? Where is the documentation for that?"

"I don't have any. It's just gone."

"What happened to it?"

"I don't have it. The dog ate it."

"That's not what our records say."

"Hey, search my house. I'm telling you I don't have it. Look all you want."

"The law says that the rifle should be kept under lock and key, at this address, and be available for our inspection. We are not required to be detectives looking for this, the law says that you must present the weapon to us upon our demand."

"Hey. I'm co-operating, am I not? I said you can look anywhere you want for it."

"Don't be ridiculous. We can't go around digging up your yard, searching every possible place you could have hidden it. Present the weapon as you agreed to. We're inspectors, not detectives."

"Maybe you need more inspectors. I have no such weapon, and furthermore, just yesterday I made it a rule in our house that we cannot have any such weapons."

I'm guessing by now that you get my point. Saddam agreed to present his WMD programs to the UN inspectors. UNSC Res. 1441 promised dire consequences if he did not. He's refused to cooperate in the inspection. That in and of itself is a material breach, "smoking guns" be damned.

It now seems that certain members of the UN are determined to destroy that body itself, by making it's clear declarations meaningless. Furthermore, these same members seem to be focused on destroying NATO as a viable body.

Both NATO and the UN are largely US creations, and the US certainly has borne the lion's share of the military and economic effort to keep them strong.

We should let them go and spiral down the drain. We are strong and smart and honorable enough to design new organizations, new alliances, new treaties, with new and willing partners. We will share with these partners a common cause. These partners will all be more fitted to pursuing international freedom, progress, and growth than our current appeasing "allies."

They now seek to protect a vile regime for sordid, self-serving reasons. It should make us shudder that we ever called them friend.

As a final gesture of that friendship, a parting gift, as it were, we should give them their wish, and leave them to their own devices, their own fates, with their futures unshadowed by the bulk of American hegemony. Then, when they call once again for help in cleaning up the mess they've made with themselves, we will, as always answer.

"No."

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As I write this, I'm listening to Bush's address. While he spoke, my email program beeped to inform me of a mail from the NY Times. The 101st just got ordered to the Middle East. There was no way that the war was gonna go down without them.

Bush said he would "welcome" another UN resolution, but that we didn't need one. He directly stated that the US would stop Saddam. (Sorry, don't recall the exact quote)

I've known for a good long while this war would happen - I opined that Saddam would go down on 9/12. Can any rational human doubt it at this point?

Expect to see the few remaining nations trying to delay this fold like a paper airplane in the next 48 hours.

Keep on protesting, MoveOn, A.N.S.W.E.R. The dogs are gonna bark, but the caravan's movin' on.

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A continuing refrain of those that oppose the upcoming war against Iraq is that the US is continuing on a cowboy course of unilateral action. Many Americans have bought into the idea that somehow the choice to make war is not wholly our own, that there are some areas in which we are obligated to allow an entity such as the UN decide for us.

I'd take the time to argue against this, but why waste the time? The isssue has become moot. After the UNSC Res. 1441, we obtained full UN permission to take Saddam down, if he did not comply.

Furthermore, much of the world has in fact signed on. The Euro "Gang of Eight" signed a letter of support last week. Turkey has agreed to allow us to use their bases.

Each day brings more nations over to agreement with our mission to remove Saddam. Today, after Powell's presentation to the Security Council, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia all came out in support for the war to remove Saddam. It seems the more recently you've been oppressed by a tyrannical regime, the more sympathy you have for helping other folks depose their autocrats. This could maybe explain Canada's lack of enthusiasm for the project.

The growing consensus has caused the anti-war activists to continually "move the goalposts," as it were, and now demand that we get the support of nearly all nations, as if a group of nations, all with widely diverging interests, could ever agree about anything.

I think this is in part due to our subconscious equation, at least here in America, of the United Nations as some sort impartial jury before which the contestants in an international dispute can present their cases, and expect to get a ruling based on the merits of the issue, as opposed to naked national self-interest. The UN has all the trappings of a democratic process, and we sometimes confuse this veneer with solid substance. The appearances deceive.

Lacking here is the requirement that those sitting in judgement of a dispute, be they judge or jury, have no personal stake in the outcome of the decision. In order to preserve this, the parties to the dispute must have some sort of mechanism by which they can unseat, for cause, any jurists that do.

This key feature of the American judicial system is, of course, totally lacking at the UN.

Trying Saddam, in the court of world opinion that is the UN, is like trying to convict a drug dealer, with his supplier, a few of his steady customers, and his best buddy sitting on the jury. A unanimous verdict will prove to be an impossible goal. Only the most naive would either expect or require it.

Which brings us to the anti-war factions, and their moving goalposts.

It seems that the definition of "multilateral" has morphed to mean that it must include "Old Europe," that is, France and Germany, along with Russia, no matter how many other nations line up with us.

They are not, however, impartial jurists.

Russia will go along before it's all over - they're just extorting back-channel assurances from the US that they'll get the money they're owed for all the arms they've sold Saddam. (On a side note, we hear all this outrage from the anti-war faction that we supported Saddam with arms in the past. This seems hard to reconcile with the fact that his army is equipped with T-72s, BMPs and AKs, as opposed to M1s, Bradleys, and M-16s, but I suppose that's a whole 'nother post. Seems as if there had to be a lot of other folks arming him, too.)

They'll also want to have a free hand with the Chechen rebels.

Chirac, in France, is under severe domestic political pressure, and is afraid of it's substantial Muslim minority population. They've been buying the lion's share of their oil from Iraq, and have benefited substantially from their oil production agreements with Saddam. Can you spell TotalFinaElf? I knew you could. :-) Seems that this was is indeed all about oil, just not in the way most people that mouth that statement mean it.

While we may not like those reasons, they are at least understandable. France is cutting a fat hog, and wants to keep it that way.

Germany, unlike Russia or France, will prove to be acting more from fear than greed. After the war is over, and we finally have unfettered acces to Iraqi government records, we will find out that Germany has been illegally selling contraband equipment to Saddam.

Go read this. Here's the lede:
"Expurgated portions of Iraq's December 7 report to the UN Security Council show that German firms made up the bulk of suppliers for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs."
A quick summary for you lazy linkers - The German intelligence agency knows boodles about Saddam's WMD, and they've been sitting on it. After a secret briefing for senior members of the German government, his Health Minister, one Ulla Schmidt, put in a sizable budget request for stocks of smallpox vaccine. They've been the largest suppliers of both equipment and feedstocks to produce Iraqi chemical weapons, along with the delivery systems for those weapons. But you truly do need to go read the entire article.

It is almost certain that when we attack Saddam, he will launch some Scuds at Israel. This time around, they may have chemical warheads. How ironic would it prove to be if once again, the Germans proved to be culpable in the gassing of the Jews? What would be the repercussions of this?
Sadly, with the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe, probably not much.

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