It's Very Easy To Start

I Was Very Struck By The Fact That Colin Powell Said He Would Produce Evidence Of Osama Bin Laden Fault And Then Never Produced It. Then Tony Blair Produced A Document Of Seventy Paragraphs, But Only The Last Nine Referred To The World Trade Center, And They Were Not Convincing. So We Have A Little Problem Here: If They're Guilty, Where Is The Evidence? And If We Can't Hear The Evidence, Why Are We Going To War?

The Bin Laden I Met Each Time Was In A Simple Saudi White Robe, With A Simple, Cheap Kafiya And Very Cheap Plastic Sandals. But A Videotape Released Before September 11, Which I Saw On Lebanese Television, Had Him In A Gold Embroidered Robe. When I Saw This, I Thought, Whoa, Has This Guy Changed? I Wouldn't Have Imagined Him Ever Appearing In Such Golden Robes When I Met Him.

The Dead Cannot Speak. But Hitherto Unknown Information Has Emerged From The Confidential Archives Of The Syrian Presidency And Foreign Ministry, Published In A New Book By Bouthaina Shaaban, Who Spent Ten Years As Hafez's Interpreter And Is Still An Adviser To His Son Bashar.

Saudi Arabia Is The Most Fragile Of All Arab States, Though We're Not Saying So. And, Unfortunately, Bin Laden Puts His Finger On The Other Longstanding Injustices In The Arab World: The Continued Occupation Of Palestinian Land By The Israelis; The Enormous, Constant Arab Anger With The Tens Of Thousands Of Iraqi Children Who Are Dying Under Sanctions; The Feelings Of Humiliation Of Millions Of Arabs Living Under Petty Dictators, Almost All Of Whom Are Propped Up By The West.

So Here's A Question From One Who Believed, Only A Week Ago, That Baghdad Might Just Collapse And That We Might Wake Up One Morning To Find The Baathist Militia And The Iraqi Army Gone And The Americans Walking Down Saadun Street With Their Rifles Over Their Shoulders. If The Iraqis Can Still Hold Out Against Such Overwhelming Force In Umm Qasr For Four Days, If They Can Keep Fighting In Basra And Nasiriyah – The Latter A City That Briefly Rose In Revolt Against Saddam's Regime In 1991 – Why Should Saddam's Forces Not Keep Fighting In Baghdad?