Keith Devens .com

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Power Line: Baathist Surrender In Works?:

The so-called insurgency has long consisted of two main elements, the al Qaeda-linked terrorists, most of whom are not Iraqis, and Baathist Sunnis whose objectives are more narrowly political. It sounds as though some of the latter group, at least, are ready to throw in the towel. Their violence had two main strategic objectives: first, to prevent President Bush from being re-elected; second, to prevent the Iraqi election from going forward. Both failed. If they give up, the terrorists will be isolated and can much more easily be defeated.

Plus, it seems the Sunnis are realizing they made a big mistake in not participating much in the election last month.

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The Telegraph on the EU Constitution

The Telegraph on the EU Constitution (via LGF):

Spain is first [to vote on the constitution], on Sunday. According to the Spanish justice minister: "You don't have to read the treaty to know it's a good thing." In Spain, at least, it seems likely that the faithful will accept this secular bishop's advice: they won't read the constitution, and they will vote for it.

It is natural for Americans to like the sound of the word "constitution". They have the best one ever written in a single document. It consists, in the copy I have before me, of 12 pages, 11 if you exclude the list of the men who signed it. There are also amendments added over the past two centuries: they amount to another nine pages. ... My copy [of the European Constitution]... is 511 pages long [and weighs 2lb 8oz].

This is not a constitution, certainly not a constitution intended to be understood by those it affects. It is a vast agglomeration of decisions made by governments to take power over citizens of vastly differing countries... Rather than confining itself to the division of powers by which a country should be governed – head of state, parliament, judiciary, what's local and what's national – it lays out scores of pages telling people how to run their lives.

Soon, probably next year, we shall be asked to vote on the constitution ourselves. The No campaign has been arguing for quite a long time that every household should be sent a copy of the European Constitution. The Government is proving rather evasive on the point, but what possible objection could there be, apart from the health-and-safety threat to our postmen's spines?

It would weigh scarcely anything extra to throw in the US Constitution with each envelope, thus offering the most instructive possible comparison... [Consider] the opening words of the two documents. The US Constitution begins, famously, "We the People…". The European Constitution begins, "His Majesty the King of the Belgians…". That gives you a fair idea of the different spirit of each document.