Untitled Document

20 April 2004

Borrowed Time

There is a poem on the refrigerator by Andrew Marvell. He has been dead a long time, and time is one of the things he wrote about. He wrote about the winged chariot at his heels, and is resonates this morning, the first of the year in which the sweat rolls down beneath my shirt and the fan roars at the open window.

I don't know that there is ever any good news from overseas, and there is plenty of bad to consider. From what the Administration is muttering, they seem to expect the Bad Guys to try to influence the election as they did in Spain.

So I expect them to try something spectacular here in the next few months, probably closer to November than now. I think the Spanish reaction to the bombings has emboldened the thugs. But I see things only dimly, and looking backwards is always easier than looking forward.

But it doesn't matter. Our erstwhile partners are scrambling to get out of the potential frag pattern before their kids get killed and they get voted out of office.

Honduras announced this morning that they were going to pull their troops out of Iraq, as quickly as possible. If we cannot get the situation under control and get the UN to share the burden, we may be standing with only the British as we look for someone to accept the sovereignty we are promising at the end of June.

I don't blame the Hondurans, or the Spanish for that matter. I would have preferred a little more backbone and resolve, but I suppose it is to be expected. Each defection from the Coalition of the Willing leaves us with fewer fig-leaves. We will be naked in no time if there is no change.

And change is very much on our minds. Bob Woodward, the consummate Washington inside journalist iis out with another book revealing the inner workings of the Administration on the road to war. I don't for the life of me understand why senior officials feel the compulsion to run their mouths while they are still in office.

There is plenty of time to whine later.

I know Colin Powell has had a long relationship with Woodward, and has talked to him extensively throughout his government career. Don Rumsfeld did, too, and released a couple hours of tapes to prove that everything is on the up-and-up. Even the President talked to Woodward on the record.

At least Dick Clarke had the good grace to retire before he started to vent his bile.

I think this is weakening the President badly. If the transfer of power to the Democrats is what they want, the legion of blabbers seems to be mounting an excellent campaign. Or maybe it is a subtle stroke of politics to get everything out on the table before the summer, and hope that the happy electorate forgets about the way we went to war.

I'm not that smart, and informing us that a special deal was cut with the Saudis on the price of oil before the elections does not sound like anything I would like to read in the Post, true or not.

I'll have time to read the Post when I start my new commute downtown in a couple weeks. The sensible thing is to jump on the Orange Line over at Ballston and ride down to Metro Center. But there is the Madrid factor. I don't think I feel comfortable committing myself to the train each day and may reserve that option for special occasions. But special occasions may make attractive targets, too.

The British Press is reporting the arrest of ten men in a plot to bomb the Manchester United
soccer match against arch-rival Liverpool this Saturday.

The cops are saying that the suspects bought tickets for seats around the club's stadium. The place holds almost 70,000 seats, an we are familiar enough with the carnage that ordinary stampedes can create. Ten simultaneous bombs detonations on live TV would have had the sort of cachet the terrorists crave.

Manchester is denying the whole thing, but you would expect that. They have to sell tickets, after all. And perhaps the extensive searches at the gates would have foiled the operation.

As you note, we have the conventions and holidays coming up. Something is going to attract the attention of the terrorists. I read that Abu Sayef, the Philippine-based terror group, highjacked a large container ship and drove it around at a variety of speeds for a couple hours, apparently practicing their ship-handling. They kidnapped the master as well, and he hasn't bee seen since. I assume they are honing their skills for something awful.

It sounds like Moussaoui, the man who only wanted to learn how to fly jets, not land them.

I don't have the same feeling of dread that I did in the summer of 2001. But there is a resigned certainty to the fact that something is big going to happen. Maybe here, maybe somewhere else. I can almost hear the hoofbeats of the horses on the winged chariot.

I think we are living on borrowed time. And if they cannot stop the public disclosures about their decision-making process in the war on terror, I think the Administration is, too.