You want an American hero? A real hero?

I nominate Judge Damon J. Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Judge Keith wrote an opinion, handed down last Monday by a three-judge panel in Cincinnati, that clarified and reaffirmed some crucially important democratic principles that have been in danger of being discarded since the terrorist attacks last Sept. 11.

The opinion was a reflection of true patriotism, a 21st-century echo of a pair of comments made by John Adams nearly two centuries ago. "Liberty," said Adams, "cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people."

And in a letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1816, Adams said, "Power must never be trusted without a check."

Last Monday's opinion declared that it was unlawful for the Bush administration to conduct deportation hearings in secret whenever the government asserted that the people involved might be linked to terrorism.

The Justice Department has conducted hundreds of such hearings, out of sight of the press and the public. In some instances the fact that the hearings were being held was kept secret.

The administration argued that opening up the hearings would compromise its fight against terrorism. Judge Keith, and the two concurring judges in the unanimous ruling, took the position that excessive secrecy compromised the very principles of free and open government that the fight against terror is meant to protect.

The opinion was forceful and frequently eloquent.

"Democracies die behind closed doors," wrote Judge Keith.

He said the First Amendment and a free press protect the "people's right to know" that their government is acting fairly and lawfully. "When government begins closing doors," he said, "it selectively controls information rightfully belonging to the people. Selective information is misinformation."

He said, "A government operating in the shadow of secrecy stands in complete opposition to the society envisioned by the framers of our Constitution."

The concurring judges were Martha Craig Daughtrey and James G. Carr. The panel acknowledged - and said it even shared - "the government's fear that dangerous information might be disclosed in some of these hearings." But the judges said when that possibility arises, the proper procedure for the government would be to explain "on a case-by-case basis" why the hearing should be closed.

"Using this stricter standard," wrote Judge Keith, "does not mean that information helpful to terrorists will be disclosed, only that the government must be more targeted and precise in its approach."

A blanket policy of secrecy, the court said, is unconstitutional.

The case that led to the panel's ruling involved a Muslim clergyman in Ann Arbor, Mich., Rabih Haddad, who overstayed his tourist visa. The ruling is binding on courts in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee and may serve as a precedent in other jurisdictions.

The attorneys who argued the case against the government represented four Michigan newspapers and Representative John Conyers Jr., a Michigan Democrat. They took no position on whether Mr. Haddad should be deported.

"Secrecy is the evil here," said Herschel P. Fink, a lawyer who represented The Detroit Free Press. He said the government "absolutely" had an obligation to "vigorously" fight terrorism. But excessive secrecy, he said, was intolerable.

"We just want to watch," said Mr. Fink.

Judge Keith specifically addressed that issue. The people, he said, had deputized the press "as the guardians of their liberty."

The essence of the ruling was the reaffirmation of the importance of our nation's system of checks and balances. While the executive branch has tremendous power and authority with regard to immigration issues and the national defense, it does not have carte blanche.

Lee Gelernt, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who represented some of the plaintiffs in the case, noted that the administration has been arguing since Sept. 11 that it needs much more authority to act unilaterally and without scrutiny by the public and the courts.

He said last week's ruling was the most recent and, thus far, the most important to assert, "That's not the way it's done in our system."

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Fundamental changes are taking place in the historical policies of the United States with regard to human rights, our role in the community of nations and the Middle East peace process -- largely without definitive debates (except, at times, within the administration). Some new approaches have understandably evolved from quick and well-advised reactions by President Bush to the tragedy of Sept. 11, but others seem to be developing from a core group of conservatives who are trying to realize long-pent-up ambitions under the cover of the proclaimed war against terrorism.

Formerly admired almost universally as the preeminent champion of human rights, our country has become the foremost target of respected international organizations concerned about these basic principles of democratic life. We have ignored or condoned abuses in nations that support our anti-terrorism effort, while detaining American citizens as "enemy combatants," incarcerating them secretly and indefinitely without their being charged with any crime or having the right to legal counsel. This policy has been condemned by the federal courts, but the Justice Department seems adamant, and the issue is still in doubt. Several hundred captured Taliban soldiers remain imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay under the same circumstances, with the defense secretary declaring that they would not be released even if they were someday tried and found to be innocent. These actions are similar to those of abusive regimes that historically have been condemned by American presidents.

While the president has reserved judgment, the American people are inundated almost daily with claims from the vice president and other top officials that we face a devastating threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and with pledges to remove Saddam Hussein from office, with or without support from any allies. As has been emphasized vigorously by foreign allies and by responsible leaders of former administrations and incumbent officeholders, there is no current danger to the United States from Baghdad. In the face of intense monitoring and overwhelming American military superiority, any belligerent move by Hussein against a neighbor, even the smallest nuclear test (necessary before weapons construction), a tangible threat to use a weapon of mass destruction, or sharing this technology with terrorist organizations would be suicidal. But it is quite possible that such weapons would be used against Israel or our forces in response to an American attack.

We cannot ignore the development of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, but a unilateral war with Iraq is not the answer. There is an urgent need for U.N. action to force unrestricted inspections in Iraq. But perhaps deliberately so, this has become less likely as we alienate our necessary allies. Apparently disagreeing with the president and secretary of state, in fact, the vice president has now discounted this goal as a desirable option.

We have thrown down counterproductive gauntlets to the rest of the world, disavowing U.S. commitments to laboriously negotiated international accords.

Peremptory rejections of nuclear arms agreements, the biological weapons convention, environmental protection, anti-torture proposals, and punishment of war criminals have sometimes been combined with economic threats against those who might disagree with us. These unilateral acts and assertions increasingly isolate the United States from the very nations needed to join in combating terrorism.

Tragically, our government is abandoning any sponsorship of substantive negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. Our apparent policy is to support almost every Israeli action in the occupied territories and to condemn and isolate the Palestinians as blanket targets of our war on terrorism, while Israeli settlements expand and Palestinian enclaves shrink.

There still seems to be a struggle within the administration over defining a comprehensible Middle East policy. The president's clear commitments to honor key U.N. resolutions and to support the establishment of a Palestinian state have been substantially negated by statements of the defense secretary that in his lifetime "there will be some sort of an entity that will be established" and his reference to the "so-called occupation." This indicates a radical departure from policies of every administration since 1967, always based on the withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories and a genuine peace between Israelis and their neighbors.

Belligerent and divisive voices now seem to be dominant in Washington, but they do not yet reflect final decisions of the president, Congress or the courts. It is crucial that the historical and well-founded American commitments prevail: to peace, justice, human rights, the environment and international cooperation.

Former president Carter is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta.

At Heathrow, a 300-foot red carpet is stretched out to Air Force One and President Bush strides to a warm but dignified handshake from Queen Elizabeth II.

They ride in a silver 1934 Bentley limousine to the edge of central London where they board an open 17th century coach hitched to six magnificent white matching horses. As they ride toward Buckingham Palace, each looking sideways and waving to the thousands of cheering Britons lining the streets, all is going well. But suddenly the right rear horse lets fly with the most horrendous earth rending, eye smarting blast of gastronomic flatulence ever heard in the British Empire, including Bermuda, Tortola and the Falkland Islands. It shakes the coach.

Uncomfortable, but under control, the two dignitaries of state do their best to ignore the whole incident, but then the Queen decides that's ridiculous. She turns to Mr. Bush and explains, "Mr. President, please accept my regrets.... I'm sure you understand that there are some things that even a Queen cannot control."

George W. Bush, ever the gentleman, replies, "Your Majesty, please don't give the matter another thought..... You know, if you hadn't said something, I would have thought it was one of the horses."

"President Bush continues to have the highest popularity rating of any president ever, current rating 130 percent... In fact, Al Gore carries in his wallet a picture of him and Bush at the debates and says, 'Yeah, I know him. We used to hang out.'" -Jay Leno

"New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is lobbying now to stay in office another three months. And today Clinton said, 'You can do that?'" -Jay Leno

"Today in New York, we had the primary elections for mayor. To improve their chances, all five candidates changed their name to Rudy Giuliani." -Conan O'Brien

The central moral struggle of the 19th century concerned slavery, and that of the 20th pitted democracy against Nazism, Communism and other despotic isms. Our own pre-eminent moral challenge will be to ease the brutality that kills and maims girls and women across much of Africa and Asia.

Alas, this summer President Bush is putting the U.S. on the wrong side of the battle lines.

Most outrageous, last month Mr. Bush cut off all $34 million in funds for the United Nations Population Fund, in all 142 countries in which it operates, because of concerns about its role in China. What does this mean on the ground?

An emergency obstetric care program was to begin this year in Burundi, where only one-quarter of births are attended by a trained midwife (almost none by a doctor) and where one woman in eight will die in childbirth.

Because of Mr. Bush's move, however, that program in Burundi has now been canceled - along with plans for midwife training in Algeria, a center to fight AIDS in Haiti and a maternal mortality reduction program in India.

Conservatives are right to object to China's often brutal one-child policy. But only Washington could come up with a solution to Chinese problems that involves killing teenage girls in Burundi.

Aside from cutting off funding for the population agency, the Bush administration is busy devastating third-world women in other ways. It is trying to block a landmark international treaty on the rights of women, even though the State Department initially backed it. The treaty, known as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or Cedaw, would make no difference in America but would be one more tool to help women in countries where discrimination means death.

The Bush administration is also undercutting international efforts to use conferences to bolster support for rural health care for poor women. For example, the Bushies tied up negotiations for this month's Earth Summit in Johannesburg by insisting that documents be purged of phrases like "reproductive health services" that they think connote abortion.

President Bush has also walloped international family planning efforts by banning the use of American aid to overseas organizations that provide any information about abortions. And while Mr. Bush basked in his promise of $500 million for the global AIDS fund, his administration is making such onerous demands of the fund that none of the money can be used anytime soon.

In one crucial field, the battle against sexual trafficking, it is conservative Christians who have taken the lead in fighting on behalf of third-world women. So on this one issue has Mr. Bush shown any mettle?

No. As a reproachful letter to him from a broad range of conservative leaders pointed out on June 28, the administration record "is one of passive acceptance of the world trafficking status quo."

In the Bush administration, the assumption is that in all these cases the fundamental issue is abortions or sex. It is not.

The central issue is that 500,000 women die each year in pregnancy or childbirth; that 100 million women and girls worldwide are "missing" because they are denied adequate food or medical care, or because they are aborted or killed at birth because they are female; that 60 percent of the children kept out of elementary school are girls; that 130 million girls have undergone genital mutilation; that between one and two million girls and women are trafficked into prostitution annually.

If I'm angry, it's because those figures conjure real faces of people I've met: Aisha Idris, a Sudanese peasant left incontinent after giving birth at 14, with no midwife or prenatal care, to a stillborn child; Mariam Karega, a young woman nursing her dying baby in a Tanzanian village far from any doctor; Sriy, a smart and vibrant 13-year-old Cambodian girl who was sold into prostitution by her stepfather and by now is probably dead of AIDS.

Instead of joining the fight on behalf of Ms. Idris, Ms. Karega or Sriy, the Bush administration is allying the U.S. with the likes of Iran, Sudan and Syria to frustrate international efforts to save the lives of some of the most helpless people on earth. Somehow we have become the core of an Axis of Medieval.

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

GEORGE W. BUSH
I don't think I should have to answer that question.

AL GORE
I invented the chicken. I invented the road. Therefore, the chicken crossing the road represented the application of these two different functions of government in a new, reinvented way designed to bring greater services to the American people.

RALPH NADER
The chicken's habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by unchecked industrialist greed. The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.

PAT BUCHANAN
To steal a job from a decent, hardworking American.

RUSH LIMBAUGH
I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I'll bet it was getting a government grant to cross the road, and I'll bet someone out there is already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing-the-road syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of this can real Americans take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars, and when I say tax dollars, I'm talking about your money, money the government took from you to build roads for chickens to cross.

JERRY FALWELL
Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other side. "That's what "they" call it - the "other side." Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other side."

DR. SEUSS
Did the chicken cross the road?
Did he cross it with a toad?
Yes! The chicken crossed the road,
But why it crossed, I've not been told!

ERNEST HEMINGWAY
To die. In the rain. Alone.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

GRANDPA
In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed The road. Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

BARBARA WALTERS
Isn't that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heartwarming story of how it overcame a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of "crossing the road"

JOHN LENNON
Imagine all the chickens crossing roads in peace.

ARISTOTLE
It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

KARL MARX
It was a historical inevitability.

SADDAM HUSSEIN
This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

CAPTAIN KIRK
To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

FOX MULDER
You saw it cross the road with your own eyes! How Many more chickens have to cross before you believe it?

FREUD
The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

BILL GATES
I have just released eChicken 2003, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook--- and Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of eChicken.

EINSTEIN
Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What Do you mean by chicken? Could you define chicken please?

LOUIS FARRAKHAN
The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed the "black man" in order to Trample him and keep him down.

THE BIBLE
And God came down from the heavens, and He said Unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road" And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

COLONEL SANDERS
I missed one?

You have to believe that 8 years of national prosperity was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George Bush but that, yesterday's gas prices is all Clinton's fault.

You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.

You have to be against government programs, but expect Social Security checks on-time.

You have to believe that government should stay out of people's lives, except to regulate opposite-gender marriages, what your official language should be, and what form of birth control, if any, you should use.

You have to believe that pollution is ok, as long as it makes a profit.

You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you don't pray to Allah or Buddha.

You have to believe that only your own teenagers are still virgins.

You have to believe that a woman cannot be trusted with decisions about her own body but that large multinational corporations should have no regulation or interference whatsoever.

You love Jesus and Jesus loves you and, by the way, Jesus shares your hatred of AIDS victims, homosexuals, and President Clinton.

You have to believe that society is colorblind and, growing up black in America doesn't diminish your opportunities, but you still won't vote for Alan Keyes.

You have to believe that it was wise to allow Ken Starr to spend $50 million dollars to attack Clinton because no other U.S. presidents have ever been unfaithful to their wives.

You have to believe that a waiting period for purchasing a handgun is bad because quick access to a new firearm is an important concern for all Americans.

You have to believe it is wise to keep condoms out of schools, because we all know, if teenagers don't have condoms, they won't have sex.

You have to believe that the ACLU is bad because they defend the Constitution, while the NRA is good because they defend the Constitution.

You have to believe that socialism hasn't worked anywhere, and that Europe doesn't exist.

You have to believe that the AIDS virus is not important enough to deserve federal funding proportionate to the resulting death rate and that the public doesn't need to be educated about it, because if we just ignore it, it will go away.

You have to believe that biology teachers are corrupting the morals of 6th graders if they teach them the basics of human sexuality, but the Bible, which is full of sex and violence, is good reading.

You have to believe that Chinese communist missiles have killed more Americans than handguns, alcohol, and tobacco.

You have to believe that even though governments have supported the arts for 5000 years and that, most of the great works of Renaissance art were paid for by governments, our government should shun any such support. After all, the rich can afford to buy their own and the poor don't need any.

You have to believe that the lumber from the last one percent of old growth U.S. forests is well worth the destruction of those forests andthe extinction of the several species of plants and animals therein.

You have to believe that we should forgive and pray for Newt Gingrich, Henry Hyde, and Bob Livingston for their marital infidelities, but Clinton should have been impeached.

WASHINGTON - In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush made a strong effort to work hand in hand with Congressional leaders to build a bipartisan consensus for the war on terrorism. In the State of the Union address he said eloquently, "I'm a proud member of my party. Yet as we act to win the war [and] protect our people . . . we must act, first and foremost, not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans."

The president assured Americans then that politics would not play a part in deciding issues of life and death. Which is why when Karl Rove told a Republican party meeting last January that talk of war and terror themes could play to the G.O.P.'s advantage in the 2002 elections - or last June, when a computer disk containing a presentation by Mr. Rove revealed a White House political strategy to focus on the war as a way to "maintain a positive issue environment" - I didn't want to believe it. And when Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, remarked that the White House waited until the start of the election season to promote action in Iraq because "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," I hoped it wasn't true.

But now there's no denying it. President Bush himself has decided to play politics with the safety and security of the American people. It started in New York two days after the one-year anniversary of Sept. 11. Injecting politics into the debate on Iraq, the president told reporters that "if I were running for office, I'm not sure how I'd explain to the American people, say, `Vote for me and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I think I'm going to wait for somebody else to act.' "

Four times in the past week Mr. Bush has echoed these words. On Monday, he went so far as to say that the Democrat-led Senate is "not interested in the security of the American people." In a recent speech in Kansas, Vice President Dick Cheney also entered the act, saying that our nation's security efforts would be stronger if a Republican candidate for Congress were elected.

Those sentiments were quickly amplified by Tom DeLay, the Republican whip in the House. One Republican member of Congress even went on national television to question a Democratic colleague's patriotism and accuse him of hating America - simply for saying we needed a debate on Iraq.

This is not how a great nation should debate issues of war and peace. To question people's patriotism for simply raising questions about how a war is to be fought and won - to say that anybody who doesn't support the president's particular policy on national security is against national security - is not only insulting, it's immoral.

Like many Democrats, I share the administration's goals in dealing with Iraq. Some in my own party have criticized me for that support. But this is a case that deserves to be made on the basis of policy, not politics. It's clear that in a world plagued by terrorism, protecting our national security means worrying about where terrorists could get their hands on weapons of mass destruction. Around the world, Iraq is the No. 1 candidate for spreading those weapons. We must deal with this diplomatically if we can, but militarily if we must.

Eleven years ago, the Persian Gulf war debate on Iraq took place after an election, which helped keep politics out of it. Because of the urgency the current administration has placed on Iraq, we are asked to vote on the issue this fall.

Calling for a Congressional vote is important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is building a broad, bipartisan coalition to provide the support necessary for the country to get behind - and stay behind - any war effort. Democrats are committed to trying to develop a final bill that will draw the broadest bipartisan support possible for dealing with this threat.

But the statements by the president and the vice president only serve to weaken that process, undermine trust and thwart cooperation. If Mr. Bush and his party continue to use the war as a political weapon, our efforts to address the threat posed by Iraq will fail. Military action, if required, may meet with quick success in Iraq, but a peaceful, democratic Iraq won't evolve overnight. It will take the active support of both parties in Congress over the long term if we are going to win the peace. That's only going to happen if we act, not as Democrats or as Republicans, but as Americans.

Richard Gephardt, Democrat of Missouri, is House minority leader.

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

The default position on Al Gore appears to be ridicule. He opens his mouth and is immediately assumed to be cynical, tactical, self-serving, self-pitying, awkward, embarrassing, unintentionally hilarious or all of the above. Much of this comes from Republicans, who seem afflicted by near-psychotic rhetorical twitching whenever the man who won the popular vote in 2000 makes a public appearance. Last week, for example, an amoeba from the Republican national committee stepped out and said that Gore's criticism of the Bush administration's rush to war in Iraq was "more appropriate for a political hack than a presidential candidate". But the press has been equally dismissive (often with cause: Gore is an oafish politician), and so have many of his fellow Democrats.

A few months ago, Gore told some of his supporters he'd made a mistake in the 2000 campaign by paying too much attention to "polls, tactics and all the rest - I should have let it rip, poured out my heart and my vision, and let the chips fall where they may". These quite sensible remarks occasioned a small tornado of disdain from the press and politicos. James Carville and others said, inaccurately, that Gore was blaming his consultants. He wasn't. He was blaming himself. It was, in fact, an altogether admirable pronouncement. Would that more politicians were able to distance themselves from their witch-doctors.

Gore's Iraq speech was rather inconvenient for Democrats, especially for those in Congress running for re-election, who have "decided" to take Iraq off the table as quickly as possible so they can go home and talk about prescription drug benefits for senior citizens and other issues that poll well. Indeed, it is now assumed that most Democrats will stow their doubts and better instincts, and rush a vote in favor of a slightly modified war resolution next week. They will do this merely because their political consultants are convinced Iraq is a "bad" issue for them.

The unanimity of this conviction among consultants (and the willingness of commentators to buy into it) should give us pause. It is especially noxious because the issues they want Democrats to run on - pandering to the elderly on drugs, demagoging on pensions and blaming George Bush for the business cycle - are minuscule compared with the decisions about to be taken by the Bush administration. This is not merely about Iraq: the White House is proposing a radical new military and diplomatic doctrine for the US - the right to intervene, unilaterally and pre-emptively, whenever we see fit. This has actually been put into writing, into words so simple, the president has said, that "the boys in Lubbock can understand it". And the Democrats don't want to talk about it?

Gore's speech wasn't a masterpiece. It seemed hastily composed and rewritten (he has an unfortunate habit of putting in sweaty all-nighters before a major address). The tone was resentful and it was filled with sloppy, contradictory thinking. An argument can be made that there was politics involved - that Gore was positioning himself for 2004, currying favor with Democratic activists, who tend to be more dovish than most Americans. But raising an important issue for tactical effect is quite different from ignoring an issue for tactical convenience. Gore performed an essential public service. He nudged a necessary debate. He was followed to the podium, several days later, by Senator Ted Kennedy, who delivered a more eloquent and tightly argued version of the same message (and, yesterday in Blackpool, by a somewhat more cautious Bill Clinton).

Furthermore, Gore made a crucial distinction: a war against Iraq and the campaign against terrorism are not identical. Indeed, an immediate attack (in January, one assumes) on Saddam Hussein could complicate the larger cause. A successful war against Iraq raises at least three nettlesome questions. Will it increase or decrease the threat of a biological or chemical attack on the US? Will it increase or decrease the stability of the region? Will it increase or decrease the number of young Muslims who believe the propaganda about America's satanic role in the world?

Almost every American politician I've spoken to - Democrat and Republican - has grave doubts about at least some of the details of the operation we seem to be hurtling toward. There are fierce divisions within the Pentagon over strategy and purpose. After all, for the past 20 years it has been America's tacit policy to keep Saddam in power because his removal was likely to destabilize the region. It is quite probable that the next government in Iraq will not be perceived by its neighbors as the avatar of democracy and religious tolerance, but as an American client state. The notion that pummeling Baghdad will usher an Islamic enlightenment is laughable.

There are other problems. As the American military pieces are slowly wheeled into place for the campaign, Iraq's chemical and biological labs are likely to be shut down, the germs and gases that are transportable put in suitcases, and then sold or given away to the very people we fear. It is entirely possible that Saddam will attempt to build a coalition of his own with a pre-emptive chemical or biological attack on Israel. Ariel Sharon has said he will retaliate, which could precipitate a wider war. At the very least, Saddam would have the satisfaction of knowing that he'd be remembered in history as the man who incinerated Tel Aviv.

These are only the most obvious questions. Perhaps the president and his advisers have planned for these contingencies, and for the dozens of other profound issues raised by this proposed course of action. Perhaps they have devised the strategies that will assure the desired result - the removal of Saddam - with a minimum of disruption. Perhaps they have answers they can't share with us now. But the recent history of American foreign policy - not just in this administration, but in the previous one as well - has not been marked by careful planning, long-range thinking or attention to detail.

The rush to war, the tendency of conservatives (and their propagandists) to go berserk whenever legitimate questions are raised, the giddy moral certainty in the air, the fact that we are not talking about one quick war against a psychopath but about a fundamental shift in American policy that may shape the world for the next 50 years - all this should cause us to pause, slow down, and talk this over.

Gore's speech was a start. And more, it was a gauntlet wisely thrown. Those politicians - Democrat and Republican - who neglect these crucial issues now, for whatever reasons, should be taken at face value. Apparently, they have nothing of interest to say on an issue of overwhelming importance, a course of action that could have a profound impact on the future of the US and the UN, and on the stability of the region. And they should have no call on our attentions, sympathies or support in the future.

Joe Klein is author of The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton and Primary Colors.

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002

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