Maybe Saddam is just getting started

The August vacation did nothing for the logical abilities at Opinionjournal.com. Today's gem:

London's Daily Telegraph notes another benefit of Iraq's liberation:

A spokesman for [Italy's Prime Minister Silvio] Berlusconi said the prime minister had been telephoned recently by Col Gaddafi of Libya, who said: "I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid."

For such a short item it captures everything that's bogus about OpinionJournal: the sourcing to fellow Vast Right Wing Conspiracy member, the Daily Telegraph, whose own standard of sourcing (like all British papers) is very low -- as in this case, sourced to an undated quote from a "spokesman" to persons unknown supposedly on behalf of a Prime Minister who's never had much problem directly speaking his mind. And then there's the return to the Libya rationale for invading Iraq -- that it'll scare Gaddafi. But as we pointed out before, under Ronald Reagan, the US already acted as directly as it could in scaring Gaddafi -- by attacking his home and killing his daughter. It was after this attack that Libya organised the Lockerbie bombing.

Lots of people are justifiably fretting about the shambles in Iraq. But as Tom Cruise said to Ving Rhames in Mission Impossible: Relax. It's much worse than you think.