Denial is an often useful innate human trait. Few of us would be able to function in the present if we did not put out of mind many unpleasant realities - such as our inevitable death. The Woody Allen character in the movie "Annie Hall" stated the comic extreme version of not using the denial mechanism when, as a child he refused to do his homework because in 5 billion years the sun would explode, "So, what's the use?"

But when a person, or a society, denies emerging or imminent dangers, the peace of mind it gains will be extremely short term, while the harm may be sustained or fatal.

BAGHDAD.  I'm trying. I've been trying all week. The other day, I drove another 30 miles or so on the streets and alleys of Baghdad. I'm looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can't find it.

Maybe actually being on the ground in Iraq prevents me from seeing it. Perhaps the view's clearer from Manhattan. It could be that my background as an intelligence officer didn't give me the right skills. And riding around with the U.S. Army, looking at things first-hand, is certainly a technique to which The New York Times wouldn't stoop in such an hour of crisis.

This Monday, March 6, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will visit Washington to discuss the Middle East. Today, March 3, a high-ranking delegation of Hamas will visit Moscow at President Vladimir Putin's invitation, to meet with Lavrov. A coincidence?  Hardly.   

Russia aggressively courts Iran and Hamas.  Last week, Russia negotiated in Tehran on establishing a uranium-enrichment joint venture, which will supply nuclear reactor fuel to the Islamic Republic.

A nuclear-armed Iran, allied with and armed by Russia and China will become a regional challenger hostile to the US, its interests, and its allies in the region.

This is why, during Mr. Lavrov's visit, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will inform her Russian counterpart that Moscow's actions in the Middle East are jeopardizing its presidency of the group of eight (G-8) leading industrial nations, its position in the Middle East Quartet, and its international role.

During the last few weeks some movies have come out that are, in effect, a plea for the case of terrorists. Steven Spielberg's "Munich" is one of them. (A little known fact is that there was a 1986 TV movie, ‘Sword of Gideon,' based on the same book, Vengeance, that Spielberg borrowed from freely.)

In "Munich," the murders of the 11 Israeli Olympians are treated as, well, sort of understandable, given the feelings and anxieties of the Palestinians who committed the terrorist act.

Forgive me for not finding the current explanation for treating terrorists with kid gloves very convincing. Instead, I suspect that what is going on is precisely a tad too much sympathy with terrorists. Why? Among other reasons that come to mind I would place on top the fact that terrorists are all thoroughly anti-American.

As a former intelligence officer who spent 23 years at the CIA, I am an intelligence history buff.  So it is that the current media frenzy over "illegal NSA telephone taps" has an interesting precedent.

The New York Times and the Democrat Party are waging a campaign against Bush Administration electronic surveillance (misnamed "taps," by the way) of Al Qaeda communications with its contacts here in America.  Their goal is for the Democrats to gain control of Congress this November, and impeach President Bush for the "crime" of "domestic spying."

Let's ask the New York Times editors if they would have President Roosevelt impeached for crimes that resulted in America's winning World War II?

Next week a vastly important book will be published: Preemption, A Knife That Cuts Both Ways by Alan Dershowitz. Yes, that Alan Dershowitz: the hyper-liberal Harvard Law School professor.

Yet it is only for the lack of his legal scholarship that there is nary a sentence in the book that I - a very conservative editor of The Washington Times and former press secretary to Newt Gingrich - couldn't have written.    

The premise of his book is that in this age of terror, there is a potential need for such devices as profiling, preventive detention, anticipatory mass inoculation, prior restraint of dangerous speech, targeted extrajudicial executions of terrorists and preemptive military action, including full-scale preventive war.

In Czechoslovakia under communism it was common to see signs reading "Workers of the world, unite" in the windows of fruit and vegetable stores. Vaclav Havel, in his book, "Living In Truth," discerned the significance of those signs.

As elaborated by Stanley Hauerwas, professor of Theological Ethics at Duke School of Divinity, Mr. Havel knew the shopkeeper does not believe the sign. He puts it up because it was "delivered from the headquarters along with the onions." The grocer thinks nothing is at stake because he understands that no one really believes the slogan.

The real message, according to Mr. Havel, is "I'm behaving myself... I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace."

But Mr. Havel shrewdly points out that even a modest shopkeeper would be ashamed to put up a sign that literally read, "I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient." He is, after all, a human being with some sense of dignity.

I would argue that this Czechoslovakian parable of the self-deceiving green grocer goes a long way to explaining the decision of most American news outlets not to republish the Danish cartoons currently stirring up so much of Islam.

This is Dennis “The Wizard” Turner’s rebuttal to my Celebrating Hamas of last week. My comments are at the end. ---JW

The core of Jack’s celebration is that now Europe and America could no longer delude themselves about the Palestinian’s intentions. Funding, diplomatic support, and pressure on Israel for further concessions would dry up.

Hamas’ victory was a week ago Wednesday (1/25). Already the international community’s initial comments are weakening. I will give pertinent extracts from a few articles published just six days later (1/31).