View From a Parallel Universe . . . ''So It Goes With Empires''

I remember a television program from a few years ago whose plot centered around a group of people who would make a weekly jump from parallel universe to parallel universe.

Each jump would put them in a new universe where everybody's destiny was different than that of last week's universe.

Because everybody had a different individual destiny, each parallel world was different; sometimes America was a totalitarian dictatorship, sometimes a benevolent democracy, sometimes a kingdom, and sometimes, it didn't exist at all.

Sometimes, I feel like I am living in one universe, and a significant portion of my countrymen are in another. Last week, a cruise ship on the high seas was attacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia.

It is fair to assume that the pirates were Somali. It is equally fair to assume they were Muslims, given that the CIA Factbook lists Sunni Muslim as the only religion of the Somali people.

In Australia, eighteen suspected terrorists were recently rounded up in Melbourne. During the raid, police seized bomb-making chemicals, computers and weapons. One suspect fired on police during the raid and was shot and wounded.

The group is suspected of planning attacks against targets in Sydney, including the Sydney Opera House.

The mastermind of the attacks was identified as a radical Muslim cleric known for praising Osama bin-Laden and for his outspoken support of al-Qaeda and jihad against the West.

An Arabic translator working for the US Army in Iraq was arrested on charges he falsified his identity when he came to America as a political refugee somewhere between 1978 and 1989. To date, even though the guy's been in custody for a month, they still don't know who the guy is.

What they do know is that he has been stealing classified Army documents related to intelligence about the Iraqi insurgency, and that he has been in contact with Abu Musab al Zarqawi.

Using the name Almaliki Nour, the man became a U.S. citizen in 2000 and three years later went to work for a defense contractor as a translator and interpreter for an intelligence unit of the 82nd Airborne Division. Investigators discovered that Nour had extensive ties to people linked to the Iraqi insurgency.

He had the cell numbers of known insurgents in his speed dial on his cellphone! Noor had more than 100 conversations with people directly involved with the insurgency. Investigators also said he took classified documents, including one marked "current threat" home to his apartment in Brooklyn.

Columnist Mark Steyn noted that in Sweden, ambulance drivers won't venture out without a police escort.

In Europe, Islamic immigrants have begun an uprising to reclaim Eurabia from the Europeans they believe stole it from them in the 7th century when Charles Martell stopped the conquering Muslim army at Tours, France.

In Europe, police officers are advised to keep a low profile to keep from attracting the attention of groups of disaffected Islamic youths. In Denmark, Islamic rioters chanted "This is our land" as they burned cars and buildings and dared police to stop them.

He also correctly notes that "for a half-decade, French Arabs have carried on a low-level intifada against synagogues, kosher butchers, Jewish schools, etc. The concern of the political class has been to prevent these attacks from spreading to targets of more, ah, general interest. They seem to have failed. Unlike America's Europhiles, France's Arab street correctly identified Jacques Chirac's opposition to the Iraq war for what it was: a sign of weakness."

I received a typically angry email in which I was roundly dressed-down for my comments on the Valerie Plame non-affair. I might also add, he seemed exceedingly angry.

"I'm dismayed," he wrote, "but not surprised by what appears to be a closed minded approach to the Bush government. It also dismays me that supposed Christian people are brainwashed into believing that this government. is somehow Christian in its leanings.

He went on, "The Bush government thrives on lies, intimidation, torture, war, all very Christian to be sure???? I feel bad that they have been betrayed by the Bush government, and are laying down their lives so Mr. Cheney and Halliburton etc. can become exceedingly rich. To utterly destroy another person's country is an abysmal reason for fighting "terrorists".

If it weren't so tragic, it would be laughable. Instead, it is a peek into a parallel universe.

In that universe, Christians are 'brainwashed' and those who support the US administration do so because they think it is 'Christian' in its leanings. Not Americans who support the administration because it is the legal government of the United States and that America is the middle of fighting a war of existential proportions.

In that universe, the administration 'thrives' on lies, intimidation, torture and war? I wouldn't know where to begin to critique this idiocy.

The war started on September 11, and the administration is so hamstrung by useful idiots trying to use it bring it down from within that it caused me to look up 'thrive' in the dictionary to make sure I hadn't forgotten what it meant.

The intimidation, I assume refers to the killers we have locked up in Cuba. The 'torture' -- well, it all depends on how one defines 'torture'. Compared to a US prison, maybe 'torture' might apply. Compared to a prison in Saddam's Iraq, Gitmo is a country club.

In that universe, we invaded Iraq so 'that Mr. Cheney and Halliburton can become exceedingly rich.' Ummm, Mr Cheney was already exceedingly rich a long time ago. And Halliburton has been the world's largest defense contractor since Vietnam.

But in that universe, we DIDN'T invade because of the on-going ten year no-fly war, the intelligence that suggested a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda (since proved) 17 UN resolutions authorizing force, or even to free Iraqis from torture and indiscriminate murder by Saddam's thugs.

In that universe, Saddam was just another dictator, and post 9/11 was just another day.

In my universe, terrorists have infiltrated every Western country. Some, like the Army interpreter, have been sleeper agents for decades. Some, as in Western Europe, were born in host countries to Islamic immigrant parents and trained from birth for the recapture of Eurabia.

Islamic pirates attack international cruise ships with impunity, while Islamic demonstrators dare police to try and stop their rampages.

Pat Buchanan wrote a column entitled, "How Empires End." It began, "The Romans conquered the barbarians — and the barbarians conquered Rome. So it goes with empires."

The view from the parallel universe is that America is an evil, lying, empire betrayed by a cadre of conspirators intent on raping Iraq and plundering the spoils.

The view from my universe, as reflected by the day's news reports, is that the barbarians are at the gate.

"Sliders" was the name of the series where the protagonists went through a number of jumps to alternate universes, all based on just slightly different outcomes of past historic events. Sometimes they fixed the problem but had to leave, sometimes they just made it worse and had to leave anyway.

We seem to be on one of those dysfunctional worlds, without a means to leave. Unless one side or the other falls into an abject surrender, it is going to be a long and bloody fight, with one side having all the bearded men with burning eyes, for whom death of the individual is not a defeat, it is inspiration for the other bearded men with burning eyes to redouble their efforts. Their problem seems to be, that the most experienced and capable people at hand to hand fighting, are also the first being slaughtered when they meet up with superior technological weaponry. Their weapons are simple, mostly easily made at home or purchased on world black markets, and transportable on a man's back, which gives them a huge advantage on infiltration. But they cannot compete with nighttime surveillance from unmanned aerial vehicles, or GPS-directed return fire, or armor that resists most of their attacks. They have neither the speed not the strength of armaments, or for that matter, the depth of reserves to take and hold large tracts of territory, and they cannot effectively administer the territories they do capture. They have only limited access to support for their wounded, and their leaders must make the subordinates more afraid of leadership itself than the subordinates fear the battlefield opponents.

It is amazing -- I remember my Grandfather saying in the 1950s that this country could only be lost from within, never from an enemy outside. How right he was.

Your grandfather was likely paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln:

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
- Abraham Lincoln (January 27, 1838 - Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois)

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