However, there is a question of whether much of the Muslim world desires war on the U.S. I am not an expert, but it strikes me that this is a possibility. If so, I don't think we should try appeasement or psycho-analysis. We should insist that they respect our way of life, and we have to be prepared to do whatever is necessary to preserve it.
''It is the duty of every Muslim to support their brothers in this critical hour,'' said Riaz Durana, leader of the Afghan Defense Council, a group based in Lahore, Pakistan, that sympathizes with the Taliban rulers of neighboring Afghanistan. ''We will support the Taliban physically and morally against the aggression of America.''
The council comprises more than 30 religious and militant groups.
''The war against Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden is a war on Islam,'' said Suleiman Abu Gheith, described by Al-Jazeera as a spokesman for bin Laden's organization, known in Arabic as Al Qaeda.
''I do not understand this as a war against terrorism. This war will lead to more wars and more instability and more insecurity,'' said Ahmad Ghneim, a leader of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. ''America is committing a mistake.''
Sheikh Hasan Yousef, spokesman for the militant Hamas organization, which has undertaken a string of suicide bombings against Israelis, called the attacks ''terrorism against Islam and Muslims.''
''It is a crusaders' war, using non-conventional weapons against innocents under the pretext of striking at terrorism,'' he said.
Iraqi TV denounced the US-British assault as ''treacherous aggression.'' In Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi called the attacks ''unacceptable,'' saying they were launched ''regardless of the world public opinion, especially the Muslim nations, and will damage the innocent and oppressed Afghans.''
You're either with us or against us - there is no middle ground - sleep tight.
''It is a crusaders' war, using non-conventional weapons against innocents under the pretext of striking at terrorism,'' he said.
Even during the late, desperate stages of WWII, the Japanese officers who ordered kamikaze attacks by warriors in uniform were disquieted by doing so. Someone representing no government, eschewing identification with his confederates, and undertaking to murder as many civilians as possible as a means of waging war causing WWIII is a different thing entirely. As muslims would themselves emphasize if they caught someone trying to do that to them.
The only moral boundaries bin Laden have hasn't crossed is the use of CBN--and we are not sure his henchmen won't attempt, even succeed, at that. The moslem-on-the-street who may enjoy some shadenfreude about 9/11 and indulge in self-righteous indignation now, must consider what the issue could be then. Would a credible threat to employ a biological agent which merely gives thousands of people the flu focus these peoples' minds?