Posted on 11/18/2002 12:59:04 PM PST by JohnGalt
November 14, 2002
THE RETURN OF OSAMA BIN LADEN by Thomas Fleming
Americans, since September 11, 2001, have been lying in their beds with the covers pulled up over their heads. They have allowed themselves to be persuaded that peace and order have been restored to Afghanistan; they have accepted the Bush administration's argument that we can attack Iraq without provoking more acts of terrorism against the United States; they have tried their hardest to believe the President's characterization of Islam as a "religion of peace" and stolidly sat through news reports without ever suspecting that there was some connection between the Chechyn hostage crisis in Moscow, the terrorist attack in Bali, and the terror-spree of John Mohammed in the D.C. area; and they even thought Osama bin Laden was dead, though there was no evidence for his death except for Secretary Rumsfeld's wishful thinking that the invasion of Afghanistan accomplished something.
Well, Osama is back, ripping back the covers and forcing us to stare the bogeyman in the face. Gangsters, terrorists, and warlords (many of them former Taliban leaders) are tearing Afghanistan apart and making people sigh for the good old days when the Taliban kept some semblance of order. Even allowing for Osama's characteristic exaggeration, the Saudi leader has put his cards on the table: "For how long will fear, massacres, destruction, exile, orphanhood, and widowhood be our lot, while security, stability, and joy remain yours alone? As you kill, you will be killed; as you raid, you will be raided." The New York Times, with the unintended wit that only comes from stupidity, headlined the story, "New recording may be threat from Bin Laden."
Osama's declaration, if it proves to be authentic, could not come at a worse time for the Bush administration. After last week's victory in the Security Council, the President and his advisors were already toasting to victory over Iraq, their glasses filled to the brim the finest vintage from the grapes of wrath (Mogen David 2002?). And now the bogeyman reminds them that practitioners of the religion of peace, on Bali, in the United States, in the Middle East, in Russia, are continuing to murder their Christian and post-Christian enemies. "As you kill, you will be killed." Doesn't seem fair, somehow. The Clinton Doctrine, taken over by the decision-makers of the Bush administration (Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz), was clear: Right or wrong, justified or not, the government of the United States can make war with impunity. In a strict sense, this is true. Government officials, hiding in their bunkers, had nothing to fear on September 11; it was only the rest of us who were exposed.
I do not entirely blame the Bush administration for concealing the facts from us. Americans fear the truth and are unable to accept any version of reality that does not come in the starkest outline of black and white. How else to explain the rush among the evangelicals to support Israel at all cost, turning a blind eye to the crimes of past-and-present Israeli political leaders such as Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir (both terrorists), and Ariel Sharon (war criminal), and to the danger posed by the lunatic fringe element led by Benjamin Netanyahu? How else to explain the unqualified defense of Muslims shown by leftists, pacifists, and some antiwar libertarians?
Life can be complicated. It is possible to work for the survival of Israel without endorsing the policies of Sharon and Netanyahu; it is equally possible to condemn the corruption and bad faith of Yasir Arafat, without wishing to see the Palestinians pushed into the sea. (One Zionist friend, a prominent columnist, told me recently that he could be even-handed with the Palestinians: Smite them with one hand and drive them into the sea with the other.) It is even possible to understand that Muslims (not just "radical Islamicists") around the world represent a greater danger to the West than the combined forces of Communism and Nazism ever did, without wishing to murder innocent Muslims in their beds.
I am neither a pacifist nor an isolationist. America has become a great power and is stuck with the role, for the time being. The best great-power policy at this moment would be to draw in our horns, bring back the troops from the Balkans and from other trouble-spots around the world, and coerce Israel, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan into a reasonable settlement of the crisis, dictated by the U.S., our European allies, and Russia. By "reasonable," I mean one that is arranged by impartial Westerners who have neither Arabic nor Israeli ties of blood or sentiment.
It the Bush administration can back up its claims against Saddam Hussein, then strikes against Iraqi weapons factories and military installations may well be justifiable, but not a full-scale war that will cause the deaths of hundreds of thousand of civilians and destroy what little of the fragile infrastructure remains. But no reasonable solution can be discussed, much less implemented, so long as the political classes continue to lie to us, pretending that Mohammad did not found a religion of war and terrorism, covering up the reality of the situation in Palestine, incessantly repeating the mantra "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," as if the United States were not the world's greatest producer and supplier of such weapons, as if our government had not armed, not only Iraq, but also Afghanistan and Al Qaeda.
I understand the quandary in which the administration finds itself. The American people are dumb, ignorant beyond belief, even compared with Europeans. Our educational system ensures that we know neither history nor geography, and every administration during my lifetime has preferred to use propaganda (rather than information) to justify its policies. There is a limit, however, to what Americans will accept. More and more of us are beginning to suspect that maybe unlimited Islamic infiltration of our country is not a good thing, and if they ever learn (in the current cant) to connect the dots between U.S. policy in the Middle East and terrorist attacks on American civilians, there will be hell to pay.
Intelligent and patriotic Israelis know this, which is why they are outraged by the part played by evangelicals in the United States, stirring up Israel to bring on the end of the Jewish people and the world. Osama bin Laden has given Americans the proverbial wake-up call. Is anybody going to pick up the phone?
That is all.
The author's real pro-Arafat agenda exposed.
Is Fleming as stupid as the stuff he writes makes him out to be? Does the knuckle-dragger actually think Ariel Sharon gives a rat's ass what Pat Robertson thinks?
Never will be, never can be.
I wish. Been too busy working to sleep late...
No. I got the point. Fleming's a flaming bigot, who likes neither Israel nor fundamentalist Christians.
But, he'll give Yassir Arafat a big wet kiss the first chance he gets.
Not clear about Shamir, but calling Begin a terrorist is merely a statement of fact.
You may think his terrorism was justified or in a righteous cause, but it was indisputably terrorism.
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