Posted on 09/14/2002 4:28:28 PM PDT by Pokey78
'The US must bear some of the responsibility for the attack on the World Trade Center." That is not the view of a member of al-Qa'eda, but of Jean Chrétien, Canada's Prime Minister.
In a speech broadcast on September 11 last week, he insisted that global poverty and high-handed American foreign policy were among the fundamental causes of the murder of more than 3,000 people on September 11 last year, when suicide bombers hijacked four planes and flew two of them into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and another into the ground.
"When you are powerful [like America]," Chrétien continued nauseatingly, "it is time to be nice."
Over the past year, we have grown used to academics and journalists on the Left claiming that - in the words of a now notorious article in the London Review of Books - "America had it coming", because it didn't do enough to end world poverty, solve the Palestinian problem, or improve human rights.
Still, it is surprising to hear it from the supposedly grown-up prime minister of the country that shares its borders with the United States. The view that there is a foreign policy which, if America followed it, would have forestalled the attacks on September 11, is surprisingly widespread.
It is partly based on the view that there must be some accommodation that can be made with al-Qa'eda: that rather in the way the British government managed to reach a negotiated settlement with the IRA, there is a deal which can be done with al-Qa'eda to stop it committing further acts of mass terrorism.
Holding out as it does the chance of an end to terror, that hope is beguiling. It is, however, not a hope which is shared by Osama bin Laden, or indeed any of the fundamentalists who were either behind the September 11 attacks or who applaud them.
"We are not fighting so that you will offer us something," stated Hussein Massawi, a former leader of Hezbollah who shares Osama bin Laden's outlook. "We are fighting to eliminate you."
Sheikh Omar Bakri and Sheikh Abu Hamza are two representatives of this point of view who are based in London - Bakri as head of the Finsbury Park Mosque and Hamza as head of London's "Sharia Court".
As far as they are concerned, a "nicer" America - one which donated billions extra in Third World aid and helped poor countries get richer - would not have made any difference at all. Poverty has nothing to do with it: Osama bin Laden isn't poor, the hijackers weren't poor, and none of them evinced any desire to improve the lot of the world's starving.
It is very difficult for people raised in broadly secular societies - as we in the West are - to realise that economic, diplomatic and political benefits are quite irrelevant. What the fundamentalist terrorists want is an Islamic America, a Muslim theocracy in Washington (and London, come to that).
They believe it is their sacred duty to achieve it. Sheikh Bakri, for instance, insists that "the Islamic movement has the right to sacrifice whoever it sees fit, [including] women and children", and believes that violence is quite legitimate if it serves an "Islamic" purpose.
He believes that "all Israelis must be destroyed. There is a cancer in the heart of the Muslim world, and that is Israel. It must be eradicated and removed." In an interview last month with the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, he predicted that Britain will become an Islamic state because Islamic fundamentalists "will transform [Britain] into a region under Islamic rule by means of invasion from without".
He also has one or two not very liberal views about adulterers and homosexuals (kill them both), the education of women (stop it) and the appropriate punishment for thieves (chop their hands off).
In an effort to forestall further attacks, George W Bush could convert to fundamentalist Islam and renounce power in favour of a committee of Muslim clerics. He could "push Israel into the sea" and kill all Israelis. He could introduce the stoning of adulterers and homosexuals to the United States, end the education of women, ban them from all public positions, forbid the consumption of alcohol, start chopping off thieves' hands.
That might be enough to stop al-Qa'eda - but it might not. Osama bin Laden has insisted, as has Sheikh Bakri, that Saudi Arabia is a legitimate target of attack, because its ruling elite is not "Islamic" enough, although it is not easy to imagine a more fundamentalist Islamic state than Saudi Arabia.
It is a dunce's delusion to think that the violence visited on America last September was America's own "fault", in the sense that America could have behaved in a way which would have avoided it. There is no way America could behave which would stop it being targetted by murderous fanatics such as Osama bin Laden, or by his supporters such as Sheik Omar Bakri.
There is no possible compromise that could persuade Osama bin Laden - if he still lives - to stop, and there is nothing that can be offered to him or his supporters that would placate them. For America and the West, there is no chance of a political settlement. Bin Laden and Omar Bakri do not want one. For them, there can only be war - which means there can only be war for us.
It is a dunce's delusion to think that the violence visited on America last September was America's own "fault", in the sense that America could have behaved in a way which would have avoided it. There is no way America could behave which would stop it being targetted by murderous fanatics such as Osama bin Laden, or by his supporters such as Sheik Omar Bakri.
And Canadian citizen Peter Jennings blames America--using sneering implication as he has no cajones.
Reminds me of one of my favorite movie scenes:
James Bond (with buzz saw rapidly approaching his private parts): "Do you expect me to talk?"
Goldfinger: "No Mr Bond I expect you to die!"
Understood, having suffered through eight years of you-know-who.
More than eight years, come to think of it. That bastard will NEVER shut up and go away.
The correct spelling is C R E T I N!
But dammit, even Vicente Fox hasn't come out against America like Chretien has.
Maybe if we recalled our ambassador for "consultations" he'd get the hint.
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