Terrorism is about power. It is a strategy -- to hurt enemies, thrill friends, inspire allies, and thus to enhance power for political purposes, including politico religious purposes. Middle Eastern and North African terrorism has struck the U.S. directly and repeatedly, and the motives vary only a little with circumstances. Yet this terrorism is still misunderstood and, it is usually quickly forgotten. Until now.
We have listened to the words of these power-hungry enemies even less than we listen to the sound of the bombs. The charter of Hamas is over a decade old. It is filled with poetic passages, careful arguments, and cries for the blood of anyone who supports Israel's "partition of Palestine." Yet for all that, it is never read on our news shows or studied by our university undergraduates.
When Osama Bin Laden published a fatwa in 1998 promising to drain American blood -- civilian and military -- for daring to oppose Iraq's war on Kuwait, or support Israel, only a few words of the full text were ever aired. When Bin Laden blew up two embassies, killing hundreds of Africans and a few Americans, we settled for the trials of a few of his underlings and then mentally we moved on. When the USS Cole was blown up by suicide attackers in Yemen, it was a shock, briefly; we saw Bin Laden exult on camera but our formal investigation bogged down badly in murk and detail.
Perhaps until September 11, the lessons have been lost. Every time, some of us have refused to understand the attacks. On the morning of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, an American terrorism expert with a Ph.D. told me it couldn't be foreigners because such great damage would not suit their strategy. Terrorism has another effect:
Each time, like the fools in our old children's books, we respond to the rock dropped into our group by turning against each other. Some Americans damn our Israeli friends. Some warn all non-Arab Americans to beware their hideous tendencies to racism. Commentators fuss even now over whether doing justice will merely "further the cycle of violence," as if the devastation of one end of Manhattan can just be accepted with quiet dignity.
Let us not forget what the face of this murderous bastard looks like.
This is America's Most Wanted CRIMINAL.
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Osama Bin Ladin - Wanted Dead or Alive!
