As my French-history teacher in college used to point out, one reason France fell so quickly in World War II is that it had prepared itself to fight World War I. France was ready for trench warfare but totally unprepared to stop Hitler’s panzer divisions.
Likewise, I get the sense these days that many of my friends are prepared to protest the Vietnam War when they should be taking a closer look at the war we are fighting against a 21st century demagogue, Osama bin Laden.
Like Hitler and the Nazis, bin Laden and his al Qaeda network are recognized as a threat by Afghanistan’s neighbors of all political stripes – from Pakistan to the People’s Republic of China. That’s why countries as disparate as Russia, Iran, Uzbekistan, and the US have banded together to bolster the Northern Alliance.
The Northern Alliance, which has managed to keep 10 percent of Afghanistan from falling under Taliban control, is composed of some fairly brutal tribes itself. So once bin Laden and the Taliban government (which is headed by bin Laden’s son-in-law, Mullah Muhammad Omar) are disposed of, the ex-king of Afghanistan wants to re-create a national council of tribes to run the country. That’s the way rivalries among Afghanistan’s tribes were kept in check back when the king, who is now in Italy, reigned. King Mohammad Zahir Shah, by the way, has said he has no interest in restoring his monarchy but only in presiding over the national council to lend it stability.
To help the Northern Alliance, British and American reconnaissance combined with air strikes virtually annihilated the Taliban’s air defenses this week. The US meanwhile continued to provide food to Afghanis who face starvation caused by famine and political chaos. In fact, all this year, the US has been providing more humanitarian aid to Afghanistan than any other country in the world.
Given all this, I am boggled at how many of my friends resemble those battered wives who delude themselves into believing that if they just behave better, the abuse will end. Like victims of abusive spouses, Americans need to realize that unless they take bold action, the abuse will continue. In fact, much of the world has been under attack from bin Laden for eight years, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair noted this week.
• In 1993, if you’ll recall, a UN peacekeeping force (led by the US) started airlifting food to Mogadishu, Somalia, because much of the population was starving as a result of fighting among several warlords. When US and UN soldiers tried to stop the fighting, however, US troops were ambushed, with 18 killed and 84 wounded. We now know, said Blair, that bin Laden was behind the ambush.
• Also in 1993 was al Qaeda’s first bombing of the World Trade Center. That attack killed six people and injured 1,000 others. Witnesses who testified in the trial laid the plot at bin Laden’s feet.
• In 1998, bin Laden (as he himself acknowledges) organized bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people.
• In 2000, members of bin Laden’s al Qaeda network bombed the US destroyer Cole in Yemen, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39 others.
• On Sept. 11, 2001, as is now evident, bin Laden directed the bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing more than 5,000 people, hundreds of whom were foreigners.
In short, Osama bin Laden, is obsessed with killing masses of people. Comments bin Laden taped before this week’s air attacks were little more than the rantings of a megalomaniac. Unfortunately, his megalomania requires la guerre du jour – whether it is against the Soviets, the Saudis, the United States, Israel, or even Iran. (You may have forgotten, but in 1998, the Taliban assassinated eight Iranian diplomats, as well as an Iranian journalist, leading to a military standoff along the Iran-Afghani border.)
In the past week, two Floridians were found to have come in contact with the bacteria anthrax. While federal officials are quick to emphasize they don’t know if the anthrax constituted biological terrorism, they have noted that anthrax does not occur naturally in Florida and that the anthrax involved appears to have been artificially manufactured. In any case, the anthrax was mailed to The Sun newspaper well before the US retaliated against the Sept. 11 bombings. I certainly have no idea whether this was another attack by bin Laden, but that’s the whole point of terrorism; terrorists need to attack only a few people to make everybody nervous.
Ironically, some of the people who are now nervous are some of the same people who oppose the use of military force to capture or kill bin Laden, as well as leaders of the Taliban and al Qaeda. I am offended by my pacifist friends who claim the moral high ground while hoping that if bin Laden does, in fact, strike again, it won’t be their family that gets hurt.
"The pacifists’ argument is rooted entirely in this appeal: two wrongs don’t make a right; violence only begets more violence," wrote Michael Kelly of The Washington Post writers group on Sept. 26. "There can be truth in the pacifists’ claim to the moral high ground, notably in the case of a war that is waged for manifestly evil purposes. So, for instance, a German citizen who declined to fight for the Nazi cause could be seen (although not likely by his family and friends) as occupying the moral position. But in the situation where one’s nation has been attacked – a situation such as we are now in – pacifism is inescapably and profoundly immoral. Indeed, in the case of this specific situation, pacifism is on the side of the murderers, and it is on the side of letting them murder again."
Personally, I’m coming to the conclusion there may be no reasonable alternative to military action bid Laden, al Qaeda, and the Taliban. I agreed with Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey on Monday when she commented, "We are joining with the world community to fight a network of terrorists and their supporters....[However], we must take every precaution to ensure that we do not add to the number of innocent victims." Those are the liberal politics I believe in; their concern for humanity in general is totally missing from bin Laden’s behavior.
A word to the wise for President Bush: If you continue to defy both parties in Congress by depriving them of the military-oversight powers federal law guarantees them, the war effort will lose support not only on Capital Hill but also among the public here and abroad. You may think you’re helping the war effort by keeping congressmen in the dark so they won’t "leak" information to the press. However, if the world’s media are reduced to depending on Afghani sources for the only explicit information about the conflict, you’re not going to like the results. So start obeying the law.