Back to Gaffer's Archives.
Anthrax and Taliban:
I noticed on the news that the administration is warning that
we may be in for another terrorist attack. I guess they have not
noticed that we are already caught in another attack. There are
no flaming buildings or crashing aircraft to draw attention. The
Anthrax attack is much more insidious, but it is potentially much
more dangerous.
As I write this we now have several cases of the use of Anthrax in attacks on U. S. citizens. At present, it seems we have no information about who is behind these attacks. The only thing we do know is that all of the attacks are on high profile people or institutions which are very likely to cause news coverage. Also there have been no reports that I know of outside of the United Sates.
It is clear that we are again facing some kind of terrorist activity. We simply cannot say who is orchestrating the activity. This situation is very different than the attacks on New York and the Pentagon. It seems not to be aimed so much at doing a large amount of damage, but more at creating a sense of terror and foreboding in the population. I suspect the ultimate intent is to disrupt commerce. This could happen if people become afraid to open their mail. Most day to day business is still dependant on the United States mail.
My own belief is that the Afghanistan Taliban will prove to be the people behind these attacks. In that, I want to reiterate my beliefs about the Taliban, Bin Laden, and al-Qaida. I do not believe these three can be separated. More and more, I see our media and members of our government trying to differentiate between these three elements of the same evil empire. That makes no more sense that saying that the white part in chicken crap is not chicken crap.
The idea that we can, more or less, forgive the Taliban if they turn over Bin Laden is crazy. They are not the victims or dupes of Bin Laden. He is their partner in crime. They all have the same intent and they cooperate in that. Their goal is the destruction of civilization. Terrorism will not end with the capture of Bin Laden.
Terrorism will only stop when we destroy it at its roots. Those roots are buried deeply in an extremely primitive, savage pseudo-religious political philosophy. The Taliban call it Islam, but it is not. Islam is the cloak that they throw over it to disguise it's evil primitive roots. They use that cloak in an attempt to trick true Muslims and the world.
There are some things which are so obvious to me that I don't dwell on them. It seems, however, that they are not that obvious to some others. I suppose I should have to sit down and explain as to a child. For example, I see no reason to not stitch up the leaders of the Taliban with 50 caliber lead projectiles. I guess I must explain that because there seems to be a large number of people who apparently fail to see the culpability of the Taliban leadership.
If there were a Satan on earth, it would be the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar. He is evil personified masquerading as a soldier of Allah. If you believe in God, then you must believe in Satan. It's the Yang of the Yin. It's the balancing pole. As human beings, we have a choice as to how we see that and how we deal with it. We have a choice as to which pole we serve. He has chosen evil.
To the extent that we accept Omar and his Taliban as a legitimate religious political body they will be able to continue their systematic attack on civilization. They will act through their agents in the al-Qaida and other terrorist agencies world wide. This biological attack is just another prong in that.
Many people, including me and members of our government have warned that this will be a long fight. We will have to stop terrorism wherever we find it. In the meantime, the Taliban and their agents will continue their campaign against us. They will try to break our will and destroy our resolve. In that, let us not forget that there were 5,160 lives lost at the trade center.
What we must do is to continue to respond with full effort. We must track down and destroy these fiends wherever they try to hide. We must allow no nation to harbor or to spawn them. We must make that clear to the world. I believe our President is doing that. I say, right on, but don't let the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan off. They are fully culpable.
The Taliban will take up whatever guise or cause suits them. They will wear whatever cloak is useful to them. In some places they may assume a different organizational name. Whatever disguise they elect they can always be identified by their hatred of all things civilized and their indiscriminate penchant to murder and destruction. They want to turn the clock of civilization back several hundreds of years.
Attacking the Taliban is not about revenge anymore than poisoning rats is about revenge. It's about protecting our vital interests including civilization. It's about ridding civilization of a menace. If you go out and find your grain bin full of rats, you do not try to decide which rats are eating and defiling your grain. You do not fret and fuss about revenge. You go out and buy some rat poison and feed the cute little fellows. Or, you go out and buy a ferret or two.
For the record, some people have suggested that these biological
attacks may be domestic in origin. I pray that they are mistaken.
However, should they prove right, I believe we have already set
the precedent with McVeigh. We cannot differentiate between terrorists.
Foreign or domestic, we must treat them as enemies of civilization.
Back to Gaffer's Archives.
|
|
|
|