It s All Terrorism, Stupid!

Since President Bush now has two sets of standards for which victims of terror can be avenged, I have a question for him:

Despite a cornucopia of well-fertilized lines from U.S. officials, it’s time to be intellectually honest. There is only one difference: The second group is Jewish.

That’s the only reason the U.S. can get away with scolding Israel for attempting to nip terrorism in the bud, while go full-speed ahead in Afghanistan.

Sure, Ari Fleischer and the rest of the White House spinsters can cast this situation through various phony prisms to make their limp case for this ludicrous double-standard regarding the response to mass-murder. They can say—as they do—well, Arafat won a (undeserved) Nobel Peace Prize, so we should deal with him. They can pontificate on how Arafat took part in (phony) peace negotiations in the past. They can come up with a million and one excuses and distinctions without a difference.

But despite self-flagellating U.S. diplomatic statements to the contrary, Israel is dealing with the same enemy as we are—the same enemy that utilizes the same unjustifiable, unacceptable, unconscionable tactics.

The Bush Administration claims it’s a different enemy—that Bin Laden is different from Bin Arafat or Bin Hamas or Bin Hezbollah. But they represent multiple heads of the same incubus—an anti-Western, Saudi- and Saddam-funded, Islamist incubus. If FOX News’ recent reports--that over 30 Al-Quaida fighters were on the ground assisting Palestinian militants and suicide bombers—aren’t enough evidence of that, how about Al-Quaida files purchased, vetted, and excerpted by the Wall Street Journal back in January?

A frightening summary of the files, obtained on the market in Kabul, published in the Journal, and posted on MSNBC.com, details the activities of the “Shoe Bomber,” Richard Reid--referred to by his alias, “brother Abdul Ra’uff.” Before trying to blow up a US-bound December flight from Paris with his high-tops, Reid went to Israel to try to do the same on an El-Al flight. About a month before 9/11, Reid a/k/a Ra’uff was casing out suicide bombing opportunities for Bin Laden’s Al-Quaida in Israel. It’s more than enough evidence that the identical group that blew up the WTC towers was looking for sites to blow up in Israel—and is likely heavily involved there now, beyond the 30-odd Bin Laden fighters.

In the files, Ra’uff reported to Al-Quaida superiors on the prospects for blowing up the holiest of Jewish religious sites, the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem. He wrote that it would be an incredible moral victory for Al-Quaida Muslims. Just as blowing up the WTC was. He also reported on Israeli bus stations, noting which colors of buses carried the most Jews and would be the best bombing targets.

Same terrorist group, same types of targets. The only difference is the religion and ethnicity of most of the victims. As for Arafat, not only is he working in unison with the Al-Quaida crowd, but there’s ample intelligence he took part in the 1993 WTC bombings, and the 2001 version on 9/11. Senator Charles Grassley--later chided for disclosing information in Secretary Rumsfeld’s intelligence briefing to Congress--told the press that the briefing yielded solid intelligence that Arafat’s Fatah played a role in the WTC/Pentagon terror. And lest we forget, Arafat’s minions certainly cheered it on video, for every Al-Jazeera viewer to join along with at home.

There is no difference between Arafat’s actions and Al-Quaida’s; between Arafat’s victims and Al-Quaida’s. And there should be no difference in the response thereto.

But the double-standard against a proper response by Israel is allowed to proceed because anti-Semitism is more prevalent today than it has been since the era of the Third Reich. Sadly, Arafat’s Islamic World supporters are not the only active fomenters of the same venom spewed by the Nazis. The so-called “peacemakers,” the allies of the U.S. in Europe and elsewhere are showing signs of their revolting behavior that gave rise to Hitler.

Opinionjournal.com excerpted the Norwegian newspaper, “Dagbladet,” which reported that a friend of Norwegian Parliament member Jan Simonsen, was ordered yesterday by Parliament security guards to remove his jacket because a Star of David was displayed on the chest pocket. After the man, Ingmar Tveitt, talked in the Parliament restaurant with Parliament members he was sought out by security guards who asked him to come with them 'because they had received reactions' to Tveitt's Jewish star symbol. The guards escorted him to change his “offensive” clothing.

In France, Molotov cocktails and arsonists hit synagogues in Kremlin-Bicetre and Marseilles and flammable material is found in the Strasbourg-Cronenbourg Jewish cemetery. The Maccabi Bondy French-Jewish soccer team is attacked, as is a Paris school bus of Jewish kids. None of these victims are Israeli, and they aren’t in allegedly occupied territory, but they are attacked anyway. Because they are all Jewish. Even in Michigan--where Arabs and Muslims have their third highest population concentration outside the Middle East and claim they’ve fallen victim to post-9/11 harassment--only 4 anti-Muslim/anti-Arab crimes were reported in 2001, but 19 anti-Semitic ones, according to The Detroit News.

But these attacks on Jews, and a President unwittingly pawning off terrorism in the Middle East as a Jewish problem that’s acceptable--unworthy of a swift, harsh, military response--misses the point.

The latest Time Magazine, like President Bush, doesn’t get it, either. The April 8th issue features a story instilling fear in the reader that if we don’t remain “even-handed” against Israel, we’ll feel the Islamists’ wrath here in the U.S. The headline: “Could Suicide Bombings Happen Here?”

What was September 11th . . . a garden party? Suicide bombings are already here. And, whether it’s here or in the Middle East, it’s not acceptable against Americans or Jews.

"America likes the status quo just fine the way it is"

Quite wrong. We have been at war since 9-11. The next target on the list is Saddam. Overthrowing governments is not "liking the status quo just fine". We've as much as told the Iranians they either give up their nuclear ambitions, their support for terrorism, or face us next. The US is no longer a status-quo power in the middle east. Time is on the side of those seeking nukes to mate to their terrorist clients, to take us on. We now seek revolutionary change in the region - toward democracy, away from Islamicist radicalism, away from support for myriad terrorist groups. The status quo is no longer acceptable, due to 9-11 itself and the threat of a nuclear repeat.

We are at war, and we ain't stopping for stale cold war era rhetoric from the Buchanan crowd.

I agree puppets are better - when they do do our bidding, and when they don't allow their territory to be used for attacks on us. Whether the Saudis are still in that category is, to my mind, very much up in the air. But we can do it the direct way, and the threat of that is what limits the concessions and misbehavior the "puppets" extract from us, or get away with.

The direct way is also not as difficult as you seem to imagine. The oil is not in densely settled areas covered with holy sites. It is in remote areas or along the coasts, with sparse populations around it. Enclaves seperated from the bulk of the local population would be quite feasible. Seperation can be made effective without inviting terrorist attack, simply by using enough barbed wire, mines, etc. And of course we can invite those beyond to a better career as puppets, instead of futile hostility. This would be a lot easier with democratic governments we install than with the present pack of tyrants.

The formulation the president has put forward strikes me as perfectly sound. Everybody has to choose between us and the terrorists. Those who choose the wrong way are going to get their clocks cleaned. We should not appease anyone making the wrong choice, whether there is oil near them or not. We can be perfectly friendly to those who make the right choice, whether present governments or future ones. Everybody will have strong incentives both ways, carrot and stick, to get out of our way. But undoubtedly many will choose not to, human nature and pride being what they are. They are free to choose. And we will take whatever war they have the belly for, and win it too.

The rest of the world would not lose their oil because the rest of the world is kissing the butts of assorted ME dictatorships. This fear of losing oil supply is a red herring, we can make that up from many sources including Mexico and Russia and even here in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alaska and other states that have capped their wells. Domestic oil has been kept in the ground for just such an emergency. If you are going to make a case then do it without throwing up straw men.

This fear of losing oil supply is a red herring, we can make that up from many sources including Mexico and Russia and even here in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alaska and other states that have capped their wells.Domestic oil has been kept in the ground for just such an emergency.

Do you have a source? While I'm not positive that we may not have domestic wells capped, what I have read indicates that our policy with OPEC and specifically Saudi is based more on extracting as much oil from fields that we paid to develop. Which certainly makes sense.

Get as much out of sunk cost and hold domestic sources for an emergency. However, the exploration and development costs of ANWR would be extremely high in comparison to sources currently available.

No?

she believes that since America now has an interest in anti-terrorism, America somehow no longer needs oil

Well, if we need oil that bad, maybe we ought to apologize to Osama Bin Laden?????

I doubt if the author thinks that we don't need oil, (oh pallease)

Most likely she believes that doing things that are repugnantly immoral (like being a total frigging hypocrite re: terrorism) because it serves ones "self interest" is Clintonian.

It ain't about Israel first, its about putting what's right first.

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