Plenty of Room at the Top. Does the Post really believe that the arrest or execution of any given "terrorist" means a damn thing? If one high-ranking al-Qaeda operative is arrested, somebody else in the organization moves up. If one operative reveals details of planned attacks, the organization merely abandons that plan and starts another. In "terrorism", no one is indispensable.
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We have more than a century of experience with the Mafia, and the Post itself reports that another Mafia "don" has just been convicted. Has that destroyed the Mafia? Of course not. To the extent the Mafia has faded away, it is because conditions in society have changed as to destroy the ability of the Mafia to recruit new 'goodfellas' into a life of needless danger for scant reward in a society in which Italian-Americans are not downtrodden and desperate.
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The conditions that have produced massive anti-U.S. "terrorism", however, especially the daily humiliation and brutalization of Arabs by Israel and its uncritical U.S. ally, haven't changed one whit. So al-Qaeda will have no trouble whatsoever replacing Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani — or any other member, even Usama bin Laden himself (who may very well have died from kidney disease months ago).
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Are we as stupid as Israel, which kills "terrorists" almost every day, yet has more terrorism than any other country save only, and only since the U.S. invasion, Iraq? Or will we wise up and realize that only by doing justice to Arabs can we end the easy recruitment of "terrorists"? Kerry might learn that lesson. Bush never will. (Responsive to editorial "Terror War Takedown", New York Post, July 31, 2004)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 12:50 PM