Afghanistan and chewing strange mushrooms





Dear friends,

Are we at war, as Pres. Bush said? Well, if we mean PR war, 
as in "war on cancer," "war on poverty," or "war on drugs," 
the answer is definitely "yes." But if we mean "war," as in 
WAR in Vietnam, then we are dangerously fooling ourselves 
if we say "yes" about our air war on Afghanistan.

Pres. Bush is fond of saying, "Make no mistake about it..." 
But I fear that he is making a terrible mistake mixing up our 
war on terrorism and our war on the Taliban regime as one and 
the same because, no matter how much he may wish it were so, 
in the eyes of Muslims they are not one.

The culture of the Middle East, that long preceeded the faith 
of Muhammed's Islamization of those peoples, has for a long 
time practiced the art of deceptive play on contradictions. 
So as to, in effect, have every which way, the Moslem 
intelligentsia has now done it again with yet another tribute 
to sophistry. "Yes, we deplore terrorism," recently said to 
me a leading imam,"but we do not understand why instead of 
seeking out and bringing to justice the man you accuse of the 
atrocities of Sept. 11th, you chose to bomb innocent people 
of the world's poorest and most helpless country." Another, 
sitting with me in his library, pointed out that, "In one speech 
Mr. Bush tells us that he wants to bring binLaden to justice, 
in another that he wants to kill him-- as if he had a trial, 
was sentenced and now is time for the execution. But after 
flattening the few houses the Russians missed in Afghanistan's 
cities, the Americans speak of replacing the Taliban with the 
so-called 'northern alliance' of criminals, cut throats and 
drug smugglers. So, it looks like when the world's policeman 
can't catch the bad guy, it will pick a nonconcequencial 
backward helpless state to devastate from the air in order 
to say that it did something."

As intellectually dishonest as these arguments may seem, they 
are what one hears parotted by enraged Moslems protesting 
America's reactions to Sept. 11th. According to a Pakistani 
nuclear engineer (whose training in nuclear power can easily 
be transfered to nuclear bombs production): "If you are not 
skilled enough to catch a murderer, why not make yourself feel 
better devastating an entire Third World country whose only 
ties to the criminal is a common religion. If Sept. 11th had 
been done by some insane Zionists from the Jewish community 
who had taken refuge in Israel, would Bush have destroyed 
Telaviv with B52s?" An Egyptian prof. of computer sciences 
said: "It's as if you decided to burn-down the last store a 
hold-up man robbed only because that's where he was last seen."

All these seemingly absurd reactions should have been anticipated, 
for they become a common way of thinking, crossing all sorts 
educational levels, politics, professions and classes to form 
that across-the-board Moslem outrage with Bush's "crusade."

Pres. Bush's first blunder was to declare the catastrophe of 
Sept 11th an act of war and then blame it, not on a state, but 
on individuals leading some unheard of organization. WAR is a 
state of armed conflict that one nation declares against another, 
not something one declares against Mr. binLaden or alQaeda. 
Having realized his gaff, Mr. Bush then probably turned to 
the Taliban, then the govt. of Afghanistan. He declared that 
the US had given the Taliban, "a chance to turn him [binLaden] 
in," and since it didn't, Bush felt justified to attack their 
country. Yet, can one imagine B-52s plastering Paris because 
the French Govt. would not extradite the 1960s New Left cop 
killer on grounds that its rules forbid extradition to states 
that have capital punishment on the books? And, because he did 
not want to suffer the political fallout of heavy casualties 
and to erode the precious "few good men" in his all-volunteer 
army, Mr. Bush supported a motley crew, the "northern alliance," 
to do the leg work on the ground in exchange for helping it gain 
full control of Afghanistan.

My beloved president, whose victory I still so very much cherish, 
really screwed up!

The reason why Pres. Bush Jr. got into such a mess is because he 
inherited from his gullible father, Pres. Bush Sr., a notion of 
"good" Moslems and "bad" Moslems, the former our "allies" and 
the latter our "enemies," supporting terrorism. It's no coincidence 
that the "good" Moslems are the ones feeding our gluttonous 
appetite for cheap petrol and, therefore, protected by our forces, 
almost as mercenaries. It follows that they should be allowed by 
the son, as they were by the father, to set the limits on what 
wee can and can't do in their region. When Mr. Bush dropped the 
equivalent of VW-"Bugs" stuffed with high explosive (ie. "daisy 
cutters") on Afghanistan he failed to ask himself: WHICH OF OUR 
MOSLEM "ALLIES" CONTRIBUTED ***LESS*** TO AL QAEDA THAN THE TALIBAN? 
The answer is: NONE!!! Thus, the Taliban can be considered no more 
of an ally of terrorism than our Moslem allies against terrorism. 
But, of course, since Afghanistan has nothing to offer us, we chose 
to apply a different standard to the Afghani "foes" than to the 
Moslem "ally" states. It is amazing how slippery can be a little 
oil when applied to so sticky an issue as funding alQaeda. To 
paraphrase an of song, you can't differentiate your enemy harboring 
a criminal from your ally funding his activities when "oil gets 
in your eyes." But, alas, all the Moslems see clearly through 
our Moslem-like hypocrisy-- and for that they hate us, for that 
they cheer on binLaden, the desert mouse. Little wonder that 
Moslems who were shocked at the collapse of the Twin Towers now 
regret that more Americans did not die. What Mr. Bush doesn't 
realize is that people who looked up to you hate you more than 
anyone else when you disappoint them. And hate is what makes the 
Moslem world go round. They hate us for aiding and abating those 
who aid and abate the killers of Sept 11th. Our daisy-cutters 
have destroyed the last vestiges of respect for our judgment in 
the Moslem world. The issue is not right or wrong, the issue is 
hypocrisy-- and we seem so righteous in our words but so 
hypocritical in our actions.


Dr. Lawrence Serewicz, one of the most brilliant young scholars 
I ever met (whom Mr. Bush would do well to recruit for the 
National Security Council as a fog-clearing intellect-- his 
e-mail address, should Dr. Rice need to reach him quickly, is: 
lserewicz@yahoo.com   ) wrote to me that if binLaden really wanted 
US troops out of Saudi Arabia's holy places, all he need do is 
assassinate Saadam Hussain-- the real reason for our presence there.

Well, the problem is Arab logic-- deep, deep, real deep-- for 
BOTH Hussain and the Saud dynasty are using binLaden to advance 
their own positions in the Moslem world and helping him in his 
campaigns against the Great Satan with intelligence, operatives, 
funds, technical and diplomatic assets which only they poses. 
NEITHER wants him dead, he's too useful to their machinations 
in the Moslem world and beyond.

For his part, binLaden includes the presence of US troops in the 
holy places as part of his kitchen sink full of causes in the hope 
of gathering massive Moslem support under one roof-- his own. 
Remember that from the start of his career binLaden knew that he 
can't expect massive Moslem support unless he: (a) generates 
admiration for the way he inflicts severe injury on the Great 
Satan and gets away with it and (b) brings absurd and senseless 
American wrath onto the Moslem world so as to generate hysterical 
hate of the Great Satan and self-deprecating anger over Moslem 
over- estimation of American power (the 3rd World "paper tiger" 
syndrome").

If Mr. Bush had presented the evidence we have, it would have been 
obvious that ALL Moslem states contributed critical assistance to 
alQaeda-- thus, ALL are accessories to his crimes. That would free 
the US to go it alone, able to declare that by International Law 
it has the right to retaliate against any Moslem state with nuclear 
bombs, carried by unstoppable ICBMs. Rather than react to Sept 11th, 
Mr. Bush could have said that in the event of another terrorist act, 
the US will devastate any city of any Moslem state of its choosing, 
at a time of its choosing, since ALL have proved to be accomplices 
of binLaden. THEN, without the US doing anything-- it is CERTAIN-- 
the Moslem states themselves would have done what our air power 
seems unable to do to date and $5 billion later. They might even 
have sent binLaden his next check laced with "highly milled" anthrax. 
That would have bought us time to develop independence from Mideast oil. 

Alas, Mr. Bush did not see the wisdom of NOT acting after Sept 11th. 
No one was available to advise him of the terror that that would 
have created in the Moslem mind and how credible that would have 
made the threat of action after the next time. Instead Mr. Bush 
felt politically compelled to act. But he also feared that our air 
war would be misread. So, like LBJ after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, 
he felt obliged to signal our "limited" response. And so a 
catastrophic ROLLING THUNDER II set off to prove our weakness of 
resolve, not our strength. With the daisy cutters, Pres. Bush 
pulverized our deterrence credibility by proving America capable 
of doing only less than America is capable of doing. He created 
disrespect for America in Moslem eyes because we seemed to be 
taking our rage out on innocent and helpless Afghani civilians.

Prof. Doug MacDonald insists that Sept 11th is different from 
the Gulf of Tonkin-- this time, "they attacked our homeland." 
But let's ask, who are "they"? 

The answer is that "they" are nothing but young men who drove 
themselves into a religious trance and chose to compensate for 
their sins by becoming martyrs for Allah. They all had one 
motivation in common: the prospect of a *guaranteed* spot in 
Paradise where they could get that which they never seemed to 
get on earth. Their role, unlike that of a seasoned guerrilla, 
begins and ends in a split second. Unable to retreat because 
of face, they die on their first mission. All deviations from 
purity and piety are in one moment forgiven as they ascend to 
their happy place in Paradise. Killing binLaden will be like 
taking a chunk out of water, the hole will quickly refill. 
With thousands solo martyrs among the 8 million Moslems, awaiting 
their moment of decision, until then fully enjoying Western 
lives, there is no end to the terrorism by deposing the Taliban. 
What effect will that have on the support through banks and 
businesses in the West which the martyrs receive daily? No 
organizational table exists for us to blow to smithereens. 
We are up against cells that only become cells for their one 
first and last assignment. As we have seen from the first 
attempt on the WTC, they are left to plan and execute the act 
at their own time, when they see fit. Until then they are 
fully supported as lone sleepers. If THIS binLaden is blown 
to bits we will never know for sure. And then, OTHER binLadens 
will continue to issue the funds and the encouragement to 
the cells in America. Mr. Bush, alas, is suffering from 
extreme tunnel-vision, focusing on a forensic moment that 
has passed, taking with it all the characters essential to 
it. What he should be focusing on is finding the characters 
that will congeal into cells for the NEXT episode. This can 
only be achieved through infiltration and good intelligence. 
And, kinking the supply lines can only result from a credible 
threat to EVERY Moslem state in the world. If they believe us, 
all of today's Moslem "allies" nourishing alQaeda will use the 
same assets to destroy it instead of sustain it. Knowing that 
the same Mullahs who talked them into becoming martyrs for 
Allah are now hunting them down in order to save themselves, 
these martyrs will, no doubt, realize that they would do better 
to adapt to life in America as MODERN MUSLIMS, than to die as 
targets of other martyrs sent by the Mullahs to save Islam's 
EARTHLY assets. The switch will not be as difficult as that 
of hardened guerrillas. The latter are long trained and skilled 
killers who know nothing else. The former are killers just once, 
the one time they kill, killing themselves. Seeing through the 
corruption of the Mullahs they will know how to abandon the 
promised Paradise and fit into a new Paradise-- America!

Let's not overestimate the cunning and organizational brilliance 
behind Sept 11th-- bupkus!!!

Sept 11th is a sad monument to the financial greed of the airlines 
and to their iressponsible attitude towards their captive passengers, 
not to the brilliance of alQaeda. For these first-time-out 
terrorists it was all dumb luck, much as the dumb luck that 
turned possible American Airlines' skimping on "A-checks" of 
its planes into an awful breaking apart of a plane, bound for 
Santo Domingo, over Queens NYC on Nov. 12th. 

A decade from now we may look back on Sept 11th and its sequela 
to conclude that, while we are too "pragmatic" a people to believe-- 
like the Muslims-- that somehow we can have our cake and eat it too, 
we, on the other hand, probably have available in the White House, 
in the Pentagon, at Foggy Bottom and in all our corporate board rooms 
access to special mushrooms which, if we chew enough, allow us to 
see things as ridiculously as we want to, based on hallucinations 
that make our warped decisions seem absolutely rational. But of course, 
long before then, our clock may stop. Prof. Huntington warned us 
that a "clash of civilizations" between modernity and Islam is 
inevitable. But so corrupt and degenerate is the Moslem culture 
covered over by the sublime Moslem faith, that if we are destroyed 
in that struggle it is only because of the mushrooms we chew to 
anure us to our our personal degeneracy. Mr. Bush still has time 
to bring us out of the darkness. If he and Dr. Rice need guidance, 
turn to young first class academics like Dr. Serewicz who learned 
to love truth and reason more than wealth and greed.

Daniel E. Teodoru