IP: We Are All Alone - nasty but maybe correct op-ed

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/26/opinion/26FRIE.html

We Are All Alone

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

So let me see if I've got this all straight now: Pakistan will allow us to 
use its bases Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays — provided we bomb only 
Taliban whose names begin with Omar and who don't have cousins in the 
Pakistani secret service. India is with us on Tuesdays and Fridays, 
provided it can shell Pakistani forces around Kashmir all other days. Egypt 
is with us on Sundays, provided we don't tell anyone and provided we never 
mention that we give the Egyptians $2 billion a year in aid. Yasir Arafat 
is with us only after 10 p.m. on weekdays, when Palestinians who have been 
dancing in the streets over the World Trade Center attack have gone to bed. 
The Northern Alliance is with us, provided we buy all its troops new 
sandals and give U.S. passports to the first 1,000 to reach Kabul.

Israel is with us provided we never question the lunacy of 7,000 Israeli 
colonial settlers living in the middle of a million Palestinians in the 
Gaza Strip. Kuwait would like to be with us, it really would, since we 
saved Kuwait from Iraq, but two Islamists in the Kuwaiti Parliament spoke 
out against the war, so the emir just doesn't want to take any chances. You 
understand. The Saudis, of course, want to be with us, but Saudis are not 
into war-fighting. That's for the household help. Don't worry. Prince 
Alwaleed has promised to rent us some Bangladeshi soldiers through a Saudi 
temp agency — at only a small markup.
<snip>
And then there's my personal favorite: All our Arab-Muslim allies would 
love us to get bin Laden quickly, but the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is 
coming soon and the Muslim "street" will not tolerate fighting during 
Ramadan. Say, do you remember the 1973 Middle East war, launched by Egypt 
and Syria against Israel? Remember what that war was called in the Arab 
world? "The Ramadan war" — because that's when it was started. Oh, well. I 
guess the Arab world can launch wars on Ramadan, but not receive them.
<snip>


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