Times (London) - Now is the time for furious common sense

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 21:21:03 +0000
From: Orpheus <tharg () gmx net>
Subject: Times (London) - Now is the time for furious common sense
To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>

Now is the time for furious common sense

Simon Jenkins
That bin Laden has not yet been neutralised is the pre-eminent scandal of
the new world order

I AM no good at atrocity journalism. When the Spanish bombs went off, limbs
flew and bleeding faces peered from stretchers, I tried the expletives
required of these occasions. The bombs were fiendish, evil, vile,
bloodthirsty, monstrous, despicable, cowardly, fanatical. Such words soon
dried on their own spittle.
Nor am I good at atrocity clichés, as liberally applied to Spain over the
weekend. Nothing will be the same again, it was said. Or everything must go
on as before. Terrorism must be defeated at all costs. Or civilised values
must not be sacrificed. We must be on guard. We must pretend all is normal.
We must . . . we must . . . we must . . .

...

That bin Laden has not been neutralised two and a half years after 9/11 is
the pre-eminent scandal of the new world order. Afghanistan has been
restored to warlords and heroin traders without achieving the stated
objective of that restoration, the arrest of the man responsible for 9/11.
Worse, the Taleban is back on the warpath. We can only hope that the latest
campaign to “find Osama” succeeds. That the capture of this dreadful man
will be greeted with dismay by America’s enemies is a measure of the West’s
diplomatic failure since 9/11.

If the Arab coalition dissolved over Afghanistan, the Western one dissolved
over the invasion of Iraq. It stands to reason that assaulting Saddam
diverted attention from the campaign against al-Qaeda. It stands to reason
that driving al-Qaeda into the arms of a post-Saddam Iraq was madness. The
shadowy Wahabbis now said to be moving freely about Baghdad would have been
killed instantly by Saddam’s militias. If ever there were a time not to
topple Saddam it was with al-Qaeda still on the loose.

It stands to reason that the Iraq venture was always going to aggravate not
relieve the so-called War on Terror. Western governments which drop
thousands of bombs on foreign cities can hardly be surprised if some of
their citizens seek revenge. It stands to reason that 8,500 dead Iraqi
civilians (at the latest count) would be a recruiting poster for any passing
dissident eager to kill an American. One of the more odious arguments I
heard in Baghdad last November was that it would be convenient to have all
global terrorism concentrated in that one place. So much for a more stable
Iraq. And tell it to the Spaniards.

The violence, insecurity and administrative chaos visited on Iraq by the
Pentagon this past year has offered al-Qaeda a new sea in which to swim. The
tiny minority of Arabs who might have supported the Wahabbist jihad in 2001
has swollen to a dispersed army, eager to take violent revenge on the West
for its aggression in the Middle East. And of course those most involved in
the invasion of Iraq are in the front line. That too stands to reason.
...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-1040736,00.html 

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