(This column was written a few weeks after 9/11, on the day the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. To read the entire column Click Here ).
Small towns of USA reached out to the wounded Big City by giving blood, money, and their hearts.
A wise man was asked for one sentence that would apply to all times and in all places. He said: "And this, too, shall pass away."
Just about the time we felt it was safe to smile, the bombardment of Afghanistan punched a hole in the peacefulness of Sunday, October 7, 2001, opening a Pandora’s box loaded with thousands of potential martyrs and starting a lifelong war that will never pass away. Further destruction of a country already destroyed by earlier wars and the chance of battle casualties cast another pall over writers who deal with the lighter side of life and darkened the world of entertainment. For the second time, the Emmy Awards program was stopped dead in its tracks.
Old men declare wars, young men die fighting those wars.
Never to be resurrected, the spirit of laughter once embodied in Dusty Rogue lies buried beneath the twin towers. When you think of the thousands of victims and their families and friends, the loss of an alter ego, a phantasmagoria, requires no mourning, no outcry for sympathy. Gone with him, however, is the security of living in a joyous country. Laughter, without which there is no perspective on life, will return, but it’ll never be the same. Alas, poor Rogue, I knew him well.
You’re a good man, Gunga Din,
You’re a rotten bastard, Osama bin.
That bit of doggerel is mine, a minor contribution to the nation-wide hatred of Osama bin Laden and the Talibans as reflected in e-mail letters since September 11, 200l. At times I was afraid that the vitriolic condemnations might harm the haters more than the object of their hatred. Let me share a few of the "gentler" letters that suggest ways to punish bin Laden. Would it come as surprise to you that women were the most vicious in demands for revenge?
Dismemberment was often a part of the retribution, like cutting off his boys and sewing them up in his mouth. Another plan was to take the sand monkey out in the desert, strip him, pour honey over him, and bury him up to his neck in the sand. I could imagine him in the silvery moonlight with his eyes eaten out and his head swaying and singing "America." A recent message injected some levity into the punishment--to have the Navy Seals kidnap him, perform a radical sex change, and then return her to the Taliban as a woman.
I’m sure that much of the feminine rage is additionally fueled by the heinous enslavement of women by the Taliban. If it’s any consolation, strong women in Hebrew literature have exacted revenge against men. Judith, a Jewish heroine, took into her bed an enemy general and cut off his head, while Debra drove a spike into the ear of a sleeping enemy. And we must not’t forget Delilah, Samson’s deceitful lover. Air lifting 37,500 food packets to starving Afghans is not too far afield of food dropping from heaven for Moses and his followers. Too bad a fifty-pound packet doesn’t squash a forty-pound skinny devil when he sticks his head out of a cave.
One of the most recent e-mail epistles carried an attachment that showed a naked bin Laden making love to a donkey. Granted, he is a vicious killer of the innocent, but he’s not bestial. He’s clever enough to concoct a plan to hijack four jets at the same time, three out of four hitting their targets. He and his fellow terrorists are like the mythological Hydra--cut off a poisonous head and two more heads will replace it. Some of his aides are viperish Egyptians who have been trying to start a holy war since Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin shook hands with President Carter at Camp David.
What I’m trying to say is not to underestimate the opponent. At the beginning of the Second World War, Americans made the mistake of calling Hitler Schickelgruber and house painter, of describing Hideki Tojo as a buck-toothed oriental. As the casualties mounted alarming, we began to realize just how formidable our enemies were. If the Russians hadn’t engaged with us in a pincer movement and if we hadn’t got our hands on the atomic bomb to avoid an attack on the Japanese mainland, the outcomes of both wars might have been different.
Too late. Our leaders have "cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war!" Too late to suggest that the war hawks review the literature of savage battles from "All Quiet on the Western Front" to "After Tet: the Bloodiest Year in Viet Nam." The word-swaggering Michael Kelly of the National Journal calls any pacifist "a liar, fraud, and hypocrite." I have an assignment for him in Afghanistan. I want him to get out of his soft armchair, climb in a crop-duster, fly over the poppy fields, and spray weed killer to destroy the main source of revenue for bin Laden and the Taliban. While he’s there, he might try to get a rebate for the USA on the $43 million paid to the Taliban a few months ago to reduce the cultivation of opium poppy.
During World War II, this twenty-year-old idealist received a shock in Casablanca. I thought everyone loved Americans. The Arabs in what was then French Morocco were on the side of the Germans.(It’s not by happenstance that today’s terrorists use Germany as a base of operation). I could understand why they hated the French and the Jews, but their blatant dislike of Americans was distressing, to say the least.
Although American servicemen were under orders not to get involved in local affairs, I went underground and joined the movement of "Morocco for the Moroccans." A few brushes with the French authorities did not make me eligible for the honorary office of Grand Marshall of Casablanca. I studied the Islamic religion and was able to accept some of the pillars of faith--giving to the poor, observing the Ramadan season, paying lip service to no other god but Allah. But the sacrifice of individualism and allegiance to a rigid fundamentalism of church and state did not exactly appeal to me, and I soon found out that bending over five times a day and touching my forehead to the ground put me a vulnerable position.
One Islamic pillar ended my conversion to Islam.. Kill the infidels. I’m sure that terrible commandment has been modified over the years among the peace-loving Moslems, but it is a call to battle among such radical zealots as bin Laden and, perhaps, millions of fundamentalists in favor of a holy war against the West.
There are many reasons why some Moslems hate Americas, one of the most obvious being the disparity in wealth and power. But it goes beyond affluence. In public places, Moslem women must be concealed in a burqua from head to toe. You can imagine what a negative impression is made when they see Jennifer Lopez in her diaphanous scarf or if they open the pages of Playboy. The mullahs are wise to forbid devout Moslems from viewing the violence and nakedness on TV and in our movies. Columnist Donna Britt writes: "I see cable programs aimed at teen-agers featuring young people having every imaginable type of sex--except the loving, committed kind. Countless videos with cameras zoomed tight on barely covered breasts and vibrating rumps."
On the other hand, many Americans find it strange that the beauty of women should be concealed and raise their eyebrows when they see two Arab men walking in public holding hands. When Arabs shake hands, they kiss their index fingers and point upward. Men are allowed four wives and if they die as martyrs, they end up in paradise being serviced by 73 nymphets.
A TV commentator recently said: "Americans don’t know where Afghanistan is, and they’re really not interested in learning about the people who live there." That’s a stupid mistake. To protect ourselves from terrorists’ slaughter and their suicidal missions, we must understand these people and where they are coming from. How will Americans ever comprehend, for example, why Osama bin Laden flies into a rage because US servicemen are camped near Mecca and vows that all Americans are infidels and must be killed. Don’t be so naive as to think that the assassination of bin Laden will end terrorism here at home. "We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it."
President Bush was right to lecture the press and Congress on keeping quiet about war plans. From the Second World War: "A slip of the lip can sink a ship." Let rumors fall on deaf ears(especially on those of Rush Limbaugh, who is planning to continue his radio program in sign language). Be like the terrorists--let the actions do the talking. Learn a lesson from Aunt Minnie, whose release of gas was silent, but lethal. Don’t make any deals in a dark alley with the warlords of the Northern Alliance.
I can hear my modest editor suggest, not too quietly, that I should stop preaching, but what can I do without Dusty Rogue at my side? President Bush and his advisors (along with the entire nation) should study world history and etymology. Islamic toes were stepped on when the war against the terrorists was called "a crusade." The word means the honor of the Christian cross, a reference to the seven major attempts to recover the Holy Land, one of them turning the Islamic Holy City into a stinking charnel house. Osama bin Laden is an Arab, not an Afghan, but both are under orders to grow beards and never wear ties Jerry Falwell should grow a beard, take his foot out of his mouth, and carry a red purse like Tinky-Winky.
President Bush was effusive in his praise of Italians on Columbus Days, although he failed to mention my uncle who built a pretty neat car. Few people seem to know that American Indians regard Christopher Columbus as a blood-thirsty invader and hate him as much as we hate Osama bin Laden.
Finally, I’m looking forward to the time when the Towers of Light are in place at Ground Zero. The projected lights will re-create the World Trade Center towers. What a thrill it will be to see them silhouetted against the night-time skyline of the Financial District.
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