From: Michael M. Butler (butler@comp-lib.org)
Date: Fri Apr 05 2002 - 03:43:30 MST
Dan L., all:
Sorry for the ramble, I'm in a bit of a humor. And I'm asking myself all this,
too. Thanks for the article, Dan L. Passing this along to the usual suspects
and others I would appreciate hearing from, if the spirit moves.
You know the echoes I hear from Palestine? I hear echoes of the French and
Indian wars.
No such thing as a noncombatant--the only good one is a dead one. And so on,
ad miserere (pardon the bastard Latin. I'm not nauseated, my sick feeling goes
to my soul).
Scalp taking was invented, or at the very least enthusiastically prosecuted,
by terrorists--barbarians, in more classical terms: Europeans, with a trapping
(& skinning) background and a practical attitude toward bounties in a day when
travel overland was a chore.
It became the fighting norm for "them stinking savages" in a few short
decades. The extrapolation to today disturbs me greatly, but I don't see it
petering out on its own. The Ghost Shirts didn't have the option of strapping
bombs to their chests.
Sidebar: Modern loose parallel to the trappers' innovation could be the
Claymore mine: Invented by a Scotsman. Probably the source of the lion's share
of MUF (materials-unaccounted-for) C4 high explosive around the world. A human
meat grinder about the size of a canteen that can reliably kill at 60 yards in
open air. Sauce, as they say, for the gander.
A straight line cultural extrapolation (not the only curve, by any means, and
I know you've heard most of it before):
Pressure and encirclement by The Civilized Ones (sarcasm and sincerity
even-steven at 50-50 when I say that) necessitates a new Manifest Destiny of
global reach; overwhelming and implacable force to save the fruits of
civilization and a way of life--blind spots, brain tumors and all. Corporate
camp followers will of course fatten on the opportunities, all with the
sincerest soap inserted in their 90-second sponsorship plugs on PBS, the
avowedly least-fascist network. Hey, they even let Noam Chomsky on, every
couple of years.
Independent of the current US administration's rhetoric about "a time and
place of our choosing", the USA (or Western Civilization, take your pick)
doesn't get to decide when "this" fight is "over" unless it becomes something
even more corruptible and imperial than its worst critics think it is now...
--bomb "them" (fifty thousand? twenty million? one billion? two?) flat and
send their kids to all be raised by Clifford Huxtable?;
--force the tech divide to accelerate so far that the have-nots _can't_ hurt
the haves?;
--high-resolution EEG/ERP "loyalty checkpoints"?
--Half the population watching the other half, aided by videofed neural nets
looking for hincty body language caught by ubiquitous cameras?
...none of which are exactly off-the-shelf from The Sharper Image in AD 2002.
The US homefront is still in Sitzkrieg. Joe and Marge Sixpack have yet to
become John & Mrs. Bull during the Blitz, let alone Yitzakh and Sarah Cohen in
the Negev, or Nguyen and Cai Phung in "French" Indochina...
Paging Winston Smith and Boxer the draft horse. Please go to the nearest white
courtesy telephone.
How badly do you want to declare victory? Would you maybe rather grow some
guts? Not the shallow simulation of same? How do you give someone with nothing
to lose a reason to live? Can you? Does that change _your_ reasoning about
your own life?
Stay wakeful, but take rest when you can,
Mike B.
butler a t comp - lib . o r g
I am not here to have an argument. I am here as part of a civilization.
Sometimes I forget.
Forwarded from Dan L...
You know what? Its too late for the Palestinians. They turned a corner and
there’s no going back. They have no real place in the civilized world.
=d
April 5, 2002
Kids With Bombs
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/05/opinion/05KRIS.html
ABALIYA REFUGEE CAMP,
Gaza Strip
To understand why Ariel Sharon's harsh tactics are self-defeating, come here
to this crowded refugee camp and talk to young Palestinians.
Kids here increasingly do not want to grow up to be firefighters, policemen or
presidents. Instead, they aspire to become shahid, martyrs, and to die blowing
up a few Israelis.
One cute 8-year-old boy showed me a portrait his family had taken of him
clutching an AK-47 rifle. He initially lied and said that his older brother
was a shahid — then he hung his head and admitted that no, his brother is
alive and never did anything so grand.
President Bush made the right moves yesterday, calling for an end to the
Israeli incursion into the West Bank, urging Arab leaders to denounce suicide
attacks and sending Colin Powell to play midwife to a peace process that
refuses to be born. Still, to travel in Gaza is to be reminded that people
here react not so much to speeches by either American or Palestinian leaders,
but rather to their own social dynamic and to Israeli actions.
After lots of surreal conversations with aspiring shahid, I believe they're
living in a delusional universe shaped in part by the gutlessness of
Palestinian leaders and in part by their own rage as Israeli tanks in the West
Bank crunch through Palestinian cars, homes and hopes. Unless Mr. Sharon and
Mr. Powell can outline steps that will lead the Palestinians to statehood, and
thus sprinkle hope in the occupied territories, then I fear that popular
support for shahid is so great among Palestinians that the parade of killings
will continue.
One neighborhood here is celebrating — and that's the right word — the death
of Mahmoud Saleh, 22. On Tuesday night, enraged by television images of
Israeli forces in Ramallah, his family said, he sneaked into Israel and shot
one soldier to death and injured three others before being killed himself.
"We're not sad at his death," said his elder brother, Adnan, a professor of
water resources who earned a Ph.D. in Europe. "We're happy. We are eight
brothers, and we will continue his way."
The mother, Aisha Saleh, at first boasted that she had been thrilled to hear
of her son's death. Then that bold front collapsed. "I was extremely sad," she
admitted. "I cried a lot. But now I see that he died for a purpose. I have
more sons for this cause."
I clapped Adnan on the shoulder, and asked if she would be happy to lose him,
too.
Mrs. Saleh hugged Adnan, the best-educated man in the neighborhood, and shook
her head. "No," she acknowledged. "Not Adnan. I love them all, but Adnan, he
is very dear to me. I will not let him go."
In Gaza City, a dozen high school boys interrupted their soccer game to tell
me that they all wanted to attack Israeli civilians and become shahid. I asked
the boys what kinds of targets they would choose to bomb. For example, would
they feel comfortable blowing up a group of Israeli women?
"That's O.K.," said Motaz Abuleilah, 15. "They all fight in their army.
There's no distinction."
What about bombing an Israeli girls high school?
"Fine, fine," said IbrahimAbudaya, 18. "God knows, the girls will become
fighters."
What about the American Embassy?
"Excellent!"
What about a crowd of Israelis, but with a few Muslims as well?
That prompted disagreement. But in the end the boys agreed that they could
sacrifice a few Arabs in Israel because, as one put it, "They are not living a
proper life there."
What about bombing an Israeli nursery school?
"No, no, no." All the boys drew the line at infants. They beamed in pride at
their humanitarianism, as I ached at their lack of it.
One postscript: I checked the family's story about how Mahmoud Saleh died. The
Israeli Defense Forces said a terrorist was killed that night while attempting
to sneak into a kibbutz, but that he didn't manage to kill anyone. The only
Israeli casualties were two soldiers lightly injured.
I suppose it's good that his family was only lying, trying to bolster his good
name by boasting falsely that he had spilled Jewish blood. But it makes the
mood here seem more absurd, pointless and tragic — and desperately in need of
change. ?
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