> 10/8/01
> The Nation/Minority Report
> by Christopher Hitchens
> Does anyone suppose that an Israeli withdrawal from
> Gaza would have forestalled the slaughter in Manhattan? It would take a
> moral cretin to suggest anything of the sort . . .
Who has suggested this? In any serious way, I mean.
> They regard the Saudi regime
> not as the extreme authoritarian theocracy that it is, but as something
too
> soft and lenient.
But I believe that their main complaint concerns US troops stationed in Saudi -- Kissinger's dream come true. Do we, as a nation, beef up our forces there to fight this nightmare tribe? Pull out and leave the royal family to its fate? Change our foreign policy to support a redistribution of wealth to undercut theocratic appeal (which, to be authentic and effective, must stretch across the region)?
>But the bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic
> face, and there's no point in any euphemism about it.
Sontag's line about communism, retreaded.
> What they abominate
> about "the West," to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals
don't
> like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about
it
> and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its
> separation of religion from the state. Loose talk about chickens coming
home
> to roost is the moral equivalent of the hateful garbage emitted by Falwell
> and Robertson, and exhibits about the same intellectual content.
So if the US weren't running the Middle East, backing Arab dictators and Israeli apartheid and bombing Iraq every five minutes, these Islamic snake handlers would still be coming after us? Why? Because they hate "good"?
>But that's only one way of stating the obvious, which is that this is
> an enemy for life, as well as an enemy of life.
So, what do we do? Bomb the fuck outta these theocratic assholes? I'm really curious. Everything Hitch wrote about the pre-modern mania that the Bin Laden crowd represents I totally agree with; but what is the answer in the current moment? He gives us nothing, save for a hint that military action might be the only course. Our civilization lies in the balance. These nuts cannot be negotiated with (unless they are on the CIA's payroll). What options do we have?
DP