|
Catching Bin Laden will not make America safer... this is what I think must be understood more than anything else... Bin Laden is not this James Bond style master villian in some huge high tech mountain lair, about to detonate the doomsday weapon... he is a hate monger and a religious bigot - his power if not in his deeds, but in the way he inspires hate in people who are lost and miserable, that he gives many poor and exploited Muslim's a scapegoat for their problems, a salvation for their future and a devil to blame their misery on... it seems to me that the last few years of his life have been directed towards making a martyr of himself... this is not a war of the old style when - with Hitler or the Emporer gone the will to fight is lost.. it is a crusade and the soldiers are almost to a man the people who have nothing to lose... the weapons of mass destruction are so great, so simple, that almost anyone can strike and cause terrible damage - so long as they do not fear the consequences.
I dont think Bin Laden is the real problem, he is a sympton of the real problem. Bringing wealth, social reform, socialist policies to the people of the middle east would do far more to weaken people like Bin Laden than bombs and missiles ever could... It is no accident that Saudi Arabia, where grotesque poverty and incredible wealth sit by side - is the place where the majority of these militants comes from.
__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."
The Gospel of Thomas
|