(see 10 for introduction)
0.5 next
Count the columns, John Nichols insists, but the result has been certified–that’s 109 down, one to go and he’ll have made it through the year without using the word “Israel.”
An earlier countdown entry contained a gratuitous reference to Yasir Arafat, but after smoking a joint I decided it was fortuitously gratuitous. With Arafat gone, “to whom will we give the job of the demonic villain?” Israeli writer Meron Benvenisti asks. “We need a scapegoat on whom to cast the blame for everything, and to clear our consciences.” Elie Wiesel will be lost without one.
Religious studies prof Ira Chernus thought that the 60s had taught us to appreciate the fact that we probably won’t be able to answer the “most important” question about 9/11, did the Bush administration know about the attacks and not stop them, or maybe even orchestrate them? He was surprised to learn that many “leftists” (I think he means “progressives”) had a good vs. evil world view as simple-minded as Bush’s.
According to the Commission Report (p. 149), Khalid Sheikh Mohammed met Bin Ladin in “mid-1996” and made the proposal that “eventually would become the 9/11 operation.” In August, Bin Ladin declared war against the U.S. in his first public fatwa.
After the Oslo II accords were sign in September, 1995, Edward Said implored “liberals” to be aware that the peace “process has made matters far worse” for the “vast majority” of Palestinians. They are “demoralized,” they “may have lost hope” (The Nation 10/16/95).
A New York Times story on December 1, 1995, was headlined, “Iraq Sanctions Kill Children, U.N. Reports,” 567,000 of them. On April, 11, 1996, Israel unleashed “Operation Grapes of Wrath,” bombing an Arab capital (Beirut) for the first time in ten years. A week later, it bombed a UN compound in Qana, killing over 100 women and children. On 60 Minutes, May 12, 1996, Madeleine Albright said, yes, “keeping Saddam in his box” was worth the sacrifice of half a million Iraqi children.
Hijacker Mohamed Atta’s will was dated April 11, 1996, the day Israel unleashed Grapes. Bin Ladin’s first fatwa was issued while “the horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory.” Whereas Leslie Stahl rounded down the 567,000 sanctions figure, Bin Ladin rounded it up. No matter the actual figure, the impact was devastating. As an Iraqi student said, “sanctions really killed our dreams — not my personal dreams only, but those of my Iraqi people, all of us.”
The “1998 bombings of Sudan and Afghanistan created bin Laden as a symbol…and led to a sharp increase in support, recruitment, and financing for al-Qaeda,” according to Jason Burke. “It was in late 1998 or early 1999” that Bin Ladin gave “the green light” for the 9/11 operation, the Commission Report indicates (p. 149).
As one of its recommendations, the Report urges America to “offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law…” As opposed to Bin Ladin, “we can we can offer [Muslim] parents a vision that might give their children a better future” (p. 376).
Benvenisti says the Israelis need a demonic villain to clear their consciences. Does that mean they at least vaguely know that they should have something on their consciences? If so, they appear to be a step ahead of Chernus’ “leftists” and my John Nichols, “progressive bellwether.” Of course, Arafat didn’t “steal” the 2000 election like Bush did (John is the author of a hastily and shoddily put together “book” titled “Jews for Buchanan”).
Where was the brunt of the “anti-war” movement when the Clinton administration was making mincemeat of what was to be the Report’s recommendation? A “most important” unanswerable question is, had a significant fraction of the people who now find Bush’s Iraq invasion and occupation intolerable been awake and protesting in 1996-1998, would the “twin towers have crumbled?” And what wisdom do the 60s have to impart regarding unasked questions?
In 1996-1998, John wrote 483 columns for the Capital Times, two of them containing criticism of the sanctions and two criticism of Israeli policy. He can say he opposed them but he never made them an issue. Now he remembers the Clinton era as a “period of relative peace and prosperity,” and he’s got plenty of company in that regard.
There is tragedy here. Introspection has been swept away in a tidal wave of hatred and scorn, no lesson has been learned.