topic by
D
1/4/2002 (13:02) |
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I remain, sir, Haggard of the Hindu Kush
Never mind the needless deaths, we've only succeeded in making bin Laden a
shadow of his former self
War on Terrorism: Observer special
War in Afghanistan: Observer special
Terry Jones
Sunday December 30, 2001
The Observer
Osama bin Laden is looking 'haggard'. A videotape broadcast on al-Jazeera TV
showed the Most Wanted Man in the Known World looking haggard. And in case
we didn't notice how haggard he was looking, the Western media have been
pounding us with the word ever since the pictures were released.
So I would like to congratulate George Bush and Tony Blair on the first
concrete evidence that their 'War on Terrorism' is finally achieving some of
its policy objectives.
Of course, they've done terribly well in bringing chaos to Afghanistan, but
I don't remember that as being one of the policy objectives. When those
planes smashed into the World Trade Centre with the loss of 2,500 innocent
lives, I don't think anybody's first reaction was: 'Well, the sooner we get
the mujahideen and the warlords to take over Kabul the better!' No, as I
remember, President Bush laid out the policy objectives of his 'War on
Terrorism' in measured terms: 'We must catch the evil perpetrators of this
cowardly act and bring them to justice.'
Bringing to justice the people who actually perpetrated the crime was out of
the question since they were already dead. They'd killed themselves in a
typically cowardly fashion. So, as I remember it, President Bush pretty
quickly said he would get whoever egged them on to do it and then he would
make them pay for it.
Well, many months later, who has paid for it? US taxpayers have stumped up
billions of dollars. They've paid for it. So have the British taxpayers, for
some reason which hasn't yet been explained to us. Uncounted thousands of
innocent Afghan citizens have paid for it too - with their lives. I say
'uncounted' because nobody in the West seems to have been particularly
interested in counting them. It's pretty certain more innocent people have
died and are still dying in the bombing of Afghanistan than on 11 September,
but the New York Times doesn't run daily biographies of them so they don't
count.
Oh, I nearly forgot - we've all paid a considerable amount in terms of those
precious civil liberties and freedoms that make our way of life in the Free
World so much better than everyone else's. Bit of a conundrum that.
We are all also paying a huge price, all the time, every day, in terms of
our daily anxiety quota. We daren't fly in planes or, if we do, we do so in
fear and dread. We are constantly fearful of some nameless retribution being
visited on us. And it's no good Mr Blair saying this is the terrorists'
fault. Of course it is, but then if we hadn't joined the Americans in
bombing Afghanistan we wouldn't all be so scared.
If the objectives of the 'War on Terrorism' were to catch the perpetrators
of the 11 September attacks, bring them to justice and make the world a
safer place, so far the score - on all three objectives - has been nil.
We're all jumping around scared shitless that something similar is going to
happen at any moment. No perpetrators have been caught; no perpetrators have
been brought to justice.
Mark you, this last is not really surprising. Just think: if the police were
setting out to catch a particularly clever and evil murderer, would they go
around with loud-hailers announcing where they were going to look for him,
pinpoint the areas they intended to search and give him a count of 100 to
get away? That's what you do if you're playing hide and seek, not if you
want to catch a criminal. I rather imagine the police would have gone to
work covertly and tried to find out where he was without his even knowing
they were looking for him. But I realise that's not a very American way of
going about things.
However, finally the 'War on Terrorism' is achieving its policy objectives.
Osama bin Laden is looking haggard. We may not have caught him or brought
him to justice but, at the cost of thousands of innocent Afghan lives,
billions of dollars of US citizens' money and the civil liberties of the
Free World, we have got him looking haggard.
It's a sensational and ground-breaking moment that justifies all the news
coverage it's been getting. If Osama bin Laden is looking haggard, that
means he's scared - or tired or eaten something that disagrees with him -
but at least it means he's not enjoying himself as he was in his previous
video.
This is a considerable triumph for the US forces, for the brave bomber
pilots who release their bombs from such considerable and dangerous heights
above the ground, and for Tony Blair, who has so fearlessly led his entire
nation into the position of being terrorist targets for no good reason that
any of us can think of.
So keep up the good work, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, let's see
if we can continue in this vein and perhaps - at the cost of only another
few billion dollars, a lot more innocent lives, many more civil rights, and
the stability of the Middle East, India and Pakistan, and perhaps a Third
World War, we might even be able to make Osama bin Laden frown.
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