Us and Them
Within 24 hours of Tuesday, Secretary of State Powell was pushing for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, hoping to set aside or resolve an issue that could impair the building of a “coalition against terrorism.” By Friday, he pronounced himself pleased with the condolences of Syria’s dictator Junior Assad. Sunday, he wondered how to capitalize on Iran’s words to bring the Mullahs into the coalition. Monday was for trumpeting the “support” of our stalwart allies Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Within 24 hours of Tuesday, Secretary of State Powell was pushing for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, hoping to set aside or resolve an issue that could impair the building of a “coalition against terrorism.” By Friday, he pronounced himself pleased with the condolences of Syria’s dictator Junior Assad. Sunday, he wondered how to capitalize on Iran’s words to bring the Mullahs into the coalition. Monday was for trumpeting the “support” of our stalwart allies Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Wrong. He missed the fundamental point of those phony expressions of sympathy. Today they are afraid of us. They should be. We should make them be. This is not the moment that we need them – it is, in fact, the moment that they need us. We can pursue American security interests with them only under the most limited circumstances, which we must dictate, or we have to pursue our interests without them or across their backs. If they want to be on our side, they know what to do. Otherwise, let them be afraid.
Mr. Secretary, there are only two kinds of people in this world – “us” and “them.” “Us” includes many Muslims in many countries; Islam is not the issue.
We have to be clear about “them.” They incite violence, train for, pay for and pray for violence, teach violence, and revere violence. When death and destruction come to those they have deemed enemies, they cheer and pass out sweets. They drip with hatred. They twist, warp and ruin their own children. They kill other people’s children and other people’s parents. And they support other people who do all of those things.
Yasser Arafat and the PA are “them” – anti-American in thought, word and deed. The PLO INVENTED airplane hijacking! Our readers have known for years about the burning of American flags, the riots (long before last September) that included death threats to America and Americans. PA-paid clerics call on PA radio for “turning the White House black.” The same Palestinians who danced on rooftops in 1991 when the SCUDs hit Israel were cheering on Tuesday as we watched in disbelief, and the same leaders were threatening journalists who tell that story. The blood Arafat gave should be poured down a sewer.
The bombings were strikes at America by people who detest what we are – free people under an elected government united by our commitment to freedom, civil liberties and the rule of law. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Algeria are all “them.” And the nasty dictatorships of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are very close to being “them” as well. Because, despite their need for our military support to stay in power, they foment hatred of the United States among their people as a means of deflecting the corruption of their own regimes.
As our government determines what specific actions we will take in the weeks, months and years ahead to fight terrorism in all its permutations, it we cannot include any of “them” on “our” side.