at least look at the tapes first to try and see if there might be coded messages activating or directing terrorist cells
A political writer in the UK had a lovely comment about that:
Throughout this, the complaints continue that bin Laden is using his videos to "send coded messages to his supporters". Hmm. So when he says "Death to all Americans", we need to carefully decode each syllable to see if there's a terrorist message in there somewhere.
argument.independent.co.uk
He's very LW (by my standards, never mind yours - or LL's <g>) but also IMO rather witty... I think this is why the INdie keeps him on:
There's a consensus that American politicians have performed a magnificent hand diplomatically, despite the genius involved in asking Islamic countries to back a "crusade" called "Operation Infinite Justice", terms deeply offensive to Muslims. Which makes you wonder what was rejected. It's not too hard to imagine Colin Powell resting a hand on Bush's shoulder and saying: "I'm not sure that 'Operation Divine Towelhead-Blast' will be all that helpful, George."
And one less humorous snip:
Dare to suggest that there may just possibly be a slight link between America's past behaviour and the hijackings, and out pour the accusations. If you do, you are said to be guilty of "foaming malevolence", according to one paper yesterday. Because all decent people know the only humanitarian response is to shake your head, mutter a sentence containing the words "evil" and "monsters" and demand that someone, somewhere gets bombed.
...
Strangely, many of those who appear the most horrified haven't always been so sensitive about the loss of innocent lives. They managed to watch the Gulf War on telly, for example, and even seemed to enjoy the experience. I wonder whether Iraqi TV showed the New York disaster in the same way we covered the bombing of Baghdad. Maybe a panel of experts sat around a table chatting about the extraordinary accuracy of the pilots, while the presenter said, "And we're being told that so far there's not a single Iraqi casualty, so that really is fantastic news, isn't it?"
...
Maybe this was a long time ago and therefore irrelevant to today's story, except that when George Bush senior launched the war against Iraq, he promised that it "won't be like Vietnam, where we were fighting with one hand tied behind our back". And this has summed up their attitude ever since – "We lost in Vietnam because we were too bloody liberal." All that stopping for fags between killings, it's no wonder they lost.
Then there was Chile and Lebanon and so on, thousands of innocent people with innocent families, amongst them firemen and fathers and people with faces who were never displayed on the centre pages of the Daily Mail, never remembered with silences at the start of football matches.
...
You can be – and if you're human, should be – extraordinarily moved by both sets of victims. But if you're only extraordinarily moved by the victims on one side, you're at least halfway to foaming.
argument.independent.co.uk |
