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To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (48607)	3/12/2002 10:01:00 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

'War of civilizations' more real than not By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN March 11, 2002, 6:16PM chron.com There is something about this new, intensely violent, stage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that is starting to feel like the fuse for a much larger war of civilizations. You can smell it in the incredibly foul wind blowing through the Arab-Muslim world these days. It is a wind that is fed by many sources: the (one-sided) Arab TV images of Israelis brutalizing Palestinians, the Arab resentment of America's support for Israel and its threat against Iraq, the frustrations of young Arabs with their own lack of freedom and jobs. But once these forces are all bundled together, they express themselves in the most heated anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiments that I've ever felt. This is dangerous. The notion is taking hold -- it started with Osama bin Laden, was refined by Palestinian suicide bombers and is cheered on by Hezbollah, Iran and other radicals -- that with a combination of demographics (a baby boom) and terrorism, the Arabs can actually destroy Israel. Some radicals even fantasize that they can undermine America. A visiting Egyptian official told me that he was recently speaking to Arab students about Middle East peace and one of them interrupted to say that with just "eight small, suitcase-size nuclear bombs," the whole problem of Israel could be eliminated. "The question is whether Palestinian extremists will do what bin Laden could not: trigger a civilizational war," said the Middle East analyst Stephen P. Cohen. "If you are willing to give up your own life and that of thousands of your own people, the overwhelming power of America and Israel does not deter you anymore. We are now on the cusp of the extremists' realizing this destructive power, before the majority is mobilized for an alternative. That's why this Israeli-Palestinian war is not just a local ethnic conflict that we can ignore. It resonates with too many millions of people, connected by too many satellite TVs, with too many dangerous weapons." I still believe that a majority of Israelis and Palestinians, Americans and Muslims, do not want this war. But until the passive majorities are ready to act against the energetic minorities, the minorities will have their way. That's why our choices are becoming clear: Either we have civil wars within the communities -- with Israel uprooting most of the Jewish settlements, the Palestinians uprooting Hamas and the Arab regimes dealing with their fundamentalists -- or we could end up in a war of civilizations, between communities, with America also being pulled in. It doesn't have to end this way. In the mid-1990s, Yitzhak Rabin was ready to take on the Jewish settlers, and he paid for it with his life. But that was the same period when Yasser Arafat took on Hamas, and eight Arab countries opened trade or diplomatic ties with the Jewish state. For a brief moment, we saw Israeli and Arab moderates working against Israeli and Arab extremists. The recent peace overture by Crown Prince Abdullah was intended to improve Saudi Arabia's badly sullied post-Sept. 11 image. But it wasn't only that. My sense was that Abdullah understood that if the Arab moderates didn't step up with a peace idea of their own, they were going to be dragged into a collision with America. Abdullah's statement was the opening shot in what could be a post-Sept. 11 inter-Arab struggle. We have a huge interest in that struggle's being fought and won by moderates. That will depend in part on how much courage the Saudis and others display, and in part on what the United States and Israel do. With all the passive support shown for bin Laden in the Arab-Muslim world, it's not so easy anymore to understand who is a moderate or who is an extremist out there. But if we don't force ourselves, and Arab moderates, to make that distinction and live by it, we're heading for a war of civilizations. Some in Israel and in the American Jewish right argue that it is already a war of civilizations and that the only thing to do is kill Palestinians until they say "uncle." That is called "realism." Well, let me tell you something else that is real: If this uncompromising view becomes dominant in Israel and among American Jews, then cash in your Israel Bonds right now -- the country is doomed. Because there are so many more Muslims than Jews to be killed, and weapons of mass destruction are becoming so much smaller and so much cheaper, it won't be long before the student in my Egyptian friend's story gets one of his eight bombs and wipes Israel off the map. Is that real enough for you? -------------------------------------------------- Friedman is a columnist for The New York Times and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (48607)	3/12/2002 10:06:21 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 65232

Skilling's mom isn't buying what her son was selling By LORI BORGMAN Knight-Ridder Tribune News March 10, 2002 IT'S a sad day when your own mother hangs you out to dry. Or is it? One of the best quotes to come out of the Enron debacle belongs to the mother of CEO Jeff Skilling. This savvy businessman has claimed complete ignorance as to the company's crooked bookkeeping practices. His mother, Betty Skilling, said, "When you are the CEO and you are on the board of directors, you are supposed to know what's going on with the rest of the company. You can't get off the hook with me there." Ouch. Betty's mad. Maybe she's mad because she lost a lot of money. Or maybe she's mad because her grown son blew it and now the big lug is trying to weasel away. Consider the things Betty could have said. She could have walked to the microphone, dabbed a tear and said, "Although Jeffie seems self-assured and successful on the outside, he suffers from low self-esteem that prohibits him from asking pertinent questions." She could have said her son made poor decisions because he had been emotionally fragile. Don't laugh. It worked for the corrupt Olympic skating judge from France. Or, in keeping with contemporary trends, Betty could have blamed herself for her son's mess. Martyr mode, Phase 1: She could have pointed a finger at traumatic potty training or the fact that he was a late reader/later crawler/later talker (choose one). She could have, but she didn't. Betty basically said her son made his bed and now he's going to lie in it. I like Betty. I wish we had more mothers like her. The world would be a lot better off if more mothers were willing to take their sons (of all ages) to the woodsheds instead of coddling them, pampering them and protecting them from the consequences of their actions. Compare Skilling's mother to Osama bin Laden's mother. Alya Ghanem has been quoted as saying, "I do not approve of his ambitions and the actions attributed to him, but I am not angry with him." Her son blows up two World Trade Center towers, blasts a wing of the Pentagon, annihilates four jetliners, murders thousands of innocent people, and the woman's not angry? Fine. Then how about enraged? Incensed? Furious, maybe? Keeping your cool and refusing to blast with both barrels when your offspring falls completely off track isn't compassionate. It's crazy. Osama's mother reminds me of a story Norman Mailer was fond of telling about his mother. "If I took a Tommy gun and shot up hundreds of people in a shopping mall, she would say, `They must have said something truly awful to him.' " Mailer was being facetious, but today a lot of mothers embrace that attitude in earnest. I have a son. I would throw myself between him and a speeding semi any day of the week. But he knows that if he blows it, the first person in his face will be his mom. How does he know? From experience. The kid will tell you that when he messes up, his mom is all over him like drool on a baby. There have been too many mothers making too many excuses for too many sons for too long. Betty Skilling may be the 10-second antidote to the modern malaise of parenting. She is a true gem, a dazzling rarity who refuses to make excuses for her son. She loves him enough to hold him accountable and cares enough to help hold his feet to the fire. Most of all, she has the backbone to treat her son like a man instead of a mouse.