A rchive Date
[ 28-05-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/downing.html
Terror: Coming soon to a bus near you?
By JOHN DOWNING -- Toronto Sun
May 26, 2002
So we had a fat time to enjoy the fruits of the fall of the Wall. Kids could grow up sunny without the fear of nuclear war perched like a vulture on their shoulder. But then 9/11 exploded in our face, and the American president warned his people of a never-ending fight against terrorism.
Another spectre of eternal gloom! Shakespeare could write: All the world's a battlefield / And all the men and women merely targets.
Last week should have been mellow. Summer's approaching, the dollar's up, and Ontario's doing better than even the Tories say. But the evidence festered that George W. Bush is right about the need for vigilance about terrorism.
A bull's-eye is painted on our chest. Anyone who thinks terrorists are going to sort Americans from North Americans when they pick victims is deluded. We face years of worry, and costly, irritating security.
A long time ago, we worried about anarchists and crude stick bombs. Finally came the ultimate terror of nuclear bombs. Now we worry about the germ bombs of bio-terrorism as well as the deadly vests worn by supposed martyrs. So this is progress: where air, water, public spaces - and all our planes and ships and trains and transit - are suspect; when Islamic radicals tilt at our towers with terror.
Vice President Dick Cheney's announcement that the U.S. will be hit again by terrorism - "almost a certainty" - just confirmed what many American officials have been saying for months. Not just a major attack, one that will shake the U.S. to its gut like the World Trade Center destruction did, but the insane daily torment of terrorist bombers eager to kill the backers of Jews just as they kill Jews back home, as they did again last week as their leader wagged his finger.
And Canada, intertwined with the U.S. through friendship and the alphabet soup of economic and security pacts like NATO, NORAD and NAFTA, is vulnerable too. After all, we're a democracy with a majority of Christians and support for Israel - although you wouldn't know those three facts by the actions of some pols and church leaders - and that's enough to make us the enemy for a few twisted Muslims from brutal dictatorships.
'Target of opportunity'
Another slippery reason also makes us a target.
As Canada's former top spy, Reid Morton, told Sun Media, Canada's oil and gas industry is a "target of opportunity" for terrorists who want a back door to get at the U.S. He was just stating the obvious. After all, the U.S. gets 9% of its energy from Canada, its largest foreign supplier and general trading partner, and exploding our refineries would be pleasing to the duplicitous Saudis, who are funding terrorism with their petro wealth when they're not the terrorists themselves.
It would be two bangs for the Saudi buck, since not only would it would make all those cruel, fundamentalist Wahhabis happy, but also those in the ruling House of Saud that support them in despising the West. It would also help Saudi Arabia make more billions since it supplies 8.5% of the U.S. oil, and any interference with Canadian oil would increase the price of Saudi crude ... that's the oil, not the attitude.
This isn't paranoia; this is reality.
Saudi Arabia may be said by official America to be a friend and moderate, but beneath that rhetoric those same officials are busy replacing their military control headquarters there and searching for alternative supplies. So the Saudis will find their clout diminishing, thank our heaven, just as Iraq has discovered, to its shock, that oil is losing its impact as a weapon, when it suspended its exports for April and the world price didn't jump.
Ugly consensus
So there may be good news ahead. But how do you feel about all this bad news, the ugly consensus that the murderous crazies of the Middle East are expected to be sending us terrorist bombers along with their oil?
No, I don't mean you, the reader who is an anti-Semite, who is sick enough to say the Jews were behind 9/11. I won't waste my time on garbage like you.
Nope, I mean you, the reader who has been grumbling that I'm writing about Israel too much and I should stick with the banal politics of Toronto. Translation?
The agony in Israel has been going on for far too long, since September, 2000, and all the media accounts are boring because it didn't affect you. Well, now it does! Coming soon to the bus near you may be Armageddon. Now there's a threat to grab you.
You may well have been one of the 54% who told Ipsos-Reid pollsters in early April that Israel's use of force in responding to Palestinian violence has been excessive. No doubt Israel's retaliation has blemished its international reputation, the part not already smeared by the Arab world, but many Israelis figure that's a price worth paying just to improve the odds for a safe bus ride.
So how do you feel now this is no longer an academic issue of rights but a threat just down the street? Try turning the other cheek to a terrorist and it will be blown off.
As Thomas Paine said two centuries ago about the first American crisis: "These are the times that try men's souls."
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com Downing appears Fridays, Sundays
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