A rchive Date
[ 13-10-2001 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Arab-Muslims ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/macdonald.html
Fear's a weapon
Osama bin Laden knows how his attacks can build climate of terror
By BOB MACDONALD - Toronto Sun
October 13, 2001
The beauty of terrorism from Osama bin Laden's point of view is that you only have to pull off a sneaky, murderous attack every so often to cause widespread fear.
But the bigger that attack is - the bigger the fear. The result is the building of an atmosphere of terror - fear of attacks from bombs, hijackings, bacteria, chemicals, etc.
For instance, bin Laden's terrorist network bombed New York's World Trade Center in 1993, but it only killed six, with many injured. That bomb was assembled by a New York cell and planted via a van parked in the building's basement. It cost $300 million to repair the structure and much more to install all sorts of special anti-bomb protection and security devices to forestall a repeat attack.
The attack scared many New Yorkers and others in North America - but not enough to stop people from going back into the 110-storey twin towers. They thought the new security would work.
In the interim, psychopath bin Laden and his fanatical Muslim Arab network blew up two U.S. embassies in Africa, killing hundreds, and attacked a U.S. warship, the USS Cole, killing 17.
Democratic President Bill Clinton's answer was to launch a bunch of cruise missiles at empty bin Laden terrorist training camps in Afghanistan - and threaten to hunt down him and his gang. Sure, these attacks angered but didn't terrorize the Americans. After all, he and Monica were hogging all the daily news attention.
Meanwhile, bin Laden's terrorist network was spreading its tentacles throughout the world, especially Europe, Africa and North America. They were entering both the U.S. and Canada as students, immigrants with forged papers, and - especially in Canada - as refugee claimants who melted into the 27,000 illegals roaming loose in our country.
Some learned to fly planes in the U.S. while others in Canada, such as a bin Laden cell in Montreal, made bombs and planned attacks on both Canadian and U.S. targets.
Were Americans and Canadians concerned and frightened? Naw. After all, neither Prime Minister Jean Chretien nor his golfing pal Clinton seemed to care. In Canada, Chretien disregarded warnings from his own CSIS intelligence agency about 50 terrorist cells and many supporters operating in Canada.
Then came Sept. 11 - and the bin Laden network's highly imaginative and horrifically deadly attack on the WTC and the Pentagon via hijacked planes loaded with jet fuel.
The world turned upside down. As another homicidal maniac named Vladimir Lenin once said: "The purpose of terror is to terrorize."
People who normally were pretty cool under stress began to worry about more attacks - and different kinds of attacks. After all, the fanatical bin Laden had stated he didn't care how many people were killed in an attack - in fact, the more the better. And that included civilians - women and children. Asked if it bothered his conscience, bin Laden said: "The good will go to Paradise; the bad will go to Hell."
So, people and their governments increasingly worry about the possibility of biological and chemical attacks - perhaps even a nuclear bomb since bin Laden had been trying to get his hands on one for years.
Worse still, despite a huge effort to track down terrorist cells, there's concern that many exist undetected and unknown. The terrorists had a big head start bringing in "sleepers" and hiding them among our people.
So, when some envelopes of anthrax bacteria end up at a Florida newspaper office and then the NBC television network office of news anchor Tom Brokaw, the atmosphere of fear increased. Especially when one of the four infected, a photo editor in Florida, dies of the anthrax attack.
And in Toronto, since last week's attacks on Afghanistan, police and health officials are sent scurrying daily to check out harmless parcels left in subways and stores - and a break-in at one of the city's water reservoirs.
So what do we do? Panic solves nothing.
"We cannot let the terrorists lock our country down. We can't let terrorists, a few evildoers, hold us hostage," says a determined U.S. President George W. Bush.
In other words, since bin Laden and his gang have declared all-out war on us all, we have to wage all-out war on them. They must be hunted down and destroyed, along with all their supporters and financial backers.
Nothing less will succeed. Otherwise, they'll return to strike again and again - with fear as their never-ending weapon.
Read Bob MacDonald on Wednesdays and Sundays. Reach him at bob.macdonald@tor.sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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