They're Not Just in Afghanistan, Ya Know

Since September 11, I have tried to keep this column light and entertaining, as I follow the lead of all of our leaders who have told us to go back to our normal lives. However, over the course of the past two months, a bunch of things have happened that when added up, I feel I must comment on them. Mostly because while we are having success in Afghanistan stopping Osama Bin Laden and destroying both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the atmosphere here in the States is less than celebratory.

First of all, there seemed to be some sort of misconception that despite the fact that President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld have said repeatedly that this would be a long struggle, it was all just talk and we would actually smash the Taliban in a matter of weeks, if not days. Well, recent events have proven that all we needed was a little patience, but just a week or so ago, patience was the last thing many seemed to have. There were columns comparing the mission in Afghanistan to Vietnam. Here's the difference, folks: in Vietnam, it took us about 2-3 years to realize we were in a quagmire. These columnists didn't even allow much more than 2-3 weeks to go by before claiming we had reached quagmire status. These are the ones with egg all over their faces right now, because unlike in Vietnam, there are tangible results now in Afghanistan. These columnists were probably the ones who 10 years ago claimed that we 1) had no business trying to dislodge Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, and 2) should've quit after the first few weeks of bombing revealed the same thing as was the case this time: a lot of destroyed targets, but no visible change.

Then, there's the anthrax. Now that we're pretty sure that new letters aren't going to be popping up in some influential politician/journalist's mailbox, the concern is still who is responsible for this. The FBI claims it may be a domestic attack, as in some wacked-out American chose to use 9-11 as an excuse to perpetrate a wide-spread anthrax attack and then get it blamed on Bin Laden. I would go a little further with this claim and produce my own theory: it may be politically motivated. Consider the targets: trash tabloid journalists who until recently were producing stories of sloppy drunk presidential daughters, a major network news anchor, and the Democrat majority leader of the Senate. See a pattern here? Not hard to believe some right-wing kook job with access to biological materials decided to perpetrate an attack on congressional Democrats and the so-called "liberal media". The reasoning: simple. Not only might he/she succeed in rubbing out a few political enemies, but the knee-jerk desire to crush Bin Laden and Afghanistan would result in him/her getting his/her wish with us going to all-out war over there. Remember that at the time the letters were sent out, we hadn't decided to attack Afghanistan yet.

Think the theory is far-fetched? Consider if you will the recent incident where some 200 fake anthrax letters were sent to various abortion clinics and supporters by a terrorist organization known as the Army of God. Yes, I called them terrorists. That's one of the problems in our country right now; we can easily look at a Muslim and immediately brand them a terrorist (whether they are or not), but we don't consider someone who blows up an abortion clinic a terrorist. They ARE terrorists, and should be dealt with as such. Alas, I don't see John Ashcroft bending over backwards to use his new anti-terrorism powers to round up these Army of God nutjobs and deal with them as he would if he tracks down any members of Al-Qaeda. My question is how can we stop the terrorists all over the world when we can't even stop them here at home? Worse yet, are we so concerned with stopping the foreign ones that we will look the other way and let domestic idiots have their way with us until we finally get Bin Laden.

Meanwhile, many have expressed their outrage with how the media is covering this war. They have pretty much been accused of everything but printing the entire "Anarchist's Cookbook" in the newspapers everyday, and honestly, I could do without seeing a new story on the front page every day about how many refugees are suffering, presumably because of our attack on Afghanistan or because of the Taliban or whatever. As for the accusations that the media is showing the terrorists what to do next and how to do it, if you're getting your instructions for world domination from the NBC Nightly News, then you're too lazy to come up with anything yourself, and you'll likely get caught very easily. Turn to the back of the front section and you'll see a bombardment of letters to the editor that have said everything short of "Bush should be impeached for dragging our country into war." This includes a ridiculous letter I read recently in the Baltimore Sun that attacked Bush for replacing "peace and prosperity with recession and war." Last time I checked, moron, George W. Bush didn't order nor did he execute the hijacking and crashing of large commercial aircraft into U.S. landmarks. Whomever thinks this guy had any amount of credibility, including the writer himself, is in my humble opinion, a burger shy of a Happy Meal. It's laughable trying to see the small but vocal "peacenik" community trying to tie Bush's anti-terrorism strategy to his tax cut or to his lack of support for the Kyoto protocol (which incidentally nobody else in our coalition supports).

More laughable (or perhaps more frightening or angering) is when people have tried to use the post-9-11 actions of our president to once again bring up the long-over 2000 election. This was done in most ridiculous fashion on the day of the president's address to the nation (or the ABC audience, anyway) by a writer who claimed that since Bush "stole the election", he has no right to tell us what to do about anything. The example she brought up was not allowing our media to enter Afghanistan to cover the war from the inside, like the guys at the hotel in Baghdad did during the Gulf War. Well, geez ma'am, considering that any journalists that had tried to enter Afghanistan to that point were arrested (but thank goodness not executed), I'd say our commander-in-chief has a pretty good point. If there were any left in the "he's not MY president" crowd (including about five people and Terry McAuliffe), they were hopefully finally silenced by the news that their precious media recount revealed Bush to be the winner once again. Not that it may silence them at all; after all, when nutjobs get their distorted view of the world and start acting according to it, it's near-impossible to dislodge them from that view. Just look at Bin Laden and his millions of America-hating sympathizers.

Can we change their minds, both here and across the world? Probably not. Do we have to force it on them? No, and we shouldn't. Everyone has the right to their opinion. If Osama Bin Laden had chosen to dedicate his life to leading protest marches against America, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But once his aims changed to death and terror, he became a target of our anger. Anyone here whose aims are similar to get their point across will become the same, or at least they should.