A terrible thought occurs to me - that there will be another 9/11

[IndianaGreen]

Robert Fisk: A terrible thought occurs to me - that there will be another 9/11

Published: 05 August 2006

What in the meanwhile is happening to Lebanon? Bridges and buildings can be reconstructed - with European Union loans, no doubt - but many Lebanese are now questioning the institutions of the democracy for which the US was itself so full of praise last year. What is the point of a democratically elected Lebanese government which cannot protect its people? What is the point of a 75,000-member Lebanese army which cannot protect its nation, which cannot be sent to the border, which does not fire on Lebanon's enemies and which cannot disarm Hizbollah? Indeed, for many Lebanese Shias, Hizbollah is now the Lebanese army.

So fierce has been Hizbollah's resistance - and so determined its attacks on Israeli ground troops in Lebanon - that many people here no longer recall that it was Hizbollah which provoked this latest war by crossing the border on 12 July, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. Israel's threats of enlarging the conflict even further are now met with amusement rather than horror by a Lebanese population which has been listening to Israel's warnings for 30 years with ever greater weariness. And yet they fear for their lives. If Tel Aviv is hit, will Beirut be spared. Or if central Beirut is hit, will Tel Aviv be spared? Hizbollah now uses Israel's language of an eye for an eye. Every Israeli taunt is met by a Hizbollah taunt.

And do the Israelis realise that they are legitimising Hizbollah, that a rag-tag army of guerrillas is winning its spurs against an Israeli army and air force whose targets - if intended - prove them to be war criminals and if unintended suggest that they are a rif-raff little better than the Arab armies they have been fighting, on and off, for more than half a century? Extraordinary precedents are being set in this Lebanon war.

In fact, one of the most profound changes in the region these past three decades has been the growing unwillingness of Arabs to be afraid. Their leaders - our "moderate" pro-Western Arab leaders such as King Abdullah of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt - may be afraid. But their peoples are not. And once a people have lost their terror, they cannot be re-injected with fear. Thus Israel's consistent policy of smashing Arabs into submission no longer works. It is a policy whose bankruptcy the Americans are now discovering in Iraq.

And all across the Muslim world, "we" - the West, America, Israel - are fighting not nationalists but Islamists. And watching the martyrdom of Lebanon this week - its slaughtered children in Qana packed into plastic bags until the bags ran out and their corpses had to be wrapped in carpets - a terrible and daunting thought occurs to me, day by day. That there will be another 9/11.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1214522.ece

[I_Make_Mistakes]

1. I think you are correct and it scares the crap out of me, it's like

we are daring people to retalliate against us.

I think the RW/neo-cons will do anything to stay in power. My mom and I have for the first time had really deep conversations about Authoritarianism this week. She told me about the electric shocking experiments done (I knew from here), we never got that deep before, she's a tough cookie on the outside.

We both expressed that we may be in 1930's Germany times. I told her about escapeartist.com again and she actually went there. We have to remember, there may come a time when we have to get out before we can't!

I told her Canada, and she checked into it, but now, I think France or England might be safer, because those in charge of the US are really scarring both of us.

[MadMaddie]

2. One small correction...the * cabal is daring them to attack

us....they want us to be attacked so they can attempt to declare martial law on free speech and any other freedom we take as a given...the cabal is in a deep crisis and losing their foothold on the American populace.....

We have all been saying this for a long time....

[I_Make_Mistakes]

4. Yes, I agree wholeheartedly, but I am one of those in the

collective WE as are you. They will run and hide in there spider holes (Saddam) as WE will suffer, at least that's their thinking. Here is the wrinkle, I think the rabid wingbats will continue to turn on them if they do not provide the SECURITY they were voted to do!

I guess that is, if there are enough of us remaining to do so!

[unkachuck]

3. "That there will be another 9/11."....

....and much worse....the Islamists have/are rewriting the 'book' on guerilla war....now any disciplined civilian population can take war to a high-tech modern army and win....

....this 'book' will eventually be read by disgruntled people everywhere, including our own....

"Thus Israel's consistent policy of smashing Arabs into submission no longer works. It is a policy whose bankruptcy the Americans are now discovering in Iraq."

....I think we're trying to fight 21st century war with 20th century ideas....and this all begin in earnest with the appointment of bush....