April 16, 2004: #01
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Bin Laden's "truce" proposal unwittingly stiffens spines of Europe; Vive la France, Dankeshane, Muchas Gracias, Grazie Mille; Domo Arigato Gozaimashita; Iraq-- Mistakes, Apologies, and Remedies.·
Shock and awe describes responses by our most severe European critics to Usama
bin Laden's proposed "truce" in the form of his offer to stop trying
to kill them if they were to cease and desist all support for, or participation
in, America's war on terror in Iraq, Afghanistan and anywhere else in the
world. Like General General Anthony C. McAuliffe at Bastogne, even France,
Germany and the newly-elected leftist government of Spain said
"Nuts." Even more reassuring was the fact that staunch allies
whose wills have recently been severely tested in Iraq, such as Italy and Japan,
likewise said, "Nuts."
Light at the end of European tunnel-vision?
Our European critics' unequivocal repudiation of bin Laden's invitation for them
to embrace appeasement of a tyrannical ideology out of fear of barbarity appears
to reveal light at the end of European tunnel-vision.
Perhaps it soon will be time to pop a bottle of French champagne, drink a few
toasts chased by a few Koestritzer beers, and then run with the bulls in Spain
to celebrate the stiffening spine of "old" Europe. Perhaps in
the long run, the leaders of "old" Europe will gradually become more
willing to exhibit the moral courage to see the future in the visionary way in
which Bush and Blair see it as did Churchill and Roosevelt in even darker
times. As this process unfolds, we need not demand, and cannot expect,
those leaders to concede that Bush and Blair were right and they were wrong;
rather, we need to, and should, unequivocally welcome their growing support as
prodigal allies returning home.
Top secret transcript of bin Laden's serial revisions of "truce" proposals following Europe saying "No" to his April 15, 2001 proposal:
Bin
Laden to Europe: I'll stop trying to kill you if you stop
supporting the Infidel Americans' efforts kill me.
Europe to bin Laden: No!
Bin Laden to Europe: How about if you stop supporting the Infidel Americans' effort to find me?
Europe to bin Laden: No!
Bin Laden to Europe: How about if you stop supporting the Infidel Americans' efforts to find my money?.
Europe to bin Laden: No!
Bin Laden to Europe: How about if you stop supporting the Infidel Americans' efforts to convince the world that I'm "evil"?
Europe to bin Laden: No!
Bin Laden to Europe: How about if you stop supporting the Infidel Americans' efforts to say bad things about me to normal Muslims?
Europe to bin Laden: No!
Bin Laden to Europe: How about if you at least promise to think about stopping support for the Infidel Americans' efforts to say bad things about me to normal Muslims?
Europe to bin Laden: No!
War in Iraq-- Mistakes, Apologies and Remedies.
Paradoxically, those in the media least capable of perceiving, much less admitting and even much less remedying, their own mistakes are most zealous in demanding that Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and Powell identify, admit, and apologize for, "mistakes" in connection with 9-11, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the war on terror in general. Suppose Edward R. Murrow were to have suffered the same afflictions in questioning Eisenhower following the Normandy invasion:
ED MURROW: General Eisenhower, don't you feel you owe it to the American and British people to identify the mistakes you made in planning Operation Overlord, Operation Market Gardens, and the overall strategy of rejecting what virtually all military experts considered to have been the most militarily sound invasion strategy-- i.e., to focus the invasion at Pais de Calais rather than the beaches of Normandy?
EISENHOWER: In war, one cannot foresee, or even expect to foresee, most of the many, many things that will turn out to be worse, harder or more dangerous than predicted. Of course we made mistakes, but I don't think it would be productive to now attempt to describe them-- to determine the significance of various mistakes requires acquisition of complete hindsight from a vantage point in the future after the end of the conflict. In the interim, have we internally assessed what we consider to have been mistakes and done our best to take remedial actions? Of course.
ED MURROW: But General Eisenhower, wasn't it a mistake for you to fail to adequately anticipate the Battle of the Bulge and thereby avoid the losses of lives resulting from our unpreparedness for a Nazi counteroffensive? What do you say to the families of the troops who died needlessly as a result of your mistakes?
EISENHOWER: No one who has been burdened by the authority and responsibility for making decisions on which hundreds of thousands, and potentially millions, of lives hang in the balance can escape the burden of knowing he cannot realistically find himself free of mistakes that cost the lives of others. Yet, if one is certain the goal is morally just, one cannot achieve it without sacrificing lives and making mistakes in the process that costs additional lives. To make avoidance of mistakes more important than accomplishing the mission would guarantee its failure and thereby guarantee that even unavoidable deaths sustained in pursuit of the mission would constitute lives lost in vain.
ED MURROW; Unlike those who will attempt to follow in my footsteps in the early Twenty-First Century, I'm able to recognize how right you are.
The Who? Media?
Too many of today's journalist fear loss of what they perceive to be their "objectivity" more than they fear loss of freedom. Is there a chance that growing numbers of the free press will recognize that they ought not even try to be "neutral" with respect to conflicts between freedom and tyranny? Will they allow themselves to be left behind by the gradual re-evolution of Europe's perception that free people cannot afford the luxury of being "neutral" with respect to conflicts between freedom and tyranny? Probably not, because that element of the media is most addicted to approval by what they perceive to be the sophisticated "European" view in contrast to what they perceive to be the wild-west, "cowboy" view of Bush.
--Jim Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.
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