Barry Farber
Wednesday, April 23, 2003

And who knows; what with all that oil there may even be some time for plunder after all.

What do we do? Do we raise our voices and shout forth what we think of them and their thinking? Do we ignore them? Or do we pull out our canisters and start pumping forth a high-grade haze of common sense in hopes they'll inhale?

To me, everything America is doing is eminently logical. In fact, I can't recall being so completely in sync with American foreign policy at any time since the Marshall Plan and the knitting together of NATO.

At a certain point during the Cold War, terrorism began to cross-fade into communism as America's major enemy. And it was awful; but it was almost always "Over There." It wasn't communists who blew up the Marine barracks in Lebanon in the early 1980s. It was Islamic terrorists. And almost THREE TIMES as many Marines lost their lives in that one explosion than all the American service personnel lost in the fighting in Iraq.

It was catastrophic, but at least it was Over There. When the terrorists first tried to bring down the World Trade Center we probably thought we had the numbers moving solidly our way. Only SIX Americans were lost in that blast in 1993! (Why is it that the 1,000 injured hardly enter our anguish?)

Then, in 1996, came the Islamic terrorist bombing of the Khobar Tower apartments in Saudi Arabia. And we found ourselves not in Einstein's but in another kind of "Theory of Relativity." Since we'd lost almost 300 at the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the loss of ONLY 19 at Khobar Towers (370 injured) seemed almost merciful. And, again, the terrorists were careful to keep it all Over There.

The simultaneous bombings in 1998 of two American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania took 211 lives and injured 4,580. It is zero consolation that large numbers of the victims were foreigners and not Americans.

This time President Clinton dispatched cruise missiles with fierce public relations warheads to emphasize what an effective "lesson" we were communicating to the stealthy and despicable foe. One wonders if the Clinton team thought it was sending Osama to the Prozac counter by such a muscular "response" to an atrocity that was clearly Over There.

When a genial arm-waving Arab in a small boat smilingly greeted the American sailors aboard the USS Cole in the year 2000, our men and women waved back. There again, when the boat-bomb exploded there were another 17 American sailors dead plus 37 wounded. And it was terrible. But it was Over There.

An American doctrine on terrorism evolved. It was never spoken; yet we could almost hear voices repeating it. It was never written on paper; yet it seemed somehow to be written in the very air itself. And it went like this:

"We know Islamic terrorists are killing Americans and intend to kill more. But we'll not make a big deal out of it so long as it's sporadic, not overly costly in American lives and, above all, Over There."

And that mentality kept us prisoner clear up to 9/11, when Over There, without warning, suddenly became Over Here. It became downtown, if you lived in New York, and just across the river if you lived in D.C. And that called for some new thinking that had to be very quick and very deep.

And I don't think we did badly in that thinking. We belatedly but emphatically realized we were at war, rather than merely being pecked at by political perverts with a warped understanding of God's will but a fairly decent understanding of high explosives. And we made up our minds to respond meaningfully.

Neither they nor we realized just HOW meaningfully at first!

The most brilliant move President Bush made after 9/11 was to do nothing – at least not right away.

As I think back to discussions with those around me after 9/11, they seem unreal. We were actually debating WHETHER OR NOT AMERICA WOULD RETALIATE AT ALL! And I can lead you to some highly sophisticated political infighters who contemptuously said, "This Bush crowd isn't going to do anything at all!"

Bush was smart. Clinton before him had reflexively lashed out by launching cruise missiles against an aspirin factory in Sudan and what his National Security Advisor Sandy Berger assured us was "Osama bin Laden's main training camp" on a mountaintop in Afghanistan.

So Bush did nothing – at least nothing visible, audible or otherwise detectable – from 9/11 clear up to Oct. 7, on which date America unleashed the successful campaign to wrest Afghanistan from the Taliban regime and send al Qaeda spinning in disarray.

Great slabs of new American doctrine were quickly unloaded and displayed to a world that mostly dismissed it as obligatory rhetoric. "You're either for us or against us." "Any country that supports terrorism will be considered a terrorist country."

There's no evidence that this impressed many terrorists. There's great evidence that it infuriated a lot of people, including many on our side, who felt it was, well, a little too "cowboy." Nonetheless, nobody from Algeria across Africa through the Middle East and Asia clear on to Indonesia can say we didn't warn them. And now the "delivery phase" is taking shape.

Just as once upon a time WE didn't realize until quite late that WE were targets of a patient, well-planned Jihad, now it's THEIR turn to realize late that THEY are targets of a well-planned counterattack in defense of civilization.

Iraq may be many confusing things at the moment, but one thing Iraq is NOT is a nation under the control of a bad-weapons fetishist who hates America and supports terrorists.

And now the America-hating world, including millions of Americans, asks, "Gee! Is Syria next?"

Don't gloat at their stupidity! We were equally stupid all those years when we failed to connect the pools of American blood from Lebanon through 9/11. It's interesting to note that our once-upon-a-time stupidity is finally being matched by the stupidity of all who now ask, "Is Syria next?"

Of course Syria is next!

Maybe Syria's not next for combined ground-air assault, but Syria's almost certainly next for exactly what we did in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Did those seductive videos of all those smart bombs and tumbling statues make you forget that we began by inviting the Taliban to spare itself military attack by handing over Osama bin Laden? Have you forgotten how many chances we gave Saddam Hussein to open up, come clean and change his ways to avoid attack – something he failed to do even to the satisfaction of a lifelong U.N. bureaucrat marinated all his life in neutral Swedish peace-juice?

Is the pattern taking shape? Let's do a little "drama."

Have you ever been in a totally corrupt outfit – military or commercial – where everybody signs in late with no need to be sneaky about it and falsifies expense accounts and brags about it and helps each other fake overtime work vouchers and starts smoking pot at noon and giggles a lot about the inflatable air mattress stashed in the supply room for moments when acts of sexual harassment turn out to be successful?

(At NBC in the 1950s, some fairly high executives who enjoyed a drink more than now-and-then actually rigged up a secret unauthorized phone extension so their bosses who called would think they were at their work posts upstairs in Rockefeller Center while they were actually in a quiet booth in the back of Hurley's, the famous pub on the ground floor.)

And do you remember the New Boss who knew all about everything and showed up one day raising 48 different kinds of hell, rather like Moses did when he descended from Mount Sinai and found the children of Israel worshipping a golden calf?

Can you fathom the New Boss gathering the guilty all together and telling them between the eyeballs: "Gentlemen. It's over. Is that clear? I know about it. I know all about ALL of it, and I promise you, it’s all over. Got it? It's OOOOverrrr!"

In that little drama, the laggards and vandals are literally every country in the Middle East except Israel. What an embarrassment that America tells Syria, "We suspect you're allowing Saddam Hussein's criminals to escape into Syria, where they are harbored as ‘heroes’ and ‘brothers,’ and that you are running once-democratic Lebanon like your own Coney Island concession, and that you are furthermore openly supporting groups that openly support terrorism!"

We "suspect" all that, huh? Really?! Do we further "suspect" that beavers build dams, spiders spin webs and whales breathe through a blowhole? Syria flat-out DECLARED its support of Iraq at the outset of the fighting.

And several years before 9/11, a TV documentary on terrorism showed an unapologetic Syrian foreign minister explaining to an American audience: "These people you call terrorists are brother Arabs who feel they've lost everything except the will to fight for their cause. We Syrians simply cannot let them down!"

Oh, no! Are you really sure you can't?

"Check out recent developments in Iraq, Mr. Syria, and then get back to us. Your call!"

And in this little drama President George W. Bush is, of course, the New Boss. He knows perfectly well that terrorism is as totally corkscrewed into the Arab world as endemic syphilis is into southern Bosnia. Bush knows of the many decades during which America chose to overlook it, put up with it, keep the diplomatic boat unrocked, and even help certain guilty countries deny it from time to time. Syria and America, in fact, were cocktailing at each other's embassies while Syria sat atop the roll call of nations supporting terrorism.

And Bush tried to tell the terror-supporting world it was OVER as early as the evening of 9/11. I heard him and I didn't believe him that night, so how can I blame Syria for not believing him? I believe him now, and so, believe me, should Syria!

Syria has chemical weapons, occupies what was once a democracy (Lebanon), and works with Iran to promote terrorism against Israel. Any rebuttal? Any backtalk? Any alternative point of view? Hearing none, I say let's go after Syria – at first DIPLOMATICALLY.

Let's give Syria as many chances to come clean as we gave Saddam. If you like, let's make it Liberal Accommodation Month and give Syria TWICE as many chances to live a decent Middle Eastern life as we gave Saddam!

"Who's next?" indeed! Wake up, pal! You woke up by mid-afternoon on Dec. 7, 1941, that we were at war after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. What's taken us over a year and a half after 9/11 to realize we're at war against terrorism?

"Who's next," huh?

Can you imagine after the successful August 1942 American invasion of Guadalcanal in World War II an anti-war American asking, "Who's next? You say we're going to attack Tarawa? You say we're going to attack Iwo Jima? You say then we're going after OKINAWA? Good God, we're uncontrolled aggressors!"

No, we weren't. We were quite well-controlled defenders on a well-planned comeback trail.

In Europe would you have stood still for a naysayer who neighed and said, "Wait a minute! After we liberate France you want to go into BELGIUM? And then HOLLAND? And then, Good God Almighty, GERMANY ITSELF? Have you considered the IMPLICATIONS?"

We have indeed considered the implications. We can only hope and pray that, out of compassion and reverence for life, THEY HAVE, TOO!

Presidents have been known to halt and reverse operations and screw up the best of policies. But, as we see the liberation of Iraq, here in late April, all I can do is hope that whoever's next will indeed be next, and not postponed, and that we'll proceed along a programmed path until we remove the ability of the terrorist to function with the consent of governments to make other people enslaved, miserable, oppressed, and dead.

And how many times have you heard, "Oh, how proud you American troops must be to defeat an army slightly large than the Grenadian Police; an Iraqi army America outspends TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS TO ONE!

Sorry. As that famous theater critic said, "My tears remained in their little ducts, refusing to be jerked." Would you say to the chief of police of New York City: "You must think you're such a big-shot, breaking down a door with all your thousands of well-armed policemen and routing 15 terrified Colombian drug dealers out of their lair. Oh, you must think you're real tough! Congratulations."

We're not out to prove we can beat inferior forces. We're out to prove inferior forces will never again be permitted to slaughter innocent Americans and others so long as we possess the means and the will to stop them.

Terrorists need countries – not just safe houses, a practice firing range, a back alley and a few ATM machines. The New Boss apparently understands the value of tearing country after country off their welcoming list.

And while my fellow conservatives may disdain the "Who's next?" crowd for their lack of patriotism, I do not. I'm much more disappointed by their ignorance of history.

They blithely call America the "New Nazis" out to conquer one and all who "disagree with us!"

Name one victim nation of Nazi OR COMMUNIST aggression that would have been spared attack and occupation if only they'd said: "We have no weapons of mass destruction, no plans to attack you or your people, and nothing within our borders that should cause you concern. Come take a look." (The REAL way; not Saddam's way.)

And we still have Americans (and I expect hundreds of millions of others) who still think we're "pushing other people around"?

Get real. How much agony are we really asking Syria to endure by giving up chemical weapons, withdrawing support for terrorist groups and withdrawing from Lebanon? I say, let them go into prayer, fasting and meditation, and ponder their national choices.

And we have folks sharp enough to shape the appropriate demands of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and, yes, even North Korea.

THEY don't mind telling us when the cost of oil is going up.

And we shouldn’t mind telling THEM when the cost of killing Americans is going up.

Let's hope they notice it just has!

Oh, and you're worried about the "Arab street"?

Isn't that an Arab street they're dragging the head of Saddam Hussein's statue down right now?

Times Square it ain't. Piccadilly Circus it ain't. Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Street it ain't. That's downtown Baghdad. Quit trembling in fear of the "Arab street." For over a thousand years the Arab street has been one they name after you one day and chase you down the next.

America has the means. We've long had the means to make life miserable for governments that make life miserable for helpless victims.

We've always had the means.

Now, thank God, we also have the will.

Thanks, W.

Barry Farber's daily radio program can be heard on Talk America Radio Networks, www.talkamerica.com.

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