SINthysist
Rural Racist Homophobe
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One Good Fight!
Barry Farber
Thursday, June 6, 2002
It doesn't happen just in sports. There's a column-writer's equivalent of having a home run hit off your curve ball or a touchdown scored over your head and behind your back. That feeling comes when another columnist makes a point that was lurking inside your own head, sloshing around in the fragrant syrups of your own thinking, but never quite finding its way out.
"That was clearly in my mind," you say to yourself when you read your thoughts under somebody else's name, "but it never reached my tongue." Or my microphone or my word processor.
What follows is something other columnists may have thought of and quite deliberately NOT put into words. This is a subversive thought. Thoughts like this should probably not even be THOUGHT, much less expressed.
In the conviction that it will ultimately do no harm, I nonetheless proceed.
I can't be the only one who turns on radio and TV at the beginning of the day – and at frequent intervals until the beginning of the next day – to gain assurance and relief that there's been no repeat of 9-11.
That relief takes about five seconds to achieve. If the first thing you see and hear is the CNN anchor interviewing the exercise lady, the protein lady, the chocolate lady or the dog lady, that tells you you no more planes have slammed into any more buildings.
If you see two opponents on the screen debating the merits of Hawaii versus Florida as a vacation spot, you know there's no need to sweat. Even the presence of a commercial tells you it's business as usual.
When your eyes first focus on the picture, you crave to see anything but that bone-marrow-curdling "Breaking Story" logo and ambulances and emergency vehicles with revolving red lights on top and print rolling underneath the pictures detailing disaster.
Anything but that lets you know the world is pretty much the way you left it when last you checked.
And can I be the only one who's wondering, "What's taking the terrorists so long?"
Look how many opportunities they've missed to hit us. Look how many opportunities they've missed to make us either miserable or dead.
Since our retaliation began, there have been the Thanksgiving holidays, the Christmas holidays, New Year's – all travel-heavy opportunities for terrorism. Then there's been the Superbowl and the Salt Lake City Olympics. Add on now Memorial Day weekend.
Here's the subversive thought, which I hope never infects the brains of those entrusted with our protection.
Is it possible that 9-11 is all there is?
Is it possible that al-Qaeda simply doesn't intend any more?
Every day that goes by with no recurrence of terrorism this many months after 9-11 amplifies the recollection of a conversation I had on upper Broadway in Manhattan with a Moslem from Egypt in October of 1973. That conversation reverberates increasingly in my brain every day that goes by without further catastrophe.
I can't say that what he told me is my assessment; but it's definitely my hope and my prayer.
On June 5, 1967 – the first day of the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors – I was the host of an all-night local radio show in New York. All we did that entire week, from 11:15 p.m. until 5 o'clock the next morning, was shovel in Arabs, Israelis, American Jews, American Moslems, military experts, diplomats, historians, commentators and even a nightclub owner named Lee Koppell, who seemed to have mysterious ways of getting information from the front lines – details of which he never revealed on the air but told us all about on the sidewalk outside the station at 5 in the morning, after the show; details that would prove chillingly accurate a few hours later.
One of the guests during that all-night marathon reaching the largest Jewish audience in the world was Makhmoud al-Okda, an Egyptian businessman. He'd been a college student drafted to fight the Israelis during the 1956 war in the Sinai Peninsula. Turns out Makhmoud was my neighbor on upper Broadway and we'd frequently run into each other and stop and discuss war and peace in the Mideast.
Six years later (Makhmoud and I were good friends by now) the Egyptians and Syrians attacked Israel on Yom Kipper, the highest of the High Holy Days of the Jewish year. You may recall how enraged Americans were that the Japanese chose a Sunday morning to attack Pearl Harbor. There are 52 Sundays a year. There's only ONE Yom Kippur!
The initial victories went to the Egyptians. They successfully crossed the Suez Canal, breached the Israeli defenses at the Bar Lev Line, and headed hell-bent for Gaza and Israel proper.
Makhmoud and I met again on Broadway the very next day.
"Now," said Makhmoud triumphantly, "there can be peace!"
"Beg pardon, pal," I said. "Did you say PEACE? What do you mean, PEACE? Right now your Egyptian army is retaking Sinai. With luck they'll get as far as the Mitla Pass, roughly halfway between the Suez Canal and the Israeli border. By that time Israeli defenses will have hardened and that'll be the end of your 'victory.' By the next day Israel will be ready to mount its counterattack and push you guys all the way back to the Canal, and possibly even across."
To my amazement Makhmoud smiled and, with verve and enthusiasm, said, "You're RIGHT! Egypt is going to lose, perhaps even more dramatically than in 1967."
"So, Makhmoud," I asked, "what do you mean by 'peace'?"
"Now," he explained, "there can finally be genuine talks and actions and movement toward peace. You must understand the Arab mind.
"Until yesterday we never won anything," Makhmoud explained. "We've done nothing but wallow in humiliation and defeat. Such a condition does not allow us to make peace.
"Yesterday," Makhmoud continued, "we won our first victory against the Israelis. Now we can talk peace."
"Makhmoud," I fairly yelled, "your so-called victory is not going to last one full calendar day! Israel is going to win this war, too."
"You're right," Makhmoud repeated. "But that doesn't matter. "At least, at last, for a change – THERE WAS A GOOD FIGHT!"
So that's what he was trying to teach me. Egypt didn't have to WIN a war with Israel. Egypt just had to put up ONE GOOD FIGHT.
Egypt's piercing of the Bar Lev Line was, indeed, ONE GOOD FIGHT.
And then, with their pride restored according to Arab requirements, there could be talks and action and movement toward peace.
And, sure enough, a few years later Egyptian President Anwar Sadat went to Jerusalem, made peace with Israel, got back the entire Sinai Peninsula including the oil fields at Abu Rodeis, and removed Israel's most powerful Arab neighbor from its enemies list.
As Makhmoud gave his explanation of the "Arab mind," my own mind somehow pinwheeled back to the late 1940s when a team of Egyptian English Channel swimmers all failed miserably to duplicate America's Gertrude Ederly's feat of swimming the English Channel from England to France.
Before they went home, however, they tried again, this time as a RELAY team, with each member swimming only a portion of the distance. That worked, and the team returned triumphantly to Egypt – victorious Channel swimmers all!
Is it at least vaguely possibly that Osama bin Laden is playing by Makhmoud al-Okda's rules, under which his hatred of America can be assuaged, not by bringing America down, but by putting forth ONE GOOD FIGHT, ONE GOOD HIT, one massive slaughter of thousands of Americans, after which they can declare "victory" unto themselves and spend the rest of their lives celebrating – but not replicating?
If I were an America-hating Moslem extremist, I'd have been cursing Osama beginning early last October. "America is bombing Afghanistan!" I'd be shouting. "America is CONQUERING Afghanistan!"
No moderate, secular Islamic country has fallen to Osama's extremists. All the good countries of the world, and some bad ones, are gravitating to the United States' side. Only 3,000 unbelievers were killed with your 9-11. No lasting Islamic good was achieved with your 9-11. Where is your follow-up?
But that's my American mind-set speaking.
The "Makhmoud-Osama" mind-set might be saying, "We took their proudest towers down. We killed 3,000 of them. We have frightened them into a new generation. We have wreaked untold economic disasters upon them. They will now live in fear forever!"
Is it possible that al-Qaeda thinking concludes, "We scored a legendary great hit. We killed many. We intimidated more. Neither America nor the rest of the infidel world will ever again be the same.
"It was the grandest terrorist hit in the history of the world.
"Now we can enjoy our triumph. Now our pride is restored.
"Now there's no need for anything else."
The foregoing is admittedly not a good argument, a good analysis, a good conviction, or a good bet.
It does, however, make a very nice prayer!
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/5/165351.shtml
Barry Farber
Thursday, June 6, 2002
It doesn't happen just in sports. There's a column-writer's equivalent of having a home run hit off your curve ball or a touchdown scored over your head and behind your back. That feeling comes when another columnist makes a point that was lurking inside your own head, sloshing around in the fragrant syrups of your own thinking, but never quite finding its way out.
"That was clearly in my mind," you say to yourself when you read your thoughts under somebody else's name, "but it never reached my tongue." Or my microphone or my word processor.
What follows is something other columnists may have thought of and quite deliberately NOT put into words. This is a subversive thought. Thoughts like this should probably not even be THOUGHT, much less expressed.
In the conviction that it will ultimately do no harm, I nonetheless proceed.
I can't be the only one who turns on radio and TV at the beginning of the day – and at frequent intervals until the beginning of the next day – to gain assurance and relief that there's been no repeat of 9-11.
That relief takes about five seconds to achieve. If the first thing you see and hear is the CNN anchor interviewing the exercise lady, the protein lady, the chocolate lady or the dog lady, that tells you you no more planes have slammed into any more buildings.
If you see two opponents on the screen debating the merits of Hawaii versus Florida as a vacation spot, you know there's no need to sweat. Even the presence of a commercial tells you it's business as usual.
When your eyes first focus on the picture, you crave to see anything but that bone-marrow-curdling "Breaking Story" logo and ambulances and emergency vehicles with revolving red lights on top and print rolling underneath the pictures detailing disaster.
Anything but that lets you know the world is pretty much the way you left it when last you checked.
And can I be the only one who's wondering, "What's taking the terrorists so long?"
Look how many opportunities they've missed to hit us. Look how many opportunities they've missed to make us either miserable or dead.
Since our retaliation began, there have been the Thanksgiving holidays, the Christmas holidays, New Year's – all travel-heavy opportunities for terrorism. Then there's been the Superbowl and the Salt Lake City Olympics. Add on now Memorial Day weekend.
Here's the subversive thought, which I hope never infects the brains of those entrusted with our protection.
Is it possible that 9-11 is all there is?
Is it possible that al-Qaeda simply doesn't intend any more?
Every day that goes by with no recurrence of terrorism this many months after 9-11 amplifies the recollection of a conversation I had on upper Broadway in Manhattan with a Moslem from Egypt in October of 1973. That conversation reverberates increasingly in my brain every day that goes by without further catastrophe.
I can't say that what he told me is my assessment; but it's definitely my hope and my prayer.
On June 5, 1967 – the first day of the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors – I was the host of an all-night local radio show in New York. All we did that entire week, from 11:15 p.m. until 5 o'clock the next morning, was shovel in Arabs, Israelis, American Jews, American Moslems, military experts, diplomats, historians, commentators and even a nightclub owner named Lee Koppell, who seemed to have mysterious ways of getting information from the front lines – details of which he never revealed on the air but told us all about on the sidewalk outside the station at 5 in the morning, after the show; details that would prove chillingly accurate a few hours later.
One of the guests during that all-night marathon reaching the largest Jewish audience in the world was Makhmoud al-Okda, an Egyptian businessman. He'd been a college student drafted to fight the Israelis during the 1956 war in the Sinai Peninsula. Turns out Makhmoud was my neighbor on upper Broadway and we'd frequently run into each other and stop and discuss war and peace in the Mideast.
Six years later (Makhmoud and I were good friends by now) the Egyptians and Syrians attacked Israel on Yom Kipper, the highest of the High Holy Days of the Jewish year. You may recall how enraged Americans were that the Japanese chose a Sunday morning to attack Pearl Harbor. There are 52 Sundays a year. There's only ONE Yom Kippur!
The initial victories went to the Egyptians. They successfully crossed the Suez Canal, breached the Israeli defenses at the Bar Lev Line, and headed hell-bent for Gaza and Israel proper.
Makhmoud and I met again on Broadway the very next day.
"Now," said Makhmoud triumphantly, "there can be peace!"
"Beg pardon, pal," I said. "Did you say PEACE? What do you mean, PEACE? Right now your Egyptian army is retaking Sinai. With luck they'll get as far as the Mitla Pass, roughly halfway between the Suez Canal and the Israeli border. By that time Israeli defenses will have hardened and that'll be the end of your 'victory.' By the next day Israel will be ready to mount its counterattack and push you guys all the way back to the Canal, and possibly even across."
To my amazement Makhmoud smiled and, with verve and enthusiasm, said, "You're RIGHT! Egypt is going to lose, perhaps even more dramatically than in 1967."
"So, Makhmoud," I asked, "what do you mean by 'peace'?"
"Now," he explained, "there can finally be genuine talks and actions and movement toward peace. You must understand the Arab mind.
"Until yesterday we never won anything," Makhmoud explained. "We've done nothing but wallow in humiliation and defeat. Such a condition does not allow us to make peace.
"Yesterday," Makhmoud continued, "we won our first victory against the Israelis. Now we can talk peace."
"Makhmoud," I fairly yelled, "your so-called victory is not going to last one full calendar day! Israel is going to win this war, too."
"You're right," Makhmoud repeated. "But that doesn't matter. "At least, at last, for a change – THERE WAS A GOOD FIGHT!"
So that's what he was trying to teach me. Egypt didn't have to WIN a war with Israel. Egypt just had to put up ONE GOOD FIGHT.
Egypt's piercing of the Bar Lev Line was, indeed, ONE GOOD FIGHT.
And then, with their pride restored according to Arab requirements, there could be talks and action and movement toward peace.
And, sure enough, a few years later Egyptian President Anwar Sadat went to Jerusalem, made peace with Israel, got back the entire Sinai Peninsula including the oil fields at Abu Rodeis, and removed Israel's most powerful Arab neighbor from its enemies list.
As Makhmoud gave his explanation of the "Arab mind," my own mind somehow pinwheeled back to the late 1940s when a team of Egyptian English Channel swimmers all failed miserably to duplicate America's Gertrude Ederly's feat of swimming the English Channel from England to France.
Before they went home, however, they tried again, this time as a RELAY team, with each member swimming only a portion of the distance. That worked, and the team returned triumphantly to Egypt – victorious Channel swimmers all!
Is it at least vaguely possibly that Osama bin Laden is playing by Makhmoud al-Okda's rules, under which his hatred of America can be assuaged, not by bringing America down, but by putting forth ONE GOOD FIGHT, ONE GOOD HIT, one massive slaughter of thousands of Americans, after which they can declare "victory" unto themselves and spend the rest of their lives celebrating – but not replicating?
If I were an America-hating Moslem extremist, I'd have been cursing Osama beginning early last October. "America is bombing Afghanistan!" I'd be shouting. "America is CONQUERING Afghanistan!"
No moderate, secular Islamic country has fallen to Osama's extremists. All the good countries of the world, and some bad ones, are gravitating to the United States' side. Only 3,000 unbelievers were killed with your 9-11. No lasting Islamic good was achieved with your 9-11. Where is your follow-up?
But that's my American mind-set speaking.
The "Makhmoud-Osama" mind-set might be saying, "We took their proudest towers down. We killed 3,000 of them. We have frightened them into a new generation. We have wreaked untold economic disasters upon them. They will now live in fear forever!"
Is it possible that al-Qaeda thinking concludes, "We scored a legendary great hit. We killed many. We intimidated more. Neither America nor the rest of the infidel world will ever again be the same.
"It was the grandest terrorist hit in the history of the world.
"Now we can enjoy our triumph. Now our pride is restored.
"Now there's no need for anything else."
The foregoing is admittedly not a good argument, a good analysis, a good conviction, or a good bet.
It does, however, make a very nice prayer!
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/5/165351.shtml