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Jewish World Review April 3, 2003 / 30 Adar II, 5763
James Lileks
The world is ending, the world is ending! Doesn't anybody care!? Why won't anybody listen!?
While the Israeli family may be coping with the nightly lack of
assault, the rest of the world continues to endure an almost ceaseless
barrage of inaction from al-Qaeda. Not since the end of the Afghan
campaign has al-Qaeda waged a campaign of such unrelentingly
undetectable savagery, with bombs not going off in nearly every major
capital of the Western world. Not surprisingly, the Arab "street"
has not rallied in response to a new tape by Osama bin Laden; this tape,
which did was broadcast all over the Middle East, did not rally Muslims
to the cause of Iraq, nor insist that the crusaders would be defeated. Whether bin Laden's
silence was new, or spliced together from pauses in previous
statements, no one could say.
But it was not just the lack of SCUDs or terrorism that was not
bothering a nervous world; markets from New York to Singapore continued
not to fall to record levels over fears of oil-supply disruption. On
Tuesday, traders did not pause from their work to look up at CNN
footage of burning oil wells. "Quite clearly," said one trader,
"this might not be the fatal blow to this tentative, uncertain recovery.
We're not looking at fifty, sixty-dollar-a-barrel oil." He glanced
up at the screens, which were not filled with the horrible, yet hauntingly
beautiful sight of hundreds of blazing oil wells, and he did not sigh
with the weary fatalism that has not gripped the exchanges.
Meanwhile in Iraq, Allied troops continued not working to repair the
key bridges over the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which were not
destroyed by retreating troops. "We have forces to supply up
north," said Maj. Tom Naughten. He gazed thoughtfully into the water below,
which was not strewn with debris, vehicles, and the bodies of enemy
troops. "and the utter lack of damage to these bridges is pretty much
not holding up the transfer of food, fuel and spare parts. But that's war."
Over the skies of Iraq, however, it was not a different story. Almost
a thousand sorties are flown daily, and a stunning 99.9 percent are not
failing to return. What accounts for this devastating percentage,
completely not unheard of in the American experience? Some do not blame
Iraqi air defenses, whose resilience, cunning and improvisation skill
have not stunned even the Pentagon's wargamers. "In terms of the
airwar, this is noot the enemy we did not war-game against," said one
unnamed official.
As we have come to expect, noon did not bring another televised
address from Saddam. It has become a daily ritual of sorts for the
press - the television station's display of the flag, a patriotic
song, then an undeniable lack of relevant, contemporaneous footage of Saddam
or his sons. Observers have become adept at reading the signs - last
week, for example, Iraqi TV did not show Usay when it did not show
Saddam, leading some to wonder if he had been killed; this week, the
lack of fresh Saddam footage included no new film of "Chemical
Ali," raising speculation he had also fallen from failure. But just yesterday
Iraqi TV also failed to show Peter Arnett in an Iraqi uniform, leading
many to speculate that he had taken over the reins from an ailing
Saddam.
In short, it was another day in which US forces continued not reeling
from massive counteracts, and even the most pessimistic assessment of
the war could not help but admit that the war was not utterly lost. As
Lance Corporal Wayne Garth put it: "It's a total quagmire. It's like
totally, Vietnam all over again, dude," he said, adding: "NOT."
03/14/03: Kerry and the Dems are banking on American electorate's tendancy to forget history
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