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Jewish World Review Oct. 11, 2001 /24 Tishrei, 5762
Michael Ledeen
This is the sort of thing that Arafat always says to his own
people in Arabic, and gainsays when he talks to us in English.
Remember that the Palestinian Authority threatened violent
reprisals against any news organization that broadcast
pictures of Palestinians dancing in the streets upon learning
about the events of September 11th. It tracks perfectly with
his two-track policy on terrorism: simultaneously training and
supporting terrorists, and lamenting their excesses when it
serves his purposes to pose as a moderate. It's an old story,
but our diplomats have never wanted to accept it, because
the consequences are fatal to their dreams of negotiating yet
another treaty and staging yet another historic handshake.
In his great book on Communist Romania (Red Horizons),
Ian Mihai Pacepa, the former chief of Ceausescu's secret
intelligence service recounts his conversations with Arafat
about the deadly terrorist group headed by Abu Nidal. It
turns out that Abu Nidal was an Arafat creation that served a
double purpose. It enabled Arafat to feign moderation, and it
gave him an assassination squad to use against anyone who
challenged his authority. I have always suspected that Arafat's
relationship to Hamas and Islamic Jihad was similar, and this
latest lie is of a piece with his overall disinformation strategy.
When a terrorist repents, there is never any doubt about the
transformation. One of the most remarkable public statements
about our bombing of Afghanistan came from Tripoli, Libya,
from the mouth of Muammar Qadaffi, for many years one of
the world's leading sponsors of terrorism. Qadaffi said
unequivocally that we were right to attack the Taliban, that it
was a clear act of self-defense, and that it was entirely in
keeping with international law.
Somehow, I've missed Arafat's praise of the first stage of our
war on terrorism.
How did Libya's formerly radical Islamist leader come to
change his mind? He crossed swords with a serious
American president, Ronald Reagan, who ordered the
bombing of Tripoli after discovering that Libya was behind
the bombing of a discotheque in which several American
soldiers were killed. That bombing was carefully crafted to
strike targets directly linked to Qadaffi's personal tyranny: his
offices and residences (including his tents), the headquarters
of his intelligence service, terrorist training camps, and so
forth. Army barracks and the like were left untouched,
thereby sending a message to the Libyan Army and the
Libyan people: our fight is not with you, but with your leader.
If he goes - and you might like to consider how best to
accomplish this - we'll get along just fine.
President Bush has carried this strategy one step further,
simultaneously bombing things that have to do with the
despotic oppression of the Taliban, and airlifting food and
medical supplies to the miserable refugees fleeing for their
lives.
It looks like some Afghanis understand, if early reports about
insurrection near the Iran/Pakistan/Afghanistan border are
right. So we've got a workable model: bomb the bad guys,
support the people they've crushed under their murderous
regimes, and go after the individual terrorists.
But don't be gulled by the likes of Arafat. He's part of the
problem, not part of the
10/04/01: What do we not know?
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