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Jewish World Review May 23, 2003 / 21 Iyar, 5763
James Lileks
Sometimes the theme of world events is chaos itself
Right now, however, teasing meaning from the tangle of current events
is like separating a single strand of spaghetti from a cold pile of pasta.
Right now, it's all a mess.
Here's a brief survey of the overboiling kettles that are complicating
planetary amity:
Missing: one irregularly shaped nation. Answers to "Iraq." Last seen in
mid-March. If you have seen this nation, please call your local
newspaper.
It's amazing how quickly Iraq tumbled off the front page; it's as if
everyone thought the fall of Saddam Hussein's statue was the end of
the story, not the beginning. The Iraqis were hit hard by SARS -- not the
disease itself, but the coverage of it. A few thousand cases of a mildly
fatal virus half a planet away made the American media swing its lens
away from Iraq, and we haven't yet regained our fascination for matters
Mesopotamian.
From some reports, the situation in Baghdad is bollixed beyond belief.
Other cities are faring better, but most of them have just scrolled off the
teleprompter. We no more worry about water supplies in Umm Qasr than
we ponder the state of the electrical grid in that northern Afghanistan
town that was so important in December 2001. Remember that town?
No?
Reports on reconstruction ought to be page one, every day; the state of
the occupation ought to lead the cable news, every show. Providing, of
course, there have been no developments in the Laci Peterson case,
and Jayson Blair hasn't claimed to have interviewed Hitler on the moon.
Al-Qaida is back, and bigger than ever! So the headlines suggest.
"Experts" are warning that the network has reconstituted itself, and
everyone seems to think that Osama bin Laden is alive and hale, and
directing it all from a subterranean lair with a white cat in his lap. But if
al-Qaida wanted to regain its former status as the fearsome
Hydra-headed foe, it would have to do something big. It would bring
down the Eiffel Tower. Slam a jet into Big Ben or send the Golden Gate
bridge thundering into the bay. These are big-ticket items, and their
destruction would jellify knees around the West again.
It takes little skill to blow up an unguarded cafe. What's more, these
attacks are taking place in Arab lands, which shows that the terrorists
don't care if they alienate the very cultures that shelter them. Suicide
bombings, indeed.
Even if al-Qaida is crushed, it doesn't mean the war on terrorism is over.
Demolish the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Brotherhood of Muslims
takes it place. Smash The Army of G-d, and say hello to G-d's Army.
Moroccan officials speculate that the Casablanca bombings might have
been the work of Salafia Jihadia, a group that sounds like it took its
name from rejected automobile brands. There are dozens and dozens
of these groups. As long as those pesky Jews refuse to load their
pockets with bricks and hop in the ocean, there will be terrorists. As long
as the West refuses to close down the cathedrals and put the crescent
over all the parliament houses, we'll have to deal with these guys.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reached another impasse: Israel
refuses to stop the provocative practice of placing its buses on public
roads. The very sight of these vehicles inflames middle-class young
men, who cannot resist killing everyone aboard with nail bombs. The
new Palestinian leadership has agreed to smite some wrists, one of
these days. Meanwhile, the road map to peace is impossible to fold up
so that it's nice and flat. Everyone ends up jamming it in the glove
compartment, cursing.
Perhaps sometime in June in a lab on a campus somewhere, a chemist
will look at his experiments and realize he has just synthesized
petroleum from recycled Pampers. And five years later the oil revenues
that fund modern madness will shrivel and cease. Could happen. The
shape of the future isn't always obvious on the front page. History
always finds the themes in the chaos. Sometimes the theme,
unfortunately, is Chaos itself.
05/16/03: Newspapers are only human, after all
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