Terrorist Sell

2/1/06

People wonder how, why and where terrorists come from. Well, dear readers, your friendly, neighborhood correspondent is here to tell you: By and large they come from poor, disenfranchised and humiliated countries who feel like they've gotten a raw deal for the past eight hundred years or so.

Yes, religious fanaticism plays a part in a great deal of it, but that's really a symptom and not the disease. If you felt your life was pretty good and things were going just hunky-dory it would be harder to think about sploding yourself to try to get attention. But when the main ingredient in your every meal is sand and becoming a camel dung collector for use in small cooking fires looks like a better job than yours, you're probably pretty pissed off pretty much of the time.

When people have shitty lives they tend to blame people different than them, whether those people deserve it or not. (Im thinking Germany some seventy years ago.) Those presumed to have all the money and power and luxury are always the first to get blamed. Granted, some of the situation is usually their fault (Im thinking the French Revolution here) but a lot of the time the blame is just a generalized shotgun pattern of accusation leveled at anyone with the appearance of fault. (I'm thinking civilians around the world just going about their daily lives until suddenly becoming dead due to flying shrapnel.)

I don't defend the murder of innocent human beings; I'm simply saying its important to understand peoples motivations. The economic and foreign policies of a country can have far-reaching effects, and the reasons for the large number of Middle-Eastern terrorists today go back over a thousand years. Technically they should be angrier at Britain since the US wasn't around for the worst of the anal raping of their society, but even I have to admit Americas a better target. Some of the lingering animosity can be traced to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, but to be fair, if they had had the ability, they would have crushed the West in the same way it did them; that was just the way of the world back then. We havent exactly been angels ourselves, lets face it; the invasion of Iraq has been quite the little boon to the burgeoning terrorist population.

Now a terrorist organization has gained official governmental recognition in the form of the new majority Hamas government in Palestine. (See Pita Bread with Hamas, 1/26/06.) Understandably, the international community is a bit squeamish over this development. Especially Israel...they're really freaked; imagine having a neighbor who advertises in the paper that he wants to wipe your house off the block by any means necessary. Might make you reluctant about going out to get the paper, what with all the Bouncing Betty mines disguised as garden gnomes.

The United States and several other countries are now toying with the idea of cutting off aid to Palestine should Hamas not soften its views and stand-down military actions. I think this is a mistake. Do not misunderstand me, I view militant religious zealots as a very real and serious threat, but I feel cutting aid to the country is akin to chopping off your arm because you have an infected cut.

First of all, cutting aid seems is a mistake for the same reason the police don't go on strike; it hurts the wrong people. The international aid into Palestine (much of it from Israel, actually) is predominantly used to bolster their negative Gross National Product and pay their government workers, including police. Putting thousands of people out of work and on the brink of starvation would cause not anger toward the local government, but animosity and resentment to the countries who, in the peoples minds, have decided not to feed them. Plunge a country and people into even worse conditions than the already tenuous ones and youve got a recipe for some bad mojo a few decades down the road.

These Hamas leaders were elected in free, nonviolent, democratic elections. They won a little over half the seats fair and square. We might not like the way they think, but thats pretty much tough titty, said the kitty.

Forced into the day-to-day government roles, I believe the Hamas representatives will soften on their own. They almost have no choice; their economy is currently directly tied to Israel. Either they'll acclimate or the people will realize they're friggin' loonies and fall out of power. While a majority, Hamas only holds slightly over half the power; welcome to the beauty of the two-party system, Palestine.

When you try to force anyone to conform through economic and literal starvation, you might as well be pounding a can of nitroglycerin with a ball peen hammer. Maybe we should send Oprah over there. Not because she could help; I just think we should send her over there.

On an even darker possibility, where do you think they would turn if the West and Israel cut off the spigot? Most likely to whoever will give them money with the least amount of trouble. Namely, any Middle Eastern country with a pocketbook, and a fair amount of them dont think were quite so keen. If its a moral question we should ask why were still so chummy with Saudi Arabia who arguably is the most oppressive government in the region. Oh rightall the petrol.

We don't need more terrorist-factory countries destined to blow up the manufacturers of the flying car I've been promised since 1981.