11-17-01, Danny McBride, 1025 words
Himalayan Low
By Danny McBride
IPS Features
“You are all evil. You will all die. I hate the United States and all Christians and Jews. I even hate the Muslims who belong to the United Nations” (whose Secretary General is a Muslim from Ghana, by way of Minnesota, who just won the Nobel Peace Prize). “But what I hate most is the food here. This rotten cave has no room service. I’m from a rich family. I should have better.” And on and on and on- -blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
What makes this fun for me is that the guy has now put so many people on his hate list, that he hasn’t got a friend in the world, except for a few rich Saudi princes that figure they have a chance to assume power in the Kingdom if Osama bin Laden can overthrow the old dying king. In case you didn’t know, they have to prop up King Fahd for photo ops, and he has no idea of what’s going on. He was felled by a stroke a few years ago, and has never recovered. He’s medicated around the clock, nominally the head of state until the squabbling princes can decide who will succeed him, and then they’ll just disconnect the oxygen. Many at court are singing that big hit from The Lion King “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King”. And then there’s always the chance that the whole royal family may go, and King Osama would take over. And guess what he would then control? The world’s major supply of “awl”- -black gold, Texas Tea. “So the kinfolk said, hey, move away from here…” Wait!! His kinfolk disowned him. He has over fifty brothers and not one of them sends him a birthday card. Of course that’s because they don’t have his current address.
But we should and probably could. Think about this. Al-Jazeera (I know, sounds like a late night cable TV ad- -“Come on down, we’re wheelin’, we’re dealin’ at Al Jazeera’s Rug and Mattress. Hi, I’m Al and have I got a deal for you”…Never Mind.)
Anyway, the Al-Jazeera network gets these bin Laden tapes to broadcast from somewhere. Do they have a postmark? Are they hand delivered? Does someone in the mailroom have a connection? Could someone please find out?
We don’t get to see these rants anymore, ever since Condoleezza Rice, our National Security Adviser, made a conference call to all our TV networks asking them not to run the tapes, which they pull off the satellite feed of Al-Jazeera by special arrangement with them. Remember, it’s a global satellite service just like CNN, only in Arabic. It’s based in Qatar, but has offices and studios in New York and Washington and just about everywhere else, just as CNN has bureaus all over the world.
Now here’s the thing. TV networks, especially the 24-hour cable services which have time to fill in between “Headliners and Legends” and reruns of Larry King, were asked not to broadcast the actual tape because there might be a secret message encoded in the tape. Oh, you know, like if Osama was wearing his green turban that might mean “Go do something evil” or his blue one could mean “wait for further instructions next week” or his white one could mean “call me on your cell phone- -let’s do lunch- -roast goat okay?”.
It’s like Bill Clinton wearing the Monica necktie to signal he was in the mood. (When was he not?) Or Carol Burnett pulling on her ear to say “Hi Ma”. (That is what that meant, isn’t it?)
Or any number of other signals to the “sleeping cells” among us. But here’s my problem with that. If he is calling EVERYBODY names, including Muslims like Koffi Annan (Hello? Just won the Peace Prize?), we should all see this, because then pretty soon he will hang himself with all the video tape we can hand over to him. (Picture him all wrapped up in tape as if it were fly paper.)
The American “Powers That Be” are afraid terrorists watching CNN or MSNBC will see this tape and call in for the Jerry Vale CD “Greatest Mob Hits”. Perhaps not. I guess they think that the dormant Al Qaeda are going to get their instructions this way. But hey! Al-Jazeera is on satellite. Wouldn’t these goombas get a dish and watch the real thing in Arabic? Otherwise they’d have to put up with Gregg Jarrett and Chris Jansing.
Recently Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, became the first in Congress to start grumbling about how well the War is going. Patience, Joe, patience. Go fix your hair. Okay, let’s all sing: You say Joe Biden and I say bin Laden. Biden. Ladin. Ladin. Biden. Let’s call the whole thing off.
Anyone who has ever looked at a map of Afghanistan will notice that much of it is in the foothills of the Himalayas. Mount Everest and K2 are not that far away. The hiding places are endless. But these guys have satellite phones. Where do they send the bills? And how are they paid? Could somebody look that up, too, please?
It’s great to be bombing, but the only way to get these guys, is to actually walk in and do a door to door search, or cave to cave, or whatever. The thought of it is awful. But otherwise, they are just going to wait us out to see if we tire. Some TV yahoos will. So will some politicians (Hello Joe?). But the people of this country will not tire of it, because we’ve seen all the movies and we know how it’s going to end. Bad guys lose. Good guys win. Are there any questions?
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