Suicidal Bravado
"Martyrs, perpetrators of suicide attacks, are
our new weapons."
No, this is not another message from a hidden
Osama bin Laden. It's not a threat from Hamas or
Hezbollah. The warning doesn't come from a
terrorist organization at all, in fact. The person
who recently uttered it is Taha Yassin Ramadan,
vice president of Iraq.
"They will not only take action in Iraq,"
Ramadan continued. "The whole region will be set
ablaze. This part of the world will become a sea of
resistance and danger for Americans."
It's easy to dismiss this threat as just more
saber-rattling from a regime known for its defiant
bravado. But from a public relations perspective,
it seems like an extremely poor choice of words for
a country trying to refute accusations that it has
ties with al-Qaeda.
It wouldn't be the first time a sovereign nation
used suicide attackers as military weapons (Japan's
kamikaze pilots come to mind). In recent
memory, however, the suicide bomber has become such
a powerful symbol of terrorism that one can't
seriously consider Ramadan's warnings as acceptable
military options. In the ears of most people, the
man's words will sound as odious as any other
terrorist threat.
Fox News reported on Friday that two-thirds of
Americans support military action against Iraq. I
suspect their poll was carefully worded to achieve
the desired result, because the majority of people
I talk to are against such military action—at
least until the Bush administration provides more
facts and fewer claims. But talk of suicidal
martyrs will only serve to unite American opinion
against Iraq.
If Saddam Hussein has any desire to avert the
war which seems almost inevitable, he should
consider muzzling his vice president. This week,
Colin Powell will make the case against Iraq before
the U.N. Security Council. Weapons inspectors Hans
Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei will make what could be
their final report to the U.N. on February 14.
Today may be Groundhog Day, but if Hussein were to
stick his head out of his hole and see his shadow,
he'd probably have a lot less than six weeks
left.
Development note: I've
noticed that this site doesn't look like it should
in Netscape Navigator. Rather than waste time
jury-rigging it to look right in a
soon-to-be-obsolete browser, I'll just add the
cliché "This site best viewed with Internet
Explorer."
©2003 Michael
Strickland ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
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2003
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