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| International |
| FAZ: Comic book America's gone |
| 2001-09-23 |
In other words, until the destruction of the World Trade Center, that is to say, for as long as the Islamist terrorists had the initiative, everything was running according to a Hollywood script. But only until that point. The Americans are putting an end to the movie. And they are also putting an end to any form of predictability, even by the notoriously anti-American groups in Europe. For the Islamic terrorists, nothing could be more disruptive to strategic planning than this change of script. "It will be a showdown." These words were spoken yesterday not by Bush but by the Taleban's ambassador to Pakistan. This was the moment when the ambassador, deliberately speaking not in any Afghan language but in Arabic, used a piece of Wild West terminology in a renewed attempt to focus the Arab world on the comic-book version of America, which yesterday became history. As the Arab world becomes unable to interpret the West, it would make sense for us to reassess our own comic-book versions of the attackers and their leaders. Those who attacked New York were not displaced, starving, misguided youths. The men who studied in Hamburg were all from middle-class backgrounds. Their parents appear to be enlightened, almost secularized citizens. The attackers were also far from ascetic. From the German girlfriend to the drinking bout before the attack, everything points to a type of global terrorist whose ideology consists essentially of nothing but murdering other people. After Sept. 11, we know that in addition to this death wish, it also consists of planning and executing mass killings of civilians. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |