why sudden silence?

[Frances Morey]

It must be startling for Roger, et al, to have to focus on that which is
happening now instead of the possibility that something will happen
sometime, maybe, in the next ten generations. Case in point that we may
eventually run out of oil and not have another technology in place to make
up for it. Frankly, about whatever happens after the next thirty years, I
don't give a damn.
Frances


On Thu, 15 Nov 2001 16:14:05 +0000, telebob x wrote:

>  Gee, what has happened to the usual drumbeat of defeat from Roger, Jon,
et=20
>  al ?  Shocking!  The USA did something right again. And not for the wron=
g

>  reasons either.
> =20
>  tele
> =20
>  Ha ha ha
>  by
>  Christopher Hitchens
>  Wednesday November 14, 2001
>  The Guardian
> =20
>  There was a time in my life when I did a fair bit of
>  work for the tempestuous Lucretia Stewart, then editor
>  of the American Express travel magazine, Departures.
>  Together, we evolved a harmless satire of the slightly
>  drivelling style employed by the journalists of
>  tourism. "Land of Contrasts" was our shorthand for it.
>  ("Jerusalem: an enthralling blend of old and new."
>  "South Africa: a harmony in black and white."
>  "Belfast, where ancient meets modern.") It was as you
>  can see, no difficult task. I began to notice a few
>  weeks ago that my enemies in the "peace" movement had
>  decided to borrow from this tattered style book. The
>  mantra, especially in the letters to this newspaper,
>  was: "Afghanistan, where the world's richest country
>  rains bombs on the world's poorest country."
> =20
>  Poor fools. They should never have tried to beat me at
>  this game. What about, "Afghanistan, where the world's
>  most open society confronts the world's most closed
>  one"? "Where American women pilots kill the men who
>  enslave women." "Where the world's most indiscriminate
>  bombers are bombed by the world's most accurate ones."
>  "Where the largest number of poor people applaud the
>  bombing of their own regime." I could go on. (I think
>  number four may need a little work.) But there are
>  some suggested contrasts for the "doves" to paste into
>  their scrapbook. Incidentally, when they look at their
>  scrapbooks they will be able to re-read themselves
>  saying things like, "The bombing of Kosovo is driving
>  the Serbs into the arms of Milosevic."
> =20
>  If the silly policy of a Ramadan pause had been
>  adopted, the citizens of Kabul would have still been
>  under a regime of medieval cruelty, and their
>  oppresssors would have been busily regrouping, not
>  praying. Anyhow, what a damn-fool proposal to start
>  with. I don't stop insulting the Christian coalition
>  at Eastertime. Come Yom Kippur I tend to step up my
>  scornful remarks about Zionism. Whatever happened to
>  the robust secularism that used to help characterise
>  the left? And why is it suddenly only the injured
>  feelings of Muslims that count? A couple of years ago,
>  the same people were striking pompous attitudes about
>  the need to avoid offending Serbian and therefore
>  Russian Orthodox sensitivities. Except that those
>  sensitive people, or their leaders, were engaged in
>  putting the Muslims of Europe to the sword...
> =20
>  There's no pleasing some people, but as a charter
>  supporter of CND I can remember a time when the peace
>  movement was not an auxiliary to dictators and
>  aggressors in trouble. Looking at some of the
>  mind-rotting tripe that comes my way from much of
>  today's left, I get the impression that they go to bed
>  saying: what have I done for Saddam Hussein or good
>  old Slobodan or the Taliban today?
> =20
>  Well, ha ha ha, and yah, boo. It was obvious from the
>  very start that the United States had no alternative
>  but to do what it has done. It was also obvious that
>  defeat was impossible. The Taliban will soon be
>  history. Al-Qaida will take longer. There will be
>  other mutants to fight. But if, as the peaceniks like
>  to moan, more Bin Ladens will spring up to take his
>  place, I can offer this assurance: should that be the
>  case, there are many many more who will also spring up
>  to kill him all over again. And there are more of us
>  and we are both smarter and nicer, as well as
>  surprisingly insistent that our culture demands
>  respect, too.
> =20
>  =B7 Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair.
> =20
> =20
> =20
> =20
> =20
> =20
> =20
>  _________________________________________________________________
>  Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at
http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
> =20
> =20


"The Skinny on Weight Loss: One Woman's=20
True Journey to Fat and Back" by Frances Morey
Order online <www.xlibris.com/bookstore>
or by phone at 1-888-795-4274 Extension #276





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