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		Points of View October 19, 2001 Guest Column © 2001 Ray Sharp Published with Permission

Of Lice and Men

By Ray Sharp, War Correspondent,
Reporting from the wind-swept steppes of Lower Liminga

Oct. 16, 2001: The good guys bombed the Kabul Red Cross today, destroying enough wheat to feed a whole village of mujahideen terrorists, black-veiled women and starving children. Bombs also hit the International Red Cross compound in Khain Khana, eliminating such strategic targets as blankets, tents and medicine. So it goes in the War On Terrorism.

One day you're heartened by the news that the Compassionate Conservative is feeding the starving Afghanis. The next day you're horrified to learn that the 32,000 meals per day, dropped from planes along with pamphlets announcing, "The Partnership of Nations is here to assist the People of Afghanistan," are more likely to land in mine fields than in inhabited areas; and those meals that are salvaged from their impact craters are snatched up by the healthiest, strongest people and sold in markets. Meanwhile, due to the United States bombing campaign, United Nations truck convoys carrying grain shipments needed to forestall famine among five to 10 million people have been indefinitely interrupted. And winter fast approaches.

To put a point on it, to date the U.S. has dropped about 250,000 snack packs. Afghanistan needs enough extra food to feed at least 2 million people for six months. You do the math – my calculator doesn't have that many zeros.

If you're in Afghanistan right now, about the best thing you can hope for is a sack of Nebraska wheat, dropped from high altitude, to land on Osama bin Laden's turbaned head, causing the Partnership of Nations to stop assisting the People of Afghanistan, thank you very much.

Speaking of bin Laden, I have a theory. Joan Walsh, a Salon.com editor, recently wrote that the Evil Mastermind reminded her a bit, with his charismatic, soulful eyes, of Jesus. That won't play well in the Homeland. I suppose my next comment is almost equally offensive. Bin Laden reminds me of Honest Abe Lincoln: the same long, gaunt face and high cheekbones. Find a picture of bin Laden on the Internet, take a five-dollar bill out of your wallet, compare. By the way, bin Laden is 6-foot, 6-inches tall and weighs about 160 pounds. With his long fingers, limp, and reportedly enlarged heart, it sounds like he has Marfan's Syndrome, the same medical condition Lincoln likely had. If so, his heart is a time bomb. At any rate, you have to admit he does have that elongated grace that El Greco used to connote saintliness in paintings.

Oct. 17, 2001: Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi was assassinated today. Zeevi, a right-wing Zionist if there ever was one, spoke of Palestinians as "lice" that needed to be driven out of lands turned over to the PLO under terms of the 1994 Oslo Peace Agreement. In the last year, Middle East peace has gone from improbable to impossible; and the Oslo Accord is as dead as Yitzhak Rabin. Who's next? Probably Yasser Arafat. Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah are fighting over who gets to pull the trigger. Good to see those guys finally agree on something. Oh well, a lifelong terrorist made an odd choice for a Nobel Peace Prize winner, but in the Middle East, almost everyone in power is a terrorist.

Just like you and me, or at least the leaders who think they're fighting to protect our precious way of life. That's right. Bombing Kabul is terrorism. By the way, where's the evidence against the Taliban and bin Laden? I know, I know, the Taliban is a despicable regime that has waged war against its own people and committed unspeakably horrible crimes against women, but why the sudden interest in killing Afghanis? After all, 18 out of 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were from Egypt. Why don't we press the Egyptian government to root out the vermin who supported the attacks on the United States and who may at this very moment be planning their next strikes?

Oh yeah, Egyptians are "good" Arabs because their government doesn't make the destruction of Israel "Job 1." Never mind that the place is crawling with anti-West, anti-Jew radicals, the same guys that murdered Anwar Sadat. Egypt has more friends than Afghanistan. So pick on the weakest, starvingest bunch of losers you can find and hit them with everything you've got. That's something for the World's Bully – I mean Superpower – to be proud of.

On a cheerier note, 94 percent of Americans support the bombing. That means that about 12 million adults actually oppose it! (Just don't say it out loud, or write a letter to the Editor -- you'll be branded un-American.)

Well, time for another cup of shade-grown, fair-trade coffee. By the way, what if they came in overnight and put Anthrax in all the company artificial creamer dispensers? Now that would be really effective. Airborne spores are hard to make. Subcutaneous Anthrax is more survivable. But the gastro-intestinal variety, that's really nasty stuff.

Have a nice day.

Learn more about the author of this guest column, Ray Sharp.

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