The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicle

Commentary on the Flux of Events

November 14, 2001

The collapse of the Taliban, now underway, is a good thing. I'm all for it. There should be no question that America has any desire to control the territory of Afganistan, but it sure is in our interest to have an other-than-totally-insane government there. Lord knows whether this will be possible, given the wretched condition of the place and its thirty year history of anarchy and war. Also, having Pakistan and Iran as next-door-neighbors is not the most propitious situation. But we are entitled to consider the eviction of the Taliban a victory.

We may now move on to some tougher questions of international relations. I don't believe for a second that radical terrorist Islam is out of business. It may have lost a key sponsor in the Taliban, and it may yet lose a key player in Osama, but there is still plenty of action awaiting us from those who hate the west's guts out of the one billion worshippers of Allah between Morocco and the South China Sea.

Coming next to a military theater near you: Saddaam Hussein and the mystery weapons stockpiles of Iraq. Do you suppose that the Pentagon strategists intend to just wait-and-see what Saddaam is going to do with whatever it is he's got? Like a Hiroshima-sized nuclear explosive device? Or a nice crop of smallpox virus. I don't think so. I don't think Paul Wolfowitz and his colleagues are that dumb. The question is, do we wait for a pretext, create a pretext, or just go in and clean the place out? One way or another, I believe we are going into Iraq next.

Meanwhile, observe the very strange relations between the clerical leadership of Iran and the secular government. The Ayatollah is calling for new campaigns against America; the President of Iran is looking for more "normal" relations with us. I would suppose that the Iranian people are good and goddam sick of religious tyranny after a generation of it, but this gang of clerics is not going down without a fight. They are capable of dragging other countries into their civil strife and leaving the region a smoldering wreck -- as they did in the 1980s, when the newly triumphant Shiite leadership of Iran went to war against the secular leadership of Iraq (Saadaam), leaving hundreds of thousands dead on both sides.

Also meanwhile, with the Taliban collapsed and Osama perhaps cornered in a mountain rat hole, who are the players remaining in Jihad, Inc? Lots, including Hamas, various Palestinian terror groups, plenty of dog soldiers in Egypt and Algeria, the roguish government of Syria, a huge supply of Pashtoon maniacs in Pakistan, Mr. Muhammar Ghadaffi of Libya, the separatists of Indonesia and even the Philippines, and innumerable freelancers whose names and organizations have not yet been fodderized by CNN.

Meanwhile America continues in its domestic coma of denial. Just yesterday it was reported that Congress will be forcing Amtrak into insolvency as a punishment for not being a money-maker -- as though the interstate highway system and the airlines were not heavily subsidized. We don't seem to get it. The last thing you would think we want to do is put ourselves at the mercy of the Saud family selling us Arabian oil so we can indulge in endless solo motoring trips from Home-to-WallMart. We need a passenger railroad system and we need it yesterday. We need to be making plans for a post-suburban America. Only we don't want to.

The Af-stan war so far, while different from the Gulf War in some ways, has also been a CNN-Video war for Americans. We inflict damage by remote control (air strikes), and get a colorful cast of medieval motherfuckers riding horses for godsake ( ! ) to act as our surrogates on the ground. No American blood is spilled, except perhaps in helicopter mishaps. So we can continue to party back here at home. As a friend remarked to me yesterday, the Nine-Eleven attacks actually didn't wake this nation up. It just changed the channel we were snoozing to from Home Shopping to America's New War.