From the Editor

See No Evil

Thanks to Dr. Rand Fishbein, a former special assistant for National Security Affairs to Senator Daniel Inouye who currently heads up his own public policy consulting firm, for bringing to our attention the U.S. government's unwillingness to acknowledge that Egypt has acquired No-Dong missile technology from North Korea. The missile, which can deliver weapons of mass destruction, has a range of 1,000 to 1,300 kilometers, i.e. it can serve as a devastating first strike weapon against Israel. At present, says Fishbein, roughly 300 North Korean technicians are readying these missiles for operational deployment in Egypt. But while the government is aware of this, the Defense Department will acknowledge only that Egypt possesses short-range Scud-C missiles. Acknowledging that Egypt--with its annual $2 billion in U.S. aid--is acquiring weapons of mass destruction from an enemy country would presumably require the U.S. to do something about it. And the U.S. is determined not to embarrass so-called "coalition partners." The solution, apparently made at the highest reaches of the Defense Department, is to deny what it knows to be true.

John McCain Speaks Out

Writing in the Wall Street Journal of October 26, John McCain, whose exemplary behavior in the years he was held captive by the North Vietnamese has made him an American hero, implicitly reveals his uneasiness with the way we are conducting our war with international terror, making military ends hostage to coalition-politics. Here are some quotes from his powerful article.

"Fighting this war in half measures will only give our enemies time and opportunity to strike us again. We must change permanently the mindset of terrorists and those parts of Islamic populations who believe the terrorist conceit that they will prevail because America has not the stomach to wage a relentless, long-term, and at times, ruthless war to destroy them. We cannot fight this war from the air alone. We cannot fight it without casualties. And we cannot fight it without risking unintended damage to humanitarian and political interests.

"It is clear that to destroy bin Laden and his associates we will first need to destroy the regime that protects them. To achieve that end, we cannot allow the Taliban safe refuge among the civilian population. We must destroy them, wherever they hide.

"Now we have only one primary occupation, and that is to vanquish international terrorism. Not reduce it. Not change its operations. Not temporarily subdue it. But vanquish it. It is a difficult and demanding task that will affect many other important interests, favorably in the long run, but in the short run, in some instances, unfavorably. That cannot be helped, and we should not make victory on the battlefield more diffficult to achieve so that our diplomacy is easier to conduct."

Pathological Anti-Semitism

In the New Republic of November 5, its senior editor Andrew Sullivan notes that something like Hitler is back, waging war on the United States. Sullivan says he makes the parallel not simply because we have an irrational movement stirring people to mass murder across the globe, but "because one central element of that movement, which we are doing our best to ignore, but which is increasingly unignorable, is pathological anti-Semitism." Sullivan notes that polls show that 48% of Pakistanis believe Jews were responsible for the World Trade Center bombing and a plurality of Egyptians agree.

Israel's "peace partner" (with whom the Sharon government still professes itself eager to resume negotiations once "the shooting stops") is second to none in the pathological anti-Semitism department. Israel's Arutz Sheva News Service reports that on the website of the Palestinian Authority's International Press Center, established by Arafat in 1998, there is a picture of Adolf Hitler that gradually turns into a picture of Prime Minister Sharon under the caption "Sharon and Hitler, two faces of the same coin." A caricature on the same page shows a grinning Sharon holding a knife and dripping with blood, with Peres behind him sweeping up the puddles. (This is what Peres' fawning over Arafat wins him.) Another caricature shows Sharon as a butcher who has just slaughtered an Arab baby. A map on the site shows "Palestine" on the entire area of Israel. Meanwhile a preacher in Jerusalem's Al Aksa Mosque on October 26 offered a prayer for the Taliban's victory against "the infidels and Crusaders."

As for Egypt, which made "peace" with Israel over twenty years ago, here is President Mubarak in an interview that appeared simultaneously in newspapers in Egypt and Lebanon on October 28: "Freedom of opinion

Outpost               - 2 -               November 2001