Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 11:54 pm Post subject: Henry Kissinger: Reading Between the Lines
Henry Kissenger and Charlie Rose discussed a number of things tonight. But what really caught my attention was whene Kissenger said "We must say to Iran that, if current trends continue, then you and we are going to go against the wall, and you will suffer great damage, and perhaps we shall also suffer great damange." (paraphased from my memory). It must have caught the producer's attention too, because that sentence was the feature lead in for the announcement of the show.
Reading between the lines, this sounds like nuclear war.
No one ever seems to want to come out and call a spade a spade. We talk in code words of innuendo.
Almost every day there are a number of news stories that involve Islamic societies. No one seems to see anything unusual in this.
So many different Saturday mornings, when there are intellectual discussion shows from 8am until 11am, and so many of those Saturdays for the past two years have feature topics related to Islam for the entire three hours.
Some while ago, I saw the BBC dramatization of a dirty bomb striking Great Britain. In the drama, at the end, they were questioning one of the responsible terrorists whom they apprehended. They were showing him a photo of his wife and child, as if to appeal to his humanity, and perhaps coax him to cooperate in divulging details of the plot. He answered something, I cant remember what, but regarding that something, he said, "it divides you and unites us." and that was the end of the drama.
We seem to live-out our Armaggedon scenarios over and over in media drama and documentary dialogues.
I became so curious about that above mention quotation at the end of the BBC drama that I googled to find many references to it. Here are two:
What made it even more surreal was that just minutes earlier I had watched an English movie about terrorists setting off a dirty bomb in London. Even more amazing was the response the terrorist made during interrogation.
When the Brit interrogator said there will be a military response from England and more people will die, the terrorist smiled and said "we are counting on your reprisal. Our attack divides you and makes you weaker. Your reprisal only unites us and makes us stronger".
Are those the mere words of somebody that we can smugly write of as a lunatic? Label them in the same mold as a Jeffrey Dahmer with a religious twist? Or is it a cunning and intelligent adversary whom we cannot understand?
Cable TV last weekend ran a remarkable BBC Two docudrama called Dirty Bomb, playing out a fictional terrorist attack on London using radioactive materials dispersed by a conventional bomb explosion. The highly researched scenario points out the lack of preparation for such an attack, but also shows the perspective of the radical Muslim attackers. A captured "terrorist" is interrogated at the end of the film. The conversation goes something like this: "Don't you realize that this attack will lead to retaliation and thousands of your fellow Muslims will die?" he is asked by the detective. "We expect it," says the terrorist. "Retaliation unites us, and divides you."
In my mind, a movement such as progressive Islam can help change the world's morbid perceptions, and also help redirect the morbid agendas of the minority who would perpetrate such acts.
But then, as the advertisement says, "What do I know? I am only the 800 pound gorilla in the living room."
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