December 09, 2001
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:Why is it that you are a genocidal maniac?
Andy Rooney provides another more bellicose take on the theme of "understanding our enemies" in an editorial published December 6,
It is important for the world to know whether bin Laden's motivation is greed, power or religion. The Nazi leaders were all interviewed at length in their prison cells and their testimony has provided good material for hundreds of historians. We should try to find out what makes anyone into a bin Laden. We do not understand why we are hated. We don't know why anyone would set out to destroy our civilization. If bin Laden were taken alive, brought here, questioned and tried, we might find out.
There's little to be gained and much to be lost from interrogating OBL. Excuse my French, but how much questioning do we need to reach the final diagnosis of "sick fuck"? Kill him slowly but quietly. Claim he fled and show everyone the pink panties you found in his sock drawer.
It would be an education for all of us if we could hear what bin Laden has to say in defense of himself. Everyone has a reason or excuse. We ought to do everything we can to understand this kind of a mind because we're facing many other people just like him.No. There is no reason to put this guy on a soapbox. Terrorism is fundamentally narcissistic. Why play to it? Next:
There is less excuse for the young American Taliban fighter, John Walker, than there is for Osama bin Laden. Walker had a normal American childhood. He converted from Catholicism to Islam when he was 16 and neighbors are saying, "He was a good boy."I think of the great cartoonist Al Capp, who wrote and drew the comic strip "Li'l Abner." Whenever a Dogpatch character committed some terrible crime, Mammy Yokum would sit on the porch in her rocker, smoking her corncob pipe and say, "He were a good boy ... but rotten clear through."
John Walker, like bin Laden, is rotten clear through.
Poor bin Laden, raised without a normal childhood, spaced-out neighbors or the benefit of Catholicism. Well, I appreciate the sentiment, but he was also born without a heart. In reality, there is no comparison, because there is NO excuse for bin Laden. The man was born with an enormous financial advantage and has clearly done worse to humanity than Walker. I have little interest in either of them once they are appropriately neutered. Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at December 9, 2001 08:22 PM | Technorati inbound links