From Wilson Moses

David Horowitz begins a video making the rounds on the internet from at least one true premise. There are people in the world who hate the United States, whose religious convictions support that hatred, and who are willing to obliterate the United States and all Western culture, even if that means self-destruction. This is news? So what else is new?

Bin Laden is not a quarterback; he is nothing more than a psychotic cheer leader. On the way from the De Gaulle Airport last Friday, my taxi driver sarcastically observed that Bin Ladin is probably in California. Seems possible, or maybe he is picking tomatoes in New Jersey, since Bush and his capitalist cronies absolutely seem unable to control the Mexican border.

Wherever Bin Ladin may be, it is stupid to think any one man could possibly control even a fraction of the millions of ten-year-old potential terrorists throughout the world. I can't imagine why very many terrorists would be waiting around for him to call the signals. I am guessing that many terrorists would spit on Bin Ladin, or think of him as a Satan, or even an"Uncle Tom." Many who support terror are willing to destroy you and me and Bin Laden at a time and place of their own choosing.

NPR reports that some Iraqis are" cooperating" with the US military in Iraq in order to destroy Al Qaida. Does that mean they have rejected terrorism? I suspect that many of those who" cooperate" with us hate us nonetheless. For their own reasons they hate Al Qaida even more, but they too will bite us with their poisoned fangs at the first opportunity. Many Iraqi terrorists (Sunni Baathists, and Shia militias) passionately hate Al Qaida.

Why should we dismiss out of hand Senator McCain's idea that the US should engage in a suicide-bombing of Iran? Life stinks anyway. Many Israelis and their American supporters oppose such a move for obvious reasons. But I do not believe that a blanket nuclear bombing of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia can do anything to diminish the Islamic fanatics' ability to kill me at a time and place of their own choosing. Furthermore what use can we make of radioactive oil fields? But a destabilization of Iran and/or Pakistan would only cause renegade Russian capitalists and corrupt Chinese capitalists to sell even more weapons to a growing number of terrorists.

Wilson J. Moses, a Contributing Editor at Cliopatria and Ferree Professor of American History at Penn State, continues to teach there. Currently, he is in Paris, working on numerous projects in comparative literary and intellectual history.