PROGNOSIS FOR AMERICA (Oct. 5, 2001)

Some Suggestions and Predictions:

Things will seem to change even as they stay the same

Aviation:

All pilots must carry firearms and be trained in their appropriate use. All planes must carry armed and well trained plain–clothed marshals. All planes can be easily fitted with double separated bullet proof and bomb resistant doors and walls to the cockpit and with close circuit wide-angle cameras so that the pilots can not only assess the veracity of personnel wishing to enter but view the cabin as well.

Those entries should only be initiated to serve meals to and for bathroom visits by the pilots and adhere to strict protocols, i.e. only one door to be able to be opened at any time. Regulations (or laws) should prohibit the opening of the doors in any hi-jacking situation, irrespective, and the pilot’s primary response thereto needs to be the immediate landing of the plane.

All the above provisions will add perhaps a maximum of 2-3 % to the cost of our tickets, a very acceptable safety premium most rational travelers will willingly pay.
Americans will presumably initiate antiseptic strikes against the more visible targets. Most terrorist organizations will however hunker down and play the waiting game. They will wait for America’s resolve to weaken and for memories to dim. They will wait for Americans to get on with the good life.

Countries harbouring and abetting these criminals will pay hypocritical lip service to supporting the so-called coalition against terrorism. Iraq will not bother. However Syria, Libya, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon etc., may give up some terrorists who are small fry or are disliked by or in opposition to the ruling government.

They may also acknowledge defunct and abandoned terrorist camps. They will however

remain blind to or hide their preferred customers and bide their time knowing that these invisible enemies will waft slowly from the focus of the pursuers. The coalition supporters like France and other self-serving European countries including presumably Russia and China will be seen only initially, to be supportive. If sanctions need to be applied, they will abuse them, eventually supplying arms and trading to suit their economic self-interest.

After all “business is business”, especially if the alliance partners fill the gap the American sanctions creates.

After all, 300 million people with oil and money to burn can be a tantalizing marketplace. And then, as normalcy returns, the core of these organizations, Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, militant wings of the PLO, bin Laden’s extended organization and the dozens of related and intertwined elements will resurface to reclaim their “Rightful Path” to God; their Jihad for Islamic fundamentalism. And the safe haven countries will provide tacit and active support, believing that as long as these organizations remain obsessed with the great Satans, America and Israel, then their own authoritarian and undemocratic regimes will remain safe. And these coalition members will ignore this resurgence, just as long as America and Israel bear the brunt of the pain and the cost indeed this remains as always. But fundamentalism will know no bounds, and those as they say, that end up sleeping with dogs will get up with fleas.

Chamberlain with Hitler and his ilk in every government have tried and continue to advocate appeasement and understanding in the hope that terrorists will mend their ways, grow old and gray and develop their innocent sides. Unfortunately, once these people have passed the pale of humanity, once they have tasted the blood of innocent babies and once they have ingested as their God given right the fantasy of the 72 heavenly virgins, they will not likely stand down, save for their total and continuing eradication.