Last night's news about the Bin Laden look-alike who casually wandered onto
a Paris-Miami flight No 63 yesterday with a British passport in his hand
and semtex explosives in his shoes is still vague this morning. He is
talked about as being a Syrian, Sri Lankan, Saudi Arabian, Afghan -- the
public don't know yet.
While the news is still vague, public reaction is still vague. Indeed, an
American airline representative on the radio sounded rather complacent
about it when asked what the repercussions might be.
Well, my view is that incidents like Trade Centers and Exploding Shoes, if
occurring every two or three months, might well reduce international
flights to such low levels that most major airline corporations might
become bankrupt with consequent multiplying effects on many other firms and
jobs. This sort of thing doesn't help the gathering economic recession in
all the developed countries.
Whether terrorist attacks of this nature are the work of individual
psychopaths, genuinely oppressed minorities, or even Saddam Hussein-type
governments, is beside the point. They are achieving what was intended --
creating terror.
Other news this morning has it that Bin Laden's Al-Queda organisation in
Afghanistan actually possessed radioactive uranium. Presumably it was kept
in a safe condition, because it only needs a golf-ball lump of U-235 to
cause a nuclear explosion.
And this reminds me of the most dramatic photograph of about 30 years ago
that I've ever heard about, though it's never been published to my
knowledge. This was of a man in a raincoat standing in front of the White
House. At his feet was a large suitcase. The man was actually a KGB colonel
and the photo was taken to convince Stalin that it was possible to
transport a nuclear bomb to America.
Four years ago, I saw young men with heavy churns on their backs walking
for 10/12 hours a day up and down mountain trails taking milk from outlying
farms to cheese factories. I saw beautiful girls from India working as
labourers on building sights. In Nepal, they can't even afford donkeys, and
they still depend on slave labour. Today, there are Marxist terrorist
groups shooting up Nepalese army posts and police stations. I'm not surprised.
President Bush's less intellectually-handicapped father pronounced a "New
World Order" some years ago. Statesmen from all over the world gravely
nodded. But nothing has been done. The developed world still ignores the
suffering, torture and deaths of millions of people all round the world,
yet will still sell armaments readily to their dictatorial governments.
Yes, we need a new world order but there's a hole between what politicians
say and what they do. I think they'd be surprised at the response if they
started describing the world as it really is, and not pander to what they
think are the totally selfish interests of their electorates.
Keith Hudson
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�Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in
order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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