At 01:53 AM 10/4/01 +0000, you wrote:
>Just building on this ObL stuff while I may; isn't there something of a fetish
>happening here? I mean, I go a good way with Andy's position on the bloke,
>but I keep harking back to EP Thompson's explanation for why the magistrates
>couldn't nip the Luddite movement in the bud. Experienced investigators and
>military chaps that they were, they kept looking for the head of the snake
>('General Ludd'). But there was no head. Just a culture of sullen, socially
>sanctioned silence, not to mention a widespread sympathy for the redressers.
>What looked organised, was actually a culture - perhaps a subculture - at work
>- autonomous bodies of men popped out at night and did their thing and
>disappeared back into their milieu by morning.
I was thinking that even if ObL and his network did the dirty deed (as
seems likely, even though the power elites haven't produced the evidence
they promised), there will be copy-cats, as often happens with spectacular
homicides. (Also, a lot of folks admit to crimes they haven't committed,
just to get attention.)
I think there's an actual organization, though. The timings of the bombings
is too accurate: hitting the two towers at the WTC so close together in
time for it to be a subculture's effects.
But getting rid of ObL and his cronies wouldn't abolish the social &
historical forces that gave rise to Islamic fundamentalism as a force to
mobilize people to engage in terrorism. In fact, it might easily create
martyrs (and US NPR said this morning that ObL _wants_ to be a martyr),
encouraging an even stronger movement in the future. Israeli assassinations
of Palestinian leaders has not been a successful strategy, even from an
Israeli perspective.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
