al-Qaeda: Got Viagra?

It is amazing to me that collectives such as entire populations of countries cannot see the pathetic bully mentality inherent in al-Qaeda’s actions. First was Spain: A bomb on a track close in time to elections. Then the kidnappings: Japan stands firm; the Philippines collapses. Now it is Italy: a website posting reads, "O Italian people, your government has participated in the war on Iraq and sent troops and arsenal to our country. We urge you for the last time to demand that it withdraw peacefully from Iraq."

But here is the real issue: "Either you junk the incompetent Berlusconi or we will really burn Italy." The statement wants the Prime Minister of Italy ousted or they will bring onto Italy a “bloodbath” like September 11. That last phrase, that’s it. That is how any discerning person can tell that we are dealing with fools, incompetents, simpletons, schoolyard bullies with the intelligence of a box of rocks.

September 11, 2001, was a sucker punch. They have paid dearly for it and continue to pay. It reminds me of the Black Knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail claiming that the missing arm was just a scratch. Now al-Qaeda has the gall to claim the WTC collapse as a “bloodbath”? As if they could repeat it at will? What a joke. These guys are deeply and irreversibly stupid. I wager that to a person they physically strike the women in their lives.

Movie script: Childhood trauma. School bully keeps on picking on you. Violence escalates. You do nothing. “If I ignore him, he’ll stop.” Demanding milk money has grown to demanding your lunch, and hints at after-school extortion. What do you do? How does the script progress? In Europe and southeast Asia, it seems, you hand over your lunch, you scream “Uncle,” and then you cut lawns all day Saturday and give the bully the money. In the USA, under President Bush, we stand up to the bully, we take the fight back to him. We draw his blood, take his lunch money.

Yet entire populations quiver under the threatening words of these clowns. And Kerry dances on the thin ice of working with these countries, thereby validating their policies and inactions. Kerry thinks we should all cut lawns on Saturday for someone else’s benefit.

This entire situation is like having two televisions on, side by each (as my dad used to say). One set has ESPN’s The World Series of Poker on; the other is Bravo’s Celebrity Poker. On ESPN, the braggart, the loud mouth, the guy with more chips than sense eventually walks away with nothing. The serious player, the one who sees the process not as a game but a business, not as a series of hopeful bluffs but as knowing when to hold or fold, stays seated and gets up only when prize money is awarded. Over on Bravo, the loudmouth is rewarded. The raving lunatic is given hands just to shut up.

I see al-Qaeda for what it is: a group of pathetic, Viagra-needy men with room-temperature IQ’s. I prefer my country to be run like a business, not some made-for-TV reality show. The difference between W and Kerry could not be more clear.