Since the purpose of these entries is to provide contemporary documentation of American life or Zeitgeschichte, as it would be called in German, you are being treated in this installment not only to opinions on current events but also to some personal information.

In order to escape from the incessant war- and scare-mongering of the national media my wife Martha and I decided to heed the President's advice, go on with our lives and stimulate the economy. Since flying and cruising is somewhat cheaper right now we thought it a good idea to take a long postponed cruise through the Hawaiian Islands on the good ship Independence of American Hawaiian Cruises.

We booked our flight tickets separately (to get the cheapest fares) and paid for the ship with my credit card. One week before going came the call from the travel agency that the company had fallen victim to bin-Ladin's efficiency and declared bankruptcy. An immediate call to Merrill Lynch brought the good news that the $2435 had not yet been cashed and the transaction was red-flagged so that no money would be paid out. This left us, however, with the discounted airline tickets which were, of course, non-refundable. Instead of writing off the six hundred dollars we thought we might as well spend the money, Osama had saved us, on a hotel in Maui, where we could enjoy nature and converse with the birds and fish. The Kaanapali Beach Hotel fit the budget with $1200 for the two of us for one week, which left the other $1200 for food, drink and excursions. When all was said and done we actually came out ahead by about $300.

The hallmark of airline travel was that, although Delta provided us with excellent steaks coming and going across the Pacific, the safety considerations demanded that we had to eat with plastic knives and forks. Trying to cut a steak with a terrorist-prove small knife which bends in all directions is a feat which Martha was unable to accomplish with finger joints ravaged by age, so she had to return to the ways of our ancestors; simply wrap up the thing and eat it from her hand. About 500+ years of civilization was gone for reasons of "security." To enhance our security even further we had, obviously, to be at the airport two hours earlier but fortunately Salt Lake City and Maui as well as Honolulu still had curbside check-in, which avoided interminable lines. Contrary to our media pundits’ opinions people are still fond of flying and the planes were full.

On the return trip we would have to have left the hotel at 4 30 in the morning to make a 7 55 flight from Maui to Honolulu in order to catch the 10 a.m. flight to LAX. Since this did not correspond to my idea of a vacation we opted to take a noon flight from Maui to Honolulu one day earlier (I wanted to see Waikiki beach and Diamond Head anyway) and leaving the hotel at 7 30 am would have given us ample time for catching our plane to LA. This was not to be. The hotel to the airport shuttle people insisted that we have to leave at 7 a.m. in spite of the fact that the trip takes only 25 minutes. We had to submit to the rules and when we got to the airport 20 minutes later we found people patiently and uncomplainingly waiting in line to go through inspection for plant and animal material one might have wanted to bring along as souvenirs. Surprisingly enough there was no movement of that line and inquiry revealed that they don't open this inspection counter until 8 a.m. Such are the joys of today's travel. The civilized ways of former days are gone for good in our "Do it yourself" society which is strictly geared to the young and vigorous.

Mind you I am not complaining, I am simply stating a fact that we are going backwards in our civilization rather than forwards. On the other hand Maui was charming and one of my colleagues who had told me before going "you won't want to come back" was absolutely correct. Sitting on the beach looking out on the Lahaina Roads (stretch of water between Maui and the island of Lanai) watching the surf come in, visiting with the tropical fish and turtles on Black Rock beach, and eventually seeing the sun set behind Lanai more than made up for the follies we are currently being subjected to by the people who control our fate.

The contrast between the beauties of nature and human behavior was magnified when we turned on CNN after dinner and were treated to a daily dose of bombing Kabul, Taliban positions and anthrax scares. One asks oneself where is Homo sapiens - man the wise - when one sees conduct which is strictly contrary to all good sense. In September when President Bush was quoted as having said that he wouldn't send a million dollar cruise missile to hit a mud hut and kick a camel in the butt, I applauded him for his foresight. Media and other pressures made passion prevail over reason and we are now doing what he said we wouldn't.

Our Media hounds - and I really have no other word for them - constantly tell us what the "American people" want. Well, I am one of the American people and I don't want to bomb mud huts and camels. I also don't want our commandoes to go on ill defined missions with no adequate information on where the supposed targets, be they Osama or Mullah Omar, are really hiding. Our boys are sent into potential death traps and they deserve better. Some media commentators were surprised that the Taliban are fighting well. What's the surprise? It's their country and they have been doing nothing else but fight for decades, if not centuries. The arrogance, as well as ignorance, of some of these pundits is staggering. The British fought two wars in Afghanistan during the nineteenth century and left both times with a bloody nose, the Russians tried it recently and got out after ten years with the Soviet Union in shambles. For that I am grateful because I had no use for their system of government. But why in all the world should we be more successful? Because we are a high-tech superpower? Have we forgotten that the ridiculed black pajama-clad boys with a minimum amount of equipment, no air power but an indomitable will to succeed, kicked us out of Viet Nam? Does anybody really believe that Afghans will be any easier to defeat when we come to introduce our ideas of how the country should be run?

The American people I talk to are not particularly keen on this war either, but nobody asks them. I haven't found anybody who has been subjected to one of the famous public opinion polls. I miss especially a poll which would ask all of the 5000 or so families who have lost one or more of their members in the tragic events of September 11 whether or not they want a war with Afghanistan. They are the ones who have suffered and they should be heard. Fragmentary and anecdotal information seems to suggest that they don't want an eye for an eye. Gandhi has been credited for saying that the policy of "an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind" and that is also the truth.

What are we dropping bombs for? Ostensibly to get rid of the Taliban and with their demise Osama would have no place to hide, except possibly Iraq, Libya and other assorted "rogue states" whom we would bomb thereafter. The world would then be safe from terrorism and in the words of the fairy tales "everybody would live happily forever after." This is so naive that I cannot believe anybody in government really believes this. I was born a European, have lived under Goebbels, and became American by choice. I am, therefore, sufficiently skeptical of propaganda and even a cursory knowledge of history shows that most wars and revolutions had ulterior motives. This gets me back to Hawaii. The revolution in 1893 was fomented by American sugarcane growers who saw their profits disappear unless the islands were annexed by America. The official reason was, of course, the undemocratic behavior of the Queen who threatened the lives of the American settlers. The Spanish-American war in 1898 was ostensibly to rid Cuba of cruel Spanish dictatorship; to extract revenge for the sinking of the Maine and to bring Christianity to the forsaken natives in the Philippines. The fact that the Filipinos had been Christians for centuries was disregarded. Also disregarded was the fact that the Spanish had absolutely no interest in fighting America and, in all probability, had nothing to do with the Maine disaster. The Spanish had to be driven out, not only from the Western Hemisphere but also the Pacific, because after Hawaii had been digested it was America's Manifest Destiny to bring good government to most everybody in the Pacific. In 1917 along came President Wilson who believed, with religious fervor, that the world must be made safe for democracy which could only be achieved by entering the war on the Allied side. The fact that the Allies were deeply in debt to America for all the arms they had to buy and that this debt could never be collected if the Central Powers had won the war, was obviously irrelevant. That the world did not become safe for democracy, as Wilson had so devoutly hoped and prayed for, and that instead another war, even more horrible than the first one, resulted from it, is ignored. So is the fact that the current Arab-Israeli turmoil also goes back to WWI and the subsequent division of the spoils among the victorious Allies. That the British promised, at that time, the same piece of real estate to the Arabs as well as the Jews nobody wants to be reminded of either.

When Arabs resist the values of Western culture and are feeling left out from the benefits which globalism is supposed to bring, when they see that the poor get poorer and the rich richer they cannot be expected to become enchanted forever with the carrot which is being dangled before their noses. If they try to assert themselves they get the stick in form of bombs or rockets as Saddam Hussein has found out. Increasing social unhappiness by the masses is bound to lead to unrest and there will always be educated people to provide leaders. Let us not forget that the leadership of the proletarian revolutions during the nineteenth and twentieth century was never in the hands of the working class but in those of intellectuals (Marx, Engels, Lassale, Liebknecht, Lenin, Trotsky, Adler to name just a few) who took pity on the downtrodden and promised them the blue from the sky in form of a socialist utopia. After the demise of the Soviet Union, socialist dreams have temporarily lost some steam and in its breach stepped religion which has always been useful to mask imperial aspirations.

Deny it as we might the current war against "terrorism" is indeed a religious war of ideas and, as mentioned repeatedly, it cannot be won by bombs or even ground troops in Afghanistan, Iraq or other places around the world. Even if the Taliban were to be defeated and a pro-Western government installed in Kabul, fundamentalist-nationalists would simply melt into the mountains and guerilla warfare, accompanied by terrorist tactics, would continue ad infinitum. It pains me to say so but Osama bin-Ladin has so far succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. A $200.000 investment in martyrs (which was recouped anyway by selling assets on the stock market before its expected crash) has produced, and continues to produce, billions of dollars of losses to the American economy, fear is being spread by the media and if we are to believe our politicians we are engaged in an Afghan war with a projected duration of several years. Even if we kill bin-Ladin now he will be a martyr (which is what he wants anyway) who goes to paradise and his image will spur on other fanatics to continue with his work of creating hatred for America in the Islamic world.

Even we in America are apparently fighting for religious principles because we have been told that this is a war of good against evil. Jesus' words: "Whoever is not against us is with us" have been turned into: "Who is not with us is against us!" There can be no neutrals now we are told; the world has to be strictly polarized. This is what the "Judeo-Christian tradition" apparently means. That Christianity and Judaism are supposed to operate on different premises can no longer be openly acknowledged. Jesus was a Jew we are told and, therefore, adhered to the Jewish religion to the bitter end. The fact that he changed Judaism fundamentally the moment he told the parable of the Good Samaritan in answer to the question: "who is my neighbor?" is not taken into account. This question of the scribe, as reported by Luke, was not rhetorical because Jews did distinguish very carefully between themselves and others. Jews were to help each other but they were to shun contact with foreigners. When Jesus told the scribe that your neighbor is anyone in need of help, even a despised Samaritan, he violated one of the most sacred taboos. In addition he had the audacity to tell the Jewish religious leaders that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath; to eat with "sinners," thereby abrogating the sanctity of the dietary laws; and ultimately going after temple money by overthrowing the tables of the money changers. This clearly put him beyond the pale of Jewish religious authorities and required a death sentence. We are now told by some that Jesus was a fanatical zealot and that is why the Romans crucified him. But this is only an attempt to exonerate the Jewish ruling circles of Jerusalem at that time and to foster harmony between Christians and Jews. But a harmony which is based on a wrong premise can never be lasting.

We must openly admit to the differences between the Jewish and Christian religion before we can agree on common principles. Judaism was and for true believers still is, essentially tribal in its nature. This may sound harsh but the disapproval of intermarriage, the insistence by rabbinical authorities on separateness and fear of assimilation are facts of life which cannot be denied. Careful reading of the sayings by the prophets makes it also undeniably clear that they were nationalists. The redemption of this world was to be brought about by Jews and the Law, to which all nations will have to subscribe, will come from Zion. The famous beating of swords into plowshares in Is. 2:4 is preceded by "people going up to the mountains of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law; and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge the nations and shall rebuke many people." While Christians may read this symbolically, fundamentalist Jews tend to think in terms of the here and now. It is the earthly, rather than the heavenly Jerusalem, to which all nations will have to flow and it will be the God of Jacob rather than the Heavenly Father of Jesus who will lay down the law! These statements may come as a surprise to those who believe that "Jews are just a quirky Protestant sect" as Stephen Feldman has put it in Please, Don't wish me a Merry Christmas. But while that book is clearly polemical, the one by Rabbi Neusner Jews and Christians. The Myth of a Common Tradition is scholarly, well reasoned and ought to be required reading for evangelical Christians of the Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell genre. They also ought to visit the website of a steadily growing subset of Orthodox Judaism at www.noahide.com. This should dispel any notion that Judaism and Christianity are simply variants of one common religion like Catholicism and Protestantism.

Where does this leave our Christian leadership which is engaged in this "Crusade" against terrorism as President Bush has unfortunately called it. I said "unfortunately" deliberately because the word has a bad connotation in the minds of Muslims. The Crusaders did not behave like followers of Jesus' teachings: they murdered, raped and plundered not only Jerusalem but even Christian Constantinople. The Muslim hero of the Crusades is Saladin, who soundly defeated and permanently crippled the Christian Crusaders at the battle of Hattin (A.D.1187). It is his example Saddam and Osama are trying to follow. I sincerely doubt that some of our fire-breathing media pundits have ever heard of this epoch making battle and the difference in the treatment of the inhabitants of Jerusalem first by the Christian and then the Muslim conquerors. The latter let the population of the city live while the former "put them to the sword," as the saying goes, regardless of what religion they belonged to. I am not extolling the virtues of Islam over Christianity, I am simply recounting historical facts and when it comes to politics Christianity has never been tried ever since it became the official state religion in the Roman Empire.

The reasons are obvious. Jesus' teachings such as: love those who hate you, when struck turn the other cheek and my kingdom is not of this world; have no place in power politics. Jews and Muslims are more honest in this respect because they make no such demands on the adherents of their faiths. Therefore, let us leave religious-moral sloganeering out of American propaganda and concentrate instead on actions which prove to the world at large and Muslims in particular that Americans, regardless of what faith they profess, do care for others who do not share their belief system. The month of Ramadan would be an excellent opportunity to do so. Instead of continuing to bomb and send commandoes we could use the money and the troops to feed and clothe the starving hundreds of thousands of Afghans in the refugee camps in Pakistan and in those areas of Afghanistan which are not under direct Taliban control. Dropping food from the air, as well as bombs, makes good propaganda but has little practical value. The impoverished Afghan people will have difficulty getting to it and when they are successful the Taliban can always confiscate it "for the good of the country." In addition, while the ordinary Afghan will have to walk or get to the drop points - wherever they are - by mule, donkey or camel, the Taliban who have trucks can get there first.

There is nothing we can do for the people who live under Taliban control at this time but we have a great opportunity to show our compassion - not through some nebulous relief agencies but through our troops - by helping, those who have escaped, with food and half-way decent housing for the upcoming winter months. That would be a display of genuine Christian charity. Although an effort of this type would probably be derided by Osama's followers as a propaganda ploy, the people whose lives we save rather than destroy would be grateful and the news networks including Al-Jazeera would broadcast the good news far and wide. It will not deter the likes of Osama but would-be followers might be persuaded that there is a better way than bombs and killing. To those who argue that this proposal is unrealistic I can only say: yes, as long as you don't try it! Actions always speak louder than words and we are judged by what we do rather than what we say.


Two years ago at Thanksgiving I wrote the final words for War and Mayhem and it is appropriate to repeat them in part at this time: "The challenges of the next century, let alone millennium, are going to be enormous. Will our 'opinion makers' and politicians conduct themselves any wiser than in the past? Will we be able to resurrect a universal moral code and live by it? Will we be able to meet criticism and differences of opinions without demonizing those who think differently and try to understand why they do so? Will we be able to look beyond generalizations to the individuals who make up the groups and deal with them according to individual behavior rather than preconceived notions which supposedly characterize the group?" I went on to say that if we could answer these questions affirmatively there is hope for mankind but if not we are going to slide into an abyss the magnitude of which can hardly be imagined at this time.

Our response to the September 11 tragedy does not bode well for the future and the current November issue of Commentary contains chilling information. The lead article by Daniel Pipes: "The Danger Within: Militant Islam in America," depicts a nightmare scenario of Muslim forces taking over our government and turning us into an Islamic Republic on the model of Iran. One may laugh about this but Pipes is serious and provides documentation for his opinion. The second article by Mark Helprin: "What Israel Must Now Do to Survive," is equally eerie. Not only does Helprin advocate that Israelis need to arm themselves to the teeth now but he also asks: "Is it not obvious that now is the time, when American and Israeli interests plainly coincide, for Israel to destroy [emphasis added] the laboratories [of weapons of mass destruction], reactors, processing plants and depots where untold terror might arise?" Helprin concludes "Such a thing seems perilous, and it is, but hardly more perilous than its alternative." It seems that it was this type of thinking which caused Secretary of State Colin Powell to immediately reverse his criticism of the Sharon government at the time it sent tanks back into Palestinian territory and to call him “a dear friend" (Salt Lake Tribune, October 25,2001).

The American "public opinion molders" and our politicians who react to their pressure tend to be remarkably poorly informed about foreign affairs. This leads to government from crisis to crisis without a long range steadily pursued goal. This is outright dangerous. When Prime Minister Sharon said recently that Israel will go it alone if the U.S. does not condone his actions we have to keep Sharon's life history in mind. It is even more important than Arafat's. The ill-fated invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was planned and executed by Sharon. The Reagan peace plan, thereafter, was rejected by him and the massacre in the Sabra-Shatila Palestinian refugee camp, although carried out by Christian Lebanese Phalangists, was clearly condoned by Sharon. He was severely criticized for it by concerned Israelis and lost his job as Defense Minister. The details of this affair, as well as other injustices against Palestinians which have over the years been perpetrated by a succession of Israeli governments are well documented in Noam Chomsky's book: The Fateful Triangle. The United States, Israel & The Palestinians. The book was published in 1983 and should be required reading for everybody in government and the media. It is absolutely tragic that no attention has been paid to this book although the concluding paragraph states: "Meanwhile, at least this much seems clear. As long as the United States remains committed to an Israeli Sparta as a strategic asset, blocking the international consensus on a political settlement, the prospects are for further tragedy: repression, terrorism, war and possibly even a conflict that will engage the superpowers, eventuating in a final solution from which few will escape." The first part of the prophecy is a fact of life now and with Sharon's finger on the trigger of Israel's nuclear devices the last words are no longer far fetched either. If Israeli politicians were to feel themselves pushed against the wall The Samson Option, as it has been called by Seymour Hersh in his 1991 book, may well become attractive. Furthermore, if Israeli scientists were to have, in the meantime, perfected a neutron bomb which kills only people and animals, rather than destroy property, the world could be in dire straits. The vital oil installations might remain viable and could switch from Arab into Jewish hands. What a temptation for any government if it were to feel that its survival is at stake. The backlash which would subsequently ensue against America would be both vicious and interminable.

It is in this context that the third article of the current Commentary issue: "The Wages of Durban" by Arch Puddington needs to be seen. The UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) had concluded a few days before the September 11 catastrophe. The conference was marred by anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish polemics, as well as demands for reparations for slavery and colonial misconduct, by a variety of delegates. Nevertheless it was only Israel and the United States who walked away from the conference demonstrating to the world that: whatever you say or do we don't care we go our own way together! If our fate is truly irrevocably linked to actions initiated by the government in Jerusalem rather than Washington our war on terrorism is bound to fail. If we were to win but lose in the process the freedoms we still enjoy the victory would be a hollow one. What use is it to gain the whole world if you lose your soul?, the biblical writer asked. Yes indeed! I personally wish the Jewish people, both here and in Israel, well but as I said on previous occasions justice is indivisible and, difficult as it is, justified grievances by the Palestinians must be addressed now. Time is running out.