November, 2003

When Israel and Palestine painstakingly come to the negotiating table, someone is sure to become a human bomb and the negotiators back off. Unintended consequences? Hardly.

It's extremely likely (this writer's view) that just prior to the upcoming presidential elections in the United States, a major al Quaeda event will throw the election in George Bush's lap. Unintended consequences? I wouldn't want to bet on it.

These are the intentions of so-called "unintended events."

Unintended, not in the sense that they weren't planned and carried out with malice aforethought, but in the reality that their impact on events simply isn't well enough recognized by the public at risk. Worldwide, our democratic processes and the common hunger for political progress is increasingly hijacked by radical minorities.

One can't even be sure any longer who the bad guys are. Is it too far fetched that radical Israeli zealots might be behind a strategically placed car bomb inside Israel? Unrealistic that American conservative fanatics might touch off a non-fatal event (such as an attack on the power grid) and take credit in al Quaeda's name to keep their agenda afloat before the election?

Here's a scenario for you: the case has been made that America's reaction to 9/11 is exactly as hoped for by Osama bin Laden, a casebook response to his published plan for a worldwide war between Islam and Christianity. Thus it follows that the election of a moderate US administration would slow the progress of that religious war. Not what bin Laden would want. Interestingly, there's been no American al Quaeda attack since 9/11, perhaps because of increased protections, but maybe because there's been no need of one for al Quaeda's purposes. They're doing fine by Osama's reckoning.

But, in a close election, look for that to happen---my bet is September or early October of 2004.

Wild-eyed conjecture? Unsubstantiated conspiracy theory?

I think not.

It's deplorable that, when tragic events happen across the world, the immediate response is to harden all positions and give virtually no voice to the work-in-progress that's been dashed on the rocks of knee-jerk public reaction. Bully-boy tactics and we fall for them, time and again. Anger and reaction rule the day.

"He who establishes his argument by noise and command, shows that his reason is weak." That's a quote from a 16th century essayist by the name of Michel Montaigne, another example of the reasoning that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The obvious problem is that those who's reason is weak are more and more having their way against the thoughtful, the moderators, the reasonable, the recognizers. The recognizers are our best hope. They recognize the fact that a world armed to it's teeth is a world less likely to accept long-term solutions, less likely to moderate itself by coalition bargaining and way less able to set agendas whose time tables outlive the current political power structures. The gun and the bomb are instant in effect and power is a short-term animal that needs red meat.

Thus the madmen in patriot clothing have taken over to respond against the madmen in rags.

Our world of instant soup, sound bytes and instant coffee has come to expect instant solutions. Attempting to solve by 'noise and command' in quick-time, to survive the next election is charmingly human, but impossible. Looking for a different man in office to defeat al Quaeda is equally charming and naïve. Yet that's mostly what the coming election promises.

If al Quaeda strikes in a timely manner, the election of the next president could be very much out of the hands of Americans. The Constitution prevents us from electing a President of foreign birth, but not necessarily of foreign selection.

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