I wonder if it is also happening to many others, but I have, in recent weeks, found myself applauding Vladimir Putin for stealing a march on the rest of the world by going full blast against the heinous Islamic State terrorists, and am now shouting for France and François Hollande for the knee-jerk reaction to the atrocious attack on Paris last week. All this happened while the US and the UK, so often guilty of unjustified and illegal military interventions and even invasions, were until now helplessly playing hide-and-seek with the obnoxious head-choppers on territory they had once claimed, falsely, it turned out, to have ridden of war, hatred and persecution.
As a pacifist, I do feel uncomfortable with anything military that is not carried out in self-defence. The Sinai passenger plane bombing and the Paris events no doubt qualify as horrific deeds that threaten the very souls of Russia and France. There are no lies, here, about nonexistent weapons of mass destruction or dictators in their cosy, golden palaces that needed to be removed by way of “saving” the world. Reality has dropped on all of us like a boulder from heaven, or whatever there is up there.
Religious causes or not, humanity needs to be saved from humanity itself, and not for the first time. It is just a few decades ago that Europeans were trying to save Europeans from vicious dictators that had made it to power with, well, European votes and machinations. The rise of fascism and Nazism was not a fluke, but the result of a well-organised and convincing campaign that has been – and will continue to be – imitated oftentimes since then.
This time round, it is the global phenomenon of terrorism that has been attracting young men and women unperturbed at giving up fancy life-styles and cosy homes, that has put the whole world in its present quandary. Religious fervour? Possibly. Religious incitement? Undoubtedly. A sense of adventure gone rotten? In the case of many, probably.
Whatever the cause and the lure, the reality today is what it is. It is frustrating to learn, however, that disclosures from more than 100 hours of exclusive interviews with 12 former CIA directors have revealed that the George W. Bush administration had repeatedly ignored warnings of a massive terrorist attack before 11th September, 2001.
Cofer Black, a former CIA chief of counterterrorism told “Politico” magazine it was “very evident that we were going to be struck, we were going to be struck hard and lots of Americans were going to die”. Those same fears were shared by Black’s former boss, George Tenet, who told the same magazine that the world felt like it was on the brink of an eruption, with terrorists going underground, “as if preparing for an attack”. The first warnings of an attack began in the spring of 2001.
Tenet said the Bush administration wasn’t ready to consider a pre-emptive plan, which the magazine translated to mean that the White House did not want a paper trail to reveal it had been warned. Black’s description of their attitude sadly sounds rather naive – “They were used to terrorists being Euro-lefties – they drink champagne by night, blow things up during the day, how bad can this be? And it was a very difficult sell to communicate the urgency to this.”
That is all history, of course, but had the whole extremist movement based on a false interpretation of Islam been nipped in the bud 14 years ago, Paris, Sinai, Beirut, Ankara and so many other places in the world that have since suffered the horror of Islamist terrorism, may have been spared their dreadful experience.
The result is today’s wake-up call that has united pacifists with war-mongers, rightists with leftists, westerners with easterners and believers with agnostics. Time to unite is the rallying cry. The prayers are ok, but the bombs work better. Am I really saying all this?
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A source of comfort
Many, like me, who have been victimised at one stage or another in news bulletins on either of the political stations must have found comfort and solace in the results obtained and expertly elaborated in the Broadcasting Authority’s researched report on the quality of television broadcasting on these islands. It just goes to show that a vast majority of people simply do not believe these sources, and, as a result, the national broadcaster, TVM, comes out as the one source that offers that much sought-after thing – truth.
The situation as presented in this report, based on research carried out by two top professionals in the sector, Prof. Marilyn Clark and Dr Joanna Spiteri, is exactly what many in the pre-pluralism debate had predicted would occur. Most of us were for pluralism in broadcasting, but had very strong doubts as to whether or not the political parties should have been given their own radio and television stations. There really is no going back today, of course, but public opinion is at least highly aware of the unethical games that are often played, the spins and the timing of certain irresponsible stories, and has wisely learned to scrutinize and dissect.
The BA report pointed out several other home truths that need to be discussed, but the credibility factor of TV news services vindicates what so many of us have always insisted upon – public broadcasting has had its problems in the distant and recent past, and it will always have to cope with some sporadic hiccups, but it has served the public well and seems determined to keep it served that well.
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Mars...ovin?
At a time when Maltese wine is happily making its presence felt on restaurant and home tables, there are always new and pleasant alcoholic temptations! It was reported recently that scientists have found that a comet, aptly named Lovejoy, releases alcohol and sugar in crazy amounts – 500 bottles of wine, to be exact, every second. So if life on comets was possible, who would refuse a trip to Lovejoy? In our case, Lovejoy can wait, though. We may have preceded, by almost a century, the whole world in the production of good, “planetary” plonk thanks to our Mars...ovin.
On a more serious note, the finding has been described as very important because it backs the idea that comets could have seeded life on Earth. Some scientists strongly believe that comets, which are the frozen remains from the formation of our solar system, may have carried the molecules necessary for sparking life on Earth.
Emm, cheers to that.