9 October 2001
editorial
Last Sunday, the US-led coalition against terrorism blasted off in a devastating fashion against the suspected haven of Afghanistan.
We have made our position clear, and we still stand by it, and that is, those behind the terrorists who ran hijacked planes into the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York on September 11, 2001 must be punished and punished well. If therefore the attacks initiated over the weekend will achieve that objective, we are all for it.
Even as the bombs rained on their targets, pictures of Osama bin Laden, the main suspect, were shown with him defiantly still threatening brimstone and fire on the US and calling on Moslems to join the fight on his side.
We think that's unfair on Moslems and Islam. We wonder why people oftentimes mix their personal political agenda with religion. When Saddam Hussein attacked the little Kingdom of Kuwait - by the way, an Arab and predominantly Moslem country - and an international coalition joined forces to drive him out, he declared a "Mother of all Battles" and called on all Moslems to come to his side. Thankfully, he was ignored and left to stew in the fire of his own making.
Now Osama bin Laden is doing the same, calling on Moslems to come to his side in his mother of all battles. We think he should be ignored, because Islam is not the religion of cannon fodder to be thrown into battle at the behest of any hardliner.
A lot of the people who died in the WTC bombing were Moslems. If their lives did not mean much to Osama bin Laden in his quest to subjugate America, he abdicates any right or privilege he might have had to ask even one Moslem to join his fight against America.
We do not see this fight as one between Islam and the rest of the world. Islam is above human foibles, and Moslems are not cannon fodder. Substantial communities of Moslems worship freely in America and the West - something that cannot be said about some countries, where the teaching of other religions is punishable by death!
Let's face it, what happened on September 11, 2001cannot be justified in anyway. It is not the kind of cause that right thinking people will rally to. And so if today, the world is at the brink, it is because someone, or people, crossed the dividing line of humanity and bestiality. God help us all, for now, He is the only force who can intervene...
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2001 Accra Mail. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
