October 18, 2002

Journey Into Fear

I flew to Baltimore Wednesday afternoon on Southwest, sitting next to a man from the Phillipines. He'd flown 12 hours from Manilla to LA, spent two days there, and then came across the county on Southwest - LA to Las Vegas, Vegas to Nashville, Nashville to Baltimore. He'd never been here before. Wanted to know if there would be snow on the ground when we landed.

We talked about a lot of things. The Beltway sniper. Terrorism and Abu Sayyaf (the Al Qaeda franchise in his country). I never got his name. Thursday, I learned Abu Sayyaf had done some sort of bombing the day before. I hope he had no relatives or friends among the dead. He told me 70 percent of his countrymen are pro-American, and although the U.S. pulled out of its military bases in the Phillipines a few years ago, support for U.S. military presence is rising as Muslim terrorist activity grows.

He told me me Manilla was a very compact city and very densely populated. Congested. I thought a lot about that as the Southwest 737 banked over Baltimore on final approach and I looked out the window at countless homes spread across the hilly, tree-covered landscape on quarter- and half- and full-acre lots, two cars in every driveway. Along the edges of various inlets of the Chesapeake Bay, the shoreline was dotted with dozens of marinas, filled with thousands of sailboats and fishing craft.

The Phillipines is a string of numerous islands. There, boats are transportation. In Baltimore, boats are recreation. As I looked at the window, he did too. I wonder what he thought of America as he saw that slice of it. I wonder what he thought when he looked down and saw Las Vegas. He asked if he had to go through Customs again when he deplaned in Baltimore. No, I assured him. He came through Customs in LA. He was in the country now, free to travel all of it without showing papers at checkpoints. Welcome to America. See as much of as you can in five days.

I rented a car at Hertz and drove to Philly. At the rental counter, the clerk asked if I wanted the fuel option - did I want to prepay Hertz for a full tank of gas so I could leave the car with an empty tank upon my return. Yes! I said, before he finished the question. Doesn't everyone say "yes" to that now if they fly into the Baltimore-Washington DC area? Yeah, he said, almost everyone does.

I took the Nissan Maxima - a very nice car produced by a former enemy we once conquered and then democratized and rebuilt - and drove north, not stopping until White Marsh, 20 minutes or so north of Baltimore and well north of the Beltway sniper's killing zone. Then I stopped for coffee. A routine stop. A normal thing to do.

I parked just outside the front door of the convenience store and stepped out of the car. A normal act in an abnormal time. Hair stood on the back of my neck and I wondered what a bullet felt like, or if I'd feel it at all. I practically ran into the store. Leaving with my coffee, I pushed the door unlock button on the rental car key fob even before I exited the store, and got in as fast as I could. I didn't feel safe until I sped away - passing, incidentally, a clerk who was sweeping the parking lot. Was she scared? Probably a little. But people in Israel live under the gun all the time, and they go about their lives.

What a strange world. Now I understand just a tiny little bit what it's like to live in Israel, to live with terrorism as a regular reality of daily life. I think the Beltway sniper or sniper team is connected to Al Qaeda, and their aim is to wreak havoc on our economy and our society by instilling us with fear for our personal safety. Northern Virginia is a test of the tactic. If it works there, it'll be in your town soon. They're testing us. We're learning about them - and how to take them down. It's Terrorism 101 and we're only in the first grade.

We'll win, but there will be losses along the way. And fear.

October 09, 2002

Do You Know The Way to Sao Tome?

The New Yorker has an amazing story in a recent edition about the tiny West African island nation of Sao Tome & Principe, which sits atop potentially huge oil reserves, and how that nation loves America and is discussing with the United States the possibility of the U.S. establishing some sort of military presence there to protect Sao Tome as it develops its oil industry. The tiny nation could help the United States move a long way toward independence from Middle Eastern oil. Currently, only one of the five top foriegn suppliers of oil to the U.S. is a Middle Eastern country. Canada is the leading supplier, followed by Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico and Nigeria.

Given Saudi Arabia's spreading of Wahabism, the fanatical brand of Islam that breeds terrorist killers, replacing them with oil from Sao Tome could go a long way to de-funding the Islamikazes.

Unfortunately, the New Yorker story is not available online. I recommend you get the dead-tree version at your local bookstore or library - it's the cover story. Well worth reading.

Here's an August 23 Reuters story about Sao Tome that says the United States has been in contact with Sao Tome's president "to discuss military ties with the tiny islands that lie near Africa's increasinly important oil region."

Says Reuters: The U.S. desire for secure energy sources outside the Middle East has been intensified since the Sept. 11 attacks. Nigeria ranks as the fifth biggest crude exporter to the United States and Angola comes not far behind. Both countries have big plans to expand output, while other prospectors are hunting for oil throughout the region.

American money plus African oil may benefit both of us - providing money and jobs the impoverished continent desperately needs while extricating the U.S. from its need to be friendly with intrinsically hostile Arab regimes like the one in Saudi Arabia.