Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
WEEKEND EDITION
April 17 - 18, 2004
Where is Superman when you need him?
I knew it was morning because there was a hint of sunlight peeking through the curtains Thursday when the phone rang. It was my sister, Janie, who gets up with the roosters and assumes, I guess, that everyone in Las Vegas awakes the same way at the same time. The clock next to the bed was straight up 6 a.m. as near as I could tell.
As my brain tried to engage with the rest of my body I heard her say something about Superman and Osama bin Laden. At least, that is what I thought I heard. And that was enough to shake the cobwebs and get my full attention. "Have they joined forces?" I asked myself, not wanting to make public light of anything having to do with that evildoer, bin Laden.
Janie explained that the news confirmed the authenticity of bin Laden's latest radiogram to the world in which he offers a deal to everyone on the planet except those who call themselves Americans or Israelis. The deal is simple. The implications, enormously difficult.
Bin Laden thinks most of the world is keenly aware of his ability to rally those followers of a murderous branch of Islam to do his will and that he, himself, has the ability to lead them despite the best intentions of the greatest military superpower on Earth. So far, unfortunately, he is right.
The question becomes whether or not those same people, who know he speaks with authority over a murderous assortment of psychopaths determined to blow all or most of us from the face of the planet, also believe that the wisest and sanest course is to give in to his ultimatum.
That would mean that whatever allies the United States does have in the war in Iraq would remove themselves from the fight and from the side of our country in order to spare themselves the kind of attack the world witnessed in Spain just a few weeks ago.
Janie has a point. We need a Superman to deal with this kind of dilemma. Only a Man of Steel who can fly at the speed of sound and leap tall buildings in a single bound can deal with the kind of monster that bin Laden has proved that he is.
First, the mightiest superpower on Earth cannot catch or kill him, at least not yet. Second, giving an ultimatum to people who cherish their own lives and those of their families more than they do their neighbors' lives -- their neighbors being those of us who live in the United States -- presents a rather tempting short-term choice. And, third, begging off from a war that almost 85 percent of Europe and most of the other countries on Earth didn't want in the first place is, politically, a no brainer.
So, who or where is this Superman who, to paraphrase a once mighty mouse, can come to save the day?
He is not in the White House. Nor is he on the campaign trail for the White House. The simple truth is that neither President George W. Bush nor Sen. John Kerry is powerful enough to stop this man and his movement without killing so many of his followers and related innocents that the world might never recover from the after shock.
No, we need a Superman who is impervious to harm from these so-called believers but who, in reality, are just a bunch -- a very large bunch to be sure -- of amoral, unhappy, ignorant and unquestioning captives of a bin Laden culture that blames their own problems on other people who, until they struck so wantonly, wanted only peace and offered no harm.
That Superman, I believe, is actually many, many men who call themselves clerics, Imams and other teachers of Islam who have yet to stand up in the name of their God to pronounce the bin Ladens of the world the real infidels, the real dangers to Islam and the real culprits who are thwarting Islam's dream of a return to the glory days.
For if the message in the Muslim holy places and schools was one of conciliation, of peace, and of understanding rather than of murdering innocents and of promises never intended to be kept, the world could turn around in a week.
Rather than supporting a Dr. Doom and Gloom who sits low down in a cave someplace in Pakistan or Afghanistan -- by their sickening silence in the face of his call to murder or by their acquiescence to the methods of his madness and destruction -- the teachers of the great religion of Mohammad could turn the tide and end the bloodshed.
It would be difficult and, perhaps, deadly, because those who want turmoil and death will demand a price be paid by those who preach the peace and love of the Koran, but the results would be worth the cost. Imagine a world in which 1.2 billion Muslims live side by side, work side by side, and play side by side with people of all faiths in a spirit of friendship and peace.
That is not the picture bin Laden and others of his ilk would like to see painted in the coming years, but it is the one that will most benefit the people of this world. And it is a picture, I believe, that can only be painted with the assistance of religious leaders and teachers who have been deafeningly silent for far too long.
Where are the Supermen? They are all around us. They are in their mosques and in their homes and in their schools. They inhabit every country on the globe. If only we could hear their voices, they could end this madness in a moment.
archive