Friday, March 29, 2002

posted 3/29/2002 01:31:00 PM by Daniel   0 comments

What should be done about Arafat? I've got a brilliant plan...

Right now I am so furious at the continuing and increasingly gory suicide bombings in Israel. On any relative scale you choose, it's worse for Israel than the 9/11 attacks were for us. Those attacks were ample justification for us to go after (and hopefully kill) Osama bin Laden and the Al Queda organization and the Taliban regime that sheltered them in Afghanistan. Israel would be at least as justified in taking out Arafat and the PLO organization, since he and his henchmen are either directly responsible for the suicide attacks or complicit in sheltering the actual attackers.

Unfortunately Yasser Arafat has been designated as untouchable by the double standards of the Bush Administration and by the hesitancy of the Sharon government. Israel is finally moving on Arafat's compound and arresting his bodyguards, but they don't dare kill or arrest him. What then should be done with him? Isolation? Exile? All the alternatives being bandied about are pathetic. He'll be back in business in no time, being courted by both the U.S. and Sharon as they futilely beg him to take more concrete steps to stop the neverending terrorism.

I suggest some heavy-duty psychological warfare: Capture him in his compound and temporarily isolate him there. Then give him a general anaesthetic to render him unconscious. Bring in a team of doctors, and make multiple small incisions all over his body. Into these insert tiny devices. Stitch him up and release him. Don't say what the devices are. Let Arafat and the Arab world speculate. Are they tracking devices? Listening devices? Homing devices? Remote-controlled bombs? Do they contain biochemical agents that can control or alter his mind? Can they be safely removed without killing him? If so, would all of them have to be removed simultaneously? Are some of them decoys? Or maybe all of them? What if other devices have been inserted in a less obvious manner so they can't be detected? Will any Arab ever again feel safe meeting with or talking to Arafat?

I think it's a great plan. Or at least it's better than the alternatives.