After months of silence and seeming disorganization, al Qaeda is regrouping.  What does this mean?  Should we expect new terror strikes?  What is al Qaeda’s next move?  Let’s think about all of this.

• First, the clearest evidence of al Qaeda resurgence is the three audiotapes al Qaeda has released since the beginning of October from its top leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri.  Assuming they are both authentic, the two leaders call for a wider war against not only the US but the West in general, with a wider range of targets.  Al Qaeda has chosen the term “Crusaders,” not simply Americans, in its propaganda.  Because the US has destroyed its infrastructure and base in Afghanistan, al Qaeda has changed into a less centralized, more widely spread organization.  In the tape purportedly from bin Laden, he threatens not only the US, but also Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Australia.  Is this new list strategic?  Probably.  In May 1988, bin Laden told journalists that he made no distinction between American military and civilian targets.  Three months later, al Qaeda blew up two American embassies in Africa almost simultaneously.  A few months before the October 2000 bombing of the destroyer Cole in Yemen, bin Laden released a videotape threatening the US wearing a distinctive Yemeni dagger.

• Second, bin Laden has openly boasted of the economic impact of 9/11.  He revels in the economic implications of his brand of terrorism.  He will strike where the economic impact is the greatest!!  That is why the attacks of the last few weeks have been so economically oriented.  Consider the 6 October attack where a boat loaded with explosives disabled a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen.  Or consider that days after that attack a bomb ripped through a tourist disco in Bali, Indonesia.  Tourism and the oil business are basic components of the global economy.  In these attacks and the April truck bombing of the historic Tunisian synagogue that killed German tourists and the May attack killing 11 French defense contractors in Karachi, Pakistan, al Qaeda is reaching beyond Americans.  This is in effect phase two of al Qaeda terrorism.  It is going global.  It has no centralized geographical base and it is reaching out beyond just America.  It is a war on the West!

• Third, even if the bin Laden tape is doctored, it says something about the mythology of the man.  If you consider this tape from a third world Muslim’s perspective, what do you see?  For this third world Muslim, the bin Laden tape shows that the US is not as all powerful as some think it is.  The US has pounded Afghanistan into rubble and may do so to Iraq, but it is weaker when facing terrorism.  It cannot even kill bin Laden.  He is almost mythological in his aura!  He is indeed the personification of extreme Islam’s war on the West, modernity and Christianity.  As long as he is alive or as long as al Qaeda can keep the US guessing about whether he is alive, he will be the center of energy and focus for this now decentralized band of terrorists.  He will also be the rallying point for recruiting more terrorists.  Without his body, the US and the West will always face the myth and aura of Osama bin Laden.  He built al Qaeda, he bankrolled it and he remains its most powerful figure.  If he is not killed, al Qaeda will remain the threat it is to the West.

• Finally, the Muslim world is being introduced to an old set of conspiracy tales, not terribly relevant since the Nazi period.  First published in the 1890s by Czar Nicholas II’s secret police, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” claimed to uncover a secret Jewish plot to dominate the world.  Long ago discredited as a blatant forgery, this intensely anti-Semitic work has been used for decades by the Nazis and others to justify anti-Semitic acts of violence.  The tragedy is that it is now being taken seriously in the Arab world.  This week a 41-part mini-series entitled “Horseman Without a Horse” began airing on state-owned TV in Egypt.  The series is inspired by the “Protocols” and treats them favorably.  Although the “Protocols” are a forgery and brutally anti-Semitic, they are now being treated with respect by one of the few nations that has a treaty with Israel.  They may again be the source of cruel violence against one of the most oppressed people on this planet - the Jews.  It is a dangerous sign coming out of the Middle East.

See Brendan Miniter, “Conspiracy Theory,” Wall Street Journal (15 November 2002); Richard Cohen, “Return of Bin Laden,” Washington Post (14 November 2002); and Peter Bergen, “Al Qaeda’s New Tactics,” New York Times (15 November 2002).

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THE CHANGES SWEEPING THROUGH CHINA

Last weekend, a seemingly unknown bureaucrat emerged as the leader of the Chinese Communist Party.  Hu Jintao, a 59-year old insider known for his brilliance and blandness, emerged as the Party leader succeeding Jiang Zemin, who is retiring.  In early 2003, Hu Jintao will also become the state president.  Hu assumes leadership over a  country experiencing dazzling economic growth and social change and one that is taking its place as one of the world’s most powerful nations.  But he must also cope with official corruption, spreading unemployment, a widening gap between rich and poor and demands for widespread political change.  How should we think about China, a nation changing so rapidly and so fundamentally?

• First, China is attempting to accomplish something really not seen in the modern world - maintain tight, totalitarian control of its people, while changing from a state-controlled economy into one of free market capitalism.  Hu Jintao’s priority remains to build an advanced market economy, exemplified by China’s recent entry into the World Trade Organization.  Hu Jintao is a committed party loyalist but is also an innovator who installed broadband Internet access at the Communist Party and encouraged debates about democracy and separation of powers.  At this point, quite frankly, we do not know whether he is a reformer or a hard-liner.  But his past is filled with enigmas.  He was provincial governor of Tibet and in 1989 ruthlessly crushed an uprising there.  His loyalty as a member of the Party is what has gained him the support of so many of is leaders.  So, to assume he is a reformer seems at this point to be a stretch; we do not know the direction he will take China.

• Second, what we do know for now is that the Party is blurring the distinction between ideology and pragmatism.  The Party now represents capitalists as much as it represents workers and peasants, the historic base of the Party.  Further, the Party’s leaders are clearly blurring the class distinctions they once considered sacred, jettisoning ideology over pragmatic reality.  Incredibly, the Party openly courts the rich, but in doing so it is merely accepting reality.  It began allowing capitalists to take over chunks of the state-controlled economy in the 1980s.  Now, the economy is 20 times larger than it was in 1980 and private industry has become the main engine for growth.  It accounts for one-third of economic output today, compared with almost nothing 20 years ago.  Hence, there is a symbiotic relationship developing between the Party and business.  The Party depends on the taxes that business pays and business absorbs the workers laid off from the grossly inefficient state-owned businesses.  In short, capitalists have moved to the center of Chinese political, economic and social life.  China will never be the same!

• Third, Hu Jintao must now focus on the non-urban parts of China.  He must spread the nation’s emerging wealth.  The Party must spend more on rural health care, subsidize the poor western regions, retrain workers fired from failing state companies and improve education.  In the words of Joseph Kahn, “Chinese communism has become crony capitalism.”  The Party is betting that this shift from pure socialism to capitalism will create enough jobs to employ the millions of urban unemployed among its vast, impoverished rural population, many of whom are moving to the urban zones in search of a better life.  It is an audacious plan and if it works, the Party may remain the dominant political force that it has been for the last 53 years of uninterrupted rule.  If its fails, there may be anarchy in the streets and provinces of China.  Hu Jintao is betting on crony capitalism. 

• Finally, China is now producing for the world.  Today, there are few things in the global marketplace that are not made in China.  Many foreign manufacturers find they must either produce in China or expand their purchases from China.  The country has become the world’s factory floor, with an output so pervasive that it is, in effect, having a deflationary pressure on the global economy.  Half of China’s exports, which totaled $266.2 billion in 2001, now come from foreign manufacturers or their joint ventures in China.  China is the world’s fourth largest industrial base, in terms of value of goods produced.  These days, China makes more than 50% of the cameras sold worldwide, 30% of the air conditioners and televisions, 25% of the washing machines and nearly 20% of the refrigerators.  China’s joining the WTO has drawn more foreign investment, thereby funding new factories and other enterprises.  China is the colossus of Asia and it is impacting the world in a manner few imagined ten years ago.  However one looks at China today, it is far more significant than its rival Japan.  In fact, with its 1.2 billion population and its well-armed military, China could dominate the continent of Asia in a few years.  The rising sun of Asia is not Japan; it is China.

See Wall Street Journal article on China’s global economy (10 October 2002); news article on the shift to Hu Jintao in the New York Times (15 November 2002) and other articles (6 November 2002 and 10 November 2002).

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ABORTION AND TECHNOLOGY

Modern medical technology is undermining the claim of the pro-abortion crowd that the fetus growing in the mother’s womb is merely a blob of impersonal cells.  It is not! 

Powerfully, in the 11 November 2002 issue of Time magazine, photographs prove incontrovertibly that the fetus is a human being.  Only the intellectually dishonest will disagree.  The article contends that we are on the forefront of a biomedical revolution that is “rapidly transforming the way we think about the prenatal world.”  We now know that the most important developmental steps of life - including laying the foundation for such major organs as the heart, lungs and brain - occur before the end of the first three months of pregnancy.  We know this and much more because of remarkable advances in MRIs, sonograms and other imaging technologies that allow us to peer into the developmental process at virtually every stage - from the fusion of sperm and egg to the emergence some 40 weeks later of a baby.

Amazingly, the photos in this article (from a book entitled From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds) show that at 23 days the nervous system is visibly developing; at 32 days the embryo (the size of a ladybug) has formed a primitive heart, eyes and blood vessels and the brain, and its arms and legs are visible; at 42 days the child has a sense of smell and discernible fingers; at 52 days the child (no larger than a grape) has nostrils and pigmented eyes; at 54 days the following body parts are all discernible - brain, heart, stomach, umbilical cord, esophagus, kidneys, lungs, vertebrae and liver; and at 84 days the child has a developed rib cage and is sucking its thumb.

This article (and book) provides a powerful apologetic that the fetus is a human being.  Those who deny that are arrogantly rejecting the evidence that these photos so graphically portray.  Every crisis pregnancy center in the nation should take these photos and place them on large posters throughout their facilities.  They constitute incontrovertible proof for the fetus as human.

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