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Howard Linett
Mea Culpa
September 21, 2010
An ancient Scottish proverb claims that "Confession is good for the soul.” Well,
I’ll let you know if the ache in my soul is somehow eased by confessing that I
remain a Pessimist.
I admit it. I was wrong. Yom Kippur 2010 has come and gone. Israel has not
attacked Iran. Nor has Iran launched a massive pre-emptive missile attack
against Israel. And somehow this is supposed to be good news?
My family and I reside in Jerusalem, Israel. During April 2008 I was home in the
USA attending a national conference of federal government employees, as a
featured speaker lecturing about Homicide/Suicide Bombers. Nevertheless I could
not find a single police department between Denver and New Haven that would
agree to host the version of my presentation I had specially prepared for
American law enforcement.
My credentials were solid. I had been vetted. My speaker’s fee was lunch. It did
not matter. I discovered that my lecture contained too much controversial and
politically incorrect information for multi-cultural big city police. I returned
to Jerusalem having learned that in America ignorance was bliss - at least for
Command, until terrorists start slaughtering patrol officers.
There was no future in educating folks about terrorism. Officially terrorism no
longer existed. Friends and colleagues in local, state and federal government,
who had been educating their peers about terrorism, were either under scrutiny
or retiring. I started trying to figure out what to do with myself for the next
several years. I decided to write a novel about what I thought would happen in
the not so distant future, the consequence of the terrorists having checkmated
the West. It would be my swan-song, my "I told you so.”
I chose late afternoon on September 17, 2010, a mere two hours before the start
of the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, for Iran to attack Israel. The
attack was designed to pre-empt an imminent Israeli strike against Iran’s
nuclear bomb manufacturing capabilities. Over the next 48 hours Syria, Lebanon,
Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority would join in Iran’s hopeful
climax in the erotic dream of eradicating Israel and its Jews. Thousands of
missiles would rain down on the Holy Land. Israel would turn the lands of its
enemies into glass. So much for my novel’s the first 40 pages.
The remainder of my story was devoted to how the residents of Jerusalem’s
northern most neighborhoods survived repeated Fatah and Hamas attempts to drive
them into the Mediterranean. I needed to revise my novel when President Obama
was elected. I no longer expected America to come to Israel’s assistance like a
protective Big Brother.
For now my semi-apocalyptic novel continues to remain fictional. It is dated and
will soon be forgotten, until it becomes reality, like Orwell’s 1984.
Unfortunately today’s reality is more terrifying than my outdated prophesy. In
September 2010, Iran officially became a nuclear nation, openly and without
opposition. Iran’s "peaceful” nuclear program is dwarfed by its military nuclear
program. Nothing has yet to disrupt or even meaningfully hinder Iran’s
relentless drive to develop nuclear weapons. Multiple international sources
concede that Iran has the material necessary to construct at least two atomic
bombs. No official or unofficial source has revised the estimates that September
2010 was the point of no return in thwarting Iran’s achieving its goal of
possessing nuclear Bombs.
Today’s Truth is that the West has moved from estimating when Iran will possess
enough material to construct a Bomb, to estimating how many Bombs Iran is
constructing. Some of Iran’s closest European neighbors seemingly concede Iran
has a Bomb, if not several Bombs. These countries are squealing about Iran’s
relentless, perhaps even completed, drive to perfect the missiles that will
deliver the Bombs to their targets. Then again there is no end to the ways Iran
can deliver a Bomb to its target. A missile is unnecessary.
It is inexplicable that Israel has allowed such a situation to come to pass.
Neither I nor anyone I know has an explanation. Speculation is pointless.
Fatalism has set-in. Israel is going to be nuked. The Israeli-in-the-street
either admits he expects to be nuked by Iran or admits he refuses to think about
the subject because it is too terrifying. No one thinks it is not going to
happen.
You want a genuine apocalyptic scenario? Many believe that Iran will use three
Bombs on Israel, obliterating Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beer Sheva. Simultaneously it
is anticipated that an Iranian nuclear weapon of mass destruction will be
detonated in New York City. It remains a coin-flip as to whether Iran also nukes
Washington, DC. Frankly my novel’s fictional scenario of a massive attack on
Israel, with thousands of long and mid-range missiles armed with conventional
warheads, is pleasant in comparison to today’s facts. And no, my soul aches no
less for my having made this confession. |
