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Saturday--November 30, 2002—Ground Zero Plus 444
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Ernest Hemmingway &
The Kenya Terrorists
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by
Cliff McKenzie
   Editor, New York City Combat Correspondent News

       GROUND ZERO, New York City, Nov. 30 -- Ernest Hemmingway is probably very pissed.  He's searching for his elephant gun, going on a Terrorist Safari.
        Kenya, a place some call the "heart of the world," is the setting for some of Hemmingway's most powerful stories.  Books like “The Green Hills of Africa”, “Death in the Afternoon”, and stories like "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and “Snows of Kilimanjaro”, were based on his Africa travels.
        So the idea that a suicide bomber would ram an SUV into a small hotel in a small village where the local townspeople were dancing for a group of Israeli tourists is enough to bring Mr. Hemmingway up from the grave and to strap on his hunting gear.

         Kenya is rich in wildlife and African beauty, home of Lake Victoria and the magic and mystery of the "dark continent" that drew great writers and painters to capture its landscape and legacy as the pristine center of the world.
         The Terrorism world, however, smashed Kenya's beauty two days ago when a white SUV loaded with explosives roared through the main gate of the Paradise Hotel located 15 minutes south of Mombasa, crashed into the lobby and exploded, killing the three Terrorists inside, three Israeli tourists and ten Kenyans.   The Kenyans were performing a dance for a group of Israeli tourists.
         The hotel, nestled on the pristine Indian Ocean, combines the ancient culture of Africa with modern conveniences such as air conditioning.   It's name "Paradise" sums up the beauty and tranquility of the location prior to the attack.  Now, it is charred and bloodied, a piece of Terrorism's scar tissue.

         Local Kenyans bemoaned the attack.   Much of the nearby community's income is based on tourist travel.  One Kenyan woman, a mother of ten children, cried over the death of her husband, wondering what would become of her life and that of her children.
          Eye-witness accounts of the driver claim he was Middle Eastern or Asian, not African.   "He was definitely not a local man," Justin Mundu said.  "He was wearing a red shirt.   Probably he was an Arab or Asian."   Mundu was on of the guards at the gate when the SUV roared past.   His friend was cut in half by shrapnel from the blast.  "It's a miracle I survived," Mundu said.
          Kenya, with a population of 30 million, enjoys over 48 different ethnic groups as part of its chemistry.   It is twice the size of Nevada and borders include Somalia to the east and Ethiopia to the north.   Mombasa has a population of 838,000.

        Local Africans sympathize with the Palestinians, noted Fahim Taha, a former member of Parliament.  "The Israelis are seen as the aggressors."   

        Officials suspect the Terrorists had help from the local community.
          In August, 1998, Terrorists blew up a truck in front of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, killing 213.
          This most recent attack upon a vacation resort where local Kenyans were the bait to attract the victims smacks of the worst kind of Terrorism.    It destroys all those who help it with abandon, much as the Black Widow eats its mate.
          In Hemmingway's books, Terrorism would be a village "man-eater," a rogue lion or panther that stalked the local men and women and children, waiting to pounce of them in moments of innocence or complacency, killing not for food, but for the sheer thirst for blood.
          Terrorism is becoming a "man-eater," rather than a political underscore.  Once considered a tool of violent protest or reaction, it has become indiscriminate in its hunger to kill.

          It attacks now regardless of what trappings its victims bear.
          A Muslim businessman, Bakari Yusuf Ba summed up the "man-eater" principle.  "I was born in Mombasa and apart from some election violence it's always been a peaceful place.  People walk around at night and leave doors unlocked.   But it's not safe anymore.   Terrorists are looking all over the world for targets and we were the target this time.   I don't think it had to do with Mombasa.  These terrorists want to destabilize the world and that's why we were hit."
          The "man-eater" is loose.
          Mr. Ba knows it.        

 Hemmingway would love to track the Beast of Terror.    It would be his "Old Man & The Beast" story, his swan song.
          But he would find the footprints of the Beast of Terror lead to the altar of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.   The Beast, he would find, would be locked inside the caves of human hearts.   He would know as an expert hunter that the Beast of Terror must be hunted not by the hunter, but by the hunted itself. 

        He would ask his safari to look in the mirror to find the Beast of Terror.
         The Beast would be within.
         It would be there that its lair would be found.
         And instead of using bullets to kill the Beast, he would recommend snaring it in a web to capture it.   The web's weaving would be constructed with Courage, Conviction and Right Actions, and the knots tied deftly by the Pledge of Vigilance and Principles of Vigilance.
        Hemmingway, an astute hunter of human emotions, would know that the Beast of Terror can only be caged never killed.   And, like any wild beast, it must be constantly guarded so it doesn't escape and begin its hunt again to kill and maim the innocent, the unsuspecting, the non-Vigilant.
       He would call upon the Sentinels of Vigilance from Ground Zero to aid in beating the bush, to flush the Beast of Terror out into the open, to strip the Beast of political, social, religious disguises so that it stood naked before the world in its true clothing, a frightened, lonely child lashing back at a world that didn't teach it Courage, Conviction and Right Actions to the benefit of the children's children's children.   Had the Beast of Terror been taught those principles, it would not want to sink its fangs in the father of  ten children, or kill the parents and grandparents of thousands of children, or teach future generations that killing others was a solution to the improvement of the world.

      No, Hemmingway would, as any great hunter, mount the head of the Beast of Terror in his study and keep a vigilant eye on it.   He would never turn his back on the Beast, or claim it had a righteous right to act as a man-eater, a woman-eater, a child-eater, an innocence eater.
      No, Hemmingway would sit with the Beast of Terror and read it stories of how an old man with a fishing line caught it one day, and hauled it to land, and dried its bones in the sunshine of Vigilance