Osama bin Laden, twisted mind and all, has won a lot more than he could have imagined if he masterminded our Sept. 11 disaster.  Those actions kicked off a move to reduce our freedoms here and increase the numbers of those who hate in the Muslim and Arab world.

The fear of a repeat of a 9/11 type of action by bin Laden followers has put this country on the chauvinistic course the late Senator Joe McCarthy tried to put us on  about 50 years ago. He felt it was needed to protect us from the Soviet Empire and "Godless Communism." McCarthy's logic was proved illogical. Given time, Bush's logic will prove as illogical. 

Among us ,Bush has spread fear of those around the world who subscribe to Osama bin Laden's view of us as a reason to move  this country from an open and tolerant country to a chauvinistic one where the welcome mat is withdrawn for non-Whites, Muslims, those with Arabic names, and those with Middle Eastern looks--whatever that is.

That fear enabled Bush to dust off an unused 1950s law passed  at the high point of our fear of the Soviets as people were actually building air raid shelters in backyards as protection from an atomic bomb. The 1950s law allowed for a shadow government to be established away from D.C., to assure continuity if a bomb wiped out Washington. 

Bush is the first president to put that law into action. He did it without even notifying the third and fourth persons in the presidential succession line, the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate. A little flap was raised over that action by Bush, but because of the fear mode the country is in, congressional leaders muted their flap.

That same fear mode is what makes us mute dissent and accept long check-in lines in airports, the government giving some immigrants, legal or illegal, short term or long term, no slack at all for the smallest infraction.  For  instance, a brother from the Ivory Coast, Tony Oulai, has been detained (kept in jail after jail)  since Sept. 14 as a suspected  material witness in the 9/11 terrorist investigation. There are hundreds of immigrants being held incommunicado as Tony is;  he is the first to get his story out. 

The Washington Post's Amy Goldstein had 10 telephone conversations and a 45-minute visit with him at a jail recently.  Neither Tony nor Amy could figure out why a terrorist plot carried out by Saudi Arabian Muslim extremists is cause for this 34-year old West African Roman Catholic to be held in jail without any open charges against him.

Gallup recently conducted a poll in nine Muslim countries.  There was surprise expressed by our leaders at the negative view the Muslims have of America. With the way Israel has been using our Apache helicopters and F-16 airplanes to kill Palestinians and the Afghan incidents where we attacked and killed friendly civilians, the lack of U.S. popularity isn’t a surprise.

All of those actions were brought to Muslim TV sets around the world by the Arabic equivalent of CNN. You can bet that when they see how their fellow Muslims are faring at the hands of  armed forces of Israel and the U. S., their reactions won't be the same as reactions here. 

For instance, in January the Pentagon reported on a predawn raid by our troops on a place called Hazar Qadam. The Pentagon reported they killed 15  and captured 17. A couple of the dead Afghans had their hands taped behind their back with tape that had  USA in big letters on it.

On that raid, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that there were no Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters among those captured or killed. According to him, the American servicemen made no mistake; they were just fed incorrect intelligence about who occupied the site.

He explained that in that type of raid, our troops are trained to tape the hands of the wounded behind their back and move on. In this raid's case, the wounded either died from their wounds or were dead when they were taped. That's the Pentagon's version. 

The governor of that province stated that 60 people died in that raid, not 15. Both of those versions were aired by the media and TV to both our audience and  Muslims around the world. 

Which version are the Muslims going to believe? Will they believe Rumsfeld about the number killed and the reason for taping the hands behind their back? I don't think so. Gallup's poll found that 61 percent of the Muslims surveyed didn't even believe that Arabs hijacked the planes that caused 9/11.

The  L.A. Times reported that  a young soldier in the new Afghan army stated that, "It's better for the Americans to leave our country and go back to their own country."

He also said, "The Americans are cruel. They kill 20 Afghans for one al-Qaeda member. Yes, of course they  have enemies."

That youngster's comments shows that as we kill off  hardcore al-Qaeda members and innocent Afghans, we  are enlarging the  pool from which new al-Qaedan types  will be drawn. Israel's actions against the Palestinians are doing the same. Both actions are creating more individuals who have decided to die for something  positive to them--killing Israelis or Americans.