Several colonels debated overthrowing the General. After all, oil prices were falling, and like so many third-world nations, they produced nothing else of benefit to anyone else on the planet. There was no industry in Idra. There was a steel mill once. They had brought it from Czechoslovakia. The steel would build homes and hospitals, tanks and guns. But when the Czechs left, it just rusted away, like all the weapons the Idrans bought from outside.
Thus, while there were demonstrations in London and Europe over the American bombing, and while several American columnists were screaming daily that bombing Idra did no good-it could not stop terrorism, they said-the General was almost overthrown.
A group of colonels stormed to his desert sanctuary. They all drove in their Mercedes-Benz sedans. There were fifteen thousand colonels in the Idra Islamic Revolutionary Socialist Defense Forces, roughly a third of all the military. The rest were mostly generals. But if one was a general he didn't have to leave his French-built air-conditioned home. Therefore the colonels did all the dirty work, like driving out to the desert to discuss the basic issue of Idra-what had they gotten for their oil money but American bombs?
General Moomas, a handsome man with curly hair and dark penetrating eyes, had not become a revolutionary leader without being able to handle a mob. He invited the entire fifteen thousand colonels to a traditional bedouin feast of lamb, so that from his hand to their mouths would only be sustenance.
General Moomas knew he could provide this traditional feast. A ship from New Zealand had docked just three weeks before and that meant plenty of lamb. Considering Korean stevedores had just arrived to offload, and an army of French cooks had just signed on for the Idra marines, and Italian mechanics were always on hand for the trucks, this traditional feast was now possible.
In years past, Idra women could outcook an army of Paris chefs, using only the meager fare of the Idra desert. But their skills had been lost during modernization, when they were assigned to learn computers and physics and all the things the Idra men found to be beyond them and assigned elsewhere to another gender. Since there was only one other gender in Idra, cooking fell, like all the dirty work for thousands of years, on the women, some of whom actually did become proficient in those subjects and promptly left for London, where they could find work other than posing for news cameras to show how modern Idra was.
Now, as the fragrant aroma of lamb roasting in a thousand imported ovens filled the cold night desert air, General Moomas confronted his brethren to offer an accounting of where all the billions had gone.
"I know I promised you the best air defense money could buy, and look now, American navy air has penetrated those defenses. But I ask you, who would have thought the Russians would flee their posts in our hour of need?"
"I would," said one colonel.
"Then would you have operated the missiles?" asked the General.
There was silence in the desert. Only the mutterings of the French cooks preparing the traditional sweet desserts could be heard.
The desserts were never as good as their wives and mothers used to make, but the French came as close to Idran cooking as Moroccans or Syrians.
Another colonel rose, and this one held a submachine gun. He did not blanch at the guards who outnumbered him and obviously had him in their sights.
"I am a Moslem," he said. "I obey. I obey the teachings of the Koran. I believe there is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet. I do not believe in killing innocents. I do believe in fighting evil and I do not consider a bomb in a car that will kill any passerby a heroic act of virtue. I thought throwing a man in a wheelchair off a ship was cowardly and disgraceful. If that helps the Palestinian cause, to hell with the Palestinian cause."
There was grumbling like a low volcano from the fifteen thousand that night. Fingers on the triggers of guns aimed at his head closed ever so slightly. If the General hiccuped, the colonel would be dead. General Moomas raised a hand to silence his officers.
"What is bad about killing a crippled Jew who was a Zionist anyway because he was headed for Israel? It is no crime to kill Zionists."
"It is a dishonor to kill the defenseless," said the colonel.
And here the General laughed. He ordered his aides to bring him American newspapers, and taking one from Washington and one from Boston, read the words of columnists who, every time a pregnant woman was put on board a plane with a bomb to blow herself and the passengers out of the sky, every time a crippled man was thrown off a liner along with his wheelchair, every time someone set off a bomb in a nightclub, or hospital, or nursery in honor of the Palestinian cause, these columnists blamed Israel.
"Only when the root cause of terrorism is erased will terrorism end, and the root cause is the lack of a Palestinian homeland."
There was applause that night in the desert encampment, but the lone colonel continued to speak out.
"There was killing of innocents and kidnapping of innocents long before there was talk of a Palestinian state. Who here thinks it is really honorable to kill women and children and old men to achieve your ends? I am for obliterating Israel. But not for any Palestinians-for us. They have humiliated us in battle. I say we should humiliate them the same way. Not kill old men in wheelchairs and women pregnant with our babies."
"But in the great universities there are many teaching that we are in the right, that the West is decadent and must be overthrown by revolution," said the General. "We are winning the war of propaganda."
"Which is what? What others think of us?"
"Soon, America will turn against Israel, and without American arms, Israel will be weak, and then we shall destroy the Zionist entity."
"They survived all our armies at their birth. They were weak then."
"And so were we. But when we destroy Israel, we shall ride into Jerusalem in glory."
"Who here believes that?" yelled out the young colonel. "Who here really believes we are going to do that? Who here believes we will even fight another war against Israel? I do not care about Israel. Let it burn in hell. I do not care about the Palestinians, as I know you, my brothers, care not also. What I do care about is us. We were once a proud and great people. Our armies fought with honor. We won great victories. We could show mercy because we were strong. We were a haven for people because we were tolerant of those who followed the Book. What have we become now, killers of old men? We think it is all right because some Americans who hate their own country and their allies think any abomination is acceptable.
"We were great before the Europeans arrived in America. We were great while Europeans were living in stone buildings and butchering each other in little feudal kingdoms. The Arab world was truly the home of great learning, and military courage, and honor that was a beacon of enlightenment, not a torch in every part of the world where Islam is taught. We are an honorable people. Why do we allow ourselves to be known for infamy?"
"The Zionists control the media. They tell lies about us."
"It is not Zionist lies I care about, but the truth. And the truth is that we buy our weapons and we buy the people to operate them, and when trouble comes, the foreigners leave us to the bombs of the enemies. That is what I speak of."
"Can you do better?"
"I most certainly can. The first thing we must do is learn to fight a war. If we can't use a weapon ourselves, we won't have the Chinese or North Koreans or Russians use it for us. We will only fight with what we can use ourselves. We will give up our fancy cars, our fancy expense accounts in European hotels, and we will go back to the desert and become an army. And then we will fight our enemies-honorably. We shall give succor to the weak, mercy to the innocent, and honor to our arms."
"And what if we lose?" asked the General.
"Is death so bitter that you fear it more than losing your souls? Is defeat in honorable battle more shameful than impregnating a woman and using her as a living bomb with your unborn child, and worse, having it all planned by some of your generals? Are the words of the decadent West so appealing in your ears that they can deny you your heritage of tolerance and courage, just because you attack their enemies? Where are the Arabs who beat the Frankish knights? Who ground the Hindu armies into submission? Who turned Egypt from a Christian country to an Islamic one? Where are those who civilized Spain? Where, where, where?"
The General, seeing this colonel was reaching the hearts of his men where not even a new car or fine imported food could venture, understood he was losing. And to lose an argument in Idra meant losing your life.
He knew almost every colonel in the country, and he couldn't quite recognize that one.
The man was bearded, with a thickish neck. He stood quite proud. The General would have followed him himself after that speech, which is why he knew the colonel had to die.
"You speak well. You speak with courage. I am promoting you to general and making you leader of any force you wish to use to attack Israel. You may stab the Zionist snake right in the belly. Your weapons will be waiting for you offshore, or in Haifa, or Tel Aviv, or any Zionist city you care to name. Good luck. Good hunting, take any volunteers you wish. Any of you who wish to go with our new general, feel free. There will be bonuses."
And with that, the General went into his tent. He took his most trusted adviser into conference, and there whispered to him:
"He will not get followers, of course. No one is going to give up his Mercedes to die. They wouldn't give up their Mercedeses for Toyotas, let alone Israeli bullets. When he fails to get followers for the mission, tell him you will join him. Tell him you have a fine house in the capital you wish to give him for his courage. He will not trust you but he cannot turn down your house, after all. When he comes to dinner, poison him."
"Will he not suspect something?"
"Will he will suspect something. But the beauty of our plan is that a house is too valuable to refuse to look at. He will think he can fool us by convincing us he believes our story, and then try to kill us shortly thereafter when he thinks we think he is fooled. Do you understand, O brother?"
"No one is smarter than you, O brother and leader."
"I am not the leader because grass grows on my forehead." General Moomas smiled.
But suddenly there was cheering from outside. Guns were fired into the air. War shrieks were heard. Columns of men were marching through the scrub and sand of the Idra desert. And to the General's vast relief, they were not marching toward him. They were marching toward the sea. They had left their Mercedeses behind, their lamb dinners served on Royal Doulton china, their almost-Arab desserts. A cry was heard and echoed through the hard night: "Let us die at the gates of Jerusalem."
The General had often ended speeches like that. He would end them and then go home to his air-conditioned palace, and the cheering mobs would go to their homes, and they would all live another day to hear the same words.
But no one was going home. No one was even bothering to drive his Mercedes.
"They will tire in a half-mile and come back to their cars. Then I will tell them they are the real revolutionary heroes and any fools who continue to march with that colonel, excuse me, general, are not heading for Jerusalem, but death. The real road to Jerusalem is through my leadership."
But no one came back that evening or the next evening. The General heard the colonels had organized themselves into platoons and battalions. They trained without comforts. They marched in the desert heat, and if they did not know how to fix a vehicle, they did not use it. Eventually two things happened. Some vehicles were abandoned but others were made to work. The Idran soldiers even became proficient at tank warfare. They did not bother with revolutionary speeches, but learned their weapons, discovered their new leaders, and prepared to live or die in battle.