What's in a name?

The recent alleged demise of Osama bin Laden serves to rekindle old memories of his political heyday during which the moniker of “great Satan” was evoked as a collective description of the United States by the Muslim world. In retrospect, and from an Arab perspective, there may be more “truth in labeling” here than meets the eye.

We may have made a critical, if not fatal, miscalculation where Islam is concerned, because Muslims have historically approached their religion with deadly devotion, whereas obviously we currently do not. And rather than confine our burgeoning national depravity within our own borders, we have, with typical unmitigated American arrogance and wrongheaded “chutzpah” peddled our infanticide, same-gender perversion and Internet porn literally to the nations.

In so doing, we have aroused the unflinching ire of a people considerably more devout than we. The proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, however, was undoubtedly the Iraqi Abu Gharib prison scandal. The sensibilities of the entire Islamic community were offended, and rightly so.

It also indicates the battle unreadiness of a previously feminized, currently homosexualized, increasingly demoralized U.S. military, where the No. 1 social problem, according to two top Defense Department officials, is illegitimate pregnancy, and soon, AIDS. Go figure.

Any impending comeuppance enacted by the Arab world upon us will be viewed as thoroughly justified and long overdue. Hence the label, “great Satan” demands the rhetorical question which begs to be asked, “What's in a name?” Everything.

Wendell Carr

Ottumwa