All these years later, I still remember the bully from third grade: Trey Shelton.
Trey was the son of a well-to-do businessman in my hometown, and he lived down the street from me, in a sprawling estate that took up the end of our cul-de-sac and wrapped around behind the other houses on the street. They had a large ranch-style house, a big barn with horses, a pond…in other words, pretty much anything that a young boy could possibly want. Growing up in this environment, one would think that Trey would have been perfectly content, but for some reason, he wasn’t. He was a bully.
Trey would pick on anyone, anytime...verbal abuse, physical threat, and finally, if lesser abuse failed to evoke the desired response, physical attack. To a third-grader, Trey Shelton was terrorism.
Placating him had no long-term effect. Being nice to him, giving him your lunch money, sharing your dessert, might keep him off your back for a day, maybe two, but the reprieve was always short-lived. In fact, such tactics tended to be counterproductive, because when he felt the urge to bully, your face was fresh in his memory, and he would seek you out like a guided missile. Avoiding him altogether was no good either, because then he knew that you were afraid of him, and fear is to a bully as blood is to a shark.
Trey was not just mean, he was devious too. At one point, I attempted to befriend him, and joined him in play at his barn, horses, pond, and land on at least one occasion. He quickly tired of his friendly charade, though, and reverted to his bullying ways. On one occasion, he and his cronies came to my house and were friendly just long enough to get me behind some new construction across the street, at which point they knocked me off of my bike and began beating on me. Anyone who thinks people are basically good, never met Trey Shelton.
After almost three years of failed attempts, I finally hit upon the solution. I was flying a kite when Trey happened by and decided that I was a prime target, and the net result of his subsequent efforts was that I lost my kite. My favorite kite. In raw anger, I chased him down and pelted him with rocks until he ran home, bleeding and crying like a baby. He never bothered me again.
He kept on bothering others, though. Several years later, Trey was riding his motorcycle across someone else’s land--someone who had warned him against trespassing--and that someone picked up a rifle and shot Trey, dead. Friends and relatives were distraught over this “senseless crime,” but I could find nothing senseless about it. The harsh reality was that Trey brought it upon himself, and the world was a little friendlier place with him gone. Sadly, another boy who was riding with Trey was also shot, and was crippled for life.
If a bully cannot be placated through reason or kindness, no amount of money will do the job. History is replete with examples of protection rackets that were anything but. Ultimately, the only way to handle that sort of bully is with a bullet.
by Uzi Mahnaimi, Doha
London Sunday Times
May 1, 2005
The government of Qatar is paying millions of pounds a year to Al-Qaeda in return for an undertaking to spare it from further terrorist attacks, official sources in the wealthy Gulf state claimed last week.
The money, paid to spiritual leaders sympathetic to Al-Qaeda, is believed to be helping to fund its activities in Iraq. In a recent message broadcast via the internet, Osama Bin Laden told followers that operations in Iraq were costing Al-Qaeda more than £500,000 a month.
The sources said a deal between Qatar and Al-Qaeda was first made before the 2003 invasion of Iraq amid fears that the oil state, a close ally of Washington, could become a terrorist target. The US Central Command for the invasion was based in Qatar.
A senior government source said that the agreement was renewed in March after an Egyptian suicide bomber--thought to be associated with Al-Qaeda--struck a theatre in Doha, Qatar's capital, killing a British teacher during a performance of Twelfth Night.
"We're not sure that the attack was carried out by Al-Qaeda, but we ratified our agreement just to be on the safe side," said a Qatari official. "We are a soft target and prefer to pay to secure our national and economical interests. We are not the only ones doing so."
Qatar is one of the richest Gulf states and many of its 840,000 inhabitants have a high standard of living. It is also an important base for business. Al-Qaeda would not be the first terrorist organisation to take protection money in the Arab world. During the 1970s and 1980s Arab rulers paid extremist groups such as the Abu Nidal organisation.
The financial pressures on Al-Qaeda would be a great incentive for it to offer protection to anybody willing to pay. But the deal with Qatar is not purely financial. Qatar has offered a haven for a number of extremists. Federal prosecutors in Miami recently indicted Kifah Jayyousi, a former Detroit school administrator, on charges of conspiring to murder, kidnap, and maim people in other countries, and of providing financial support to Islamic jihadists overseas. He was arrested at a Detroit airport after returning from Qatar.
Security in Qatar is noticeably relaxed compared with that in many Gulf states. While patrol cars and armed men are seen throughout much of the Arab world, they are not obvious in Doha. Even around hotels there are few guards. Locals in brand-new German and Japanese cars drive freely along the city's wide boulevards.
But it may not be advisable to be too complacent. Al-Qaeda was widely believed at one time to have an unwritten pact with Saudi Arabia. If so, the deal lasted only until it suited the organisation to renege.
[If this story is true, then the Qatari people are being dishonored by their own government. -jg]