Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: 9/11

  • Are We at War?

    Robin Theurkauf’s husband died in the attack on the World Trade Center. Even as she grieves, she has issued this call to look beyond military options.

    My husband, Tom Theurkauf lost his life in the World Trade Center disaster. We all direct our grief in different ways, this is mine.

    I offer these thoughts both as a new widow and mother of three fatherless boys as well as a scholar of international law and politics.

    We used to know what war was. It was the opposite of peace. Wars took place between states each with armies in uniforms and a hierarchical command structure. States went to war over territory or more recently over ideology. It is a legal status. One must declare it. At war’s conclusion, we come to a peace agreement and return to a non-war condition.

    This seems different. The enemy stays in the shadows even as they live among us, organised in loosely connected cells. No state has declared war against us, at least in the familiar way. The action was designed to spread fear and hate and so we are not entirely sure what would be required to end this conflict.

    As we assemble a military platform in the Persian Gulf it is worth considering the fact that while political scientists know very few things with any confidence, there is substantial consensus on at least one relevant point. While this attack was intended to provoke, responding in kind will only escalate the violence. Further, if we succumb to the understandable impulse to injure as we have been injured and in the process create even newer widows and fatherless children, perhaps we will deserve what we get.

    Some have made the analogy to the attack on Pearl Harbour and in at least one way it is appropriate. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbour, thousands of young men volunteered to join the military. I can only imagine the success of radical Islam’s recruiters after our bombs fall on their heads.

    If not ‘war’, what words should we use? I think a better name is ‘international crime’. Restating the problems refocuses the solution.

    In the short term, the first priority should be to hunt down and arrest the criminals with the goal of achieving justice, not revenge. This is a task left not to the military but to investigative police forces, who can prepare for a trial.

    Ordinary Americans also can take steps to fight back against this evil. We can combat fear and hate in part by reaching out to Muslims in our communities and by patronising Arab businesses. This show of solidarity will in part thwart these criminals’ purpose of creating division in American communities.

    In the long term, eradicating terrorism will require the elimination not of a group of people but rather of a set of ideas. Paradoxically, eliminating the people will reinforce and further legitimise the ideas. Terrorist impulses ferment in cultures of poverty, oppression and ignorance. The elimination of those conditions and the active promotion of a universal respect for human rights must become a national security priority.

    Finally, the United States as a matter of policy must recognise and accept our vulnerability. In today’s hyper-militarised environment, no state can ensure security within its borders without the cooperation of others.

    The Bush administration’s unilateralism has been revealed to be hollow. Rather than infringe on our sovereignty, international institutions enhance our ability to perform the functions of national government, including the ability to fight international crime.

    Bombing Afghanistan today will not prevent tomorrow’s tragedy. We must look beyond military options for long term solutions.

    * Robin Therkauf is a lecturer in the political science department at Yale University. Professor Robin Therkauf lost her husband Tom in the attacks on the World Trade Centre on 11 September. She has spoken out against war and for justice, not vengeance.

    ****************************

    Interview on the Today programme, BBC Radio 4, Tuesday, 2 October 2001 Professor Robin Therkauf

    ‘What we need less of is war rhetoric and war against Afghanistan in particular, and to explore the possibility of a judicial solution…

    ‘The last thing I wanted was for more widows and fatherless children to be created in my name. It would only produce a backlash.

    ‘As the victim of violence, I’d never want this to happen to another woman again.’

  • Some Points on Terrorism

    Here are some points in connection with U.S. reaction to the September 11 terrorist attacks:

    Atrocious crimes have been committed. It is right to make every effort to bring the perpetrators to justice.

    This effort should be aimed at justice, not undiscriminating revenge.

    Holding the perpetrators accountable and bringing them to public trial before a suitable tribunal will disseminate the lessons to be drawn from these atrocities and act as a deterrent for the future.

    If it is demonstrated that governments as well as terrorist groups are implicated, then responsible persons in those governments should be named and their delivery to a tribunal demanded, as the U.S. has done with Osama bin Laden and his collaborators.

    All anti-terrorist actions of the United States should clearly show that the U.S. is holding specific individuals accountable for specific reasons and should avoid blanket accusations and indiscriminate death and injury. U.S. actions should not create future terrorists.

    The use of military force should only be a last resort, should be limited to the purpose of bringing presumed perpetrators to justice, and should be visibly related to that purpose.

    The UN Security Council resolution of September 12, 2001 proposed by the United States and passed with its vote makes explicit this point of bringing individuals to justice. Paragraph 3 of the resolution states: “[The UN Security Council] Calls on all States to work together urgently to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these terrorist attacks and stresses that those responsible for aiding, supporting or harbouring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these acts will be held accountable.”

    We must study the sources and causes of terrorist motivation. Information thus far available shows that most of the nineteen perpetrators of the September 11 hijackings were educated men from fairly solid middle class families, not unemployed residents of refugee camps. In conducting this study, we must be as balanced as possible, including in the study U.S. actions and policies that might have contributed, but also considering all other pertinent sources of motivation.

    Because it is already widely known that one important source of Muslim resentment against the USA is U.S. support for Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, we should urge the administration to develop an equitable and practical plan for resolving this confrontation, perhaps based on the last stage of the Barak-Arafat negotiations before their collapse, and to press this plan systematically on both Israelis and Palestinians. The time has come for both, in the interest of world security and their own security, to agree to a plan for reconciling their differences.

    We also need an administration action plan to alleviate the plight of the Iraqi civilian population under UN sanctions.

    We should continue to remind the Administration and the U.S. public of the relevance of the UN role in combating terrorism.

    This is a time of high emotions with much pressure for unity and uniformity. It entails a risk here that the American public and the Congress may be stampeded into unwise actions. We should insist that all decisions on terrorism be approached with reflection and best judgment. All U.S. citizens should insist on retaining the right to draw their own conclusions and to use their own judgment.

    This point is especially applicable to proposals to limit political freedoms inside the U.S. and for military action abroad.

  • The Algebra of Infinite Justice

    In the aftermath of the unconscionable September 11 suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre, an American newscaster said: “Good and evil rarely manifest themselves as clearly as they did last Tuesday. People who we don’t know massacred people who we do. And they did so with contemptuous glee.” Then he broke down and wept.

    Here’s the rub: America is at war against people it doesn’t know, because they don’t appear much on TV. Before it has properly identified or even begun to comprehend the nature of its enemy, the US government has, in a rush of publicity and embarrassing rhetoric, cobbled together an “international coalition against terror”, mobilised its army, its air force, its navy and its media, and committed them to battle. The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can’t very well return without having fought one. If it doesn’t find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we’ll lose sight of why it’s being fought in the first place.

    What we’re witnessing here is the spectacle of the world’s most powerful country reaching reflexively, angrily, for an old instinct to fight a new kind of war. Suddenly, when it comes to defending itself, America’s streamlined warships, cruise missiles and F-16 jets look like obsolete, lumbering things. As deterrence, its arsenal of nuclear bombs is no longer worth its weight in scrap. Box-cutters, penknives, and cold anger are the weapons with which the wars of the new century will be waged. Anger is the lock pick. It slips through customs unnoticed. Doesn’t show up in baggage checks. Who is America fighting? On September 20, the FBI said that it had doubts about the identities of some of the hijackers. On the same day President George Bush said, “We know exactly who these people are and which governments are supporting them.” It sounds as though the president knows something that the FBI and the American public don’t.

    In his September 20 address to the US Congress, President Bush called the enemies of America “enemies of freedom”. “Americans are asking, ‘Why do they hate us?’ ” he said. “They hate our freedoms-our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.” People are being asked to make two leaps of faith here. First, to assume that The Enemy is who the US government says it is, even though it has no substantial evidence to support that claim. And second, to assume that The Enemy’s motives are what the US government says they are, and there’s nothing to support that either. For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is vital for the US government to persuade its public that their commitment to freedom and democracy and the American Way of Life is under attack. In the current atmosphere of grief, outrage and anger, it’s an easy notion to peddle.

    However, if that were true, it’s reasonable to wonder why the symbols of America’s economic and military dominance -the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon-were chosen as the targets of the attacks. Why not the Statue of Liberty? Could it be that the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US government’s record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things-to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide (outside America)? It must be hard for ordinary Americans, so recently bereaved, to look up at the world with their eyes full of tears and encounter what might appear to them to be indifference. It isn’t indifference. It’s just augury. An absence of surprise. The tired wisdom of knowing that what goes around eventually comes around. American people ought to know that it is not them but their government’s policies that are so hated. They can’t possibly doubt that they themselves, their extraordinary musicians, their writers, their actors, their spectacular sportsmen and their cinema, are universally welcomed. All of us have been moved by the courage and grace shown by firefighters, rescue workers and ordinary office staff in the days since the attacks.

    America’s grief at what happened has been immense and immensely public. It would be grotesque to expect it to calibrate or modulate its anguish. However, it will be a pity if, instead of using this as an opportunity to try to understand why September 11 happened, Americans use it as an opportunity to usurp the whole world’s sorrow to mourn and avenge only their own. Because then it falls to the rest of us to ask the hard questions and say the harsh things. And for our pains, for our bad timing, we will be disliked, ignored and perhaps eventually silenced. The world will probably never know what motivated those particular hijackers who flew planes into those particular American buildings. They were not glory boys. They left no suicide notes, no political messages; no organisation has claimed credit for the attacks. All we know is that their belief in what they were doing outstripped the natural human instinct for survival, or any desire to be remembered. It’s almost as though they could not scale down the enormity of their rage to anything smaller than their deeds. And what they did has blown a hole in the world as we knew it. In the absence of information, politicians, political commentators and writers (like myself) will invest the act with their own politics, with their own interpretations. This speculation, this analysis of the political climate in which the attacks took place, can only be a good thing.

    But war is looming large. Whatever remains to be said must be said quickly. Before America places itself at the helm of the “international coalition against terror”, before it invites (and coerces) countries to actively participate in its almost godlike mission-called Operation Infinite Justice until it was pointed out that this could be seen as an insult to Muslims, who believe that only Allah can mete out infinite justice, and was renamed Operation Enduring Freedom-it would help if some small clarifications are made. For example, Infinite Justice/Enduring Freedom for whom? Is this America’s war against terror in America or against terror in general? What exactly is being avenged here? Is it the tragic loss of almost 7,000 lives, the gutting of five million square feet of office space in Manhattan, the destruction of a section of the Pentagon, the loss of several hundreds of thousands of jobs, the bankruptcy of some airline companies and the dip in the New York Stock Exchange? Or is it more than that?

    In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then the US secretary of state, was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US economic sanctions. She replied that it was “a very hard choice”, but that, all things considered, “we think the price is worth it”. Albright never lost her job for saying this. She continued to travel the world representing the views and aspirations of the US government. More pertinently, the sanctions against Iraq remain in place. Children continue to die. So here we have it. The equivocating distinction between civilisation and savagery, between the “massacre of innocent people” or, if you like, “a clash of civilisations” and “collateral damage”. The sophistry and fastidious algebra of infinite justice. How many dead Iraqis will it take to make the world a better place? How many dead Afghans for every dead American? How many dead women and children for every dead man? How many dead mojahedin for each dead investment banker? As we watch mesmerised, Operation Enduring Freedom unfolds on TV monitors across the world. A coalition of the world’s superpowers is closing in on Afghanistan, one of the poorest, most ravaged, war-torn countries in the world, whose ruling Taliban government is sheltering Osama bin Laden, the man being held responsible for the September 11 attacks.

    The only thing in Afghanistan that could possibly count as collateral value is its citizenry. (Among them, half a million maimed orphans.There are accounts of hobbling stampedes that occur when artificial limbs are airdropped into remote, inaccessible villages.) Afghanistan’s economy is in a shambles. In fact, the problem for an invading army is that Afghanistan has no conventional coordinates or signposts to plot on a military map-no big cities, no highways, no industrial complexes, no water treatment plants. Farms have been turned into mass graves. The countryside is littered with land mines-10 million is the most recent estimate. The American army would first have to clear the mines and build roads in order to take its soldiers in. Fearing an attack from America, one million citizens have fled from their homes and arrived at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The UN estimates that there are eight million Afghan citizens who need emergency aid. As supplies run out-food and aid agencies have been asked to leave-the BBC reports that one of the worst humanitarian disasters of recent times has begun to unfold. Witness the infinite justice of the new century.

    Civilians starving to death while they’re waiting to be killed. In America there has been rough talk of “bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age”. Someone please break the news that Afghanistan is already there. And if it’s any consolation, America played no small part in helping it on its way. The American people may be a little fuzzy about where exactly Afghanistan is (we hear reports that there’s a run on maps of the country), but the US government and Afghanistan are old friends. In 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) launched the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA. Their purpose was to harness the energy of Afghan resistance to the Soviets and expand it into a holy war, an Islamic jihad, which would turn Muslim countries within the Soviet Union against the communist regime and eventually destabilise it. When it began, it was meant to be the Soviet Union’s Vietnam. It turned out to be much more than that. Over the years, through the ISI, the CIA funded and recruited almost 100,000 radical mojahedin from 40 Islamic countries as soldiers for America’s proxy war. The rank and file of the mojahedin were unaware that their jihad was actually being fought on behalf of Uncle Sam. (The irony is that America was equally unaware that it was financing a future war against itself.) In 1989, after being bloodied by 10 years of relentless conflict, the Russians withdrew, leaving behind a civilisation reduced to rubble. Civil war in Afghanistan raged on. The jihad spread to Chechnya, Kosovo and eventually to Kashmir. The CIA continued to pour in money and military equipment, but the overheads had become immense, and more money was needed. The mojahedin ordered farmers to plant opium as a “revolutionary tax”. The ISI set up hundreds of heroin laboratories across Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA’s arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland had become the biggest producer of heroin in the world, and the single biggest source of the heroin on American streets. The annual profits, said to be between $100bn and $200bn, were ploughed back into training and arming militants.

    In 1995, the Taliban-then a marginal sect of dangerous, hardline fundamentalists-fought its way to power in Afghanistan. It was funded by the ISI, that old cohort of the CIA, and supported by many political parties in Pakistan. The Taliban unleashed a regime of terror. Its first victims were its own people, particularly women. It closed down girls’ schools, dismissed women from government jobs, and enforced sharia laws under which women deemed to be “immoral” are stoned to death, and widows guilty of being adulterous are buried alive. Given the Taliban government’s human rights track record, it seems unlikely that it will in any way be intimidated or swerved from its purpose by the prospect of war, or the threat to the lives of its civilians. After all that has happened, can there be anything more ironic than Russia and America joining hands to re-destroy Afghanistan? The question is, can you destroy destruction? Dropping more bombs on Afghanistan will only shuffle the rubble, scramble some old graves and disturb the dead.

    The desolate landscape of Afghanistan was the burial ground of Soviet communism and the springboard of a unipolar world dominated by America. It made the space for neocapitalism and corporate globalisation, again dominated by America. And now Afghanistan is poised to become the graveyard for the unlikely soldiers who fought and won this war for America. And what of America’s trusted ally? Pakistan too has suffered enormously. The US government has not been shy of supporting military dictators who have blocked the idea of democracy from taking root in the country. Before the CIA arrived, there was a small rural market for opium in Pakistan. Between 1979 and 1985, the number of heroin addicts grew from zero to one-and-a-half million. Even before September 11, there were three million Afghan refugees living in tented camps along the border. Pakistan’s economy is crumbling. Sectarian violence, globalisation’s structural adjustment programmes and drug lords are tearing the country to pieces. Set up to fight the Soviets, the terrorist training centres and madrasahs, sown like dragon’s teeth across the country, produced fundamentalists with tremendous popular appeal within Pakistan itself. The Taliban, which the Pakistan government has sup ported, funded and propped up for years, has material and strategic alliances with Pakistan’s own political parties.

    Now the US government is asking (asking?) Pakistan to garotte the pet it has hand-reared in its backyard for so many years. President Musharraf, having pledged his support to the US, could well find he has something resembling civil war on his hands. India, thanks in part to its geography, and in part to the vision of its former leaders, has so far been fortunate enough to be left out of this Great Game. Had it been drawn in, it’s more than likely that our democracy, such as it is, would not have survived. Today, as some of us watch in horror, the Indian government is furiously gyrating its hips, begging the US to set up its base in India rather than Pakistan. Having had this ringside view of Pakistan’s sordid fate, it isn’t just odd, it’s unthinkable, that India should want to do this. Any third world country with a fragile economy and a complex social base should know by now that to invite a superpower such as America in (whether it says it’s staying or just passing through) would be like inviting a brick to drop through your windscreen.

    Operation Enduring Freedom is ostensibly being fought to uphold the American Way of Life. It’ll probably end up undermining it completely. It will spawn more anger and more terror across the world. For ordinary people in America, it will mean lives lived in a climate of sickening uncertainty: will my child be safe in school? Will there be nerve gas in the subway? A bomb in the cinema hall? Will my love come home tonight? There have been warnings about the possibility of biological warfare -smallpox, bubonic plague, anthrax-the deadly payload of innocuous crop-duster aircraft. Being picked off a few at a time may end up being worse than being annihilated all at once by a nuclear bomb.

    The US government, and no doubt governments all over the world, will use the climate of war as an excuse to curtail civil liberties, deny free speech, lay off workers, harass ethnic and religious minorities, cut back on public spending and divert huge amounts of money to the defence industry. To what purpose? President Bush can no more “rid the world of evil-doers” than he can stock it with saints. It’s absurd for the US government to even toy with the notion that it can stamp out terrorism with more violence and oppression. Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease. Terrorism has no country. It’s transnational, as global an enterprise as Coke or Pepsi or Nike. At the first sign of trouble, terrorists can pull up stakes and move their “factories” from country to country in search of a better deal. Just like the multi-nationals. Terrorism as a phenomenon may never go away. But if it is to be contained, the first step is for America to at least acknowledge that it shares the planet with other nations, with other human beings who, even if they are not on TV, have loves and griefs and stories and songs and sorrows and, for heaven’s sake, rights. Instead, when Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, was asked what he would call a victory in America’s new war, he said that if he could convince the world that Americans must be allowed to continue with their way of life, he would consider it a victory. The September 11 attacks were a monstrous calling card from a world gone horribly wrong. The message may have been written by Bin Laden (who knows?) and delivered by his couriers, but it could well have been signed by the ghosts of the victims of America’s old wars. The millions killed in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia, the 17,500 killed when Israel-backed by the US-invaded Lebanon in 1982, the 200,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. And the millions who died, in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and genocidists whom the American government supported, trained, bankrolled and supplied with arms. And this is far from being a comprehensive list. For a country involved in so much warfare and conflict, the American people have been extremely fortunate.

    The strikes on September 11 were only the second on American soil in over a century. The first was Pearl Harbour. The reprisal for this took a long route, but ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This time the world waits with bated breath for the horrors to come. Someone recently said that if Osama bin Laden didn’t exist, America would have had to invent him. But, in a way, America did invent him. He was among the jihadis who moved to Afghanistan in 1979 when the CIA commenced its operations there. Bin Laden has the distinction of being created by the CIA and wanted by the FBI. In the course of a fortnight he has been promoted from suspect to prime suspect and then, despite the lack of any real evidence, straight up the charts to being “wanted dead or alive”. From all accounts, it will be impossible to produce evidence (of the sort that would stand scrutiny in a court of law) to link Bin Laden to the September 11 attacks. So far, it appears that the most incriminating piece of evidence against him is the fact that he has not condemned them. From what is known about the location of Bin Laden and the living conditions in which he operates, it’s entirely possible that he did not personally plan and carry out the attacks-that he is the inspirational figure, “the CEO of the holding company”. The Taliban’s response to US demands for the extradition of Bin Laden has been uncharacteristically reasonable: produce the evidence, then we’ll hand him over. President Bush’s response is that the demand is “non-negotiable”. (While talks are on for the extradition of CEOs-can India put in a side request for the extradition of Warren Anderson of the US? He was the chairman of Union Carbide, responsible for the Bhopal gas leak that killed 16,000 people in 1984. We have collated the necessary evidence. It’s all in the files. Could we have him, please?)

    But who is Osama bin Laden really? Let me rephrase that. What is Osama bin Laden? He’s America’s family secret. He is the American president’s dark doppelganger. The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and civilised. He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by America’s foreign policy: its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its vulgarly stated policy of “full-spectrum dominance”, its chilling disregard for non-American lives, its barbarous military interventions, its support for despotic and dictatorial regimes, its merciless economic agenda that has munched through the economies of poor countries like a cloud of locusts. Its marauding multinationals who are taking over the air we breathe, the ground we stand on, the water we drink, the thoughts we think. Now that the family secret has been spilled, the twins are blurring into one another and gradually becoming interchangeable. Their guns, bombs, money and drugs have been going around in the loop for a while. (The Stinger missiles that will greet US helicopters were supplied by the CIA. The heroin used by America’s drug addicts comes from Afghanistan. The Bush administration recently gave Afghanistan a $43m subsidy for a “war on drugs”.)

    Now Bush and Bin Laden have even begun to borrow each other’s rhetoric. Each refers to the other as “the head of the snake”. Both invoke God and use the loose millenarian currency of good and evil as their terms of reference. Both are engaged in unequivocal political crimes. Both are dangerously armed-one with the nuclear arsenal of the obscenely powerful, the other with the incandescent, destructive power of the utterly hopeless. The fireball and the ice pick. The bludgeon and the axe. The important thing to keep in mind is that neither is an acceptable alternative to the other. President Bush’s ultimatum to the people of the world-“If you’re not with us, you’re against us”-is a piece of presumptuous arrogance. It’s not a choice that people want to, need to, or should have to make.

  • How Can the US Bomb This Tragic People

    We are witnessing this weekend one of the most epic events since the Second World War, certainly since Vietnam. I am not talking about the ruins of the World Trade Centre in New York and the grotesque physical scenes which we watched on 11 September, an atrocity which I described last week as a crime against humanity (of which more later). No, I am referring to the extraordinary, almost unbelievable preparations now under way for the most powerful nation ever to have existed on God’s Earth to bomb the most devastated, ravaged, starvation-haunted and tragic country in the world. Afghanistan, raped and eviscerated by the Russian army for 10 years, abandoned by its friends – us, of course – once the Russians had fled, is about to be attacked by the surviving superpower.

    I watch these events with incredulity, not least because I was a witness to the Russian invasion and occupation. How they fought for us, those Afghans, how they believed our word. How they trusted President Carter when he promised the West’s support. I even met the CIA spook in Peshawar, brandishing the identity papers of a Soviet pilot, shot down with one of our missiles – which had been scooped from the wreckage of his Mig. “Poor guy,” the CIA man said, before showing us a movie about GIs zapping the Vietcong in his private cinema. And yes, I remember what the Soviet officers told me after arresting me at Salang. They were performing their international duty in Afghanistan, they told me. They were “punishing the terrorists” who wished to overthrow the (communist) Afghan government and destroy its people. Sound familiar?

    I was working for The Times in 1980, and just south of Kabul I picked up a very disturbing story. A group of religious mujahedin fighters had attacked a school because the communist regime had forced girls to be educated alongside boys. So they had bombed the school, murdered the head teacher’s wife and cut off her husband’s head. It was all true. But when The Times ran the story, the Foreign Office complained to the foreign desk that my report gave support to the Russians. Of course. Because the Afghan fighters were the good guys. Because Osama bin Laden was a good guy. Charles Douglas-Home, then editor of The Times would always insist that Afghan guerrillas were called “freedom fighters” in the headline. There was nothing you couldn’t do with words.

    And so it is today. President Bush now threatens the obscurantist, ignorant, super-conservative Taliban with the same punishment as he intends to mete out to bin Laden. Bush originally talked about “justice and punishment” and about “bringing to justice” the perpetrators of the atrocities. But he’s not sending policemen to the Middle East; he’s sending B-52s. And F-16s and AWACS planes and Apache helicopters. We are not going to arrest bin Laden. We are going to destroy him. And that’s fine if he’s the guilty man. But B-52s don’t discriminate between men wearing turbans, or between men and women or women and children.

    I wrote last week about the culture of censorship which is now to smother us, and of the personal attacks which any journalist questioning the roots of this crisis endures. Last week, in a national European newspaper, I got a new and revealing example of what this means. I was accused of being anti-American and then informed that anti-Americanism was akin to anti-Semitism. You get the point, of course. I’m not really sure what anti-Americanism is. But criticising the United States is now to be the moral equivalent of Jew-hating. It’s OK to write headlines about “Islamic terror” or my favourite French example “God’s madmen”, but it’s definitely out of bounds to ask why the United States is loathed by so many Arab Muslims in the Middle East. We can give the murderers a Muslim identity: we can finger the Middle East for the crime – but we may not suggest any reasons for the crime.

    But let’s go back to that word justice. Re-watching that pornography of mass-murder in New York, there must be many people who share my view that this was a crime against humanity. More than 6,000 dead; that’s a Srebrenica of a slaughter. Even the Serbs spared most of the women and children when they killed their menfolk. The dead of Srebrenica deserve – and are getting – international justice at the Hague. So surely what we need is an International Criminal Court to deal with the sorts of killer who devastated New York on 11 September. Yet “crime against humanity” is not a phrase we are hearing from the Americans. They prefer “terrorist atrocity”, which is slightly less powerful. Why, I wonder? Because to speak of a terrorist crime against humanity would be a tautology. Or because the US is against international justice. Or because it specifically opposed the creation of an international court on the grounds that its own citizens may one day be arraigned in front of it.

    The problem is that America wants its own version of justice, a concept rooted, it seems, in the Wild West and Hollywood’s version of the Second World War. President Bush speaks of smoking them out, of the old posters that once graced Dodge City: “Wanted, Dead or Alive”. Tony Blair now tells us that we must stand by America as America stood by us in the Second World War. Yes, it’s true that America helped us liberate Western Europe. But in both world wars, the US chose to intervene after only a long and – in the case of the Second World War – very profitable period of neutrality.

    Don’t the dead of Manhattan deserve better than this? It’s less than three years since we launched a 200-Cruise missile attack on Iraq for throwing out the UN arms inspectors. Needless to say, nothing was achieved. More Iraqis were killed, and the UN inspectors never got back, and sanctions continued, and Iraqi children continued to die. No policy, no perspective. Action, not words.

    And that’s where we are today. Instead of helping Afghanistan, instead of pouring our aid into that country 10 years ago, rebuilding its cities and culture and creating a new political centre that would go beyond tribalism, we left it to rot. Sarajevo would be rebuilt. Not Kabul. Democracy, of a kind, could be set up in Bosnia. Not in Afghanistan. Schools could be reopened in Tuzla and Travnik. Not in Jaladabad. When the Taliban arrived, stringing up every opponent, chopping off the arms of thieves, stoning women for adultery, the United States regarded this dreadful outfit as a force for stability after the years of anarchy.

    Bush’s threats have effectively forced the evacuation of every Western aid worker. Already, Afghans are dying because of their absence. Drought and starvation go on killing millions – I mean millions – and between 20 and 25 Afghans are blown up every day by the 10 million mines the Russians left behind. Of course, the Russians never went back to clear the mines. I suppose those B-52 bombs will explode a few of them. But that’ll be the only humanitarian work we’re likely to see in the near future.

    Look at the most startling image of all this past week. Pakistan has closed its border with Afghanistan. So has Iran. The Afghans are to stay in their prison. Unless they make it through Pakistan and wash up on the beaches of France or the waters of Australia or climb through the Channel Tunnel or hijack a plane to Britain to face the wrath of our Home Secretary. In which case, they must be sent back, returned, refused entry. It’s a truly terrible irony that the only man we would be interested in receiving from Afghanistan is the man we are told is the evil genius behind the greatest mass-murder in American history: bin Laden. The others can stay at home and die.

  • Response to the Tragedy of September 11, 2001

    In the aftermath of the terrible shock of the tragic events on Sept. 11, I extend my deepest sympathies to all those affected. From the bottom of my heart, I pray for the victims, and I pray that their families may find inner strength, healing and, eventually, renewed happiness.

    It is impossible not to be outraged at the senseless loss of so many lives. And yet it is not the numbers that make this tragedy so horrific. Every single person lost was irreplaceable and immensely precious — a much-loved sister, father, son, mother or friend. Each individual’s life contained infinite possibilities waiting to be realized. In the most terrible manner imaginable, we have been reminded of the immense value of human life.

    In all its teachings, Buddhism stresses how sacred and precious life — especially human life — is. One scripture reads: ‘A single day of life is worth more than all the treasures of the universe.’ Terrorism, which so cruelly robs people of life, can never be excused or justified by any reason or cause. It is an absolute evil. And when such acts are committed in the name of religion, it demonstrates the utter spiritual bankruptcy of the perpetrators.

    As human beings sharing a common home, we have all been impacted by this terrible deed. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ We must unite across differences of nationality and faith in order to create a world free of injustice, violence and terror.

    I call for a just and equitable international tribunal to be established to try those responsible for acts of terrorism and other crimes against humanity.

    But the struggle against terrorism requires more than short-term international cooperation. It requires a profound reexamination of the nature of human civilization. For much of our history, humanity has been trapped in vicious cycles of hatred and reprisal. We must redouble our efforts to break this cycle and transform distrust into trust. I believe that this is the most effective and fundamental antidote to terrorism and its repugnant worship of violence.

    It is the function of evil to divide; to alienate people from each other and divide one country from another. The universe, this world and our own lives, are the stage for a ceaseless struggle between hatred and compassion, the destructive and constructive aspects of life. We must never let up, confronting evil at every turn.

    This attack was an ultimate manifestation of evil and shows us the vilest depths to which human nature can sink. In the end, the evil over which we must triumph is the impulse toward hatred and destruction that resides in us all.

    Unless we can achieve a fundamental transformation within our own lives, so that we are able to perceive our intimate connection with all our fellow human beings and feel their sufferings as our own, we will never be free of conflict and war. In this sense, I feel that a ‘hard power’ approach, one that relies on military might, will not lead to a long-term, fundamental resolution.

    I believe that dialogue holds the key to any lasting solution. Now, more than ever, we must reach out in a further effort to understand each other and engage in genuine dialogue. Words spoken from the heart have the power to change a person’s life. They can even melt the icy walls of mistrust that separate peoples and nations. We must expand our efforts to promote dialogue between and among civilizations.

    I am utterly convinced that we were not born into this world to hate and destroy each other. We must restore and renew our faith in humanity and in each other. We must never lose sight of the fact that we can still make the 21st century an era free from the flames of war and violence — an era in which all people may live in peace. To this end, we must strive to make a profound reverence for life the prevailing spirit of our times and our planet. I believe that this is the greatest and most enduring way to honor the memory of the victims of this enormous tragedy.”

    Daisaku Ikeda is a Buddhist philosopher, author and peace proponent, and recipient of NAPF’s World Citizen Award. He is also the President of the Soka Gakkai International, a lay Buddhist organization and an NGO with more than 12 million members in 177 countries and territories around the world. A central theme of SGI President Daisaku Ikeda’s works is his probing into the transformative means by which human dignity and peace can be at once accessible and extended to all humanity.

  • Teens Grapple with U.S. Role in Conflict

    Two hours after the first airliner slammed into the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, the International Day of Peace, 24-year-old Leah Catherine Wells walked into her classroom at St. Bonaventure Catholic High School in Ventura, Calif., with a huge challenge before her.

    For the next 50 minutes, Wells, a Georgetown graduate, former high school English and French teacher turned nonviolence advocate, was supposed to teach her daily class on nonviolence.

    It never happened. The half-dozen-plus students who showed for the elective class were “off the wall,” said Wells. “It was bedlam. They were chatterboxes. ‘Did you see this? Did you hear that?’ ”

    Wells, a staff member of the Santa Barbara-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, decided too much was still happening to make classroom discussion possible, so she folded her group into the world history class so they could watch developments on television.

    Her class homework assignment that night was simple: Be patient, be kind.

    Wells herself had an evening appointment in Los Alamitos (see related story).

    The following day, Wells’ students had calmed down. They faced three questions on the chalkboard: “What were your reactions yesterday? How do you respond nonviolently to a situation like this? And WWGD (what would Gandhi do?)”

    NCR sat in on the class with this understanding: no photographs, no last names. There were two Lisas, one in red, one wearing a lei, two Davids, one in red, one in white, Jeff, Paul, Veronica, Debby and Alyssa (with a Mike and a Drew arriving very late indeed, carrying excuse notes).

    There were opening prayers, including one for a dad on military “high alert.”

    In class, the talk went straight to television news reports on Sept. 11 following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

    Students talked about how life had changed the previous day — cops everywhere in cities around the country, tanks stopping people at the nearby U.S. Naval Base, Ventura County, in Port Hueneme.

    “Tanks!” exclaimed one student.

    Dave (in white) said watching television was like watching a movie. The news coverage seemed like the end of the movie “Fight Club.” An unanswered question Wells posed was: How can this be real if it’s like a movie?

    Debby, whose dad is a firefighter, was mindful of the missing rescue workers. “I thought, ‘That could have been my dad if it was here,’ ” she said.

    Wells eased the conversation toward nonviolence. Veronica found it “weird” that the attacks could occur on American soil. “I wonder why they did it,” she said. “Because they are getting back at us? They wouldn’t bomb us for no reason.”

    Paul thought it was a power play, an attack on “the strength of the United States.”

    “They want the power of knowing they can beat us, the power to say, ‘We attacked the U.S. We’re so cool.’ ”

    Wells asked these sophomores, juniors and seniors, “Where has the United States bombed or invaded or stationed troops in your lifetimes?” Various places in the Gulf area, Iraq and Kuwait, Sudan and Afghanistan, all made the list.

    When Wells told them that the United States had bombed Iraq this week and killed eight innocent people, students said, “We did?” “No way.”

    Lisa (with the lei) talked about the inevitable violent reaction: “Now we’ll go kill them. I can understand where that’s coming from, the pain and fear. But if you stop and think about it, that’s doing the same thing we’re so upset about.”

    Dave nodded, and added, “but you can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

    But “We’d be attacking innocent people, too,” countered Lisa (in red).

    “Patriotism comes into it — playing songs, people waving American flags,” she said. “We’re proud of the country. But that’s assuming the people who did this are foreign.”

    Alyssa asked: “When we first decided what nonviolence meant, didn’t we say nonviolent people were strong? So wouldn’t being nonviolent be the strong thing to do?”

    David (in red) echoed the 20th-century American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in his next remark. “Being a nonviolent person, that’s between you and other people,” he said. “It’s different for nations to be nonviolent when faced with violence. This is actual war.” He speculated on the obstacles to nonviolent government.

    Lisa (in red) said that responding with weapons is going to make people “so mad. It’s like getting out a map and saying, ‘Oh, we’ve bombed them before, and they’ve been in our path so let’s just bomb them again.’ ”

    Drew, however, didn’t think America should just bomb. It should then go in and set up “a proper government there. Then there won’t be as much poverty and stuff like that.”

    The buzzer sounded. Class was over. The questions remained on the board.

    *Arthur Jones is NCR editor at large.

  • CNN Hotline: U.S. Shouldn’t React With Military

    Contact the Foundation to order a copy of the CNN Hotline interview with David Krieger on alternative solutions to the use of military force in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks to show at a teach-in or gathering in your community. Cost: $5 per reprint + $2 S/H

    JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Not everybody in the United States supports the idea of responding to the events at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with military action. Dr. David Krieger is the founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He joins us tonight from California. His group is opposed to military retaliation. He has been the president of this organization since 1982, so it’s around awhile.

    Dr. Krieger, nice to have you with us. Thanks for joining us tonight.

    DR. DAVID KRIEGER, FOUNDER, NUCLEAR AGE PEACE FOUNDATION: Thank you. It’s good to be here Jack.

    CAFFERTY: If we don’t use the military, how do we go after this problem? What should this country be doing instead of mustering the armed forces?

    DR. KRIEGER: Well, I think — I think we need to think about what criteria we’re going to apply, if we’re going to use the military and how we’re going to go about responding to what happened on September 11th.

    I think there are three basic criteria that we need to look at for any kind of action that we take. The first is that it must be legal and that means legal under international law, and legal under international law means authorized by the United Nations, probably multilateral. Keep in mind that when the World Trade Centers were attacked, it wasn’t only Americans that died there. It was — it was many people from many countries suffered injuries and loss at the World Trade Center.

    And so, I think — I think whatever is done needs to be done internationally.

    CAFFERTY: All right, doctor, are you talking about passing a resolution at the United Nations that would authorize the use of force or some resolution similar in warning to that, that would kind of green light some sort of response to this.

    DR. KRIEGER: Well, I — yes, I think that — I mean I think we definitely need to go through that process with the United Nations Security Council, and I think that whatever they — whatever decision is taken there, it needs to be more than simply unilateral action on the part of the United States. It needs to be multilateral, made up of many countries.

    But that — but legality is just the first of three criteria that I want to mention to you. The second criteria is that it should be moral and that means that it should not result in the loss of more innocent lives. The third criteria is that it should be thoughtful and by that I mean that it should decrease the cycle of violence, bring it way down, rather than running the risk or in fact, incurring an increase in violence through the use of military force.

    So I think if — I think if we take those three criteria into account, legality, morality and thoughtfulness, and I should add with thoughtfulness that we also need to be thinking about why this happened and why these people are so hateful of the United States.

    CAFFERTY: Let’s get to …

    (CROSSTALK)

    CAFFERTY: Let’s get to that in a moment. Let me — let me ask you, though, about your view of using the military to do this at all. I mean are you of the opinion that the military can accomplish this and if not, who can and what’s the alternative approach to get at this problem with international terrorism?

    DR. KRIEGER: You know, I’m not — I’m not at all sure the military can solve this problem. The military is a pretty blunt instrument. We’ve had a terrible crime has been committed in the United States and as of this moment, we don’t know with certainty who committed that crime.

    I mean I think the first thing — I think a couple of things need to happen before we even begin talking about the military. I think it’s very premature to be talking about war at this point. We need to know who did it. We need to — we need to do what we can to apprehend whoever did it. We — and we need to be paying attention to protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.

    And that’s something that I think is quite different from simply mobilizing our forces and going after somebody who, at this point, we simply suspect of being the perpetuator of these acts.

    CAFFERTY: All right, we’ve got a caller on the phone in Tennessee. Edith (ph), good evening. Welcome to CNN’s hotline. What’s your question?

    EDITH (ph): Actually, it’s more of a comment.

    CAFFERTY: Go ahead.

    EDITH (ph): I am all for military action taken. I need to remind the gentleman who is upsetting me a little bit about the preamble to our Constitution.

    CAFFERTY: Go ahead and remind him. He’s listening.

    EDITH (ph): Can I recite it for him?

    CAFFERTY: Well, quickly yes.

    EDITH (ph): OK.

    DR. KRIEGER: I think I know — I think I know what the preamble says.

    EDITH (ph): Well, we have to secure the blessings of liberty.

    CAFFERTY: All right, what about that? And I’m sure you realize Dr. Krieger that coming on the program at a time like this, that the bulk of public opinion will probably run against you. But, what about …

    (CROSSTALK)

    CAFFERTY: This idea that she raises?

    DR. KRIEGER: The bulk of public opinion may run against me. The polls seem to indicate that, but I’ve certainly talked with a lot of people out there in America who are not eager to jump into a — to try to achieve a military solution …

    CAFFERTY: Right.

    DR. KRIEGER: Which could be a solution that backfires on us. It could be a solution that’s the worse thing in the world for our security.

    CAFFERTY: Also explain how it could backfire.

    DR. KRIEGER: Well, if we send military force in and we kill a lot of other innocent people, that’s going to simply increase the hatred toward the United States. That is not going to diminish the problem that’s occurred here. It’s not — it’s not likely that we can send military force into Afghanistan, as an example, and suspect that we’re going to be able to stop this whole thing.

    We don’t know how many terrorists are still in the United States. We don’t know how many terrorists are still elsewhere.

    CAFFERTY: All right, let’s assume for a minute …

    DR. KRIEGER: We have to break the cycle of hate, and I don’t think the military is capable of doing that.

    CAFFERTY: All right, but let’s assume for a minute that they can compile enough evidence to suggest beyond a reasonable doubt that Osama bin Laden and his colleagues are behind this. Who gets the job done? Who goes after him? Whose responsibility does it become? How do we then address the problem once we decide who did it?

    DR. KRIEGER: Well, I would — I would say — I would say that it’s certainly be a multilateral force that would be authorized by the United Nations to apprehend Osama bin Laden. I would say once the United Nations has acted, it would be quite appropriate, then, for the Afghan leaders to do everything in their power to turn over Osama bin Laden to the international community.

    I would — I would personally like to see Osama bin Laden stand trial before a specially created international tribunal that would be put in place for that purpose. I think we need to — I think we need to go through a process of law similar to what happened at the Nuremberg trials …

    CAFFERTY: Right.

    DR. KRIEGER: After World War II when the German leaders at that time were put on trial and there was a process that made a huge difference …

    CAFFERTY: Sure.

    DR. KRIEGER: And it was a — it was a process that didn’t simply go in, try to wipe out who we thought was the perpetuator and in the process, perhaps, leave a lot more people injured and dead.

    CAFFERTY: All right, we’re talking to Dr. …

    DR. KRIEGER: Who are innocent.

    CAFFERTY: We’re talking to Dr. David Krieger in California. Sit tight doctor, if you will, I’ve got to take a little commercial break, and we’ll continue our discussion, take some more calls from you viewers right after this.

    (COMMERCIAL/NEWS BREAK)

    CAFFERTY: Our guest from California is Dr. David Krieger. He is the founder and president of an organization called Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and he doesn’t think the military is necessarily the way to go about this at all.

    Dr. Krieger, I have a caller on the line from Arizona. Jeff, who has something to discuss with you, I think. Jeff, go ahead.

    JEFF: Hi Jack, I like your show.

    CAFFERTY: Thanks.

    JEFF: But I think Dr. Krieger might be missing a very valuable point here. He’s advocating that our response be moral, that it be multinational and that it be judicial. You mentioned …

    DR. KRIEGER: Legal.

    JEFF: Nuremberg earlier…

    DR. KRIEGER: That it be legal.

    CAFFERTY: Legal, Yes.

    JEFF: Well, OK. Well he mentioned Nuremberg earlier and does he realize that Nuremberg only came about as a result of a moral military action?

    CAFFERTY: Dr. Krieger.

    DR. KRIEGER: I understand that Nuremberg came about as a result of the end of World War II and that was the way that they chose to deal with the German leaders after the second World War.

    Nonetheless, I think that we — that this is a critical time for the United States, and we should be very thoughtful about what we do here. Power — raw military power really does not have the capacity to overcome hatred and in fact, it has — it has exactly the opposite effect. The use of raw military power will increase the hatred toward the United States in that part of the world.

    CAFFERTY: Isn’t that exactly what bin Laden wants? He wants us to wage war against Islam, against the Middle Eastern countries, because then he’s got his Jihad. He can, you know, he’s got a holy war. He becomes even more powerful and influential, if he can get a conflagration (ph) going. Is that not so?

    DR. KRIEGER: I think that’s right. I think — I think his stature will increase enormously if we go into the region with military force. Not only that, I think that military force will be entirely ineffective in accomplishing the primary goal that we want to accomplish for America and that is to make Americans secure.

    And we need to really be thinking deeply about why these people hate us so much. I don’t think the reason that we’re so hated by these people, whoever they happen to be, is that they want to bring down democracy or they want to bring down our freedoms. I think — I think that’s not it at all. I think they have far — some far deeper grievances against us with regard to policies that we’ve instituted in perhaps in the Middle East region …

    CAFFERTY: All right.

    DR. KRIEGER: In various respects, and there’s a lot more to it. We need to know what those things are. But the most important point is that military force is going to end up — the use of military force in that region, I believe, will make us less secure and we’ll be missing an opportunity …

    CAFFERTY: All right.

    DR. KRIEGER: To try to turn that region into friends of the United States by changing our policies.

    CAFFERTY: Dr. Krieger, the clock has won the war against you and me here. I’ve got to say good night to you. I appreciate you coming on the program. I enjoyed the visit, and we’ll do this again as events continue to unfold, if you’re agreeable.

    DR. KRIEGER: Thank you. I certainly am.

    CAFFERTY: Dr. David Krieger …

    DR. KRIEGER: Thank you very much.

    CAFFERTY: All right, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Statement By Senator Douglas Roche

    September 12, 2001

    Our first reaction to the horrible terrorist attacks in New York and Washington must be grief and prayers for the victims, their families and friends. An outflow of love and support for those so affected ought to guide our future actions.

    The perpetrators of such evil acts must be brought to justice. But this must be done in a way that does not compound the violence. The law enforcement agencies must be given the resources they need to carry out their duties in maintaining order and apprehending criminals.

    But revenge as an end in itself is unproductive and not worthy of the solemn obligation we have to ensure justice in the world. Rather, we must be motivated by a determination to end violence by getting at the root causes of violence. We must strengthen the international institutions working in the law and economic development fields so that more hope is given to the vulnerable, the oppressed and disposed that they can obtain the social justice that is their due without recourse to violence.

    At this tragic moment, Canada has a special role to play in continuing to reach out to the United States with love and support to help the U.S. cope with a challenge of immense proportions. Canada, through its political and diplomatic work, must help the U.S. recognize that working multilaterally with the many governments, agencies and civil society leaders around the world is a far better response than acting alone. Canadian foreign policy should be directed at helping the U.S. to combat terrorism with comprehensive strategies that include the economic and social development of peoples around the world.

    The New York/Washington attacks were attacks against humanity. They require a humanity-centered response.

  • Searching for a Peaceful Solution

    Candles flickered in the darkness of night as about 500 people gathered Tuesday in search of peaceful solutions in response to last week’s acts of terror.

    The peace vigil at Alameda Park was an opportunity for the community to unite and think not just about last week’s events but about the broader aspects of violence and any nonviolent options, said Carah Ong of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, a sponsor of the vigil.

    “I think everyone believes some sort of response is needed,” said Chris Pizzinat, the foundation’s deputy director.

    But he said a military response is not necessarily the answer; another answer is the International Criminal Court.

    “I think everyone agrees the perpetrators need to be identified and brought to justice,” he said. “I have no misconceptions that will be easy. And there will be bloodshed.”

    David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, said any response by the United States needs to be based on three things: the legality under international law; morality, not taking any more innocent lives; and thinking about how the problem of terrorism can be solved without increasing the cycle of violence.

    He hoped the vigil would bring the people together “to recognize we are a community not only here in Santa Barbara, but we are a community with the nation and the world.”

    A community, he said, needs to come together in times of grief and celebration.

    “And this is a time of grief and we need to support each other,” Mr. Krieger said.

    He said the nation needs to be very careful not to take steps to add to the violence.

    “I’m worried myself about this mood in Washington and a desire for vengeance,” he said.

    Besides hearing from a variety of speakers, those attending the vigil had the opportunity to sign condolence books that Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, will take back with her to Washington, D.C.

    The books will be shared with those in the areas where the devastation occurred.

    The congresswoman told the crowd that they gathered together to light a candle in the darkness and to give voice to that which is unspeakable.

    Gail Shaughnessy was among those who agree a military response might not be the best answer.

    “I think it would be a big mistake to rush in in a vengeful state. We need to step back and make sure we don’t jeopardize more innocent lives. Enough innocent lives have been lost. I do believe there are other ways,” she said.

    Security and intelligence could be increased, as well as putting pressure on those who can get to the perpetrators, Ms. Shaughnessy said.

    “I hope that’s the course we decide to take, ultimately,” she said. “So far I feel we are being prudent. We didn’t just mount a blind attack immediately.”

    As they listened to the speakers, members of the crowd sat silently, candles flickering. Some held flags and scattered throughout the crowd were young and old wearing T-shirts with Old Glory and the words, “God Bless America.”

    As he ended his remarks, Mr. Krieger said, “We do have the opportunity to change the world. We can create a world that can truly live together in peace. May your candles shine brightly and your love fill the world and make it a better place.”

    E-mail Vicki Adame at: vadame@newspress.com

  • Terrorism: The Search for Measured Responses

    September 11, 2001 may be considered a defining moment in world history. For a decade now pundits have been groping for a new catch phrase to identify the main features of the post-Cold War era. End of History, Clash of Civilizations, and Globalization have been obvious candidates. These terms catch an aspect of the phenomenon but distort others. None of these terms seems to fit the new reality of a global war of terrorism and counter-terrorism that seems to lie ahead of the world. There is no catch phrase to grasp the tragedy and complexity of this new reality. Since both state and non-state actors are acting with willful planning, we may call our troubled times, “The Era of Death by Design”. There is also no panacea for the crisis. The problem seems to have three linked features. First, we have witnessed mounting terrorist acts in the past 40 years carried out both by state and non-state actors. Second, we are witnessing the rise of a new global system characterized by growing gaps among and within nations. Third, we now live in a global fishbowl in which Hollywood extravaganzas as well as starving children in Africa are displayed for all to see on their television screens. The envy and hatred generated by global communication seems to have outpaced the benefits.

    In the past decade, Western powers have demonstrated that they can destroy their adversaries in Iraq and Yugoslavia with high tech weapons without much damage to themselves. Terrorism has consequently become the weapon of choice by the weaker states and groups. The suicide attacks in New York, Washington, and Israel are part of that lesson. The “enemy” in this case is not a territorial state. It is the fringe elements of a much larger global resentment against the way the world is being run. We have entered into a new form of politics and warfare. Against the commodity fetishism of globalization, identity fetishism has become the ideological vehicle of the marginalized groups. Benjamin Barber has called it “Jihad vs. McWorld”. Against the market fundamentalism of neo-liberalism, religious and ethnic fundamentalism is the new battle cry. Against post-modern cosmopolitanism of the centers, pre-modern kinship and tribal loyalties are the cultural orientation of the peripheries. Since the advanced industrial world is powerful but highly vulnerable to sabotage and surprise, the new weapon of shock terrorism is deadly and effective. In future, it may include other weapons of mass destruction. The types of weapons that could possibly be deployed by terrorists in the future are too horrible to contemplate.

    The response to terrorism cannot be divorced from its underlying causes. Both problems are global in scope. The approach must be commensurately global. Despite its shortcomings, the United Nations system continues to provide us with a useful institution under which a carefully devised strategy of war on violence and poverty can be fought. The United Nations counter-terrorism and peacekeeping forces must be reinforced. We need a standing UN peacekeeping force that is fully equipped with counter-terrorist intelligence and the necessary means to prevent tragedies such as that of September 11th.

    That is necessary but not sufficient. The world community under the UN auspices must demonstrate that it cares for the fate of some 2 million people in the world today living on $2 a day. UN member-states should commit themselves to a war on world poverty and injustice by tangible means. A certain portion of national defense budgets, say 10 percent, should be allocated to the United Nations peacekeeping and poverty eradication programs. The world cannot afford to continue living one-fifth rich, two-fifths in abject poverty, and another two fifth struggling for a decent life.

    As Huxley has said, “civilization is a race between education and catastrophe”. We often learn through our pains and sufferings. Historical leaps often result from major human tragedies. The League of Nations resulted from World War I. United Nations emerged out of World War II. This time, global terrorism has proved to be a scourge of humanity. Its victims have paid a high price. For their blood not to be in vain, we must learn to come together. We must establish a more democratic and just global governance. We must pledge to a new rule of international law for nations large or small.

     

    Majid Tehranian Professor, University of Hawaii at Manoa Director, Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research Honolulu, Hawaii, September 19, 2001