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Although I
am a bit closer to Iran and disagree with some of the statements here I find
good insight in this message. This goes along with my previous messages about
the need to punish the right people and to focus on elimination of injustice
and tyranny as the only mean to elimination of terrorism.
Shahab…
-----Original
Message-----
From: George Grader
[mailto:grad9475@uidaho.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001
4:02 PM
To: Wes Crain; vicki bars; Toby
Micklethwait; Terry Naumann; Tamra Schiappa; Susanne & Richard Miller;
Susan Butts-Matheson; Stephen Bach; Spaulding Donna GS-12 ESC/AW; Simon
Kattenhorn; Shehab Mespah; Sarah Grader; Sand Castle; Ron G McMullin/R6/USDAFS;
Ryan; Robin Evans; Roberto Iannuzzi; Richard Collins;
rachel@iron.mines.uidaho.edu; peter butterfield; Peter Wilde; penny neal; Peggy
Adams; Peggy Adams; Pedro Najar; Paul Link; Patrick Evans; Patrick Crist; Pat
Bageant; Parks, Robert; Oscar Arispe; Nancy Casey; Nora T. Lehmann; Mose; mike
pope; Mike DeSantis; mikala beig; Michael Whalen; Michael Jensen; Melissa
Santoro; melinda Harm; McMullin_Ron/r6pnw_umpqua@fs.fed.us; Matt Tremblay; Matt
and Melissa; Mark Solomon; Mark Kahn; Marc Roper; Marc Roper; Luigi Ferranti;
Ludmila; Lucy Jones; leilani.lehmann@stud-mail.uni-wuerzburg.de; Kristen
Roeder; Kirsti Hastings; Kent Campbell; keith gray; Kathrin Bickel; Kamper
Markus; John McCarthy; Joe Namlick; Jim LaFortune; jenny; jennifer Spencer; Jen
Spencer; Jan Van Manen; Jack Lowry; Harriett Matthews; Ham Niles; Guy Adema;
Guy Adema; Guy Adema; gfizzell@camasnet.com; ferranti@gms01.geomare.na.cnr.it;
Erik Nielsen; Enrique Diaz-Martinez; elizabeth beckett; Dwight Trainer, Nancy;
Dwight Grader; Donny Johnston; denny phillips; David Sanford Lewis; David
Rosen; David Elliott; Dave Rosen; Dave Peckham; Dale Graden;
coglibsalon@topica.com; Christine Halvorson; Cig1313@aol.com; Charlotte
Goddard; Charles grader; Charles B. Peeples III; Castillo, Carla; Carol M.
Dehler; Carla Osborne; C.L.Osborne; Bryan Yee; Brian Keith Axel; Brad Halter;
Board Dog; billshan@uidaho.edu; Bill Rember; ann Clizer; Angela Jean Taylor;
Alex Boughamer; Adam Richard Fish; Adam H. Oppenheim; Adam Fish
Subject: September 11 disaster
analysis
The following
9 pages comes with an overview.
It was
written by Charles Pezeshki, an amigo
here in
Moscow, Idaho. This is perhaps of
interest to
you... George
Because the
piece is so long (6000 words), I have synopsized it at the top, so those that
want can skip any/all if they so desire!
Chuck Pezeshki
Associate Professor
School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering
WSU-Pullman
Pullman, WA 99164-2920
509-335-7662 (W)
208-883-3001 (H)
September 11, 2001 -- Interpretation and
Action
Copyright Chuck Pezeshki, pezeshki@moscow.com
Synopsis
Introduction
Whatıs the Purpose of the Piece?‹Insights in how to avert future
tragedies
Who am I? -- 2nd Generation
Iranian-American, Politically Active, Rural Background
Compassion is the Only Answer‹compassion
as a pragmatic concern, governing mythos in the Middle East, and
dismantling that mythos by attacking root material causes, history of Islam and
the realities of the Crusades, understanding warfare in the Middle East
Is This Another Pearl Harbor? --
Comparison between Japan and Afghanistan, economic entry of the U.S. onto
the world stage, cultural and social lags in the U.S. and the need for
recognition of roles and responsibilities.
The Luxury of Agnosticism‹Understanding
the gaps in relations between the more materially wealthy and less materially
wealthy peoples of the world. The need for religion in places of great
deprivation. Discussion of the sin of transference. Understanding
the WTC tragedy in light of the Oklahoma City tragedy, and the recognition of
extreme terrorists as a statistical product of dysfunctional systems‹not a
statistical anomaly.
What are our Values and Way of Life?
discussion of the gap between rich and poor across the world, focus on the
Puritan notion of Godıs blessings, and the American notion of work, Œwinner
take allı philosophy, and the notion of Œdo we deserve this?ı. The idea
that Œthe poor deserve to be poor.ı
Military Force pros and cons of
military strikes, including surgical actions. The problem with
assassination as a long-term method for managing terrorists, the juvenilization
of leadership and descent into chaos in countries with long civil conflicts.
Long term U.S. support of repressive regimes in the region. Our
ability to arbitrate who lives or dies in a sustained covert campaign.
National characters and differing warfighting abilities. The use of
nuclear weapons as a tactical tool. Long-term strategic failure of
military force.
Water and Israel basic
demographics driving the primary conflict in the Middle East. The problem
of water shortage. The American fascination with Jerusalem.
Developing Situations -- the
looming invasion of Afghanistan, the players. The current refugee
situation. Seizing Osama bin Laden‹the history of the Hashashin.
Speculative Issues how the War
on Drugs has financed terrorist networks and honed their skills in transporting
contraband undetected across the world.
Introduction
It would be difficult for anyone in the world to not know what
happened on September 11, 2001. The global coverage of the major media
companies has grown so extensive that everywhere in the modern world had to be
informed of the events in New York and Washington, D.C., by dayıs end (or
beginning, dependent on time zone).
Equivalently, lead by President George W. Bush, the nation is being swept
forcefully by the notion of religious revival. Sept. 16, while answering
questions from the press, the President called it a crusade. The secular
voice of this greatest secular country that owes its success to the separation
of religion from political life, in my opinion is more profoundly threatened
than any other time in the last 100 years.
This piece was written holding that thought in mind, more than any other.
There is no question about the horrific loss of life, the sad and tragic
nature of events, and the ominous void that looms in front of us if our actions
during this time are not based on knowledge, logic and the integration of
reason.
Whatıs the Purpose?
The purpose of this piece is to give insight into why the events of
September 11 transpired as they did. The purpose is to not to vent or
grieve. Many people in the country have close personal contact with the
tragedy. Our family had relatives that worked close to the WTC. I
have had hundreds of students that are members of the armed services that will
be some of those people called to military action if it is taken. Because
of the magnitude of the tragedy, there is probably no person in the United
States that is more than one degree removed from the events. The purpose
of this piece is to discuss how future tragedy can be averted.
Who am I?
I write this piece from the perspective of a second-generation Iranian-American.
I was born in Minneapolis, MN in 1962, September 11. My father, a
doctor, was an Iranian immigrant from Tehran; my mother, a nurse, was
born of blue-collar Scotch-Irish/Swedish descent in Independence, MO. I
grew up in rural Southern Ohio, along the Ohio River, in the Appalachian
foothills in coal country. Like many immigrant doctors, my father, a city
person, was forced to move to the rural countryside because of unavailability
of staff positions in urban hospitals. These positions at that time were
reserved for sons and associates of doctors already on staff‹direct
discrimination against the immigrant doctors, who were often trapped in
low-paid residencies by immigration status difficulties. My father met my
mother during one of those residencies in Galveston, TX, and they were married
four months later. While they fell in love, my father married my mother
in part to gain residency, a fact that is acknowledged by both.
I am indelibly American. I was born here, baptized a Catholic, ate
hot-dogs, blew out candles on a birthday cake. I am an Eagle Scout, a
spelling bee champ. I was raised Catholic, was even an altar boy,
attended Catholic school. I shoveled horse manure, built fence and threw
hay on our small farm in the hills. I had a Sunday paper route, was
Junior class president, marched with my Boy Scout troop in the 4th of July
parade. I drove a pick-up truck, hiked the hills, drank moonshine with my
friend from Kentucky.
But in a much more subtle way, a large part of me has been influenced by my
father and his Iranian background. I grew up surrounded by individuals,
scholars, and doctors from around the world. And though I do not speak
Farsi my father was an assimilative immigrant; he did not teach us the
language because he wanted us to be American‹I was raised with an appreciation
of the cultures of the Middle East. I love the art, the geometry, the
music of the region. I am a Ph.D. engineer, and a professor, one of the
highest status positions in Middle-Eastern society, and directly due to my
fatherıs influence. I was raised with a large sense of social obligation.
As the child of an immigrant, from a country ruled by a dictator and a
tyrant, supported by both Britain and the U.S., I was taught to use my right of
free speech, and be involved in my government in a way that most Americans are
not. I derive a great deal of my personal self-esteem from the notion of
being a learned man, knowledgeable in the arts, music and history, as well as
my profession. I am not afraid to argue on price for an automobile or house,
and I know the difference between the words Œbargainı and Œbarterı. I was
inculcated with the belief that my marriage was as much a practical affair as
an affair of the heart. These are not values exclusively belonging to
individuals from the Middle East, but anyone with contacts there knows how
strongly these values are held.
Because of my background, both sides of this particular issue are painfully
clear to me. I weep for the mothers of the sons and daughters that were
killed in the blast when the World Trade Centers were attacked. But I
also mourn also for the Palestinian mother, holding her dysenteric child in a
crowded refugee camp, without water to bathe, while Jewish children swim in a pool
adjacent in a new settlement.
Compassion is the Only Answer
When one confronts a problem, it becomes necessary to define exactly
what that problem is before moving on to solutions for the problem.
Problem definition is an important part of any design process, be it a
social or technical. The two primary things that are generated in any
process must be definition of need, and method of measuring success.
Four airliners piloted by suicide pilots of Islamic terrorist origin have posed
the problem: how do we keep our civilian population safe from the dangers
of terrorism? Historically, we as a country have had little interest in
keeping the rest of the world safe from this type of event. Bomb blasts
from terrorists are an unfortunate part of life for much of the rest of the
world. Even attacks against American facilities overseas have not
attracted much domestic interest‹the Kenyan and Tanzanian American embassies
being an example. Though the response‹cruise missiles against guerrilla
bases in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan-- had great effect
on those in the countries being attacked, interest faded quickly in the U.S.,
with partisan bickering over the intent of the attack, and criticism by the
Republican right against Clinton for using military force as a distraction from
the Lewinsky scandal.
How do we keep the domestic civilian population safe? The only way is to
remove the motivators of those nations that produce terrorists. And these
primary motivators are material‹deprivation, dislocation, high infant mortality
and persecution. These physical conditions are the foundation of an
apocalyptic religious/myth structure that the radical Islamic leadership in the
Middle East uses to justify action.
One may reasonably argue with this thesis. However, religion is only part
of the driver, even though on the surface it appears a hard case to argue that
anything but religious fervor drove the young men that boarded the planes that
blew up the WTC. But this is the key point‹religious fervor was generated
because leaders of the Islamist movement have used it to synthesize a dominant
mythos to explain their peopleıs pathetic material plight. The only way to dismantle the mythos is to attack
material deprivation and persecution at the base level in these countries.
Many Americans are unaware how the mythos of the Crusades drives the Islamic
view of the current crisis in the Middle East. A good part of the Arab
world views the establishment of Israel in 1948 as a continuation of a
900-year-old story of conquest and retention of the Holy Land in Christian
possession. Yasser Arafat himself has referred to Salah Al-din, the
Turkish liberator of the Holy Land from the Christians, and his loss of 70,000
men in the capture of Jerusalem as perhaps a small fraction of the people that
he is willing to lose in order to achieve the same goal. And even in this
week following the bombing, President G.W. Bush has repeated urged Americans to
pray Œon bended kneeı for divine guidance for a new war for the Holy Land.
On September 16, 2001, he announced Œa crusadeı. Additionally,
holding on to Jerusalem is a high priority of the Radical Right in the U.S., as
many fundamentalist Christians believe that Jesus will not come again until the
Temple of Solomon is rebuilt upon the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Whether
G.W. Bush realizes it or not, by using such language he is talking in code to
key constituencies on both sides of the equation.
What is interesting is that the modes of conflict in the Middle East have also
not fundamentally changed for the past 1400 years. When the Christians
conquered Jerusalem in 1099, they killed all the inhabitants, both Jews and
Muslims, and moved into their houses. When Salah Al-din re-took the city
in 1187, the Turkish conqueror returned the favor (though in a much less bloody
fashion), turning the Christians out of their houses and re-installing the
Muslim population. This pattern has still persisted in the modern age,
with the Jewish population, once again with the upper hand, turning out the
resident Palestinians out of their homes and moving in Jewish Œsettlersı, a
euphemism for people occupying land already occupied by Palestinians.
Assassinations and suicide attacks have been de rigeur on both sides of
the religious aisle‹the Christian conquest of Jerusalem in the First Crusade
was a human-wave attack, and after victory, the conquerors massacred the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, both Jews and Muslims alike.
Equally, the beginnings of Islam are rife with violent conflict between the
heads of religious life and secular government. Only two successions
after the death of the prophet Muhammed led to conflict across the Islamic
empire‹this time between ŒUthman, the first Islamic Caliph killed by his own
people (while reading the Quıran, no less!) and Ali, the son-in-law of
Muhammed and founder of the Shiıa branch of the Muslim faith. Violence
has historically gone both ways‹the secular Caliphs had no problem killing the
Imams, or religious leaders. Indeed, the defining event of the Shiıa
branch of Islam is the death of Husayn, son of Ali, by the Umayyad Caliphate,
as well as the lack of the faithful to rally around their Imam.
One of the conclusions that one can draw out of all this is this: the
historical record for dispute resolution in the region is filled with suicidal
violence; and considering the faith-based antipathy between Christians,
Jews, and Muslims, these religious problems are not going to fixed by more
religion. Equally, it is important to understand how Islam and
Christianity operate to see that once again, religion is not the only cause of
problems in the region‹rather it serves as the cultural driver and mythological
framework by which leaders move the masses to distract them from material
concerns.
Is this another Pearl Harbor?
Other than the notion of an attack on U.S. soil, it is
incomprehensible to view the attack on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon
as another Pearl Harbor. The attack on the WTC, I believe, will be
demonstrated as executed by less than 200 people, and probably less than 100.
The attack on Pearl Harbor was orchestrated by thousands of Japanese, and
backed by one of the pre-eminent world powers of its time. Japan entered
WWII as a war to acquire a large natural resource base that they did not have.
Attacking Pearl Harbor was a brilliant military move. At the same
time, Japan was also bombing Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, the
desired material target, and America would probably have been drawn into
the war anyway.
The individuals who rammed the planes into the WTC were acting out of
sociopathic frustration for the plight of some of the poorest people in the
world. We are now readying our forces and galvanizing public opinion to
attack Afghanistan, one of the poorest in the Muslim world, that also has one
of the highest infant mortality rates (165 deaths/1000).
Americans are famous for their insular perspective‹in general, we donıt care
much about the rest of the world (I have friends who have vacationed in Mexico
and complain that Mexicans speak Spanish!) and we believe that the rest of the
world wants to love us. Economically, this insular attitude used to be
well-justified. We are an island nation, and until only thirty years ago,
world trade was approximately 6% of U.S. GNP. People rarely traveled
overseas, and if they did, it was to Europe.
Times have changed. The last trade figures I saw showed global trade as
22% of GDP. This is a radical increase for a period of thirty years,
brought on primarily by advances in satellite telecommunication and the
accessibility of airline travel. However, compared to the 35-40% of GDP
that trade makes up for most European nations, we are still not as integrated
as many nations.
What we have is a cultural/social lag regarding understanding global politics
relative to our own changing economy. We are world citizens in terms of
all our material possessions. It is virtually impossible to buy a pair of
tennis shoes made in the U.S. However, we have not owned up to our obligation
of being world citizens in terms of politics. Most Americans have not
owned up to their obligation of being informed U.S. citizens.
It is no coincidence that the three buildings hit were the Twin Towers and the
Pentagon. Early reports indicated that the airplane that hit the Pentagon
circled the White House, but decided NOT to crash into it. I find this
extremely significant. Increasingly, this is the way the rest of the
poorest part of the world views us‹as the military/industrial complex.
The only response that will change this is a state of global outreach to
service basic human need that we must initiate. Otherwise, the next stop
on the terrorist bus will be a nuclear bomb in San Francisco Bay or the Potomac
or Hudson Rivers.
The Luxury of Agnosticism
I am an agnostic. Holding such beliefs, regardless of the
logic involved in obtaining them, or the physical reality surrounding them, are
a luxury afforded to me by my level of personal material comfort. My life
is pleasant enough that I do not need the notion of a hereafter to get through
the day or keep my sanity.
Circumstances in the rest of the world are not so pleasant‹especially so in the
Middle East. Many of the countries involved are some of the poorest in
the world. Income levels in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have dropped 33%
in the last four years. When I traveled to Egypt last year, I was amazed
at the level of environmental degradation and pollution. During that
trip, I floated the Nile from Aswan to Luxor, stayed in Cairo, traveled out to
the Delta region and spent three days on the Red Sea at the tip of the Sinai
peninsula. The water in the Nile stank of oil. In Cairo, peering
down on the smog from the 4th floor of my hotel, I could see the blue plume of
exhaust from leaded gasoline floating just above the traffic. Outside of
Cairo and the primary tourist sites, trash was everywhere. Upon touching
down outside Sharm El-Shaik, the desert outside the airport gates was filled
with plastic water bottles. I am naturally an adventurous individual.
Yet I found that I could only last four hours in downtown Cairo before I
felt forced to retreat to my room in one of the five-star hotels surrounding
the Egyptian museum. My impression of life in the countryside was even
worse, though a bit less crowded. And there was no escape from this,
either. While I found that the Egyptian people were uniformly warm and
helpful, the only green space available was in small patches. Even
floating down the Nile, there was no part of the country outside the desert
that lined the Nile that was remotely in a natural condition. Every
square inch of land had been manipulated by human hands.
While Egypt is one of the more crowded countries in the region (and the only
Mideastern country I have visited), it is not hard to see how the notion of a
Heaven is an important touchstone for sanity, especially among the more
impoverished. Add this to the lack of recognition of the value of an
individual‹life is cheap in many of these countries, due to overpopulation and
an abundance of the poor‹and one can see how one might dream about getting to
Heaven.
This is profoundly different from American thought. In our belief system,
Heaven is where you go if youıve led a moral existence. But none of us
are in any particular rush to get there. Add to this the notion of the
worth of the individual, the basis of the Bill of Rights and our modern
democracy, it becomes very difficult for Americans to understand how a person
could get behind the flight controls of an airplane and ram it into a
building‹let alone coordinating 18 others to do the same thing at exactly the
same time.
But attempting to understand any part of this by superposing mainstream
American values will fall flat, committing Œthe sin of transferenceı‹assuming
that anyone other than yourself thinks like you do. The people that did
this were not the average American.
In fact, they are not even mainstream individuals from the Middle East.
Though physical circumstances in the region are oppressive for a large
plurality of its citizens, masses of them are not committing suicide in the
streets. Even so, characterizing the terrorists as sociopaths or cowards
is not going to provide solutions on how to stop such events from happening
again. In their minds (and apparently in the minds of Jerry Falwell and
Pat Robertson, considering their post-tragedy comments), they were heroes,
doing the divine will of God. They left families behind to do this.
They embraced what they believed was holy mission. And their
behavior was rational from their perspective.
The case of the other catastrophic bombing in recent U.S. history, the 1995
Oklahoma City Federal Building case, is instructive here. In his book, A
Force Upon the Plain, Kenneth Stern comes up with a very useful analogy to
understanding how someone like Timothy McVeigh could drive a Ryder truck next
to the Federal building and blow it up. He characterizes the system that
produced McVeigh as a funnel. Out on the edge of the funnel, one would
have the conservative, fundamentalist churches, followers of Pat Robertson, and
so on. Further down the funnel, one would have non-racist Christian
Identity followers. Even further down, one has racist Identity, and
various Nazi movements. Finally, at the end of the funnel, out pops
Timothy McVeigh. It becomes important not to view McVeigh as an anomaly.
Instead, McVeigh is a statistical product of a certain worldview‹that the
United States is becoming a heathen nation, that government is persecuting
believers, and so on. Estimating that there are probably close to 20
million fundamentalist Christians in the United States (add the followers of
the Southern Baptists, Mormons, Pentecostals, etc. together), that amalgamation
produced two known individuals who would blow up a Federal Building, killing168
people.
The forces that produced the ideology that drove McVeigh‹collapse of rural
economies across the U.S., dislocation of families and individuals forced off
their farms by foreclosure, a rapid change of value systems surrounding these
people and driven by technology, are in many ways not that different from those
occurring in the Mideast, save that the socio-economic forces in the Mideast
are probably multiplied by at least one order of magnitude. Intensive
urbanization has occurred across the region in the past 50 years. Couple
that with consistent economic problems, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and
the Desert Storm operation, as well as the insertion of the nation of Israel
into the equation, and you have a fertile ground for the same type of funnel
effect‹except now, instead of 20 million people at the wide end of the funnel,
one has probably close to 1 billion, with larger statistical recruitment
multipliers , and not in our favor.
What are our Values and ŒWay of Lifeı?
Thereıs been lots of talk in the past week about protecting Œour way
of lifeı. What does this actually mean? It is not obvious what Œway
of lifeı we are trying to protect. Are we trying to protect our ability
to fly anywhere we want, whenever we want, without risk? Are we trying to
protect our ability to exploit fossil fuels for nearly unlimited mobility for
the middle-class and rich segments of our population? Are we trying to
protect our Œrightı to be waited on by impoverished servants in Third-World
countries while on vacation? Are we attempting to protect our right to be
the leading greenhouse gas producer in the world?
And how does this plug in with the issue of values? What are our values,
really? It is obvious that a core American value is one of hard work.
I have traveled the world, and with precious few exceptions, no one works
as hard as we do. We value individual choice, and believe that individual
choice is best manifested by flexibility in buying consumer goods. We do
not value place much at all. We are a bicoastal people, constantly on the
move, and if we screw up one place, we are completely convinced it is within
our rights to move on. And we view all of this as ordained by God‹America
is nothing if not the country of Manifest Destiny.
Our values are as much a function of our history as any other people. Our
Founding Fathers were largely tobacco farmers, practicing a form of
slash-and-burn agriculture that drove westward expansion and destruction of
land and native ecosystems. But even before them, our Puritan forefathers
believed strongly that material wealth was the result of Godıs favor. It
is this doctrine that has also led us to believe that those with less, or no
wealth possess no virtue, and are at fault for being poor. And this
feeling has increased, in my opinion, in the last twenty years, with the
ascendancy of Reaganism that blames the poor for being poor. And since
the poor are poor as a result of what we perceive as the results of their own
actions, they deserve no help. After all, it is THEIR fault.
This version of American Christianity is at odds with the rest of the worldıs
view on the poor. While other nations do more or less to help the poor,
nowhere I have ever traveled has the condemnatory attitude (with perhaps the
exception of India) of the poor than we do. And this belief, coupled with
an inherent racism toward the darker races that pervades American society,
works against any kind of ŒMarshall Planı toward the people of the Mideast.
And while we are free to hold whatever values we have, we must understand that
those views will have consequences. In this case, by our unwillingness to
address the core poverty in the region, coupled with our unrelenting support of
Israel in the face of overwhelming evidence of them persecuting the Palestinian
population, we create a fertile ground for terrorism. The question ³do we
deserve this?² is often raised, as if other countries share our values and
abide by our culturally driven sense of rationality. But such questions
are really irrelevant. Whether we deserve it or not does nothing to
affect the cause-and-effect relationship of deprivation, dislocation, high
infant mortality and persecution and how that will create the next generation
of terrorists.
The issue of values, when confronted with the perspectives of a different
civilization, is an irrelevant one. Instead, we need to turn to reason
and historical precedent to find guideposts along the path toward a just and
peaceful society. We can start by examining ourselves. Whatever our
ensemble of values are currently, both the good and the bad, they are not
serving us well. And societies that cannot adapt their values to changing
circumstances inherently go extinct. If we wish to survive, we must
evolve. In the end, the society that lasts the longest will, by
definition, have had the most successful values.
This does not mean nor imply that all our values are wrong, and we must change
everything. But we must be conscious of our entire societal value set‹not
those that we choose to show off or demonstrate in public‹if we are to
understand how those interact to build our future. In so many ways, we
are still the Teutonic knights, marching off to the Crusades to fight the
people from the East, as we did 900 years (and even 1600 years) ago. And
the dysfunctional mythos of those in the Middle East that oppose us in this
current crisis has a very good operative model of our behavior. People
here talk about a Œcrusade against terrorismı without even understanding the
full implications of that term.
One value that we do hold highly in this country is the notion of
Œwinner-take-allı. We pride ourselves on competition and being
winners‹look, for example at the way we approach even benign events as the
Olympics. Our political system is also built around this concept.
The attack that came on September 11, 2001, came from the losers in the global
economic situation. If intelligence is correct, and Osama Bin Ladenıs
network staged the attack, it will have come from one of the poorest countries
in the world‹a country that has already lost hope of any prosperity or decency
in a temporal existence.
I can remember talking to Morris Dees, the famous civil rights lawyer from the
Southern Poverty Law Center in Birmingham, AL. I asked him when, in a
fight for social justice, had he feared violence. He told me that one
only had to worry after one had won. Violence, he said, was usually
produced out of frustration from the losers. In the fight against segregation
in the South, violence did not occur in the initial, or even late phases, in
the late Œ50s or early Œ60s. Violence came in 1968 and later, after the
segregationists had clearly lost. Extending the analogy to the current
situation is an indicator of the frustration of that part of the world with us.
The feel that they have lost, and there is no other balm for their
worldly misery than our destruction.
In addition, in the competition for supremacy in the global economy, our value
system regarding foreign aid has increasingly become less compassionate.
We spend less per GDP than any other developed country. This is an
extension of the notion that Americans believe that losers deserve to be
losers, and should accept their fate. This was also the attitude of the Aztecs
that used to sacrifice the losing team in their version of football to the Sun
God by cutting out their hearts. The Aztec empire, one of the most
sophisticated societies in the world at that time, fell to a handful of Spaniards,
largely because the Aztecs had persecuted their surrounding cultures.
Empires last only as long as they are reasonably benevolent to their neighbors.
The United States must realize that it sits at the center of a new global
trade empire, and must share in the prosperity and justice it enjoys,
regardless of our belief in Œwinner take allı. We have to accept the
reality that the losers in global economic competition arenıt just going to sit
there and watch their children starve. The more clever ones are going to
figure out how to turn our technology back on ourselves.
Military Force
Over the course of the past week, many throughout the country have
been calling for revenge against our attackers. There are all the
pragmatic issues involving launching successful military action in the region.
Our enemies are poorly defined. At this point, we donıt even know
who they are. Our allies have historically offered support at the start,
but had poor follow-up. Because of the population density in the region,
it would be difficult, if not impossible, to have any kind of military action
without extensive civilian casualties. Our apparent primary foe,
Afghanistan, has already been bombed back to the Stone Age by the Soviet Union
in the Œ80s, and more bombing is unlikely to accomplish anything, save to
increase the rising tide of human misery in that place. Additionally, one
can expect that any extensive action targeted at rural areas will only drive
terrorist organizing into the cities, making it impossible to root out without
the propagation of war crimes. Israel has already amply demonstrated this
in its conflict with the Palestinians. Palestinian organizing now occurs
primarily in refugee camps.
Perhaps some military action is warranted. If specific terrorist cells
can be targeted, with deliberate plans to harm our populace, maybe they should
be assassinated or hit early and hard. Maybe certain surgical operations
could be carried out that would help protect the U.S. from further incidents.
A military incursion into Afghanistan might destroy the hold the Taliban
has on its government.
But long term, this is a poor strategy. Covert assassination of the
leadership of terrorist organizations may seem like a good idea, but the
reality is that one can kill only so many leaders. And we have shown in
the past that we are poor arbiters of whom to kill. Inevitably, any
organization working for political change in a region that does not agree with
our version of democratic capitalism falls into our crosshairs. What
happens after an extended ten-year campaign directed against leadership is a
juvenilization of any social change movement in that country‹the leaders get
younger and younger. And with juvenilization of any movement comes
nihilism, and the destruction that comes along with it. Anyone wondering
what thirty years of civil war will do to the structures of a society need only
look at various African nations (the Congo comes to mind) to see what the
inevitable outcome will be‹tribal genocide and unrecoverable anarchy.
Young, rash politically oriented minds grow up to older, more leavened
political minds‹unless theyıre killed.
As was said earlier, such a process is also prone to abuses of our own power.
Would the Congo be in a state of anarchy now had we allowed Patrice
Lumumba to live? Many problems in the Gulf are immediately traceable back
to the Shah, and his father in Iran. We need to recognize that we have
installed and propped up many corrupt regimes in the region, in the interest of
stable oil supplies (another long story in the Mideast). We have been no
regional Boy Scout. And to believe that we have the ability to be the
moral arbiter of the region, when we have such a large, vested economic
interest in the region‹oil‹is delusional to the extreme. It is important
to remember that the first Bush regime supported Saddam Hussein.
There is also the issue of the national characters of all the various countries
that we might become militarily engaged in. I believe that if we landed
tanks in Morocco, and had to drive them past Egypt, the time necessary to
conquer these countries would be about the speed limit of the tanks.
Things would slow down in Lebanon for a bit (Palestinian and Druze
resistance), Syria would be somewhat difficult (a consolidated military
society) then speed up through Iraq before slowing down again in Iran.
Then things would get really difficult. No one has managed to knock
off the Kurds in centuries of trying. Same with the Afghans. And if
anyone believes that the Pakistanis would be a pushover, they are refusing to
recognize the military society that exists in that country. People hammer
together AK-47s with their hands on the streets of Peshawar, and the Pakistanis
have, and believe in the use of nuclear weapons.
The reasons for these national characters can be found in history. From
Alexander the Great to the Caliph Umar, there has been a history of conquest in
North Africa that has followed a basic protocol. The first step is that
the invader gets to roll their troops through that country. They leave
behind a governing official (the origin of the term ŒEmirı) and then they keep
going. The conquered lowland Arab/Turkic country ostensibly swears
allegiance to that empire until that empire collapses‹then the country goes
back, with minor revision, to the state that existed before the invader showed
up. Such is the solidity of national image and definition in countries
that have preserved national identities for over 6000 years.
But once one gets to the highlands, things change dramatically. Thereıs a
reason that the mountains in the east of Afghanistan are called the ŒHindu
Kushı (Hindu Death) mountains. Any assault on Afghanistan or Kurdistan
would have to be genocidal in scope‹and itıs not that others havenıt tried. The
Russians reverted to nerve gas in the ı80s, and even they failed. Maybe
with tactical nuclear weapons, our forces would prevail, temporarily.
But then this opens up another Pandoraıs box‹the idea that nuclear weapons are
a useful tool of war. On National Public Radio this week, one of the
reporters paraphrased a Pakistani or Indian military leader (it was unclear
from the dialogue), saying that the lesson learned from the Gulf War was
simple‹one doesnıt take on the United States without nuclear weapons.
This is a perilous statement, completely redefining the notion of nuclear
bombs, from the notion of deterrence‹nuclear arms are never meant to be used
to a use strategem that may guarantee victory in battle. While it may be
true that Islamic extremists might try to smuggle a nuclear bomb into the
country and detonate it on an American city, use of nuclear weapons by a
legitimate world power will only exacerbate this possibility. If we did
it first to them, why wouldnıt they consider doing it to us?
In summation, there are no good military options. While it might be
prudent and necessary to attack individual terrorist networks as they develop,
military strategy will inevitably fail, either by missing key elements (in the
case of an assassination campaign), depleting future leaders, or failing to
establish long-term positive relationships in the region. Without a
comprehensive humanitarian effort, based on infrastructure development and
population control, there will be no material dismantling of the fundamental
mythos driving Islamic regimes and their conflict with the West.
Water and Israel
Though there are many issues to be dealt with in the region, two
issues must rise to the fore in order to establish peace in the region.
These two elements are the availability of water and the status of the
occupied territories Israel seized in the Six Day War in 1967.
Israel controls approximately 80% of the water in Palestine, and has 1/2 the
population. Of the Palestinian population, 1.2 million are crowded into
the Gaza Strip, which has a population density of over 3600 people/km.2 ( 9200
people/sq. mile)! Further, 120 km.2 are irrigated agricultural farmland,
implying that the population density is actually closer to 15000 people/sq.
mile. The West Bank also has extremely high population density‹close to
2300 people/sq. mile. Many Palestinians have no reliable water.
Further, there are no obvious developable water supplies in the region.
Add to this the pressure from 160,000+ Israeli Œsettlersı and one can see
that one has a crisis of incredible proportion.
Conflict between Israelis and Palestinians are often dressed up as ideological
issues. However, the baseline issues are fundamentally material.
The next major war to be fought in the region will be driven by water.
Americans also need to sanitize their thought process regarding the status of
Jerusalem and its right to be held by the Israelis. This must change.
I believe that Bill Clinton was on the right track with regards to
establishing an international protectorate around the city. This
situation guarantees that no one is completely happy, but considering the
incredible value that Christians, Jews and Muslims all put on the city, it may
be the only possible solution.
Developing Situations
Sitting here today, Sunday, September 16, what appears to be U.S.
policy is to encircle Afghanistan and invade. Pakistan has issued an
ultimatum to Afghanistan to hand over Bin Laden or be invaded by the U.S. and
Pakistan. The Russians are moving troops into Uzbekistan and Tajikistan,
and Iran has agreed to seal its border.
It is highly unlikely that Afghanistan or the Taliban could hand over Bin Laden
even if they wanted to. Afghanistan has a history of independent warlords
ruling over different parts of the country, and bin Laden falls into that
category. If bin Laden was the one who ordered the suicide attacks, he is
casting himself in the historic role of Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountains,
from the 11th Century, founder of the Order of the Hashashin, the origin of our
word Œassassinı (p.s. after having researched the demise of that
particular Ismailian order, it might be argued that bin Laden IS the leader of
the contemporary Hashashin!). If he really does have $300 million, he has
enough money to finance his own private army, and there is no question that he
will use it. Bin Ladenıs devotees are loyal to the point of
self-sacrifice, and have demonstrated this in the past. The only way that
bin Laden will be captured is if he surrenders, and that seems extremely
unlikely, as he has already dressed himself in a martyrıs robes.
Current actions by the U.S. government seem to be pointing toward a military
solution involving partitioning of Afghanistan. Though the Afghan people
are famous for their resilience and fighting ability, they are in serious
material distress after 20 years of war, both civil and with the Russians.
There are over 1.2 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan, and certainly
this number must be placing an incredible burden on an already impoverished
country. Iran also holds 2 million Afghan refugees, and throwing out the
Taliban might also lead to repatriation efforts. Partition is probably
being negotiated among the major players now as far as spoils of war are concerned
(who gets what for their invasion effort). Russia will probably get the
natural gas fields in the north, Iran will probably get foreign aid and
repatriation, but will not be drawn into the conflict, and Pakistan will
probably get the rest of the country, as well as re-patriation of the 1.2
million refugees. Itıs hard to imagine the Russians or Iranians taking a
leading role. But sealing their borders will prevent the mujahedin from
escaping and mounting a counter-insurgency with broader political ramifications.
Any conquest of Afghanistan will be short in duration. It is hard to
imagine any substantive resistance from a depleted Third World country to a
modern army on the march from the Khyber Pass. The problem is in holding
ground and postconquest civilian resistance. To paraphrase William
Tecumseh Sherman, thereıs no question that after a couple months of living in
Qandahar, the U.S. Army will be looking to ³living in Hell and renting
Afghanistan,² if given the choice.
While partition of Afghanistan may provide relief from terrorism in the
short-term (probably with large loss of U.S. troops), it will probably turn the
terrorist movement into a urban phenomenon. It may provide short-term
relief against the threat of nuclear terrorist attack by consolidating each of
the central governmentıs control of regional nuclear stockpiles. But it
will make new enemies across the Islamic world and focus even more attention on
the U.S. and the Western world. In the end, it will not provide a long-term
solution.
Speculative Issues
Sitting here watching this whole plot unfold, questions come to my
mind on the role of the drug trade in financing terrorist movements.
Afghanistan is one of the centers of the opium trade, and surely the
Taliban are receiving the majority of profits from that trade.
Interdiction of the drug trade has involved increasing military
participation around the globe, and as such has driven the technological
sophistication of drug traffickers everywhere. Additionally, the very problems
that must be solved in order for a successful drug trade‹penetration of airline
security systems, non-obtrusive electronic countermeasures, forging of
sophisticated false identification, and moving large quantities of contraband
undetected by security forces across national borders‹are exactly the same
problems faced by terrorist groups. There is also historic precedent for
guerilla movements financing their campaigns with drug money‹look at the
current situation in Colombia, for example, or the Sendero Luminoso movement in
Peru. In many ways, the virus of international terrorism has been
mutated in a peacetime mode by responding to the exigencies of survival in the
War on Drugs. Could this recent escalation be yet another
supplementary, unintended consequence?