San Francisco, Gaza and Afghanistan October 3, 2001January 26, 2017 I just got back from a trip to San Francisco on American – as easy and comfortable a set of flights as I’ve ever taken. Ah, the luxury of an empty seat next to you! And good movies, too! Moulin Rouge and What Women Want, both of which I had missed. My four-star hotel via Priceline.com, meanwhile, was $79 a night, down from the regular $350. (And who’s to say I might not have had my bid accepted at $59?) No check-in lines and little wait for room service: 32% occupancy. Book a flight. Have some fun. It doesn’t get much better than this. Thanks to Pris Siskin for pointing me to this Chicago Sun-Times column. (That’s right: September 9th – before the attacks.) To wit: Palestinians: Israel Simply is Not Yours September 9, 2001 BY NEIL STEINBERG SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Why does the United States control immigration from Mexico? The answer is simple. As much as the United States is a melting pot of races and cultures, it does have a certain makeup, a comfortable balance. The Latino population is 12 percent and growing. Should the floodgates open and the nation suddenly find itself 40 or 50 percent Latino, well, it would be a different sort of place. Maybe better, maybe worse–I won’t enter into that. But I think it is fairly uncontroversial to say that the United States tries to keep change at a certain crawling pace. All countries do this. The Australians turn away a ship filled with Afghan refugees; Germans foam about the Turks in their midst. The Japanese consider descendants of Koreans who have lived in their country 100 years to be Koreans still. So universal is this idea of keeping Our Side from being too richly seeded with “Their Side” that it must echo some deep chord of human nature. No doubt a throwback to the 100,000 years or so when we traveled in small tribes and slept in big, smelly piles for warmth at night. Given the basic, in-your-boneness of this desire to maintain the group, it would be almost funny–if it weren’t so tragic–to see the Palestinians argue that Israel’s attempts to preserve its own identity as a country and keep its people from being blown apart in public places as not only racism, but a particularly loathsome form of racism. To return to the comparison with Mexicans, a number of Americans harbor antipathy toward Mexicans–they want those borders sealed tight. It’s a mystery to me. As far as I can tell, the central crimes held against Mexicans once they get here seem to consist largely of working hard at low-paying jobs and tending to speak a language not our own. Now, imagine the reaction if, in addition to these transgressions, Mexicans also lobbied for open borders by every so often showing up unannounced at local malls wrapped in dynamite and nails and blowing themselves up in crowds of shoppers. We’d go berserk! We’d have a big wall along the Rio Grande so high it would put the Great Wall of China to shame. Our racists and haters–who are snarling and straining at their leashes on the best of days–would be liberated to run the countryside. Palestinians reading this will no doubt point out that, unlike Mexicans in the United States, the West Bank and Gaza (and no doubt, Jerusalem and the rest of Israel) are their land. Being a sympathetic sort, I can appreciate the power of that argument–it must be very vexing to spend your life crouching in a blazing sandy nowhere, convinced that some usurper is relaxing in your olive garden. The problem with the Palestinian logic is that it isn’t true. It isn’t their land–not anymore. Israel has it, and you can complain all you want about the injustices of history, but that doesn’t change a thing. The United States got hold of Texas in a manner not nearly so fair and open as the creation of Israel, yet if Mexicans started to blow themselves up at Northbrook Court, trying to get Texas back, they wouldn’t make nearly the progress that the Palestinians made before their hunger to have absolutely every inch of Israel undid them. Before the West Bank was Israel’s, remember, it was Jordan’s. Jordan had it for years. They didn’t rush to make it into a Palestinian homeland. The only reason Israel got hold of it was because, in 1967, the Arabs tried, for the third time in 20 years, to destroy Israel. The Israeli Army, as per tradition, kicked their collective butts. It took Gaza and the West Bank and Sinai and would have rolled into Cairo and done the Hora around the pyramids, but with an eye toward future relations, pulled up short. The Egyptians played nice, so they got Sinai back. The Palestinians would have gotten a country already, with stamps and coins and a code of maritime law, had they been able to forget the fact that what they really want is all the Jews in Israel dead and their heads placed on spikes all along the border. You have to stand in awe of a hatred so hard and bitter you’d send your children out to blow themselves up, just to give the hatred its daily exercise. I find it puzzling, though I try to ask myself how I’d feel if my grandfather fled the country where his family had dwelled for hundreds of years, leaving his land and possessions to be claimed by others. Then I remember, oh yeah, my grandfather did flee the country where his family had dwelled for hundreds of years: Poland. He fled, and those who stayed were slaughtered, every man, woman and child. And you know what? I don’t want the family farm in Bialystok back. I don’t hate the Poles at all–heck, I consider myself half Polish. The Palestinians, who are scoring points borrowing a page from the Anti-Defamation League playbook for manipulating publicity, could also learn something from Jews when it comes to hatred. Jews have been done wrong all over the place. (I know Palestinians believe the Holocaust never happened, but we’re fairly convinced. Nobody from the German or Polish side of the family shows up at reunions.) Despite this, we are not overwhelmed by hatred, because we know that it doesn’t get you anywhere. We’ve learned a secret — life is precious and short, and hatred only consumes the haters, sometimes literally, in a deafening flash. And I know I’m swamping you, but if you have time, here’s a letter from a West Point grad with extensive experience in Afghanistan, to his classmates. Have you already seen it? Dear Classmates: Many of you are probably not aware that I was one of the last American citizens to have spent a great deal of time in Afghanistan. I was first there in 1993 providing relief and assistance to refugees along the Tajik border and in this capacity have traveled all along the border region between the two countries. In 1998 and 1999 I was the Deputy Program Manager for the UN’s mine action program in Afghanistan. This program is the largest civilian employer in the country with over 5,000 persons clearing mines and UXO. In this later capacity, I was somewhat ironically engaged in a “Holy War” as decreed by the Taliban, against the evil of land mines, and by a special proclamation of Mullah Omar, all those who might have died in this effort were considered to be “martyrs” even an “infidel” like myself. The mine action program is the most respected relief effort in the country and because of this I had the opportunity to travel extensively, without too much interference or restriction. I still have extensive contacts in the area and among the Afghan community and read a great deal on the subject. I had wanted to write earlier and share some of my perspectives, but quite frankly I have been a bit too popular in DC this past week and have not had time. Dr. Tony Kern’s comments were excellent and I would like to use them as a basis for sharing some observations. First, he is absolutely correct. This war is about will, resolve and character. I want to touch on that later, but first I want to share some comments about our “enemy.” Our enemy is not the people of Afghanistan. The country is devastated beyond what most of us can imagine. The vast majority of the people live day-to-day, hand to mouth in abject conditions of poverty, misery and deprivation. Less than 30% of the men are literate, the women even less. The country is exhausted, and desperately wants something like peace. They know very little of the world at large, and have no access to information or knowledge that would counter what they are being told by the Taliban. They have nothing left, nothing that is except for their pride. Who is our enemy? Well, our enemy is a group of non-Afghans, often referred to by the Afghans as “Arabs” and a fanatical group of religious leaders and their military cohort, the Taliban. The non-Afghan contingent came from all over the Islamic world to fight in the war against the Russians. Many came using a covert network created with assistance by our own government. OBL (as Osama bin Laden was referred to by us in the country at the time) restored this network to bring in more fighters, this time to support the Taliban in their civil war against the former Mujehdeen. Over time this military support along with financial support has allowed OBL and his “Arabs” to co-opt significant government activities and leaders. OBL is the “inspector general” of Taliban armed forces, his bodyguards protect senior Taliban leaders and he has built a system of deep bunkers for the Taliban, which were designed to withstand cruise missile strikes (uhm, where did he learn to do that?). His forces basically rule the southern city of Kandahar. This high-profile presence of OBL and his “Arabs” has, in the last 2 years or so, started to generate a great deal of resentment on the part of the local Afghans. At the same time the legitimacy of the Taliban regime has started to decrease as it has failed to end the war, as local humanitarian conditions have worsened and as “cultural” restrictions have become even harsher. It is my assessment that most Afghans no longer support the Taliban. Indeed the Taliban have recently had a very difficult time getting recruits for their forces and have had to rely more and more on non-Afghans, either from Pushtun tribes in Pakistan or from OBL. OBL and the Taliban, absent any US action were probably on their way to sharing the same fate that all other outsiders and outside doctrines have experienced in Afghanistan–defeat and dismemberment. During the Afghan war with the Soviets much attention was paid to the martial prowess of the Afghans. We were all at West Point at the time and most of us had high-minded idealistic thoughts about how we would all want to go help the brave “freedom fighters” in their struggle against the Soviets. Those concepts were naive to the extreme. The Afghans, while never conquered as a nation, are not invincible in battle. A “good” Afghan battle is one that makes a lot of noise and light. Basic military skills are rudimentary and clouded by cultural constraints that no matter what, a warrior should never lose his honor. Indeed, firing from the prone is considered distasteful (but still done). Traditionally, the Afghan order of battle is very feudal in nature, with fighters owing allegiance to a “commander” and this person owing allegiance upwards and so on and so on. Often such allegiance is secured by payment. And while the Taliban forces have changed this somewhat, many of the units in the Taliban army are there because they are being paid to be there. All such groups have very strong loyalties along ethnic and tribal lines. Again, the concept of having a place of “honor” and “respect” is of paramount importance and blood feuds between families and tribes can last for generations over a perceived or actual slight. That is one reason why there were 7 groups of Mujehdeen fighting the Russians. It is a very difficult task to form and keep united a large bunch of Afghans into a military formation. The “real” stories that have come out of the war against the Soviets are very enlightening and a lot different from our fantastic visions as cadets. When the first batch of Stingers came in and were given to one Mujehdeen group, another group, supposedly on the same side, attacked the first group and stole the Stingers, not so much because they wanted to use them, but because having them was a matter of prestige. Many larger coordinated attacks that advisers tried to conduct failed when all the various Afghan fighting groups would give up their assigned tasks (such as blocking or overwatch) and instead would join the assault group in order to seek glory. In comparison to Vietnam, the intensity of combat and the rate of fatalities were lower for all involved. As you can tell from above, it is my assessment that these guys are not THAT good in a purely military sense and the “Arabs” probably even less so than the Afghans. So why is it that they have never been conquered? It goes back to Dr. Kern’s point about will. During their history the only events that have managed to form any semblance of unity among the Afghans, is the desire to fight foreign invaders. And in doing this the Afghans have been fanatical. The Afghans’ greatest military strength is the ability to endure hardships that would, in all probability, kill most Americans and enervate the resolve of all but the most elite military units. The physical difficulties of fighting in Afghanistan, the terrain, the weather and the harshness are all weapons that our enemies will use to their advantage and use well. (NOTE: For you military planner types and armchair generals–around November 1st most road movement is impossible, in part because all the roads used by the Russians have been destroyed and air movement will be problematic at best.) Also, those fighting us are not afraid to fight. OBL and others do not think the US has the will or the stomach for a fight. Indeed after the absolutely inane missile strikes of 1998, the overwhelming consensus was that we were cowards, who would not risk one life in face to face combat. Rather than demonstrating our might and acting as a deterrent, that action and others of the not so recent past, have reinforced the perception that the US does not have any “will” and that we are morally and spiritually corrupt. Our challenge is to play to the weaknesses of our enemy, notably their propensity for internal struggles, the distrust between the extremists/Arabs and the majority of Afghans, their limited ability to fight coordinated battles and their lack of external support. More importantly though is that we have to take steps not to play to their strengths, which would be to unite the entire population against us by increasing their suffering or killing innocents, to get bogged down trying to hold terrain, or to get into a battle of attrition chasing up and down mountain valleys. I have been asked how I would fight the war. This is a big question and well beyond my pay grade or expertise. And while I do not want to second guess current plans or start an academic debate, I would share the following from what I know about Afghanistan and the Afghans. First, I would give the Northern Alliance a big wad of cash so that they can buy off a chunk of the Taliban army before winter. Second, also with this cash I would pay some guys to kill some of the Taliban leadership making it look like an inside job to spread distrust and build on existing discord. Third I would support the Northern alliance with military assets, but not take it over or adopt so high a profile as to undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of most Afghans. Fourth, would be to give massive amounts of humanitarian aid and assistance to the Afghans in Pakistan in order to demonstrate our goodwill and to give these guys a reason to live rather than the choice between dying of starvation or dying fighting the “infidel.” Fifth, start a series of public works projects in areas of the country not under Taliban control (these are much more than the press reports), again to demonstrate goodwill and that improvements come with peace. Sixth, I would consider vary carefully putting any female service members into Afghanistan proper, sorry to the females of our class, but within that culture a man who allows a women to fight for him has zero respect, and we will need respect to gain the cooperation of Afghan allies. No Afghan will work with a man who fights with women. I would hold off from doing anything too dramatic in the near term, keeping a low level of covert action and pressure up over the winter, allowing this pressure to force open the fission’s around the Taliban that were already developing. Expect that they will quickly turn on themselves and on OBL. We can pick up the pieces next summer, or the summer after. When we do “pickup” the pieces I would make sure that we do so on the ground, “man to man.” While I would never want to advocate American casualties, it is essential that we communicate to OBL and all others watching that we can and will “engage and destroy the enemy in close combat.” As mentioned above, we should not try to gain or hold terrain, but Infantry operations against the enemy are essential. There can be no excuses after the defeat or lingering doubts in the minds of our enemies regarding American resolve and nothing, nothing will communicate this except for ground combat. And once this is all over, unlike in 1989, the US must provide continued long-term economic assistance to rebuild the country. While I have written too much already, I think it is also important to share a few things on the subject of brutality. Our opponents will not abide by the Geneva conventions. There will be no prisoners unless there is a chance that they can be ransomed or made part of a local prisoner exchange. During the war with the Soviets, videotapes were made of communist prisoners having their throats slit. Indeed, there did exist a “trade” in prisoners so that souvenir videos could be made by outsiders to take home with them. This practice has spread to the Philippines, Bosnia and Chechnya were similar videos are being made today and can be found on the web for those so inclined. We can expect our soldiers to be treated the same way. Sometime during this war I expect that we will see videos of US prisoners having their heads cut off. Our enemies will do this not only to demonstrate their “strength” to their followers, but also to cause us to overreact, to seek wholesale revenge against civilian populations and to turn this into the world wide religious war that they desperately want. This will be a test of our will and of our character. (For further collaboration of this type of activity please read Kipling.) This will not be a pretty war; it will be a war of wills, of resolve and somewhat conversely of compassion and of a character. Towards our enemies, we must show a level of ruthlessness that has not been part of our military character for a long time. But to those who are not our enemies we must show a level of compassion probably unheard of during war. We should do this not for humanitarian reasons, even though there are many, but for shrewd military logic. For anyone who is still reading this way to long note, thanks for your patience. I will try to answer any questions that may arise in a more concise manner. Thanks, Richard Kidd Tomorrow: Something – Anything! — Short
Blowback and The Jerusalem Post October 2, 2001January 26, 2017 CMM John Lemon: ‘I’m not complaining. I didn’t invest that much, I’m still holding it and I’m a big boy, come what may. But I am curious as to your current opinion of CMM. I bought it at .70. It is obviously significantly down from that, closing at .38 today. If you liked it at .70, do you really love it now? Should I buy a little more and await the rebound, or has something catastrophic happened to the company that I missed?’ ☞ I bought a bunch last week at .41, so if you can afford the risk – and the risk is real – you know my opinion. Then again, having see the stock drop so much, you know that my opinion is flawed at best. Or buy some more now (and even more if it goes a lot lower), but then sell some of the first shares for a tax loss (having waited 31 days since your last purchase to avoid disqualification by the ‘wash sale’) and hope that one day the newer 41-cent shares are lightly taxed as a large long-term gain. In hindsight, it would have been wiser of me to recommend one or more of CMM’s preferred issues (which you can still buy). They pay dividends that, lately, have been paid in stock, not cash, which floods the market with new stock and, probably, is one reason for the depressed price of the common. Sorry it’s done so badly; thanks for taking it with such good grace. I’ve been pretty lucky here with most of my suggestions, and may ultimately even be lucky with CMM. But those modest and self-deprecating disclaimers I always make? I have good reason to be modest. This is just one example. Thanks to Cal Hullihen for this link to Chalmers Johnson’s op-ed piece in Sunday’s LA Times about ‘over reacting.’ Johnson is author of Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. And to Alan Silver for this link to the Jerusalem Post. David D’Antonio: ‘The ending ‘salutation’ to the US Air Academy letter Friday – ‘God Bless America’ – is the part of this that bothers me the most. Whose God? The Christian one? the Jewish one? The Muslim one? This country was (supposedly) founded on ‘freedom of religion,’ Jerry Falwell notwithstanding. It seems rather ironic that someone would invoke God in this circumstance as I’m sure that’s what the terrorists were doing, as well. Throughout history, as he should be aware, God has been used as the justification for all manner of atrocities; this attack is just another example. I have no problem with the U.S. being united, but leave God out of it.’
Israel October 1, 2001February 20, 2017 CALTON Murray Sussman: ‘I bought CN at 91 cents after the $5 distribution and saw it jump up – only to see it close at 50 cents Friday. I’m ready to swallow my loss but would appreciate it if there would be an update on the company from your perspective first.’ ☞ It’s definitely possible, as I’ve said, that the company will fritter away its $2 a share in cash (or whatever it’s down to by now). Truly. I’m holding mine, hoping that it won’t. If tax-selling drives the price still lower, I might even buy more. But I can afford to lose 100% of my CN bet – and you must own it only if you can, too. Matvey Shindel: ‘With all due respect, this Christian Science Monitor article was not worth my time. It just repeats the same PROPOGANDA against Israel (and the US) that is so common in the Islamic world. Here’s a quote: ‘Over the past year, Arab TV stations have broadcast countless pictures of Israeli soldiers shooting at Palestinian youths, Israeli tanks plowing into Palestinian homes, Israeli helicopters rocketing Palestinian streets.’ It seems a bit one-sided, does it not?’ ☞ Terribly. But was it your impression this article was saying everyone is RIGHT to hate us and Israel (which they assuredly are not)? Or just trying to explain why so many do? Steven Schatz: ‘Regarding Friday’s link to the article in the Christian Science Monitor, I am so sad to read such half-truths about Israel. If you are willing to face truth and challenge the received ‘truth’ expounded by the likes of CNN and Christian Science Monitor, please, I beg you, please please please read Joan Peters’ book, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine. She is an American Jewish liberal who started out to write about how awful the Israelis were to the poor Palestinians. But she was honest in her research and came to a conclusion that I am confident will open your eyes and heart.’ ☞ My heart is already open. I believe our support of Israel is amply justified, although I do wonder whether things would have gone better without the West Bank settlements. Art Yevin: ‘What did you expect from the Christian Science Monitor? They and their writings have always reflected an anti Israel and anti Jewish bent. So for you to say it is worth reading is sort of giving it credence. For some reason I have NEVER read a pro Israel writing of yours or maybe you believe that giving the Palestinians 94% of the West Bank, 100% of the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem is not enough. ‘Why have you never written anything about the terrible conditions the people of Israel face on a daily basis? In the past year, Israel has been hit with over 3000 incidents of terrorism. This, despite the fact, that Israel offered the Palestinian Arabs all of Gaza, 94% of the West Bank and their own country. President Clinton met with Arafat more than any other foreign leader, he even said that Arafat never delineated what he would be satisfied with. Why? I suspect that he desires the destruction of Israel. I know you are not an expert on the Middle East but you comment on many other topics and you are not an expert on them either.’ ☞ I guess I take it for granted all of us, including virtually every member of Congress, regardless of party, largely or entirely support Israel, and are immensely frustrated by Arafat’s inability to ‘take yes for an answer’ (as Tom Friedman characterized it in one of his New York Times columns). We take our own goodness for granted. What may be more important to explore is how we might have been even better, or be even better going forward. In hindsight, for example, was our support of the Shah of Iran, and by extension his dreaded secret police, in the interests of the people of Iran? Did it lead some of them to hate us and teach their children to hate us? What about our involvement in Afghanistan. I don’t know, but with so much at stake, these sorts of questions seem relevant. For those of you who missed it, here’s one important Israeli view: Statement of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the United States House of Representatives Government Reform Committee September 20, 2001 Chairman Burton, Distinguished Representatives: I want to thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I feel a profound responsibility addressing you in this hour of peril in the capital of liberty. What is at stake today is nothing less than the survival of our civilization. There may be some who would have thought a week ago that to talk in these apocalyptic terms about the battle against international terrorism was to engage in reckless exaggeration. No longer. Each one of us today understands that we are all targets, that our cities are vulnerable, and that our values are hated with an unmatched fanaticism that seeks to destroy our societies and our way of life. I am certain that I speak on behalf of my entire nation when I say, Today, we are all Americans – in grief, as in defiance. In grief, because my people have faced the agonizing horrors of terror for many decades, and we feel an instant kinship with both the victims of this tragedy and the great nation that mourns its fallen brothers and sisters. In defiance, because just as my country continues to fight terrorism in our battle for survival, I know that America will not cower before this challenge. I have absolute confidence that if we, the citizens of the free world, led by President Bush, marshall the enormous reserves of power at our disposal, harness the steely resolve of a free people, and mobilize our collective will – we shall eradicate this evil from the face of the earth. But to achieve this goal, we must first however answer several questions: Who is responsible for this terrorist onslaught? Why? What is the motive behind these attacks? And most importantly, what must be done to defeat these evil forces? The first and most crucial thing to understand is this: There IS no international terrorism without the support of sovereign states. International terrorism simply cannot be sustained for long without the regimes that aid and abet it. Terrorists are not suspended in mid-air. They train, arm and indoctrinate their killers from within safe havens on territory provided by terrorist states. Often these regimes provide the terrorists with intelligence, money and operational assistance, dispatching them to serve as deadly proxies to wage a hidden war against more powerful enemies. These regimes mount a worldwide propaganda campaign to legitimize terror, besmirching its victims and exculpating its practitioners as we witnessed in the farcical spectacle in Durban [South Africa’s Racism Summit] last month. Iran, Libya, and Syria call the US and Israel racist countries that abuse human rights? Even Orwell could not have imagined such a world. Take away all this state support, and the entire scaffolding of international terrorism will collapse into the dust. The international terrorist network is thus based on regimes- Iran, Iraq, Syria, Taleban Afghanistan, Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority and several other Arab regimes such as the Sudan. These regimes are the ones that harbor the terrorist groups: Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, Hizballah and others in Syrian-controlled Lebanon, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the recently mobilized Fatah and Tanzim factions in the Palestinian territories, and sundry other terror organizations based in such capitals as Damascus, Baghdad and Khartoum. These terrorist states and terror organizations together form a terror network, whose constituent parts support each other operationally as well as politically. For example, the Palestinian groups cooperate closely with Hezbollah, which in turn links them to Syria, Iran and Bin Laden. These offshoots of terror have affiliates in other states that have not yet uprooted their presence, such as Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Now, how did this come about? The growth of this terror network is the result of several developments in the last two decades: Chief among them is the Khomeini Revolution and the establishment of a clerical Islamic state in Iran. This created a sovereign spiritual base for fomenting a strident Islamic militancy worldwide- a militancy that was often backed by terror. Equally important was the victory in the Afghan war of the international mujaheedin brotherhood. This international band of zealots, whose ranks include Osama Bin Laden, saw their victory over the Soviet Union as providential proof of the innate supremacy of faithful Moslems over the weak infidel powers. They believed that even the superior weapons of a superpower could not withstand their superior will. To this should also be added Saddam Hussein’s escape from destruction at the end of the Gulf War, his dismissal of UN monitors, and his growing confidence that he can soon develop unconventional weapons to match those of the West. Finally, the creation of Yasser Arafat’s terror enclave gave a safe haven to militant Islamic terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Like their mujaheedin cousins, they drew inspiration from Israel’s hasty withdrawal from Lebanon, glorified as a great Moslem victory by the Syrian-backed Hizballah. Under Arafat’s rule, these Palestinian Islamic terrorist groups made repeated use of the technique of suicide bombing, going so far as to run summer camps in Gaza that teach Palestinian children how to become suicide martyrs. Here is what Arafat’s government controlled newspaper, Al Hayat Al Jadida, said on September 11, the very day of the suicide bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: “The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors of the Lebanese suicide bombers, who taught the U.S. Marines a tough lesson in [Lebanon]. These suicide bombers are the salt of the earth, the engines of history, They are the most honorable people among us.” A simple rule prevails here: The success of terrorists in one part of the terror network emboldens terrorists throughout the network. This then is the Who. Now for the Why. Though its separate parts may have local objectives and take part in local conflicts, the main motivation driving the terror network is an anti-Western hostility that seeks to achieve nothing less than a reversal of history. It seeks to roll back the West and install an extremist form of Islam as the dominant power in the world. It seeks to do this not by means of its own advancement and progress, but by destroying the enemy. This hatred is the product of a seething resentment that has simmered for centuries in certain parts of the Arab and Islamic world. Most Moslems in the world, including the vast majority of the growing Moslem communities in the West, are not guided by this interpretation of history, nor are they moved by its call for a holy war against the West. But some are. And though their numbers are small compared to the peaceable majority, they nevertheless constitute a growing hinterland for this militancy. Militant Islamists resented the West for pushing back the triumphant march of Islam into the heart of Europe many centuries ago. Its adherents, believing in the innate supremacy of Islam, then suffered a series of shocks when in the last two centuries that same hated, supposedly inferior West penetrated Islamic realms in North Africa, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. For them the mission was clear: The West had to be first pushed out of these areas. Pro-western Middle Eastern regimes were toppled in rapid succession, including in Iran. And Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy and its purest manifestation of Western progress and freedom, must be wiped off the face of the earth. Thus, the soldiers of militant Islam do not hate the West because of Israel, they hate Israel because of the West — because they see it is an island of Western democratic values in a Moslem-Arab sea of despotism. That is why they call Israel the Little Satan, to distinguish it clearly from the country that has always been and will always be the Great Satan –The United States of America. Nothing better illustrates this then Osama bin Laden’s call for Jihad against the United States in 1998. He gave as his primary reason not Israel, not the Palestinians, not the peace process, but rather the very presence of the United States occupying the Land of Islam in the holiest of places – and where is that? “the Arabian peninsula” says Bin Laden, where America is plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, and humiliating its people.” Israel, by the way, comes a distant third, after the continuing aggression against the Iraqi people. [Al Quds al Arabi February 23, 1998] For the Bin Ladens of the world Israel is merely a sideshow. America is the target. But reestablishing a resurgent Islam requires not just rolling back the West; it requires destroying its main engine, the United States. And if the US cannot be destroyed just now, it can be first humiliated — as in the Teheran hostage crisis two decades ago — and then ferociously attacked again and again, until it is brought to its knees. But the ultimate goal remains the same: Destroy America and win eternity. Some of you may find it hard to believe that Islamic militants truly cling to the mad fantasy of destroying America. Make no mistake about it. They do. And unless they are stopped now, their attacks will continue, and become even more lethal in the future. To understand the true dangers of Islamic militancy, we can compare it to another ideology which sought world domination – communism. Both movements pursued irrational goals, but the communists at least pursued theirs in a rational way. Anytime they had to choose between ideology and their own survival, as in Cuba or Berlin, they backed off and chose survival. Not so for the Islamic militants. They pursue an irrational ideology irrationally – with no apparent regard for human life, neither their own lives nor the lives of their enemies. The Communists seldom, if ever, produced suicide bombers, while Islamic militancy produces hordes of them, glorifying them and promising them that their dastardly deeds will earn them a glorious afterlife. This highly pathological aspect of Islamic militancy is what makes it so deadly for mankind. When in 1996, I wrote a book about fighting terrorism, I warned about the militant Islamic groups operating in the West with the support of foreign powers– serving as a new breed of ‘domestic-international’ terrorists, basing themselves in America to wage Jihad against America: Such groups, I wrote then, nullify in large measure the need to have air power or intercontinental missiles as delivery systems for an Islamic nuclear payload. They will be the delivery system. In the worst of such scenarios, I wrote, the consequences could be not a car bomb but a nuclear bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center. Well, they did not use a nuclear bomb. They used two 150 ton fully fueled jetliners to wipe out the Twin Towers. But does anyone doubt that given the chance, they will throw atom bombs at America and its allies? And perhaps long before that, chemical and biological weapons? This is the greatest danger facing our common future. Some states of the terror network already possess chemical and biological capabilities, and some are feverishly developing nuclear weapons. Can one rule out the possibility that they will be tempted to use such weapons, openly or through terror proxies, or that their weapons might fall into the hands of the terrorist groups they harbor? We have received a wake up call from hell. Now the question is simple: Do we rally to defeat this evil, while there is still time, or do we press a collective snooze button and go back to business as usual? The time for action is now. Today the terrorists have the will to destroy us, but they do not have the power. There is no doubt that we have the power to crush them. Now we must also show that we have the will to do just that. Once any part of the terror network acquires nuclear weapons, this equation will fundamentally change, and with it the course of human affairs. This is the historical imperative that now confronts all of us. And now the third point: What do we about it? First, as President Bush said, we must make no distinction between the terrorists and the states that support them. It is not enough to root out the terrorists who committed this horrific act of war. We must dismantle the entire terrorist network. If any part of it remains intact, it will rebuild itself, and the specter of terrorism will reemerge and strike again. Bin Laden, for example, has shuttled over the last decade from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan to the Sudan and back again. So we must not leave any base intact. To achieve this goal we must first have moral clarity. We must fight terror wherever and whenever it appears. We must make all states play by the same rules. We must declare terrorism a crime against humanity, and we must consider the terrorists enemies of mankind, to be given no quarter and no consideration for their purported grievances. If we begin to distinguish between acts of terror, justifying some and repudiating others based on sympathy with this or that cause, we will lose the moral clarity that is so essential for victory. This clarity is what enabled America and Britain to root out piracy in the nineteenth century. This is how the Allies rooted out Nazism in the twentieth century. They did not look for the ‘root cause’ of piracy or the ‘root cause’ of Nazism – because they knew that some acts are evil in and of themselves, and do not deserve any consideration or ‘understanding’. They did not ask if Hitler was right about the alleged wrong done to Germany at Versailles. That they left to the historians. The leaders of the Western Alliance said something else: Nothing justifies Nazism. Nothing! We must be equally clear-cut today: Nothing justifies terrorism – NOTHING! Terrorism is defined not by the identity of its perpetrators nor by the cause they espouse. Rather, it is defined by the nature of the act. Terrorism is the deliberate attack on innocent civilians. In this it must be distinguished from legitimate acts of war that target combatants and may unintentionally harm civilians. When the British bombed a Gestapo headquarters in 1944, and one of their bombs unintentionally struck a children’s hospital that was a tragedy, but it was not terrorism. When Israel fired a missile that killed two Hamas arch-terrorists, and two Palestinians children who were playing nearby were tragically struck down, that is not terrorism. But terrorists do not unintentionally harm civilians. They deliberately murder, maim, and menace civilians – as many as possible. No cause, no grievance, no apology can ever justify terrorism. Terrorism against Americans, Israelis, Spaniards, Britons, Russians, or anyone else, is all part of the same evil and must be treated as such. It is time to establish a fixed principle for the international community: any cause that uses terrorism to advance its aims will not be rewarded. On the contrary, it will be punished and placed beyond the pale. Armed with this moral clarity in defining terrorism, we must possess an equal moral clarity in fighting it. If we include Iran, Syria, and the Palestinian Authority in the coalition to fight terror — even though they currently harbor, sponsor and dispatch terrorists — then the alliance against terror will be defeated from within. Perhaps we might achieve a short-term objective of destroying one terrorist fiefdom, but it will preclude the possibility of overall victory. Such a coalition will melt down because of its own internal contradictions. We might win a battle. We will certainly lose the war. These regimes, like all terrorist states, must be given a forthright demand: Stop terrorism, permanently, or you will face the wrath of the free world through harsh and sustained political, economic and military sanctions. Obviously, some of these regimes will scramble in fear and issue platitudes about their opposition to terror, just as Arafat, Iran and Syria did, while they keep their terror apparatus intact. We should not be fooled. These regimes are already on the US lists of states supporting terrorism and if they’re not, they should be. The price of admission for any state into the coalition against terror must be to first completely dismantle the terrorist infrastructures within their realm. Iran will have to dismantle a worldwide network of terrorism and incitement based in Teheran. Syria will have to shut down Hizballah and the dozen terrorist organizations that operate freely in Damascus and in Lebanon. Arafat will have to crush Hamas and Islamic Jihad, close down their suicide factories and training grounds, rein in his own Fatah and Tanzim terrorists and cease the endless incitement to violence. To win this war, we must fight on many fronts. The most obvious one is direct military action against the terrorists themselves. Israel’s policy of preemptively striking at those who seek to murder its people is, I believe, better understood today and requires no further elaboration. But there is no substitute for the key action that we must take: Imposing the most punishing diplomatic, economic and military sanction on all terrorist states. To this must be added these five measures: 1) Freeze financial assets in the West of terrorist regimes and organizations; 2) Revise legislation, subject to periodic renewal, to enable better surveillance against organizations inciting violence; 3) Keep convicted terrorist behind bars. Do not negotiate with terrorists; 4) Train special forces to fight terror. 5) And not least important, impose sanctions on suppliers of nuclear technology to terrorist states. I’ve had some experience in pursuing all these courses of action in Israel’s battle against terrorism, and I will be glad to elaborate on any one of them if you wish, including the sensitive questions surrounding intelligence. But I have to be clear: Victory over terrorism is not, at its most fundamental level, a matter of law enforcement or intelligence. However important these functions may be, they can only reduce the dangers, not eliminate them. The immediate objective is to end all state support for, and complicity with, terror. If vigorously and continuously challenged, most of these regimes can be deterred from sponsoring terrorism. But there is a real possibility that some will not be deterred – and those may be ones possessing weapons of mass destruction. Again, we cannot dismiss the possibility that a militant terrorist state will use its proxies to threaten or launch a nuclear attack with apparent impunity. Nor can we completely dismiss the possibility that a militant regime, like its terrorist proxies, will commit collective suicide for the sake of its fanatical ideology. In this case, we might face not thousands of dead, but hundreds of thousands and possibly millions. This is why the US must do everything in its power to prevent regimes like Iran and Iraq from developing nuclear weapons, and disarm them of their weapons of mass destruction. This is the great mission that now stands before the free world. This mission must not be watered down to allow certain states to participate in the coalition that is now being organized. On the contrary, the coalition must be built around the mission. It may be that some will shy away from adopting such an uncompromising stance against terrorism. If some free states choose to remain on the sidelines, America must be prepared to march forward without them – for there is no substitute for moral and strategic clarity. I believe that if the United States stands on principle, all the democracies will eventually join the war on terrorism. The easy route may be tempting, but it will not win the day. On September eleventh, I, like everyone else, was glued to a television set watching the savagery that struck America. Yet amid the smoking ruins of the Twin Towers one could make out the Statue of Liberty holding high the torch of freedom. It is freedom’s flame that the terrorists sought to extinguish. But it is that same torch, so proudly held by the United States, that can lead the free world to crush the forces of terror and secure our tomorrow. It is within our power. Let us now make sure that it is within our will. Richard Reiss: ‘As a native New Yorker, who watched the buildings burn from my roof on 22nd St., I’ve had a lot of thoughts run through my head lately. To me the whole attack, the timing of the planes and their targets (and even this week’s assault on the unoccupied US embassy) seems too cleverly scripted for media; an attempt to create a wider war, one which would give bin Laden and his people the power they want. It’s to the administration’s credit not to have been sucked in. I think every day of US restraint is a victory. Ultimately we should pursue them as criminals, with the Islamic world on our side.‘ Tomorrow: Blowback and The Jerusalem Post