email628.xml
Title
email628.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
email
Date Entered
2002-08-30
September 11 Email: Body
From:
To:
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 8:43 AM
Subject: New York Trip--Part 4
As I near the end of these memories of a fateful week in New York, I think a few observations about terrorism might be in order. By undertaking to speak on this subject,I claim no particular expertise. Certainly, the week in New York only showed me terrorism's ugly face; it did not show me the mind or the heart of this evil thing. My only perspective is history. This is the way I spent my career and my thinking is automatically attuned to seek historic precedents. That's what I do. History can be the greatest of comforts in that it assures you that you are not alone in the great scheme of things. Man has been through tragedy and disaster and despair before, and will be again. But history has a cold-bloodied side; it does not assure you that things are going to turn out right, because man is prone not to learn from history and is prone to the same mistakes over and over.
History would assure you that terrorism is no new thing. It has been around as long as there has been organized society. Its aim has generally been to destroy organized government and replace it with some other system (usually worse) or to do away with government at all (anarchy). Its most common form has been political assassination which sought to weaken government by making it unsafe to be a government official. Some periods have been more prone to political violence than others but history would say that the potential for terrorism has been and always will be a constant.
The period from the assassination of Lincoln in 1865 to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria in July 1914, the event that precipitated World War I, is often known as the heyday for assassins. Governments found it almost impossible to stop a committed fanatic, who did not mind surrendering his own life for the cause, from perpetrating his assigned task. Further, if those assassins had support from some organized state they were doubly, or a hundred times more dangerous. Such was the case with Serbia's support of the Black Hand terrorists in the Balkans. Gavrillo Prinzcip, who murdered Franz Ferdinand and his wife, was a member of that organization. When states become involved in terrorism a single act can lead to the involvement of not just that state but all their friends and foes alike. That was the dilemma that led to World War I.
Terrorists have always been there, it is almost impossible to stop them, and it is particularly grievous when organized states lend support to the terrorist cause. In a way this simple set of ideas sums up our terrible dilemma today. Can we target one terrorist without involving the state in which he hides, thus finding ourselves at war with that state and perhaps with all the states that lend support? Put simply: can we roust out Osama bin Laden without going to war with Afghanistan and perhaps with much of the Islamic world? History would say that this is a particularly slippery slope.
To declare "war on terrorism" is fraught with difficulty, according to some lessons from our recent history. The more indistinct the enemy in a war, the more protracted will be the struggle and, generally, the less decisive will be the result. We declared "war on poverty" and "war on drugs" and both of those phenomena are still with us and the fight has been a long and costly one. Vietnam certainly illustrates the danger of a war without clearly demarked goals and with a somewhat faceless enemy. That war was lost, not on the battlefield--we won all the battles--but in the hearts and minds of the people of the United States. We did not have the staying power that would hold us through a protracted struggle without a clearly stated goal in mind. We did not stay the course.
Will we have stomach enough to wage this war on terrorism with some of the same problems we encountered in Vietnam? Russia lost a war in Afghanistan and in the process 15,000 of her soldiers were killed. Are we ready for those numbers? The Gulf war was more to our liking; quick, technological, get in-get out and all on TV. President Bush assures us this will be a long and bitter war. Are we ready? Will our allies stay hitched? Some of them seem to be waffling on us already. President Bush says you are with us or against us. Are we ready when they opt out and we find ourselves alone or nearly so?
This all sounds terribly pessimistic. History's lessons in the area of terrorism are terribly pessimistic. Can we afford to do nothing? Can President Bush afford to do what was called the Wilson Tango when that president was struggling with the deterioration of the Mexican government during its revolutionary period: one step forward, two steps back, a side-step, and a moment of hesitation. I think we all know that the answer is "No!"
But what to do. My reaction in New York was, I suspect, that of most of the people we saw and, I suspect further, the reaction of most Americans: lets bomb "them" out. But then the question arises as to who "them" is. The frustration of trying to get a "them" clearly in the crosshairs is almost overwhelming. We can make bin Laden the target of our anger and outrage as we did with Pancho Villa when he attacked Columbus, New Mexico, March 9, 1916. We sent 11,000 men in pursuit of Pancho and did not catch him. Can we catch bin Laden?
During World War I, a reporter asked Will Rogers if he could suggest a solution to the German submarine menace that so threatened American shipping. "Certainly,"said the great comedian,"all you have to do is boil the ocean." When the reporter objected, Rogers pointed out that he had been asked for a solution, not a method. Our solution is a simple one: all we have to do is make bin Laden and all terrorists persona non grata everywhere in the world. How does President Bush boil this particular ocean? As he has pointed out, it will take time and it will take sacrifice. It cannot be accomplished by the military alone. It is going to take a massive diplomatic initiative. It is going to take financial pressure on the sources of funds that support terrorism. Above all it is going to take a people united enough to stay the course. It is in this last area that my pessimism once again surfaces: Americans have not shown that kind of stomach since World War II.
The point just made gets at something we must not lose sight of. The real target of the World Trade Center attack was not those two towers. It was an attack on us, on our values, and it was an attack that assumed we would not defend those values. It assumed that we would turn in on ourselves and be like Saturn devouring his own children. Democracy is worth defending but only if we defend all of its ideals. To win this war and lose our civil liberties is to lose this war. Pat Oliphant had a masterful political cartoon in a recent edition of the New York Times. It shows a powerful Uncle Sam with a long and terrible sword in hand ready to swing. In the background is the figure of a small boy marked civil rights and waving an American flag. Uncle Sam is saying, "Watch out for the backswing, kid." That says it all. We must gear up for a war, even one with indistinct goals and a lack of clear method, and yet at the same time preserve the civil rights and the freedoms guaranteed us by our founding documents.
We must guard against the desire to insure our security to the extent that we harm others. It bothers me that a professor at NMSU--a Hindu--has been attacked twice by some cowardly person on campus. It bothers me that a professor at UNM who made a patently stupid remark about the Pentagon should have his job threatened. He has the right under our system to be a craven jerk. We must protect those in our society who choose to exercise their basic freedoms, even if we think them dangerous.
If we let the terrorists take our basic freedoms away from us, they win.
To:
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 8:43 AM
Subject: New York Trip--Part 4
As I near the end of these memories of a fateful week in New York, I think a few observations about terrorism might be in order. By undertaking to speak on this subject,I claim no particular expertise. Certainly, the week in New York only showed me terrorism's ugly face; it did not show me the mind or the heart of this evil thing. My only perspective is history. This is the way I spent my career and my thinking is automatically attuned to seek historic precedents. That's what I do. History can be the greatest of comforts in that it assures you that you are not alone in the great scheme of things. Man has been through tragedy and disaster and despair before, and will be again. But history has a cold-bloodied side; it does not assure you that things are going to turn out right, because man is prone not to learn from history and is prone to the same mistakes over and over.
History would assure you that terrorism is no new thing. It has been around as long as there has been organized society. Its aim has generally been to destroy organized government and replace it with some other system (usually worse) or to do away with government at all (anarchy). Its most common form has been political assassination which sought to weaken government by making it unsafe to be a government official. Some periods have been more prone to political violence than others but history would say that the potential for terrorism has been and always will be a constant.
The period from the assassination of Lincoln in 1865 to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria in July 1914, the event that precipitated World War I, is often known as the heyday for assassins. Governments found it almost impossible to stop a committed fanatic, who did not mind surrendering his own life for the cause, from perpetrating his assigned task. Further, if those assassins had support from some organized state they were doubly, or a hundred times more dangerous. Such was the case with Serbia's support of the Black Hand terrorists in the Balkans. Gavrillo Prinzcip, who murdered Franz Ferdinand and his wife, was a member of that organization. When states become involved in terrorism a single act can lead to the involvement of not just that state but all their friends and foes alike. That was the dilemma that led to World War I.
Terrorists have always been there, it is almost impossible to stop them, and it is particularly grievous when organized states lend support to the terrorist cause. In a way this simple set of ideas sums up our terrible dilemma today. Can we target one terrorist without involving the state in which he hides, thus finding ourselves at war with that state and perhaps with all the states that lend support? Put simply: can we roust out Osama bin Laden without going to war with Afghanistan and perhaps with much of the Islamic world? History would say that this is a particularly slippery slope.
To declare "war on terrorism" is fraught with difficulty, according to some lessons from our recent history. The more indistinct the enemy in a war, the more protracted will be the struggle and, generally, the less decisive will be the result. We declared "war on poverty" and "war on drugs" and both of those phenomena are still with us and the fight has been a long and costly one. Vietnam certainly illustrates the danger of a war without clearly demarked goals and with a somewhat faceless enemy. That war was lost, not on the battlefield--we won all the battles--but in the hearts and minds of the people of the United States. We did not have the staying power that would hold us through a protracted struggle without a clearly stated goal in mind. We did not stay the course.
Will we have stomach enough to wage this war on terrorism with some of the same problems we encountered in Vietnam? Russia lost a war in Afghanistan and in the process 15,000 of her soldiers were killed. Are we ready for those numbers? The Gulf war was more to our liking; quick, technological, get in-get out and all on TV. President Bush assures us this will be a long and bitter war. Are we ready? Will our allies stay hitched? Some of them seem to be waffling on us already. President Bush says you are with us or against us. Are we ready when they opt out and we find ourselves alone or nearly so?
This all sounds terribly pessimistic. History's lessons in the area of terrorism are terribly pessimistic. Can we afford to do nothing? Can President Bush afford to do what was called the Wilson Tango when that president was struggling with the deterioration of the Mexican government during its revolutionary period: one step forward, two steps back, a side-step, and a moment of hesitation. I think we all know that the answer is "No!"
But what to do. My reaction in New York was, I suspect, that of most of the people we saw and, I suspect further, the reaction of most Americans: lets bomb "them" out. But then the question arises as to who "them" is. The frustration of trying to get a "them" clearly in the crosshairs is almost overwhelming. We can make bin Laden the target of our anger and outrage as we did with Pancho Villa when he attacked Columbus, New Mexico, March 9, 1916. We sent 11,000 men in pursuit of Pancho and did not catch him. Can we catch bin Laden?
During World War I, a reporter asked Will Rogers if he could suggest a solution to the German submarine menace that so threatened American shipping. "Certainly,"said the great comedian,"all you have to do is boil the ocean." When the reporter objected, Rogers pointed out that he had been asked for a solution, not a method. Our solution is a simple one: all we have to do is make bin Laden and all terrorists persona non grata everywhere in the world. How does President Bush boil this particular ocean? As he has pointed out, it will take time and it will take sacrifice. It cannot be accomplished by the military alone. It is going to take a massive diplomatic initiative. It is going to take financial pressure on the sources of funds that support terrorism. Above all it is going to take a people united enough to stay the course. It is in this last area that my pessimism once again surfaces: Americans have not shown that kind of stomach since World War II.
The point just made gets at something we must not lose sight of. The real target of the World Trade Center attack was not those two towers. It was an attack on us, on our values, and it was an attack that assumed we would not defend those values. It assumed that we would turn in on ourselves and be like Saturn devouring his own children. Democracy is worth defending but only if we defend all of its ideals. To win this war and lose our civil liberties is to lose this war. Pat Oliphant had a masterful political cartoon in a recent edition of the New York Times. It shows a powerful Uncle Sam with a long and terrible sword in hand ready to swing. In the background is the figure of a small boy marked civil rights and waving an American flag. Uncle Sam is saying, "Watch out for the backswing, kid." That says it all. We must gear up for a war, even one with indistinct goals and a lack of clear method, and yet at the same time preserve the civil rights and the freedoms guaranteed us by our founding documents.
We must guard against the desire to insure our security to the extent that we harm others. It bothers me that a professor at NMSU--a Hindu--has been attacked twice by some cowardly person on campus. It bothers me that a professor at UNM who made a patently stupid remark about the Pentagon should have his job threatened. He has the right under our system to be a craven jerk. We must protect those in our society who choose to exercise their basic freedoms, even if we think them dangerous.
If we let the terrorists take our basic freedoms away from us, they win.
September 11 Email: Date
Monday, September 24, 2001 8:43 AM
September 11 Email: Subject
New York Trip--Part 4
Collection
Citation
“email628.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed November 26, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/38948.