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Posted on 09/23/2001 9:01:39 AM PDT by cc2k

It was like walking into a horror film that you have no wish to see. You want to leave, but it's too late -- the doors close behind you -- so you stare ahead, mesmerized and helpless, hating how much it affects you. Then, the movie over, frightened and chastened, you scurry away to commiserate with friends -- to make it go away, to weep.

This small-screen carnage, seen by large numbers in Prague, was no movie at all -- although Hollywood had tried many times to make it.

Nor will it go away.

Watching the New York images, some were struck that life might be imitating special effects. That is simplistic, but whoever committed the Sept. 11 atrocities was hideously schooled in theater and pop symbolism -- crowded airports, gleaming skyscrapers, suicide jets, New York City and the Pentagon -- and used each to lethal advantage. It was a target list born of action films and video games and hijacked, literally, by terrorists. That real people were murdered and real buildings destroyed jarred those who usually regard images of violence as surrogate or foreign. Reality could not be this, but it was.

Modern terrorism has evolved since 1970, when it first became a televised event. On Sept. 6 of that year, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, later known as Black September, hijacked four jets. Two landed at an abandoned British military base in the Jordanian desert. A third was taken to Cairo, emptied and destroyed. A fourth hijacking failed when the terrorists were overpowered. The next day, another plane was seized and also camped in the desert. On Sept. 12, the three parked jetliners were blown up. Almost exactly 31 years later came the U.S. holocaust.

A coincidence? Most probably. The differences between then and now are great. The Palestinian air terrorists, needing hostages to bargain for prisoners, killed no one. They had an idea -- the creation of a Palestine state -- and leaders who deplored U.S. support for Israel, as many in the Arab world still do. There was no "jihad," no "fatwah," no cultural nihilism. In the end, the Black September hijackings produced the first comprehensive response to air piracy.

But the game has changed -- and so have the rules of engagement. The modern players, largely faceless, are eager to expand their reach and credibility. Islamic fundamentalism, once an anticommunist tool at Washington's disposal, has divorced the Cold War and become its own booking agent, marring Western perceptions of a great world faith.

The complications do not end there. Three major terrorist organizers, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi (who once pledged to oppose Soviet-based Egypt), Saddam Hussein (who fought Iran for a decade) and Osama bin Laden (whose Islamic guerrillas helped repel the Soviet Red Army in Afghanistan) were all once directly or indirectly financed by the U.S. government. Later abandoned, they portrayed the United States as unfairly successful and prosperous, offending all humility. Envy, they suggested, translated most effectively into hatred. Their Internet-wise progeny are thriving, as the New York City and Washington attacks amply demonstrate.

They also show that the global village is without protected outposts -- anything, any nation, faces peril at the hands of envious or aggrieved enemies who operate anonymously, working in cells, because no code of honor suggests otherwise. The United States, free from declared war since 1941 and increasingly removed from Cold War nuclear scenarios, was particularly vulnerable to the consequences of large-scale destruction. Until Sept. 11, terror was vulgar and abstract. No longer.

The United States is now graduated into a vindictive "rich man, poor man" world from which its population was long shielded. And no reprisal -- however patriotic or raffish ("Don't get mad, get even...") -- will make things as they. It is time to bury the dead and to move ahead respectfully. To do so begs understanding that instability is the capital of this less-than-brave new world, which is swelled with inferiority complexes, honor banished to its distant suburbs. Restraint and retribution are strange bedfellows, but they can be made to coexist. That is the daunting challenge faced by the United States and its allies if the world is to avoid lurching into conflagration.


Pieces of the puzzle


European Union and NATO
While not usually not lumped together, to do so here is helpful for two reasons. First, the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks are likely to embolden anti-American forces, potentially destabilizing NATO efforts to bring order to the Balkans by uniting disparate guerrilla groups. Second, the EU, occasionally a critic of Washington and of U.S., policy, must now wed its wounded ally. To pledge allegiance only briefly (France is already murmuring) would deepen fissures between the two sides, allowing the United States to isolate itself and its anger -- perhaps as great a long-term peril as terrorism. Sadly, it is hard to imagine European cities as immune to future barrages. Only coordinated action among the West's capitals, and a detailed pooling of intelligence information, can forestall a global terror campaign. "This is one of those few days in life that one can actually say will change everything," remarked Chris Patten, the EU external relations commissioner, on Sept. 11. What "everything" means, however, is still unclear.


U.S. President George W. Bush
No leader can or should be blamed for so horrific an episode. Suicide missions often succeed. But the extent to which hallowed places in key U.S. cities were vulnerable cannot be overstated. The last suicide jet, which crashed, might have destroyed the Capitol or the White House -- or killed the president himself. Until the hijackings, Bush's brief tenure had been plain. His interest in global affairs seemed distracted and his Middle East involvement marginal. Now, he must balance the wish for redress with the inherent risks of waging righteous war; so far, he has behaved admirably. The ongoing crisis, and how he handles it, will make or break Mr. Bush, who has spoken eloquently of "determined enemies who hate our values and resent our success." Such enemies do exist, of course, but there is no assurance that a war will prevent their proliferation.


'Branch and root'
Modern global leadership, from now on, will require greater insight into insolvent and estranged states -- the "uncivilized world," as Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz recently called it. That world pampers its grievances against the United States because resentment can be effective self-definition. What is terrorism if not crude envy resolved into sinister response? But Islamic fundamentalism has another side. In the Middle East, the Palestinian poor see extremist leaders as caring and uncorrupt. That says something. Unless America effectively debunks this manipulative system, exposing terrorists as criminals who subvert sacred beliefs and herald death to no good end, efforts to uproot the horror-peddlers may falter. This can only be done at what Secretary of State Colin Powell calls the "branch and root level," in the towns and villages that nurture them. That is the beginning of any victory.


Osama bin Laden
Bin Laden and his al Qaeda "family soldiers" -- some of who may operate outside his direct control -- have honed their anti-Americanism. Unable to dislodge the pro-West Saudi monarchy, which is both well-protected and harsh, al Qaeda directed wrath upon its infidel allies. It has been highly successful outside U.S. soil, by bombing of U.S. embassies and military facilities. Insufficient attention was paid to the World Trade Center as centerpiece targets after a 1993 terrorist bombing damaged one of the towers. Was bin Laden underestimated? Yes. But so was the capability of a well-connected terrorist organization to patiently hatch so bold, sophisticated and expensive a plan. Bin Laden's capture would, at the very least, help dry up some (but not all) terrorist funding.


The Arab world I
It would be unfortunate to blame all Arabs or Islam. The United States must guard against such reverse extremism. Islam not does demand barbarous militancy of its adherents. The Islamic "activists" who rose to the forefront in Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Shiite Iran challenged both the West and West-leaning Muslim-led governments, including those of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia's King Fahd. Tens of thousands have been hacked to death in Algerian massacres, where militants have visited years of unspeakable bloodshed on civilians. Mubarak warned repeatedly of the coercive perils posed to the non-Arab world by Islamic "jihad;" few listened, taking comfort in their distance. It is likely that the U.S. attacks were in fact not the product of one man but of a teeming confederacy assisted to varying degrees by Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Libya, united in their hatred of U.S. support for Israel. Ironically, such forces might have seen a more directly satisfying task -- the assassination of Camp David supporter Mubarak, say -- as far more difficult than attacking civilian targets in America. After the recent deaths of the Arab old guard -- Jordan's King Hussein, Syria's Hafez al-Assad and Morocco's King Hassan -- Washington policymakers lost the pulse of the Middle East's back-alley life, giving even further range and encouragement to Islamic radicals.


The Arab world II
What little was left of the halting Arab-Israeli peace process has been sundered, since any anti-terror fight will only further separate Israelis (now under Ariel Sharon's rigid leadership) from Palestinians -- and Arab tolerance of U.S. military action is unlikely to endure months, or years, of hostilities. On other fronts, the potential destabilizing of Pakistan -- a nuclear nation -- could stir India, another nuclear partner. Nor will Russia remain an ally if U.S. troops occupy Afghanistan. Eliminating terrorism may be the goal, but the way to the goal is fraught with peril. As in any real campaign, in war or politics, grass-roots efforts are vital. Working to gradually turn regional authorities against terrorism should be made a priority. President Bush would also do well to consider creating an Arab-American council composed of prominent U.S. Arabs to help bridge the cultural gap between Muslim East and West, North and South.


Russia
In 1999, Russia was humbled by urban terrorism. No wonder President Vladimir Putin swiftly told his U.S. counterpart that an "inhuman act must not go unpunished." Note the language. Not should, must. Russia, which remains at war with its Muslim province of Chechnya, has no love for Afghanistan or Islam. Moscow's decision to cooperate with NATO suggests it knows political relationships have changed and that the new stakes involve not only national survival, but the survival of basic notions of government. Despite its woes, Russia remains a formidable player with significant intelligence resources. An anti-terrorist alliance with Washington -- if it holds -- could stitch unity and ease the considerable tensions that surrounded NATO enlargement.


U.S. security
Since the suicide bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, officials have focused their thinking on ground attacks, with suicide drivers. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing demonstrated that no target was immune. But that act, too, was "grounded." Last year's bombing of the USS Cole, a U.S. destroyer anchored in Yemeni port of Aden, broadened perceptions of terrorist ambitions, but few sounded a dominant warning. Hijackings, popular in the 1960s and '70s, had fallen from frontline thinking. Airport checks (and the selective restricting of airspace) were believed to be sufficient. No one imagined a hijacked suicide jet, let alone four. This imagination shortfall -- surrendering the improbable to Hollywood -- has proved profoundly unfortunate. It has set an awful benchmark for the judging of further terrorist challenges.


Suicide attacks
Although World War II and Middle East strife afforded ample evidence that ordinary citizens would be martyred for their cause, blue collar America dismissed extremism as "foreign" or associated it with distant feuds. That the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was the act of a domestic extremist -- who was executed this June -- further assuaged domestic worriers. Oklahoma City was seen as an aberration, the act of a madman. The view is different now. The success of the Sept. 11 attack will no doubt animate other domestic and foreign terrorist pretenders, both experts and amateurs. The clandestine availability of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons will require careful monitoring. While recent events might suggest Islam indulges suicide, the Koran expressly forbids it. Suicide missions are simply more effective, allowing zealots to manipulate passionate creeds to maximum effect.


Ironies and symbolism
They are many and troubling. Bin Laden was once among Washington's surrogate soldiers, helping mujahideen guerrillas against the Soviet Red Army. But he and his rough cohorts lost value when Moscow withdrew. "The demons," observed one Pakistani columnist, "have come back to haunt their creators." This is partly true. Global resentment is great among individuals and governments convinced that U.S. foreign policy is only strategically moral, paying scant attention to the world's snarled backwaters. This loathing has gradually been manipulated into a pan-national Islamic "opposition," with easily influenced recruits coming mostly from schools in the poorest Muslim nations, including Pakistan or Afghanistan, or from countries where radicals have failed to topple the secular government, such as in Egypt. That the hijackers trained at U.S. flight schools and chose only U.S.-built Boeing aircraft to plow into their American targets is chilling. This was "dose-of-your-own medicine stuff" and these are Nike-age warriors at large in the CNN-MTV world they seek to destroy. Fighting such an enemy-within is a grim affair because the combatants are hardly obvious.


Frames of reference
Western intellectual premises make few allowances for planes flown into skyscrapers by pilots trained to die. The events are shocking because they lack both a psychological or ethical context, provoking a sense of wild helplessness. The American values system, stalwart as it has been through calamities like the Oklahoma City bombing, is utterly intolerant of non-American meddling. Revulsion, patriotism and righteousness have always been an explosive mix, part of the fabric of a proud and remarkable society. Wounding such a society so openly is not only abhorrent but also foolish, and makes additional violence an organic outcome. Just as the America of right and wrong does not comprehend the holy warriors, they do not get to the bottom of holy America.

On another level, the video, real-time dimension of the crime made voyeurs of tens of millions of citizens incapable of absorbing so grievous a violation of human sanctity. Anger is not necessarily the wisest response, but it is certainly the easiest to grasp. Whether the West can logically (and successfully) fight such an irrational enemy is unclear. In World War II, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Japan rather than face the peril of invading a state whose population seemed ready to die en masse. That is a mean portent.


Could this have been avoided?
Probably not, and certainly not once set in motion -- although the extent of the U.S. intelligence shortfall will be debated at length. For most of the 20th century, America was fortunate to avoid war and terrorism on its soil (the worst single-day death count was previously 4,000, at the 1862 Civil War battle of Antietam). But the '90s brought warnings: the World Trade Center blast and the Oklahoma City explosion. Few paid close attention two years ago when bombs killed hundreds in Moscow and President Boris Yeltsin announced -- in now eerie language -- "terrorists have declared war on the Russian people." He linked the blasts to Islamic fundamentalists working with Chechen rebels. This tie was never confirmed.

But the audacity of the U.S. attacks -- the well-timed use of hijacked commercial planes -- suggests that only blind luck or terrorist pilot blunders could have changed the outcome. The towers are large targets, so is the Pentagon. Luck, in fact, may have spared a final objective. Hindsight is always perfect -- except perhaps in this case. Only an alerted military could have intervened, although no assurance exists that downing one or all three of the operating planes over New York City or Washington would not have created another miserable scene.


'The new phase'
Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, former U.S. President Bill Clinton's national security adviser, rightly noted that retaliatory strikes alone will not make amends. "There's no swift, simple response here," he said early on. "This has to be a firm, sustained response. ... This is going to require a level of sustained, coordinated effort -- military, economic and political -- with our allies, if that's where the path leads." Such unity, he added, may invite a terrorist escalation. "The American people have to be prepared for that. We're in a new phase here."

America's constitutional insistence on domestic civil rights will doubtless be pitted against its desire for domestic security. Its government has been affronted and may be forced by public opinion to respond in ways not seen since the last world war. Ironically, it is enemies of the U.S. state that have conferred renewed vigor to the FBI, the CIA and the military.

What Bush calls "the first war of the 21st century" will be clearly fought on many fronts, both military and ethical, with the overall consequences still shrouded in smoke.


-- Christopher P. Winner

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