We've handed terrorists a victory
"but when President George W. Bush elevated
crimes into war, he vastly overstated their significance. The loss of about
5,000 lives and the damage to property is shocking, but it doesn't compare
with what is to be expected in a war."
By ANTHONY WESTELL
Friday, September 28, 2001 Page A17
From The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
When you stop to think about it, the
terrorists are winning, aren't they?
They've tipped the U.S. economy, which probably means the world
economy also, into recession, wiping out billions not only in share prices but
also in lost production and putting hundreds of thousands of people out of
work.
They've sent the airline industry crashing into bankruptcy. They've provoked
the U.S. government to limit some of the freedoms that distinguish a free
society from the sort of theocratic state the terrorists seem to favour.
They've driven wedges of suspicion between the United States and Canada,
provoking some Americans to demand defences along the great undefended
border.
And if Washington carries through with its threats of military action against
countries it suspects of harbouring terrorists, the terrorists may achieve their
greatest desire: a holy war. And all that in just a couple of weeks, with the
future uncertain.
Did it have to be this way?
If so, it must be a great encouragement to all those other terrorists around
the world -- and not only those in the Islamic world. Terrorism works! It
works by provoking an overreaction. Governments and the peoples they
lead lose their heads and make things much worse than they have to be.
Yes, the attacks on New York and Washington were horrendous crimes --
crimes against humanity -- but when President George W. Bush elevated
crimes into war, he vastly overstated their significance. The loss of about
5,000 lives and the damage to property is shocking, but it doesn't compare
with what is to be expected in a war.
In fact, if the attacks had occurred in Europe -- say in London or Paris or
Berlin -- there would have been nothing like the same reaction. Europeans
know the difference between terrorism, even terrorism that kills thousands,
and war that kills millions and lays waste to entire countries. So, of course,
do the people of Asia and Africa, where 6,000 deaths would pass almost
unnoticed in the rest of the world.
It's because the attacks hit the United States that the reaction has been so
exaggerated. Such things are not supposed to happen in America the
exceptional. And please don't call me anti-American. I've lived and worked
in New York and love the city. I served on a British ship attached to the
U.S. fleet in the Pacific in the Second World War. I was an early advocate
of free trade with the United States, and view with equanimity the prospect
that Canada will eventually join the United States in some form of federal
state. But none of that blinds me to what has happened in the U.S. since the
terrorist attacks.
By announcing a new war, mobilizing military reserves, dispatching ships and
warplanes hither and thither, threatening terrible retribution on unspecified
enemies, Mr. Bush whipped his country into a fever. Now, he's backing off
the hasty rhetoric, and Prime Minister Jean Chretien assures us that the
President is resisting the hawks in the administration. Good, but a little late,
and after he has handed terrorists just the results they were seeking.
Suppose Mr. Bush had been restrained from Day One, a statesman instead
of the warrior so admired by Margaret Wente, reassuring, rather than
inflammatory, pointing out that this was terrorism by a handful of fanatics
and not an existential attack on America by a rival power capable of
sustained warfare. Suppose he had vowed to lead an international campaign
against criminal terrorist organizations -- and the conditions in which they
breed -- but also reminded Americans that, frightful as the losses were, the
giant U.S. economy in total had suffered only minor damage. Suppose he
had said that the way to defeat terrorism was not to let it disrupt normal life,
that there was nothing to fear but fear itself.
There would still have been a reaction, of course, and hawks would have
demanded war. But the corollary damage -- to use the fashionable phrase --
rippling out from the attacks would surely not have been nearly as a serious.
Americans would have gone about their business, and Osama bin Laden
and his followers might be disappointed rather than rejoicing.
All in all, not as exciting as war, but a lot less costly, in lives and treasure.
Anthony Westell, former Ottawa bureau chief of The Globe and Mail,
has been a senior associate at the Carnegie Institute for International
Peace and a visiting associate at the Americas Society in New York.
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