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To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (41739)	9/15/2001 12:26:01 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Bush Weighs His Options... Decisive retaliation is predicted in the wake of horrendous terrorist attacks By JIM MCTAGUE September 17, 2001 President Bush has made it quite clear that the U.S. is at war with international terrorism. He's also made it clear that the conflict will not be short, sweet and antiseptic. The U.S. is resolved at this juncture to get the job done, even if it means a high rate of casualties among our troops. After a brief pause to allow the nation to begin mourning the thousands who were murdered in New York and Washington last week, our military will begin to take action against terrorist networks, even if it means sending troops into countries that harbor them without a polite knock at the door. "We must get the roots as well as the branches," said Secretary of State Colin Powell. "He's putting Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Afghanistan on notice that we will go in with or without permission if that's what it takes to bring a terrorist network down," says Tom Keaney, executive director for foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. President Bush has an array of military options at his disposal, ranging from tactical nuclear weapons to smart bombs and cruise missiles. Experts predict he will respond with a new kind of warfare that lies somewhere between an old-style conventional military campaign and a bombing campaign. Nuclear weapons are out of the question, they say, because their use would send the wrong message at a time the U.S. is trying to reduce the number of weapons of mass destruction around the world. To truly root out terrorism, Bush will have to do more than roll up terrorist networks, such as the Al-Qaeda, which is headed by the infamous Osama bin Laden. Experts say Bush will have to complete the unfinished business of Operation Desert Storm -- namely the killing of Iraq's Saddam Hussein. "Saddam lives for revenge," says Laurie Mylroie, author of Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America. She says America should bomb Iraq immediately and send in the Army again if that's what it takes to get the rogue dictator before he commits an even greater atrocity, like killing hundreds of thousands of Americans with a biological agent. "The future action may not reach the scale of Desert Storm in terms of the deployment of manpower. But it will be several rungs above launching a cruise missile strike and hoping for the best," says Keaney. A former B-52 pilot, Keaney believes the U.S. would like to use its Special Forces in actions against terrorists. "They won't try to capture Kabul or police Afghanistan," he predicts. If a larger force is required to hold some territory temporarily, the U.S. will be willing to commit the manpower, even if it means taking casualties. NATO, too, can be expected to supply intelligence, as well as air cover, ships and elite troops, to the war effort. The U.S. can also apply economic warfare against the nations that harbor these networks, including blockades and destruction of infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, and power plants. Bush also has the option of taking down offending regimes, according to Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute in his organization's annual Handbook for Congress. The cost of prosecuting the war at the moment is not an issue. Both parties in Congress have made it clear that they will spend whatever it takes to respond to the terrorist threat. Initial estimates range from $20 billion to $50 billion. A time for mourning, soon to be followed by a time for retribution: Experts expect George W. Bush to strike -- and strike hard -- at a variety of targets in the Middle East. Keaney says it's yet to be determined who is responsible for the attack. And though Osama bin Laden is a prime suspect, it's quite possible that the attack was launched by another network with the same ideas -- with or without state sponsorship. "All it takes to coordinate such an attack is an ability to read a flight schedule and some luck," he says. Critics of the U.S. intelligence establishment say it will take many months to identify the locations of terrorist hideouts because our post-Cold War-era mechanism relies too heavily on high-tech equipment and not enough on flesh-and-blood spies. But the U.S. probably knows a lot more than it admits, thanks to Israel. "We should move to turn our always hush-hush military and intelligence relationship with Israel into a formal working alliance to wage war," says David Wurmser, a Middle East expert at the American Enterprise Institute. "That country is now the forward base in our war against the anti-Americanism that so many of the region's regimes embrace. Those in the region who protest this will reveal themselves as tentative, fair-weather friends, not real allies." A new Marshall Plan Bullets alone will not win a war against terrorism, says Robert David Steele, a former intelligence officer who has been trying to promote change and innovation in our intelligence-gathering bureaucracies. Steele says the nation needs to launch a worldwide Marshall Plan focused on fighting crime, as well as water, food, medicine and energy shortfalls that contribute to global instability inimical to U.S. national interests. No less than $25 billion should be invested in Year One, with $100 billion a year earmarked for the effort by Year Six. "Those that think terrorism is cowardly or underhanded are destined to fail as leaders," opines Steele. "Terrorism -- especially faith-based terrorism that inspires suicidal martyrs and total loyalty -- is a logical asymmetric response when confronted by conventional superiority. Patience, a strategic perspective and a broad long-term campaign plan are essential." A risk for the nation as it goes on the offensive is that the war ignites a terrorist onslaught from Muslim radicals throughout the Middle East. That's why the initial U.S. strikes must be credible and devastating, the experts say. Our enemies must be convinced that the consequences of attacking us are too great to risk. There are no other options. Copyright © 2001 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (41739)	9/15/2001 5:33:26 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

duplicate post

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (41739)	9/15/2001 6:11:45 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

A Commission Warned Bush... salon.com

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (41739)	9/15/2001 11:19:20 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

Smoking or Non-Smoking? The New York Times By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN September 14, 2001 FOREIGN AFFAIRS JERUSALEM -- If this attack on America by an extensive terrorist cell is the equivalent of World War III, it's not too early to begin thinking about what could be its long-term geopolitical consequences. Just as World Wars I and II produced new orders and divisions, so too might this war. What might it look like? Israel's foreign minister, Shimon Peres, offers the following possibility: Several decades ago, he notes, they discovered that smoking causes cancer. Soon after that, people started to demand smoking and non-smoking sections. "Well, terrorism is the cancer of our age," says Mr. Peres. "For the past decade, a lot of countries wanted to deny that, or make excuses for why they could go on dealing with terrorists. But after what's happened in New York and Washington, now everyone knows. This is a cancer. It's a danger to us all. So every country must now decide whether it wants to be a smoking or non-smoking country, a country that supports terrorism or one that doesn't." Mr. Peres is on to something — this sort of division is going to emerge — but we must be very, very careful about how it is done, and whom we, the U.S., assign to the smoking and non-smoking worlds. As Mr. Peres himself notes, this is not a clash of civilizations — the Muslim world versus the Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish worlds. The real clash today is actually not between civilizations, but within them — between those Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews with a modern and progressive outlook and those with a medieval one. We make a great mistake if we simply write off the Muslim world and fail to understand how many Muslims feel themselves trapped in failing states and look to America as a model and inspiration. "President Lincoln said of the South after the Civil War: 'Remember, they pray to the same God,'" remarked the Middle East analyst Stephen P. Cohen. "The same is true of many, many Muslims. We must fight those among them who pray only to the God of Hate, but we do not want to go to war with Islam, with all the millions of Muslims who pray to the same God we do." The terrorists who hit the U.S. this week are people who pray to the God of Hate. Their terrorism is not aimed at reversing any specific U.S. policy. Indeed, they made no demands. Their terrorism is driven by pure hatred and nihilism, and its targets are the institutions that undergird America's way of life, from our markets to our military. These terrorists must be rooted out and destroyed. But it must be done in a way that doesn't make us Osama bin Laden's chief recruiter. Because these Muslim terrorists did not just want to kill Americans. That is not the totality of their mission. These people think strategically. They also want to trigger the sort of massive U.S. retaliation that makes no distinction between them and other Muslims. That would be their ultimate victory — because they do see the world as a clash of civilizations, and they want every Muslim to see it that way as well and to join their jihad. Americans were really only able to defeat Big Tobacco when whistleblowers within the tobacco industry went public and took on their own industry, and their own bosses, as peddlers of cancer. Similarly, the only chance to really defeat these nihilistic terrorists is not just by bombing them. That is necessary, but not sufficient, because another generation will sprout up behind them. Only their own religious communities and societies can really restrain and delegitimize them. And that will happen only when the Muslim majority recognizes that what the Osama bin Ladens are leading to is the destruction and denigration of their own religion and societies. This civil war within Islam, between the modernists and the medievalists, has actually been going on for years — particularly in Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan. We need to strengthen the good guys in this civil war. And that requires a social, political and economic strategy, as sophisticated, and generous, as our military one. To not retaliate ferociously for this attack on our people is only to invite a worse attack tomorrow and an endless war with terrorists. But to retaliate in a way that doesn't distinguish between those who pray to a God of Hate and those who pray to the same God we do is to invite an endless war between civilizations — a war that will land us all in the smoking section.

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (41739)	9/16/2001 3:12:59 PM
From: marginnayan	Respond to of 65232

FROM ANOTHER THREAD: <<<"Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread: > I've been hearing a lot of talk about bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with > this atrocity, but we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. > What else can we do? Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing > whether we have the belly to do what must be done. And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing. > I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters. > But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal > with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think the people of Afghanistan think the Jews in the concentration camps. It's not only that the Afghan > people had nothing to do with this atrocity. > They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. > Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. > A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban. > We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone> Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? > Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that. > New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and > hide Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals > who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of having the belly to do what needs to be done they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill > as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans > would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. > It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, We'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just > stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West. > And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem > ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?" > Tamim Ansary > > Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 2:30 PM > Subject: Re: [RT] show your colors >>>

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (41739)	9/16/2001 5:01:39 PM
From: marginnayan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

SFO RADIO INTERVIEW: <<< This aired Tuesday night, September 11 on KGO radio in San Francisco radio >> with Bernie Ward. He is interviewing Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for >> Policy Studies. A cool head in hysterical times . . . >> >> Bennis: . . . crisis when we escalate the patterns of more and more and >> more violence. >> >> Ward: At this point in time most Americans would say how could they >> escalate it, I mean, if you didn't respond militarily, wouldn't that be >> worse than in fact responding? >> >> Bennis: Well, I think the very worst thing would be responding militarily >> to the wrong country, as the U.S. has been known to do, not too long ago, >> in fact, when it knocked out a vaccine company in the Sudan claiming that >> it was tied to Bin Laden and only six months later saying, whoops, I guess >> we got the wrong place. And in fact, settled with the owner of that >> factory for having destroyed it, not to mention destroyed the one factory >> in central Africa that was producing crucial vaccines for children in that >> impoverished part of the world. So we have to be very careful. And yes, >I >> think it would be worse to respond militarily than to be cautious and to >> say let's use this to do what is so difficult at a moment like this, when >> we're horrified by the human toll, the human tragedy, to say let's stop >for >> a moment and think about why is it that people around the world, so many >> people, are starting to hate symbols of the U.S. as symbols of oppression. >> >> Ward: Well, now you know that you are in a huge minority tonight when you >> suggest that one of the things we ought to take from this is to ask the >> question of why committed terrorism against the United States to begin >> with, and most Americans are simply going to say, "Who cares?" most >> Americans are going to say, "It was whoever it was and we're going to go >> get them," and most Americans at least in the polls already that have been >> released, say that our support for Israel is very crucial and that, you >> know, this is just going to solidify . . . you, you are in a huge >minority >> when you suggest that part of what happened today might be connected to >> foreign policy decisions that we have made in other parts of the world. >> >> Bennis: But, you know what Bernie, you may be right that I am in a >> minority, but I think these words have to be said. We've had too many >> years of experience of answering these kinds of attacks with more >violence. >> And you know what? It hasn't worked. If we're serious about ending >> attacks like this, we have to go to the root causes. >> >> Ward: And what are the root causes? >> >> Bennis: To me it's a question of the arrogance of the U.S., the policies >> around the world, not only in the Middle East, although that's obviously a >> big component, but our policies of abandoning international law, dissing >> the United Nations, refusing to sign conventions and international >treaties >> that we demand everybody else in the world sign on to, whether it's the >> prohibition against anti-personnel land mines, support for the >> international criminal court, the convention on the rights of the child, >> for God sakes that should be a no-brainer, only the U.S. and Somalia have >> refused that one, you know, when countries around the world and people >> around the world look at this, not to mention the most recent stuff about >> abandoning the Kyoto treaty, threatening to throw out the ABM Treaty, >> that's been the cornerstone of arms control for, you know, twenty-five >> years, they say, "Who is this country? Why do they think they're so much >> better than everybody else in the world just because they have a bigger >> army?" >> >> Ward: So do we deserve what happened to us today? >> >> Bennis: No, no one deserves what happened. There's no justification. . . >> >> Ward: Did we ask for it? >> >> Bennis: The question is: How do we stop it? The question is how do we >> stop it. And military strikes are not going to stop it. >> >> Ward: All right. So the example of terrorism certainly is if we look at >> Israel, the example is that when you respond with violence for violence it >> does not stop the terrorism. >> >> Bennis: Absolutely right. >> >> Ward: And in fact we saw for the first time yesterday or the day before >an >> Arab Israeli citizen who committed a suicide bombing, meaning obviously >> that even buffers between them and the West Bank aren't going to make any >> difference one way or the other. >> >> Bennis: Right. Ending occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and East >> Jerusalem might make some difference. But certainly what isn't working >is >> responding with more violence. >> >> Ward: But aren't the extremists, Osama Bin Laden has declared war on this >> country, , there's an interesting article in Salon.com about how this is >a >> very different kind of terrorism than the terrorism of the P.L.O. and >Black >> September and others in the sixties and the seventies and the eighties, >> that they see this as a war of attrition, that if they can wear down the >> American people, if they can get them so worried about this that they'll >be >> willing to make compromises. Is it a war? Is that an accurate term >today? >> >> Bennis: I don't know if it's a very useful term. Again, we don't know >> that this was Osama Bin Laden having anything to do with the events of >> today. I think that we have to be a little bit cautious when we hear U.S. >> officials and former U.S. officials, as we've been hearing all day >tonight, >> talking as if, number one, they knew it was Osama Bin Laden, number two, >> that this is what Henry Kissinger and so many others today have said is >> just like Pearl Harbor and the U.S. should respond . . . >> >> Ward: Yeah. I don't like that analogy and I can't tell you why I don't >> like it, but I don't like it. >> >> Bennis: I'll tell you one reason why maybe you don't like it, and it's >one >> of the reasons I don't like it either. It's that one of the first things >> the U.S. did after Pearl Harbor was to round up all the Japanese-American >> citizens and put them in concentration camps - in this country. Now I hope >> that that's not what anyone in the U.S. is thinking about when they talk >> about responding the way we did to Pearl Harbor. But it's a very >dangerous >> precedent. We've already heard about death threats against Arab Americans >> and Muslim organizations in the U.S. That kind of hysteria is already on >> the rise. And we have to be very cautious and conscious about the dangers >> of that. We have to be very cautious when we hear someone like James >> Baker, the former Secretary of State, claiming that he thinks there would >> be ninety-nine to one hundred percent support across the U.S., that's what >> he said today, for "taking out" a person who heads an organization like >Bin >> Laden's and getting rid of the legal prohibitions against that. >> >> Ward: Well, I think that's going to go, to be quite honest with you, I >> think there's going to be legislation maybe even as early as tomorrow to >> eliminate that or get rid of that prohibition against assassinations. >> >> Bennis: You may be right. But I think that we can guarantee it's not >> going to work. It's not going to stop events like this. >> >> Ward: Let me put you into a bigger minority. >> >> Bennis: O.K. >> >> Ward: Make the case for why the U.S. would be so hated in the Middle >East. >> >> Bennis: I think it's hated in the Middle East because, number one, it's >> uncritical support to the tune of between three and five billion dollars a >> year in unconditional support to Israeli occupation, including providing >> the helicopter gunships, the F-16s, the missiles that are fired from the >> gunships, that are used to enforce that occupation. It's hated, number >> two, because it has armed these, these, repressive Arab regimes throughout >> the region, in Saudi Arabia, In Egypt, in Jordan, throughout the region, >> that have suppressed their own people, that have taken either oil money or >> arms to build absolute monarchies in which citizens have no rights and >> where the U.S. claims to support democratization of every government in >the >> world, don't seem to apply when the U.S. seems to think it's fine when one >> absolute monarch dies and passes on the baton to his son, you see every >> U.S. official and all of their European and other Western allies flocking >> to the funeral to say "The King is dead, long live the new King." We see >> it in Saudi Arabia, we see it in Morocco, in Jordan, throughout the >region. >> And there's enormous resentment of that kind of support. So those two >> sectors alone, support for the Israeli occupation and the arming of these >> repressive Arab regimes is enough. Now that doesn't even get to the >> question of the impact of U.S. imposed sanctions on the civilian >population >> of Iraq, the bombing of Iraq, that's been going on for ten years now, all >> of these are things that have dropped off the radar screen of the media >> coverage in the U.S. but are very much front and center in Arab >> consciousness in the region. >> >> Ward: Would you be surprised if I told you a poll has come out in which a >> very large majority of Americans say they're willing to give up civil >> liberties in order to "fight terrorism," and that there may be legislation >> introduced in Congress tomorrow to in some cases suspend habeas corpus and >> other things in the cause of fighting terrorism? >> >> Bennis: Would I be surprised? No. Because I think too many people in >> this country have been misled by politicians and by the media to think >that >> somehow that's going to work. That if you have more profiling based on >> race and ethnicity, if you identify Arabs and don't let them on planes, if >> you do what the multi-agency task force in 1987 and 1988 tried to do, >which >> was to actually round up citizens of seven Arab countries plus Iran on a >> preventive basis and put them in a concentration camp in Oakdale, >> Louisiana. It would not be surprising that that's something very much on >> the minds of policy-makers. It would be, I hope you're wrong to say that >> it would be supported by most people in this country, but unfortunately I >> could understand why it might be because of that misleading, what I would >> call propaganda, that has led people to think that somehow that would >work, >> that that would make people safer, that if you didn't allow Arabs on the >> airplanes, somehow it would be safe to fly. You know, this is the kind of >> illusion that is bred by racism. And it's a very dangerous tendency in >> this country. And I do hope that we don't have our political leadership >in >> Washington tomorrow or next week moving towards this kind of an approach >> ostensibly as a way of providing safety for American citizens. >> >> Ward: Phyllis Bennis, I really appreciate this. I hope we can keep in >> touch and maybe invite you back on again. >> >> Bennis: I look forward to it. >>>