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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FaultLine who wrote (51293)	10/13/2002 5:31:36 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Misfiring in the War on Terror By Bob Graham Editorial The Washington Post Sunday, October 13, 2002 Congress has granted President Bush the authority to use all necessary force against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. I voted against the resolution -- not because our nation has nothing to fear from Hussein but because I am convinced that the resolution misstates our national priorities in a dangerous way. What is our greatest responsibility? The answer is easy -- securing the peace and safety of our homeland. Right now the most urgent threats to our security are posed by the shadowy networks of international terrorist organizations that have the capabilities to repeat the tragedy of Sept. 11 -- not Saddam Hussein. At least a half-dozen terrorist organizations that have an avowed hatred of Americans, including al Qaeda, have proved they have the materials, the recruited and trained operatives, and the command-and-control structure to launch a domestic strike. Many of those bomb throwers are sleeping among us, waiting for the order to assault, as did the 19 killers who took silent refuge in the sanctuary of the United States until they struck on Sept. 11, 2001. More than 3,000 innocent lives later, we learned the bitter lesson of the power of those who lived dual lives in our communities -- appearing on the outside to be unexceptional, even as they prepared for the most unimaginable evil. Those who committed mass murder left behind a much larger number of terrorists who are continuing with their dual existence and duplicity. Unfortunately, our ability to tear out these weeds from our home gardens is limited, because we have given grossly inadequate attention to understanding the enemy next door. Both last September and in the State of the Union, the president declared our top national priority to be the war on terrorism -- including shutting down terrorist training camps, disrupting terrorist plots and bringing terrorists to justice. Just last week, on the anniversary of the commencement of military action in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recommitted himself to the war on terrorism, citing America's objective as defeating not only those who use terror, but also those who house or support them. The resolution that was passed last week in Congress erroneously suggests that Saddam Hussein is the ultimate bully in the world, and that taking him out now and for good is to be our nation's top priority. Hussein may be the baddest guy in the Middle East, but he is just one of the bad guys -- and he does not pose an immediate threat to our homeland, according to a recently declassified assessment from the CIA. Rather, that report suggests, Hussein might use his chemical and biological weapons in terrorist strikes on the United States in retaliation for a U.S.-led attack on Baghdad. That is why we need an expanded war on terrorism with a strategy for attacking the leaders of the most deadly terrorist groups at their source -- just as we have with al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The State Department has identified 34 international terrorist organizations. From that list, five plus al Qaeda have a history of killing Americans, the ability to strike within the United States and the support of a country that possesses weapons of mass destruction. They are the Abu Nidal Organization, the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Palestine Liberation Front. Even as we have had impressive successes in Afghanistan, we cannot declare victory against al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden continues to elude our forces; al Qaeda operatives have been held in the shootings last week of two U.S. Marines in Yemen; the FBI continues to round up alleged al Qaeda conspirators in New York, Oregon and Michigan. If this were 1938, the course advocated by the president -- and endorsed in the congressional resolution -- would be the equivalent of the Allies' declaring war on Mussolini's Italy but ignoring Hitler's Germany. We are turning our backs on the greater danger, and pretending not to recognize that an attack on Baghdad could spark the wake-up call to the terrorists sleeping in our midst. We cannot protect the homeland by playing defense. We must go on the offense. The president should come back to Congress and request the authority to use all necessary force to dismantle the terrorist organizations capable of striking in America. There is widespread belief that the president already has this power. In fact, his authority is limited to those nations, organizations and persons that can be directly linked to the Sept. 11 conspiracy. The resolution just passed by Congress allows the sanctuaries of the next generation of terrorists to remain standing, including the training camps where, in the 1990s, thousands of zealots were given the skills and determination to be hardened assassins. Our national will and our obligation to the security of the American people -- especially on our native soil -- demand a fuller response to meet the larger challenge America faces. _____________________________________________________ The writer is a Democratic senator from Florida and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. © 2002 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com

To: FaultLine who wrote (51293)	10/15/2002 4:06:22 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Still Living Dangerously By PAUL KRUGMAN Columnist The New York Times October 15, 2002 A smart terrorist understands that he is not engaged in conventional warfare. Instead he kills to call attention to his cause, to radicalize moderates, to disrupt the lives and livelihoods of those who would prefer not to be involved, to provoke his opponents into actions that drive more people into his camp. In case you haven't noticed, the people running Al Qaeda are smart. Saturday's bombing in Bali, presumably carried out by a group connected to Al Qaeda, was monstrously evil. It was also, I'm sorry to say, very clever. And it reinforces the sinking feeling that our leaders, who seem determined to have themselves a conventional war, are playing right into the terrorists' hands. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has not been a major breeding ground for terrorists. It is, however, a nation with severe economic, social and political problems — the kind of problems that could radicalize the population and turn it into a terrorist asset. And Saturday's bombing was clearly an attempt to intensify those problems. To understand why the attack was so clever, you need to appreciate Indonesia's fragility. Five years ago the country became the biggest victim of the Asian financial crisis. When inflows of foreign capital dried up, the economy's modern core imploded; big companies that had borrowed overseas found that their debts had ballooned to unpayable levels. What saved Indonesia from complete economic collapse, and made a partial recovery possible, was the resilience of the country's economic and geographical periphery. The big companies on Java were devastated by the plunge in the rupiah, but smaller enterprises, especially on the other islands, saw the weak currency as an export opportunity. That included, in particular, the tourist industry of Bali, which has flourished in post-crisis Indonesia as an affordable destination for foreigners. Now who will vacation on Bali? Indonesian officials are putting a brave face on it, assuring tourists that they are still safe, insisting that the economy can handle the blow. But it seems all too likely that the bombing has effectively destroyed one of the country's key industries. And given the already wobbly economy and the already weak authority of the government, a serious setback might set the stage for social and political turmoil — maybe with an ethnic and religious edge. For Indonesia is an overwhelmingly Muslim country in which a small ethnic Chinese minority, mainly Buddhist or Christian, dominates the economy. In short, the people who set off that bomb knew what they were doing. The bomb blast in Bali followed bad news from the world's second-most-populous Muslim country. Hard-line Islamic parties did unexpectedly well in Pakistan's election last week, and Pervez Musharraf's hold on power may be slipping. Do I need to point out that Pakistan is a lot bigger than Iraq, and already has nuclear weapons? And that gets to my worries over the direction of U.S. policy. I don't think we could have done anything to prevent the blast in Bali — but the attack does suggest that our early military success in Afghanistan has done little to weaken terrorist capabilities. It's not clear whether the U.S. could have done anything to improve the situation in Pakistan, though it might have helped if we had done a better job in Afghanistan, both in pursuing our foes and in helping our friends; it might also have helped if the administration had made good on its promise to let Pakistan increase its textile exports to the U.S. . What's clear is that the biggest terrorist threat we face is that one or more big Muslim countries will be radicalized. And yet that's a threat hawks advising the administration don't seem to take seriously. The administration adviser Richard Perle, quoted by Josh Marshall in The Washington Monthly, brushes off concerns that an invasion of Iraq might undermine the stability of Middle Eastern regimes: "Mubarak is no great shakes. Surely we can do better. . . ." Meanwhile, plans to invade Iraq proceed. The administration has offered many different explanations, some of them mutually contradictory, for its determination to occupy Baghdad. I think it's like the man who looks for his keys on the sidewalk, even though he dropped them in a nearby alley, because he can see better under the streetlight. These guys want to fight a conventional war; since Al Qaeda won't oblige, they'll attack someone else who will. And watching from the alley, the terrorists are pleased. nytimes.com