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

To: paul_philp who wrote (68134)	1/23/2003 7:51:33 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Nice post, Paul. Thanks. Stopping Al Qaeda, I should have typed, in my view, has two elements. There is a definite military, etc. component, about which we will hear little but which we are permitted to hope it produces much. I have no problem with the lines you offer about convincing folk who wish to do the kind of harm that 9-11 is, to fear what happens if they try again. And to fear because they tried once. There is a second component which is to dry up the recruiting base of Al Qaeda. To some degree, the first item might accomplish that. But, more likely, it will increase recruitment. I'm convinced the only way seriously to address that issue, then, is some imaginative engagement promoting economic development and democratic institutions. With the exception of the Marshall Plan in Europe and the US actions in Japan, all after WWII, I don't think we've ever undertaken such a venture. And I don't think the parallels are exactly similar, so whereas I started to type "another Marshall Plan", I stopped because of the dissimilarities and left the vaguer "imaginative engagement" term. Such a program has the possibility of accomplishing two objectives. First, it can dry up the material conditions that give rise to Al Qaeda, not only the poverty which attracts much of its recruits (yes, I know about the education levels of the 9-11 folk and others), but would address the repression that helped give rise to their movement in the first place. An intricate meshing of democracy and economic growth. I don't think, for a moment, this is simple. I'm reading a book right now on the degree to which the short term effects of introducing raw nineteenth century free market capitalism and instant one vote per person into societies which have economically dominant minorities is explosive. Increases the potential for violence a great deal. So it would not be easy. But something like it seems to me to be not only necessary but the only serious hope. The second benefit of such a program would be to alter, dramatically, the view the remainder of the world has of US actions and intentions, might lead to participation by those other nations; would, most certainly, increase the likelihood of serious cooperation in the first item above, the active search for Al Qaeda operatives. It is difficult to reach out to help a country or region progress while they call you the enemy and kill your soldiers and civilians. I don't think it is either "a country" or a "region" that is killing soldiers and civilians right now. It is, as you have wonderfully put it, an idea. One needs to address the idea. I think the Al Qaeda operatives desparately hope we think that it is a country or a region that kills. One of the prime reasons, best I can tell, for 9-11, was to push us toward such thoughts. We should not do their work for them. Well, my apologies. Your thoughts stimulated that little bit from me. I had just finished the transcript of Wolfowitz' speech and had a few thoughts in my head. And, bang, then you offered me an occasion to drop them on you. Finally, oh, yes, you will note Iraq does not appear in those paragraphs. I think it is a separate issue. I have three thought keys I'm working on there: whether it is an imminent threat to the US as in its supposed ties to terrorism, whether it is an imminent threat to the global economy should it gain more control over the Middle Eastern oil reserves, and the degree to which the rhetoric of the Bush administration has made it much more difficult to determine just what is the case. Since I've concluded I can no longer trust their rhetoric, I must look to other sources to help me. That's why the actions of other governments, the actions of the UN Security Council, the comments of experts outside the US government and not carrying a torch for it, are essential to me in making up my lonely little mind. One mind in the middle of, whoops not in the middle, just on the east coast, of the US.