Item 511-SEP-2001 11:35 Richard Farson

As the horrifying terrorist attack on the US unfolds, perhaps we can bring the intelligence and wisdom and influence of the ILF Fellows to bear on questions that are already arising as to the possible scenarios of response. We face the transformation of our society into a security state. We don't know, and may not know, the background intelligence on this. We may respond in a way to ignite a major war in the Arab world. What can we contribute to understand and help control this dangerous situation?

5:1) 11-SEP-2001 16:05 Douglass Carmichael

The most intense coverage is at cspan on the web. Callers remind us that we are an extremely diverse country, with deep divisions in perspective and hatred rooted in fragments of old cultures.

It is hard at this moment to sense how far out the tsunami of reaction will go. How fast can financial institutions recover? Can we imagine the stock market open tomorrow? And next? Dick raises one of the most important questions: do we become an administered society.

In the last few years I have done a rather outrageous amount of history reading. One can surmise that five hundred years from now, this will be seen as a cancerous last ditch stand of the monotheistic cultures coming out of the middle east from a thousand BC. In the midst of this there is the western commitment to individual freedom. Now threatened.

5:2) 11-SEP-2001 21:15 Donald Straus

Beth and I were at LaGuardia Airport at 9am yesterday. Crossing the TriBorough Bridge we saw the smoke over the Twin Towers and actually saw theburst of flame when the second plane hit. We were evacuated from LaGuardia and were lucky enough to catch a cab and speed to a hotel before it ran out of rooms.We spent the rest of the day feeling fortunate we were together during this horror, and glued to to the tv in a trance.

Two thoughts:

I never thought that the tiresome security checks at airports were worth very much.But I never thought that four terrorists could get through so easily.

I hope Bush rethinks his infatuation with Star Wars.

5:3) 11-SEP-2001 22:21 Raymond Alden

It would be too much to expect, I suppose, that somewhere in today's endless stream of commentary, someone might ask:"What are the grievences, real or imagined, that would drive people to this level of depravity?"

The Archbishop of Washington had a fine moment on Public TV this evening, at the end of the Lehrer show -- except for one picky detail."Surely this must be the work of a few madmen!"

I fear not.

5:4) 11-SEP-2001 22:24 Gloria Feldt

Hear, hear, Don--missile shields are of no help with terrorists.

I will be on pins and needles until I know what personal losses my staff has suffered. We feel very fortunate that all our people in NY and DC are accounted for.

Doug, I've been hearing that this kind of behavior is the death rattle of the old order--but that rattle has been going on for quite a while now and keeps coming back in new clothing. Do you really think it will ultimately disappear? I think the fundamentalist zealots are more like cockroaches--they can always find a way to mutate and survive in the dark corners of the world. Perhaps it is because I deal with their ilk on a daily basis that I have this perspective. But I suspect that they will always constitute a small percentage of the population, they will always have a target that they fear and hate, and they will only stop when the rest of the world shows them no mercy an gives no quarter to their behavior.

5:5) 12-SEP-2001 00:39 Richard Farson

I worry that Bush's making no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them will put us into an international struggle, and many more days like today.

Ray, I have been disappointed in all of the interviews I've seen. So many obvious questions not asked, the one you mention being the most important.

Watching our congresspeople singing "God Bless America" reminded me that the pilots steering their planes into the World Trade Center were no doubt screaming, "Praise Allah."

5:6) 12-SEP-2001 10:28 Lisa Kimball, Group Jazz

When I logged on this morning I had personal e-mail messages from dozens of friends and colleagues in Asia and Europe - hoping that my family and I were ok and expressing their love and concern.Last night I got calls from people in Australia and Tokyo worried because I live in D.C.The e-mail lists I'm on are today filled with messages from all over the world from colleagues just wanting to express their feelings to us. I've been moved to try to contact many people I know who I think might have been vulnerable and to find ways to "touch" people I care about.The online networks I'm part of - like this one - are alive with conversations … people we haven't seen in a long time turning up.The part of the global community that has been built reaches out to each other in person, online, and every other way they can manage.

Looking at the pictures of the gash in the pentagon it makes me think it's a scary illustration of the deep rift that has created the frustration and extreme expression of anger we experienced yesterday from those who feel so alienated from our community.What can we do about creating some kind of real basis for communication with them … to understand the anger and to find a path forward?That seems like such a huge question.Where is there an opening where we can begin?

5:7) 12-SEP-2001 10:33 Eleanor Goldstein

As a frequent flier, I would feel more comfortable if there was a guard on the plane.When we had robberies at my company we hired Wackenhut, and have been secure ever since.So what is wrong with having security on the plane.At any given time there are no more than 3,000 planes in the air.Why couldn't the army position servicemen on the planes.This would not offend me, because when on a plane we are all so vulnerable.We live in a world where security is necessary, and it will likely always be the case, considering the nature of human beings, the diversity and the anger and irrationality, for one reason or another. I always feel that the military should be there to defend us as citizens, and provide assistance whenever necessary, promptly and efficiently, whether it be when there is a hurricane, flood or terrorism.What does "defense" mean anyway. By the way, if you are looking for information about terrorism, look at my database on the WBSI website, under resources, SIRS.

Years ago, I was at the Frankfort Airport soon after there had been a high-jacking and military were very much in presence, and I was not offended.The same is true in Israel where security is ever present at the airports.

5:8) 12-SEP-2001 12:23 Anna DiStefano

I am new to the ILF and it is odd to enter the community with a posting about this kind of event.I find myself bouncing back and forth between intellectual, macro considerations of international policy or religious intolerance and emotional, personal reactions to the individual losses experienced by so many families.And as one who has flown many, many times on those American and United flights from Boston to LA, I feel afraid for the next time I will fly, especially with my two little girls.I know there is no real or absolute security in a world where this kind of alienation and hatred can thrive.How can I turn that realization into courage and determination rather than fear and withdrawal?

I look forward to getting to know many of you.

5:9) 12-SEP-2001 12:44 Lynne O'Shea

Arabic and Islamic academic departments at universities may well see the same flood of applications journalism schools saw after Watergate as we search for an understanding of these cultures.To me, there is something eerie about two airlines (American and United); two targets (the towers of World Trade Center) and (perhaps) two planes targeted for the Pentagon and the upcoming 2002 year.The Christian calendar is different from the Muslim calendar, but is there any foreshadowning we might now see, given that many of the military analysts think the Attack on America was too sophisticated for a Saudi renegade?

5:10) 12-SEP-2001 13:39 Ralph Keyes

I hope that these acts were death rattles, but fear that there will always be zealots among us who -- whatever their garb -- will feel justified in wreaking havoc.

With relatives in Lower Manhattan and a nephew who's an airline pilot (all safe)it's been an anxious time here.As with Lisa we've been hearing from friends all around the world.Both of our boys also called, to make sure their grandmother in NY was okay, and to connect with us.It's that kind of time.

Like Dick I hope we don't take the opportunity to wage war on entire societies, but also hope we find a way to locate and punish the perpetrators.

5:11) 12-SEP-2001 14:59 Richard Farson

Eleanor, I'm pretty sure you will get your wish about having an armed guard on all flights.El Al does that now, and after the rash of hijackings in the 70's we had armed marshalls on many flights.Who knows what Draconian security measures will be taken?

To my mind, the lesson that should be learned from yesterday is that we are in a state of permanent vulnerablity.Security measures are never enough.I always try to remember that we cannot keep drugs out of maximum security prisons.

Retaliation doesn't work either. Israel does it every time, and the carnage continues. I think it's important to treat this as an international issue of diplomacy.

Help me with this.Don't we have to temper our own outrage at terrorism by the realization that violence is sometimes the only weapon a society has? We built our own freedoms with violence, and Palestinians would not be taken seriously without it, would they?Menachem Begin, former Israeli prime minister, was a terrorist in the beginning. So do we want to end violence everywhere? This is a complex issue, and I can't quite think it through.

Maybe "all talk and no action" might be closer to what we need to do now than are heightened security and retaliation.

5:12) 12-SEP-2001 17:21 Donald Straus

I do not know the anwers, but feel strongly on several points: We must, at all costs, avoid the mistake of tarring all middle easterners with the racial stigma with which we treated Japanese residents in WWII. We must avoid the growing self-image that we are the last (and permenant) world power. Our posture (as pushed by Pres Bush) has been in this direction and, I believe, has weakened us as we seek more power. We must also avoid any weakening of our support of our ONLY president now that we are in this the middle of these tragic times.

5:13) 13-SEP-2001 01:28 Harlan Cleveland

I was asked last night by WorldPaper to write 500 words for an instant edition they will be sending out on Thursday to all their affiliate newspapers around the world. For those who haven't seen it, WorldPaper is a monthly publication, produced in Boston and inserted in a couple of dozen newspapers "in seven languages on five continents." This sudden "op-ed" article was therefore written for readers outside the United States.

I haven't previously tried to "attach an file" in this box.If this succeeds, it will seem rather long, since the manuscript is double-spaced.

5:14) 13-SEP-2001 01:30 Harlan Cleveland

For WorldPaper

WE'LL RISE TO THE OCCASION

Harlan Cleveland

This week's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington were enormous as a human tragedy,historic as a turn of events. Most journalists have focussed on what well-known leaders, around the world and especially in the U.S.,are saying about what will happen next.

But the main thing to watch is how the American people are likely to react -- and what they will tell their leaders to do about it.That's how it really works in the United States of America: on important policy issues,the people get there first,their "leaders" sooner or later follow. The attacks shocked us and changed us. Nothing like this had happened since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,in December 1941.That attack instantly unified the American people. Since then,we have felt we had a firm grip on President Franklin Roosevelt's first freedom,Freedom from Fear.No American less than half a century old could have imagined such a puncture in that freedom as we saw, on television in living color, last Tuesday.

The American people,once again instantly unified,have now made a judgment that we are at war.It's not in us to walk around frightened about our future.So we're going to do something.But do what? And who's the "we" that will be doing it?

The first instinct,at least of some "leaders,"may be to lash out at the most obvious symbols of terrorism -- in a hurry,at whatever expense to our own democracy,and on our own,as a self-isolating action.My guess is that the instinctive wisdom of the people will prevail over the itch of the instant-response hotheads -- and that the case for acting internationally in an interdependent world will trump the urge to express our unilateral impatience. Already on Day 2 after the disaster,the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the terrorist actions,the European Union expressed its solidarity with its transatlantic partner, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization started the process of making operational -- for the first time -- the NATO Treaty provision that an attack on one ally is an attack on all.

Under the impressively calm and clear-headed leadership of our African-American Secretary of State,Colin Powell,the United States has started"a world-wide effort to build a coalition against all forms of terrorism." This will be,at best,the beginning of a long-term coalition- of-the-willing that won't be satisfied to decapitate a few obvious villains but writes and enforces new rules for peaceful change and civilized behavior in the 21st Century. Like most things worth doing,this won't be done in a hurry,it won't be done without casualties,it won't be done at bargain prices.For a start, it will doubtless cost a lot more than we were planning to spend on "defense." This may require changing some suddenly premature Republican ideas about tax cutting,and some postponable Democratic ambitions about social spending.

The American people are heir to one tradition that is a feature of our history but is,curiously,not yet expressed in the lyrics of our patriotic songs. Ours is a nation that rises to the occasion. We have done it before,and we will do it again.

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Harlan Cleveland,a frequent contributor to WorldPaper,has been U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, U.S. Ambassador to NATO,and President of the World Academy of Art and Science.

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5:15) 13-SEP-2001 01:39 Harlan Cleveland

Sorry about the formatting of my article. The Caucus system evidently doesn't recognize spaces between paragraphs and that sort of thing. But I hope it's readable anyway. Some of you may find it a little upbeat for your taste. But remember that one of my eight "leadership attitudes" is unwarranted optimism!

5:16) 13-SEP-2001 08:57 Lisa Kimball, Group Jazz

This is a message from one of the other communities I'm part of from Deepak Chopra that I think expresses well what some of us have been feeling and trying to say ..

The Deeper Wound As fate would have it, I was leaving New York on a jet flight that took off 45 minutes before the unthinkable happened. By the time we landed in Detroit, chaos had broken out. When I grasped the fact that American security had broken down so tragically, I couldn't respond at first. My wife and son were also in the air on separate flights, one to Los Angeles, one to San Diego. My body went absolutely rigid with fear. All I could think about was their safety, and it took several hours before I found out that their flights had been diverted and both were safe.

Strangely, when the good news came, my body still felt that it had been hit by a truck.Of its own accord it seemed to feel a far greater trauma that reached out to the thousands who would not survive and the tens of thousands who would survive only to live through months and years of hell. And I asked myself, Why didn't I feel this way last week? Why didn't my body go stiff during the bombing of Iraq or Bosnia? Around the world my horror and worry are experienced every day. Mothers weep over horrendous loss, civilians are bombed mercilessly, refugees are ripped from any sense of home or homeland.Why did I not feel their anguish enough to call a halt to it?

As we hear the calls for tightened American security and a fierce military response to terrorism, it is obvious that none of us has any answers.

However, we feel compelled to ask some questions.

Everything has a cause, so we have to ask, What was the root cause of this evil? We must find out not superficially but at the deepest level. There is no doubt that such evil is alive all around the world and is even celebrated.

Does this evil grow from the suffering and anguish felt by people we don't know and therefore ignore? Have they lived in this condition for a long time? One assumes that whoever did this attack feels implacable hatred for America. Why were we selected to be the focus of suffering around the world?

All this hatred and anguish seems to have religion at its basis. Isn't something terribly wrong when jihads and wars develop in the name of God? Isn't God invoked with hatred in Ireland, Sri Lanka, India,Pakistan, Israel, Palestine, and even among the intolerant sects of America?

Can any military response make the slightest difference in the underlying cause? Is there not a deep wound at the heart of humanity?

If there is a deep wound, doesn't it affect everyone?

When generations of suffering respond with bombs, suicidal attacks, and biological warfare, who first developed these weapons? Who sells them? Who gave birth to the satanic technologies now being turned against us?

If all of us are wounded, will revenge work? Will punishment in any form toward anyone solve the wound or aggravate it? Will an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and limb for a limb, leave us all blind, toothless and crippled?

Tribal warfare has been going on for two thousand years and has now been magnified globally. Can tribal warfare be brought to an end? Is patriotism and nationalism even relevant anymore, or is this another form of tribalism?

What are you and I as persons going to do about what is happening? Can we afford to let the deeper wound fester any longer?

Everyone is calling this an attack on America, but is it not a rift in our collective soul? Isn't this an attack on civilization from without that is also from within?

When we have secured our safety once more and cared for the wounded, after the period of shock and mourning is over, it will be time for soul searching. I only hope that these questions are confronted with the deepest spiritual intent. None of us will feel safe again behind the shield of military might and stockpiled arsenals. There can be no safety until the root cause is faced. In this moment of shock I don't think anyone of us has the answers. It is imperative that we pray and offer solace and help to each other.But if you and I arehaving a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world.

Love, Deepak

5:17) 13-SEP-2001 11:46 Donald Straus

Lisa and Harlan;

Thanks for those two excellent pieces.

And may, for starters, we avoidbarbarous treatment of Muslims in our midst that mirror similar barbarous treatment of Japabese after Pearl Harbor.

5:18) 13-SEP-2001 13:17 Richard Farson

Two quite different but wise and optimistic pieces, and I thank you for them.

I think that the American people may not realize just how complex this incident is, and how difficult it will be to forumulate a response.I agree that Colin Powell seems to be the lone voice of wisdom in our leadership, because he realizes that this needs to be an international commitment.But a commitment to what?Eradicating bin Laden?He operates in sixty countries through eighty front organizations, largely under our intelligence radar. A war against Afganistan?The Russians failed in their effort to assert control there, and even though Pakistan appears to be cooperative at the moment, will they sustain that cooperation when their fellow innocent Muslims are being killed?And they have the bomb.Eradicate terrorism? Everywhere? Does that mean Palestine?What else do they have to remain a player in international affairs? Fight every country that "harbors" terrorists?What country doesn't?Terrorists don't think of themselves as terrorists, but as freedom fighters or messengers of God. In Israel we are addressing a conflict that has been going on for 3,000 years. There is no way to "win" this war.

I am encouraged that there has been no immediate retaliatory response.The rhetoric, however, is much like that I remember from Pearl Harbor days. It has the same tone-- "God is on our side", We oppose "forces of evil"The enemy is a group of "maniacs" "With the great American Spirit we can pull together and win this war" "we must unite behind our president"-- seemingly necessary to mobilize the public. (Someday I will show you my collection of World War One posters graphically depicting the evil face of our enemy.)

If we fail to learn the major lesson of the September 11th disasters, however--that we are permanently vulnerable, that no security measures, no matter how Draconian, and no military victories, no matter how devastating, can protect us, that the management of conflict in this century requires different approaches, that the old rules don't apply, that we have to attend to our global relationships as our number one priority, then the results of our actions may be tragic indeed, greatly exceeding the horrors of last Tuesday.

There is the possibility, of course, that with patience, and intensive deliberations with all the other countries of the world, and wise leadership here and in the Arab world, we may reach a new level of global understanding and commitment to peaceful measures and civilized justice.But I don't see the signs of it yet.

5:20) 13-SEP-2001 17:49 Donald Straus

Amen, Dick.Just to be more specific, perhaps we should seek to conduct a national discussion on what new lessons does this teach us on how to be the world's most powerful nation?There is a lot to learn about that role without in anyway denegrating the many points of greatness for which we canbe proud.

5:22) 13-SEP-2001 22:53 Douglas Strain

After going through the hysteria of the "Japanese evacuation" in Southern California and seeing my friends, second and third generation American citizens being summarily hauled off to "detention camps" at the beginning of World War II because of their "Jap ancestry", I pray that we do not let the "media terrorists" goad us into another unjustified "war" against people who are "different".

It is interesting to me to note that there have been several days of intense effort to find the people "backing the terrorists" and supplying all their complex needs for a "attack" of this magnitude that few such leads have been identified.One might note that nothing has been done that 18 hijackers could not have done alone by simply buying their tickets as they did on four different airplanes.After they were in the air out of the control zone of the Boston airport and loaded with fuel for transcontinental flight the planes were hijacked by four or five men each which redirected the flights to New York and Washington and flew them to their own certain death.Could it be that there is no "evil international plot" and all of the perpertrators involved are already dead? If this should happen to be the case, is it worth going to war for and with whom?

5:23) 14-SEP-2001 15:44 Rachel McCulloch

Brandeis has more students from NYC than anywhere else, so the terrible events of Tuesday hit very close to home.Most people know someone who is missing or dead.How to react to the unthinkable?

So far it appears that no one we know has been affected directly--a surprise since so many of our alumni work in the financial district of NYC. But a positive side to the recent tragedy is that, as others have already commented, we have been hearing from many former students, old friends, and relatives around the world. Today I've spent most of the day responding to calls and email from all parts of the world.

Perhaps another unexpected good is the amazing outpouring of tangible assistance for victims of the attack--money, blood, and so many other things--from those who seek a way to help. Meanwhile, ordinary life must continue--I think this as I try to prepare a lecture on international economics. Globalization was already a dirty word for many in the United States.What are their thoughts now--about trade, technology transfer, foreign investment, immigration?

Others have warned the possibility of a backlash at the personal level.Around Boston, Islamic people and institutions are already being harassed by individual angry Americans.Arab-American businesses are displaying American flags, presumably to give would-be vandals pause.We have to hope that our leaders have learned from our mistakes in WWII.

Meanwhile, my son, who is living near Marble Arch in London, emailed this today: "it looks like things could go in a very bad direction from here. i'm also a little scared about where i'm living; the security is occasionally very lax, and as an exclusively american building in a pakastani neighborhood i feel like we really stand out.which isn't to say that i feel like the neighborhood is unsafe or even unfriendly, but all it takes is one pissed-off person, and i've seen a lot more than just one."

5:24) 14-SEP-2001 17:18 Ralph Keyes

A hurried, simplistic response to the attack on our people might have an effect opposite of that intended. Forcing Pakistan to align fully with our policy could result in pushing that country into the hands of its many Muslim extrimists (for whom Osama bin Laden is a hero).Would they then have Pakistan's nuclear weapons at their disposal?Would bin Laden?Colin Powell at least seems to have some awareness of the complexity of the challenge we're facing.One can only hope others around him do as well.

5:25) 14-SEP-2001 17:49 Richard Farson

Touching and troubling stories from you, Rachel. It's good to have you with us. It's certainly more important than ever that you deal with what will surely be a new perspective on international economics.

The outpouring of assistance you mention is a moving experience, so like us humans when genuine calamities strike.I share David Halberstam's emotional surge and awe at the bravery of the firemen, knowing that the other tower had collapsed, yet without a pause, charging into the remaining one, while everyone else was running out for safety.That gets me.

We are in for troubling times I fear.Not just the discomfort of new security measures, or the loss of rights such as privacy, but the dangers that come from being even more of a target for the hatred of millions of Muslims.The main frustration in all this for me has been the failure of any of the TV interviewers that I have seen to ask the kinds of questions that would give us an idea about better strategies than security and retaliation.Some newspaper columnists and some NPR reporters have done a pretty good job, but where has television been?No one I have seen asks why bin Laden is angry.What are his motives and goals?If he wants to provoke us into doing something, what is it?Are we giving him the victory he wants? What could we do to deny him that victory?

Arianna Huffington has a good piece today on how the media, not just our intelligence agencies, have failed us. (The greatest recent failure of intelligence, of course, was ignored because the news was good--the totally unpredicted collapse of the Soviet Union)By ignoring the February Hart-Rudman report on the certainty of terrorism on our homeland (focusing instead on the supposed trashing of the White House by the vacating Clinton administration--and since then on Gary Condit, shark attacks, etc.,) she accuses them of keeping us in the dark.One more example of how the concentration of media in the hands of a corporate oligarchy, the issue we were discussing in Dick Pollak's conference, has put entertainment over information, and now we are paying the penalty.

Rachel, you mention learning from our mistakes in WWII.Those are vivid to some of us who lived through them.I remember having to say goodbye to one of my good friends, Kiyoshi Okada, as he was sent off to internment.But none of our leaders now is old enough to remember.To them this is history, and do they even know that history?I'm afraid that in the current craze over "the greatest generation" they will only know about the glories of war. (The Doonesberry comic strip has what must be, considering the new patriotism, an embarrassingly untimely, but telling, put down of that craze).

There are 70 extraordinary leaders in the ILF--ambassadors, diplomats, military generals, academics, artists, CEO's, philosophers, technologists, social scientists.Can we put our heads together and suggest an approach that might have a better chance of providing for the safety and promise of the world's peoples than the course we seem to be taking?

5:26) 14-SEP-2001 18:10 Richard Farson

Ralph, I'm pretty sure your concern about our relations with Pakistan is warranted.Early on, Powell seemed to be the voice of reason, but lately I feel he is becoming more bellicose.I fear also that he has too little influence in the administration, compared to that of Rice, Rumsfeld, and Cheney.

I wish that, for openers, Bush would say, "No matter how long it may take, we will bring the terrorist perpetrators to justice. And just as important, we will deny them the victory they want.We will not give them the satisfaction of knowing that they have provoked a war between the West and the Muslim nations. Instead, we are determined to join with the Arab world, and address these complex issues together...." (Will someone finish this statement for me?)

5:27) 15-SEP-2001 14:12 Raymond Alden

I wonder if the Irish, considering the events of this past week, may recognize where the road they are traveling leads -- the road of hate, bigotry, and intolerance.Wouldn't it be nice to see a sober, thoughtful reaction from Northern Ireland?

5:28) 15-SEP-2001 17:31 Richard Farson

A just finished a phone conversation with my old friend Michael Kahn, for my money one of the top minds in psychology (I've invited him to join us in this discussion as a resource person).He made me think about the paradoxes involved here.He called, knowing that I wrote a book about paradoxes in leadership, to see what I thought about the fundamental paradox in this--that the nation with the greatest power is also the nation most vulnerable.Perhaps he will talk more about that paradox with us online.

It made me think about another paradox having to do with our vulnerability.We have the idea that individuals are fragile, and organizations and institutions and governments are strong.It's probably just the opposite.Individuals are almost indestructable, extremely well defended.But relationships are very fragile.It takes almost nothing to completely destroy one.The same is true of organizations, and I believe, even societies. So, in spite of the rhetoric about how strong and resilient the heart of America is as we mobilize for war, we are in fact extremely vulnerable.We don't yet know just how damaging the attack last Tuesday may prove to be, to our financial markets, for example.Will it destroy our airline business?How many more such attacks would it take to so disrupt our society that we would collapse into facisim? Or chaos? And would the rest of the world, now so interdependent, collapse also?Terrorists have not begun to attack our communication systems, for example, now so easy to paralyze. There is much they could do, without resorting to biological or nuclear weapons.

Clearly the stakes are high. I am convinced that the macho stance taken by our administration, by all our leaders actually, is completely wrongheaded.There is only one way to protect ourselves, and that is to remove ourselves as a target for terrorism.Everything we are doing now increases it.Our arrogance and hubris are our enemies.Paradoxically, our superpower strength as a military and economic power is making us more vulnerable.

Our survival is dependent upon building relationships, with humility and compassion, especially with those who fear us, and hate us.As Michael pointed out to me, our president should be making friends not just with the heads of state, but with the people of these nations.And our billions should be spent not on crushing them militarily, but on cooperating with them, far more than we now do, in building their societies. Our current foreign aid budget (half going to Israel) is infinitesimal compared to our military budget. Think of what we could do with that 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut.

September 11th gave us a new world, requiring a different posture and different approaches.Because it appears we cannot look to our government to design these new approaches, it remains for non-governmental agencies, like the ILF, to do so.What role do we want to play, can we play, in this crucial effort?

5:29) 15-SEP-2001 19:06 Hallock Hoffman

I wish I knew how to respond to Richard's question: what part should the ILF play? Of course I think it should be significent, and push our country in the direction that emerges from the remarkably sensitive and intelligent comments in this discussion. Of course I think it is the most important activity to which we should now be devoted. But I live out in the country, and have little access to world leaders, and no indication (after some years to trying to put ideas into their heads) that I know how to reach them.

So I guess I want someone to tell me what to do next. Is there an effective response to suicide bombers' diabolical impact on the mind of America? Is there a way we might get the President and Vice-President to pay more attention to Powell and less to their "youthful" power-conceptual notions?

I wish I knew something useful to say.. Hallock

5:30) 15-SEP-2001 20:26 Richard Farson

Just in case my words about humility and compassion and making friends with people who are hostile seem weak, idealistic, soft, I want you to know that I believe in going both directions at once--what has been called simulatenous management.Tough on bringing the criminals to justice, but as friendly as possible to all the peoples of the world.

I was pleased to hear General Wesley Clark (once a member of the WBSI School of Management and Strategic Studies, and later Supreme Commander of NATO)discussing our position on CNN and he clearly places the diplomatic job first, says it will take a long time, and should precede any military action.In his view, we must ultimately get the locals to support the removal of the terrorist organizations in their midst.

5:31) 16-SEP-2001 03:18 Michael Crichton

It seems to me that many of the worries and assumptions about the administration's response I have read here are highly unlikely.

Nobody is going to invade Afghanistan.To do that sort of foolishness, you need to be a very strong president and to have your party running Congress.Like LBJ when he got us into a land war in Asia.Bush is in no position to do that.

Nor do I think he would if he could.He knows how militarily ineffective Clinton was, and how reviled for it; he must be strongly aware of the criticism of his father over Desert Storm; and for every bellicose statement somebody has made on TV, there has been a counter-statement by former CIA or National Security people saying how difficult the situation is.Some of which must be sanctioned by the administration, which needs to talk tough---and I believe it indeed does need to talk tough---while also trying to figure out what the hell to do.I think there has been an excellent management of American expectations so that people now do not expect an immediate response, for example.Or a quick resolution.

I am encouraged to hear of the full court diplomatic press.In fact, so far I have little in the way of complaint about actions taken, except for my wish that W. were a more compelling and dynamic speaker and leader in his public persona.But he never was.

As for the concerns about repeating some version of Japanese internment with Muslim Americans, I think this is just failing to recognize how much the world has changed in the last sixty years.There may be isolated incidents (there always are) but most Americans are pretty clear, I think, about where the terrorists fit into the scheme of both Arab peoples and Muslim religion.

In general I am underwhelmed by taking the "understanding" approach, as I am concerned by a hardline military approach.I think there is a category of person and problem which is not affected by being understanding.Either because there is profound pathology, or because the people involved are not acting because they are misunderstood.Again, LBJ is worth remembering here.He never understood why Hanoi wouldn't negotiate they way he used to do it in the Congress.

5:32) 16-SEP-2001 06:24 Donald Straus

The last 5 items, started by Dick in ILFspecial Item 5, seem to me to be exactly where this rebirth of WBSI should be in response to our present crisis.

But the structure (and richness) of what is going on in the total ILF menu is daunting and difficult to follow.I am not sure how to do this, but I think we need to provide more focus without discouraging the many innovative exchanges that are sprouting here and there.

In Forum 1 (the Democracy Section I have been asked to facilitate) I have tried a new structure for reachingdecisions on how to respond to this current crisis.

Even before reading the preceding five messages, I felt that a choice between an "understanding" and a "military" approach, is another "dichotomous trap". Michael in the item above says this very well.

My last input in Forum 1 is a very simple and perhaps unsophisticated, effort to escape the "dichotomous traps" which I strongly believe endanger most of our current political decision making.

But I need help before I get caught in my own trap!!

5:33) 16-SEP-2001 13:23 Richard Farson

Michael, as always you bring a voice of reason.Indeed there are people in the margins of our administration who are more cautious in their assessment of the situation.And, as you point out, perhaps it needs to be that way--tough talk from the center, realism from the staff.

I surely don't want my argument for understanding to be interpreted as following a course as some did in past decades, my mentor Carl Rogers for one, that all that is necessary is to commuicate understanding and these political struggles will disappear.I am a longtime critic of that approach.I don't for a minute suggest that I think we can soften the resolve of dangerous religious fanatics such as bin Laden. I think they should be pursued as criminals.

I do think, however, that we need to strengthen our relations with all of the Muslim world, and we do it not so much with sanctions and threats, but by being careful not to overplay our superpower hand.Going after bin Laden increases the need to work more sensitively with the rest of Arab society. As I see it, the stickiest problem for us in that regard is our posture with respect to the Palestine/Israel struggle.

Mostly, in this current crisis, we need to see our continuing, and I believe, increasing vulnerability as we communicate our willingness to destroy not only the the criminals but the harboring states.Perhaps, as Michael suggests, that is no longer the main message we are sending.Let's hope so.

5:34) 16-SEP-2001 14:23 Richard Farson

A couple of quotes from today's NY Times are worthy of review.Maureen Dowd quotes former Senator Patrick Moyhnihan, longtime CIA critic, as having said that Washington "was still worrying about intercontinental missiles when we had a wholly new set of threats, the fierce and unresloved Islamic antagonism over centuries of domination from the West. We have to start all over again in what we think we're dealing with. Perhaps organizations we had for another era wil be able to do that. But it is more likely that we'll have to create new institutions."

Historian David Kennedy quotes Lincoln: "as our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

5:35) 16-SEP-2001 17:30 Douglass Carmichael

I would like to just remind us of Doug Strain's question: what if all the conspirators are already dead? Not likely given the finances involved, but a worthy question.

I like Phil Agre's "But we should also understand the problem in political terms. What does it mean as a political matter to declare war on a network? (in his important paper,“Imagining the next war”at http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/2001/RRE.Imagining.the.Next.W.html

As I see it we either move towards a polarized war of attrition, or a new open alliance for a more modern world. The second requires an America that sees a better world for all as requiring more than market forces and police control of labor. The issues of culture and spirit, the symbolic and humane, are more in the public awareness than any time in my lifetime. Maybe this is all going to be a slightly better direction(s) than the one(s) we've been on.

An indicator of how we are doing will be

1. The emerging state of the economy. 2. The place of he WTO protestors, how they are seen in the new situation, ganged up on, or at least partially listened to.

What we can do: continue networking with each other and many others. The WTC was too much a part of the old economy, a big thing, material, constructed. It is not a network, and we can do more to make a vital networking society, with local reasonable economies, art, love, world perspective, deep in historical understanding.

5:36) 16-SEP-2001 21:44 Raymond Alden

There is much about which I'm confused, but a few things seem clear: 1.America will appear to the rest of the world as STRONG if we avoid blind retaliation and hold to a posture that is above that of our attackers. 2.Those who attacked us were highly motivated.Some of that motivation may have been blind adherence to a perverted view of Islamic doctrine, but the numbers involved cause me to doubt that this is the major explanation.We must search out and come to understand that motivation. 3.Everything -- EVERYTHING! -- depends on our maintaining and strengthening alliances with the rational governments of the world.This is Colin Powell's moment! 4.It does not matter whether or not we destroy Osama Bin Laden.We need only to contain him and his ilk,demonstrating to the world that his attrocious behavior is but a mosquito bite in the larger picture.

5:37) 16-SEP-2001 23:11 Richard Farson

Wise and essentially counter-intuitive ideas from the Alden quarters.Particularly interesting is your last comment, Ray, about Osama bin Laden, considering that the call for "killing" him as the first order of business is coming from the highest levels in our government.

I agree that we need Powell to maintain our alliances with the rational governments, but we need him also to do the much more difficult job of developing alliances with governments and people whom we do not understand, cannot communicate with, seem completely irrational.

5:38) 17-SEP-2001 00:19 Douglass Carmichael

to add, by Edward Said, in a long article worthy of close reading, in the observer.

http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,552764,00.html

(excerpt)

What is most depressing, however, is how little time is spent trying to understand America's role in the world, and its direct involvement in the complex reality beyond the two coasts that have for so long kept the rest of the world extremely distant and virtually out of the average American's mind. You'd think that 'America' was a sleeping giant rather than a superpower almost constantly at war, or in some sort of conflict, all over the Islamic domains. Osama bin Laden's name and face have become so numbingly familiar to Americans as in effect to obliterate any his tory he and his shadowy followers might have had before they became stock symbols of everything loathsome and hateful to the collective imagination. Inevitably, then, collective passions are being funnelled into a drive for war that uncannily resembles Captain Ahab in pursuit of Moby Dick, rather than what is going on, an imperial power injured at home for the first time, pursuing its interests systematically in what has become a suddenly reconfigured geography of conflict, without clear borders, or visible actors. Manichaean symbols and apocalyptic scenarios are bandied about with future consequences and rhetorical restraint thrown to the winds.

5:39) 17-SEP-2001 12:26 Ralph Keyes

The following statement was written by an Afghani who's lived in this country for more than three decades. It certainly conveys a different perspective than almost everything else we're hearing in these get-tough times.

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I heard a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio 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," and he asked, "What else can we do? What is your suggestion?" Minutes later I heard a TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."

And I thought about these issues 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 been going on over there. So I want to share a few thoughts with anyone who will listen.

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 fervently wish to see those monsters punished.

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 captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the country in bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master 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 love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. I guarantee it.

Some say, if that's the case, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. Millions of Afghans are widows of the approximately two million men killed during the war with the Soviets. And the Taliban has been executing these women for being women and have buried some of their opponents alive in mass graves. The soil of Afghanistan is littered with land mines and almost all the farms have been destroyed. The Afghan people have tried to overthrow the Taliban. They haven't been able to.

We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble with that scheme is, it's already been done. The Soviets took care of it . 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? There is no infrastructure. Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.

New bombs would only land in 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. (They hae already, I hear.) 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 be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time

So what else 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. I think that when people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" many of them are thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. They are thinking about overcoming moral qualms about killing innocent people. But it's the belly to die not kill that's actually on the table. Americans will die in a land war to get Bin Laden. 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. 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. The invasion approach is a flirtation with global war between Islam and the West.

And that is Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants and why he did this thing. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. AT the moment, of course, "Islam" as such does not exist. There are Muslims and there are Muslim countries, but no such political entity as Islam. Bin Laden believes that if he can get a war started, he can constitute this entity and he'd be running it. 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 Muslim lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong about winning, in the end the west would probably overcome--whatever that would mean in such a war; but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden yes, but anyone else?

I don't have a solution. But I do believe that suffering and poverty are the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden and his cohorts want to bait us into creating more such soil, so they and their kind can flourish. We can't let him do that. That's my humble opinion.

Tamim Ansary

5:40) 17-SEP-2001 18:44 Richard Farson

As carefully as the terrorist attack may have been planned, my guess is that the perpetrators were surprised and amazed at the death, devastation, paralysis, expense and national mobilization that it caused.I'll bet they didn't expect the buildings to collapse, financial markets to close, airlines to shut down.They hoped for our anger and impulse for retaliation, but I doubt that even they imagined the scale of devastation they caused.

That may be the very excess that will doom terrorism.The whole world got a different look at terrorism, and it was appalled.James Goldsborough in this morning's San Diego Union-Tribune quotes Napolean-- "an excess of violence that makes one blush for being a man." Perhaps, in spite of the celebrations in the Muslim world we have seen, the terrorists went too far, farther perhaps than they intended, and as a consequence perhaps their presence in these harboring nations will no longer be as tolerated as it has been these past years.That excessive violence has certainly touched our friends in the Muslim world. They are the people we must now work with to root out the criminal element in their midst.To respond in kind, as we seem poised to do, or more likely to respond with a massive assault that would dwarf the disasters of September 11th, could undermine the natural revulsion that was so quick to bring out the sympathetic responses of even those Arab leaders who are not very friendly to us.

5:41) 17-SEP-2001 21:57 Eleanor Goldstein

I live in Delray Beach, Florida, now on the map for being the residence of nine of the nineteen terrorists on the hi-jacked planes.Last month, it received the award as one of the "All-America cities" for 200l, the second time the city has won this award in the last ten years. Talk about travesty.This is a city that prides itself on ethnic diversity, frequently holding meetings and street fairs among the more than thirty prominent ethnic groups living here.The Muslims are as welcome as everyone else.It terrifies me that those neighbors harbored such anger and animosity. When I see the restaurants and the grocery stores that are owned by Muslims, and realize that the terrorists must have visited such places, and likely used such places for stategy meetings, I can hardly believe it.These were men with homes and neighbors and families and friends, who went to eat at restaurants where I eat and went to the same shopping centers, yet they had such little regard for human life.And they were welcomed in this community, where I have felt safe and comfortable for many years.Has so much wrong-doing accumulated in the past that there really is little room for accomodation?Or, do we have to consider that human nature is such, that anger and hatred can exist just as easilly as compassion and caring?I truly am devestated, because we seemed to have a good community that would bring out the best instincts in people, not the worst.We have sunshine and prosperity and good-will and mechanisms in place to resolve differences, and look what was being plotted and perpetrated amongst us.Will we return to innocence in our lifetimes?

5:42) 18-SEP-2001 13:44 Bill McGaw

Dear Eleanor, I do understand the devestating impact this revelation has had on you and Del Ray Beach. I love that place. Just after Pearl Harbour, my father enlisted in the military and as a 14 yr. old I went down there tolive with my grandprents for the winter. It meant so much to me. The kids at Del Ray Beach High were very open and accepting of this pesky brat from the North. That was great for me. If a colony of ants slips into a house, does the house loose its innocence? In Del Ray, my chums introduced me to smoking.

5:43) 18-SEP-2001 14:17 Douglas Strain

It is encouraging to find some sensible responses coming from my WBSI friends. It is most discouraging to hear what comes over by the hour in the public press.Edward Said's article referenced by Douglass Carmichael. the excellent statement by Afghami Tamim Ansary entered by Ralph Keyes, the usual insightful 5:40 statement by Dick Farson and the close up picture of DelRay Beach by Eleanor Goldstein all offer some useful insights into the depth and breadth of the crisis facing us.It is indeed unfortunate that our government leaders seem unaware of the factors that seem most significant to us and are busily engaged in "power politics" and "national retribution" that has long since ceased to be relevant to our problems in our modern technological society.

I am greatly concerned with this evolving form of "terrorism".We now have seen the power of a modern jet aircraft as the ultimate "guided missile".It is also becoming more visible that a small group of misguided people invisible to us even our own communities can implement such a tragedy using tools readily at hand to any group that is willing to give their own lives to achieve their ends.Going after "rogue nations" or "evil international terrorists" is no longer germane to preventing actions endemic to our entire society. Truly, we "have met the enemy and they is us".

I would fervently hope along with Dick that the unexpected "success" of this episode will doom terrorism but it presently seems more likely we will respond with actions that will dwarf the disasters of September 11th. I would hope we might listen to our Afghani friends like Tamim Ansary. And pray for help!

5:44) 18-SEP-2001 18:59 Hallock Hoffman

I, too, am most impressed by the good sense of the participants in this discussion, and continue to be appalled at the seeming total misunderstanding or misjudgment of our country's leaders. Our leader's words make me wonder if they talk that way because they mean what they say and really think that way, or talk that way because they think it is the way to rally the country, but actually are sensitive to the differences between our present "situation" and "war" as we have known it.

As someone has remarked, the ideas of the Bush administration prior to September 11 seemed concentrated on a nuclear missile defense that most intelligent commentators thought outlandish. It seemed to avoid any recognition of the science and the politics involved. Now they have at least agreed that you can't use nuclear missiles against terrorists (I think) and are beginning to consider how to deal with small numbers of totally devoted suicidal believers. But they still seem to think in terms of standard military actions. They want permission to assasinate and use "not nice" people in their pursuit of the terrorists. What they need is brains! We need them to hire Ray Alden and Dick Farson and Doug Strain and Doug Carmichael and EVERYBODY in this discussion, and let these intelligent people get on with the actions that will make a difference.

As most of you have alteady said, the right responses start with understanding the people who are creating the terror. That involves listening. I wish I heard some message from Washington that they know how to listen.

5:45) 18-SEP-2001 19:17 Douglass Carmichael

Late empire. Weakened religious traditions. Narrowing elites with persoanl agendas in many countries, including the US. Humane belief replaced by operational lives: money and markets.

Bush, somewhat of a fundamentalist, trying to be modern - and honestly trying, against terorists who are are in many ways trully post-modern and network savvy. Beauese we paid them to do it, taught the tech and gave he eapons, gave the money to create the networks.

Meanwhile our own intelligence agencies (I was invited to years ago to give a one day scenario exercise in the CIA on its future - main conclusions: they had no client and they ere so fragmented there was no "senior seminar" on how the pieces fit together, just isolated data gatherers.) is anyting but a network.

I wish we had the capacity, wbsi,to work a rigorous set of scenarios from this position.

5:46) 19-SEP-2001 01:36 Richard Farson

Douglass, we might be able to sketch out some likely consquences of the actions that appear to be under consideration.Not a rigorous set of scenarios, which I agree would be desirable, but still it might be illuminating as a first step.

What would be the consequences of:

1)A largely covert police action to capture Osama bin Laden

2)A massive cruise missile attack on the supposed headquarters of bin Laden in Afganistan

3)2 (above) augmented by sizeable ground forces.

4)A long term diplomatic effort to enlist currently divided and somewhat unfriendly Muslim countries in the destruction of the terrorist networks.

5)Attacks on all known terrorist hideouts in as many as sixty countries.

6)Others?

Anyone care to suggest other actions and speculate on the likely scenarios?

5:47) 19-SEP-2001 18:57 Douglas Strain

Dear Dick, Harking back to the Japanese problem inWWII, I would suggest that WBSI could perform a valuable service by establishing contact with leading Muslim leaders in the USA.I would welcome their insights and current knowledge of Arab citizens in this country and their insights as to what might be useful in diverting our disturbing march toward all out war with the Muslims.Minorities need a protective "voice" in times of social stress and I believe that the Muslims might find a useful "home" with WBSI.Their knowledge, skills, contacts, and devotion to the USA should not be sacrificed under the intense pressure as we march toward a military confrontation.We have already seen the input from Tamim Ansary.We need to keep this loyal minority visible and a source of vital information about their home country as well as offering the protection that all loyal citizens have as right in our society.I have sen Tamim's article to my congressmen as start.Are there others we could recruit as our own resources for information which seems sure to disappear entirely from the popular press?I feel we must maintain our own information resources as well as staying close to the American Muslims so we know how desperate they may become under our warime hysteria! How about inviting in some Muslim fellows?

5:48) 20-SEP-2001 00:03 Bill McGaw

An enticing suggestion. Douglas! They must be involved in our adressment of this perdicamint.

5:49) 20-SEP-2001 01:25 Richard Farson

Doug, your idea sounds good to me. I'm not sure where to start, but I think I may first ask Jivan Tabibian, currently Armenian ambassador to Austria and the EU (he was born in Beirut, speaks Arabic, and is a Princeton trained political scientist) for his advice on how to proceed.Certainly we should have a broader ethnic representation in the ILF Fellows group, but that may come with a second round of recruiting.This first round were just people I knew. When we get the people THEY know, we should have better representation.But we still haven't been able to get the full group to participate.Maybe we don't have to wait for that to happen before we recruit others.

5:50) 20-SEP-2001 11:31 Richard Farson

Even a brief conversation with Jivan Tabibian is always informative.He feels that it is inevitable that we must make a highly visible military response to the terrorists because democracies are trapped in having to inform the public through the media.Since this disaster played so heavily on CNN, he thinks we are bound now to have the "solution" play on CNN also.Diplomacy doesn't play well on TV.

He is not sanguine about the prospects, because we have to remove so many layers of fixed and largely erroneous ideas about the people we are confronting.He did mention some interesting paradoxes--while we are moving toward warfare in which we sustain zero deaths, bin Laden is recruiting hundreds of young men who will commit suicide.He also is interested in our spending $400 million on a new outfit for soldiers, land warriors, that is completely computerized with helmets that permit not only night vision, but all kinds of high tech displays of satellite transmissions, etc. while at the same time some men in flowing robes and box cutters are able to inflict such damage on us.And that we have such rhetoric about the savages with whom we are dealing--except these savages operate a far flung financial enterprise.

James Goldborough's column today argued that to capture and try Osama bin Laden would take years and would result in further fractionation of the Muslim world, increase the hostility toward us, and make recruiting for such terrorist groups easier.He pushes for treating it as war, not criminal justice.Which is seemingly what the administration is doing.

5:51) 21-SEP-2001 14:45 Douglas Strain

Despite the President's fine words and his pleas not to condemn whole racesof people but just to "go after" the "terrorists", I am still disturbed by our refusal to present the evidence linking bin Laden to this particular terrorist act.I may have missed it in the torrent of news but I have yet to see any evidence with which would stand up in any court of "Justice" linking him to this event.Surely we must have more firm evidence of his participation inearlier such terrorist actions so why not accuse him of these "crimes" rather than one for which we apparently do not have such evidence.In a the questioning of the presidential spokesman this morning, the question was raised by the press why do we not present the evidence of bin Landens complicity as requested by the Talibans as a condition of their release of bin Laden to us.The answer ws that the President has said that his release should be "Unconditional".If it is no longer necessary to present evidence of complicity to establish guilt, then western society has already "lost the war".I still raise the possibility that bin Laden had nothing to do with this particular incident and until his complicity isestablished without any doubt then we are on a very slippery slope indeed and may well cause an even deeper rift between us and the Muslim community by our pursuing this case on such a flimsy foundation.

5:52) 21-SEP-2001 15:13 Richard Farson

Doug, I agree. It didn't seem out of line for the Taliban to require evidence, as would the UN if we were to work through them, which we can't of course, because we have a conservative administration, and because we don't want to have to listen to the litany of abuses that the West as visited upon the Arab world.Bush mentioned bin Laden's supposed complicity in other terrorist acts, but I'm not sure we have the goods linking him directly to those acts either.I'm sure he is a terrorist (Freedom Fighter, we used to call him) but in a situation governed by a rule of law, acting on the fact that he has that label wouldn't do the job.That's probably why we keep invoking the term "war", because we then don't have to explain our actions as lawful. If we did get him alive and into court, it could be a real mess.Years of trial, exposing ourseves to the criticism of the world, and probably actually increasing the Muslim hostility toward the US, could be counterproductive. It is a dilemma.

5:53) 21-SEP-2001 20:29 Donald Straus

One of the best "think pieces" about choosing war as a proper reaction to the WTO destuction is the following excerpt from NY Times op Ed of Friday, Sept 21.The article was written by Michael Walzer, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and a friend of mine.

Its title is FIRST, DEINE THE BATTLE.Here is an excerpt:

"But military action is what everybody wants to talk about - not the metaphor of war, but the real thing. So what can we do? There are two conditions that must be met before we can fight justly. We have to find legitimate targets - people actually engaged in organizing, supporating or carrying out terrorist adctivities. And we must be able to hit those without killing large numbers of innocent people.

5:54) 21-SEP-2001 21:53 Raymond Alden

In re Dick's response #46:Among the "Other", and perhaps deserving an item number of its own, should be "A substantial effort to relieve the poverty, physical deprivation, of the ordinary citizens of middle-eastern countries.And, not incidentally, of citizens of the USA.

In re Douglas's response #47:It would be a great service to launch a dialog that is not taking place elsewhere.This sounds to me like a candidate."Amen" to Dick's response, #49.I suspect that Jivan may be more helpful on reconsideration than is evident in Dick's #50.I hope so; I'd like to hear from him!I also agree with Goldborough.

In re Doulas's #51:This evening on the Lehrer show, there was a scene in which a reporter asked the Taliban Council, "Will you turn over bin Laden?"The answer was almost lost:"Not without evidence." Why don't we listen?(As Dick points out in #52.)

I'm excited by the thought of a rational dialog with a well-informed and eloquent Muslim spokesperson.

5:55) 21-SEP-2001 23:29 Bill McGaw

Ray - Re: #54. I do so agree with the need / potential pay-off of having a Muslim participant. Let's hope it happens.

5:56) 21-SEP-2001 23:31 Harlan Cleveland

Doug Strain's point about the absence of public evidence linking bin Laden to the Sept. 11 attacks is something that has bothered me -- a lot. From experience in such issues, I can imagine the arguments inside the Bush Administration, with the CIA and others opposing any public revelation of evidence on the ground that such publicity would compromise intelligence sources.

It was not surprising that the Taliban insisted on evidence.I can almost hear their chief adviser on how Westerners think,saying that we COULDN'T object to their asking for it.

But whether the Taliban had raised this question or not, the absence of an articulated case against Osama bin Laden made the U.S. stance questionable,since we were insisting on his being delivered to us without producing even a sketchy version of the indictment he would face in our courts or an international court.

So why aren't "we" producing it?Probably because our research is far from complete, which is quite understandable. But to go to "war" without being able to justify our action in "the opinion of Mankind" will not only make Colin Powell's coalition-building task much more chancy,but will also undermine the American consensus that is currently pretty solid but is vulnerable to evidence that the hothead elements in the Bush Administration are calling for action that is premature or even half-cocked.

Dick,is this an issue on which we could develop a quick ILF consensus with a view to some kind of action/publication?

5:57) 22-SEP-2001 00:30 Douglas Strain

Thank you Harlan for your response on the bin Laden guilt problem. I can sleep better tonight because of it.At this late stage of my life I do not look forward to becoming a citizen of a "rogue nation".The United States has too precious a heritageto risk its reputation on a issue such as this.I pray that this too may pass!

5:58) 22-SEP-2001 16:25 Richard Farson

Harlan, my guess is that it would be very difficult to get an ILF consensus on that question.If we were talking about a police action to "bring Osama bin Laden to justice," then I think we would want clear evidence.But that is not the only way this is being talked about by the adminstration, or indeed by the public.It is a war, and the rules of evidence don't apply.In war we target whatever elements we think are hostile, and expect a lot of innnocents to die.We have been trying to get evidence on bin Laden for several years, to no avail.And because America doesn't want to go to an international court to bring him to justice if that means we have to go through years of legal procedures and the Arab world would be further fractionated and perhaps more hostile, I doubt that most of our Fellows would vote to wait for the evidence.I am of two minds about it myself, because I suspect our evidence linking him to this recent act is shaky.I can't believe that the American public would be willing to give up on bin Laden, now that he has been clearly labeled as the leader.I would prefer no military action at this time anyway, even if we did have evidence, simply because world opinion is moving toward us as we demonstrate patience. Then let Powell develop his coalition. Unfortunately, I'm not running things.But we could survey the group, and find out.Whatcha think?

5:59) 22-SEP-2001 17:59 Douglass Carmichael

Key scenario pieces are usually large things about which we have no clear evidence one way or the other.

these would be (some of them)

1. more terorits attacks 2. destabilization of pakistan 3. multiplier effects in the US and global economy 4. racial strife in the US or Europe 5. the asian perspective (which sees this situation as a war among sects of a single relgion: western monotheism) 6. Bush's tendency to prefer a fundamentalist approach and lead the world to isolate the US as a rogue state, with UN support. 7. If bin Laden is not the center of the planning.. 8. Russia's reasserting itself 9. a new china japanese move towards building a coalition against both the US and middle east. 10. the place the WTO protests will now take.

5:60) 22-SEP-2001 18:52 Richard Farson

Douglass, you've given us ten whoppers for openers.A disheartening and chastening list. Not all are mutually exclusive, of course.One can imagine several of those consequences flowing simultaneously from almost any sizeable military action in that part of the world.If we extend it into Iraq and elsewhere, we can see even more disturbing consequences. Interesting that, by and large, they are all negative developments.

First on your list is more terrorist attacks.You probably mean as a result of our immediate military action. But I wonder if you might mean long term effects.Is it possible that no matter how extensive and prolonged our rooting out of known terrorists,when we decide to stop, might we have a world with even more terrorists?

5:61) 22-SEP-2001 19:10 Richard Farson

In the early days of WBSI and the Cold War, we did quite a bit of work with the Joint War Games Agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on deterrence strategies.As I recall, the most interesting and effective of the strategies we studied in the laboratory was one invented by Charlie Osgood (a U. of Illinois psychologist and WBSI Fellow) on graduated unilateral initiatives for tension reduction, in which we would take the initiative to reduce our armaments, bit by bit, and hope for reciprocity, which, in our test games, we achieved. GRIT, he called it, was based partly on the idea that we can't expect to negotiate by meeting our adversaries half way. There is a curious psychological phenomenon, when you meet exactly half way it appears to both sides that they are losing.So he suggested we start with what seems like a clear victory for the other side, unilaterally disarming, but not to the point of extreme vulnerability.

I mention this only to support my paradoxical approach to this crisis.What seems to be a weakening of one's position can lead to highly positive results.Especially when one's adversaries fear you and expect just the opposite.

5:62) 22-SEP-2001 19:37 Richard Farson

I cannot get over what an enormous success this terrorist act was.Surely the terrorists never dreamed that they could create such widespread fear and economic disaster, worldwide, or provoke such a militant reaction, not just directed at those deemed responsible, but possibly to several nations in the Muslim world. Now, with our armed response, and our inclusion of these other unfriendly nations as targets, we are giving the terrorists a victory beyond their wildest imaginings.The only possible negative for them is that even their allies seemed to see this particular terrorist act as greatly excessive, and moved closer to us.But that will be short-lived as we act militarily.

5:63) 23-SEP-2001 11:06 Donald Straus

Dick and others: I have been trying to find a contact with Muslims in the Internet.I did get a clue thru Google at http://www.muslimsonline.com/members.html

But my skills at working the internet failed me after downloading the two items below.I wasn't able to move around this website which does seem to be a good place to make contacts.Perhaps there are some techies in WBSI who can get more.

Whats new! MUSLIM EMAIL Free web based email for our members. You are required to signup to be able to use MUSLIMEMAIL, completely FREE of cost. MUSLIM SEARCH Our fast and easy to use search engine will help you find the information you need from anywhere on the internet. MUSLIM CHAT Talk to other muslims around the world using this service. Get to know one another, and be united. This is available for IRC users too. MAILING LISTS/ LISTSERVS Our muslim mailing lists offer immediate news updates, information,events and much for every community. FREE HOMEPAGE Members can host their web pages on our system completely FREE of cost. MEMBERS Come visit site on muslimsonline from various different organizations. INTERNET SERVICES Businesses and Organizations can setup commericial Dialup and webhosting now, all provided with tons of features.

NEW MuslimsOnline Internet Services Ayah ofthe Week "Be informed that recounting the name of Allah will bring peace to your hearts."

(Ar-Raad:28)

M U S L I M S O N L I N E . C O M

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