Rethinking Islamist Terrorism
Dan Yankelovich

Participant
Has anyone made a carefully researched list of recent undertakings by the US and what they cost? I don't mean including every possible cost, but just those that are hardly in dispute. If so, one might make a persuasive comparison:

1. We spent this much to knock out the Taliban, disable bin Laden & Co, and restore civil government to Afghanistan. We MIGHT, instead, have used that sum of money in the following ways: (a), (b), (c), etc. etc.

2. We ditto to knock out Saddam Husein, etc. etc.

Unless done carefully, this would be worse than useless; done carefully, it might carry weight with a significant number of people -- people who keep hearing, and cringing at the thought, "We had no choice but to _____" You fill in the blank.

Participant
Ray, I don't know the figures, but I suspect they are available. I certainly agree with you. The larger "real" costs, however, are never accounted for in the dollar amounts spent on the military and aid programs. Invading Afghanistan cost us immeasurably, and Iraq even more, because, for example, we cannot now get our allies to help pay the costs. And what did it cost us to have legitimized Sharon's invasion of Gaza and the West Bank, following our lead in Afghanistan? It certainly produced more terrorism, which ultimately increases our costs exponentially. Those costs, could they be counted, would make Don's buy out of the Palestinian/Israeli situation seem paltry.

I cannot resist reminding you that in Afghanistan the Taliban is returning, bin Laden is alive and well, Al Qaeda is operative and strengthened, the war lords are still in power, women are still under wraps, the place is a mess. Somehow that should be figured in to our costs vs. accomplishment.

Participant
The grass roots movement among Israelis and Palestinians is succeeding because instead of focusing on the differences, conflicts and first steps, it goes right to the vision of what the solution would be. That matches an age old conflict management technique.

Participant
Political scientist Dipak Gupta, inspired by the words of Peace Nobelist Elie Wiesel, argues that "humanity" is ultimately the way to face terrorism. "The policy that confirms the worst about us to our adversaries only adds fuel to their fire of hatred. Every military action that kills innocent bystanders, regardless of our true intention, gives birth to many more suicide bombers...Western civilization is rooted in the concept of the rule of law. We cannot win over those who violate the law by breaking the law ourselves...no mass movement can be stopped without addressing its legitimate grievances...terrorism can only be fought with humanity; it is important to know what we are fighting against. But it is even more important to know what we are fighting for."

This point of view has been voiced so many times in this conference and in others we have conducted over the past two years, it now seems almost trite to repeat it.

The dilemma, of course, is that our leaders, and to some extent our people, cannot see past the horror of the terrorists actions to the legitimacy of their complaints. Nor can we see past the supposedly protective or honorable actions in our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and by proxy the West Bank and Gaza, to recognize the horror and self-defeating character of our waging a war against these legitimate complaints.

Until we do, we are locked in a combat we are certain to lose in the long run, all the while fighting to defend the wrong principles. US history is full of such imperialistic wars--almost all of them were similarly ill-conceived until the world wars--making it remarkable indeed that we have emerged with as healthy a benevolent democracy as we have.

Participant
Dick: I've no quarrel with what you say above (in #198), except that it evades my point. If we omit any costs that are indirect or otherwise arguable, and just take the costs that no one is likely to deny, we'll have enough to make a comparison with other things that might have been done instead. Doing that would reduce the debate to its essence: What might we have accomplished with these alternative steps? These are steps, by the way, that no one (to my knowledge) has made the effort to delineate -- which hands the debate to the "hawks" without a fight.

1:202) 25-OCT-2003 00:02 Participant

I didn't miss your point. I just won't give the hawks that concession. We don't need to because I'm sure the numbers for the direct expenses are around. I think it's about 180 billion since 9/11, but I don't know where I got that number.

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