Here ya go p_p_man, intellectual fodder

[Ishmael]

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Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

April 23, 2002

The real 'root cause' of terror

It seemed to many observers last week that the Bush Administration was losing its moral compass in the war on terror. Of particular concern was Secretary of State Colin Powell’s dismal diplomatic foray into the Middle East, a trip predicated on the notion that -- when all is said and done -- Israel is not entitled to address murderous cells, and the infrastructure that supports them, by employing the same, lethally violent techniques that the United States is using to deal with Osama bin Laden’s.

Even on those occasions when Mr. Powell found himself compelled to acknowledge the Israelis’ right to defend themselves, he muddled the message by meeting with and thereby legitimating one of the region’s leading terrorists, Yasser Arafat. Worse yet, he committed America to underwriting the reconstruction of the very Palestinian Authority infrastructure that Israel has so recently been compelled to destroy.

Fortunately, this week brought a fresh and forceful articulation of what we in the West -- the United States, Israel and other civilized nations around the world -- are combating in this war, and that for which we are fighting. It was delivered by one of the Administration’s most thoughtful security policy-makers, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and warrants citation here at some length.

In a speech on Sunday before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Secretary Feith said of terrorism involving “the systematic killing of ordinary people going about their lives with their children in shopping malls, on buses, at restaurants” that “it is not politics. It's not even war. It's deranged ideology in action. At
stake is not just the fate of a particular country, but the fate of all open societies.”

He added that, “The suicide bombers who kill Israelis, like those who attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon last September 11th, are enemies of the idea of humanity. They may claim to represent a good people or a worthy cause, but they taint the political platforms they embrace. It's immoral to seek excuses for terrorism
and harmful to reward it. So the message of responsible governments should be unwavering: terrorists do not advance their causes; rather, they lose ground.” Mr. Feith went on to observe that: “Winning the war requires us to help change the way people think. This can be done. Worldwide moral battles can be fought and won. For
example, no decent person any more -- no one who hopes to be recognized as respectable in the wider world -- supports or excuses slave-trading, piracy or genocide. No decent person should support or excuse terrorism either.

“Our ultimate goal is to change the international environment regarding terrorism -- instead of tolerance, an international norm of renunciation and repudiation of terrorism....This is not an abstract, philosophical, academic point, but a strategic purpose of great practical significance.”

Perhaps the most trenchant aspect of Secretary Feith’s analysis is his insight that “what characterizes the suicide bombers -- and especially the old men who send them off on their missions -- is rather hope than despair.” Such hopes are fed by “the recent outpouring of open support in the Arab world for homicide bombers -- from Mrs. Arafat, from a senior Arab diplomat, from clerics associated with prestigious universities -- [which] reflects excitement at the thought that bombings are producing success. It is the kind of triumphalism characteristic of a mentality that believes in ‘the worse the better.’”

Don Rumsfeld’s top policy advisor then suggested a three-part “strategic course” that would “attack the sources of these malignant hopes”: “Regarding the religious hope: Many Islamic religious leaders seem uncomfortable with suicide bombing -- but many of them have been silenced or intimidated to voice support for the terrorists. The civilized world should exert itself to support moderate clerics, defend them and provide them with platforms to protect their religion from extremists who want to distort and hijack it.

“The civilized world should also deal with political leaders who heap honor (and money) on the suicide bombers and their families. President Bush, speaking of suicide bombers, said: "They are not martyrs. They are murderers." Other world leaders have the responsibility to reinforce this message.

“Finally, as to the suicide bombers' political hopes, we must ensure that terrorism is not seen as a winning strategy. This is today's immediate challenge: For example, we have to make it understood that the Palestinian homicide bombers are harming, not helping, their political cause.

Mr. Feith, a friend and colleague of many years, has performed a real service to President Bush and the war he is waging on terrorism. By conceptualizing the “root cause of terrorism” not as poverty but as “the incitement to hatred that creates the intellectual atmosphere in which terrorism can flourish,” he has helped to fashion a strategy for restoring coherence and success to the Administration’s global campaign.

He concluded by declaring that “Peace can be achieved when the conditions are right: and the most important condition is the state of peoples' minds....Peace diplomacy in the Middle East has been an intense activity for decades. It's now clear that we have not focused enough attention on the relationship between peace and education.
We spend a great deal of attention on what diplomats say to each other. We need to pay closer attention to what teachers instill in their students. Therein lies the key to peace.”

Amen.

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Ishmael

 

[Ishmael]

'Bumping' for p_p_man

 

[SINthysist]

Roiling Middle East Cultures Leave Negotiators Few Choices
Barrett Kalellis
April 24, 2002


If Vietnam was a no-win quagmire for the United States, the Middle East situation is surely a bottomless pit. As each party to the Arab-Israeli conflict tries to press upon the world the rightness of its position, the U.S. is caught in a crossfire of divided loyalties: between support for Israel, a longtime friend and ideological ally, and various alliances with Arab states for strategic and economic reasons. Our relations with the Arab nations have had mixed results – most are lukewarm, and others remain downright hostile.

Secretary of State Colin Powell and other Foggy Bottom career diplomats operate under the theory that every conflict between nations can be mediated by "shuttle diplomacy," that violence can be avoided and all differences negotiated in a "just peace." About 55 years of failure to reach a lasting Middle East peace, but only intermittent truces, proves these assumptions false. What seems to be missing is a comprehensive understanding of the underlying causes of the conflict.

Ostensibly, the rivalry is about land and the integrity and security of established political boundaries. Israel wants peace with neighboring Arab states, but only with guaranteed secure borders with them. Zionists believe they have an Old Testament entitlement to the land of Canaan, and since Jews had been living in Palestine over 2,800 years before the first Arabs settled there, they justifiably have some claim to squatters' rights.

Even the chosen people, however, cannot have history rewritten to favor them, and subsequent diasporas, Arab conquests and European crusades caused the Jews to be displaced from their ancestral homeland.

Similarly, the Arab pre-feudal monarchies never have wanted a State of Israel in their midst. Between the two World Wars of the 20th century, disharmony began to appear in the land that was holy to three great religions, then under British rule. Arab fears and envy heightened when prosperous and well-educated Jews began to purchase land in the Levant and steadily increased the Jewish population.

As a consequence, Arabs saw a relentless advance and expansion of expatriate Europeans and Americans, backed by foreign capital and flaunting a culture that was alien to ways of the Arab majority. In 1929, with armed attacks on Jewish settlements and many murders, terrorism became the tactic of choice on both sides.

When the British colonial mandate ended in May 1948, a partitioned but independent State of Israel was born. From this day forward, in spite of the truce with Egypt, Jordan and Syria in 1949, Israel and its Arab neighbor countries have been at various levels of hostilities with one other.

It is interesting to note that Arab leadership today still uses Palestinian refugees as pawns in the larger struggle against Israel. In 1948, some 750,000 Arabs left Israel at the urging of their political leaders, who promised that within two weeks they would come back as victors and take over Jewish property.

Now the refugees are in the millions. Other Arab governments have not allowed them to find new homes in Arab countries and the time has certainly passed when they could have recovered their old homes.

As these Arab countries have become more radicalized and fundamentalist in their religious teachings, the hope of two different cultures peacefully inhabiting the same land side by side seems even more remote. Unless the world is prepared to endure an endless cycle of terrorist attacks and retaliatory strikes, a more stringent resolution might be called for.

A consensus among the major powers, under U.N. aegis, might consider re-imposing partitioning between Israel and a new Palestinian State and all contested areas – "no man's zones" – guarded by an independent militia that would prevent incursions by unauthorized persons. This would practically eliminate suicide terrorism and retributive Israeli provocations.

This conflict has moved beyond the question of land ownership. The long view of history dictates that land only belongs to those who can hold onto it. What should be of paramount concern to the rest of the world is that protracted Middle East strife seems the most probable cause of major international war.

Continuing dependence by the rich countries of the West and Europe on oil from the region, seething Arab hatred about the Palestinian situation, and the clash between modern American values with Islamic traditionalism – all these elements are part of what have now become global tensions. There are few options left for negotiators, and what remain are not pleasant.

http://www.newsmax.com/commentarchive.shtml?a=2002/4/23/143121