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Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 07:54am Sep 21, 2001 EST (#9554 of 9568)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Hama Rules by Thomas L. Friedman http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/opinion/21FRIE.html includes this:

" . . . . We can't go around leveling cities. We need to be much more focused, selective and smart in uprooting the terrorists.

" No, I tell this story because it's important that we understand that Syria, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia have all faced Islamist threats and crushed them without mercy or Miranda rights. Part of the problem America now faces is actually the fallout from these crackdowns. Three things happened:

" First, once the fundamentalists were crushed by the Arab states they fled to the last wild, uncontrolled places in the region — Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and Afghanistan — or to the freedom of America and Europe.

" Second, some Arab regimes, most of which are corrupt dictatorships afraid of their own people, made a devil's pact with the fundamentalists. They allowed the Islamists' domestic supporters to continue raising money, ostensibly for Muslim welfare groups, and to funnel it to the Osama bin Ladens — on the condition that the Islamic extremists not attack these regimes. The Saudis in particular struck that bargain.

" Third, these Arab regimes, feeling defensive about their Islamic crackdowns, allowed their own press and intellectuals total freedom to attack America and Israel, as a way of deflecting criticism from themselves.

" As a result, a generation of Muslims and Arabs have been raised on such distorted views of America that despite the fact that America gives Egypt $2 billion a year, despite the fact that America fought for the freedom of Muslims in Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo, and despite the fact that Bill Clinton met with Yasir Arafat more than with any other foreign leader, America has been vilified as the biggest enemy of Islam. And that is one reason that many people in the Arab-Muslim world today have either applauded the attack on America or will tell you — with a straight face — that it was all a C.I.A.-Mossad plot to embarrass the Muslim world.

" We need the moderate Arab states as our partners — but we don't need only their intelligence. We need them to be intelligent. I don't expect them to order their press to say nice things about America or Israel. They are entitled to their views on both, and both at times deserve criticism. But what they have never encouraged at all is for anyone to consistently present an alternative, positive view of America — even though they were sending their kids here to be educated. Anyone who did would be immediately branded a C.I.A. agent.

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rshowalter - 08:01am Sep 21, 2001 EST (#9555 of 9568)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

" And while the Arab states have crushed their Islamic terrorists, they have never confronted them ideologically and delegitimized their behavior as un-Islamic.

Comment: Nor have they shown how ugly, inconsistent, counterproductive and dangerous the terrorists are in many other ways.

Ways that need to be set out clearly enough, and with enough connections, that the dead end represented by this terrorist world view can be seen, and felt, by all concerned. Including Arabs and Muslims, as they are, feeling as they now do, with the histories that they actually have. This confrontation will have to be based on facts that can be checked, and that cannot be denied. These facts are crucial, as they are always crucial when paradigm conflict occurs, and an unsatisfactory paradigm, that grips the minds of groups of people, must change.

" Arab and Muslim Americans are not part of this problem. But they could be an important part of the solution by engaging in the debate back in the Arab world, and presenting another vision of America.

Comment: There is intellectual work to do, to get the argument ready enough, complete enough, so that it can work as well as it needs to. That work has to be based on checkable facts , and balanced truth, because nothing eles will be safe enough and strong enough to do the job.

"So America's standing in the Arab-Muslim world is now very low — partly because we have not told our story well, partly because of policies we have adopted and partly because inept, barely legitimate Arab leaders have deliberately deflected domestic criticism of themselves onto us. The result: We must now fight a war against terrorists who are crazy and evil but who, it grieves me to say, reflect the mood in their home countries more than we might think.

Comment: If, perchance, we must in some ways "clean up our own act" in order to have the standing needed to help them clean up theirs, that would be a small price to pay. This situation is so complex -- so far beyond human understanding and prediction, that only the truth is safe enough to guide us. Especially truth about facts that can be checked.

If the convention that checking facts, if they mattered enough, was morally forcing were in place, we'd be far better able to fight this battle. A battle that we can't avoid - - and dare not lose.

If we lose this battle, and we've been losing for too long, missile defense, even if it were workable, will not be defense enough.

If we can win this battle, we can fashion community patterns good enough to put a stop to terrorism, in all its forms. Including the terror of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction that motivate our desire for missile defense.

We'd have many powerful allies, including the Russians, if we set out to do that. We could win, in ways that would make Americans, and people all over the world, proud.

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