 |
| Volume VIII, December 2001, Number 4 |
| |
| EXCERPT: Essays |
| |
| Bin Laden and the New Age of Global Terrorism |
| |
| John O. Voll |
| |
Associate director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University
When hijacked planes were crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, people reacted in many different ways. However, most speculated that the acts were the work of religious fanatics. A number of commentators warned against making premature judgments about the identities of the hijackers, but the idea that the actions could have been undertaken by religious militants was clearly credible to almost everyone. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the world has become accustomed to terrorists and militant revolutionaries with religious identities. As a result, no one was surprised to learn that those responsible for the destruction on September 11 appeared to be identifiable as Muslim activists, and that they are alleged to be associated with an Islamically identified terrorist organization.
What is surprising is that no one was surprised by the prominent role of religion in this very public act. The lack of surprise reflects the remarkable transformation of the role of religion in modern (and post-modern) society and how both scholars and the general public understand that role. The change is highlighted by a remarkable coincidence. Almost exactly a century before the destruction of the trade towers, a president of the United States was murdered. On September 6, 1901, William McKinley was shot; he died of his wounds eight days later on September 14. His murderer, Leon Czolgosz, was identified as part of an international, ideologically inspired network striving to destroy the existing world order and replace it with a new visionary Utopia.
|
| |
| At War With Utopian Fanatics |
| |
| Alan Richards |
| |
Professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz
On September 11 the United States was attacked by utopian fanatics, followers of a movement inspired by an exceptionally narrow interpretation of Islam. Why does this movement enjoy so much sympathy in the Middle East? The answer, of course, is profoundly complex. Social, economic, political and cultural factors, interacting over many decades, have spawned this particular phenomenon. Space permits only a sketch of some features of this twisted landscape, followed by a few brief comments on possible responses.
Please note that understanding in no way condones the murderous actions of September 11. Historians who study Nazism do not justify Auschwitz, and students of Stalinism do not exonerate the perpetrators of the Gulag. Understanding is simply better than the alternative, which is incomprehension. If we fail to grasp the forces behind the attacks of September 11, we will fail to respond wisely.
|
| |
| America and the War on Terror |
| |
| William B. Quandt |
| |
Edward Stettinius professor, Department of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia
As the United States responds to the horrifying attacks of September 11, ordinary American citizens have been hearing two quite different messages. On the one hand, there has been much talk of war; of a crusade to end evil in the world; to punish not only the perpetrators of this outrage, but also those who harbor them – and those who may simply resemble them. In short, we have been called to a war against terrorism in all its dimensions. These are images designed to mobilize the public for sacrifices to come and to respond to the understandable anger of Americans who feel vulnerable and threatened as never before.
But the same political leaders who have engaged in some of these rhetorical excesses are also the ones who remind us repeatedly that this will be an unprecedented kind of war, one which will not be over quickly, which will require patience, and which we cannot fight alone. We are urged to prepare for a long and murky campaign against an elusive enemy. As much as Osama bin Ladin and the Taliban leaders of Afghanistan have been singled out as the primary culprits, we are nonetheless reminded that the battle will have to be waged in many countries, including our own, where small cells of terrorists reside.
|
| |
| New Friends, New Enemies and Oil Politics: Causes and Consequences of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks |
| |
| Julia Nanay |
| |
Director, The Petroleum Finance Company Ltd.
The post-September 11 anti-terrorist alliances being forged by the United States reveal the centrality and fragility of our relationships in the Middle East. U.S. and global energy security dictates that we maintain our ties to oil-producing countries in the Gulf, yet our alliances with the governments of these countries demonstrate that our relationships have no depth. In fact, because the United States has had little interaction with the people in these countries, we have not been sensitized to the domestic challenges they face. Over the final quarter of the last century, the U.S. relationship with the Gulf countries was based on oil. If we could get easy access to a country's oil, we treated their governments deferentially. If oil was denied to us, we punished them. But we didn't try very hard to learn about the internal dynamics of these societies. Arabists were largely purged from our State Department and other government agencies. It is only now, in the midst of crisis, that the U.S. government is scrambling to reconstruct our expertise in this region and to hire Arabic and Farsi speakers for a broad range of jobs.
|
| |
| The Political Requirements of Victory |
| |
| Ian S. Lustick |
| |
Professor of political science, University of Pennsylvania
American-led military action in Afghanistan is, unfortunately, fully justified. The attacks of September 11 required recognition of the state of war that exists between the al-Qaeda organization and its allies and the American people. If our government did not seek to protect us against attacks, it would be failing in its most basic responsibility. The question is not whether to fight, but how.
President Bush has pronounced both law-enforcement and military strategies to achieve victory. First, protect the homeland by ramping up internal security against terrorists operating here already or traveling toward our shores. Second, destroy the machine that produced the New York and Washington attacks and will produce more like them. These are necessary steps, but they will fail unless accompanied by a dramatic escalation on the political front. If we do not transform American policy in and toward the Middle East, we will be unable to mobilize the governments, armies and police forces of the area to assist us in destroying the machine of terror. And, even if we do bribe or coerce these governments to help us, if we do not change the image of our country in the minds of hundreds of millions of Muslims, we will guarantee the rise of future al-Qaedas.
|
| |
|
