September 11, 2001 - Third Forum

From Denny Goodman:

Here is my account of the third faculty panel on the events of September 11. This one was held Oct. 9 in Alumni Hall at the Hopkins Center before a packed audience of some 300 or more, mostly adult residents of the area. The final panel is this evening.

The participants were: Daryl Press, Govt. Dept.; William Wohlforth, Govt.; Lynda Boose, English; and Gene Lyons, Prof. Of Govt. emeritus. The moderator was Dr. Kathleen Allden, Dept. of Psychiatry at the Med School.

Like the second panel, this one was more balanced than the first. Prof. Press, a Defense Department consultant on terrorism in the Middle East, said the war was not likely to be a one-sided one in favor of the US. It would be costly, but it needed to be fought because the attacks of Sept. 11 were not random or accidental. They were specific acts to punish us. If we don't fight this war, we will have more such attacks.

Our minimum objective must be to destroy al Qaeda so they can't do it again. We need to isolate the Taliban and al Qaeda to cut off their access to fuel, munitions, etc. We have to convince people that Sept. 11 was not justified, not a real example of Islam. We have to delegitimize Sept. 11. Beyond this, we have to increase cooperation with authorities of other countries and develop an intelligence/military capability to destroy the Taliban and al Qaeda. 

How might this all go wrong? Our actions will lead to increased Afghan nationalism. The Taliban may become much more popular, and this could lead to failure. Or events, such as gross mistreatment of US prisoners, could occur that would so infuriate us that we would lash out excessively and destroy the coalition. Our actions could also lead to the fall of the Pakistani and Saudi governments. We need to show patience and wait for the right opportunities, but if there are repeats of Sept. 11, it will be hard for us to hold back. If we define this broadly as a war against terrorism, rather than against specific terrorists, we are less likely to be successful. Going after Iraq would be a mistake. They had chemical and biological weapons in 1990, but we obviously told them on the quiet that if they used them, it would be the end of Saddam and his family. Thus Saddam is "deterrable," and it would be a mistake to continue this war by going after Iraq. It is going to be a very difficult war as it is, but it is necessary for us to fight it.

Prof. Wohlforth spoke of a long-term US strategy, one that limits the sorts of means used on Sept. 11. When so little money could create such vast destruction, you have an unacceptable situation. We need a policy of carrots and sticks. Many of these terrorists are not appeaseable, not responsive to US policy. There is no US policy that can wholly satisfy some of these groups. Mass terrorism itself is the enemy, not some specific group. Others are certain to try again. Bin Laden thinks he and his mujahadeen colleagues brought about the fall of the USSR, and he thinks the US is a paper tiger, unwilling to take casualties. Deterrence is a critical part of any long term strategy. We must convince those who harbor terrorists that this is a bad idea. We must work through states, and they must have incentives to keep these activities off their soil. We need policies that will lead to more stable states.

Prof. Wohlforth said he was somewhere between the thinking of Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz and a policy of isolation after getting bin Laden. We must get more engaged in the Middle East. We must increase dramatically our non-proliferation efforts against chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, not cut them back as the Bush Administration did in its first months. We must have policy changes that will reduce the grievances that lead to terrorism. We should re-examine our Iraq sanctions policy and increase pressure on Israel to offer more incentives to the Palestinians to get them to agree to a settlement.

Professor Lyons remarked on the horror of the events of Sept. 11 and said they had led to increased fear and an erosion of trust in our society. He said he was in awe of modern military technology but noted the cruel fate of using such weapons against such a backward country as Afghanistan. He said we faced a new situation: a need to conduct a war against fanatics rather than against states. Finally, and his central point, we cannot and we must not do this alone. We must work with other countries, through multilateral mechanisms, the principal one of which is the UN and its various agencies, for example the World Food Program and the High Commission on Refugees. We need to legitimate our actions as we did in the Gulf War through the Security Council. We should strengthen the multilateral aspect of our foreign policy. But the Bush Administration is the real problem, and here he referred to its negative approach to arms control treaties, the Kyoto Protocol, and the International Criminal Court. We need an international court that could try bin Laden if he is captured, and he asked rhetorically whether his listeners thought bin Laden could get a fair trial in the US. We must have from the president a strong advocacy of multilateralism in US foreign policy, but whether he will do so remains a question. (Prof. Press disagreed, saying he viewed multilateralism as a means rather than an end. If need be, we should conduct the war on terrorism by ourselves if others don't want to join us. We have to ask what is consistent with our interests and our values and conduct a moral foreign policy.) During the question period, Professor Lyons expressed strong concern over what Middle East governments have done with all the money generated by oil.

Professor of English Lynda Boose spoke strongly against a US tendency to go after Iraq and others when we are finished in Afghanistan. This would spell the end of our fragile coalition with Middle East countries and European allies. The most important question is how does the US neutralize the attraction of the bin Ladens of the world. The image of the US to those in the ME is like that portrayed by CNN, of might, money, and superior power against poverty and anger, a Goliath vs. David image. The US has sold out its own values and supported tin horn dictators, and she asked how this leaves the average person in the ME feeling? She mocked the food packages being dropped into Afghanistan as little more than a joke or an insult. But she was pleased with the restraint shown so far by the Bush Administration. To go after other governments would be terribly counterproductive. We must work with all of them to root out terrorism. There is a substantial amount of rage against the US and US policies in the ME. Our thirst for oil means we will continue to support tyranny and overthrow democratically elected governments as we did in 1953. Now is the time to begin seriously to get off our addiction to oil. The oil companies have bought off governments, bought up patents on alternative energy, and we have never been serious about conservation. In the Gulf War, the US bombed much of the Iraqi infrastructure, leading to poverty in Iraq today.

Both Prof. Press and Prof. Wohlforth agreed during the question period that the poverty of the ME was not the cause of the terrorism and that narrowing the gap between rich and poor was not the answer to dissuading terrorists. The Taliban cared nothing about material goods and rewards. Sanctions against Iraq were not the cause of poverty and starvation there. The oil for food program had, since 1998, changed all that.