U.S.Should Reassess Foreign Policy Priorities
German Acosta
Issue date: 10/1/01 Section: Perspectives
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The attack on September 11 has affected me deeply. I have much to be thankful for having lived in the US for over 15 years and experiencing the liberties and being given the opportunities that make this a great country. Sadly, most people around the world do not experience the same freedoms or are given the opportunity to make their dreams a reality. Part of the response to this great tragedy should be a fundamental reassessment of US priorities for the rest of the world. For this attack is not merely a terrorist act committed by a few radicals, and in considering a response, war and revenge are not to be the primary objectives and reasoning behind our actions. For many years, this country has missed a chance to truly lead the world on a fundamental revolution to a new way of thinking. There has always been many motives behind both foreign and domestic policy in the United States. But the primary motive has been economic. The United States has fermented the spread of capitalism within the world and in doing so has benefited economically from its policy.
However, there is a greater and much more powerful goal, which should be the policy of this country, and the economic and democratic governments of the developed world. Government is nothing more than the result and administration of a social pact between human beings. The rise of the United States as a nation in the 18th century was in many ways the convergence of philosophies based on an idea of certain rights of people. The founders of this country although in many ways still driven by economic factors, recognized the fact that to form a society for the benefit of people, government must not be all powerful. This was expressed both through a separation of powers among different branches of government, and more importantly, the recognition that there are certain individual rights which cannot be violated.
After WWII, the United States dedicated its economic and, more importantly, its ideas of a free society with certain rights to individuals in rebuilding Japan. It is a testament to the greatness of this country and its people that rather than occupying and taking advantage of Japan, it instead produced a Constitution and a pact between citizens of a country, who had never before known democracy. This pact mixed with the cultural and governmental will of the Japanese people produced a society that is the envy of Asia.
This was not an easy task, it took several years and many reforms were undertaken. Educational texts were rewritten. The ideology of the Japanese people had to fundamentally be changed in many different ways. However, Japanese cultural heritage was not lost and a democracy bloomed where none had existed before.
Here is an interesting letter I received from an Afghan Stanford student:
Subject: Striking Back at Afghanistan
Perspective of the Afghan people
Dear Friends,
Yesterday I heard a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage," and he asked, "What else can we do? What is your suggestion?" Minutes later I heard a TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."
And I thought about these issues especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's been going on over there. So I want to share a few thoughts with anyone who will listen.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I fervently wish to see those monsters punished.
But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the country in bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. I guarantee it.
Some say, if that's the case, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. Millions of Afghans are widows of the approximately two million men killed during the war with the Soviets. And the Taliban has been executing these women for being women and have buried some of their opponents alive in mass graves. The soil of Afghanistan is littered with land mines and almost all the farms have been destroyed . The Afghan people have tried to overthrow the Taliban. They haven't been able to.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble with that scheme is, it's already been done. The Soviets took care of it . Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? There is no infrastructure. Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only land in the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. (They hae already, I hear.) Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time
So what else can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. I think that when people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" many of them are thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. They are thinking about overcoming moral qualms about killing innocent people. But it's the belly to die not kill that's actually on the table. Americans will die in a land war to get Bin Laden. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that, folks. To get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first.
Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. The invasion approach is a flirtation with global war between Islam and the West.
And that is Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants and why he did this thing. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. AT the moment, of course, "Islam" as such does not exist. There are Muslims and there are Muslim countries, but no such political entity as Islam. Bin Laden believes that if he can get a war started, he can constitute this entity and he'd be running it.
He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a holocaust in Muslim lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong about winning, in the end the west would probably overcome--whatever that would mean in such a war; but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden yes, but anyone else?
I don't have a solution. But I do believe that suffering and poverty are the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden and his cohorts want to bait us into creating more such soil, so they and their kind can flourish. We can't let him do that. That's my humble opinion.
What is my recommendation as to a solution? The US must no longer help prop up dictatorships in countries around the world regardless of the economic impact to the US. Instead, it should lead the world into a new type of government, where the people’s true will is expressed through guaranteed individual rights and by the formation of a social contract that meets with public approval. We should go into countries and not just eliminate terrorists, but also change the governments that have spawned this evil and which harm their own people if it suits the purpose of the dictators at the top of the political pyramid. This will be hard and it may mean that the US will have to get involved in nation-building. However, if we truly wish to get rid of terrorism and to help billions around the world have a better life, the example of Japan needs to get repeated across several countries of the world.
However, there is a greater and much more powerful goal, which should be the policy of this country, and the economic and democratic governments of the developed world. Government is nothing more than the result and administration of a social pact between human beings. The rise of the United States as a nation in the 18th century was in many ways the convergence of philosophies based on an idea of certain rights of people. The founders of this country although in many ways still driven by economic factors, recognized the fact that to form a society for the benefit of people, government must not be all powerful. This was expressed both through a separation of powers among different branches of government, and more importantly, the recognition that there are certain individual rights which cannot be violated.
After WWII, the United States dedicated its economic and, more importantly, its ideas of a free society with certain rights to individuals in rebuilding Japan. It is a testament to the greatness of this country and its people that rather than occupying and taking advantage of Japan, it instead produced a Constitution and a pact between citizens of a country, who had never before known democracy. This pact mixed with the cultural and governmental will of the Japanese people produced a society that is the envy of Asia.
This was not an easy task, it took several years and many reforms were undertaken. Educational texts were rewritten. The ideology of the Japanese people had to fundamentally be changed in many different ways. However, Japanese cultural heritage was not lost and a democracy bloomed where none had existed before.
Here is an interesting letter I received from an Afghan Stanford student:
Subject: Striking Back at Afghanistan
Perspective of the Afghan people
Dear Friends,
Yesterday I heard a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage," and he asked, "What else can we do? What is your suggestion?" Minutes later I heard a TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."
And I thought about these issues especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's been going on over there. So I want to share a few thoughts with anyone who will listen.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I fervently wish to see those monsters punished.
But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the country in bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. I guarantee it.
Some say, if that's the case, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. Millions of Afghans are widows of the approximately two million men killed during the war with the Soviets. And the Taliban has been executing these women for being women and have buried some of their opponents alive in mass graves. The soil of Afghanistan is littered with land mines and almost all the farms have been destroyed . The Afghan people have tried to overthrow the Taliban. They haven't been able to.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble with that scheme is, it's already been done. The Soviets took care of it . Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? There is no infrastructure. Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only land in the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. (They hae already, I hear.) Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time
So what else can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. I think that when people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" many of them are thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. They are thinking about overcoming moral qualms about killing innocent people. But it's the belly to die not kill that's actually on the table. Americans will die in a land war to get Bin Laden. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that, folks. To get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first.
Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. The invasion approach is a flirtation with global war between Islam and the West.
And that is Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants and why he did this thing. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. AT the moment, of course, "Islam" as such does not exist. There are Muslims and there are Muslim countries, but no such political entity as Islam. Bin Laden believes that if he can get a war started, he can constitute this entity and he'd be running it.
He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a holocaust in Muslim lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong about winning, in the end the west would probably overcome--whatever that would mean in such a war; but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden yes, but anyone else?
I don't have a solution. But I do believe that suffering and poverty are the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden and his cohorts want to bait us into creating more such soil, so they and their kind can flourish. We can't let him do that. That's my humble opinion.
What is my recommendation as to a solution? The US must no longer help prop up dictatorships in countries around the world regardless of the economic impact to the US. Instead, it should lead the world into a new type of government, where the people’s true will is expressed through guaranteed individual rights and by the formation of a social contract that meets with public approval. We should go into countries and not just eliminate terrorists, but also change the governments that have spawned this evil and which harm their own people if it suits the purpose of the dictators at the top of the political pyramid. This will be hard and it may mean that the US will have to get involved in nation-building. However, if we truly wish to get rid of terrorism and to help billions around the world have a better life, the example of Japan needs to get repeated across several countries of the world.