Don't inflate the size of the enemy to fit the crime!

Don\'t inflate the size of the enemy to fit the crime

As in the Cuban missile crisis, the president still has choices

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/usterrorism> Special report: terrorism in the US

Martin Woollacott
Friday September 14, 2001
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/>The Guardian

Searching for parallels to help them understand what has happened and what
they should do next, Americans cite Pearl Harbour. A better reference would
be the Cuban missile crisis. Then, as now, the United States had a new and
untried president, John F Kennedy, and faced a danger that the wrong moves
could turn a bad situation into a worse one.

The president\'s advisers and cabinet members, like the men and women who
serve George Bush, had diverse views and were sometimes rivalrous and
uncoordinated. Some among the senior military wanted to pulverise the
missile sites, invade Cuba, or even ready America for a nuclear exchange
with the Soviet Union. That ultimate possibility, which happened 40 years
ago, should remind us that, terrible though it was, Tuesday\'s attack does
not represent anything like that threat to humanity.

Kennedy proved himself to be a cool manager of his own advisers. He
calculated the risks with care and rejected demands for actions which, we
can see in retrospect, would have led to disaster, even to world war. He
took military action - a naval blockade - but chose the form and timing
with caution. He was respectful of allies and judicious in summing up
opponents.

One obvious difference from the present crisis was that the US was then
involved in a conflict with communist states that dwarfs, even in the most
exaggerated view, the present encounter with Islamic and other kinds of
extremism. But the fundamental question is whether President Bush and his
people can live up to the standards set by Kennedy.

What links the circumstances of the missile crisis with those of today is
the imperative requirement that the American government should navigate its
way through the recommendations for action which will be thrust on it with
the same attention to ultimate consequences that the Kennedy administration
displayed. Of the many judgments that have to be made, the most critical is
the one that measures the likely impact of American actions on Muslim
societies. In this way, the present time is also similar to the period of
the Gulf war. It is easy to say that the US should avoid any course which
ultimately increases the pool of resentful Islamic youth from which
extremism draws its recruits, or gives those extremists more stature as
martyrs and heroes, or weakens Muslim governments.

To some extent, these things are going to happen whatever is done. But the
decision-makers have to bear in mind that the objective of those who
planned and carried out these attacks was to start a war. They planned to
inspire and inflame Arab and Muslim public opinion, and then, by provoking
an excessive retaliation, to feed the flames further. Why give them the war
they want ? The rhetoric of American politicians and officials is worrying,
if understandable, because it has seized so readily on this concept of war.
There is no war between America and extremist forces in the Islamic world.
Most forms of fundamentalism have in fact passed their zenith, as
developments from Algeria to Iran have demonstrated, or have become
domesticated and tamer versions of their earlier selves. As for Palestinian
groups, both secular and fundamentalist, for quite a while they have kept
their attacks within the occupied territories or Israel. They argue among
themselves about what should be attacked - Israel or just the territories,
civil or just military targets - and their use of violence is relatively
rational, whatever else we may think of it. It really shows how bare the
terrorist cupboard is that after the New York and Washington attacks we
have a \"list\" of only one organisation or group of organisations.

One government only is under suspicion as the primary patron, two others
might have been involved; this too contrasts with the much wider range of
suspects after Lockerbie and other outrages.

It would be too much to say that the age of terrorism had been approaching
its end before this attack. What was happening was more complicated than
that. Terrorism had decreased, but the damage that small groups or even
individuals could do was increasing, a fact pointed out by experts in many
countries. What guarded against an act like that of this week was a
combination of preventative measures and the common sense of those using or
sponsoring violence. They had to consider if their cause would really be
advanced by excess. Government sponsors, especially, had to think hard
about the prices they might have to pay because of what such groups might
do, whether the groups were following the orders of their patrons or acting
without their knowledge or permission. Governments who sponsored terror
also had to reflect on the fact that it could be used against themselves.

All these factors have constrained terrorist violence. And they suggest
that this attack on America could be unique, the last effort of a uniquely
extreme group sheltered by a uniquely obtuse and backward government.
Certainly it is likely to prove to be unique in its means, since another
use of hijacked aircraft as flying bombs will now become almost impossible
because of security measures already being put into place.

These arguments may be too sanguine. But it is disturbing to see
speculation that the Bush administration should authorise political
assassinations in the Israeli manner, prepare itself for a future in which
punitive descents by American forces, including the capture of hostile
capitals, are a commonplace, and make the prevention of terrorism almost
the primary aim of its foreign policy.

This is more than envisaging a single operation against Osama bin Laden in
Afghanistan. It considers putting America and its allies on a kind of
permanent war footing. President Bush has said that the US now faces \"a
monumental struggle of good versus evil\". In the anguish of this week\'s
events, everybody reaches for the big words. But there is a tendency to
inflate the size of the enemy to fit the size of the crime.

A certain counterbalancing moderation is also evident. It can be seen in
the careful style of Colin Powell, in Congressional caution over extending
an enabling resolution, and in the Nato decision to support the US that is
probably also intended to broaden the counsel available to the US government.

There is a law of shrinkage about big events. As time passes - after the
fall of Saigon, after the Iranian revolution, after the Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait, after the breaching of the Berlin Wall - perspective is gained. In
the end, it could be that this attack on America may not even seem to be
such a transforming event as were these. It may be that the domestic life
of the US and other western countries will not be dominated by security
measures from now on, that the Israelis will not seize the alleged
opportunity to attack Palestinian groups, and that a permanent war against
terror does not lie before us. It is certainly not inevitable that any of
these things should happen. What Kennedy knew still applies. Even in the
worst of crises, we still have choices.