-This is not a policy, not because its elements are bad things. -They aren't. They are not responsive to what in the Sam Hill -is going on.
It is far more responsive to defeating Bin Laden than present Bush policy. Let's see, I'm Bin Laden and I bomb the World Trade Center. What are my ideal goals? Hmm...have the Americans totally change their way of life and sacrifice civil liberties out of hysteria, tank their economy out of fear of travel and commerce, alienate remaining muslim allies through reckless bombing of civilians, polarize muslim public opinion on the street against US-allied regimes cooperating with the US. Hmm... check, check, check and check. Bin Laden's basically won every conceivable goal of his mass murder and then some.
And Bin Laden doesn't give a shit about the Palestinians or global poverty. They are useful to him in generating the grievances that allows him to recruit to his Islamic fascist ideology, but the last thing he would want is to actually ameliorate those conditions, since then people might look less to heaven for their final reward.
Addressing real injustice in the world is never bad policy. Some try to paint it as equivalent to paying a ransom for hostages, but it is a false analogy. With festering injustice, terrorists actually win when their demands are unmet, since it just calls attention to the injustice of the regimes challenged. Terrorism works because it creates a head I win, tail you lose choice for opponents, but the better head to choose is the one ending injustice, since it makes a new round of terrorism less likely to succeed because of less sympathy in the population.
And I also did stress real criminal policing cooperation. We used far too many chits pursuing a war policy that I fear forfeited using those same chits for demanding stronger cooperation in cracking down on Bin Laden's global network. As muslim opinion turns against us, that just creates vaster spaces underground where the Al Quaeda network can disappear into sympathetic safety without fear of being betrayed to the authorities.
Terrorists survive as long as they are useful to the desperate. When their usefulness ends to the amelioriation of dispair, the dispossessed turn on their former "benefactors" quite readily, since they know the terrorists who once served them can become agents of renewed chaos that threaten any newfound stability or prosperity.
I've always thought THE BOXER about the turn towards peace in Northern Ireland highlighted that interesting transition point where people turn against the terrorists who they formally protected. But the precondition for that transition is addressing the broad concerns of the population.
Nathan Newman