Would-Be Allies Use U.S. War on Terrorism for Their Own Ends William Pfaff International Herald Tribune Monday, September 24, 2001
PARIS President George W. Bush's impolitic call for a "crusade" by the civilized world against terrorism won more diverse support than he expected, but for reasons he did not anticipate.
The reason was that nearly everyone has his own "terrorism" problem, and each would like to invite the United States into his fight. They would at least like the United States to turn its official gaze away while they deal with their "terrorists" by using methods of which Washington in the past would not have approved.
Russia's Vladimir Putin endorsed Mr. Bush's call because he wants Washington's crusade to incorporate the brutal, but as yet unsuccessful, Russian attempt to crush the Chechen nationalists. Moscow has consistently identified the Chechen problem as a case of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.
Ariel Sharon launched a battering of Palestine Authority sites during the hours that followed the attacks in New York and Washington, and described Yasser Arafat as a second Osama bin Laden, whom America and Israel should cooperate in crushing.
Washington rejected the comparison, knowing that if it wants Arab cooperation in dealing with Mr. bin Laden, Prime Minister Sharon has to be locked in a box.
Mr. Arafat had equal pressure put on him by Washington to become a blood donor, unconvincingly condemn terrorism and to call off the Palestinians' gunmen, all of which he did.
China explained that its troublesome minorities and dissident provinces - such as Taiwan - are "terrorists and separatists." They should be condemned by the United States, China said, in exchange for China's support for Washington's anti-terrorism campaign.
India said that separatists in Kashmir are terrorists. Sri Lanka says the same thing about its Tamil insurrection. Turkey identifies Kurd national resistance as terrorism. Serbia says that Mr. bin Laden's organization has branches in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and in Albania itself.
Even the Irish Republican Army, whose stalwarts were recently caught instructing Colombian rebels, and whose own record includes skyscraper bombings, saw that it was expedient to deplore the Trade Towers and Pentagon attacks.
The White House was eventually forced on Sept. 18 to clarify the matter. U.S. policy, it said, is to "eliminate" terrorism around the world, but only "when it threatens the United States."
Your nationalists are my terrorists. My freedom-fighters are your terrorists. This is not a cynical observation, nor the judgment of a political relativist; politically, it simply is the truth.
What in principle distinguishes terrorism is indiscriminate violence. Civilians are considered legitimate targets in terrorist campaigns meant to achieve what otherwise might be defensible goals: democratic self-determination for Kashmir; an independent Kurdistan; Britain out of Northern Ireland; Israel out of the occupied territories.
The terrorist justifies terror as the only weapon available to the weak. He claims for himself (or herself; terrorism is an equal-opportunity enterprise) an expedient morality: that terror works - as frequently it does.
Mr. bin Laden, if indeed he is responsible for what happened on Sept. 11, has well and truly succeeded in getting the attention of Americans. Vengeance is cried now. Who is to say that the World Trade Towers and Pentagon attacks may not, in the long run, turn out to have influenced the U.S. government to pull back from the Middle East?
It took a single act of terrorism in 1983 to get American troops out of Lebanon. President Ronald Reagan had sent them to sponsor order and democracy, but there were no complaints in Congress when he abruptly ordered home the survivors of a car bomb at U.S. military barracks.
Rhetorical excess about crusades and "eliminating" terrorism-sponsoring nations is not only a political error, opening the situation to the exploitation and opportunism of others, but it confuses the issues for Americans themselves.
For the attacks were not, as Mr. Bush and his colleagues say, aimed "at Western civilization" or "at those who cherish liberty." They were aimed specifically at the United States of America, for specific reasons.
They were meant to harm the United States, and no one else. They were retaliation for specific things done by the United States, and for specific American policies carried out over the years.
Americans may think those policies and those acts were entirely right and justified, or they may not. But Americans have to take responsibility for them, and accept their consequences.
We Americans need to be lucid about what has happened. Logically, this terrible experience should lead us to a new and serious reflection on what we have done in the past, and should do now. But that will not happen until the dust has cleared, and vengeance has been had. The troubling thought is that it might not happen even then.