| ashu |
Posted
on 19-Sep-01 04:59 AM
My name may be familiar to you from my experiences as an American hostage in Iran, 1979-81, and the many books, articles, TV interviews and lectures that I have written and delivered since that time. Publications include:
"The Twenty-First Century Conditions Likely to Inspire Terrorism" in The Future of Terrorism: Violence in the New Millennium, Harvey W. Kushner, ed.,Sage Publications, 1997.
"Why fear Fundamentalism?" LA Times 1994, republished in Islam: Opposing Viewpoints, Greenhaven Press, San Diego, 1995.
"The Psychology of the Captor" in Criminal and Civil Investigation Handbook. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1993
Think about Terrorism: The New Warfare. (With Terrell E. Arnold), NY: Walker and Company, 1988.
The Ayatollah in the Cathedral: Reflections of a Hostage. NY: Hill and Wang, 1986, 1987
"Islamic Law". Collier's Encyclopedia, 1962 edition et seq.
Begin Text:
Terrorism: Is Retaliation Enough?
By Moorhead Kennedy
No one denies the importance of an accurately targeted, swift and effective response against the perpetrators of the events of September 11, and their sponsors. Assuming we manage that, then what? Armed retaliation, or its threat, defines what we will no longer stand for, and exacts a price. It must also be effective as a deterrent, so that those targeted, and others profiting from their example, will not want to repeat the offense. The evidence so far suggests that armed response is not particularly effective, or, in some cases, acts as a further incentive to terrorism.
The popular assumption is that, confronted with a genuine threat, sponsor governments will expel or hand over the terrorists they harbor. Suppose a government refuses? What then? Send in the troops? Look at the record. In 1983, it took one Shiite with a truckload of dynamite to destroy a Marine detachment, thereby forcing our withdrawal from Lebanon. One Somalian ambush was enough to make us leave the scene. Those who advocate armed intervention in Afghanistan forget what happened to a large Soviet army bogged down in that inhospitable area. Have we forgotten Vietnam?
Or do we bomb the sponsoring country until it hands over? Massive area bombing, as we learned in Vietnam, only stiffens resolve. The American bombing of Baghdad during the Desert War produced hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties. Has it weakened, as it was intended to, popular support for Saddam Hussein?
Moreover, the casualties we generate provide inspiration for future terrorists. In 1983, the U.S.S New Jersey and other naval units, in support of U.S. intervention in the Lebanese civil war, engaged in the indiscriminate bombardment of Lebanese villages, causing extensive casualties. In June 1985, TWA 847 was hijacked by terrorists, and flown to Beirut International Airport. Mutilated civilians, survivors of the bombardment, were then exhibited to the passengers. As an act of revenge, one passenger, a U.S. Navy diver, Robert Dean Stethem, was murdered.
Whatever form it may take, an armed response runs the risk of creating martyrs, more demands for revenge, more terrorism a cycle of violence that gets harder and harder to break. Moreover, as the events of September 11 remind us, terrorists from developing countries can now do to our society, with our highly articulated and therefore vulnerable economy, at least asmuch damage as we can do to theirs, and at a very low cost. And they know that. Can we afford such escalation?
More determined, better-planned military interventions, with greater allied support, may indeed avoid these pitfalls. Still, until the deterrent value of an armed response is demonstrably greater than its risks, should we not at least explore other, less problematic, disincentives?
To begin with, we should start looking at the problem not so entirely from our perspective, but also from the perspective of the terrorists. Working within their mindset, we need to develop programs to make it worth their while to consider other ways to exercise influence.
Young people get into terrorism from a variety of motives. To the bored, it provides excitement, to the unemployed challenging work. Whatever the cause is, it provides a larger purpose in life. Power drives, unfulfilled because of lack of opportunity in acceptable careers, find a wide scope. Important is the desire to bond with others, with mighty deeds like September 11 to cement that bonding.
For men and women full of anger, or predisposed to violence and cruelty and seeking outlets for them, terrorism offers many and varied opportunities. Itself a denial of justice to its victims, terrorism can corrupt any idealism that might have brought its practitioners into terrorism in the first place.
But somewhere, and particularly if young people are expected to sacrifice their lives, there has to be a cause worth taking seriously. A nation or people are to be liberated, rankling political, social, economic, or, recently, environmental injustice is to be redressed. A religion or cultural identity is to be recognized or defended against foreign corrupting influences.
Terrorists often entertain mixed feelings about the dominant cultural forces that they are pledged to resist. Much as they reject our values and resent American success, they envy it. Such mixed feelings often take the form of love/hatred or admiration/low self-esteem. On September 11, among other reasons for those atrocities, the perpetrators were hitting out at that which makes them feel inferior.
Admittedly, finding elements here to work with will not easy. Programs to reduce endemic unemployment may be a place to start. But, in parallel with intelligence, military, and economic measures, we need to make that start. The threat is too immediate. We should remember that the terrorist too often is sounding a wake-up call about perceived injustices that need to be addressed, and which we fail to heed at our peril.
The best remedy for terrorism is enlightened and pragmatic American leadership. This means listening to others, showing that we take their concerns seriously, and reflecting them to the extent possible in our popular attitudes, and in our foreign policy, in political, social, cultural, environmental and other programs. Whenever we fail to evidence what our founding fathers called a decent respect for the opinion of mankind, there will always be terrorists around to bring serious issues forcibly to our attention.
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